Here is additional background about the location of DL textbooks from Gale Erskine.
The rationale for housing all DL textbooks at the Rockville Bookstore is:
For years, Bookstore Services has been unable to obtain accurate numbers as to where DL students will purchase their textbooks each semester, making it difficult to get the right number of textbooks on the right campus. Even though your office may be located on the Germantown Campus, we cannot assume that all of your students live in the same area and will purchase their books on the Germantown campus. They may live in Takoma Park and prefer to purchase their books at that store. Our textbook buyers are also held accountable for the inventory that they bring in and have to be fiscally responsible for their purchases. If your class has 20 students, we would purchase a total of 20 books college-wide - not 20 books for each campus. Our dilemma then is: How many books should go to each campus? To address this issue, we decided to house all of the DL textbooks on the Rockville Campus with the understanding that upon a student's request, we would ship books from Rockville to the other two campuses, free of charge. These transfers normally take 24-48 hours to complete.
However, if any DL professor prefers to have his/her books assigned to a specific campus, Bookstore Services will certainly honor that request. All that is required is for the instructor to note that request on the booklist that is submitted to the Bookstore. And, if you requested to have all of the books located on the Germantown Campus, we would then transfer books upon a student's request to the Rockville or TP/SS Campus.
The DL shelf tags and textbooks are arranged alphabetically by department, course and CRN with all other course shelf tags. To prevent students from purchasing the wrong book for an online or "regular" class, the online shelf tags are stamped "ON LINE COURSE"
I hope this has answered your concerns. If not, please email me and I will compile your concerns for a future discussion.
Anita
