Bookstore Rewards. Save 5%. On any purchase. Load up dollars on your student YU-card. (Faculty and staff can do this also). Buy books, stationery, clothes- anything- with your YU-card. Earn 5% back as "Scholar Dollars". There's details on our web site but it is straight forward. One bonus is if you managew to save up $100 of Scholar Dollars, and then redeem $100 at once, we give out a $100 gift card on the spot. That's really getting 10% in savings isn't it? And another bonus. There are a few off-campus restaurants that are starting to accept YU-card. Blueberry Hill is our favorite, but check out yorku.ca/yucard for the list of restaurants. You automatically get 5% back as Scholar Dollars, added to your account. As they say, "Swipe. Save. Sweet".
" ...there ain't no cure for the summertime blues" -the WHO popularized 50s rockabilly songster Eddie Cochrans' B side tune.
The Bookstore is taking a run at a cure with a Summertime Sale. From July 10th until August 3rd, pick up some great books at ridiculously low prices. Including a hand picked consignment of publishers' remainders at $1 a book. We will be putting out fresh batches of bargains daily.
Our last blog mentioned the nomination for Campus Bookseller of the year. With some fanfare, it's been announced that the York University Bookstore actually took home the 2012 Libris award! This award is encouraging. Our goal is to serve you, our community and students. The goalpost keeps on moving, and we are moving with it. For the sign of encouragement, we thank you, our students and the university community that we serve. Thank you.
The York University Bookstore has been nominated for Campus Bookseller of the Year by the Canadian Booksellers' Association. The results will be announced at the June CBA Libris Awards dinner. We are in very good company, as three excellent campus bookstores are on the shortlist.
From the CBA news release:
"CBA's Libris Awards are a "must attend" event for anyone who is passionate about the future of Canada's booksellers and their vital role in our country's literary landscape," comments CBA President Mark Lefebvre. "Celebrating those authors, editors, sales reps, distributors, publishers and booksellers who delivered exceptional books to Canadian readers in 2011, the Awards spotlight the collaborative nature of the industry's most successful creative and commercial efforts....A highlight of this year's Libris Awards ceremony is the presentation of a special Lifetime Achievement Award to Margaret Atwood, who will be on hand to receive the award."
As March 26th is York's birthday, we celebrate by wearing red and white. At the campus store, we are offering daily specials on clothing and other merchandise in the run up week- March 19th through the 26th. You'll find YORK clothing in red and white apparel at appealing prices. It looks like it will be t-shirt weather by the end of the month. We are thrilled to partner with a fourth-year Professional Writing class that runs its own publishing house called Leaping Lion Books. Leaping Lion Books is comprised of students enrolled in AP/EN 4721 Book Publishing Practicum. This year's book is "3.1 Plays", a collection by seasoned playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter, Bruce Jay Friedman. Available at the Bookstore along with many great books by York authors. As the summer term approaches, remember the $800 Ontario tuition grant (for eligible students) Visit http://sfs.yorku.ca/aid/otg/
Buy Books! OK, I've never really heard a bookseller actually say that- and frankly, they shouldn't have to. What bookselling is about is making a good collection available to you. And increasingly, it means offering print books, eBooks, used books, and other choices. (We rent many thousands of textbook titles through our web site, for example. We offer free public domain eBooks. We continue to find ways to make books available and affordable.)
AS of November 2nd, we began to offer the massive Google eBook collection through our website. There are over 250,000 titles- including textbooks and many public domain-free eBooks. We are one of the first 19 booksellers in Canada offering Google eBooks online. You will find that our dynamic programmer built in dynamic methods to be sure our eBooks will always be competitively priced-as other independents get signed up to sell online also. Your campus store gets a cut each time you buy Google eBooks through us. Support local! Support your York University Bookstore!
Buy print books! The Bookstore has a good holiday sale through December 22nd on great new hardcover fiction, kids books, plus a new batch of remaindered sale books. Daily suprise sales.
Shorter blogs in the new year. My new year's resolution.
Arbour Day Friday October 28, 2011, 1pm – 3pm The tree and shrub planting will be on the south side of York Blvd. on the east side of the campus past the construction, just east of the busway. Look for the Arbour day signs. The Bookstore is sponsoring the planting of trees and flowering shrubs on campus, from the proceeds of the five-cent charge for plastic shopping bags.
Fair Trade Cotton T-Shirt Launch Wednesday November 2, 2011, 12pm – 1:30pm Located inside the front of the Bookstore
The Bookstore will be re-launching our new Wear Fair cotton t-shirts. Hosted by our Director Steve Glassman, the speakers at the launch will include Barbara Rahder, Dean, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Darryl Reed, Associate Professor, Business & Society, and Chair of the Green Campus Cooperative, Bill Barrett, President, Sumac Workers Cooperative, Samantha Point, Student Representative, President's Sustainability Council, and Kayla Ellis, LNSA President. Please come- and obviously there will be items on sale, including Las Nubes coffee! The speakers will start at 12:30pm
Red & White Day Wednesday November 16, 2011, All Day
York University wants to build the spirit in all its community members, especially our students. The Bookstore will be a key player in this program. On November 14th and 15th leading up to the day we will be in Vari Hall with special/discounted items. The 16th we see all "red" clothing and gifts at 20% off. We have also donated 50 gift items that the university prize patrol will giveaway to students in the school colours of red and white. A number of activities hosted by various campus groups will take place on November 16th to promote the university spirit. Say you heard it here first!
For September, 2011, we have a few promotions.
1. WIN YOUR BOOKS. This is an honest offer. This is an incredible offer. If you happen to have the winning entry and your receipt had $1000 of books on it- that is your prize! There's a short survey involved in entering the contest.
2. ARTISTS- Draw! Since we have just added art supplies to our store, we thought an art competition would be a good way of building our relationship with the fine arts community. Open to York students only, the contest gives winners a chance to display thier works publically and claim a prize from a juried competition. Top prize is $500 worth of art supplies.
3. GENERAL New Books- Cheap? Yes, we have everyday sales on new hardcover fiction. We feel compelled to compete with the chains and Amazon. And we have a great selection of bargain books- publishers' overstocks- most now in the $1.00 to $6.99 range. Our selection is not what you find in the local malls- it is great academic and great reading material. Some of these titles we find irresistible.
4. Clothing and Stationery- It takes a little bit of searching, but some of our stationery, calculators, gifty items, and clothing are great values.
5. THANK YOU for in person shopping- we are giving away thousands of fabric shopping bags daily during the September rush. We have daily give aways- for the sweet tooth, etc. Visit us to get a discount coupon for October/November and December purchases.
6. THANK YOU for shopping on line. We have a gift certificate with web orders to offset shipping costs- a reward for early shopping on line.
A rite of fall. Back to school. Buying tons of books is bittersweet. How quickly it adds up- it is bitter especially as you may have worked all summer to build up a bank account for fall. But the sweetness is there, we hope. In the joy of knowing that the volumes you buy- in print or in digital form- will allow you to master calculus, or intermediate economics. You will truly be a scholar, having read Hume and Hegel.
Our job is to make it sweet as we can. We search for used copies of books to sell, we search to see if a less expensive digital version is becoming availbale. Our rental program offers many titles at big savings. We still feel the best deal of all- if you can't afford to keep a book after the course is completed- is to sell the books back to us. If you shopped early to buy a used book- and you sell it back at the end of the term- you would save 75% off the retail (list or new) price.
At least, having some choices makes it less of a bitter pill.
The sweetest of all- to complete your program at York, to own a library of books in your chosen area of study, and to have a head full of ideas.
Steve Glassman