Photo by: Jill Hamilton

The DU bookstore struggled to meet student demand for books due to a statistic recipe it uses to predict the amount of books needed to order.

“The overall sell-through to enrollment for DU classes is around 55 percent,” said Martin Neary, text and general merchandise manager of the bookstore. “We also look at the history of a title to determine the sell-through from previous terms.  If the book is a new edition or the course has not been offered previously, then we will go with the overall sell-through probability.”

Sometimes the bookstore sells more than this percentage, sometimes less.

On average, this is the basis for most classes when ordering books.

“If the enrollment is typically 30 students and we consistently sell 15 to 17 copies, then we feel safe ordering 22,” said Neary. “In some cases, if the students do not find many copies through other outlets, then we may have 25 students who need the book. At that point, we order a few more copies with expedited shipping, which rarely takes more than three to four business days to arrive.”

DU also adds more classes just before the quarter begins, leaving the bookstore only a few days to order books and receive them to distribute.

According to Neary, the bookstore does their best to provide the necessary resources.

“We do run out of books, but students should know that we make every effort to have a good stock on hand, while at the same time conducting our business in an efficient manner,” he said.