University Bookstore

It is but natural to expect that every university will have its own university bookstore. I mean, the university is a place of learning, and most learning that we have is contained in books. So what better match than to have a bookstore that caters exclusively for universities? This is the reason behind the establishment of university bookstores. From the commercial point of view too, university bookstores are a great proposition. The entire student population of any given university form the consumers of the books. And being located close to them, catering to their specific needs and offering them price, time and effort conveniences, makes university bookstores a great addition.

I still remember the time when I went to university. One of my favorite haunts was the university bookstore. I spent all my time browsing around the university bookstore and in the process got to know a whole lot more than my particular field of study. Needless to mention, I also bumped into like minded people and made a whole new bunch of friends. All of this made me wonder how university bookstores came about in the first place. Like I said, the most obvious explanation for their existence is the nature of the university itself. But if we go down history, we will realize that there are numerous other reasons.

For one thing, in the days of old, universities published their own books. You don’t have to look far to realize the truth of this statement. Some of our finest universities still continue to publish their own books nowadays. Since Universities are where cutting-edge research takes place, they compile the knowledge gained and publish them in the form of books. And what better way to distribute these books than through their own university bookstores? Which is why, even to this day, university bookstores and their meticulous records offer a more balanced view of history as it occurred than the popular versions offered and accepted in mass media.

University bookstores however did a lot more than merely compile and sell books to students. Back in the medieval ages in Europe, when invasions were the norm, the university bookstores served as a repository of all knowledge pertaining to a particular civilization. It was often the case that invading armies would sack the treasury and the granaries, leaving alone the universities and the university bookstores. In such cases, even after the material wealth had been pillaged, the knowledge lived on to see another day. And it is thanks to this knowledge that university bookstores have collected and preserved for us that we continue to view learning with so much interest, especially in the present day knowledge economy.