I've been to four on-campus Barnes and Nobles across the country in the last six months and at this point all of them have two distressing things in common: (1) no matter what the floor-space, far less than 1/4ths the amount of trade books as a regular store, and (2) televisions all over the place (both in and outside the cafe) droning insidious submental crap.
Who decided that it would be a good idea if one of the primary places students, faculty, and staff gather on college campuses should be horrible in the same manner as an American airport? I'm serious, who made this decision? And by what possible reasoning? It's not like they are doing this with their regular stores (yet).
I know for a fact that the faculty didn't get input on this. At LSU the Faculty Senate twice had drawn-out struggles with Barns and Noble to get them to turn the volumes of the televisions off. We finally won both of those because they were in the student union building at the time. But since they've moved to their (much, much bigger but with a fraction of the trade books) new campus building no longer being rented from the student union they've broken the agreement yet again, and instead of the loop tape of T.V. commercials they now have advertising on in the cafe and Fox News throughout the rest of the store. What used to be a cafe where people would talk about actual stuff they might be studying is now one where everybody sits solipsistically immersed behind protective earbuds. Welcome to college, lemmings! You are all individuals! Now stare gape-jawed at this blue jeans commercial that tells you so.
When LSU closed the university-owned bookstore about a decade ago (without faculty input), then Provost Dan Fogel continuously speachified that having Barnes and Noble and Starbucks would help creat a "left bank cafe culture" vibe that LSU was pursuing under his stewardship (that and something called "strategic planning," which is both far more useless and time-consuming than it sounds). Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Sartre and Camus had to contend with a constant cacophony of loop tape of bad music combined with two different burbling television stations constantly interrupted by meaningless store announcments. Would we even have their books if they had?
Feh! Remember that bit with George Bush saying fool me twice and you don't get fooled again. That's me. I give up. If the good folks at Dusquene (in every respect one of the most civilized universities I've visited) can't win on this, then there's nothing I can do about it down here in the gret stet of Loosziana. The Barbarians are inside the gate. Don Quixote only had to contend with windmills and look what that cost him.
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