Faculty Senate Meeting Notes
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Thank you for letting us meet with you today. My name is Carrie McCann. I am the
Store Manager, an alumni of Tarleton, and have worked in the bookstore industry for 16
years. This is Susan Trainham. She is the Course Materials Manager and has worked in
the bookstore industry 27 years both at on campus and off campus locations. She is
also an alumni and her two daughters are as well.
o We wanted to meet with all of you today to begin the process of opening the
communication lines with faculty about our course materials process and why
we need the course material adoptions when we do
o Our mission as the official Campus Store is to support higher education by
partnering with the University to provide affordability, convenience, access and
choices to lower the cost of education and increase student success. We provide
New, Used, Rental, and Digital texts. The faculty/staff play a major role in our
mission.
o Each term we have a timeline that we follow in order to acquire the required
course materials in ample time for the upcoming term.
 Timeline: Adoption requests>Adoption collection>Research the
request>Enter in our system>Source>Receive stock>Shelve the books
 Researching and sourcing takes time therefore Spring term adoption
requests are due in Oct. and Summer and Fall term requests are due in
March. Our due date for the upcoming Spring term was Oct.3 rd. As of
10/29/14 we are at 72%. We have a total of 1100 titles that are expected
for the Spring term.
 From the due date, this gives us 14 weeks before the first class
day. Our goal as a company is to be fully prepared and stocked 21
days before the first class day. This would give us 10 weeks in
order to meet our goal. From today this gives us about 7 weeks to
meet our goal.
 It is important that we receive the book requests in a timely manner
because:
 HEOA act states that students should be able to see the full cost
of their course including course materials before they register.
The adoptions in our system are listed on Tarleton’s schedule with
the course.
 Some books such as custom titles can take up to 6-8 weeks to
arrive. Old editions/out of print titles take more time in
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researching to see if we are able to source any copies. Noncustom texts take about 7-10 days to arrive.
We buyback books from students and can offer them up to 50%
back if we have the adoption in our system and need more copies
here in the store.
Students also begin wanting to find out this information after they
register as well as order on our website. We have a link from
Ducktrax that allows students to order their course materials from
our website for in store pickup or shipped to them.
Also in preparing for the Spring term, we have holidays in Nov. &
Dec. that could affect shipping and ordering due to holiday
closures.
Adoption Process:
We do our best to make the process as easy as possible so it does not take a lot
of the faculty’s time. We receive the term schedule by an import from the University.
We take the departments pre-printed forms based off the schedule that will have the
course and the materials that were used last term. If there is a new edition available, it
will be listed as well. Faculty can submit their information using the method that works
best for them: fax the form back, mail the form, email Susan the information, or place
their adoption online through our website.
It is very important that we are provided correct information. ISBN’s will be
different for a text only versus a bundle that includes a text and code. Instructor’s
copies will have a different ISBN from the student version. Also if only a code is being
used, we need to know that information so that we can order it. If there is not going to
be a text used, we need to know that as well so we can have that information available
for students.
During the adoption collection process, we run missing lists for each department
and continue to reach out to the department and faculty member in order to try to
collect the information that we need.
As you can see, it is important for us to partner with the faculty/staff and vice
versa in order for students to be able to be prepared when the term begins. It all begins
with course materials information being turned in timely with complete information. If
your students are prepared, then you can begin teaching from day one without some
students not having their materials which can make your course and students more
successful.
We also have students that are on special programs, such as VA, DARS, Athletic
Scholarships, and Financial Aid that have to purchase their course materials from us so it
is important that we have this available for these students. Students that receive book
loans only have the funds available for the first twelve class days.
We have a new program that we plan to implement soon called Follett Discover. This is a new
technology that is made up of two complementary tool sets, Faculty Discover and Student
Discover. Follett Discover is the next generation technology of online course material selection
and acquisition-a solution with innovative tools that opens up and greatly expands the level of
online access to all types of materials.
o Faculty Discover is a new way for faculty to seek out, evaluate and review
adopted materials. It empowers faculty to:
o Discover new and alternative materials for their course including
YouTube videos, Open Education Resources, and Massive open online
course content.
o See other relevant materials for their course
o Read and respond to peer reviews on materials
o Upload their own collection of materials for reference
o Easily adopt the right materials
o Student Discover streamlines the process for students to source their materials,
provides a single access point for students to conveniently access adopted
materials, and a simplified way to arrive on the first class day prepared.
I hope this sheds some light on what our processes are on our end and how we are here to
partner with faculty/staff to provide what is needed for faculty and their students.