Monday, August 27, 2007
With students buying textbooks for new classes during the first two weeks of the semester, business at bookstores is at its highest. But the extra business means something besides profit: theft.
Boulder, Colo. Junior Nick Allen buys school supplies at the Jayhawk Bookstore Sunday afternoon. The bookstores increase security precautions during the first few weeks of school.
The University Book Shop reported two robberies in the past 10 days. At Beat the Bookstore, someone tried to steal books and sell them back to the store, manager Denise Keating said. KU Bookstores has dealt with known thieves, assistant director Steve Rhodes said.
“It’s not necessarily isolated to particular times of the year,” said Bradley Heim, manager of the University Book Shop. “But since it’s a time when we’re really busy, it might be the biggest time for them to do something.”
Heim and Rhodes both said bookstores needed to deal with more suspicious customers and opportunities for stealing at the beginning of the semester, and they had to find ways to protect against them. Rhodes said money lost didn’t just affect the stores’ bottom line. It can also hurt students by causing bookstores to raise prices or, in the case of KU Bookstores, support fewer student activities.
“Everything we do benefits students,” said Steve Rhodes, assistant director of KU Bookstores. “With theft, we can’t support student organizations on campus.”
The people who steal from bookstores are usually professional criminals, Rhodes said. He said some traveled from school to school ripping off bookstores.
Heim described what he said was one of the most common methods of textbook theft: A person takes a book off the shelf, rips off the security tag and walks out without the alarm going off. That thief then hands the book to an accomplice who sells the book back to the store.
Rhodes said that, although the possibility for crime increased at this time of the semester, theft was low compared to other retail. Jayhawk Bookstore takes precautions by making customers take off their backpacks at the front of the store. KU Bookstores plan to install more cameras, and they sometimes station Navy ROTC guards at the door.
Rhodes said theft had also decreased greatly at KU Bookstores since the stores started placing security tags on books that set off an alarm system. But thieves can correct that problem by tearing off the security tag. The best way to deter theft, Rhodes and Heim said, is customer service.
Rhodes and Heim said they want their staff to approach all customers, especially ones who look suspicious. Beat the Bookstore can do this especially well because of its small size, Keating said. She said she helped nearly all her customers face-to-face.
“It’s just easier when we help customers by finding their books,” said Izzy Bond, a Lawrence junior and KU Bookstores employee. “At the beginning of the semester, it’s confusing and when you help them it’s easier.”
Jayhawk Bookstore, University Book Shop, Beat the Bookstore and KU Bookstores all cooperate with each other to prevent theft. If one store sees a suspicious person, it alerts the other stores. Tim Norris, director of KU Bookstores, said preventing theft would never be easy, but the stores were doing all they could.
“Thieves do this for a living,” he said. “At the end of the day, they can grab something and run. But we’re holding it down, and we’d like to hope students would help us too.”
— edited by Kaitlyn Syring
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Comments
Bookstores battle back-to-school theft
Lawrence isn't that big of a town. I'm sure if there was a bookstore that was robbed, it would make the news. Though there may be some shoplifters, I am certain there are not too many campus bookstore stick-ups.
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