Impr Int The universiTy of WaTerloo’s official

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Impr int The university of Waterloo’s official student newspaper

Friday, November 14, 2008

Vol 31, No

The campus underbelly — Plant Ops explored pages 16-17

18

imprint . uwaterloo . ca

Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema page 18

From free ... to $18,000 Andrew Robert Abela head reporter

U

Retail Services demands annual payment for university’s booklist; so far Feds wins term-by-term instalments, little else, in negotiations

W Retail Services (UWRS) recently decided to charge the Federation of Students (Feds) $6,000 per term for a service that has been provided to them for free for years. Until recently, UWRS gave the Feds Used Bookstore a list of textbooks currently being used in UW courses completely free of charge. This list allowed the Feds Used Book- to run their business this way is so high that it clause, while Williams confirmed the funding will store to grant a unique service to UW students “was still more economically feasible to pay them “not come from student fees; it will come from profits from our businesses.” for a number of years, every term: namely, the money than to do anything else.” As a result, Williams requested a contract from However, this decision made by UWRS is the provision of current course textbooks May “so that this wasn’t one of those situations in undoubtedly a huge change for the way Feds used at prices lower than face value. In late August, the director of UWRS, May which we pay $18,000 one year, $20,000 next year, deals with the university in business matters Yan, notified Feds President Justin Williams that that kind of thing.” Essentially, Williams wanted a such as this. Williams expressed that “now the list would no longer be supplied without a plan outlining what Feds was going to pay UWRS we’re customers of a service, which I think is just an interesting, different dynamic where cost, and that she was ready to send them an for, which he has yet to be provided. “There was no real math given to me on hopefully the relationship between our staff invoice requiring immediate payment. Although the list of current textbooks had already been what that involved. I asked for it, but what it (especially John Jongerius, Used Bookstore given to Feds for the fall term, Yan requested came down to was what we were willing to pay manager) and the people that he works with at Retail Services will remain strong.” an annual payment of $18,000 from Feds for for this service,” he added. “It was ‘we want this much money,’ we need Williams recounted that Feds has worked the use of this previously free service. According to Williams, “May sent us to pay it, so we said okay.” Accordingly, Williams with the UW Bookstore on academic materials has agreed to pay $6,000 per term for the use of and patent rights in the past. “It’s one thing a list of what the university that I can happily say we’ve been wanted in their contract, it went to the board of directors of the Another alternative is for Feds to source able to maintain. Andres Fuentes has lobbied in that respect, where FEDS, and they had a number of concerns which we sent back to the data themselves, which [Feds Exec we and Retail Services have a lot of shared ideas,” said Williams. “But Yan after receiving approval from Del] Pereira describes as “great in terms Del and I are now in a business our lawyers.” He also added that up until this point “we had only of providing students with another job.” contract negotiation … so it’s the same two organizations, two very, talked about general principles very different relationships, right that would be in the contract.” Yan’s response to the requested revisions this service, but the fine print is still being worked beside each other. “We sometimes have conflicting business was far from encouraging. Essentially, Yan out on the contract. Specifically, a certain clause in the contract interests, but I think it’s fair to say that usually stated that this was the contract that they were comfortable signing, and that if Feds states that Feds must notify Retail Services 30 it’s obvious that both parties have the best didn’t like the contract, they could just use days in advance before they can terminate the interests of students at heart; we may disagree the BookLook website online and not have contract, while Retail Services doesn’t need to with what the best interests of students are, or provide Feds with any notice whatsoever if they sometimes it is just a dollar and cents issue,” the book list transferred to them directly. If the Used Bookstore were to take this choose to terminate the very same contract. Feds said Williams. If the Feds Used Bookstore was no longer route, “we’d have a lineup that went up the Vice-President of Administration and Finance stairs, out the SLC of people waiting to bring Del Savio Pereira said that he wants to “make it able to offer UW students the efficient, reliback their books because we’d have to look so that either we both need 30 days, or we both able service that it currently does, an increase in textbook sale posts on want ad-type web up each one on BookLook individually and can terminate it at any time.” Pereira is currently in talks with Yan to work media like Facebook Marketplace or Kijiji is figure it out that way” said Williams. Basically, the amount of time and effort required out the minor details of the contract termination likely to occur. This would effectively reduce

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the income Feds receives from the Used Bookstore, which could have dire consequences for the innumerable services the student government provides for students across campus. According to Jongerius, annual sales are about $2 million. Pereira depicted the main role of the Feds Used Bookstore as “giving students a quality product — because that is what we offer: current books — and we attribute that to Retail Services. That’s what sets apart our used bookstore from every other one, including Laurier and every other one in Canada. We stay current, and that is because we partner with the university on this.” Pereira noted that paying the $6,000 fee is a “short term” option. An alternative is to have Feds source the data themselves, which Pereira describes as “great in terms of providing students with another job, and we do have one of the best math faculties.” “There’s a 90 per cent chance that I’m going to go down that route within the next year. I think there’d be more of an upfront cost, in terms of paying the co-op person, using the resources in the office like the space, and actually ensuring the integrity of the program itself; but in the long-run, we’d save a lot of money,” said Pereira. Although some progress has been made towards finding an arrangement that both the Feds and UWRS agree with, no decision has been made official. Consequently, only time will tell if winter term students selling or purchasing used textbooks will be met with longer lineups, or if they will be provided with the same reliable, useful service the Feds Used Bookstore has offered UW students for years.

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