Framingham State changes bookstore vendors

By Francisco Omar Fernandez Rodriguez

Editorial Staff

Framingham State, along with the other state universities and 15 community colleges, switched bookstore vendors on July 1, contracting with eCampus to provide course materials and the University Gear Shop (UGS) for FSU merchandise.

eCampus implemented a new online system for ordering course materials and textbooks for the fall 2025 semester. Instead of books being physically available in the bookstore, they must be ordered online for pickup.

Robert Totino, vice president of Finance, Technology, and Administration, said this is how eCampus works.

This model and its benefits were touted during the interview process, he said.

The University’s contract with Follett expired June 30, according to Totino.

The University decided to work with the consortium of state universities and community colleges because of the buying power, he said.

In the bidding process, there were three finalists, he said. These included the previous group, Follett, as well as BibliU and a partnership between eCampus and UGS.

eCampus and UGS are two separate companies that are working together in this contract, he said.

The University tends to work with The Massachusetts Partnership To Advance Collaboration And Efficiency (PACE), he said. They’re a state purchasing group that worked on the contract through the fall of 2024 and into the winter and spring of 2025.

No one from the University was on the selection committee, but Totino did sit in on the interviews over Zoom, he said, as did the former dean of the Henry Whittemore Library, Millie Gonzalez, and Print Services Supervisor Dillon Handy.

Vincent Pedoni, the executive director of the Massachusetts State Universities Council of Presidents, represented the nine state universities on the selection committee, he said.

The community colleges have a similar organization representing them, he said. 

Totino said the new contract will last for five years.

There are two large sales periods for books: shortly before classes start and shortly after classes start in the semester, according to Totino.

Outside of September, January, and a short period in the summer, there aren’t many book sales, he added.

“It’s taking up a lot of physical space which could be maybe better utilized on our campus,” Totino said.

He added it’s exciting to think about what that space could be used for, and it could tie into the campus master plan.

In the future, the bookstore could be moved to a different location, possibly with a smaller space, Totino said.

For this academic year, though, the bookstore will stay where it is, he added.

Throughout the spring and summer, emails were sent to educate everyone on the new system, he said.

The Registrar’s Office, IT, and Students Accounts made sure financial aid for books and Inclusive Access were still available, according to Totino.

Inclusive Access is a program that integrates course material into a learning management system, according to their website. For FSU, this is Canvas.

“Lots of effort there to make sure the process that worked with Follett would work with this new group as well,” Totino said.

Some faculty have expressed that the website isn’t very transparent when it comes to fees, he said.

In some cases, eCampus changed their website to make it more understandable because of customer input, he added.

He said he needs to work with UGS to understand what happened better.

“I got an email yesterday, as a matter of fact, from a dean that what they’re noticing in some of their areas is higher pricing,” Totino said.

Phil Catalogna, the assistant store manager of the bookstore, said the plan is “to continue as close to usual as possible.”

The store may be moved next summer and he is hoping it will be to the McCarthy Center so it will “be more easily accessible to students,” he said.

However, nothing has been finalized yet, he added.

Catalogna said working with the new vendor has been both positive and negative.

Many products came in later than he would have liked, he said. 

He wished the book vouchers stayed open longer because a lot of students were still trying to use them, he said.

Overall, however, he likes the change, he added.

“The book transactions have been very easy to handle,” Catalogna said.

While the store is often referred to as the bookstore, it’s officially called the “Campus Store,” he said.

“We don’t sell books. We don’t sell the codes or the e-books that kids can use for classes,” Catalogna said.

The Campus Store will focus more on selling apparel, supplies, and self-care products, though they can’t sell food or drinks because Sodexo has that contract, he added.

Other than moving in the future, he’s not sure what additional changes might occur, he said.

“We’re not going to go back to selling books, I can tell you that,” Catalogna said.

He said students should have ordered their books before the school year started because now, it’ll take longer for the books to arrive.

Tom Kelley, director of Athletics, said the potential use for the bookstore space is still in the discussion stage.

“Would we like to have it? Yeah, certainly, we’d like to have that space,” Kelley said.

One possible outcome is making it into a varsity weight room in order to open up space in the Athletic Center, he said.

English Department Chair Lisa Eck said it feels disappointing to not have a physical bookstore on campus.

Her biggest concerns are what she has heard from students, she said.

Sometimes, the books will arrive in a “strange” order, she added.

“I’ve had students be in a panic because they have books from the end of the course, but the ones we’re about to read are not in their hands,” Eck said.

The book order for an honors course was incorrect and in order to return the books, the students had to pay for the shipping, she said.

English Professor Lynn Parker had to take over a Composition II course at the last minute, she said.

Parker said these first-year students had purchased the assigned texts, many before coming to campus, but the books didn’t match the ones Parker or the professor originally scheduled to teach the class needed.

“They were a strange mash-up of texts from other courses that had been taught in the past from the English Department,” Parker said.

The students were told they needed to go to a UPS site and pay to have the books shipped back within 15 days, she said.

Some students were still waiting for books they couldn’t cancel and would need to return, she added.

When she asked the bookstore for help, they only extended the 15-day deadline, Parker said.

It was difficult to get a hold of someone and the website wasn’t very helpful, she added.

“I just canceled my books for the class because I’m not going to make them buy more books and go through the whole process again,” Parker said. She’s using open source texts for the class now.

She said before the change, she could call the bookstore, and whatever mistakes happened were easily corrected.

Angel Torres Ortiz, multisite regional manager for UGS and site supervisor, said he was made aware of the situation but declined to comment.

Art, Design & Art History Department Chair Marc Cote said the process for getting art supplies to the Campus Store has been better because they’re able to use their primary vendor, Blick Art Supplies.

They’re able to create class lists for supplies on Blick’s website, which can also be given to the bookstore, he said.

In the past, Follett would get the supplies from various sources, he added.

“They couldn’t always get the specialized art supplies that we sometimes need, like for printmaking supplies or specific oil paints or ceramic supplies,” Cote said.

He said corporate bookstores are more geared toward books, so getting specialty items can be difficult.

However, now there’s a noticeable surcharge when buying art kits through the Campus Store, he said.

Professors have been advising students without book vouchers to purchase the supplies directly from Blick, he added.

He asked Totino and the dean of Arts and Humanities if Financial Aid could work with Blick, and they’re looking into whether it’s contractually or legally allowable, he said.

Sophomore studio art major Christie Ballan said she was told the art kits would cost about $250, but they were really approximately $360.

She said $250 was already “a crazy amount,” but she was still going to buy it because it was needed for class.

She said her father was able to pay for half of it, but not everyone has that advantage.

“I really wish the store had more empathy for the students who had to pay that much money that day,” Ballan said.

Sophomore studio art major Sophia Silveria said she had to spend approximately $360 for an oil painting kit.

“It was just an insane amount of money to spend,” she said.

Senior studio art major Jorjan Mitri said in the past, they bought an art kit for between $100-120.

This semester, they had to buy two: one for about $370 and another for about $250, they said.

The first day they went to buy the art kits, they couldn’t afford them and couldn’t participate in their classes, Mitri said.

They said it’s possible to get the supplies more inexpensively at an art supplies store, but “we were given the impression we could get them for $200, maybe $250 because of rising prices.”

Chemistry Professor Catherine Dignam said she and other professors ordered lab notebooks and goggles from the previous bookstore, but the current Campus Store management notified the faculty that they had not received them.

This was particularly difficult for courses that used Inclusive Access, she said.

“Those have to be set up on a particular timeline, and we were informed essentially that we had missed the timeline, which turned out to not be true,” Dignam said.

Several of her returning students told her they were surprised the bookstore no longer had books, she said.

Dignam said students have not received enough support in terms of class materials, such as lab notebooks. 

She was assured that the store had plenty of inventory, but as of Oct. 6, there were still students in labs without access to lab notebooks, she said.

The previous vendor also had problems with stocking enough lab notebooks, though, she added.

“I will state that by this point in the semester, the previous bookstore typically had sufficient inventory to cover the last remaining students,” Dignam said.

Senior health and wellness major Cristian Acuna said he’s been relying on the internet instead of the Campus Store.

“It’s not like there’s books in there to begin with. You have to order them,” he said.

He said he would only go to the store if he needed some last-minute supplies such as a binder.

Freshman marketing major Nolan Wusterbarth said he bought some books for his Composition II class, as well some clothes, from the Campus Store.

“Everybody there was super nice and helped me find what I needed,” he said.

Sophomore business major Lex Fernandez said he gets most of his books online or digitally.

Senior criminology major Tiara Silva Sanchez said she used the bookstore to get materials for a ceramics course.

“When I got there, they just searched everything up by my name and had my order ready for me,” she said.

Freshman accounting major Nayony Flores said the people in the bookstore were very helpful.

Junior English major Sarah Snyder said she tried to buy her books at the Campus Store but the shelves were boarded off.

She doesn’t like the change, she added.

“When I got it, it wasn’t just a book in my hand. It was a book in a package and it cost the same on Amazon, so I could have gotten it quicker on Amazon for the same amount of money,” Snyder said.

Junior English major Eva Thurston said she had ordered a book through the Campus Store and it arrived from Amazon to her dorm.

“I don’t know why they just bought it off of Amazon. I was expecting to just pick it up from the bookstore, but they didn’t have that as an option,” Thurston said.

RAs in residence halls regularly hold mail pick-up hours between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., and anyone receiving mail directly can get their delivery this way.