Ordering Textbooks and Desk Copies

Book orders for the Summer terms are due at the beginning of March; Fall book orders are due in April; Spring book orders are due in November. To order your books, fill out the book order form typically deposited in your campus mailbox. Alternatively, some schools allow you to send your requests in via email. In each case, give your request forms to the administrative assistant in your school. In A&S, it's Caitlin Lerch. She will get the book orders in to the Bookstore.

Book Order Process

  • Please contact your department chair to receive a book order form for your course if you have not already received one in your mailbox. When you have decided on your text, submit the form to the Administrative Assistant in your school. In Arts & Sciences, it's Caitlin Lerch. Make sure to request desk copies if you need them (see desk copy policies below).
  • Please do not submit your order directly to the bookstore. The School office should be made aware of your order. This is especially important if you wish to request desk copies. The bookstore no longer provides desk copies to faculty.
  • Once the semester has begun, changes to the original order may not be made (unless it is an addition to the order). So please double-check your book order prior to the beginning of the semester either with your school's designated contact, or by logging in at Marymountu.bncollege.com.

Desk Copy Policies

In general it is best to order your desk copies as you turn in your book orders. Desk copies can be ordered throughout the term, but the bookstore is discouraging the use of vouchers in an effort to save our school money. This means that desk copies may take awhile to arrive. If it has been 30 days and you have still not received your copy, see the school secretary for a bookstore voucher. If you order your desk copies at the beginning of the book order process, please allow 2-8 weeks for the text to arrive. Sometimes publishers send desk copies directly to the school, but often they send them directly to the professors. Because of this, the secretary cannot know if you have received your copy, so let he or she know if you're worried about getting them in time. Lastly, publishers are now starting to enforce the rule that only one desk copy of each title can be ordered for a professor per academic year, unless the text goes up in edition.

Here's what A&S has to say:

  1. Order by the book order deadline or at least 8 weeks prior to the start of the semester and remember to request desk copies on the form specifically.
  2. Place book orders directly through Caitlin in the Arts and Sciences office. If you place your order with the bookstore, you will not receive your desk copies.
  3. Please allow 2-8 weeks for the arrival of your desk copies from the time the order was placed.
  4. Per publisher’s guidelines, only one copy of a given title may be ordered a year per professor per course.

What to do in A&S if your desk copy hasn’t arrived and/or you need a desk copy to write your syllabus:

  1. If you submitted your order in a timely fashion, and still have not received a desk copy, you may pick up a chit (or receipt) from Caitlin to purchase a copy at the bookstore. You must return the yellow receipt to Caitlin so that another copy may be ordered and returned at a later time, in order to lessen the costs to our School.
  2. If you submitted your order late, and/or it has not been 2-8 weeks since the order was placed, please speak with Caitlin about your options.
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