The Dartmouth Bookstore is in final negotiations for sale to a new owner, store manager David Cioffi said Friday. The sale will mark the first time in the store's history that the family owned and operated business will be owned by an outsider.
Cioffi declined to identify the buyer's identity, but said measures will be taken to ensure continuity between the current Dartmouth Bookstore and the one to come.
"Hanover should always have a world-class book store," Cioffi said.
The store has been owned by the same family, the Stebbinses, continuously for 132 years, making it the oldest college bookstore in the country still under its original ownership.
A final agreement on the sale of the store is "very close" with one potential buyer, but one or two other interested parties are still "hanging out there." The deal should be finalized within 30 to 60 days, Cioffi said.
The bookstore has long since stopped ordering new inventory and is now in the process of selling off what books remain. The shelves that used to be lined with books are mostly bare, and few customers can be found in the store during business hours.
In selecting a buyer, the store will seek an ownership that emphasizes scholarly and academic works, paying special attention to publications from university presses. In this way, Cioffi said he hopes to leave Hanover with what he strove to make the Dartmouth Bookstore into: a "classic bookstore."
Staff will also remain constant through the changeover, according to Cioffi. All potential buyers have agreed to give first priority to current store employees when hiring.
"I've got people downstairs who have been working here for 25 years, and we want to make sure they stay," Cioffi said.
Cioffi has managed the store since 1972 and plans to retire once the store is sold.
The Dartmouth Bookstore has seen declining revenues since it stopped selling textbooks last year. A gradual breakdown in relations with professors and academic departments meant the Bookstore no longer had access to course syllabi and required reading lists. This, combined with competition from Wheelock Books and online booksellers like Amazon.com, meant the bookstore was losing money on textbooks.
"Back in the 1980's we got all the information we needed," Cioffi said. "Having put 100 years in and not having the information we needed from the College, that was a slap in the face," he said.
When asked how relations with the faculty had deteriorated, Cioffi gave an example in which the Women's Studies Department, several years ago, became angered when the Bookstore began displaying the Women's Studies textbooks alongside women's health books, in an area separate from other textbooks. It was then, said Cioffi, that the department began denying the Bookstore access to course information. Over time, Cioffi said, these types of "personality conflicts" accumulated until the bookstore no longer had enough information to order necessary textbooks.
The bookstore recently asked the College administrators to require professors to supply course information to the Bookstore, but Dartmouth denied the request, Cioffi said.
"If this were a state school, we would have had no problem getting that information," Cioffi said. He said the store's most likely potential buyer intends to start selling textbooks again.
In addition to the retention of current staffers, the store's The Dartmouth Bookstore moniker will also remain.
"The name is going to stay," Cioffi guaranteed.
