University Bookstore

I don't know what has happened to the University Bookstore in recent years but I do know that today I was browsing through a few sections on the upper level. I could not only clearly hear--but also see --half a dozen store employees bunched at the central information kiosk, carrying on as if they were at a barbecue--in their own backyard.

Belly-aches of shrieks of laughter interspersed with ostensible conversation. It was clearly gossip about recent personal (mis-) adventures of absolutely no interest to anyone but said party of employees (who should have--shall I dare say?--been working).

For the bookstore operated in close association with the University of Washington, the premier university in the Pacific Northwest, this is disappointing. And I have had this sort of experience the past several years at the University Bookstore.

"The sky's the limit" in terms of very audible and very annoying personal chit-chat by employees who probably would be entirely suited to working at a discount supermarket like Lucky's. Or selling hot-dogs at Husky Stadium.

Actually, I'd prefer someone clipping their toenails on the floor of the Bookstore than to be disturbed constantly by loud store employees. An atmosphere conducive to genuine private conversation or intelligent banter, this is not.

This kind of uncouth behavior would be rare in Canada, France, or the U.K., etc., at least until recently (with the worldwide 24/7 coverage of the demise of Michael Jackson, I am beginning to seriously doubt that American popular culture can be resisted).

But in an era when students bring not only their lab-tops, but also their cellphones, Blackberries, and MP3 players to college classrooms, maybe this is not so surprising.

I have never witnessed such outlandish, undignified behavior at the Elliott Bay Bookstore (with its booksellers), so I am puzzled by the glaring lack of cultivation and manners at the premier college bookstore in the region.

That said, the University Bookstore continues to stock a fine array of books of a scholarly, special-interest, or general nature.

In addition to the racks of cute teddy bear key-chains and counters for cosmetics, please continue, University Bookstore, to stock Shakespeare, Sartre, Ibsen, Keats, and Dickinson.

[2009 is the 100th anniversary of the Fitzgerald translation of the 11th century Persian "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." There is nothing in the Bookstore to note this].
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