Peter Amara, a temporary worker in the BC Bookstore, organizes books in the McElroy Commons store.

Book drive

Tom McKenna, director, Boston College Bookstore:

“The winter break is one of our busiest times. It took some 25 students and six full-time staff members four or five weeks to put out 3,472 different titles for 1,495 spring courses—about 150,000 books. It’s a tight timeframe. There’s a full crew working here, even during the week when the University closes. We typically sell 100,000 textbooks in just the last two weeks in January, so our normal number of registers, 8, increases to 20 for that time period. We also train 25 new cashiers for the spring rush. We’re completely focused on the first day of classes. Our mission is to provide course materials for our students and faculty—that’s our reason for being.”