Brown Bookstore
About Us
Thank you for your interest in the Brown Bookstore. Our mission is to serve the needs of our customers through the effective delivery of quality book and other academic and collegiate retail services.
Background
The Brown Bookstore has been located at 244 Thayer Street, since the opening of the Brown Office Building in 1970. The Bookstore is an anchor store to the Thayer Street retail district on College Hill in Providences historic East Side. The Bookstore attracts students, faculty, staff, alumni, visitors, area residents and professionals. The Bookstore is known for its general and academic book selections, and quality Brown gifts and apparel, cards, stationery, supply and computer products, also for its friendly atmosphere and good service. Self-operated by Brown University, the Brown Bookstore is proud of its status as an independent university and community focused bookstore.
General Books
The Brown Bookstore has strong traditions as an independent university bookseller. Book stocks include a diverse front-list and backlist of titles, reflecting the wide range of academic, professional and the general book interests of the Brown community and area residents. Breadth of customer book interests requires special ordering services and good relations with the gamut of academic and trade publishers and book distributor services. Knowledge of distributor and publisher order response is critical to meeting customer expectations including special orders - a major focus of the staff.
Textbooks
Course book services, our core academic service, requires continuous use of electronic data transfers, and close partnerships with faculty, academic staff, publishers, distributors and used book wholesalers in order to meet faculty and student expectations and academic requirements. Used books constitute 30% of course book sales, reflecting an emphasis at the Brown Bookstore to reduce textbook costs to students. Faculty need for customized course materials places an emphasis on bookstore and publisher partnerships to provide reasonable and effective copyright clearance, flexible packaging of intellectual property on campus. The Bookstore is linked closely with Brown's graphic services, academic departments, library, computing information, registrar and financial aid at Brown to provide effective and unified approaches to information, copyright and printing services. Information on copyright can be found at: www.brown.edu/Administration/Copyright.
Merchandise, Computer Products and Services
The Campus Shop and Technology Center are part of the Brown Bookstore and provide an important complement to our book services. For information visit Contacts and Services.
Local Delivery
- Brown Bookstore offers local delivery to our customers in Providence.
- --Delivery to customers in Providence on and off-campus (excluding residence halls).
- --Orders over $25.00 are free of charge; Otherwise $3.00 delivery charge.
- Local Delivery requests may be made in the bookstore, by phone, or online.
- --Call in your order or request Local Delivery when shopping in the bookstore.
- --If ordering online, choose 'Local Delivery-Prov.' during checkout as your Shipping Option.
- --Delivery should be made within one business day of receiving in-store or phone request; Online orders will be delivered within one business day of processing order (Orders processed Monday through Friday).
- Some Restrictions Apply:
- --Brown University prohibits the bookstore from delivering to residence halls.
- --Requests processed Monday through Friday; Weekend requests will be processed on Monday.
- --Customer will be called prior to delivery to see if anyone is home to accept delivery, unless leave at door is requested/confirmed.
- Contact Information:
- --For General Books - Trade Customer Service: 401-863-3168 or general_books(at)brown.edu
- --For Medical Reference - Textbooks: 401-863-2270 or textbooks(at)brown.edu
- --Order Online: Campus Shop or General Books
Look for the red Brown Bookstore Delivery Van around town!