Building a Mystery: LSC Bookstore

We received an email this week from someone seeking information about the Lowman Student Center (LSC) bookstore, specifically ownership:

I am trying to find information about the bookstore companies that ran the LSC bookstore on campus from 1991 to 1998; I was employed there during part of that time. My memory is foggy, so I have been turning to other resources but so far nobody has record or recollection of the owners/management prior to the current store, which is run by Barnes and Noble.

By our estimation Barnes and Noble has operated the University Bookstore since c.2004. A temporary B&N store stood on the site of the current Chemistry and Forensic Sciences Building c.2003, possibly during and after the interior remodeling of the LSC last decade. Anyway:

I know that Follett was running the bookstore during part of my time there, but I cannot recall if they were the earlier company, or the one that took it over. Follett has no record, having purged all records. I am also pretty sure that the university itself ran the bookstore at one point, and staff was under SHSU payroll. It was not when I worked there, though. Still I know there was a change, because I worked for two companies during my employment and I helped with a changeover, and we had to inventory everything. There was then a clearance of most non-book items, as the new managing company did not want to take on too much inventory. I think the books went back to an outside distribution point. Then the store was emptied of all fixtures, etc. A new company came in and built their layout from scratch.

And there’s where things stand today.

If anyone has any memories of the LSC bookstore – be it any owner, be it any time period, or even be it about that thick, red paperback English Composition I book with a pseudo-engraving of Austin Hall on its cover that, for Fall 1994, was a required purchase but (ahem) was bought back at the end of the semester for mere peanuts because the English Department wasn’t going to use it any longer – and wants to help out a fellow Bearkat, drop us a line. She’d be glad to hear from you.

And I’d personally like to see the cover of that English comp book again, too.

Building a Mystery: Home Management Home

One thing about going further back in time through the yearbooks is that the locations of certain buildings are somewhat ambiguous.

Building a Mystery: Nutria House

We’re curious if anyone has any memories of the Nutria House (perhaps officially known to some as the Animal Sciences Lab)  that appears to have existed as part of the Horticulture Center off College Farm Road (Avenue M). There’s mention of it in the Campus Master Plan that was published in 1982 and we’ve come across one photograph of a grayish metal structure labeled "Nutria"; the building looks to be on its last leg and probably was razed shortly thereafter.

Building a Mystery: Catholic Student Center

Periodically we come across shards of uncertainty in our research. Today it's the Catholic Student Center (CSC).