The University Book Store

Information for Professors

The University Book Store is proud of its relationship with the University of Wisconsin faculty. Your cooperation helps us supply students with their textbooks and supplies in an efficient and economic manner. If you ever have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to email or phone (608-257-3784) us with them.

For your convenience, you may now accomplish your text book adoptions via email. Simply address an email message containing your requirements (under the guidelines below) to:

or

Text and/or Supply Adoption Guidelines

1. Please use your University of Wisconsin email account for adoptions. On all email adoptions, we will respond with a confirmation message. If you do not receive a confirmation message, assume that we have not received your adoptions.
2. Include the phrase TEXTBOOK ADOPTION in the subject heading of your message. Also include your name and a phone number where we can contact you in case of problems.
3. For each text item, we need the following information:
   • Semester
   • Department & Course Number (please include lecture/section number if applicable)
   • Estimated Enrollment
   • Author
   • Title (ISBN, if available) or description of supply (model number is helpful)
   • Edition
   • Publisher or manufacturer
   • Is the item required or recommended?
   To put in a Supply Order or Text Order please contact or
4. It helps everyone if we receive your textboook and/or supply adoptions one to two months before the start of each semester. Books and course supplies can take a few days to arrive, or may take a few months, depending on availability from the publisher. Submitting your book list before finals week also benefits your students. If we recognize that the books are required for the upcoming semester, we can offer the students a better price on books we buy back. Finally, a one to two month lead offers us optimal opportunity to process orders, deal with shortages or acquisition problems and receive materials.
5. Overseas ordering usually takes a minimum of 6-8 weeks, barring the usual close-down times of August and December for the European holiday seasons.
6. We do not carry textbook adoptions over from semester to semester. Each semester requires a unique request for adoption. We will order your material whenever we receive notification of the need.
7. Please notify us if you have any significant enrollment increases. We have no direct access to information about increased enrollment. We rely foremost on timely instructor notification. We are always glad to order additional copies of textbooks needed by your students. We offer a textbook reservation system to each student, which begins on the Friday of the first week of class.
8. We start returning our overstock of textbooks during the tenth week of of each semester (Summer Session return dates vary according to session length). Please encourage your students to make all of their purchases before those times.
9. If you have any questions about textbooks, editions, publishers, ISBNs or anything related to textbooks, please don't hesitate to contact our text department. Lynn Lorton is the text office supervisor and she can be reached at either the above email address or by phone at (608) 257-3784, ext. 5901.
10. If you have any questions on supplies be it computer supplies, art supplies, etc. Please contact the appropiate deparment.

Desk Copies

The University Book Store can help you secure desk copies. We have request forms available at the service desk or right here on our site for you to print out and mail. We also have a directory of publishers. If you have ordered a desk copy and it is late in arriving, you can check out a book on a desk copy account from the book store to use while you wait. These copies can be returned during the semester for full credit. Please remember, desk copies checked out from the book store are essentially loaners and must be replaced in saleable condition to receive the credit. We would like the copy you receive from the publisher as long as it is not marked as a complimentary copy. If you check out a used copy, please feel free to return that used copy for your credit. Also, keep in mind that books taken from the shelves are books unavailable to your students.