Several professors and students are frowning on the Loyola bookstore, for what they call its products’ deficiencies and high prices.Debra Woodfork, an assistant professor in communications, said that she’s frustrated with poor products, particularly the Iomega Zip disks. Woodfork said that her students have consistently experienced problems with the Iomega Zip disks getting stuck in the drives or the disks’ being simply unreadable. According to Woodfork, at least 15 to 20 students have reported trouble with the disks. Lisa Boe, assistant professor in communications, contacted Iomega about the issue. Iomega offered to replace every Zip disk that Boe and Woodfork have encountered problems with. ” It doesn’t really help the fact that they are still manufacturing and disseminating the same Zip disks,” Woodfork said. “I think it’s a problem that the manufacturer and the Loyola bookstore are selling these inefficient Zip disks.”She says that the Loyola bookstore should buy computer supplies like Zip disks from more than one or two companies. “I want my students to have choices in the products they buy instead of going off campus to buy them,” Woodfork said.Other professors and some students are concerned about what they say are high prices of textbooks and school and computer supplies. English writing junior Benjamin Hayes said that besides buying required textbooks, he purchased his supplies from other retail stores. “The bookstore just always seemed more expensive,” Hayes said.Ainsley Becnel, computer information systems senior, also found other places to buy supplies this semester. However, she said that the bookstore’s prices are just as expensive as some other retail stores and that she often finds supplies on the Internet. “Any college student is well-educated enough to find cheaper products, like MP3 players, by looking in a newspaper or going online to fatwallet.com or ebay.com. I think that the list prices found in the bookstore and at other stores are ridiculous,” Becnel said. Communications professor Alfred Lorenz said that if the prices are controlled by the bookstore’s new vendor, College Bookstores of America, then it should push the bookstore to lower prices to what students can afford.”My impression has been that the prices in Loyola’s bookstore are as high or higher than you would pay anywhere else,” Lorenz said.However, Carol Knight, the Loyola bookstore manager, said that manufacturers set their products’ prices, not the bookstore or College Bookstores of America. The Loyola bookstore’s selection of PDAs, for example, has almost or exactly the same list prices as other retail stores. The prices for the Palm Zire 71 Handheld ($249), IPAQ H1935 Pocket PC ($249) and the Palm Zire 21 Handheld ($99) are the same prices at Office Depot, OfficeMax or Wal-Mart. “I also want to clarify that the Loyola bookstore and its vendor do not raise the prices for new edition textbooks,” Knight said. “They are all set by the publishing houses.”However the bookstore does have a 20 to 25 percent profit margin on textbooks. Knight said that at least 10 percent of their profits are used to finance freight costs. “The cost to constantly bring books in and out is phenomenal,” Knight said. The remaining profits are pay for the bookstore’s management and labor. Knight also said that because the bookstore has no storage space, it is not able to buy products and supplies in large volumes like Wal-Mart or other large retailers.”If we could buy three million cases like Wal-Mart, then of course we can pass those savings on to the customers. Realistically, we can’t just buy in anticipation that we’re going to sell all the products and supplies,” Knight said. However, Knight says that together the Loyola bookstore and College Bookstores of America have done a lot of work since the fall of 2003. “Now we’re working very much to open accounts with new vendors, particularly electronic vendors,” she said.