As Ithaca’s community-owned cooperative bookstore, Buffalo Street Books is constantly striving to expand our relationship with the students and faculty of Ithaca’s colleges.  With this in mind, over the past few years we have developed our First Class Program, a simple, mutually beneficial system that makes it easy for instructors to order books and easy for students to purchase and receive them.

As part of the First Class Program, you would send Buffalo Street Books your book list, excluding textbooks.  These lists should be submitted any time before Friday July 2^nd for the Fall semester or December 1^st for the Spring semester, by phone or by email, specifying edition or ISBN when available.  After receiving your list, we will contact you immediately to confirm availability and price. This allows instructors time and flexibility in choosing their books for the upcoming semester.

When communicating with incoming students, you would inform them that their books can be ordered through Buffalo Street Books, through phone or email.  The students would be able to pay for the books, tax-free, through credit card or PayPal and the books would be delivered, free of charge, to the first class session with a receipt.  The students would also have the option of coming into the store to pick up the books.  Students who miss out on the initial opportunity or transfer into the class later would still be able to pick up the course books at Buffalo Street Books before the books are returned to the publishers.  Additionally, students who are unable to afford all the books at once can leave the books “on hold” with us and purchase them over the course of the semester.

We feel, and the instructors and students who have participated in the program in the past agree, that this offers a convenient and inexpensive way to purchase course books.  More importantly, the program introduces the students to a vital, independent bookstore in the heart of downtown Ithaca and to the importance of supporting local businesses.

Due to the relatively small size of Ithaca, we respectfully ask that books ordered through the First Class Program not be simultaneously ordered through the campus store.

We hope you will contact us with any questions you might have.  We look forward to hearing from you.