Founded by faculty in 1897, the Stanford Bookstore has grown from a quiet campus shop to the third-largest university bookstore in the country. Older alums might remember that, in the 1920s, the building also housed Sticky Wilson's Candy and Ice Cream Store. In 1959, the store moved from what is now the Career Planning and Placement Center to its current site in White Plaza. These days, the Bookstore sells more than 1,000 varieties of magazines and newspapers, serves a mean capuccino, has four branches and records annual sales of $50 million.
To commemorate the 100th anniversary this year, Bookstore management is sponsoring a series of special events. During the first-week-of-the-quarter rush in January, randomly selected students were handed $100 bills while waiting in line. In February, the Bookstore donated $100,000 to build a reading room with "soft seating and a peaceful ambience" in Green Library West. In March, the store ran a frenetic one-day sale in which different items--coffee, sweatshirts, fiction books--went on discount every 100 minutes. Parties on the Bookstore steps are set for five Fridays this spring, and a faculty cocktail reception is planned for next fall. Says Bookstore president and CEO Peggy Mendelson: "We want to create some fun and thank people for shopping with us."
