Let me guess: Follets runs your bookstore?
Their policy (and it may be the policy elsewhere) is to order a % of the books we request--so yes, we run into this problem EVERY semester and we are in the midst of a huge war with our bookstore.
Many of us have started to recommend that students buy their books online (cheaper, easier)....I often get my division/library to buy a few copies and put them on reserve until the rest of the books come in.
I routinely spend the second class using an edited  (by me) "hot case" (I used the Abu Ali, detention case in January; great to talk re: US Constitution, etc., and he was in the news a lot several weeks after we had discussed it). That way you can share it with your class electronically.... I also teach an intro to Legal system/process by way of lecture/ Q&A. I put a dozen or so texts on reserve in the library (you know, all those freebies we get and I don't use) and assign the class to read the intro chapters--explaining that everyone will be reading something different, but that the main points will be the same and we can run through (a) litigation (b) intro to ADR (c) relationship of laws, etc. collectively.

Good luck/


-----Original Message-----
From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of Mary-Kathryn Zachary
Sent: Mon 5/16/2005 4:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Re: Book Problems



        Do any of you have the problem of there not being enough textbooks available
        for students to buy from the campus bookstore at the start of a class?

        Today was the first day of our Maymester in which we cover a semester in 11
        days.  I assigned students the first three chapters in the book to be read
        by tomorrow.  Within an hour students started telling me the bookstore did
        not have the book.  It turned out that even though we had ordered the books
        well in advance, and sent the bookstore correspondence three weeks ago about
        the exact enrollment in the course (44 students), the bookstore only ordered
        20 books, because they said they did not know how many students would
        actually buy the book from them.  No more books are available until some
        time on Wednesday.  That means that more than half the class will be without
        books for the equivalent of three weeks of class.  Their first test is next
        Monday over half the book.  This is apparently not the first time this
        problem has occurred, although this is the first time I have encountered it
        in an accelerated course.

        My question is, have any of you run into this sort of problem?  If so, how
        did you handle it with the bookstore and with the students?  I'm facing two
        days of 3 1/2 hour classes with the students having no way to prepare.

        Thanks.

        Mary-Kathryn