For the first time ever, Lake Land College (LLC) granted “book amnesty” to those who had exceeded the deadline to turn in textbooks! Amanda Arena, who has been the Manager of the Laker Bookstore since the Spring of 2021 semester stated that, “Prior to the Fall 2022 semester, the deadline to turn in the textbooks for the semester was five days after the close of the semester. So in order to support other deadlines from this semester and subsequent semesters, we changed policy to the textbooks being due when the semester closes in order to align with the grade due dates, so the semester can close out all at once.” She mentioned that, “Since we (Laker Bookstore) changed that and pushed it back, we decided that we will offer the amnesty days for the students who failed to see that the deadline has changed so we decided to do a one-time thing of offering student a couple of additional days to turn in their books from the original deadline this past semester.” 

However, this amnesty will not be offered to students again. Arena stated that, “It’s not something that we will do every semester. It was a one-time thing because the board policy for the deadline had recently changed. It would not be offered this Spring semester since all the students who rented out the textbooks now know ahead of time what the deadline is. It was the first semester following the board policy change. Moving forward, we will not again offer the amnesty day and the textbooks are due when the semester closes, which is the last day of Finals when the grades are due.”

Arena became the Manager after Christina Kramer, long-time manager of the Laker Bookstore retired after the Fall 2020 semester. Prior to being the Manager of the Laker Bookstore, Arena was Coordinator of Bookstore Operations. Previously before being a part of the Laker Bookstore, she worked in the Marketing Public Relations Office as well as the Foundation Office. 

In the future, when you are checking out books for classes you have for the semester at the Laker Bookstore, make sure you read the deadline of when the books are due so that you are not stuck having to pay for a textbook(s) you forgot to turn in because you missed the deadline to do so. 

Moreover, check with the instructors to find out which textbook(s) you are or are not using for the semester. For the textbook(s) that you are finished with or not using at all or if you have to drop a course(s), please turn them in as soon as you can in order to avoid this predicament of having to pay for a new textbook, especially if you are not going to ever use it again. 

You can find the deadline to turn in your textbooks on the Laker Calendar, on your Laker Hub, on your receipts when you checked out your textbooks for the semester. In addition, there is a drop box so students can turn in their books outside Laker Bookstore business hours.