News

Shop and Community Updates

Covid-19 Updates

Submitted by Room on Fri, 03/13/2020 - 3:37pm

Update 4/1/2020: Hello booklovers! We have sent our staff to work from home for the foreseeable future and will only be having one person (an owner) in the store every day. We will be shipping books directly from our warehouse when possible and have changed our shipping prices ($3 for first book, .50 cents for each book after) to reflect that. Thank you so much for your continued support, patience, understanding, and bookloving.

Update 3/23: Hello friends! We are suspending the Madison-area delivery option for the time being, as we are overwhelmed and with the safer-at-home order coming into effect tomorrow, it seems inappropriate to be sending our staff driving all over town. If you are still waiting for your delivery, we appreciate your patience! We will likely be switching to media mail delivery option only, no in-store or staff delivery, and will let you know individually if your order is going to be coming by mail rather than our staff delivering. We are currently working as much as possible while keeping our staff safe (and asking them to stay home if they are at all sick), so we will be in touch soon if you have an order pending--possibly in the next day or two. Please note that our response time will likely increase as we cut back on staff being in the store, for everyone's safety. We are working to get your books to you as soon as is safely possible. Thank you so much for your outpouring of support--we love you so much and are glad to be there for you as much as we can during this pandemic.

Update 3/19: Wow, we have been floored, humbled, energized, and a little overwhelmed by the outpouring of support! Thank you so much to everyone who has placed web orders, called us, and sent supportive messages! We are processing as quickly as we can, but the high volume means we are running about a day behind on processing. We plan to catch up over the weekend.

New today: You can now purchase and redeem online gift codes on our website! These are only redeemable on our website for paper books and related products like puzzles--unfortunately they cannot be used on Kobo ebooks or Libro.fm audiobooks, both of which have their own internal gift code programs. When you purchase the code, our staff will process the order (which means it may take a bit for the code to get sent!) and the recipient will get emailed a code to use on our website. The code is a string of numbers that they copy and paste into the 'Online Gift Code' option of the web order checkout process, under 'payment methods'.

Update 3/16: As of today, A Room of One's Own will be closed to the public for the near future (at least through this week). We are available from 10am to 4pm to run prepaid orders out to you at our door if you wish--please call (608) 257-7888 or place a web order online. We are also offering doorstep delivery for free in the Madison area, and $1/book media mail shipping.Until April 10th A Room of One's Own will be open to the public from 12pm to 4pm Mon-Sun.. We will update this page with more links and information as things change.

As a space in which a lot of physical interaction takes place (people touch books as they browse), and which is not essential to public health during this crisis, we are taking steps to do our part to help flatten the curve and undercut the spread of COVID-19 in the Madison community. We want to increase social distance for our employees and our beloved customers.

We have made the above decisions to lessen exposure for our booksellers and our bookish community, to the global and national emergency that is the COVID-19 pandemic. We are taking protective measures to help flatten the curve of infection out of love and responsibility for our community. We hope that, months from now, our precautions look like an overreaction--that will mean they worked.

Although we are reducing your in-store shopping options, we are expanding other ways for you to engage with us and get the books you want or need more safely during our reduced hours!

  • $1 shipping/book for all U.S. orders
  • free Madison-area curbside book delivery
  • cancelling face-to-face events
  • buy gift certificates to use later or by phone ($10, $20, or $50)
  • quarantine book lists
  • uplifting and informative social media content on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

We believe books and book reading help us feel human and connected and help us to imagine worlds outside our current one. We want to remain accessible to you for book buying without contributing to unnecessary exposure. We hope you utilize our book lists and order online, or take advantage of our partnerships with Libro.fm for digital audiobooks and Kobo for ebooks. We very much want to put books in your hands and for you to have sturdy, enlightening, and diverting TBR piles through this new time that is pushing us to be cautious with ourselves and our community.

As always, we appreciate and are grateful for your continued support and your endless love of books,

 

Your Room Booksellers

How to Order Desk Copies

Submitted by Room on Mon, 12/18/2017 - 12:28pm

If you are an instructor or support staff looking to request desk copies, here is how you can do it yourself! We highly recommend doing this rather than asking Room to request them for you. Desk copies are complementary copies given to instructors by the publisher when the instructor assigns a book. This is more direct, quicker, and easier to resolve any concerns if books don't arrive. Of course, if you would prefer to have us do the requests, we will be happy to do so.

Introducing Libro.fm!

Submitted by Room on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 3:40pm

Audiobook Memberships are now available at A Room of One's Own!

Powered by our audiobook partner Libro.fm, your first month is $0.99 and then $14.99 per month. The monthly fee equates to one audiobook credit which you can use at anytime, for any of the 70,000+ audiobooks available on our Libro.fm site. You can easily listen on any device (phone, tablet, PC) as all Libro.fm audiobooks are DRM-free.

FAQ for Students on Buying and Selling Course Materials at Room

Submitted by Room on Thu, 02/06/2014 - 3:20pm

A Room of One's Own carries a range of new and used course materials for a variety of classes from UW-Madison and Madison College! Here are the answers to some commonly asked questions.

 

How do I find your store?

We are just a few blocks from campus! We are just off of State St. at 315 W. Gorham St. If you can't find us, just give us a call at 608-257-7888 and we can help. Also note our hours: Mon-Sat 10-8 and Sun 12-5.

 

When should I stop in to buy my books?

The best time to come in is the week before classes begin. By then, we usually have had time to get most course orders from your professors, order the books (including used copies), and have then checked in and ready to go on the textbook shelves.

 

Should I order my course books online?

You can order them online, but we recommend you stop by the store instead. We offer used copies of as many course books as we can get, and these books are only available on a first-come, first-served basis in our store--they are not listed online. If you decide you'd rather order online, please choose the 'pay online with credit card' option--we only hold course materials if they are already paid for out of fairness.

 

What if I want to return books for a full refund?

In general, we do not take course books back for a full refund. The only exception is if you drop a class--if you do drop a class and need a refund, bring the books back in their original condition along with the receipt and a copy of your new course grid within the first 2 weeks of the semester. We cannot offer a refund unless all of these conditions are met.

 

Can I sell books back to you after the semester is over?

We do happily buy books in between semesters! The buyback period starts the week of finals and goes up until the day BEFORE classes begin the next semester. We aren't able to take every book, but we do buy back for ourselves and for a national wholesale company, so we encourage you to check (even if you didn't buy the book from us originally). In general, your best bet is to come in right before the next semester starts--by then, most instructors have told us which books they are using that coming year, so we are able to offer a little more for those titles. You don't need a receipt or anything but an ID to sell books. We cannot buy back looseleaf editions of coursebooks or iClickers.

 

About Us

Submitted by Room on Fri, 08/03/2012 - 8:22pm

A Room of One's Own Bookstore has been a fixture in downtown Madison, Wisconsin since 1975. Our current location is 315 W Gorham St., Madison WI 53703.

A Room of One's Own is your local independent bookstore: Room offers a wide selection of current and classic fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, local interest titles, gifts, toys, and greeting cards. We also have strong children's and young adult, women's studies and LGBTQ fiction and nonfiction sections.

Room's feminist community: We are proud to be a central part of Madison's women's community, and our roots in Madison's feminist community go deep. Our store has given us the opportunity to provide a meeting place, event forum, and safe space. We are happy to host community events. If your small book or discussion group would like to use our community room to meet, please call ahead to check availability at 608-257-7888 or email at roomreadings@gmail.com. 

Web Orders and e-books: We are happy to be able to offer e-books, digital audiobooks through Libro.fm and web orders for in-store pickup or mail delivery through our website! Please note that our website does not reflect our in-store stock: please call us at (608) 257-7888 to find out if we have the title (new or used) that you would like.

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