Pene Whitty, manager of University Bookshop Canterbury

4:35 PM, 26 October 2023

University Bookshop Canterbury is a hidden treasure nestled in the Ilam Campus in Christchurch.

First time customers walk in and exclaim at the range of stock, expect to find rows of textbooks and nothing else. The one question we get a lot of is are they able to shop here.

The store has had three locations since it started, first in the centre of the city in a weatherboard house that was opposite it’s second location in the heart of the neo gothic University of Canterbury (now the Arts Centre of Christchurch). It moved in 1974 to our current location in Ilam. Here was also a branch at the Hospital supporting patients and the medical school.

The Christchurch earthquake and Covid have forced us to rethink the business and be able to respond by changing our priorities. Both have caused us to rethink our staffing levels and our future. Luckily we have been able to continue with the support of our customers and suppliers.

The ownership structure has changed over the years. Both UBS Otago and Whitcoulls have had an interest, but know we are 50% owned by the Students Association, and 50% independent directors. This enables us to directly support our students.

We may not be in a mall or on a street frontage, but we always have a steady stream of students and staff in our store and are a destination for Christchurch customers that want that something special.

Our staff over the years have brought their strength to the business, be it Gillian with her intense knowledge and experience, Vicki with her stationery taming ways, Mary and her children’s books taking over the store, Justine converting everyone on the benefit of the English classics. Our other staff also have been and our amazing as are our part time staff, some have gone on to become, lawyers, counsellors, teachers but all bring certain strengths while they are at UBS, even teaching the oldies the power of TikTok.

I joined UBS after having a break when I sold my own store. I started at our hospital store working part time before the Canterbury earthquake closed that store. Then joined the team in Ilam and have been manager since 2014.

Everyday is different and is what excites us. Our website that used to be just used for textbooks, is now responsible for a growing percentage of sales in sending our books around the country. Our amazing reps bring us a lot of reading copies – enough to cover the reading interests of the staff. My favourite book to recommend at the moment is Yellowface by Rebecca Kuang, but the Christmas selection of Fiction and nonfiction is very strong this year.

A large strength of UBS is that we can participate in the community – from launching authors books to being the Bookseller for Word Christchurch, as well as dressing teddy bears for the UC graduates. We adapt to our environment.