Just got back from a sneak peek of the Cochrane Center. There were lots of faculty and staff looking around. The Barnes and Noble bookstore is fine, but the selection isn't any better than the old B&N in the Hub. Upstairs, the textbook portion looks like a real college bookstore, and there were (surprisingly) quite a few used books in stock. That's the good part.

The bad part is that the third floor (second floor?) seems to be a disguised entertainment center for administrative types, complete with ballrooms, service elevators, coat check rooms, etc. Also, there is a whole lot of wasted space in the name of aesthetics. As I walked around up there, I kept thinking about "Quest for the Mace." The mural does look nice, though.

The third floor seems tailor made to entertain for pre-football events, with a stairway exit that ends up at the stadium gates. A friend commented that the whole building was an athletic complex disguised as a $50,000,000 bookstore. I have to agree. It's nice to have new and fancy things on campus, but in our current state, having a new bookstore with a convention center attached probably isn't our best use of money.