Seminary Co-op

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seminary Cooperative Bookstores, Inc. is a cooperative bookstore with three branches in the Chicago area. Its flagship, known colloquially as the Seminary Co-op or simply the Sem Co-op, is located in the basement of the Chicago Theological Seminary, next to the campus of the University of Chicago, and stocks the largest selection of academic volumes in the United States throughout an extensive maze of shelves.^[1]

The Co-op also operates 57th Street Books, also in the Hyde Park neighborhood, which stocks popular volumes, and the Newberry Library Bookstore, which sells books, cards, and gifts on Chicago's North Side. It sells shares of stock for $10 each; a purchase of three shares constitutes a membership, which provides a 10% discount. Profits are typically reinvested into th Co-op's reserve funds, as distribution of profits would be negligible.

Currently, the Co-op has over 53,000 members, 3,500 of which are located overseas. The following countries have at least 100 members: Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and Australia. The following countries have at least 50 members: Taiwan, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Israel, Hong Kong, France, Brazil, and Korea. Other nations with significant membership include Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, India, and Argentina.

In 2007, the Co-op did more than $5,000,000 in sales, achieving a net profit of $20,173.