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Canada’s oldest student-run campus bookstore operates out of Clark Hall.

The Campus Bookstore was originally established in 1909 as the "Technical Supplies Store" by two engineering students who wanted to provide inexpensive drafting supplies and textbooks for Engineering students.

The creation of an applied science faculty in the 1890s had led to a strong sense of collegiality among its students. That esprit resulted in the birth of the Engineering Society in 1897. The society was soon organizing dances and dinners. In 1910, the society even organized a militia unit, the Fifth Field Company of Canadian Engineers, which prepped young men for any possible call to arms.

In 1909, the society opened the Technical Supplies Store on campus to facilitate student procurement of textbooks, notebooks and drafting paper – items that were hard to find in Kingston. Now, students would be able to command their own supply of books and to do so at a location right on campus. The society appointed a small management committee to oversee the operation.

The end of the First World War brought a sudden influx of engineering students eager to complete their education. Anticipating their needs, the society set up an employment bureau to help connect graduates with the job market. In 1921, members of the Fifth Field Company voted their pay for a year to the society in support of the bureau and Technical Supplies.

In 1929, the Engineering Society appointed its first professional manager. In this inter-war period, the bookstore, now managed by a paid staff, became a campus fixture, supplying books to all faculties. The university administration happily ceded control of the textbook trade to the society. However, Technical Supplies lacked a permanent location and moved around the campus to various locations: at various times the store was located in Fleming Hall, Theological Hall, the Gun Shed, and the Old Mill.

This transitory existence ended in 1951 when Clark Hall, named in honour of long time Applied Science Dean Arthur Clark, opened on Fifth Field Company Lane.

Technical Supplies becomes the Campus Bookstore

As Queen’s grew dramatically in the 1960s, so did pressure on the bookstore. In 1963, the bookstore was incorporated as a not-for-profit enterprise under the auspices of the Queen’s University Engineering Society Services Incorporated (QUESSI) with a board comprised of students, faculty, alumni and university appointees. A Senate committee was created to maintain oversight over the bookstore and provide a channel of communication between faculty and students and the QUESSI board. The university trustees proved willing to extend financing for periodic renovations and expansions of the bookstore.

In 1973, "Technical Supplies" became the “Campus Bookstore.”

The Bookstore is still owned and operated by students under the auspices of QUESSI, which endeavors to distribute required course material at the lowest possible price (most of its books are offered below list price) to students while operating a comprehensive university bookstore for the whole Queen's community. A majority of the board members of QUESSI must be undergraduate engineering and applied science students. 

In keeping with its founding spirit, QUESSI has worked to be a good campus corporate citizen. In 1974, for instance, it donated $12,000 of the bookstore’s profits to the university to fund a new lighting system for Grant Hall. The bookstore is now but one of a cluster of student enterprises operating under the QUESSI banner.

Today, the bookstore keeps a stock of all required textbooks for all courses offered by the university, along with a wide range of general interest and reference books, other academic supplies, and gift items. In 2000, the bookstore launched an online textbook review service, in which students around the world offer input on texts being used for courses.

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