After Dec. 15, students at Ohio University Southern will no longer be able to get their textbooks on campus.

The Bobcat Depot will be closing permanently and stores at the Lancaster, Chillicothe, and Eastern OU campuses have already closed. OUS student will still be able to buy textbooks from the nearby University Mart Bookstore.

Ohio University operates the Bobcat Depots in partnership with the campuses.

OU Spokesman Dan Pittman announced in an October email that the Depots would be closing “due to significant market changes and a challenging financial environment across Ohio University.”

At OUS, Shawn Aldridge, the Bobcat Depot’s regional store manager, said online textbook sales have hurt brick and mortar bookstores.

“It’s one of those decisions that had to be made,” he said, adding the Depot did book rentals because it was a money saving deal for both the students and the university. “It’s one of those things, we tried and we weren’t able to come out on top.”

Aldridge said that most of the time, the store was just a convenient stop for students to pick up a snack or a notebook and “six weeks out of the year, we would take care of textbooks.”

OUS freshman Kylee Mollett was in the store Wednesday afternoon to pick up snacks. She said it was sad to see the Bobcat Depot close.

“I came in here to get my books or simple things like notebooks or whatever I would need,” she said. “It makes me kind of sad because it is pretty useful for students.”

The store’s shelves are nearly bare, with a few articles of clothing on a rack. And there were still snack items available.

“We still have rental textbooks out so they wanted to stay open until the end of the semester so students can bring those back, and, of course liquidate everything we can out of here,” Aldridge said. Any leftover stock will be moved to the café.

“We will still have some clothing options that will go over there starting next semester,” he said.

The student employees will be re-assigned to the Café.

There will be a fall textbook buy back in late December or early January.