This petition is prompted by the recent announcement that Vic Books, on the Kelburn Campus of Victoria University of Wellington, is to close. We, the undersigned University staff members, are deeply concerned by this announcement. Books and bookshops are still essential to universities, and Vic Books is an integral part of the Kelburn campus. It provides a space where staff and students from all parts of the University can come together, in a stimulating academic environment, that physically embodies the intellectual culture of the university. Given the University’s current drive to bring people back to campus, it is more important than ever to retain a thriving bookshop on site. Losing a bookshop would be very detrimental to this drive, and create a negative feedback loop where more staff choose to work remotely.

• We call on the University to ensure that the space currently occupied by Vic Books continues to be occupied by an academic bookshop, so that this vital function can continue. We ask for the University to consider a broad range of options for ownership and management of a Kelburn bookshop, including the status quo, and we ask that University staff and students are properly represented in discussing these options. 
• We understand the University is in a difficult financial situation, and we appreciate the difficulties faced by bookshops, in the face of the growing e-book sector. To aid the university in making a decision, we each undertake to increase our personal spending on books in an academic bookstore situated in the Kelburn campus, and to make more use of the cafe.