History

Since 1927
Although originally named “College Bookstore Association Western State District,” The Western College Bookstore Association came into existence on March 11, 1927. Its parent organization, College Bookstore Association organized in 1925, later became the National Association of College Stores (NACS).

It was in 1935 that the original Western State District name was abandoned in favor of Western College Bookstores Association (WCBA). It was not, however, until after World War II, that the WCBA broke away from NACS and assumed its own unique identity.

Charter members of the Western States District came from only three states: California, Oregon, and Washington. The charter membership consisted only to serve college bookstores represented by their managers. These stores were located on campuses at universities now known as Stanford, University of Southern California, University of Oregon, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Los Angeles, University of Washington and Washington State University.

At the time of its inception, the founders seemed most interested in a forum where there could be an exchange of ideas, mutually beneficial discussions of common problems and methods to improve operations and controls. Group buying, something now synonymous with the WCBA, was started three years after the Association was founded. After group buying was initiated and until 1953, the entire group acted as buying committee.

In 1953, this practice of group buying was abandoned in favor of a smaller committee. For years, the committee met with vendors during the annual meeting to decide which vendors would be selected. This practice also fell by the wayside and decisions were made prior to the annual meeting.

By 1950, the membership expanded from the original seven to thirty-two schools. In 1930, two classes of membership had been established, regular and associate. While similar in many respects to a regular member, an associate represented a smaller store and had no voting rights. This dual membership was abolished in 1950.

In 1953, provision was made to accept qualified bookstore members from Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Nevada. Three decades later, British Columbia in Canada, Colorado, Hawaii, New Mexico and Wyoming were included and qualified bookstores were invited to become members.

In 1988 it was determined that the key to the future success of the WCBA was improvement of the buying programs. To achieve this goal, a buying director was hired and rules for mandatory participation in the buying program were established.

A long heritage of leadership and commitment guided the WCBA toward future goals of improved programs and benefits for members. In 2000, recognizing the need to support institutional stores across the nation, member stores voted to extend the borders of the association to include all states and Canada. The name changed to Independent College Bookstore Association (ICBA).