Engineering Stores
The Engineering Stores, known to students as Stores, located in the basement of the Sanford Fleming Building is Skule™'s very own book and clothing store. Although it carries exclusively first year textbooks, Stores earns the majority of its revenue from textbook sales at the beginning of each semester. Starting in the 2010-2011 Skule™ year, first year students were able to pre-order textbooks from the stores.skule.ca Engineering Stores website.
In addition to selling these books to students, Stores also sells important Skule™ merchandise such as sweatpants, Cannon polos, t-shirts, gym shorts, boxers, hooded sweatshirts, backpacks, patches, and many more items all adorned with symbols of Skule™ pride. Still, the most popular clothing items that Stores sells throughout the year are coveralls and leather jackets.
Leather jackets are usually ordered twice during the year, once in the fall semester and once in the winter semester. Out of tradition, students do not purchase their leather jacket until the beginning of their second year, as many students may change disciplines, or even faculties, after first year. Students generally adorn their jackets with their year and discipline, a common phrase such as 'SKULE', 'SPS', or 'ERTW', and patches of the various organizations which they are involved in. Starting in the 2008-2009 year, 'E4TW' (Engineers For the World) began to appear on leather jackets, as students preferred to focus on the responsibilities engineers have to the world (also, it is a slogan on the Engineering Science banner outside the Bahen Center).
Coveralls are typically purchased by students in March or April of the first year. Coveralls provide an excellent way for Skule™ students to show their Skule™ spirit while giving them an item of clothing to get dirty in during practical activities. Coverall decorations can vary greatly from student to student, from the simple addition of sewn patches to an elaborate circuit layout or other designs cut out of fabric and sewn on.
History
From the early days of the Engineering Society, technical papers outlining novel research performed at SPS were presented at the academic session of Society's fortnightly meetings. Copies of the papers were exchanged with other technical societies and university libraries, providing content for an Engineering Society Library, which formed the only library SPS had for many years.
The origins of the Engineering Stores (initially referred to as "The Supplies Department") are closely associated with the Society's early publishing ventures. In its earliest manifestation, Stores was "a small room where all books and papers, the property of the Society, were kept". By 1908, a permanent secretary was designated to buy and sell goods through the Supplies Department. This operation was cleaved from the library in time, moved to Room 19 of the SPS building and renamed Engineering Stores.
Written by Nicole Cyhelka, Archivist 1T1-1T2 for the "Ye Olde Skule Story Book"