Frequently Asked Questions

Once your Payment Plan is active through the college, you will be able to charge items to your account. Textbooks, course materials, electronics and any additional merchandise qualify up to certain limits.

When books or supplies are charged to a payment plan, the amount charged increases your balance owed to the college, and is due according to the agreement made with the college. Bookstore employees do not have access to your plan's payback agreement. For questions related to payment and financial aid, please make inquiries with Student Account Services.

Textbooks and course materials required or optional for your classes listed in your booklist can be charged to your payment plan. Additionally, you may charge up to $200 of school supplies or general merchandise such as clothing, electronics, and school spirit items to your My Payment Plan. Laptops are now considered a required item and are subject to the $600 required materials limit.

Each semester, there are specific periods where your Payment Plan is available for charging. These dates change each semester and depend on many unique factors. We post the dates soon after the college finalizes them.

OTC provides FREE access to the full Office 365 suite just for being a student! Please follow these directions to install Office 365 on your PC or Mac.

At this time the Bookstore is unable to provide the Adobe Suite at academic pricing. Adobe sells Creative Cloud directly to students here.

So long as you have not purchased a laptop in the last 365 days, you may put a laptop on your Payment Plan. The laptop and its taxes are subject to the $600 required material limit set by the Finance office at OTC. If the total exceeds that limit, your laptop may be subject to cancellation. Additional laptop restrictions are listed on their respective product page, i.e. class requirements.

Please watch our tutorial video.

Yes. Our primary mission is to provide affordable materials for students. We try to offer both new and used editions of books where available. We BuyBack as many books as possible from our students through the bookstore and online to replenish our used stock.

There are times when new is the only option. This occurs when the book is new to OTC, meaning we have never carried this book before, or when a new edition is released to the market and adopted by your instructor. This also occur when the book is a custom edition or is packaged in such a way that we cannot source all the materials used, such as with one-time use access codes or consumable lab notebooks.

We buy books at the bookstore almost every day of the semester. You do not have to be a student to sell your book back to us. We can also buy books no matter where you bought them or where you used them. For buyback, we ask that you bring your SmartCard or State ID.
BuyBack page

Please see upcoming dates posted here.

The value of your book is determined by the national market. The price offered is based on what other retailers are paying for the book, as well as our need for the book. For this reason, we cannot offer buyback quotes by phone. You must bring them to the store or submit a quote online, so we can verify book condition and the current asking price at that time.

If both the new and used conditions of a book shows an out of stock message, please inquire the back-order status via email: bookstore@otc.edu

Uniforms are considered a required item and can be charged to your Payment Plan.

You will be notified for pick-up through your OTC email address.

Many factors affect the length of time before your uniform is ready. In most cases, uniforms are available for pick up within three weeks of order placement. This time accounts for special shipment arrivals from vendors and time required for embroidery.

All uniform orders must be placed through Mike Watts in Springfield. The bookstore provides samples of all sizes and styles available for your program for fitting purposes; it is highly recommended that you try on your uniform prior to ordering. No uniforms are stocked on campus. All uniforms are custom ordered and may not be returned or refunded. Payment is requested at the time of order. Please confirm with your instructor and booklist that a uniform is required for your course.

If you are a student at any campus within the OTC college system, you are required to have an OTC SmartCard. The card serves as your official student ID. It will display your student ID number and photo on it. Certain locations on campus may ask you to present this card for service, such as at the cashier's office, campus library, student services, or Bookstore.

You can register for your SmartCard at the Information Technology Service Center in the Information Commons Atrium. Other campuses can retrieve a SmartCard at Student Services. Centers get SmartCards at the Main Office. You will be required to present a driver's license or other form of identification when you register so that the staff can verify that your identification matches the information logged in the college's student database.

For more information:

Please visit the OTC SmartCard page, or contact Student Account Services.

In almost every case, an order that is still being processed can be changed by responding to the order confirmation email you received shortly after placing your order. These changes can be item additions or removals, shipping method changes, and more.

If you do not receive emails from the bookstore pertaining to your orders, be sure to check you spam/junk mailbox and make sure your email is correct in the account manager.

Not at this time. Please select UPS Ground shipping at checkout to if you are unable to visit Springfield. Before each semester, your local campus may have promotional codes from the bookstore for free shipping.

We will ship you the correct book. Please reach out to us detailing the errors made on your order. We will electronically send you a UPS return shipping label. We will ship you the correct book the same day, if stock permits.

Please allow at least 1-2 business days for our staff to pull, process, and ship your order. This information is available on the confirmation email you received after we received your order. Outside of our rush period, First-in-Line orders are usually fulfilled the same day (for orders before 2pm CST), if stock permits.

A limitation to the current inventory management system we use forces all textbook or required supply items to be titled in full UPPERCASE. We do not have this limitation for general merchandise and other items without an ISBN.

We promise we're not screaming at you! We hope to change to title-case exclusively in the future.

The most up-to-date information regarding regalia is posted here, when available. Students can pick up graduation regalia, free of charge, so long as their intent to graduate paperwork has been filed. Graduation announcements can be ordered through the OTC Print Shop. Accessories, and souvenirs will also be available for purchase at the OTC Bookstore during the Spring semester before commencement.

Note: The regalia page is disabled shortly after commencement until shortly after the next spring semester. If you still have questions, contact us.