Internet outage temporarily shut down campus bookstore

An internet outage Tuesday afternoon lasted less than an hour but managed to throw Pitt’s bookstore into momentary disarray.

Around 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Pitt’s Computing Services and Systems Development department said an electrical issue caused the wired and wireless network service in several buildings, including the University Store on Fifth, to shut down for about 45 minutes.

The outage temporarily froze the computers and cash registers at the bookstore, preventing the completion of purchases, according to store manager Debra Fyock. CSSD resolved the issue around 1:48 p.m.

Fyock said students and other customers could not be served during the outage. The book store offered to reserve books for students who were trying to buy them in that time.

“Everything was down,” Fyock said, including other university services offered at the store like printing.

The outage also caused the William Pitt Union, Sutherland Hall, all three Litchfield Towers, David Lawrence Hall, Bruce Hall and Hillman Library to lose internet access.

First year Robert Campion, who was at the store Tuesday evening, said he had to leave and return three separate times during the day to buy his textbooks. He was in line when the service went down, so the store held his books for him to return after a class.

With or without internet, the lines at the bookstore during syllabus week frequently snake around the front of the store. Jared Rogan, a first year, was impressed that it moved “faster than [he] thought” it would.

“The wait is not as bad as the cost of the book,” Rogan said.