Long’s and the Ohio State bookstores are now both under new management, in fact, the same management. Effective as of Tuesday, the New York-based Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, Inc. is at the helm of both operations. Officials from OSU, Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, Long’s and Campus Partners made the formal announcement at a news conference held Thursday morning.The news of a licensing and leasing agreement with the college book division of Barnes & Noble came on the heels of Campus Partners announcement that they are the new owners of Long’s College Bookstores. After months of negotiations Campus Partners and Long’s reached a purchase agreement that also took effect Tuesday, according to Tom Moloney, co-executor of the Long estate. The final price has not yet been determined, due to inventory adjustments, but will be in the neighborhood of $7 million.”We are extremely respectful of the Long’s legacy and we intend to carry that legacy forward,” said Terry Foegler, president of Campus Partners. Speaking about the decision to lease the Long’s Bookstore business to industry giant Barnes & Noble, Foegler said “with the overall quality of service and understanding of the university mission, it became clear that Barnes & Noble College Bookstores was absolutely in the best position to provide and continue the high level of service of these two bookstores.”Virginia M. Trethewey, executive assistant to the president and general counsel at OSU, made some statements about what led OSU to lease the university-owned bookstores, in Central Classrooms and on 11th Avenue, to look for an outside company to run the bookstores.”We began looking around and realized that the model that had developed around the country was not the model we were operating under but rather one of looking to the experts. So, about a year ago, we began the process of looking to who the expert college bookstore operators were and who might do a good job running a bookstore for the Ohio State University,” Trethewey said at the press conference. “We ultimately arrived at Barnes & Noble College Book Company as being the leader and the one that best fit the image and ideals of what we wanted to continue to offer and improve upon at the university.”According to Paul Maloney, director of stores for Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, customers will not even notice the change, at least not at first. He added, jokingly, that he thought he’d be “run out of town if he tried to change that sign out in front.” But with a network of 350 college bookstores nationwide, Maloney said students would benefit from higher buyback prices and a larger selection of used textbooks on the shelf.