When Barnes & Noble decided to close their Chelsea store in New York City many thought that the small rare- and out-of-print-book department that was housed at that location for the last 8 years would disappear too.
Instead the company decided to not only relocate the department to a larger store on Broadway and 66th Street but is also “spending a significant sum on the department, installing custom display cases with locked glass doors” and moving it to a more prominent location on the second floor of the store.
Although they are claiming that there are no plans to “replicate the effort in other stores” and are calling it the pet project of Karen Catalanotti, who set up the department in the Chelsea store, there exists a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on this growing market.
One can imagine in the not to distant future a Barnes & Noble Rare Book command center which would house seasoned booksellers and an extensive reference library and uses the latest technology to communicate with their various stores and booksellers on the front lines.
Picture this: Someone walks into a Barnes & Noble in Des Moines, Iowa with a box of books for sale. The trained used bookseller on staff deals with the general out of print material using a comprehensive internal database and if there is an item that might warrant further work they simply image or video it and send it off to the command center. A short time later the command center responds with either further bibliographic questions or a fair offer price.
For one, the profit margins are significantly higher than new books but more importantly it bolsters the role of the bookstore in the community and brings the company closer to being the full service bookstore they aspire to.
The future is near!
Celia McGee’s piece, Rare Indeed: A Chain Committed to Selling Out-of-Print Books, in the New York Times