Happy Anniversary Billy Bookcase. OK, Maybe Not so Happy

In 1979 Ikea introduced the Billy bookcase. In 2009, there are over 40 million Billy bookcases sprinkled throughout the world. It is the best selling bookcase in the history of mankind. They’re still producing over 3 million a year. Bloomberg has even begun an index tracking the cost of Ikea’s standard Billy bookshelf in 38 countries (in case you’re wondering, it is currently cheapest in the United Arab Emirates and the most expensive in Israel.)

In the UK, to celebrate Billy’s 30th anniversary Ikea released some rather cool limited edition bookcases and other goodies that cater to the younger crowd.

BBC News Magazine has a terrific story emanating from the occasion; What Does Your Bookcase say about you, which features a 2 minute video, that begs to be longer, of people talking about bookshelves.

Unfortunately, Ikea in the US doesn’t seem so festive. While the UK site is all celebratory, it was hard to find any mention on the US site.

Is it because we call them bookshelves and not bookcases?

Happy Anniversary Billy. But wait!

Here’s a story on the closing of a “Billy” factory in the East German town of Saxony-Anhalt that Ikea announced last week. The factory had been producing the bookcases since 1982. Now 178 people are out of a job and the health of the whole community is in jeopardy for the”factory had become a multi-generational part of town life.”

The move is part of the current trend of “transferring Ikea’s production to low-wage countries like Poland and China.”

So much for anniversaries. Maybe it’s not so bad that we’re not celebrating Billy.