While the traditional bookstore model continues its death spiral I trust there is a core group of booksellers out there who are actively searching for the right combination to ensure both the survival and the success of “the bookshop.”
Simply trying to maintain the status quo is a failing proposition (feel free to substitute newspaper book review sections for traditional book store model, they are interchangeable).
The independent bookstore has put up one of the better fights to date of any independent business in our corporate culture but it cannot ultimately win the battle without significant revision. We might have lost half the bookstores in the last 10 years but that is a lot less then our fellow travelers who owned hardware or drugstores. How many of them are left? I have addressed this challenge previously and continue to ponder the possibilities since I for one can’t imagine living in a society void of independent businesses.
This brings me to our friends at the Oxford Bookshop.
Since 1920 the Oxford Bookstore has played a major role in the intellectual life of Calcutta and all of Eastern India.
The store offers:
“6000 square feet of multilevel interactive space”
India’s first Alternative Art Gallery
Cyber Surf- a internet component that allows customers to use the stores computers for their internet needs. If help is needed the Cyber Surf attendant is at your service
Cha Bar for your tea needs
The reading room “quasi-library like atmosphere” “for those who still cherish the make and feel of paper and bind.”
Framing services
Event Space
and now for the icing:
Their website boasts these three sections:
1. Dharma Karma – which includes Soul Food-your guide to better living through the latest mantras. Karma Quirks- “sometimes we are spellbound in an odd way because of the strangeness of what happened to us” Spook Chat and Kama Sutra.
2. Kundali -which includes info on horoscopes, tarot, Feng Shui, and Vaastu
and my favorite
3. Agony Masi – an online therapist who through Agony Mail “will help to find the answers to all your problems” and with Straight Talk will “resolve all your problems on sex life, relationships, careers, family or any other difficulty you might be going through”
How could a bookshop with such robust offerings fail?
Another issue in Indian culture is piracy. The estimated loss to the book industry from Indian piracy last year $36.5 million. The Oxford Bookstore came up with this poster to raise awareness.
The tagline is “Every time you buy a pirated book you disrespect its author” and the image speaks for itself. I am not sure this will raise as much awareness as it will ire.
Thanks to booktwo.org for the piracy lead