A couple of weeks ago the San Francisco Retail Diversity Study was released. The goal was "to provide consumers and policy makers with an understanding of the economic benefits of redirecting spending from chains to independents."The study, sponsored in part by the American Booksellers Association (ABA), concluded that " independent retailers as a whole -- bring far more economic value to their communities than do chain stores."This is far from rocket science. Owners of independent businesses tend to live in or around the communities in which their business operates while the corporate chain store tends to feed the minimum wage...
A Full Service Bookshop
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...
Hovering Over New Arrivals
University of Washington Bookstore employee "preparing for the 2008 Shelving Olympics."Via Shelf Life
Signs of Hope For the Book and the Trade
Word comes via Scott Brown at Fine Books blog that the hole left in the antiquarian book world by the announced closure of Heritage Book Shop will be partially filled by "LA businessman, philanthropist, and bibliophile" Michael Sharpe. The new venture Michael Sharpe Rare and Antiquarian Books will employ former Heritage staffers (the story was leaked to Brown by one of the former Heritage employees who will be involved in this new entity) and carry a $10 million inventory. The shop will be open to the public and will reside in an historic Craftsman home.The inventory will be consist largely...
Another Helen Hanff Convert
“I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here….”So begins Hanff's now legendary correspondence with the staff of a small London bookshop called Marks & Co. The BBC made it into a television play in 1975, Hollywood covered it in 1975 & 1987 with Anne Brancroft playing Hanff and Anthony Hopkins and Judy Dench playing the Noel's.Leigh Buchanan has a piece on Jewcy titled " Good Book Hunting: The writer who taught me about obscure objects of desire". It is her homage to Helen Hanff and...