Anonymous Patron writes “Another one on the Indys closing: ContraCostaTimes.com: Ross and many other independent booksellers in the Bay Area share a common lament over a grim or nonexistent future for some of the most cherished havens for book lovers and strongest venues for visiting authors.
Many cite Amazon.com and the proliferation of big chain bookstores. But there are other factors, they say, that have piled straw on the backs of businesses that face thin profit margins and stiff competition from discounters. They range from the dot-com blowup to bad city planning, to a societal turn toward laptop literacy.”
a note to ALA
And especially Mark Rosenzweig:
Please stay out of this. Please. Pretty please.
Buggy whips
Too bad but Amazon and other online new/used books sellers can do the job and customers in Pendleton, Oregon can get the books as well as customers in Bartow, Florida.
I don’t buy the idea that independent bookstores are the only ones carrying certain titles, for heaven’s sake the article states that a Safeway is carrying Chomsky (Safeway is a grocery store).
Re:a note to ALA
The ACLU will probably ask ALA to get involved. There’s a lot of mutual back-scratching on issues like this.
Re:Buggy whips
I recently tried to order a book online and off from our big box bookstore and because it was not in their database, it didn’t exist for them. I said “I have the ISBN, the author, the publisher, the title!” Didn’t matter. So yes, I went to one of our independent bookstores where they ordered it for me immediately.