On musing over closing of bookstores...

I was feeling a little sad when I read the article of the closing of another bookstore, this time in a big city in Texas, leaving the city without a bookstore.

Our neighbor is pretty well-to-do, with alot of well-endowed universities, hospitals, corporates, and research institutes in the vicinity. About 1.5 years ago, Barnes & Nobles closed its store in the main street. We still have another much bigger Barnes & Nobles store close-by, but not without walking distance.

My kids love going to that B&N store. We spent alot of afternoons there. As the neighborhood is well-educated and very family-friendly, alot of families with young children went there too. From the look of it, that store was making money. (It's a very busy store.) We often bought books and accessories there too. But while it baffles me, as to why B&N closed this particular store, I'm not surprised by the larger trend of moving the book-selling business online. Afterall, there's alot of upkeep and overhead in maintaining a physical store.

Coming back to that article, when alot of the local folks interviewed expressed their dismay that maybe the store closing is reflecting some covert discrimination that the town has alot of immigrants and what-not. Looking at what B&N did to the store in our neighborhood, I don't think it's that plain-and-simple (with decisions solely based on audience mix). If B&N has to compete with Amazon.com, it has to reduce its overhead. Closing stores, even profitable ones, is perhaps the lowest hanging fruit.

These days, we use the local public library mostly. It's a wonderful place, with lots of books too (though not for sale and maybe not the latest first-prints), and very family-friendly too. After we read a book, and we like it, I would go online and buy it. From time to time, I make donations to the public library too, so that they have fundings to buy new books. That's probably one way to support the book-publishing business which, like the newspaper business, has its whole business model threatened by the parallel universe online.

In a way, it's a better way to me too, since we can save on the papers and printing (as we don't have to have everyone owning their own copy of a book). Perhaps those interviewed in the article who lament not having a bookstore, should save their energy to petition for the existence of a bookstore, and show their support to their local public library instead.