RIP Borders

Of all the commentary on yesterday's announcement that Borders would be liquidated, its stores closed starting this Friday and its 10,700 employees let go -- more dead than the last death -- this one really hit home for me.

Granted, as an author Lancaster is somewhat biased. But so are we all reading this. Borders wasn't the best bookstore, but in a lot of places, it was the only bookstore... and now there will be none there. Where people once had the pick of thousands of titles, they will now have to be content with two rows of shelves at Target, or that one at the pharmacy (if the pharmacy even has one). My A.V. Club colleague Keith Phipps put it like this: "Wasn’t it kind of nice that, for a blip in time of about 15 years, stores for book lovers competed for space shoulder-to-shoulder with housewares stores and chain restaurants? The next generation of readers aren’t going to be stumbling into a place that overwhelms them with the sheer volume of books out there to be discovered." What you aren't exposed to, what you can't see, you can't read.

So today I ordered my book club book from the Strand instead of buying it on Kindle (by price they were almost the same anyway) -- and when I go to pick it up I will probably be tempted by something else in there, and buy another book I don't need, but at least I did that. I should be buying local more often anyway, and... I don't want to know that I didn't at least do a little. (And yeah, I realize the ironic juxtaposition between this post and news, and yesterday's celebratory note on Greenlight, an indie I love and do support.) 

People Who Have Never Been To Borders Write Borders Revenue Plan

Sometimes Gawker just gets it straight on. (The cafes must be pretty profitable already as stand-alone entities, right? I mean, that is not a $4.50 slice of cake, let's not kid ourselves.) Thanks to DRA for sending this to me.

Goodbye (But Why?) To Waldenbooks

Borders announced last week it would close some 200 of its mall stores in January, many of them under the pleasantly literary Waldenbooks sign -- an un-merry Christmas for the 1500 people who will lose their jobs as a result.

It's just another sign of the chain's current troubles, but I'm curious as to the reasoning behind amputating the smaller stores rather than going after some of the less profitable big-box locations (which have higher rents and are more expensive to keep running). My theories, in no particular order:

• The smaller stores overall weren't as profitable because by necessity they had a smaller selection (modified Long Tail theory).
• Smaller stores don't offer the browsing experience consumers prefer, being lacking in places to read. Room to linger, including to not purchase anything, has become part of the bookstore visiting experience in the past decade to the extent that customers feel uncomfortable without it.
• Malls have been hit badly in the current economic climate as cash-strapped Americans opt out of a destination that "has never trafficked in essentials" and whose goal is to make you spend money.
• Closing the bigger stores and stores that carry the Borders branding (as opposed to Waldenbooks) has a disproportionate effect on the company's image.
  

What do you think?