Not A Good Day For Bookselling....

Harry W Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee will close it was announced today. This is terrible news for the community of bookselling, the communities in the Milwaukee area the stores served and for the community in general.

Others will discuss the impact this will have on the Independent Bookselling world in a way far more eloquent than me, but I'll leave you with a overly simplistic thought - I was at the mall with the Editor-in-Chief yesterday looking to spend a gift card and I tuned to her and asked her how many of these chains will be out of business or in Chapter 11 by the end of this year. To take that a step further, how many people will care when they do close? Was there an outpouring from communities across the country when Linen's N Things closed? What about Circuit City? Were little league teams wondering who will buy there jersey's this year or schools wondering who will support them with fundraising voucher sales?

Look, I am not about the entitlement of independents and that they deserve our patronage for anything other then offering service, product, value and selection, but there is something more and it is community.......

Value a local store? I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. FREAKIN SHOP THERE THEN!

Here's a quote far more elegant than anything I would concoct from the late David Schwartz (thanks to Village Books Blog for posting it):

"Bookselling was and is for me a cultural and political expression, an expression of progressive change, of challenge to oppressive authority, of a search for a community of values which can act as an underpinning of a better world. The true profit in bookselling is the social profit; the bottom line, the measure of the impact of the bookshop on the community."

-L