Borders Shutdown: Coming to a Store Near You

[beamjockey]

Publishers Weekly reports that Borders will close 200 bookstores and offers
a list of the stores that will be closing (PDF of a somewhat fuzzy fax).

The Chicago Tribune reports on stores near me:

According to the Borders Web site, the bookseller has about 30 stores in Chicago and its suburbs, including a few Indiana locations.

In Chicago, five of eight stores will close, including the one at North Avenue and Halsted Street, as well as those in Lincoln Park, Uptown, Lincoln Village and Beverly. The remaining stores in the city are in the Loop and Hyde Park, and a Waldenbooks in Citicorp Center.

Borders stores in Evanston, Mount Prospect, Deerfield, Bolingbrook, St. Charles, Crystal Lake, McHenry, DeKalb and Matteson are also slated for closure. Outside of Illinois, locations in Merrillville, Ind., and Fox Point, Wis., will be closing.

Though it makes me feel uncomfortably like a vulture, I can't help wondering about opportunities to pick up some bargains soon on books and other merchandise.

Or would it make more sense for Borders to return every book in 200 stores to its publisher, rather than retailing it at a steep discount?

Comments

[ericcoleman]

It looks like Ames and Des Moines are not on the list, unless I missed them

[tandw.livejournal.com]

It looks like the Naperville store and the one in Geneva will survive for now--seems kind of odd that they had one in Geneva and one in St Charles, but there it is.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

would it make more sense for Borders to return every book in 200 stores to its publisher, rather than retailing it at a steep discount?

I suspect they'll strip-and-pulp the magazines and paperbacks, sending the covers back for reimbursement... and then try to liquidate the hardcovers either themselves or throguh a liquidators. But I am not a professional in the publishing industry, and that's just a guess.

-- Steve did get a chuckle recently upon seeing refurbished iPads at the local liquidation store. Sic transit gloria mundi.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Argh...

or throguh a liquidators or through liquidators

-- Steve feels like he's taken a fistful of stupid pills today.

[whl.livejournal.com]

The free standing one in Mt. Prospect (where I waited for the midnight release of two Harry Potter books, and was able to walk to back then in good weather) is going.

Deerfield, which I went to at times before the Randhurst store opened, is going.

The Oakbrook store, across the street from the first location Borders had in Illinois (and one of the first expansion stores), is not listed. It seems to me there were a couple of years where I'd drive down to that one from time to time, before the one in Schaumburg opened. I think the one in Schaumburg is also not listed as getting cut.

The closest to where I live now, a short bus ride, or a medium walk, is going. I guess Oak Park would be the next closest.

Still, I mean, isn't it our fault in some measure? I don't browse the store the way I did even when I was in northern Mississippi and the closest was in Germantown, TN (which seems to have survived), 90 miles away.

Amazon has conquered; maybe I don't mind that they will be paying Apple more money on some eBooks sales, after all.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I'm still buying most of my sf and fantasy from the two local specialty stores (both run by long-time fans), but I can't help noticing that it's costing me money (and I'm not counting the $10 I spent on a used book-club hardcover Heinlein 4-novel omnibus in that regard).

Nearly everything else comes from Amazon. Several photography sites I frequent get a lot of their funding from affiliate fees, including Amazon, so I sometimes even feel virtuous when doing so.

In the interests of maintaining some diversity in the ecosystem, who else has good online book ordering? powells.com, presumably. Anybody else?

[sethb.livejournal.com]

buy.com has better prices than Amazon, albeit less selection.

When the Borders near me died a year or two back, it went out with a sale, not too drastic.

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

Half Price Books is fun to browse: http://www.hpbmarketplace.com/

[tlunquist.livejournal.com]

I have had good experiences ordering from Tattered Cover in Denver, and it is still one of the best, if not the best, brick and mortar bookstore left in the country.

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

1) Crown kills Kroch's & Brentano's
2) Borders kills Crown
3) Amazon kills Borders
4) Apple sets out to kill Amazon

Meanwhile, people buy Color Nooks from B&N and root them to install the Kindle app. I await further developments. When y'all come to the Oak Park Borders, give me a call; I can always use a cafe mocha and then I'll take you to the independent bookstores that are still holding on.

[whl.livejournal.com]

Ah; yes, there would be some in Oak Park, wouldn't there. Most of the ones I used to frequent in the northwest suburbs are history, back to the Book Nook in Mt. Prospect, where I bought my copies of the Bono & Gatland books.

I wonder, in fact, if this can't be used to bring back a few local bookstores.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

I consider Crown's death to be suicide, myself.

Borders isn't dead yet, but if it does go it also will be partially self-inflicted (handing over its on-line business to Amazon at the beginning was just bizarre).

I liked (and hope to still like) Borders a lot; it was the only chain bookstore I used that wasn't an independent. Too bad both of the stores I went to are on the closing list.

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

Borders was a suicide, too. It started killing itself in the late '90s.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, Borders actually was also an independent way back when. When we lived in Michigan in the mid-1970s Borders was a big store on the main street in Ann Arbor, and that was all. (For that matter, I think Barnes & Noble was only a store or two in New York at the time.)

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

And in East Lansing there sprung up an imitator, Jocundry's.

A bookstore with comfy chairs where you could actually sit and read was an innovation back then,


Columbus is losing both its Borders. We've done our part to prevent this: we get our Asimov's, Analog and F & SF there instead of crumpled up in out post office box, and our classical guitar society meets every month in the café (competing for space with the Scrabble club).

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

I can easily imagine several ways to compete in era of electronic books, using physical bookstores. I'm told that the publishers of electronic books simply won't work with independents, and I wonder why — it can't possibly be healthy for their own ecosystem.

[carbonel]

The one right near me is on the hit list, which is slightly disappointing, but I certainly haven't done my bit to keep it alive. I can't remember what I've bought there other than gift cards over the last couple of years.

[lonotter.livejournal.com]

I gave up on the Schaumburg Border's a year or more ago, the selection had gone waaaayyy downhill, in my opinion. Given that, I don't have much interest in viewing he sad remains at store-closing sales, except perhaps out of a morbid sene of curiosity.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Having lived in the Ann Arbor area since 1978, I still think of Borders as my cool local bookstore I remember back then their big innovation was that they had slipped computer punched cards into every copy of every book, which they extracted when they sold the book. Periodically they'd run the cards through their card reader, so the computer could tell them what to order. That was their high-tech secret to success. The low tech secret was that it was staffed by bibliophiles.

And I'm losing my local branch on Washtenaw, but the store downtown isn't on the list--not quite the first location, as they moved a block or two several years ago, but I assume the downtown store is location No. 1.

I'd hate to see that store go.

[isherempress.livejournal.com]

Peter is right -- it was Border's BIS (Book Inventory System) that helped it succeed in the early days, and several other Midwestern chains bought the system from them, including John Rollins in Kalamazoo (which is where I was working when I met Tullio). Schuler Books in Grand Rapids still uses the system, and is still holding on, but Rollins closed a few years ago.

It wasn't just Amazon or just eBooks that killed the indie bookstore. It was also the onslaught of cable TV, fewer people reading books, fewer editors at the publishing houses selecting good books to be published, and the cost of books (which went up much higher & faster than the cost of living). My old friend and former boss Jim Huang has written extensively on this.

What's wrong with being a vulture? Carrion must be eaten or it will rot & stink.

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

I still argue it was poor management and ever-changing management. I worked just as a clerk for it when it was at its peak in the mid-90s. Even though I wasn't making much money (it was an emergency job), I liked the atmosphere, my co-workers and the management. I worked there full-time for just over a year. When I went back as a part-timer a few years later, it was a massive mess and I couldn't wait to get out.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

The Ferrett who worked at Borders for a decade aroudn the 90's blames the K-Mart buy out which imposed K-Mart's management style on Borders just before K-Mart itself went out of business.

[e-m-b.livejournal.com]

About 20 years ago, I began hearing about the dry rot within American book publishing, summed up this way: Books are no longer edited, they're acquired. When Bertelsmann took over Doubleday etc. several years ago, it told me that serious American money had lost interest in publishing, yawning as serious German money moved in. Brick-&-mortar retail is now reflecting this.

[whl.livejournal.com]

Weird punchcards, though; IBM Series/3 96 column cards; more like three lengths of 6 channel paper tape on one card than anything else.

[kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com]

Yes on bargains: when a Borders in San Francisco closed late last year they had 50% off+ on a decent selection the day I walked by. I hadn't planned for it --taken the train with a full backpack-- so I could only hunt, not gather.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Always carry an empty tote bag folded in your backpack.

[tlunquist.livejournal.com]

Or spend for one of theirs -- I suspect that a Borders tote bag can be had for a song at this point.

[kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com]

I could have, but I was also near my limit for carrying weight. It worked out all for the best: by being focused I was also fast (rare words for me in a bookstore), allowing me to get to an event on time, which in the end led to the possibility and the reality of even more books.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Good news: One of the Louisville stores that is closing is the downtown store, which I rarely visit.

Less than good news: I do visit the other one that is on the closing list, although not as much as the other two that are not on the list.

Better news: The two Louisville stores that are safe are the ones closest to where I live.

Somewhat amusing news: The two Louisville stores that are on the list are the ones that opened as Borders stores, when Borders entered the Louisville market several years ago. The stores that are safe have been around for over 20 years, and became Borders stores when borders bought out Hawley-Cooke as they were entering the Louisville market.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

I am losing the Borders closest to me and the one that was easiest to visit on the way to ConClave. Oddly the little one in Beverly Hills Township I first went to is not on the list.

[tlunquist.livejournal.com]

The ones in our market are so underwhelming, we hardly ever visit them anyway. When I go to a brick-and-mortar bookstore, I go to Barnes & Noble -- it's what we have in this market that doesn't unredeemably suck, and I have a soft spot in my head for them as an ex-employee.

The locations aren't particularly convenient for me, either. I suspect I'll discover which ones are closing by seeing them closed next time I'm in one of those neighborhoods for some other reason.

Orlando's a bit of a wasteland for bookstores, best as I've been able to figure out so far. If there are good indies, I don't know about them. The one in downtown DeLand is OK, but small; it's unlikely to have whatever I'm actively hunting for, and it's been a long time since I've had the fiscal courage to browse at a bookstore.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Or would it make more sense for Borders to return every book in 200 stores to its publisher, rather than retailing it at a steep discount?

If the books can be considered a loan, I don't think they'd be allowed to do this (it would be prefering some unsecured creditors over others).

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I would think it would make more sense to transfer merchandise to store that will be remaining open.