Years ago there was a movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan called “You Got Mail”. It was about two people that sparked up an online romance, got to know the real personalities of each other, never suspecting they would be rivals in the book business until mid-way thru the film. It was about a big discount bookstore, Fox Books, which was cornering the market and putting the smaller bookstores out of business like Meg Ryan’s character that owned “Just around the Corner”.
The point is that big business was taking over and small neighborhood stores would collapse and closed under the pressure of competing with the bigger, better deal discount store.
Now fiction takes on the face of reality. Why? The other day I read an article about Border Books and Barnes & Noble, both are bookstore giants or so we thought. With the ever growing world of technology the well known book stores where you can roam and get lost in and side tracked by other titles are nearing a possible end. In an article that was on msnbc.msn.com tells us how Barnes & Noble Inc. has put itself up for sale and Borders Group Inc. is looking at filing Chapter 11. With the growing popularity of the Kindle or other various e-books the bookstores are a dying breed.
This will have an effect on all of us on so many different levels, from easy access to actual books to the loss of jobs for many. Where has this society gone? We used to be a people that worked hard to go out and buy books that we would turn the pages as we read to our children, we would barrow a book from our cousin and forget to give it back because we wanted to read it again.
I never was a big reader, I rather see the movie, but I also know that that is not possible all the time and now being a dad to two young girls, sitting down and reading to them about princesses and Dr. Seuss books are irreplaceable moments. I know that paperback books will never totally disappear and that my kids will still receive books as gifts but the thought of stores like Borders or Barnes & Noble leaving us is a bad spot. The advantages are great with these e-books, you save on space in your home, you can bring multiple books with you when you travel which in turn saves space but what ever happened to folding the corner of the last page you were on?
Physical books are a shrinking market and e-books are on the rise. Borders will continue to look for lenders or ultimately file Chapter 11, Barnes & Noble will look for a new owner and maybe try to reinvent it’s self. But for now they both hang in the balance.
As for me, I have plenty of books too read to my two young girls, I have a sister that was a librarian and with her love of books she will undoubtedly continue to purchase books for my kids. She will teach her child, which is due in June of 2011, the importance of a good book and authors. All we can do is wait, watch and see what happens with the two giants of the bookselling world. Will they fall or will they over come and defeat technology or just barely co-exist?
It is a little scary, but people have been saying the same thing about public libraries for the past 20 years - and circulation keeps rising. Technology will never completely replace the book, but maybe the super stores need to look to new business models. So many independent bookstores went under when the big box bookstores came along - but some continue to surive because of amazing personal customer service, attention to detail, and customer loyalty. I have to keep believing that places like my beloved Sandmeyers (in Printers Row downtown) will continue to exist.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, each of your children will have a book for Christmas (esp since Anthony and Payton already know to expect one from me!).