Library Express: Roots in the Community

Since its beginning, Library Express Bookstore has embodied a “community first” business model for the downtown and greater Scranton areas. As part of the Lackawanna County Library System, its mission statement is “to enhance the lives of all individuals by offering free access to materials and programs designed to satisfy the informational and recreational needs of [the] community.” Thus, its function is twofold. It serves as a branch of the Scranton Public Library and as an indie bookstore, dedicated to meeting the literary, recreational, and scholarly needs of its customers.

According to Alyssa Loney, creator of Scranton Public Library’s podcast, Tales from the Albright, and one of the original employees at Library Express, the bookstore was originally called Library Light, which opened in September of 2011 in The Mall at Steamtown near the area Crunch Fitness occupies today. Just three months later, Library Light moved across the atrium to its current, permanent space, and was rechristened Library Express on January 11, 2012 for its official introduction as a branch of the Lackawanna County Library System. 

Though the store was always intended to be a hybrid space suited for both borrowing and purchasing books, the ties to the library were much more universal at the bookstore’s beginning. Library Express was originally devised as a space to provide library resources and materials for the people of downtown Scranton, and the bookstore half of the concept centered solely on providing a venue for the Friends of the Scranton Public Library to host their annual used book sale, which is widely popular and well attended by citizens in Scranton and the surrounding area. Library Express quickly expanded to stocking its own used titles, however, acquired by donations of gently used books made directly to the bookstore, and began incorporating a steadily growing collection of new books for sale.

Though it’s relatively common to find chain bookstores like BAM and Barnes and Noble in traditional shopping malls, an independent bookstore-library hybrid that emphasizes community and use of free lending materials is an incongruity that doesn’t seem to match the Mall at Steamtown’s capitalist, buyer-centric shopping culture. But that was exactly the point—according to Loney, at its conception, Library Express was intended to educate the public about the library system in a “new, unexpected environment.” Another of its primary goals was to encourage non-traditional library users to start using the library by promoting library card signups and community engagement. The Mall at Steamtown seemed the perfect place for such a bookstore due to its easy access to the community, including spheres of the community that had less interaction with the library system prior to the opening of Library Express.

Ironically, the Mall at Steamtown soon rose to meet Library Express in its emphasis on community. After an intense but losing battle fought by the mall’s original owner and developer, Albert Boscov, the mall was foreclosed on March 7, 2014. The decline in popularity of traditional mall culture and the closing of several key department stores was the final breaking point for the mall, and while Library Express continued its successful mission of community engagement as both a library and a bookstore in the mall after its foreclosure, the mall continued to decline, like many similar shopping centers across the county. About a year later, on July 28, 2015, the mall was sold to John Basalyga, who announced that although he had no intentions of redeveloping the mall, he hoped to move the property towards a more profitable future. This plan was realized on June 1, 2016, when the mall was renamed the Marketplace at Steamtown and rebranded as a community center in downtown Scranton. Soon after, the Luzerne County Community College opened a location on the first floor of the Marketplace, and the entire food court was converted into the Scranton Public Market, where local vendors sell their goods up to seven days a week. While the Mall at Steamtown was initially considered an ideal location for Lackawanna County’s hybrid bookstore due to its ease of access to the bookstore’s target audience, the Marketplace’s new emphasis on creating and fostering a community space aligned perfectly with Library Express’s goals, further contributing to the bookstore’s success. “We have a lot of people that stop by weekly,” says Diane Demko, the manager of Library Express, in her interview with Alyssa Loney. 

Over the years, Library Express has expanded its inventory to match the needs of its customers, first by moving away from only selling the books of the Friends of the Scranton Public Library towards selling their own collection of new and used books. Due to the bookstore’s position in the Marketplace at Steamtown, Library Express serves three kinds of customers: local community members, library patrons, and tourists who are looking for some fun while visiting the area or taking pictures with the “Welcome to Scranton” sign on the first floor of the mall, known for the sign’s iconic appearance in the hit TV series The Office. In 2019, Library Express expanded its inventory yet again, this time including a new merchandise section complete with bookish items, Dunder Mifflin/The Office souvenirs, greeting cards, and postcards of the Scranton area featuring the work of local artist Austin Burke.

As part of its commitment to community outreach and role as a branch of the Lackawanna County Library System, Library Express hosts a plethora of events designed for all of the age brackets it caters to. From its opening in 2012 until the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Library Express participated in First Fridays, highlighting a different local artist, writer or speaker every month to boost community engagement and support local creatives. In July 2014, the bookstore began hosting Open Mic Nights for adults and teens (depending on the month), which they still do at present. In 2018, they introduced their Seasoned Citizen Movie Matinees, a monthly event that features throwback movies designed for the enjoyment and enrichment of community members ages 60 and up. They host numerous events for children, including Lego club, the Children’s Cozy Corner, and themed craft days for families. In 2021, they introduced the Young Writers Group, a workshop-based club dedicated to teaching teens the fundamentals of creative writing, and in March 2023, they launched their Sundays for Self-Care initiative, aimed at improving the well-being of library patrons and community members. 

When the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the library system on March 31, 2020, Library Express took it in stride, converting to online programming with ease. After reopening to in-person visits on June 24, 2020, the hybrid bookstore remained the only branch of the Scranton Public Library that stayed open throughout the continued Covid-19 closures, ensuring their customers’ safety by following social distancing guidelines, mask mandates, and quarantine procedures for returned materials. They also joined Bookshop.org in December 2020, so customers could deliver books straight to their home if they preferred while still supporting the Lackawanna County Library System. This option remains today, though the pandemic is over and Library Express’s in-person programming is back at full tilt.

Uniquely positioned in the Marketplace at Steamtown—a shopping mall turned community center—Library Express has served as a center of community in downtown Scranton, providing the resources community members need to excel in their intellectual/professional lives as well as their social/personal lives. In Reluctant Capitalists, Laura J. Miller asserts that chain bookstores “communicated their rejection of cultural elitism through their outlets’… placement in shopping centers and malls” and “indicated that they were not interested in ‘elevating’ or otherwise changing customer tastes through their selections,” while independent bookstores did just the opposite (60). Library Express occupies both ends of this contradictory position as it, though independent, also resides in a mall like the chains, an environment not typically conducive to the idea of a bookseller as a cultural guide who refines the tastes of their patrons, while on the other hand, Library Express also exists as a library which functions to stretch the intellectual capacities of its patrons, connecting them to the curated materials that will expand their understanding of the topic they are looking into. Miller also emphasizes how important it is for independent bookstores to get to know their community so they can better serve them (83), which is something Library Express has been doing since its conception, catering its programs, resources, collection, and inventory to the needs of its customers. Library Express was founded on the idea of reaching out to the community, and it continues this tradition to this day.