Within the Borders of Forty Years

A Narrative in Four Perspectives

History

By Melani M.

I grew up an hour and a half away from the original Borders bookstore, but it wasn’t until I heard the chain was being liquidated that I realized this; I hadn’t even known that the chain was founded in my home state. My grandparents lived next door to the manager of the Borders in my local mall and he is essential to any picture my mind forms of the chain. When the store closed, he left the state to find employment and I haven’t visited that mall since they both left.

The sorrow caused by Borders’s liquidation is still palpable in the residents of Ann Arbor Michigan where the store was founded forty years before. Members of the Facebook group “Borders Class of 2011 and Before” are still exchanging memories and experiences asking, “where are my peeps store #514?”  Many also shared in the sadness that in last season’s finale of “The Simpsons” Homer said “just like Borders I’ll always be there.” Some of those leaving comments admitted they cried. It’s been two years since the last store closed, but they still haven’t stopped grieving that something once so great had to die.

When the Borders brothers first opened their used bookshop at 211 South State Street in 1971, they had eight hundred square feet and five hundred dollars of inventory to work with. By 1974 the store had changed its location three times and occupied a two story building totaling 100,000 square feet; an unheard of amount of space for a bookstore at the time.

Though the brothers owned the store, it was Joe Gable, whom they hired as a manager, who really established the foundations for the Borders experience though his efforts to “make it the best bookstore in America” (Leopold 2).  Before the inventory got too large to allow him to do so, Gable would personally unpack each shipment, stock the shelves and arrange the displays.  He operated with the understanding that it was his responsibility to connect the customer to the right book.  You would not find instruments in a section of music books because in his words “he did not create museum displays” (3). They were a bookstore and customers should be able to see that by their stock.

Happy Employee
This was a drawing by a former Borders employee to show his happiness after being hired at the flagship store.

Gable also took pains to make sure he had well informed staff. As Archibald MacLeish says in “Free Man’s Books”  “True books are sold by the enthusiasm of those who love them “because they persuade readers to talk” (13). Often the books recommended by staff members sold more than the national bestsellers. In order to work at Borders applicants had to pass a qualifying test to show their literary knowledge (which I admit I failed with only one correct answer) and were assigned to work specific sections.  Everyone was also required to clean the store and help with customer service, but according to one former employee, they loved to do it (Leoplod 3).  The environment led to several marriages between co-workers and many satisfied customers.

 

The Borders brothers expanded to a second store in the 1980’s.  When they sold the twenty one store chain to K-Mart in 1992, coffee and non-book items started to become regular additions to the inventory. In Ann Arbor, Borders patrons were expressing dissatisfaction with the switch from paper to plastic bags and many refused to enter the store again because it didn’t feel like Borders anymore. According to Gable, they tried to “take the book business which is complex and boring and make it simple and sexy” (Leopold 5).

 

Present

By Jordan T.

I entered a Borders Bookstore for the first time when I was I was about nine years old. I went in for the purpose of finding a childrens dictionary that my teacher required us to have. And although Borders was not the bookstore I went to all the time, it’s a place that I remember very well. It is a place my father loved taking me to. In my experience, Borders was a place for families: a place for academic and personal needs.

What remains of Borders in Ann Arbor is the redesigned storefront: five compartmented spaces on the first floor, and the second floor is split into a business space and a University program (Greenberg).

The owners of the restaurants inhabiting the old Borders space are hoping that their food will attract people and boost the economy of Ann Arbor like Borders once did.

Borders catered to college kids in the area as well as the local community. The fact that the bookstore’s storefront has been broken up into five restaurants, a large business, and a University program seems to suggest that the college students aren’t necessary for the new businesses in town to thrive.

Borders had something for everyone and when the Flagship store in Ann Arbor closed down it devastated not only the Ann Arbor community, but also the business owners in the surrounding area. It has been reported that foot-traffic in the area has decreased significantly since its closure. Borders seemed to function as a hub for the town. “Thousands more people were on our sidewalks when Borders was open,” Susan Pollay said.  “It also brought a greater diversity of foot traffic: young and old, campus related and not, townies and visitors” (Lizzy Alfs). People have also said that when Borders closed it felt like losing a family member. This bookstore was not just a bookstore.

Slurping_Turtle_Sign-thumb-646x430-1466533-300x199

According to the demographic, Ann Arbor has a very large Asian population. As a result, many Asian restaurants line the streets of Ann Arbor and it only makes sense that another one, The Slurping Turtle, would appear in the old Borders storefront.

Screen Shot 2013-11-17 at 2.31.17 PMIn Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morely, Roger, the owner of Parnassus, loved bookselling. For him, bookselling was not a job so much as it was a way of life. He strived to bring the joy of reading into peoples’ lives, just as Borders did. 

Even though Borders didn’t just sell books, it was a place for people to buy entertainment. By selling entertainment they were selling happiness to many. Borders did their best to make it a place for people to enjoy themselves. They held events that made Borders a part of the community. It was a space for more than consumerism. People had a hard time letting go of Borders because of their emotional attachment to the store. People felt strongly about Borders because it was a part of their lives.

In Reluctant Capitalists the author states: “Independent booksellers […] claim that the chains’ standardized look is of a piece with their […] homogenous selection. And, it is charged, the impersonal, bland experience of shopping at a chain is alienating for customers and demeaning for books” (Miller 88). But for the people of Ann Arbor, this rings untrue. People loved Borders. The citizens of Ann Arbor did not see this Borders store as a part of a chain: they saw it as theirs. Borders had been a part of Ann Arbor for 40 years and the people who lived there […] grew attached to it (Lizzy Alfs). Those who spent their time in this Borders store saw it as secondary home for them. Borders was a part of Ann Arbor just as a small independent bookstore would be part of its town.

 

Space and Objects

By Stephanie H.

19230109
A panoramic shot of a typical Borders store

The Ann Arbor store began as a product of its local community when Tom and Louis Borders opened their used bookstore in 1971. It is easy to invent a picture of the two-room store above the LakeArt’s Supply with books lining the walls and either tables or more bookcases taking up the center area with other wares, space allowing. The early Borders locations have also been described as community centers, so there were probably chairs located in the space for customers to sit down and discuss their finds.

For the final Ann Arbor Borders I was unable to find a blueprint of the location and it is difficult to distinguish between photographs of the flagship and the hundreds of other Borders locations, but there is a description of the store included in Mary-Brook Todd’s A Place for Everything: Examining the Organization of Children’s Materials in Bookstores & Libraries. It is described 6114738313_24b1b5fb1e_oas being organized by subject and then broken down alphabetically by author or series, notated by signs above the sections to call attention from far away and within the isles to guide customers. The collection included Fiction in genres such as Science Fiction/Fantasy, Historical Fiction, and Mystery Thrillers as well as Non-Fiction such as Art, Music, Cooking, and General Science. Though both were represented the non-fiction options were limited, implying that there was a greater focus on entertainment reading. Popular series were given specialty displays, while books covering controversial issues were grouped into “Family Issues” or placed in an entirely different room labeled “Teaching Reference”. The other major distinctions made for collections were the children’s literature and the multimedia, which were grouped together and separated from the rest of the store (Todd). While the factual description of the store is useful, it is Todd’s commentary under “Key Findings” which truly pique my interest.

The item on the Key Findings list that most caught my attention was the comment “Organization not based on community needs or demographics” (Todd). I wish she had spent time to expand this observation, because it is my assessment that this is the major divide between chain stores and independents and could be used to pinpoint the moment Borders no longer “belonged” to the Ann Arbor community. Limited by the master plan for all of the chain stores, the Ann Arbor Borders was forced to become less connected with the community that had created it and more standardized with what the Borders Group wanted the chain to become as a whole.

While the standardization as studied by Laura J. Miller in her book Reluctant Capitalists is often criticized as being bland or impersonal, as seen in Borders it also offered an opportunity to streamline the book shopping experience, which has been at the top of consumer demands for years (Miller, 88). As Miller explains, the chain no longer cared to be seen as “high-brow”, instead moving towards a modern look that would attract a wide array of customers once they transitioned into suburban malls. In particular, they focused on bright colors, contemporary materials, bold signs, and better lighting (Miller, 92).  All of these traits became iconic in Borders stores around the globe, the basic ingredients, and were what worked together to create uniformity no matter the size or shape of the building. This concept is shown below in my mock-floor plan of a typical Borders bookstore. I created it by studying photos of various locations and pulling out some of the persistent themes such as the furniture and color pallets. This technique was chosen over mapping out a particular store in order to highlight how similar all of the locations truly are.

 

We return again to Christopher Morley and his enigmatic “Professor”. In Parnassus on Wheels Parnassus is a wagon that contains more than one might assume, it is a bookstore and it is a home. Regardless of where it is, the moment you enter it you are taken far away. Through the stark separation between what is inside the space and what surrounds it, Parnassus becomes a sort of liminal space. With all the isolating qualities of the standardized chain stores, the fact that you can enter a store in Pennsylvania only to travel across the country and enter another of the same name in California and feel as if you’ve returned to the original evokes that same sense of liminality. The stores within a chain, with all of their carefully chosen swatches and shelving, form a network and a community that cannot be contained by a single town. While one might mourn the loss of a personal connection between a town and its book provider, it’s hard to deny the appeal of always feeling like you can escape to your favorite bookstore, no matter where you are.

Cultural Function and Literature Definition

By Chelsy B.

Borders started out as a small college town second hand bookshop. However, Tom and Louis Borders did not allow the college setting to define their inventory. The Borders brothers went beyond the academia, specifically pushing their focus away from textbooks, and reached out to a larger community.

In 2004, Borders reached an agreement with the Starbucks subsidiary, Seattle’s Best Coffee to operate cafes in its domestic superstores under the Seattle’s Best brand name.

Seattle’s Best Coffee Cafe in Borders of Santa Barbara, CA.

This allowed Borders to become a space for which books, coffee, and food were all accessible. There were now tables and chairs and a space where conversations could be held. In other bookstores, independent or chain, I feel as though there is still a library-like reverence for quietness. Borders physically created a separated space within its walls to promote discussion. There is literally a line drawn between the two parts of the store, as seen in the different flooring of this Santa Barbara Borders. This distinction allows for a place within the bookstore to facilitate discussion.

This is reminiscent of Habermas’ idea of the public sphere. Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere is a realm within social life in which public opinion can be formed and which is accessible to all. The engagement within the public sphere according to Habermas is blind to class positions and the connections between activists in the public sphere are formed through a mutual will to take part in matters that have a general interest.

The image Borders wanted to portray to its customers is a welcome space for the sharing of ideas and interests. The space itself becomes the moderator in its broad collection, unbiased in its large inventory. It is also a place for discovering new ideas. Therefore Borders configuration of ‘literature’ is works that bring people into a discussion with the text(s) and one another. Literature is for people, it is not defined by any specific genres or limited to any niche interests. It has a diverse openness quality that is unique to the Borders experience. Ultimately, instead of the book finding the person, it is about the people finding the book.

New Paperbacks Table Borders in Madison Square Garden

However, outside of that ideal into actuality, Borders focus of literature rarely strayed beyond the bestsellers. The bestsellers were the focus of the store, shown to the customers through windows and the first tables and shelves within the store itself. The largest section in the store was dedicated to fiction and all other sections were pushed off into back corners and behind tables of novelty items. In those sections, it was difficult to tell what was quality because everything was in the publishers bought space. There was only a few handwriting recommendations on books in various sections but read like something taken off of an Amazon review. It felt artificial and there was no sense of the personal in this bookstore when I believe book selection is one of the most experiences a true reader could ever have.

I didn’t visit the Borders in my hometown often because my experience was always the same. It was a very confusing space to navigate. Trying to trek towards the actual books, I would get stuck between the music/DVD section and the Seattle’s Best café. I would pass by people setting their coffee cups on the books stacked on the ‘New Paperback’ table while looking at their new DVD or CD. This happened too frequently and I wanted my experience to be dedicated to search the stacks for a hidden gem or seeking out a novel by a specific author. I found that I could not trust a bookstore that had customers that disrespected the physical book and the space of a bookstore as a whole.

 

Sources:

Floorplan powered by thinglink.com

Text:

http://www.michigandaily.com/news/former-borders-books-building-have-several-new-tenants (greenberg)

http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/one-year-later-borders-closure-leaves-its-mark-on-downtown-ann-arbor-retail-environment/ (Alfs)

http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/well-known-chef-bringing-slurping-turtle-noodle-house-to-ex-borders-building-in-downtown-ann-arbor/ (Freed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg8jWhAkELY

 http://annarbor.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

“Borders Class of 2011 and before.” Borders Class of 2011 and before. Facebook, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. https://www.facebook.com/groups/229620883744332/

Leopold, Todd. “The Death and Life of a Great American Bookstore.” CNN. Cable News Network, 12 Sept. 2011. Web. 24 Sept. 2013. http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/12/first.borders.bookstore.closing/index.html.

MacLeish, Archibald, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. A Free Man’s Books: An Address ; Delivered at the Annual Banquet of the American Booksellers Association. Mount Vernon [u.a.: Peter Pauper, 1942. Print.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2006.

Morley, Christopher. Parnassus on Wheels. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1955. Print.

Todd, Mary-Brook. A Place for Everything: Examining the Organization of Children’s Materials in Bookstores & Libraries. The School of Information. University of Michigan, n.d. Web.

Images:

Bomey, Nathan R. N.d. Photograph. Ann Arbor. Borders’ Rise and Fall: A Timeline of the Bookstore Chain’s 40-year History. Ann Arbor News. Web. http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/borders-rise-and-fall-a-timeline-of-the-bookstore-chains-40-year-history/.

Bowen, Ross. 2012. Photograph. 14 Nov. 2012. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. http://www.ashvegas.com/russ-bowen-of-wlos-kmart-confirms-tunnel-road-location-closing.

Constant, Paul. “Books without Borders My Life at the World’s Dumbest Bookstore Chain.” Portland Mercury, 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2013. http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/books-without-borders/Content?oid=4613534.

Hollister, Sean. N.d. Photograph. Borders’ Kobo EReader Available for Pre-order, Ships June 17th. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.

Linder, Brad. Borders Launches New Amazon-free Web Store. 2008. Photograph. Huffpost Tech, 28 May 2008. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2008/05/28/borders-launches-new-amazon-free-web-store/.

Steiner, Robert J. Popular Holdings Singapore. 2008. Photograph. Singapore. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://www.streetdirectory.com/stock_images/travel/normal_show/12101451200320/119363/popular_holdings_signage/.

http://joelcomm.com/borders-twitter.jpg

Panoramic of store – Space and Objects

 

 Genre signs – Space and Objects

Borders: Streamlining or Sacrificing?

What do you see when you hear the word “bookstore”? Close your eyes, take a breath, and say the word to yourself. Say it again. Does the image change? Is it a memory or an imagined place you explored in a dream or a picture you saw browsing the web? The first thing that hits me about my mental bookstore is the smell. It has a noted presence, but doesn’t smother or choke you when you walk over the threshold. The smell of paper and ink and glue and coffee and blueberry muffins. A clean smell, but a clean that has been lived in and loved without the sterile undertones of chemicals. The space is populated by wooden bookcases, a warm breed of either cherry or a dark walnut, low rows in the body of the space and seven feet tall along the perimeter with ladders to assist reaching the upper shelves. It has an open ceiling with a balcony level on the second floor of more tall bookcases, second hand and collectibles. A modest café sits to the left, a children’s space with a small stage to the right. I can never figure out where the register goes.

19230109
A panoramic shot of a typical Borders store

Over the course of my previous two posts we’ve explored the outer dynamics of a bookstore through our case study of the Borders in Ann Arbor, Michigan such as the immediate surrounding area and the history of its development. While these are vital forces that shape a bookstore it is the expression of these forces, the internal space and organization of the store itself, which the casual observer and customer interact with directly. Following the theme of my post on the history of the Borders Group, I will begin by focusing on the Ann Arbor flagship and then expand to a generalization of the chain as a whole. Unlike independent stores which are personal expressions of the direct owners, chain stores focus on the idea of uniformity across their various locations because they want to create a standard image of the “Borders experience” in their customers minds.

first_borders-thumb-400x483-69708
The first Borders location

The Ann Arbor store began as a product of it’s local community when Tom and Louis Borders opened their used bookstore in 1971. Although little information is available on the specifics of the floor-plan of that location, it is easy to invent a picture of the two-room store above the Lake Art’s Supply. Books lining the walls and perhaps either tables or more bookcases taking up the center area with more wares, space allowing. The early Borders locations have also been described as community centers, and so there were probably chairs located somewhere in the space for customers to sit down and discuss their most recent finds.

sections
An example of the genre signs found in Borders

Although it is hard to recreate an idea of the original location, the final incarnation of Borders Bookstore in Ann Arbor is a different story. I was unable to find an exact blueprint of the location and when searching through photographs it is difficult to distinguish between the flagship and the hundreds of other Borders locations, but there is a description of the exact store included in research done by Mary-Brook Todd of the University of Michigan titled A Place for Everything: Examining the Organization of Children’s Materials in Bookstores & Libraries. It is described as having a clear organizational scheme based off of subject and then broken down alphabetically by author or series, notated by signs above the sections to call attention from far away and within the isles to guide customers more directly. The collection included Fiction in genres such as Science Fiction/Fantasy, Historical Fiction, and Mystery Thrillers as well as Non-Fiction such as Art, Music, Cooking, and General Science. Though both were represented Todd notes that the non-fiction options were more limited, implying that there was a greater focus on entertainment reading than instructional or technical. Popular series were given specialty displays, while books covering controversial issues were grouped into “Family Issues” or placed in an entirely different room labeled as “Teaching Reference”. The other major distinctions made for collections were the children’s literature and the multimedia, which were grouped together and separated from the rest of the store (Todd). While the factual description of the store is useful, it is Todd’s commentary under “Key Findings” which truly pique my interest.

Borders+Begins+Liquidation+Sales+399+Bookstores+FzSM3ecgYvll
Borders liquidation signs, creating visual chaos in the store

While she does state that the large signs throughout the store are helpful in directing customers quickly, in her Key Findings list only three lines down she also expresses that there were too many displays located throughout the store, which disrupted her exploration (Todd). This comment stuck me as odd considering the fact that  chain stores like Borders are often thought of as having a strong emphasis on the accessibility of their layout, aiming for a more hands-off role for the staff members. My assumption is that this comment speaks to the commercialism of book selling and the growing influence major publishers can have over the set-up of a bookstore through the ability to rent display spaces. When there are multiple organizations designing displays for a single space it makes it difficult to coordinate the overall store design, which could cause the results to be overwhelming or simply aesthetically displeasing to customers. With so many options of reading materials available, publishers sometimes find themselves shouting their advertisements in order to be heard over the rest.

The second item on the Key Findings list that caught my attention was the seemingly throw-away comment “Organization not based on community needs or demographics” (Todd). Out of everything in this short section of her study, I wish she had spent time to expand this observation, because it is my assessment that this is the major divide between chain stores and independents and, if able to be traced through the history of the store, could be used to pinpoint the moment Borders no longer belonged to the Ann Arbor community. Limited by the master plan for all of the chain stores, the Ann Arbor Borders was forced to become less connected with the community that had created it and more standardized with what the Borders Group wanted the chain to become as a whole.

Laura J. Miller dedicates an entire chapter to the type of standardization seen by Borders bookstores world wide in her book Reluctant Capitalists. Chapter four begins with the sentence “The history of retailing in the United States has shown that standardization is fundamental to a mass merchandising strategy” and then the following thirty pages of chapter four continue to outline the history and reasoning behind this process (Miller, 87). In 1922 standardizing techniques were being applied to grocery, drug, and department stores, but bookstores were still held in a sacred space similar to the early Borders locations or any number of used and independent booksellers you can find today, although over the years even those locations have started to subconsciously conform to the expected “idea” of a bookstore.

While the standardization is often criticized as being bland or impersonal, as seen in Borders it also offered an opportunity to streamline the book shopping experience, which has been a demand from consumers as our society continues to move faster and faster (Miller, 88). As Miller explains, the stores no longer cared to be seen as “high-brow”, instead moving towards a modern and casual look that would attract the wide array of customers available to them once they transitioned into suburban malls. In particular, they focused on bright colors, contemporary materials, bold signs, and better lighting (Miller, 92).  All of these traits became iconic in Borders stores around the globe, such as the bright yellow and red paint that was present in almost every store, the pine paneled shelving, the black leather chairs, the stark white on black signs, and the fluorescent lighting hanging from the ceiling. These were the basic ingredients of a Borders store and were what worked together to create uniformity no matter the size or shape of the building. This concept is shown below in my mock-floor plan of a typical Borders bookstore. I created it by studying photos of various stores and pulling out some of the persistent themes such as the furniture and color pallets. This technique was chosen over mapping out a particular store in order to highlight how similar all of the locations truly are.

So, I ask again: What do you see when you hear the word “bookstore”? We’ve reached the same point as the conclusion of my previous post, to Christopher Morley and his enigmatic “Professor”. In Parnassus on WheelsParnassus is a wagon that contains so much more than one might assume, it is a bookstore and it is a home. Regardless of where it is, on a country path or a busy street, the moment you enter it you are taken far away. Through the stark separation between what is inside the space and what surrounds it, Parnassus becomes a sort of liminal  space. With all the isolating qualities of the standardized chain stores, the fact that you can enter a store in Pennsylvania only to travel across the country and enter another of the same name in Washington and feel as if you’ve returned to the original evokes that same sense of liminality. The stores within a chain, with all of their carefully chosen swatches and shelving, form a network and a community that cannot be contained by a single town. While one might mourn the loss of a personal connection between a town and its book provider, it’s hard to deny the appeal of always feeling like you can escape to your favorite bookstore, no matter where you are.

 

SOURCES

Floor Plan powered by thinglink.com

Images found through Google search

TEXT

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2006.

Morley, Christopher. Parnassus on Wheels. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1955. Print.

Todd, Mary-Brook. A Place for Everything: Examining the Organization of Children’s Materials in Bookstores & Libraries. The School of Information. University of Michigan, n.d. Web.

The Order to Borders

The way a bookstore is laid out tells the customer a lot about the store or company owner and its values. Some bookstores, such as Borders, have lots of space between their shelves to make it easy for the customers to walk and find what they are looking for with ease. The shelves are clearly labeled with their designated section titles. In Borders, the books are arranged by author and title. By ordering a bookstore this way it allows the customer to search for whatever they are looking for with little to no help from the bookstore staff.

The Borders in Ann Arbor was two floors. All books were clearly marked—categorized and shelved in alphabetical order. Large signs helped customers locate books of their interest or the DVD’s and music they were looking for. Many bookstores have different ways of arranging their shelves and not all of them look exactly the same. Most bookstores use signs to indicate the section categories, but the amount of space between the shelves differ. Some line the walls with shelves, while others take a large amount of space and fill the floor with stand-up bookshelves like Borders did. In the picture below you can see how the shelves line up on the floor. The amount of books in this store does not overwhelm the person that looks at this photo. It is very organized and the positioning of the shelves gives the store aisles like those of a supermarket. The section labels cannot be seen in this photo as it was taken from a distance, but the space and organization allows the consumer to navigate this very large store with ease.

This particular Borders store has an ample amount of space, which most smaller-scale bookstores do not have. The space allows the store to contain massive quantities of books without the problem of shelf limitations. That being said, the store owners still have to select the titles and authors they wish to sell. The space enables more of a selection, but it still would not be able to carry every book ever created.

I have made a very simple floor plan of this Borders. It is not accurate, but it is meant to show how the store utilizes the space it has, how it enables the customer to walk through the store without being overwhelmed by the quantity of books, and it shows which sections have their own separate rooms.

 

Due to a technological issue the tags I have put on the boxes above are not working. For the full image the link to the floorplan with tags is here: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/448576385586298881#tlsite. The two sections that have their own rooms are the the Children’s section where the multimedia is held and the Family Issues and Teachers references. The title “Family Issues” contains many controversial works which are kept among the teacher’s references. Teachers are the ones that are probably most interested in the controversial works, as they are usually the ones to teach banned books.

In Tim Cresswell’s “A Defining Place” he discusses the quote “[there is] a place for everything and everything [is] in its place” (Cresswell 2). This is essentially what a bookstore is. Every book, especially in a chain bookstore like Borders, has a place on a shelf that is categorized and alphabetized. “[The phrase a place for everything and everything in its place] suggests that there are particular ordering of things in the world” (Cresswell 2). He is correct in making this assumption because even in our own lives, with the way we keep our bedrooms, dorm rooms, houses, etc. we have a way of keeping things. Even when our possessions are in disarray, we tend to know where they are. Disarray is still technically an order. If our possessions had a place before and they are out of place an order is still technically kept. But when we think about space we tend to think about it in terms of how much room we have to keep our possessions in a particular type of order. The two  things cannot be easily separated. In terms of a bookstore the space dictates how many books the bookstore can hold. But the way that the books are arranged within the limited space is of great importance to the store owners and the consumers.

“Space […] has been seen in distinction to place as a realm without meaning– as a ‘fact of life’ which, like time, produces the basic coordinates for human life. When humans invest meaning in a portion of space and then become attached to it in some way (naming is one such way} it becomes a place” (Cresswell 10). What Cresswell is saying here is that humans create meaning by forming an emotional and or physical attachment to a space. Essentially what Cresswell’s argument boils down to is that if a storefront doesn’t have anything for sale the empty storefront is a space– an open area. The books, music, and movies that Borders Bookstore was selling made it a place for people to go. People formed attachments to the merchandise that was sold and it thus became an important place to the people of Ann Arbor.

The fact that this space was transformed with bookshelves and books among music, coffee, movies, and small places to sit made this bookstore more like a house. People came to congregate in places like Borders because it provided comfort and enjoyment. The “stuff”, the merchandise and all that Borders sold made people feel welcome and made it a place for everybody. Without the objects or the merchandise a store wouldn’t really be a store at all. The books, music, movies, and the coffee bar made Borders precisely what everybody wanted it to be. It was somewhere to shop for wants and needs- a place where people could feel like they were at home. They kept large spaces between the bookshelves and made the store large enough so that people could feel comfortable. The organization of everything only added to the comfort by enabling the consumers to find what they were looking for without the help of a store clerk or the store owner. Borders tried its very best to allow its customers to feel comfortable alone amidst the bookshelves within the space the store provided.

Bibliography:

Cresswell, Tim “A Defining Place”

Influenced by:

Borders in Ann Arbor: It’s All About Subjects – University of MI

Loss of a Bookstore: Aftermath

Borders has been closed for two years now, but that is still hard for some former employees of the bookstore chain to accept.  Members of the Facebook group Borders class of 2011 and before are still exchanging memories, and experiences asking “where are my peeps store #514?”  and sharing in the sadness that in the last season finale of “The Simpsons” Homer joked “just like Borders I’ll always be there.” Some commenters admitted they cried and the sorrow caused by Borders liquidation is still palpable in the residents of Ann Arbor Michigan where the store was founded forty years before. The city has tried to move on by leasing the space to restaurants and a CVS to lessen the blow caused by the loss of Borders but the people are still grieving that something once so great had to die.

When the Borders brothers first opened their used bookshop at 211 South State Street in 1971 they had eight hundred square feet and five hundred dollars’ worth of inventory to work with. Thanks to the system devised by Louis Borders which allowed them to keep track of their stock in the days before bar codes, business flourished.  The protagonist of Christopher Morley’s novel Parnassus on Wheels expressed her excitement by saying that owning a mobile bookstore was “like going to college” (24) The experience for the Borders brothers was a lot to handle considering that both were trying to finish their studies at the University of Michigan.  By 1974 the store had changed its location three times and now occupied a two story building totaling 100,000 square feet.  That was an unheard of amount of space for a bookstore at that time.

Though the brothers owned the store, it was Joe Gable, whom they hired to manage the store, who really established the foundations of the Borders experience while he sought to “make it the best bookstore in America” (Leopold 2).  Before the inventory got too large to allow him to do so, Gable would personally unpack each shipment, stock the shelves and arrange the displays.  The format he employed influenced all future Borders stores. He insisted that all arrangements have numerous copies of each title but only one copy would be displayed face out.  The table at the front of the store featured as many bestsellers as little known titles especially university press publications.  The store was close to five state colleges in one of the best read cities in the country so Gable upheld that even if a title only sold one copy in a year, it was still important to carry it because it gave credibility to the store’s selection. He operated with the understanding that it was his responsibility to connect the customer to the right book and he was adamant that books be the merchandise handled.  You would not find instruments in a section of music books because in his words “he did not create museum displays” (Leopold 3).

Gable also took pains to make sure he had well informed staff. As Archibald MacLeish says in “Free Man’s Books”  “True books are sold by the enthusiasm of those who love them “because they persuade readers to talk” (13). Often the books recommended by staff members sold more than the national bestsellers. In order to work at borders applicants had to pass a qualifying test to show their literary knowledge (which I admit I failed with only one correct answer) and were assigned to specific sections.  Everyone was required to clean the store and help with customer service but according to one employee they loved to do it. ” The store didn’t have the luxery an elevator so all of the books had to be carried up from the basement that served as the receiving room but even then it didn’t feel like work.   This environment led to several marriages between co-workers and many satisfied customers.

The Borders brothers decided to expand to a second store in the 1980s after scoping out a location in metro Detroit for over a year. Looking in retrospect however, many employees of the original store believe that this was the first step in the store’s demise.  The second store lacked the intellectual atmosphere of the Ann Arbor location that had arisen from its close proximity to several universities and the anti-war protests of the previous decade. With each store that followed, the sense that the customer could call a Borders “their” store started to disappear.  Coffee and non-book items started to become regular items of inventory when the Borders brothers sold the chain to K-Mart which had built up to twenty one stores in 1992.

new ann arbor bookstore
Literati Bookstore opened in Ann Arbor on April 3, 2013 hoping to fill the role of a general bookstore that Borders left vacant.

For a time this helped Borders increase sales but at the cost of destroying unique features of the chain and making it a replica of its competitors.  Though the store boasted 100,000 titles, half of which were standard for each of the stores and half which were chosen to cater to the location of the place, that didn’t mean a customer would be able to find an employee that could locate what they wanted.  The stores no longer provided the sense of comfort they once did because according to Gable, they tried to “take the book business which is complex and boring and make it simple and sexy” (Leopold 5).  While back in Ann Arbor Borders patrons were expressing dissatisfaction with the switch from paper to plastic bags.

After another decade when store number one was infected by the idea that the superstore concept would save the chain that had not turned a profit the last few years, many loyal customers refused to enter the store again preferring to remember the good times prior to the financial struggles. It didn’t look like Borders at all anymore.  Though Borders is gone it has established an indelible impression on Ann Arbor residents fostering a love of reading that can sustain the operation of the nineteen independent bookstores that grew up in Borders shadow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

 

Texts

 

Bacon, John U. “Good-bye, Borders.” Michigan Today. University of Michigan, 8 Sept. 2011. Web. 26 Sept. 2013. <http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2011/09/story.php?id=8033>.

 

Bomey, Nathan. “Borders’ Rise and Fall: A Timeline of the Bookstore Chain’s 40-year History.” The Ann Arbor News. AnnArbor.com, 18 July 2011. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. <http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/borders-rise-and-fall-a-timeline-of-the-bookstore-chains-40-year-history/>.

 

Leopold, Todd. “The Death and Life of a Great American Bookstore.” CNN. Cable News Network, 12 Sept. 2011. Web. 24 Sept. 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/12/first.borders.bookstore.closing/index.html>.

 

MacLeish, Archibald, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. A Free Man’s Books: An Address ; Delivered at the Annual Banquet of the American Booksellers Association. Mount Vernon [u.a.: Peter Pauper, 1942. Print.

 

Morley, Christopher. Parnassus on Wheels;. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1955. Print.

 

Silberman, Eve. “Borders’ Last Days.” – Ann Arbor Observer. Ann Arbor Chronicle, 28 Sept. 201. Web. 26 Sept. 2013. <http://arborweb.com/articles/borders__last_days_full_article.html>.

 

“So You Think You Could Have Worked at Borders?” CNN. Cable News Network, 12 Sept. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/09/borders.quiz/index.html>.

 

 

Images

 

Bohn, John. 2013. Photograph. Ann Arbor. The Michigan Daily, 5 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://www.michigandaily.com/arts/09literati-secondary05>.

 

Bomey, Nathan R. N.d. Photograph. Ann Arbor. Borders’ Rise and Fall: A Timeline of the Bookstore Chain’s 40-year History. Ann Arbor News. Web. <http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/borders-rise-and-fall-a-timeline-of-the-bookstore-chains-40-year-history/>.

 

Bowen, Ross. 2012. Photograph. 14 Nov. 2012. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://www.ashvegas.com/russ-bowen-of-wlos-kmart-confirms-tunnel-road-location-closing>.

 

Hollister, Sean. N.d. Photograph. Borders’ Kobo EReader Available for Pre-order, Ships June 17th. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://www.easybib.com/cite/form/photo>.

 

Linder, Brad. Borders Launches New Amazon-free Web Store. 2008. Photograph. Huffpost Tech, 28 May 2008. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2008/05/28/borders-launches-new-amazon-free-web-store/>.

 

Steiner, Robert J. Popular Holdings Singapore. 2008. Photograph. Singapore. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://www.streetdirectory.com/stock_images/travel/normal_show/12101451200320/119363/popular_holdings_signage/>.

 

 

Borders Bookstore Through Time

Borders Bookstore was founded in 1971 by Tom and Louis Borders while they were studying at the University of Michigan. They opened up a used bookstore in an 800 square-foot storefront in downtown Ann Arbor. It started out as a small bookshop; a place for the students of the university and the smaller community colleges to go buy whatever they wanted or needed cheaply. But it quickly became a place for all of Ann Arbor to hang out. The small store did so well they the Borders brothers decided to move their small used bookstore into a larger storefront on State Street– a 10,000 square foot space that could hold 10,000 books. Below is a Google “Street View” of the M Den which is the storefront that housed Borders Bookstore.

View Larger Map
In the 1980’s Louis and Tom Borders decided to open up more bookstores under the same name. By the early 1990’s Borders started adding movies and music to the inventories of many of their stores. This peaked the interest of the Kmart franchise and Borders sold their chain to them in 1992. A couple years later, in  1994, the Borders on State Street of Ann Arbor, Michigan moved once more to a bigger storefront on East Liberty Street. This storefront was a very large two-floor department store with a 40,000 square foot floor-space. By 1998 Borders Bookstore had an up-and-running website where people could shop in the comfort of their own home and six years later, Borders would make a deal with the Starbucks corporation to sell Seattle’s Best Coffee at their in-store cafés.

In 2009 Borders tried to do whatever they could to cut back on their spending during the financial crisis to avoid bankruptcy. Unfortunately, their efforts weren’t very successful. They tried to launch the Kobo e-reader and e-books to help gain some money back, but by February of 2011 they had to file for bankruptcy. In July of 2011, Borders had their liquidation sales at almost if-not-all of their stores.

When Borders closed down, the people of Ann Arbor, especially the business owners near the Borders were upset. It has been reported that foot-traffic in the area has decreased significantly since its closure. Borders seemed to function as a hub for the town to revolve around. “Thousands more people were on our sidewalks when Borders was open,” she said. “It also brought a greater diversity of foot traffic: young and old, campus related and not, townies and visitors” (Susan Pollay via Lizzy Alfs). People have also said that when Borders closed it felt like losing a family member. This bookstore was not just a bookstore.

In Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morely, the bookseller, a man by the name of Roger, loved books. But even more so he loved living among his books. Parnassus, a horse and buggie stocked full of books and bookshelves, served as a traveling bookstore. Driving the Parnassus was one of the things Roger had loved more than anything and when he sold it, he still couldn’t leave the bookselling life behind him. He showed the woman who purchased Parnassus how to sell books and went with her instead of going to Brooklyn like he originally planned. Even when he said he was getting on a train to go to Brooklyn, he never left Parnassus. Bookselling for him was not just about the money, it was about spreading literature and bringing the joy of reading into peoples’ lives. Borders did this, too.

Even though Borders sold things that weren’t just books, it was a place for people to buy things that make them happy. Movies, music, and books all provide entertainment, but  by selling entertainment they were selling happiness to many. Borders, despite being a big chain, did their best to make it a place for people to enjoy themselves and the company of others. They held book-signings, readings, concerts, and other events that made Borders more of a place to live than a place to consume. People had and still have a hard time letting go of Borders because of an emotional attachment. The way Roger felt about Parnassus is the way people feel about Borders- it may not be there anymore but there’s something about it they just can’t let go of.

In Reluctant Capitalists by Laura J. Miller, she states “Independent booksellers […] claim that the chains’ standardized look is of a piece with their […] homogenous selection. And, it is charged, the impersonal, bland experience of shopping at a chain is alienating for customers and demeaning for books” (88). But I think for the people of Ann Arbor this is incredibly untrue. People loved the Borders Bookstore. There were people who went there every day during their lunch break (youtube video from earlier). The citizens of Ann Arbor did not see this Borders store as a part of a chain– it was their bookstore. Borders had been a part of Ann Arbor for 40 years and the people who lived there (college students or otherwise) grew attached to it (Lizzy Alfs). This wasn’t a place where people felt unwelcome– in fact it was the opposite. Those who spent their time in this Borders store probably felt that this was a secondary home for them. Borders was a part of Ann Arbor just as a small independent bookstore would be part of its town.

Timeline/Text

http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/borders-rise-and-fall-a-timeline-of-the-bookstore-chains-40-year-history/

http://www.dipity.com/jordanhtepper/Borders-Through-Time/#timeline

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/12/first.borders.bookstore.closing/index.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/borders-group-inc

 http://publishing.about.com/od/BooksellersAndBookselling/a/The-History-Of-The-Borders-Group-About-The-Borders-Group-Chain-Of-Bookstores.htm

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-short-history-of-the-borders-bookstore-company

 http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/one-year-later-borders-closure-leaves-its-mark-on-downtown-ann-arbor-retail-environment/

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morely

Reluctant Capitalists by Laura J. Miller

 

Images Used In Timeline:

http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Kobo-eReader-Borders-540×302.jpg

http://medicalnoises.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/top-reason-for-bankruptcy-in-the-US.jpg

 http://www.annarbor.com/assets_c/2011/02/first_borders-thumb-400×483-69708.jpg

http://nvfinc.webs.com/ripped-one-hundred-dollar-bill.jpg

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_G2EgKE3otBQ/S-sYASy1tjI/AAAAAAAAEIg/dl1YlMeT0vU/%5BUNSET%5D.jpg?imgmax=800

http://adamcohen.typepad.com/images/borders3.JPG

http://ferretronix.com/march/computer_cards/3_cards.jpg

http://wp.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/files/2011/07/borders-ann-arbor-wic-5.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/12/22/1261502274910/Borders-final-day-Islingt-001.jpg

http://media.cleveland.com/business_impact/photo/borders-store-closing-in-beachwoodjpg-bc9918c1a45e004d.jpg

http://randomthinks.typepad.com/rtblog/images/borders_annarbor.jpg

http://www.icv2.com/images/16210WaldenBorderLogo_md.jpg

https://blog.soundcloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/1280px-AnnArborLibertyStreet-1024×680.jpg

 

 

place: people and present- Ann Arbor: Borders Books

The Borders Bookstore in Ann Arbor Michigan was the first Borders to ever open. The neighborhood, judging by the street view on “Google Earth,” looks like a place where people interested in the arts would go to hang out. A movie-theater resides across the street from where the Borders was. Technically, the Borders Bookstore building still stands, but it no longer functions as a bookstore due to the company going out of business.

The Ann Arbor area seems to be a place that is heavily grounded in the Arts. Several art galleries, museums, music centers, a library, and a movie theater stand near where the Borders Bookstore once stood. Several restaurants, fitness centers, and beauty salons also line the nearby streets. In the map I placed in the link below, you will see that I pinpointed where the coffee shops, fitness centers, bookshops/libraries, hair salons, and the arts-related places (galleries, museums, music centers, etc.) are.

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zuOr35Y2F4l4.k4hfYMXomXXQ

Screen Shot 2013-09-12 at 6.55.17 PM               Screen Shot 2013-09-12 at 6.58.37 PM

What Google’s street view screenshots (the above photos) fail to show is the updated view of 612 E. Liberty Street. After the store closed in September of 2011 due to bankruptcy, construction workers began to renovate it. In December 2012, the Borders signs were taken off the building  (visible in the top photo) and donated to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation.

Marlene Lacasse/Daily "An Ann Arbor construction worker continues development on former Borders Bookstore Wednesday. The space will house five restaurants and two offices"
Marlene Lacasse/Daily
“An Ann Arbor construction worker continues development on former Borders Bookstore Wednesday. The space will house five restaurants and two offices”

The whole building is being transformed. Instead of becoming another retail shop, it is going to house five restaurants on the first floor and Prime Research and Michigan University’s School of Information on the second floor (Greenberg). The building is undergoing major reconstruction as both the interior and exterior need to be entirely redone to accommodate the new tenants  The builders are going to add “an entrance on Maynard Street and walls to divide the new businesses” (Greenberg). By now, these renovations could be done as Greenberg stated that the building was supposed to be able to house its tenants in September, but the restaurants have not yet opened. I would assume there is still more work to be done on the building given that this article was written in July, 2013.

“Iron Chef participant and Chicago-based restaurateur Takashi Yagihashi announced…that he has signed a lease for 5,296 square feet in the former Borders flagship store to open a Slurping Turtle restaurant. The new restaurant will join Knight’s Steakhouse… as the space begins to take on a theme of expanding Ann Arbor’s downtown culinary offerings” (Freed).

Slurping_Turtle_Sign-thumb-646x430-146653

It seems almost silly to open more restaurants as there are already so many located in this area. But, I suppose that for the residents of Ann Arbor, the more choices they have, the better.

Apparently, East Liberty Street, the site at which Borders was located, has had ten different businesses close in the last  two years. When one of the restaurant owners who is moving into the Borders space was asked about it, he said: “We track volumes of sales figures of all the other restaurants down there and all of them are very healthy… It was easy to blame Borders when they closed for the decline but in my opinion that’s not what closed these other businesses” (Cavendar via Greenberg).

It seems interesting that Cavendar would think this when so many other businesses have shut down. According to some short interviews that Alyssa Adler did for her article (“Liberty St. sees changing stores” in The Michigan Daily) a few storefront owners do not think that Liberty street is a good location anymore. Adler quotes one store owner: “Liberty is a great location because of the Michigan Theatre… It was a good location because of Borders, but I don’t think Liberty is really a great location anymore. If I could, I would move tomorrow to State Street.”

I cannot help but think about place and how it is thought to be somewhere people can go. But for many, a place is somewhere that is important to somebody for a particular reason (Creswell). Ann Arbor, especially on Liberty Street, changes are everywhere. When we talk about place we tend to think of it as an almost static environment. The way we remember a favorite vacation spot, is the way we want to think about it forever. That vacation spot would be referred to as a place- somewhere with emotional attachment (Creswell). For many, they’ll probably remember Liberty Street as a place with little boutiques and the big Borders store. This raises the question of whether or not Liberty Street can still be a “place” when buildings are constantly being torn down and businesses keep changing hands.

When Borders closed it had an impact on the other stores surrounding it. The University of Michigan is very near Liberty street, and I would think that much of the bookstore’s clientele was college students. College students are often stereotyped as “poor,” but they tend to drop money on the things they see as necessary (books for school and for fun, clothing, food, etc). Borders was a place for that and when the college kids stopped walking down to the bookstore, the other stores surrounding it probably took a major hit.

The store owner that Adler quoted in her piece also said that the rent raises one or two percent each year and with the economy, it doesn’t seem worth it anymore. The surrounding stores made the price of staying on liberty street made it worth it. But if what Cavendar says about the economy picking back up and restaurants being okay, maybe the restaurants will thrive.

Images:

http://www.michigandaily.com/news/former-borders-books-building-have-several-new-tenants

http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/well-known-chef-bringing-slurping-turtle-noodle-house-to-ex-borders-building-in-downtown-ann-arbor/

Texts:

http://www.michigandaily.com/news/former-borders-books-building-have-several-new-tenants

http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/well-known-chef-bringing-slurping-turtle-noodle-house-to-ex-borders-building-in-downtown-ann-arbor/

http://www.annarbor.com/news/the-b-o-r-d-e-r-s-letters-will-be-removed-from-historic-location-monday/

http://www.michigandaily.com/news/economy-suffers-east-liberty-street-businesses-feel-strain?page=0,1

Defining Place by Tim Creswell

 

Maps:

Google Earth Street View (screen shots)

Google maps