A (Mon)Dragon’s Home

This Alleyway was built into one of the buildings.

The town of Lewisburg was cast in grey and rain the day my group went to visit Mondragon. The local businesses each provided their own versions of warmth for the average passerby; from windows brightly decorated with handmade dresses to windows advertising the lunch specials of the day, I found myself attracted to the inviting nature of each business. But, as the assignment was to simply survey the area, I quickly moved on so that I could survey more and more of Market Street. While my compatriots fawned over the different businesses that lined the streets, I found myself fascinated in between the businesses. I wanted to journey down the alleyways decorated like old Irish Faerie realms have always been depicted. Lined with stones and moss and leading to patios of homemade furniture garnished with trellises, these alleyways appeared to lead to a realm different from the one portrayed by semi-bustle of the street. My friends moved quickly while I moved slowly (whether it was because of these alleyways or

This little patio alleyway was right next to Mondragon and part of the brewery next door. Sorry for the blurriness, but you probably get the point.

my short legs, I do not know). I couldn’t help but wonder why each alleyway was decorated with such thought and care just to create the antithesis of what an alleyway is traditionally thought as.

 

Lewisburg is the small town that accompanies the local college, Bucknell University. Approximately half an hour away from my own university, Susquehanna University, the two are often compared as sister universities and/or rivals. If the rivalry were of the local towns, then Bucknell would be the clear winner. Littered with Boutiques and a generally Victorian visual aesthetic, Lewisburg presents itself as an upper middle town. The big difference between Lewisburg and Selinsgrove, at least from what caught my eye, is that Lewisburg seems to detach itself from the local college community. While there are a couple of Bucknell flags and the college’s bookstore. The town seems to want to keep its image as an upper middle class area rather than one that has its door open to the ever-changing community that colleges generally present. Lewisburg keeps its aesthetic image pristine and a place for the locals rather than the local college students.

The Lewisburg Hotel really shows this warm Victorian visual aesthetic.

 

 

Tim Cresswell in Place: An Introduction reflects on Doreen Massey’s reflection of Kilburn’s definition of place (I know, confusing right?) as one that is generally correct when talking about place as “global.” This definition is as follows (in Cresswell’s words):

 

 

  1. Place as process.
  2. Place as defined by the outside.
  3. Place as site of multiple identities and histories.
  4. A uniqueness of place defined by its interactions.

(Place: An Introduction). Lewisburg seems to be defining itself as such as well, mostly in numbers 2 and 4. The town seems more concerned about its visual and aesthetic appeal as seen by “outsiders” and how these “outsiders” view the town and the businesses interact with each other.

Two businesses side-by-side.

I can see this as being highly true about the area surrounding Mondragon Bookstore. Lewisburg seems to take care of their main marketable street (Market Street) whether it is with ice sculptures (although thoroughly melted by the unseasonably warm and wet weather earlier in the week) or maintaining the Victorian aesthetic with the local businesses. I think the main way they define themselves to “outsiders” is by trying to create a home away from home. This also lends to the uniqueness of this place. Corporate looking businesses tend to stick out in this area and they are generally reserved to more law and business based corporations (with the occasional art gallery). On the other hand, many other businesses like cafes, boutiques, hotels, and our very own Mondragon adopt homes as a place to sell their goods. Boutiques display their clothes like an in home workshop, the hotel adopts warm lighting and inviting exterior accents like a porch, and the alleyways provide seating and paths reminiscent of a slower Victorian lifestyle, where the exterior provides just as much a home as the interior.

Coffee is on at Mondragon. (Many of my group mates loved this, so we took a lot of photos).

The bookstore is commonly seen as a home, if not actually a home. Parnassus on Wheels exemplifies this sentiment of bookstores as homes. The traveling bookstore owner, Roger, has set up his store so that books cover the exterior and the interior is where he has made his home. Bookstores have commonly adopted this sentiment (rather than literally) by providing coffee to customers, carpeted floors and warm lighting for ambiance, and a generally welcoming demeanor from the owners/workers. Mondragon definitely involves all of this. With multiple rooms of books and a coffee bar, the store appears to be the embodiment of a living room.

 

This is what Lewisburg seems to be doing to their town. From the warm lights to retail selling goods out of homes, the interactions the town seems to want to happen are that of a home. I wanted to travel down one of the alleyways with a cup of coffee with some friends and sit and enjoy the beauty and care of the surrounding area. Unfortunately it was raining and the middle of winter. But, I can only imagine what it must be like in the spring when everything is in bloom.

 

Sources

Images

Photos courtesy of Richard Berwind (me).

Text

Cresswell, Tim. “Reading ‘A Global Sense of Place’.”Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004.

Morley, Christopher. Parnassus on Wheels. New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1917.

Community Via Individuals: Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade

Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, 1984
Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade

Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade had chutzpah.

As a precocious child, Cohen insisted upon attending her father’s Americans for Democratic Action meetings that were held in her living room; as a vocal individual, she eventually got herself kicked out of those meetings; and as a persistent personality, she secretly listened to subsequent meetings from the stairwell.

Then there’s Meade, who all alone at four years old, perhaps in pigtails and Mary Janes, marched her little body across R. Street to the Georgetown public library because she wanted to read. Keep in mind, some four-year-old kids aren’t even potty-trained.

Two girls drawn to prose and politics, eventually maturing into two women co-owning the independent bookstore (you guessed it!) Politics & Prose. In the space between 1984 and the present day, depicted in the timeline below, Politics & Prose became Washington, D.C.’s preeminent cultural hub. The history of this indie and of the individuals who cultivated it illustrate the interplay between person and community.

Cohen, who passed away in 2010, was heavily invested in her community. She served on a number of government committees that focused on community planning and housing. While passionate about her work, Cohen, a liberal, was not fond of Ronald Reagan. She resigned from her government position with his presidential election in 1981. Hungry for a new career, she determined to open her own bookstore.

Cohen submitted an ad for a bookstore manager to the Washington Post, and Meade responded to it. The manager of Foggy Bottom’s Moonstone Book Cellar and the previous owner of Potomac’s Bookstall, Meade was the perfect applicant. Soon, she became an equal partner with Cohen.


When brainstorming names for the indie, Cohen believed that the word, politics,” fit well with the storefront’s Washington location. The concept reminded her of the Broadway number, “Politics and Poker,” which then inspired “Politics & Prose.”

But “poker” wasn’t an irrelevant term, as the economic climate of Chevy Chase, Maryland, (the town that borders Chevy Chase, Washington D.C., the neighborhood in which Politics & Prose resides, and shares a similar affluent aesthetic) and the publishing industry positioned the bookstore as a true gamble. A document entitled “The Town of Chevy Chase: Past and Present,” published in 1990 by the community’s History Committee, describes a series of store closings and location changes for well-established independent shops between 1982 and 1986. For example, Community Paint and Hardware opened its storefront in 1880, but closed in 1986 so that the town could build a high-rise in its place.

Additionally, chain bookstores were gaining traction in the business world. In 1977, Crown Books opened its first store in the Washington suburb, Lake Arbor. By mid-1982, Crown Books boasted 81 locations, many of them situated in Washington, D.C.

Yet, despite this ominousness, Politics & Prose not only survived but thrived as both an individual business and a societal phenomenon, essentially due to Cohen and Meade’s innovation. Speaking of these two women, Washington-based literary agent Raphael Sagalyn said, “One cannot exaggerate the influence of these two people on Washington. I would suggest that they have had as much influence on the community life of this city as any two people ever could.” But how?

An Active Community
An Active Community

Always emphasizing the collective, the dynamic duo differentiated Politics & Prose as a place where people could come together and talk about literature. In 1993, the store opened a coffeehouse, providing customers with a space in which to enjoy good food and good conversation. Cohen valued mealtime discussions even outside of the shop, frequently hosting dinner parties and seders at her home.

In 1989, the storefront moved across the street to 5015 Connecticut Avenue. Picture this: as evidence of the community’s involvement with the indie and the indie’s effect on the community, a police officer literally stopped traffic while neighborhood volunteers helped the employees carry boxes of inventory from the old store to the new one.

Gabrielle McNally
Gabrielle McNally
Jason Rosenhouse
Jason Rosenhouse

Cohen and Meade began a massive visiting author tradition at Politics & Prose, and the store now hosts author readings every night. These events created an intimate space for the discussion of prose and ideas. Furthermore, they reflected Cohen and Meade’s dedication to the individual. While both women booked established authors, the owners took risks on emerging writers whose work they found promising. These decisions afforded budding authors the opportunity to distinguish their verbal talents to a receptive audience.

In 2010, the two announced that they were selling Politics & Prose, a decision promptly largely by the worsening of Cohen’s malignancy. This news caused national alarm. In The New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg hoped, or rather prayed, that the new owners would embody the same “hands-on, brains-on, hearts-on personal dedication” employed by Cohen and Meade.

This response reminds me of a quote from Escaped Into Print by Christopher Morley. He writes, “Literature and the great personalities who commit literature start sometimes very strange vibrations” (47). While Morley is speaking of authors, this phrase becomes even more resonant when applied to booksellers, especially Cohen and Meade. The intense reactions elicited by the owners’ decision to sell their store is demonstrative of the two women’s roles as cultural and political forces, vibrations or oscillations that emanated from the storefront of Politics & Prose and out into the national sphere.

On October 11, 2010, Carla Cohen passed. Politics & Prose hosted a memorial for their beloved founder. As testament of Cohen’s significance to Washington, the event was recorded and published on C-SPAN.

The Founder
The Founder, Carla Cohen

Motivated by the task of filling very large shoes, Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine, approved by Meade and Cohen before the latter’s passing, purchased Politics & Prose in June of 2011.

New Owners, Lissa Muscatine and Bradley Graham
New Owners, Lissa Muscatine and Bradley Graham

Using the technological advancements of the modern age, Graham and Muscatine have furthered their predecessors’ dual commitments to the community and the individual. In 2011, Politics & Prose acquired an Espresso Book Machine named Opus. (Even the machine becomes individualized.) For a fee, the print-on-demand mechanism allows customers the opportunity to self-publish their work.

Additionally, Opus serves a community function. In 2013, Politics & Prose began releasing District Lines, an annual anthology that publishes the work of local authors.

In Chevy Chase’s intellectual, high-brow neighborhood, Opus aims to democratize literature, affording the power of publication to all, or at least to those who can afford it. By doing so, Politics & Prose approaches Marion Dodd’s conception of the bookstore as “an arsenal of democracy” (Brannon 5). In fact, commensurate with Barbara Brannon’s connections between bookshops, print culture, and freedom of the press, the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association established the Carla Cohen Free Speech Award. This prize honors a children’s book that epitomizes the First Amendment.

Opus The Espresso Book Machine
Opus The Espresso Book Machine

Cohen’s legacy is also observed through the Carla Furstenberg Cohen Literary Prize. Founded in the aftermath of Cohen’s death, this award recognizes extraordinary pieces of fiction and nonfiction by authors writing their first or second book.

These literary prizes are perhaps the best explanations of Cohen and Meade’s success; even posthumously (in Cohen’s case) these women satisfy the ancient mythology of the bookseller. Laura Miller writes, “As part of their desire to spread a genteel culture, the regular bookseller of the early twentieth century took pride in improving people’s lives by introducing them to ‘good’ books” (57).

Likewise, Cohen and Meade were extremely particular about the kind of literature they stocked in their store and recommended to their customers. With spunk and spirit, Cohen often redirected her customers’ selections when they aimed to purchase a less-than-perfect text, saying, “Why would you want to read that; it’s dumb.” She would then rummage through shelves, grabbing a worthier title, and remark, “You would enjoy this a lot more—and it’s a far better book.”

In this way, Cohen and Meade branded themselves as makers of taste and as cultivators of politically conscious citizens. Granted, the location of Politics & Prose, peppered with professors and politicians, allowed them to fulfill a stereotypically snooty role. And this role does complicate the bookstore’s position as “an arsenal of democracy;” through her brash, yet personalized, suggestions, Cohen limited, or at the very least influenced, the populace’s freedom of choice in terms of their book selections.

But what saved Politics & Prose and perpetuated its impact on Washington, D.C., I think, is the very human quality—the very mortal quality—of Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade.

The Dynamic Duo
The Dynamic Duo; Cohen & Meade

Works Cited

Links

Booksmith. “Carla Cohen of Politics & Prose Bookstore, Washington DC.” YouTube. YouTube, 19 Apr. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQrFBm6Bk74>.

Brown, Emma. “Carla Cohen Dies; Co-founder of D.C. Bookstore Politics and Prose.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/11/AR2010101102811.html?sid=ST2010101102828>.

Hertzberg, Hendrik. “Politics & Prose & Perfection & (I Hope) Permanence.” The New Yorker. Conde Nast, 09 June 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/politics-prose-perfection-i-hope-permanence>.

“In Memorium – Carla F. Cohen (1936-2010).” Politics and Prose. N.p., 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/carla>.

“Memorial for Carla Cohen.” C-SPAN.org. C-SPAN, 21 Nov. 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.c-span.org/video/?296926-1%2Fmemorial-carla-cohen>.

“New Owners.” Politics and Prose. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/new-owners>.

Politics & Prose Bookstore. N.p., 2016. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.politics-prose.com/>.

Righthand, Jess. “Print Your Own Book at Politics & Prose.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/print-your-own-book-at-politics-and-prose/2011/12/12/gIQAwwXjwO_story.html>.

Torbati, Yeganeh June. “Bookstore in Capital Seeks Its Next Chapter.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 June 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/us/23prose.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1>.

“The Town of Chevy Chase: Past & Present.” The Town of Chevy Chase. N.p., 1990. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.townofchevychase.org/184/The-Town-of-Chevy-Chase-Past-Present>.

Wilwol, John. “What I’ve Learned: Politics & Prose’s Barbara Meade | Washingtonian.” Washingtonian. Washington Media Inc, 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <http://www.washingtonian.com/2013/03/28/what-ive-learned-politics-and-proses-barbara-meade/>.

Video

Politics & Prose. “Politics & Prose 30th Anniversary Video.” YouTube. YouTube, 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 24 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhOwiE_vAg>.

Image in Timeline

Politics and Prose Logo <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a7/Politics_and_Prose.jpg>

Google Maps

Politics & Prose Bookstore <https://www.google.com/maps/place/Politics+%26+Prose+Bookstore/@38.9554664,-77.0718584,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c9b992f1a9f7:0xb82a9184a0d413af>

Photographs

Barbara and Carla in Black and White <http://www.politics-prose.com/sites/politics-prose.com/files/barbaracarla.jpg>

Politics and Prose <http://www.politics-prose.com/sites/politics-prose.com/files/30.jpg>

Brad and Lissa <http://www.politics-prose.com/sites/politics-prose.com/files/bradlissa.jpg>

Carla Cohen <http://static01.nyt.com/images/2010/10/12/us/OBIT-COHEN/OBIT-COHEN-popup.jpg>

Barbara and Carla in Color <http://15128-presscdn-0-60.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/IMG_1537_1.jpg.optimal.jpg>

Opus The Espresso Book Machine <https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6041/6256317164_b132e2154c_b.jpg>

Gabrielle McNally <http://static1.squarespace.com/static/54e6226be4b0a4a2246532c1/t/561d7004e4b0be465244c65a/1444769815180/McNally_Statue?format=2500w>

Jason Rosenhouse < <https://whyevolutionistrue.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/11295599_10152953493305698_5288965846788805780_n.jpg?w=552&h=367>

Texts

Brannon, Barbara A. The Bookshop as “An Arsenal of Democracy”: Marion Dodd and the Hampshire Bookshop during World War II. New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1998. Print.

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

Morley, Christopher. Ex Libris Carissimis. New York: A.S. Barnes, 1961. Print.

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

Shakespeare and Company: A Novel in Three Words

“I may disappear leaving behind me no worldly possessions – just a few old socks and love letters, and my windows overlooking Notre-Dame for all of you to enjoy, and my little rag and bone shop of the heart whose motto is ‘Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.’ I may disappear leaving no forwarding address, but for all you know I may still be walking among you on my vagabond journey around the world.” 

-George Whitman

[slideshow_deploy id=’2757′]

Click the arrows to scroll through the show. The final slide is a quick video . 

You’ve been in Paris for a while now, visiting. Seeing the sites. Your last visit was to the Notre Dame Cathedral but the last meal you had was several hours ago, and you’ve been walking all day. You see there are a few small cafés across the river, so you decide to stop there, rest your feet, and collect yourself after the day. The food is good, the atmosphere is better, and after you’ve paid the bill, you can see that the afternoon has just slipped away, and the streetlights have begun to flicker on as the sun has set. But you’re still not tired, still ready for another adventure before heading back to your hotel. So you take up your bag and start walking down the street, just flowing with the rest of the foot traffic.

Here are some of the sights you may wander past:

 

As you go past another small café and diner, there to your right is a larger section of sidewalk, where there is a set of bookcases set up, their shelves packed with books. There are a few people standing around these bookshelves on the sidewalk, but what pulls your eyes up, is a warm glow emanating from the large windows of the store in front of you. You look up further to see the name of the bookstore.

Shakespeare and Company. 

Click on the image below to hang-out in front of the store


View Larger Map

 

No other place in your tour of Paris thus far has seemed as inviting as this store.

Located in the 5th arrondissement, at 37 Rue de la Bûcherie, it shares street space with dozens of other small diners and restaurants. Food, books, and conversations go hand in hand, and though food is not allowed to be eaten inside the store, it is the experience of many modern buyers to purchase a book shortly after a meal, or to get a meal in order to take a load off their feet and enjoy their new purchase with something refreshing to eat and satisfying to drink.  Though it is unlikely this arrangement of books to restaurants and vice versa was arranged, their geographical closeness does make for a rather fortuitous relationship.

Outside-Shakespeare-and-Co

To be certain, Shakespeare and Company is a pleasantly unexpected discovery for any who stumble upon it. For those who know of its existence it continues to be an enclave, away from the busy streets of Paris, as a place where one can find a quiet chair or bench, and read, perhaps with a snack. Shakespeare and Company prizes itself as the home of its community of artists, writers, community leaders, and as a place where anyone can stay a night if they are in need of a bed to sleep. But the question remains: have you entered a book store or have you entered a library?

Don’t let the small space of the front of the shop fool you.  Upon entering one will find twists, turns, and hallways all covered from top to bottom with books. Shakespeare and Company is like walking into a fantasyland, for those who have a love of reading. There are books on top of chairs, beds that during the day are turned to hold books, books tucked into every nook and cranny.  Although this store looks a little chaotic, there is a method to the madness that is Shakespeare and Company. It seems to be a place you visit for the experience; plenty of buyers enter into the store, but an equal number of curious onlookers cross the threshold for the “feel” of the store.  It is, without a doubt, a place with character, and that character is best seen in the visual space of the bookstore itself.

Feel free to explore the store by clicking on the icons!
Green Dots– A sampling of the many genre sections
Black Dots– Pictures from inside the shop

The store has a very welcoming feel to it. There is a big difference between the atmosphere of this bookstore compared to that of the chain stores. There are no fluorescent lights that hurt your eyes. Instead, the lighting is soft and warm, with an occasional hanging candelabra. It is a comforting feel. When George Whitman first bought the building, he used the third floor as his living quarters, and the bottom two floors as his business. There are still touches in the store that make it feel like a home.  Just like in Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop, the building serves as a bookstore as well as living space. George Whitman reminds me much of Roger Mifflin from The Haunted Bookshop and Parnassus on Wheels. Both men do not view books, or a love of literature, as simply a hobby–it is their lifestyle and the books end up defining who they are.  Whitman and Mifflin both lived amongst their books, and put their every being into not just the selling of books, but the connection to books. They are a part of the collection itself.

Take a tour of the “Sylvia Beach Library” where you are invited to sit and read for a while!

Notice the sound: the store is quiet. Whispers echo through the shelves as friends quietly converse, but the hushed tones are rare. A certain silence blankets the store which would be rude to disturb. There are no “Quiet please” signs, as you would find in a public library, but it is implied. No music echoes from the walls like in other businesses. Any boisterous conversations or loud noises would be disruptive, prying people away from their introspective study. The sheer number of topics, categories, and books lends itself to the illusion of a library. Books from past and present, old and new mixed together; books that have been passed down through people, eventually arriving at the store to be acquired by someone new; you can find anything and everything in the store. If you take away the cash register, the store becomes a testament to Walt Whitman’s days running a lending library.

The library atmosphere is more than just a feeling, however. Traveling writers who temporarily stay in the shop are required to read  at least a book a day, lending them from the store and then returning them to the shelves when finished. It is actively fulfilling the definitions of a library, seemingly without intending to. The “tumbleweeds”, as Whitman called them endearingly, don’t just read books. By night these traveling writers sleep among the bookshelves.  In return for the hospitality, they must write a short biography about themselves and help out around the store for a few hours a day. There is no time limit on their stay, as long as they fulfill the requirements. For them, the store serves as a wellspring of inspiration.

 

Take a moment and relax as Sylvia Beach Whitman describes the store.

The organized chaos of Shakespeare and Company is what makes it so unique and brilliant. It stands out from the typical picture of a bookstore, or shop in Paris.  What makes it so special is that it is genuine.  The store does not try to be a certain way; it does not morph itself to fit the criteria of “bohemian, eccentric, or warm.” It just is.  From the start, someone has built it with such a passion for literature, writers, and the idea of spreading the knowledge and love that books bring; it was about providing literature to everyone, and not about the monetary value. How else could a bookstore feel so much like a library? You cannot force that connection, and you cannot fabricate the serenity or the silence or even the massive collection. Unlike Laura Miller’s explanation of the planned diversity in chain bookstores in Reluctant Capitalist, the variety here is just something that grows organically as texts collect over time. There is no “deciding” what is and isn’t sold; everything is accepted whenever it comes in. First the collection grows, and then the atmosphere.

shakespeare-paris-2

Those library characteristics are what distinguish Shakespeare and Company. They are what make this store so different from other bookstores.  It’s more than just a business, it is a culture in and of itself, splicing consumer culture and borrowing culture into one. It buys and sells while maintaining the illusion of a permanent collection. The culture and feel of a library in conjunction with a thriving business. It’s a magical pairing. And the universality of a library—the feeling that it is a space for anyone and everyone, regardless of taste or wealth or literacymakes Shakespeare and Company so welcoming; anyone could enter this shop and feel at home, because there is something for everyone as an individual. The genteel culture surrounding books, as Miller discusses, disappears in this store. Thus, the community of book-lovers, writers, and artists is suddenly expanded within the Shakespeare and Co. bubble, becoming a clique that everyone can access. Everyone can be a part of the community, a community started in 1922.

Shakespeare & Company on Dipity.

In the Latin Quarter of Paris, an American woman named Sylvia Beach bought a former laundry and transformed it into a bookstore named Shakespeare and Company. The store brought people in with its specialization in modern literature and catering to the growing English-speaking population in Paris. It gave them a space of their own, to relax and commune with one another among the shelves. Beach later moved the bookstore to 12 rue de l’Odéon in order to expand. The second bookstore had two rooms instead of just one.

Shakespeare-and-Company-Hemingway-Sylvia-Beach-Adrienne-MonnierSylvia Beach befriended many of the authors that visited her bookstore and allowed them to stay for as long as they needed. From the start, the hang-out was appreciated by TS Elliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway became close friends with Beach and helped with maintenance from time to time. Reading can be a way of bringing literature to life, and this bookstore took this idea one step further by serving as a meeting place for writers of the Lost Generation to discuss issues and literature and work on their writing. It was a meeting place, like a community center for them to, again, hang out as a group of like-minded expatriates.

When Beach had to close down the store this was not the end. The spirit and magic transferred to another. A young man named George Whitman had come to Paris and, after successfully running a lending library out of his apartment, purchased a bankrupt grocery and turned it into Le Mistral. The name he chose translates to a “strong wind”; he liked the idea of all kinds of people being blown into his bookstore, eventually deriving the name “tumbleweeds” from that original thought. With the dream of the wind blowing customers in, George Whitman didn’t advertise the store. Instead, he relied on word of mouth to get customers. When Sylvia Beach passed away, Whitman, who had become her close friend, renamed the store Shakespeare and Company as tribute to her.

Shakespear&coNot only did he name the store after hers, but he also ran it very similarly to Beach’s original store. Whitman’s store had thirteen beds in nooks of the store where traveling writers could sleep and stay for as long as they would like. The rent?  Helping in the store for two hours each day and reading a book a day. This was a way for Whitman to get the “tumbleweeds” to become a part of the bookstore. Whitman welcomed traveling writers and other literature lovers that were blown into the store. It soon became not only a bookstore, but a place where people could get comfortable and hang out for as long as they would like. Some people took that to heart and even stayed for several nights and slept surrounded by books.

 

6a00d8341c630a53ef012875b87944970c-800wiApproximately 50,000 people have stayed there, and it became a sanctuary for writers and readers alike.  There were many famous writers that stayed there such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and so many more. Shakespeare & Co. was also a place where many writers of the Beat Generation would go, contributing stories, lending books, and staying for a while. All of this history and wonder can be seen by wandering through the store and looking at the shelves. Famous writers have stood where customers today stand, and some have even found books signed by those authors. Whitman’s lending library continued even when the store became a business, and he encouraged books to be lent out and returned by customers. Today, tumbleweeds continue to float in and out; a homemade online archive now has interviews with current tumbleweeds, and photos of autobiographies from the past. They’ve created a library out of their experiences.

4182531861_5714a74161George Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia Beach Whitman,eventually took over the store.  With her at the wheel, there was a sudden clash of past and present. It’s not a bad collision, for while Ms. Whitman maintains the authentic and original attitude of Shakespeare and Co., she is bringing in new and exciting changes. Like how a library brings together books from all centuries to be mixed together, the store is mixing new with old in style, activities, and still within their book collection. It is bringing together the past and the present, mashing them together to create a timeless bubble. It’s a place that could exist at any point along France’s timeline, fitting seamlessly in the renaissance, the industrial revolution, or today. The enormous selection, the silence, the give-and-take mentality, the festivals, the live readings: all add to the sphere which protects the store from change. By entering the store, you enter a frozen space, a place that will remain exactly the same after years have passed. And all those changes only add more to the space as a hang-out.

Aside from the mash-up of past and present, this hidden glen of literature is a portal between two worlds: introverted and extroverted. The current culture’s obsession with social media immersion and constant connectedness makes this world an extroverted one. Our lives are constantly under surveillance, observed by others through the masses of technological sources, and we feed our voracious appetites by posting, publishing, and tweeting. Even when away from a computer, cell phones wire us to everyone and everything. It is an extroverted world.

tumblr_luojfvvF461qdo62to1_500But within the walls of Shakespeare and Company, something changes; the culture of the loud, outgoing external world disappears. Silence prevails as patrons swim in the sea of literature,  because for Shakespeare and Company literature is an all-consuming ocean. It is comprised of everything, without exclusion, and consumes customers. It immerses you, so you’re able to swim in an infinite pool of knowledge. The space itself encourages you to not just buy a few texts and leave, but spend the day absorbing, hanging out and relaxing in the sea. George Whitman once said that the title of his store is “a novel in three words.” Thus Shakespeare and Company itself is the embodiment of Whitman’s idea of literature. Since this bookstore houses everything, everything is literature. This mentality has kept it alive and thriving as a store, a library, and a fountain of inspiration.

Shakes2While you’re relaxing, consumed by literature, the space becomes personal, individual. Like in Lewis Buzbee’s bookstores, it is a place to be alone among people, a space apart from the bustling world around it. It is filled with mirrors for not only aesthetic reasons but to provide inward reflection. Magic mirrors, creating the illusion of a bigger space and giving the visitors a moment to look at themselves and within themselves. The guests float around one another, avoiding contact as if the lightest touch would break the illusion. Each personal space is sacred, absorption in one’s self is encouraged. An introverted space in an extroverted world. Libraries do much the same thing. The quiet spaces provide patrons with a moment to remove themselves from the burden of technology and constant surveillance. They are little pockets of introversion. But to find that atmosphere in a store is so rare—consumer culture is all about constant supervision: what you are and aren’t buying, convincing you to buy, or buying as much as possible. To have a business space where you aren’t forced to buy something, or where you can be to yourself and focus on your own literary journey? Therein lies the magic, for a unique space such as this is so rare. It is a place so different from our regular culture, a haven from the outside world.

 

il_fullxfull.319051869

 

 

 Sources

 

Buzbee, Lewis. The Yellow Lighted Bookshop. St. Paul: Greywolf Press. 2006. Print 147-186

Foy, Nathalie. Shakespeare and Company: A Chronology. http://nathaliefoy.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/shakespeare-and-company-a-chronology/

“George and Sylvia from Kilometer Zero.” The Literary Review 22 Sept. 2003: 166-75. Print.

“George Whitman; Proprietor of the Parisian Cultural Institution Shakespeare and Company.”The Telegraph 27 Dec. 2011: n. pag. Web.

“George Whitman; Unconventional American Whose Bookshop Shakespeare & Co was a Paris Landmark and a Shrine to Postwar Left Bank Intellectuals.” The Times21 Dec. 2011, Obituaries sec.: n. pag. Print.

History. “Shakespeare and Company.” http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/index.php?categories=113:1

Kirch, Claire. “Sylvia Whitman.” Publishers Weekly 8 Dec. 2008: 22. Print.

Latin Quarter. “Wikipedia.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Quarter,_Paris

Massie, Allan. “More an Anarchic Democracy than a Bookshop; George Whitman Ran Shakespeare and Company as a Haven for Poets and Dreamers.” The Daily Telegraph [London] 16 Dec. 2011, 1st ed., Editorial sec.: 28. Print.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists, The University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Morley, C. Parnassus on Wheels, Melville House, 1917.

Morley, C. The Haunted Bookshop, Melville House, 1919.

Shakespeare & Company. “festivalandco.” festivalandco.com

Shakespeare and Company (bookstore). “Wikipedia.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_and_Company_(bookstore)

Wiehardt, Ginny “Profile of Shakespeare and Company” 2006  http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/thebusinessofwriting/p/shakespeare.htm

Winship, Michael. “”The Tragedy of the Book Industry”? Bookstores and Book Distribution in the United States to 1950.” Studies in Bibliography 58 (2007)145-84.Print.

Winterson, Jeanette “Down and Out in Paris” 2009. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/mar/07/shakespeare-and-company-bookshop-paris

http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/index.php?categories=113:1

Images

http://www.miragebookmark.ch/images/bed-in-shakespeare-bookstore.jpg

http://media.portable.tv/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/paris-10-06b-218w2.jpg

http://europeantrips.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Inside-Shakespeare-and-Co-Paris-Bookshop1.jpg

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/21/88291814_d077f70db5_z.jpg

http://www.miragebookmark.ch/images/bed-in-shakespeare-bookstore.jpg

http://media.portable.tv/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/paris-10-06b-218w2.jpg

http://europeantrips.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Inside-Shakespeare-and-Co-Paris-Bookshop1.jpg

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/21/88291814_d077f70db5_z.jpg

http://freshphotography.org/photos/christine/CS_0095_sm.jpg

http://slowtalk.com/groupee_files/attachments/7/2/8/7281020246/7281020246_shakespeare_and_co_bookstore_slow_trav_small.JPG?ts=52A13D8E&key=127F015FEADA5756308567A734E613C8&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fslowtalk.com%2Fgroupee%2Fforums%2Fa%2Fga%2Ful%2F8281020246%2Finlineimg%2FY%2Fshakespeare_and_co_bookstore_slow_trav_small.JPG

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/3998487.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3425/5700555350_9298f3f6a8_o.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02388/sylvia_2388958b.jpg

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef012875b87944970c-800wi

 

Videos

https://www.youtube.com/wat  ch?v=zyybpVR5NnE

https://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=1k1VV1j_k08

Media

www.googlemaps.com

www.thinglink.com

www.dipity.com


Walking into Heaven

Christopher Morley clearly states how valuable he finds books to be in his novel The Haunted Bookshop.  I think many readers would agree with the Protagonist’s statement that “there is indeed a heaven on this earth, a heaven which we inhabit when we read a good book” (Chapter Two).   Throughout history, those who sell books have often wondered what their role would be in a changing world. There was speculation the 1800’s that the popularity of the public library and the mail would replace the need for book retailers, but they have always survived (Tebbel 16). People enjoy reading and enjoy the experience of being able to hold and own a book, and each retailer employs a method to distinguish itself among the rest.  During the forty years it was in business, this was especially important for Borders Books, since its original location in Ann Arbor forced it to compete with nineteen other bookshops for a customer base.

California
A glimpse of a remodeled Borders in California

Borders started out selling used books but quickly switched exclusively to new merchandise after a few years of success allowed them to move from the two rooms they occupied on South State Street into what was formerly a Jacobson Department Store.  Employees at the store were well known for their literary knowledge and they truly served to guide the customer to discover a love for books that they may not have known they had.  Staff recommendations consistently sold more copies then national bestsellers and the store also had a reputation for carrying a large selection titles even if they didn’t sell more than one copy in a year.  Thus, there was a pretty good chance that you could walk out of the store with the title you wanted and at least two others you hadn’t planned on purchasing.  Many of those who loved the original Borders blame the chain’s rapid expansion for causing its slow but steady downfall, but through its forty year history, Borders did retain very recognizable features from its maple bookshelves and the font on its signs, to the sticker on the back of the book.  The BINC system used by the chain gave both a barcode and a price for each item.  For those who knew what to look for, you could even tell which Borders store the book was sold in.

Barcodes
BINC stickers that came from store #236

The Borders in the Ann Arbor was the first of the chain to be remodeled in an attempt to stimulate the falling sales of the company. They enlisted the help of GRID2 International, New York to create a new design for their store that highlighted the diversity of the merchandise they carried and catered to the customers of these different areas. As president of GRID2, Martin Roberts, explains “there are the reference customers, usually 15-30 years of age, who are looking for specific information. There are customers looking for CDs, usually 30-50 years of age, who buy new wave and international music. There are moms in the children’s area, and then there are the DVD customers” (Carlton ).  Yet, these efforts to make the world of books appeal to a wider audience do did not please everyone. Joe Gable, who was an employee in the first years of Borders existence and went on to head the company for twenty years, complained that this new store, “tried to take the book business, which is complex and boring, and make it simple and sexy” Borders had lost its focus as a bookstore(Leopold).

This new store allowed customers to observe the layout of the store from the entryway, where tables featuring the latest and greatest releases of books, music and movies awaited them.  If the customer moved to the right, they would be looking at books of the fiction variety conveniently alphabetized by the author’s last name and organized by subjects indicated by large overhead signs.  These categories included: mystery, Thrillers, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Sports/Adventure, and School/Friendship/Humor (Borders in Ann Arbor).  Under this new design, there is more space between the shelves and the walls are red, with pictures of authors and book-related quotes decorating the walls.  Borders chose to cut the number of titles they stock and display more book on the shelves face-out, as well as dedicating more space to displays.  The non-fiction titles were found under such categories as:  Art, Music, Crafts, Cooking, Humor, Sports, General Science, and Nature.

Book picture
A decoration in the book section of store #567

Continuing in a clockwise direction led the customer to the Borders café which offered comfortable seating to lounge with a book or newspaper in addition to enjoying some refreshments or an event hosted by the store.  The children section which even features small tables and chairs to accommodate the younger readers is the next section within this circle. The movies and music also finds a place within this section, which is equipped with the technology for customers to listen to samples of songs and watch movie trailers prior to purchase. The final section houses magazines, stationary and other gift items before the customer approaches the checkout counter and walks out the door.

With this layout then, the Borders experience was modified over the course of forty years but still attempted to provide an individualized experience for each customer and perhaps the best description of what Borders was lies in the words of those who mourn its closing.  Ann Miller wrote in the Longmont Weekly from Colorado, “There was no better place for grazing the written word and for meeting the best of friends” (Leopold).  Borders may have started in Michigan as an independent store, but it became a chain with hundreds of stores in the United States and some in foreign nations as well.  Books are each small heavens that are capable of placing a reading in another world, but they also serve as journals of where you are and where you’ve been. The mediums to enjoy the written word are constantly changing, but the bookstore has always adapted.  So even though Borders went under, the spirit of it still exists in all bookstore patrons who still long to learn something of life outside of their own experience by building their libraries.

 

 


Sources

 

Texts

 

“Borders in Ann Arbor: It’s All About Subjects.” A Place for Everything: Examining the Organization of Children’s Materials in Bookstores & Libraries: Borders, Ann Arbor, MI. University of Michigan, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2013. http://sitemaker.umich.edu/666bookstoreorlibrary/borders__ann_arbor__mi.

 

Carlton, Rachel. “Border Store Layout.” Retailing. Blogspot, 4 Feb. 2005. Web. 19 Oct. 2013. http://retail0.blogspot.com/2005/02/borders-store-layout.html.

 

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.

 

Morley, Christopher. “Chapter II: The Corn Cob Club.” The Haunted Bookshop. N.p.: Wilder Publications, 1919. N. pag. Print.

 

Tebbel, John. “A Brief History of American Bookselling.” Bookselling in America and the World: Some Observations & Recollections in Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the American Booksellers Association. New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book, 1975. 16. Print.

 

Images

 

“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/

 

Borders: Moving Through Space and Time

 

djernst
D.J. Ernst in Selinsgrove, PA

As any good college town, Selinsgrove is home to its very own used and rare bookstore. During store hours, D.J. Ernst attracts a casual walker with its outdoor display of 50₵ paperbacks, an opportunity no truly bookish person can pass up. Standing on the front stoop you are pulled further by the scent of paper and glue, and upon entering you are rewarded by an amount of books you could not previously of imagined standing outside the small, one room store. The walls are lined with shelves, more 50₵ treasures are stacked on the edges of the floor, and in the center of the space sits a display of collectables and hardbacks, as well as a few back issues of Best American collections. Whenever the store is open you can be certain to find Homer, the owner, sitting behind the counter in the back, often either reading one of the books surrounding him or carefully gluing some loose bindings. When you ask him about his store he will be quick to admit it’s often a struggle, but the love of it all is what brings him to work each morning. He knows his stock better than any high-school aged part-time employee at the Books-a-Million in the mall down the street, and is always able to shepherd the university students that have made the short trek down to his store to the books they need.

As you peruse the wares, it’s hard not to think about the differences and, sometimes even more importantly, the similarities between this place and the chain bookstores. At face value it seems almost impossible to bridge the gab between these two types of shopping experiences, but as seen by the Borders Group this relationship can be much closer than one might expect. I’ll let you decide on the relevancy of the fact that Borders closed its doors in September or 2011, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves already.

In 1971 Tom and Louis Borders opened the first Borders bookstore in Ann Arbor,

first_borders-thumb-400x483-69708
The first Borders bookstore in Ann Arbor, MI

Michigan while they were undergraduates at the University of Michigan. It was a small,two-room second hand shop located above 209 State Street that probably held a similar air as D.J. Ernst in Selinsgrove, but by 1975 they bought out another local store. Wahr’s had been operating for 80 years, specializing mostly in textbooks and school supplies,an important asset to universities in the area. This store was located at 316 South Main Street, and in order to assist with managing this expansion the brothers brought in Michael Hildebrand and Harvey James Robin. No longer focused on simply one small location and their inventory more than doubled, keeping track of all the books was no longer something that could mainly be managed mentally. Louis developed the store’s own custom inventorying and sales projection system, which they began selling to regional independent bookstores across the nation in 1976.


View Borders History in a larger map, modern storefront of the original Borders Location

Over the following thirteen years Borders continued to expand, opening new locations in places such as Atlanta and Indianapolis, with the next major development of the company in 1985 when they opened their first superstore, which now included a coffee bar and was a symbol for all future Borders bookstores. In 1989 they hired Robert F. DiRomualdo. Formerly the president of Hickory Farms, DiRomualdo was a Harvard MBA with retail experience, and would go on to be very successful in his leadership of the company over the next three years until the company was bought out by Kmart and merged with Waldenbooks. This buyout can be seen as a major turning point in the company’s history, and quite possibly the beginning of the end, even though the store would continue to expand and make a profit for more than another decade. While the company was still run out of Ann Arbor, it was no longer the independent, homegrown entity that proudly traced all twenty-one of its stores to the humble beginnings of a second-hand shop. As brought up in my previous post regarding Ann Arbor as it is today and the impact Borders left on the city, Tim Cresswell is a human geographer who has worked to define “place” and everything it implies. One of the key parts of his definition is the idea of ownership, and when Kmart bought out and merged Borders this founding sense of ownership was lost (Cresswell, 1). While the Borders name eventually beat out Waldenbooks upon the creation of Borders Group, Inc. many of the chairmen for Borders left the company following the merger.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
First international Borders in Singapore

Kmart bought the chain in hopes of solving its own dilemmas in the book market and even opened a new flagship in Ann Arbor in 1994, but when that goal was unsuccessful the Borders Group (BGP) was formed in 1995 with an initial public offering, further removing the chain from its history and identity as a family owned company. While greater distance was created between the current form of the chain and its conception, the Border Group actually went through a few years of marked success. The first international store was opened in 1997 in Singapore and the international presence of the company explodes from there with the first Borders Group subsidiary created the following year in the United Kingdom. The Borders (UK) Ltd. grows to become one of the leading booksellers in the country as Borders continues to expand into other territories, launching its first website in May of 1998.

Unlike many of the company’s expansions, its foray into the web is criticized as being behind the times, and is often pointed to as the major cause of the company’s eventual liquidation. With the continued growth of physical locations and the lack of success on the online platform, the website began to become a distraction from the brick and mortar stores, which lead to the Borders Group outsourcing their web presence to the now flourishing Amazon company in 2001. The company continues to try and grow beyond its means by branding with Seattle’s Best Coffee in all of the superstores in 2004 and then starting to franchise internationally in April of 2005, starting with the Berjaya Books Sdn. Bhd. in Malaysia.

Kobo-eReader-1
The Kobo eReader Borders sold

With stocks dropping and profits refusing the rise, the Borders Group tried to refocus on their customer base by implementing a Borders Rewards system in February of 2006. Unlike Barnes & Noble’s membership program, Borders Rewards was offered free of charge to all customers and aimed at rewarding loyalty through a point system, which could then be exchanged for store credit or discounts. The move turned out to be too little to late, since by the end of 2006 the company profits dropped to zero. The Borders Group continued to try and regain its footing in 2008 by opening digital centers in fourteen concept stores nationwide in 2008 and finally moved into the eBook market in 2010 as a partnership with Kobo, Inc. but the efforts continued to be futile. The company had exerted so much effort in expansion it was unable to keep its competitive edge, eventually leading to the final closings of Borders stores in the United States on September 18th, 2011. While some franchises continue to operate today in the Middle East, the Borders Group was liquidated and sold its trademarks and costumer lists to Barnes & Noble. While the website continued to function as a directory for a month following the closure of the physical stores, the url was redirected to the Barnes & Noble page on October 14th, 2011.

Over the span of forty years Borders went from a small idea shared by brother during their undergraduate careers, a local landmark, to an international company that at its peak was grossing $3.27 billion in sales. In its attempt to compete with the Barnes & Noble megastore it lost what had lead to its early success, the innovation of two men who had a passion for bookselling. I’m not going to deny it’s a very, perhaps even overly, romantic view of a world of commerce and number-crunching, but when wandering D.J. Ernst or any other second-hand store it’s impossible to deny the immediate sense of dedication to the art. It has a personality, not only a physical presence but also the “spiritual genealogy” Christopher Morley discusses in his essay, “Escaped Into Print”. He discusses the interconnectedness of books and the people who not only write them but also consume them, the connections built within a community that cannot be limited to a single geographical area (64). When Borders made that shift from a corner piece of life in Ann Arbor, a space for students and residents alike to come and experience literature, to the Border Group it cuts the majority of its ties to the people living in literary community.

Of course many of those living in Ann Arbor continued to feel bonded to the storefront and still feel its absence today, it stopped being the community member they saw it as back in 1992 when Kmart first bought the name. Morley continues to discuss the romantic ideals of literature through his novel, Parnassus on Wheels, by introducing the characters of Roger the bookseller and his travelling store, Parnassus. As seen over the course of this novel, no matter how marvelous Parnassus looks as a physical object, it is Roger and his passion that gives the wagon its sense of “place”. When Roger leaves and our narrator, Helen, is on her own the adventure does not seem as grand (108). He was the life-force of the store, much as the Borders brothers were for their early stores. Once the company was packaged and shipped out across the nation it lost all hope of staying successful or even relevant to the literary community, each step further into the world taking it twice as far from its identity and its true place.

 

SOURCES

Maps embedded from Google

Timeline embedded from Dipity

TEXT

Borders’s Group History

Borders’ rise and fall

Creswell, Tim. “Defining Place.” Place: A Short Introduction. New York City: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. Print.

Gale Directory of Company Histories

Morley, Christopher. Parnassus on Wheels. New York: Avon Books, 1983.

______. “Escaped Into Print,” in Ex Libris Carissimis. New York: A.S. Barnes, 1961.

 

IMAGES

DJ Ernst

Original Borders

Borders Singapore

Kobo eReader