One of the most devastating pieces of news for book lovers everywhere: the long-struggling book giant Borders is going to finally close their over 400 stores down by the end of September. After being a popular name in bookdom, I’m so sad to see this giant go. Yes, I know this leaves more room for smaller, local bookstores to continue selling their wares, and yes, I haven’t been there myself in the past year, but I do remember fondly the days when I would walk in, smell the hot coffee boiling , the fresh ink pages, and the lovely bright smell of newly polished wood shelves. When I would walk in with one book in mind and leave with easily ten. But are those days gone forever, then?
Perhaps. While I do love going to bookstores and browsing the titles, like many others I make a list of what I want, and then head home to my laptop to find the same titles online, for a lot less. Most showing up as gently used copies for less than a dollar. I know this is defeating the point, but we have to realize that we are living in a digital age, and even if our books aren’t digital yet, our ways of purchasing them have certainly become so.
One of the main reasons why Borders is closing their doors is because they just didn’t get it together in time. While they became heavy sellers of music and DVD’s, they failed to realize that the biggest upcoming market is online and digital sales. Their biggest rival, Barnes and Noble, has an entire store online for our use, as well as the exclusive Nook reader, for those of us who enjoy eReads. Borders continued to hold on to the idea that people liked the classic as it is: a good, old-fashioned printed book sitting on the shelf and waiting for someone to find it.
It makes me sad to think that many readers are following this track. We are being swept up in the idea of thousands of books on one device, the ability to shop for them anywhere, and similar ideas. Who knows how much longer books, in their most basic form, will survive? And who knows the countless possibilities afforded to us through their digital counterparts? All I know is that I’m reader to hunker down with my favorites, battered and scribbled on as they may be. I don’t know what the future holds, but Border’s, your downfall will not be forgotten.
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Posted by Pattie | August 27, 2011, 3:08 pmI’m not too worried about the future of books. While a digital copy has many advantages over paper copies already large data banks of digital information are beginning to back up their information on hard copies. LOL
Anyways, I was reading an article in Harpers a good while ago but the author was talking about books on tape. Woody Allen had made a comment about how text was superior to recordings and would remain that way. The author had a different viewpoint and he instead looked at the progression of recording stories. Writing is really just piece of technology that allowed us to store large amounts of information without having to memorize. Poetry was “technology” that allowed us to rhyme our words and make it easier to remember epics poems and stories. Now that technology is getting better audio recordings are replacing books. Whether they will ever be as popular as a book remains to be seen but in a way, audio recordings are a return to the traditional method of presenting information, a speech. All the classics are poems and plays, designed to presented to an audience rather than read. Writing has even adapted many tools to convey audible phenomenon like exclamation points, question marks, italics, quotations, etc. Writing is not alive like speech. Maybe this move to digital is a return to traditional storytelling where you will download a book and listen to the speaker tell you a tale.
Posted by Kyle Throssell | July 22, 2011, 9:08 pmI just found out today.
And while I have never shopped in any Borders store (as I don’t live in the USA) I do find it sad that a well known book store chain has been forced into such a position.
I linked this post to my own blog
Posted by Bibliohistoria | July 22, 2011, 9:38 am