Boy, things were hopping at the Borders bookstore today.
If that statement makes you go “Huh?” then you’ve been paying attention to news about the book-selling industry. Borders, the nation’s second-largest chain, announced in July it would shut down and close its nearly 400 stores.
Experts say the company made a lot of bad moves in the past decade, including its response to the Internet. First Amazon kicked the butts of most big chain stores and now e-books are outselling paper and cardboard books.
While I have a real appreciation for some bookstores — Powell’s in Portland, Oregon, Tattered Cover in Denver, Malaprops in Asheville, North Carolina, to name a few — I can’t say I felt a special affinity for Borders. Barnes and Noble feels more like a “real” bookstore to me.
But I hate to see a bookstore go out of business. The closing of a bookstore means one less place to browse and touch and sample and buy books.
I’ve certainly contributed to the downfall of bookstores. While we still buy books, I’ve tried to save money in recent years by stepping up my library use.
So it was with mixed emotions that I found myself, out of the blue, at the going out of business sale at Borders today.
We decided to visit Hamilton Town Center on the north side of Indianapolis and were walking around when we realized that Borders — not Barnes and Noble — was the bookstore at that mall. We figured it would already be closed but it wasn’t. It is in its death throes.
“Going out of business” banners and signs are plastered everywhere and shoppers bustled about, checking out the somewhat-depleted shelves.
We bought some books, DVDs and CDs. Yes, it was like shopping in an elephants graveyard, times three. And no, there wasn’t a rack of eight-track tapes, thank you very much.
As we made our purchases and the clerk behind the register thanked us and wished us a good day, I wondered if he didn’t really mean, “Thanks for coming by! Too bad you didn’t spend a hundred bucks here when it counted!”
keithroysdon 