As US bookseller Barnes and Noble shrinks its store network, Mark Athitakis has a tribute to the once ubiquitous chain in The New Republic.
Barnes and Noble was never popular among US independent booksellers because of the perception, probably true, that the chain drove locally owned stores out of business.
What it offered though was a safe, comfortable place for booklovers to gather in suburban shopping malls. As Mark points out, it created a community.
Its stores were designed to keep people parked for a while, for children’s story time, for coffee klatches, for sitting around and browsing. That was a business decision—more time spent in the store, more money spent when you left it—but it had a cultural effect. It brought literary culture to pockets of the country that lacked them.
In recent years that community moved to coffee shops, in the United States B&N’s role was taken by Starbucks, at the same time our reading habits changed and the business of selling books and magazines became tougher.
Now that community is changing again, as the online societies like blogs, Facebook and Twitter become important, the coffee shops have responded with free wi-fi which is a perfect example of how the online and offline world come together.
That need to create communities, either physically or online, is a driving human urge.
Online that role is being catered to with social media platforms and sites like food, mommy or tech blogs where like minded people can gather.
Down at the mall, Barnes and Noble catered for that need in the 1980s and Starbucks in the 1990s. What will follow them may be the next big success in the retail or hospitality industry.
Image courtesy of Brenda76 on SXC
