Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com
By Deborah M. Todd, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)
PITTSBURGH — At the time Dan Iddings opened the doors of Classic Lines Bookstore in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood last year, his greatest fear was that the technologies that ate up some of his largest competitors would swallow his business whole.
“I had this fear that I would be the Amazon showroom — that people would look at our selection of products, then go buy them on Amazon,” he said.
Six months in, Iddings said he has seen his share of comparison shoppers, but they’re far outnumbered by customers seeking literary refuge following the 2009 loss of the neighborhood Barnes & Noble bookstore.
“People understand that there’s only one way to keep a bookstore in the neighborhood — that’s to buy the books,” he said.
The digitization of literature and Amazon-ification of book sales that rattled the publishing industry in the mid-2000s has settled into a moment of stability for independent bookstores primed and ready to fill voids left by the 2011 bankruptcy of Borders books and the closings of several Barnes & Noble locations in the area.
Borders — the second largest bookseller in the nation at the time of its demise — pointed to Web-based retail and a shift toward digital downloads as primary causes for its bankruptcy and subsequent liquidation of more than 400 stores. The Michigan company, which outsourced its online sales to Amazon.com in 2001 before suspending that deal in favor of its own website in 2008, also cited a failure to respond quickly to market changes. In October 2011, Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest bookseller, took over Borders’ brand name and website in a $13.9 million deal.
In Pittsburgh — where the loss of Borders stores came painfully close to Barnes & Noble closures — independent bookstores that had survived years in the shadows of the giants became bastions of familiarity for bookworms seeking new haunts to call their own.
They also became windows of opportunity for bibliophiles with lifelong dreams of opening their own stores.
Iddings noted that three community bookstores had closed around the time that Barnes & Noble entered Squirrel Hill, but he pointed out that his store and used bookseller Amazing Books have popped up in the neighborhood in the last two years.
Squirrel Hill isn’t alone.
The suburb of Sewickley’s Penguin Bookshop, which has been a community institution since 1929, was sold to community resident Susan Hans O’Conner last year, and Mystery Lover’s Bookshop in the suburb of Oakmont was recently purchased by hometown native Natalie Sacco and her husband, Trevor Thomas.
Sacco, who grew up blocks away from the store, said she heard it was up for sale around Christmas and immediately devised a plan to transplant her family from Cleveland to get into the business of books.
After connecting with owner Laurie Stephens, a deal for an undisclosed figure (“Much less than what it’s worth!” interjected Stephens with a chuckle) was struck.
Sacco said not much at the Mystery Lover’s Bookshop will change physically.
The checkerboard linoleum floors and the red table and chair set will stay. The emphasis on mystery, live readings by authors and the section carved out for Pittsburgh authors have been grandfathered in.
The biggest changes will come in the form of new graphic novels and titles by small independent publishers, a revamped website, an extended social media presence and possibly a section selling vinyl albums.
And the couple is hoping to double down on offerings such as community events, book clubs and other opportunities to team up with other local small business owners.
Pablo Fierro and Amanda Johnson, members of the group that owns the Big Idea Cooperative Bookstore and Cafe in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Bloomfield, said capitalizing off of independent bookstores’ reputations as community meeting spaces has been one of their store’s greatest advantages.
Billed as a space for “multicultural, women-positive, queer-positive, class-conscious, anti-militaristic” literature among other things, Johnson said the space regularly hosts events for groups tied to alternative political movements or fringe causes.
It’s that sense of community — the idea that an individual can find his or her people among aisles of mysteries and biographies — that would have been the greatest loss if predictions of the printed book’s demise had unfolded the way some predicted, said Thomas.
“You don’t really understand until it’s gone,” he said. “Just like independent record stores, you’re not just buying records. You’re there to exchange ideas with other people, have conversations. It’s those ideas that spark an interest in certain other things and if you don’t have a place to exchange those ideas who knows what you’ve lost.”
If a digital takeover of books and the independent bookstore is coming, Iddings said it’s far from imminent.
“I don’t have to worry about that because I won’t be here that long. And I plan to be here a long time,” he said with a hearty laugh.
Photo: Robin Rombach via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS
It’s hotter than Dante’s nine rings of hell outside.
Crank up the fans, and pass the pile of books.
Most of us have triggers for childhood memories. These dog days of summer do it for me.
During the precious weeks of summer vacation, I’d pedal my bike back and forth to the library in a continuous cycle of return and borrow. I can still see skinny 10-year-old me, left foot dangling over the back of the porch swing, right foot pushing against the dusty floorboards as I floated in midair, immersed in the adventures of other people’s lives.
An early love for books changes the trajectory of lives. My own kids spent as much time in bookstores as in libraries. In my leanest years as a single mother, I never said no to a book for my son or daughter.
Sad news this week: Another national bookstore chain has failed.
Borders Group is going out of business. All 399 stores will close. In the dead of summer, too.
About 10,700 employees will lose their jobs. I’ve come to know dozens of them in Ohio over the years. To a person, they were smart and kind and full of big ideas. What a loss to the communities they served.
“We were all working hard towards a different outcome,” Borders President Mike Edwards said, “but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly
changing book industry, e-reader revolution and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now.”
Borders has been in trouble for a while. It closed 200 stores in February as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.
That same month, Publishers Weekly reported that the bookstore chain owed $41 million to Penguin Group, $36.9 million to Hachette, $33.8 million to Simon & Schuster, $33.5 million to Random House and $25.8 million to HarperCollins.
Still, a lot of us refused to see this collapse coming.
Others, such as Sari Feldman, already are brainstorming ways to fill the void.
“I’m crushed for the reading community,” Feldman said Tuesday. “Borders was a place for a lot of readers to congregate. I hope they’ll find another place.”
She has a suggestion: How about your local library?
Feldman is past president of the national Public Library Association and executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Ohio. She’s been tracking the setbacks and innovations of public libraries across the country for years. Despite budget cuts, many library systems are becoming increasingly creative, she says, and returning to their roots as the go-to place for readers.
“We don’t see bookstores as competitors,” Feldman said. “They’re important in keeping people aware and enthusiastic about books. But libraries are reclaiming our core value, which is promoting books to our readers.
“We should always be at the ready to help them find their next great read.”
Public libraries always have been at the forefront of child literacy, but they also are looking for new ways to reach adults, too. Earlier this year, Feldman borrowed an idea from Multnomah County Library in Portland, Ore., and started a Facebook “Night Owls” book discussion. It convenes on Thursdays at 9 p.m. Last week’s discussion logged 85 comments.
“We have 28 branches,” she said. “Last year, 7.6 million people walked through our doors. We have lots of book groups, but some readers want to talk about books at night, from home. We did this to include them, too.”
Feldman laughed when I suggested that most of us remember the library as a place where people read but never chat.
“Libraries are not the quiet sanctuaries they used to be,” she said. “We have to set aside quiet spaces in our buildings these days. We welcome the civic engagement.”
When citizens read, their communities prosper.
“People who read are voters,” Feldman said. “They patronize museums and theaters. They’re more likely to volunteer.”
They’re also more inclined to pass on their love of reading to the next generation.
Forecasters are predicting no break soon in the heat and humidity.
What perfect weather for children to curl around books and hitch a ride.
Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine. To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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