<p>I’ve resisted getting an e-book for the simple reason that I prefer to own an actual copy of the book. I was very dismayed when Amazon reached into people’s Kindles and erased books (ironically by George Orwell) they had downloaded. It showed me that you don’t really buy an e-book. You sort of rent an image of the book, an image that can disappear in an instant.</p>
<p>Plus, short of your house burning down, there is no way you are going to lose all your books. But with e-books who knows? Have you ever seen an electronic service provider go out of business and shut down? And have you ever had an electronic device malfunction or lose its memory? It would be hard to find someone who hasn’t. There is no particular reason to believe that e-books are immune to these sorts of disasters. By contrast, I’ve never had a real book malfunction on me. And certainly the publisher is not capable of remotely reaching into my home a erasing a real book.</p>
<p>What would we put on our bookshelves if we were all using electronic readers? So far our family count is: 3 people with Nooks, and two hold-outs for books. I find it much easier to read a printed page than any kind of screen.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about Borders, though in my area the shopping experience is better at B&N. Both stores are always crowded, which provides me with a ray of optimism. We lived in Ann Arbor for a while about 30 years ago, where the flagship Borders was certainly the best bookstore I had ever visited. Though at the time we didn’t have money to buy many books, it was always our destination when the birthday/Christmas checks arrived.</p>
<p>I, too have mixed feelings. I miss the many small mom and pop bookstores that were run out of town by the big box bookstores, but I will also miss the nearby Borders, the comfy chairs, the large selection to browse, the opportunity to listen to samples of CDs, the coffeeshop and weekend music, where I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to have some time to chat with my DH, read magazines, sip on coffee and listen to the guitarist. Kindles and Ipads cant match this ambiance.</p>
<p>First,as for encyclopedias, ucdad, they still exist. However, most have an on-line presence now, so they can be kept up to date. I can use the Americana at home with my NY public library card.</p>
<p>I’m a reader. I grew up in a family of non-readers. If I’d had to pay to read all the books I read as a child, I wouldn’t have read as many. I probably would have had to use my spending $ and books would have had to compete with going to the movies with friends and other items I spent my allowance on. Yes, my family could afford them, but books weren’t a priority for my parents. There are still a lot of children like me in the US. </p>
<p>And, you’re missing the point if you don’t think it’s worth the shelf space to keep books that people “rarely” read. Those are exactly the books we need to save because they aren’t going to be made into ebooks anytime soon. </p>
<p>I read a lot of books that people rarely read. Part of the reason is that I’m interested in genealogy. I can tell you what gospel verse was the subject of the sermon at my great great great great grandmother’s funeral. How? The minister who preached it kept a diary and it’s been published. I don’t expect to see that diary in ebook format any time soon. It is, however, of interest to historians, and to people like me who just happen to have ancestors who lived in the town he did.</p>
<p>My grandfathers were both union men. Did you know that most unions published national journals to which their members subscribed? I come from a long line of working class folks. Their births, marriages and deaths didn’t make the NY Times, or even the local paper, but they made the union journal. So, for me, one of those old journals is very interesting–there’s a birth announcement for my dad, an announcement of my grandmother’s death, etc. I never knew that my grandfather was president of his local–I found that out at the library. One of my grandfathers was recording secretary of his union–I didn’t know that either. He died long before I was born. I’d never read anything he wrote—until I found the union journals in the library. I knew his brother was a colorful character, but I never really knew how colorful until I read the journals. The man didn’t go past 8th grade, but he was a stunningly good writer. ( His account of the efforts of another union to steal work from his local in his monthly report is hilarious. It angered the other union so much that it printed a diatribe against him on the front page of their union journal! Of course, that made him a hero to his union.) </p>
<p>The journals are also of interest to anyone who is studying the history of American labor unions. I found it fascinating that the journals devoted a lot of ink to politics. Working men trusted their union papers to explain politics to them. The coverage of events leading up to the First World War is just amazing. These papers took a stand on elections and I assume that their endorsements were important to their members.They didn’t just say “vote X.” The editors explained why they thought X would be a better president for working men. There’s lot of interesting info in these journals for all historians, not just those of the labor movement. I’m glad the library here has them. They give a glimpse into the world of working class people that is unique. </p>
<p>And it’s not just books. At one point, NYC had what was basically a “make work” project that involved photographing almost every building in the City of New York. Those photos can be accessed on-line because the library scanned all of them. There are lots of old maps. I was able to figure out where the address where my great-grandmother grew up was. (The street no longer exists.) I doubt there’s a big call for maps of Manhattan as it existed in the mid-1800s. </p>
<p>The market model–preserve only what people will pay for–doesn’t work for books or art, etc.</p>
<p>When it first opened, the Borders that Xiggi mentions was really a magical place. Somehow it offered a different experience than any other local Borders or any other I had been in anywhere. The layout was different from other stores and it encouraged just sitting around and browsing through books and periodicals. After they remodeled it I always felt that it lost the luster it once had.</p>
<p>As to the big chains putting local book sellers out of business…</p>
<p>When I moved to Dallas in 1980 we had a very nice locally owned bookseller with multiple locations that was really quite good. These were not little bookstores, in fact they probably averaged 30-40,000 sq feet. They had very limited hours of operation which I always found to be odd. They closed on weekdays at either 8 or 9 PM and at 6 PM on Saturdays and, if I remember correctly were closed on Sundays due to Blue laws which were in effect at the time. When the Blue laws were repealed, they either chose to stay closed on Sundays or closed at 5 PM…it’s been too many years and I’ve slept since then. ;)</p>
<p>When the first Borders store came to town (the one that Xiggi mentioned) they were open from 9AM to 11PM M-Sat and until 9PM on Sundays. At the time, I told my wife that the locally owned store needed to expand its hours of operation to something more closely aligned to those of Borders but they never did. It ultimately was a big factor in their demise. </p>
<p>I know in our case, we might have been out to dinner or maybe even a movie and would often then stop at Borders for a coffee/cappucino and dessert and browse the store…usually also purchasing something. Once Borders opened they were the place of choice, despite the fact that I had to drive past one of the locally owned stores to get there. They were open longer, had a bigger selection and overall offered a much friendlier and more welcoming environment.</p>
<p>While I’ll agree that WalMart has been the cause of many “mom and pop” stores to close, especially in small town America, in the case of the local Dallas bookseller it was more bad management and refusing to change than being put out of business by Borders. They practically drove their long time clientele to Borders by not being willing to change with the times. I had a friend who was one of their buyers and he told me that the staff begged the owners to expand their hours of operation but were shot down time and again. The owners believed that “their” customers were loyal to a fault…what they forgot was that the number of “their” old time customers was being dwarfed by the huge influx of new residents that did not share that loyalty and liked the atmosphere and convenience of Borders more.</p>
<p>Thank you for describing the experience in much better words than I did. I also remember that it was almost impossible not to “run into” someone you knew or … knew you. Something the kids from THE school learned the hard way if seen by a friendly parent during the school hours. I think Borders became a substitute for a lively community center, perhaps along the lines of the YMCA on Northaven. And those apricot muffins were to die for! </p>
<p>Those were the good ol’ days in Dallas, and I miss them.</p>
<p>for the comment about e-books, about being afraid to lose the books and such: That fear is a bit overblown. The way that amazon works (and I assume BN does) it takes a lot of work to ‘lose’ an e-book. Basically, unless you delete them specifically, the book you buy are archived on the Amazon servers as being under your account. If for example your kindle device bit the dust, all you would need to do is get a new kindle (or reader software for an ipod, whatever), configure the reader for the account, and when that is done if you go to the archived books area, all your books will be there and you simply download them again, really quick and simple.
Amazon and BN have pretty sophisticated server farms running this stuff and they have the data archived, so ‘losing a book’ is pretty unlikely on their end.</p>
<p>The thing where Amazon and others fail is in browsing capability. Yes, they have some neat things like people’s recommended book lists, or their ‘genius’ kind of app that recommends books, but there still is nothing like browsing, you never know what you are going to find, it is like looking in the boneyard of a library (where books soon to be reshelved are stacked), ya never know. One of the coolest bookstores I ever saw was in Ogonquit, Maine (not sure of the proper spelling), lady who ran it had a really interesting way to shelve the books, she related them by underlying themes rather then by fiction/non fiction type…browsers delight. Even in a library, while you can use the catalog to search for stuff, sometimes you find great books just wandering, something not easy to do electronically.</p>
It’s always possible and if there was a book I wanted to retain forever I’d probably want the print version but in actuality I think the odds of the e-book actually being lost forever is slim (but possible) and I only read the vast majority of my books one time anyway - I have no desire to keep them (but I realize some people like to collect the books they read). One of the exceptions to this would be a technical book which I’d refer to multiple times but most of those are soon out of date anyway and for me are much more useful in a soft format rather than hardcopy. It was handy for me that when I was called to waste time in a jury lounge for the day and didn’t feel like bringing the Kindle along I could just read the same book seamlessly via the Kindle app on my iPhone - i.e. I accessed the book I had already purchased and was reading via the Kindle device.</p>
<p>Jonri - There’s no technical reason (but may be a legal one) an enterprising or concerned group or individual couldn’t turn those journals into e-book versions and make them available to everyone rather than just the people who go to the local libraries that happen to have them. That way a person in a different part of the country or world could access it and they’d prove useful and interesting to far more people. This is a real boon to anyone doing geneological research.</p>
<p>An example of something like this is what the LDS people have done with many documents in scanning and cataloguing them and making them available to anyone anywhere with internet access. In the past only a select few would have had access to these docs (my W has spent many days at LDS libraries in the past doing geneological research). There are other examples where this has been done by Google and others.</p>
<p>For rare or less used books, making them available as e-books makes them far more accessible to everyone rather than someone trying to find a library that happens to have one. Although I’m sure one can probably find most of these books somewhere in NYC or Chicago, there’s little chance of finding them in smaller cities and towns or the sticks.</p>
<p>I don’t know what it’s like where you are but around here the libraries have been hit with budget issues and have cut back on hours and the number of days open and some have closed. I assume that on top of that many have cut down in their actual book purchases. I’m saying that the way most libraries are configured now with large numbers of physical books is an inefficient and costly enterprise to run and could be improved. There’s a point in time where practicalities, efficiencies, and leveraging new technology need to enter the equation.</p>
<p>On the encyclopedias - I know they’re accessible via electronic format - I was just wondering if anyone actually buys physical book versions of them anymore or if they’re even produced anymore. I think I might still have a 50+ y/o set in my bookcase - perhaps it’s somewhat out of date.</p>
<p>I prefer the books to be “archived” on my shelves at home. That way I don’t have to depend on Amazon or any other cyber-company still being there for me for the rest of my life. </p>
<p>The on-line companies that have suddenly dried up and blown away when the Next Big Thing came along are legion. We are seeing that happen right now with AOL, Yahoo, and Myspace. Just a few years ago they were huge, indestructable companies worth billions. They are now circling the drain. Whose to say that tomorrow it won’t be Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon that are quickly dying?</p>
<p>I suspect that you don’t spend much time in public libraries. Most of them really are “leveraging” new technologies. For example, in Massachusetts, there’s one website for all the libraries in the state. You can sign in with a library card from any Mass state library. That allows you to access a lot of databases at home. It also allows you to search a catalog that has the collections of any library in the state, so if you’re local library doesn’t have it, you can find out which does and get it. That also means that each small town doesn’t have to spend the money to have a website and maintain it–though most of the cities still do.</p>
<p>I have an email correspondent who lives in the rural South. She has to pay for library access, but it’s a small amount and she can use Ancestry’s library edition at home. ( I use it at the library.) </p>
<p>Libraries are sharing their resources. Where do you think the books on google books come from? The New York Public Library is one of the libraries working with google to scan the books it has which are out of copyright. That way, they are available to everyone, not just the folks who can go to the library or have a NY Public Library card. The university library–one of those “directional ones,” not a state flagship-- in the area some of my ancestors lived in has scanned lots of stuff and donated it to archive.org. I found someone’s Ph.D. thesis, which used the Civil War pension file of one of my “collaterals.” I can search for my family names and find things in a way no card catalog would let me do. </p>
<p>Someone has created a history website for that area. It has links to all of the old city directories–the links are to them on google books. </p>
<p>There’s the miracle of WorldCat–ever used it? Put in the name of a book and it will tell you the closest public library that has it. I put in the union journal I wrote about. There are 26 libraries that have the physical journals and five more that have microfilm. One university library has scanned one year’s worth of the journal. Unfortunately, the public can’t access it. But anyone anywhere in the country with a public library can borrow the microfilm from one of the libraries that has it. </p>
<p>It’s not as easy to embrace technical advances as you may think. The NY Public Library has ebooks I can download—but I can’t do it to my Kindle. That’s not the library’s fault–it’s Amazon. The folks at Amazon don’t want me to download new books for free from the library. B&N has decided that’s an issue it can mine to its advantage—the Nook Color can be used to download library books. Now NYers are buying Nooks rather than Kindles because of that. But the supply of those books is limited. Some publishers won’t publish e-versions of books. Even more won’t sell e-versions to libraries. One of the reasons some publishers have embraced e-books is because, while cheaper in the first place, you can’t keep handing on the “book” as you can with the physical one. E-books at libraries are a publisher’s nightmare–and it is certainly Amazon’s, which is I assume why it won’t co-operate. So, the “supply” of ebooks available at libraries is depressingly low–and it is NOT the fault of the libraries. </p>
<p>The libraries do have what I call ‘self-destruct’ copies of some things. I’ve borrowed old '30s radio plays. They are a hoot to listen to while I do chores around the house. I can download them with my library card. After 2 weeks, the program is disabled and I can’t listen any more. There’s music too. People tend to read most books once or twice, but they play music over and over. So, to me at least, it looks like more music publishers will co-operate. You can listen to a classical album for some period–I think it’s two weeks–and then it “destructs.” At that point, some of the people who listened will buy it–and they might not have if they hadn’t been able to listen first. You can also download pop songs for a MP3 player–I think it’s 3 a week. They too “destruct.” That really doesn’t work for books. </p>
<p>Sometimes, it’s the communities, not the libraries that want to protect “stuff.” There are marvelous resources at one directional state U. in an area where some of my ancestors lived. The librarians would like to scan the records. One was sympathetic and photocopied something for me. She warned me not to send a thank you note because she’d get fired if she got caught. The university is in a depressed area and thousands of people come to visit it each year to use that history center. They stay overnight in local hotels. They eat in local restaurants. They fill up their cars at local gas stations. The city council is NOT about to lose that cash cow. And, of course, it doesn’t help that it would cost a lot to scan all the material. (A lot is on microfilm.) </p>
<p>I use the Mormon site a LOT. It’s a wonderful resource. The Mormons have some advantages libraries don’t have. The people who work in the Family History Centers aren’t paid. Neither are the folks who scan the material. A lot of volunteers, including many who aren’t Mormon, index materials for free. That’s not exactly a business model that libraries can emulate–which is part of the reason the NY Public Library has partnered with Google–it’s a lot cheaper than having the library scan everything itself.</p>
<p>And there is the issue of being reliant on publishers who can jack up the price. I can read back issues of the Boston Globe, the Atlanta Constitution, the Chicago Trib, the LA Times, etc. at the library–on a database. So, neither the physical copies nor the microfilms are readily available now. In the short run, that saves a lot of space and money—but there’s nothing to stop ProQuest from raising the rates it charges frequently. Over time, the cost may be greater than the cost of microfilming old newspapers and storing the microfilms. </p>
<p>A major problem is that libraries have a lot of “stuff.” Figuring out what exists and how to get it is a major issue. So, a lot of libraries are focusing first on creating an on-line catalog of what they have, so somebody can FIND it, rather than beginning by scanning the stuff they have. As archive.org proves, when they scan, there’s a lot of duplication. The SAME book will be scanned by five different depositories that have it, while there are millions of books that nobody has scanned. </p>
<p>Anyway, this is a long way from the topic of Borders. And, yes, I am fortunate to live in New York where I can get access to more materials than you can in a small town library. It’s also because NYers support their libraries. The NYPL was supposed to get major funding cuts in this year’s budget. Most of the cuts were restored in the actual budget because there was a huge public outcry.</p>
<p>The original Borders was an independent bookstore in Ann Arbor known for its knowledgeable staff and the depth and breadth of titles it offered, much more academic-oriented than the popular chains. It was by far my favorite bookstore in Ann Arbor in the 1970s. In fact, to this day those remain some of the best bookstore experiences I have ever had.</p>
<p>When Borders first started opening additional stores and became a chain, I think it tried to bring the same quasi-academic experience and product choices to a broader audience. And in a way it succeeded for a while. The early Borders stores really were different from Barnes & Noble, with a product mix tilted much more heavily toward the academic press and greater depth and breadth of titles on both the fiction and non-fiction side, while B&N was almost 100% trade press with a heavy emphasis on best-sellers and popular repackaged “classics.” And while it was more “chain-y” than the local independent bookstores, Borders also offered a far wider selection than most of the independents in most markets (with a few rare and notable exceptions), so it filled a niche that nobody else was filling. But I think Borders found that it could not afford to carry such a big inventory of slow-moving academic titles and obscure authors, and over time it morphed into something much closer to a Barnes & Noble look-alike, to the point that I sometimes really can’t tell anymore whether I’m in a Borders or a Barnes & Noble.</p>
<p>To katliamom’s point about Borders and Barnes & Noble killing the independent bookstores: yes, there’s a lot of truth to that, but if it hadn’t been Borders it would have been Barnes & Noble, and vice versa. And if neither Borders nor Barnes & Noble, someone else would have stepped in to do the same thing. But just as Borders and Barnes & Noble took the independents’ lunch, now Amazon is taking THEIR lunch. The only question is whether Barnes & Noble will survive to give Amazon any “bricks-and-mortar” competition. I don’t think the death of Borders will mean the re-emergence of small independents; it’s too late in the day for that. So Borders’ demise means fewer choices, not more; and more opportunities for Barnes & Noble to run with a lean inventory of hot-selling trash and uninformed staff because in most markets there’s now no real competition on the bricks-and-mortar side. So while I’m disappointed that Borders deteriorated in quality over time, it’s still sad to see it go.</p>