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08/27/2006: "Building the Future"

Some customers were in my bookshop on Friday, and remarked, “This place isn’t like Barnes & Noble at all.” Well, no, for obvious reasons. On the surface of it that seems like a throwaway remark but on reflection, it has broader implications than you might suspect.

The speaker was a young man of about twelve; the kind of kid you’d see hanging out near the big shopping plaza—either chatting with friends, or weaving in between parked cars on his skateboard. He’s obviously grown up in the shadow of big box stores, and has little experience with small businesses. Elementary deduction, as Sherlock Holmes would remark. But consider now that this young man is using Barnes & Noble as the baseline by which he will judge all other bookshops, if not all other businesses in general! As such, he will expect a bookstore to have extensive collections of music, new carpeting, coffee or soft drinks, remainder tables, and a staff of a dozen or so employees. Any shop that doesn’t provide these needs is instantly judged as inferior, and unworthy of his attention or spending money. My own 2,000 square feet of books and my thirteen years as a bookseller notwithstanding, the young man left without a purchase.

This boy, and those like him, will be drawn more and more toward superstores and gleaming shopping centers, because they have no a priori shopping experience. As they grow older, and sire their own children, they will pass these judgments on to the next generation, endowing their offspring with a disdain for small businesses. In turn, they will tell others like them, which will discourage people from beginning small businesses of their own, as they will be unable to achieve a customer base. Only the mega-corporations and big box stores will be left to man storefronts, having engendered generations of shoppers who see them as the only worthy destinations.

This is not alarmist thinking. The process has already begun! Independent bookshops all over the country are closing at an alarming rate. The process is aided and abetted, perhaps unknowingly, by the superstores which offer deep discounts to their customers, using their random walk-in traffic to support this action. And in an economy which offers shrinking choices mixed with rising prices, customer loyalty doesn’t count as much as an aid to the pocketbook (no pun intended).

With a monopoly on outlets to buy books, the decision over what can be printed is out of the hands of the consumers (see my blog of 5/19/06). So the question becomes, what will happen to the older books? Some will, undoubtedly, be shuffled through thrift shops and rummage sales, garage sales, etc. Around and around they will move, but eventually to where? Who or what will be the repository of these books; who will care for the wisdom of the ages? And, more importantly, what will the world be like, when only corporations control our reading matter?

I read the other day that our so-called Information Age has now been supplanted by The Media Age. Sound-bites, websites, spin masters, popup windows, Ipods, PDAs, Blackberries, cell phones, MP3s, and online shopping are now the order of the day. Maybe. But what does this herald? And more importantly, where is it leading? Where are we going, as the world races ahead at breakneck speed, and we follow along in its wake, struggling to keep up?

We may well be building a future world that will be akin to that envisioned by Philip K. Dick in The Penultimate Truth; where cities are built one on top of each other and people toil endlessly, with only media feeds for their entertainment. All information, including books, will be filtered through limited outlets which will be tailored to fit the bottom line of an independent power, and not necessarily one controlled by the people!

Such a world is not only grim, it is unnecessary; and it need not come to pass. But for every bookshop that closes, that is one less option available for the consumer, and one step closer to a dystrophic future where the printed word is held hostage to the demands of a balance sheet.

Walk carefully friends and fellow booklovers--for the world of tomorrow seems intent on coming at the expense of the printed word. Consider all that books have done in the last 2,000 years alone, and ask yourself if you want to leave them in the foyer of the 21st century.