Borders Books, Dead At 40

theodp writes "There will be no storybook ending for Borders. The 40-year-old book seller could start shuttering its 399 remaining stores as early as Friday (store closing map). The Ann Arbor, MI-based chain, which helped pioneer the big-box bookseller concept, is seeking court approval to sell off its assets after it failed to receive any bids that would keep it in business. Hang on to those Borders Midnight Magic Party memories, kids!"

Comments

Fahrenheit

[improfane]

Who needs to burn books and things that last when you have technology to do it for you?

I hate to say it but technology both gives you freedom and inherently takes other freedom away.

Books will slowly become the domain of the academic and public service, so they will gradually fade from prominence. With ebooks, you are at the whim of the ebook publisher, DRM, the ebook reader manufacturer and of course electricity.

Don't let that stop you buying ebooks though, I try own a physical version for important books. I see an ebook as a modern day convenience most certainly not an equivalent replacement.

Re:Fahrenheit

[osu-neko]

Yes. Buy a car, and you're at the mercy of oil companies, government licensing agencies and public infrastructure. But you'll get further faster than you did on foot nonetheless...

Re:Fahrenheit

[arcite]

Books will become antiques and collectors items. If one looks at the 21 century information society, books have no place in it. Once all current books are scanned and fully digitized, any human on the planet with an internet connection will be able to access them. This is a powerful tool that is not fully realized. e-book technology is till in its infancy. You're also fooling yourself if you assume that a paper book is automatically superior to a digital version. A paper book only has one copy, is probably printed on cheap paper, supportable to moisture, mold, insect, natural disaster, fire... you name it. Books are perishable goods and none too portable. Digital information is forever and can be backed up infinitely.

Re:Fahrenheit

[improfane]

You are absolutely correct.

A company would never remove books on your device, would they?

Books will never be re-written to remove dangerous paragraphs will they?

Your Ebook reader will never be designed for obsolescence will it they?

The online services of your ebook will never go down?

If your ebook provider goes bust, they will obviously have thought of that and leave behind the books behind for you to download, right? If they don't go bust they will never phase out the service, ever?

Your Kindle would never be stolen would it?*

Your books will always work on other eReaders?

* This point depends on my assumption that people are more likely to steal an Ebook than a regular book.(Do people honestly steal books?)
 

Re:Fahrenheit

[smooth wombat]

If one looks at the 21 century information society, books have no place in it.

Congratulations on tossing aside thousands of years of human history. The written word is necessary in a society where not everyone has the ability to purchase a digital device which may or make not work depending on the whim of the manufacturer and the ability of electricity.

any human on the planet with an internet connection will be able to access them.

Congratulations again. You've just excluded at least one third of the world's population, most likely closer to half, who don't have a net connection and will probably not have one in the foreseeable future for various reasons. Cost and infrastructure being the two biggest culprits.

A physical book is what reminds us that not everything has to be available at an instant, that we can take our time to sit down and enjoy ourselves without the worry of glare off a screen, our batteries running out or spilling our Dew on the device and shorting it.

While books may be perishable, they are far more durable than any electronic device. Excluding fire and lack of light, a book is available at any time and any place. Not so with an e-book. In addition to spilling a liquid on it, one can crack the device if misplaced in a bag, scratch or otherwise damage the screen, lose power, bake it in the sun, and a whole host of other issues, including mold.

People have always looked back when something we took for granted was replaced by something which was supposed to be "new and better". To quote Barney Stinson, "New is always better." To which Ted asked, "So those new Star Wars movies, are they better than the old ones?"

Ted then asks Wendy what their newest Scotch is, to which the answer is, Jimbo Jim's Grape Scotch. Oh, and don't let it touch your skin.

New is not always better. If you feel the need to rush through your day, go for it. But don't tell others they won't be able to sit down and take their time to read a physical book because you think they are a waste. There's a reason the few copies of the Guttenberg Bible, the works of Shakespeare and Darwin's works are so valuable. They are the physical manifestation of the author writ for all humanity. If a book is sufficient for Jean Luc Picard, it is sufficient for everyone.

The same cannot be said for a bunch of electrons.

Re:It's their own fault.

[ScentCone]

Your complaint, your characterizaiton of them and their customers, your odd notion of what is and what isn't "gouging" and everything else about the tone of your comment suggests that you need to get out more and meet more people. Possibly even some that wear turtlenecks. And it wouldn't hurt for you to spend some time running a retail store, so that your sense of "overpriced on everything" can get connected back to the reality of what it costs to rent, insure, maintain, staff, and market a walk-up book store in the age of Kindles and iPads.

The mom-and-pop book stores you long for were dying out harder and faster than Borders did, and the ones that survive do so because they've found things beyond the collections of books you mention to sell (mostly, they're transitioning to hybrid coffee shops, galleries, meeting places, lecture venues, etc). Barnes and Noble survives because they squeeked by with the Nook just in time to not get completely eaten by Amazon.

Re:It's their own fault.

[RazzleFrog]

How were they overpriced? They sold at the same exact price any other brick and mortar book store sold new books at - the price stamped on the back by the publisher. You want used books - go to the Strand.

Re:Slashdot no longer...

[improfane]

It's more geekier than Reddit or Digg. You don't get long interesting comments on Reddit or Digg. It's a bunch of kids spouting memes.

Why libraries are dying too

[elrous0]

and the library only carried books on Fortran and Basic and COBOL

You point to a larger issue with public libraries here. With Amazon they've become almost worthless. Their collections are usually laughably out-of-date and small. Back in the day this wasn't so much a problem for them, because the only alternative was the local bookstore. But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame, and you can buy CHEAP from them (used copies of books often cost just a few dollars, even with shipping). Now there is really no need to settle for a crappy library book that's way out-of-date when I can *buy* the best book on the subject for next to nothing on Amazon (and no due dates to worry about).

Re:It's their own fault.

[TheRaven64]

I always thought Borders was the shop for pseudo-intellectuals who were terrified of books. I couldn't think of any other explanation of why they had a much lower ratio of books to floor space than any other book store I've ever been in. I went in a few branches around the world, and never bought anything.

Here's a hint for anyone wanting to run a book store: it helps if you stock a wide range of books, on big shelves, not just a few tables with some artistically arranged on them.

Re:It's their own fault.

[hal2814]

The original assertion was: "If they would have stuck as a "mom and pop" ish look and had a big old book or used book section they would still be thriving today."
The response was: "The mom-and-pop book stores you long for were dying out harder and faster than Borders did, and the ones that survive do so because they've found things beyond the collections of books you mention to sell (mostly, they're transitioning to hybrid coffee shops, galleries, meeting places, lecture venues, etc)."

Yes, I did compare a used bookstore to a new bookstore but only to show that the original assertion was likely correct. You don't need to sell non-books to keep a new bookstore in business. Selling used books is a viable alternative.