New York's Last Remaining Independent Bookshops (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via The Guardian, written by Hermione Hoby: Michael Seidenberg, pictured kingly in his throne of a wicker chair, feet spread, pipe in mouth, is one of around 50 New York indie booksellers featured in a series of portraits by Philippe Ungar and Franck Bohbot, a pair of bibliophilic Frenchmen who met and befriended each other in Brooklyn. The two, writer and photographer respectively, have taken great pleasure in traveling across the city, to neighborhoods in every borough, to meet and photograph booksellers in their habitats. Despite their diversity, the way their distinct personalities and passions are reflected and amplified in their shops, they are all, says Ungar, "looking for the same thing -- a generous vision of sharing culture". Ungar mentions Corey Farach, owner of the scruffy, adored and longstanding feminist bookshop Bluestockings. Farach, as Ungar recounts with admiration, encourages those people who can't afford to buy a $40 book to take a seat, make themselves comfortable, and just read it in the shop. "That is to me," says Ungar, "the spirit of the indie booksellers." Because, as he sees it, "a bookstore is much more than a bookstore, it's much more than selling books. It's a public shelter. Whoever you are, you don't have to buy anything, they won't ask you for your ID. You're free -- you can stay for hours and browse. There's a generosity, an optimism. And that's what we wanted to enhance." "[I]ndie bookshops are outposts of idealism," writes Hoby. "And if they seem like the most romantic places in the city, it might be down to this -- to the way their owners and customers might all be engaged in the same project, a kind of sanctuary building in the unsheltered world."

She goes on to mention Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, "a small space crammed with vintage titles," as well several closed bookshops "which have fallen to astronomically rising rents." "Three Lives & Company [...] narrowly escaped closure in 2016 after an upswell of neighborhood support," writes Hoby. The group that owns the building decided to "provide it with stability," given how well-loved it is in the West Village.

Comments

Nonprofit Nerd Shelters?

[bill_mcgonigle]

If people want to fund nonprofit nerd shelters, cool, do that. Sell some books for additional fundraising too if that helps.

There's no need to bemoan the loss of bookshops for the small group of people who valued bookshops over more books if the goal wasn't ever to be a bookshop; if that was the excuse rather than the purpose.

Visit the Library

[scrib]

Looking for a cool, community-accessible place where anyone can walk in, pull a book of the shelf, and start reading without being pressured?
Try the library!
If, like the article, you think "a bookstore is much more than a bookstore, it's much more than selling books. It's a public shelter. Whoever you are, you don't have to buy anything, they won't ask you for your ID. You're free -- you can stay for hours and browse. There's a generosity, an optimism." What you are looking for is a library. Many will even let you check out books on exchange with other library systems, not just other branches.

Of what value are they then?

[SuperKendall]

It offers the only book club, and organizes meetings with authors. There is absolutely no other business that provides these services for roughly a million pleople

As you say, roughly a MILLION PEOPLE live around there, and yet can only (probably barely) sustain one tiny book store. What real value then are they providing? I don't mean money, I mean real human value, because if there was tremendous value there would be other similar stores, or people would find a way to make them work.

There are already book clubs all over the place (there is no way in all of Brooklyn that is the "only book club"), and authors may find it harder to find stores to sign material in can still be seen at conventions and the like, or even online AMA's...

It's nice to maintain cultural traditions but over time some things will go away, and small bookstores are juts plain going to be one of those things. I say that as an avid reader that has spent many, many enjoyable hours in small bookstores... but I can clearly see that time is past, and I don't see value in hanging onto archaic traditions.

Re:Hypocrisy I've Came Across

[Grunschev]

With no special care or handling, books will easily last a century or three. My oldest book was published in 1848 and it's in pretty good shape. I own three other books that are more than 100 years old. Roughly a third of my ~800 books are older than your few dozen years (i.e. published prior to 1982). They're all perfectly readable and the vast majority are in fine or very fine condition.

If you're really a librarian, you'd know how ridiculous your claims are. Most books are withdrawn from circulation because they're not being checked out, not because they're unreadable. I don't find century old books in the collections of my county library, but I can easily find them in the main branch of the Denver Library or Norlin Library on campus at C.U.

As a counterpoint to your preference for digital, I have a copy of the first software I developed back in the early 1980's. It's construction accounting software. I printed out the source code and documentation and also have copies on 5.25" floppy disk. I can still read the hard copy, but the digital copy is unreadable for me. You may have some old hardware available to you, but I'm not a collector. I'd have had to convert the format of that stuff several times over the years to keep a readable digital copy. I don't think I've had a machine with a 5.25" floppy drive in more than 20 years.

Are you going to format shift your eBooks or just let them fade away? Sure, somebody will keep doing it, but what makes you think they'll make it available to you? Think of how much music and how many movies are already unavailable because they're not commercially viable.

Not only that, but do you realize how few books are actually available as eBooks? Sure, most titles being published today are, but I seldom read new books. Had this conversation on a plane, once. Guy sitting next to me said I should get a Kindle. I had him search for the book I had in my hands. Not available. I gave him the titles of the last half dozen I'd read, only one was available. But, you're a librarian. You already know everything I've said.