Role of an Independent Bookstore

This week the area’s park and recreation director and I have been discussing how we can team up to offer more programs in the community. In a community of this size, this is no easy feat. Businesses and organizations need to work together, not compete against one another. We do not want to offer more book clubs or story times that may draw away from the great programs the library offers. Card parties or bingo nights may be enjoyable, but how many of the area’s churches already implement these ideas? Does it even make sense for us to work together? What role does an independent bookstore play in a community?

Praveen Madan and Christin Evans addressed this question in The Huffington Post article titled Why All the Fuss About “Independent” Bookstores? In the article they explain how independent bookstores are in the business of building a community. “You can buy a book anywhere, but you can’t buy community. If you want community, you have to become part of one.”

Our goal is to be this community’s gathering place - the perfect place for sharing ideas and organizing activities. So, yes, it does make sense to team up with the park and rec, or any other local organization with the same goals including libraries, schools, and non-profit organizations. You may have supported one of these organizations by attending one of our fundraisers or maybe you have donated a book here for NEWCAP’s Christmas Toy Program . These events are so important to us as a way to give back to the community that has given us so much.

Now the question remains, how can we team up with the park and rec? What new classes or services would you like to see? Do you have a special talent, whether it’s a foreign language, knitting, dance, or music that you would be willing to share? Together we can bring this community together and support one another. Isn’t that what the holiday season is about?

Library Community

The Concord Public Library, like many other libraries, couldn’t afford to purchase all the books they wanted due to budget cuts. So they began thinking outside the box and came up with a creative idea. Why not post a wish list so that patrons could purchase books to be donated to the library? It would be convenient for the customers and the library would receive the exact books they needed.

Great idea! If only they would have spent a little more time thinking about how to implement it. According to the owner of Gibson's Bookstore, Michael Herrmann, “The reason they had the problem was budget cuts, which are due to less revenue coming into the city…" Kind of a no-brainer, right? Apparently not.

The library director chose to post their wish list, not at the local independent bookstore, not even at the nearest chain bookstore, but online at the biggest competitor of these locals. “Their strategy to combat (the budget cuts) was basically to send money out of town. There seemed to be a real disconnect there…” Herrmann sent in a message to the people on his store's e-mail list, “In requesting donations through a national retailer, the city had neglected its traditional community partners while promoting a rival who neither pays city taxes nor employs city workers… In short, if you try to support the library by buying books from (online retailer), you are actually harming the library in small but significant ways."

Herrmann found another solution. He included links to the list of desired books in the e-mail and asked for potential donors to choose the titles they would like to buy. The list, which was posted online for a month and sold four books, was completely filled within 24 hours through Gibson’s. Herrmann then sent out a list of books requested for the Penacook branch and those were sold as well. Not too surprising since the customers of the local independent bookstores and the patrons of the local libraries are most likely one and the same. As librarian Brian Herzog points out, “Library communities are not just the people who come through the door, and certainly not just the people who visit the website. When libraries reach out to the community, we have to go to where the community is, and not just wait for them to come to us.”

After the feedback the library received over their decision, they now include the local bookstores when posting their wish lists.