“Borders Bookstore Will Eliminate 11,000 Jobs, Close 400 Remaining Stores”
That’s the headline from today’s Huffington Post story. I knew Borders had filed for bankruptcy protection, obviously, but somehow I thought the chain – and most of its employees – would be saved from actual dissolution. Apparently not.
Bankrupt Borders Group Inc said it has canceled its auction and will sell itself to a group of liquidators.
Borders announced the decision on Monday, saying it was not able to reach a deal for a going-concern sale to salvage its 400 remaining stores and 11,000 jobs.
A liquidation group led by Hilco Merchant Resources will begin liquidations as early as Friday, Borders said in a statement. The bookseller will seek bankruptcy court approval of the closing procedures at a hearing set for Thursday.
It all makes me so sad. Not only will 11,000 people be out of work – just what this country needs, right? – but now there are 400 fewer places where readers can buy books. Yes, there are other options – from online retailers to independent stores. It’s just that I wish some clever business person had been able to rescue the company and get it back on its feet. If Barnes & Noble is still breathing, why not Borders? How does a once successful operation sink into oblivion?
Sad, as I said. Just sad.
it is a shame that bound books and paperbacks seem to be going the way of the newspapers, very sad indeed. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think that less people are into sitting and just reading for enjoyment these days, and many of the ones that do are doing it on devices, and there’s not turning back this tide of change. I read my first novel in third grade, and I remember going back to the library and looking at all the books there, and thinking I’d made the most important discovery ever, thousands of books, each one containing a wonderful universe between its covers, like the one I had just been drawn into. Yeah I was a nerdy bookworm kid. I’ll never believe that video and so on provokes and develops the imagination, young or old, like reading does, nor is it a resource for learning context, lexicon, spelling, or any other real linguistic skills. It seems that we’re living in the time in which the effects of Gutenberg’s invention have quietly reached their apogee, and gone into decline. Who knew. Very strange indeed.
I’m currently revisiting “Trinity” by Uris, and Clavell’s “Gai Jin”. I will eventually go down, but I’ll go down swinging.
Hardcovers and paperbacks are still the majority of books sold today, NYL. Yes, there’s an e-book revolution and it could overtake books at some point, but most readers are still buying the paper ones. Are more readers going online to buy them? Absolutely. That’s the big problem for bricks and mortar stores. Ah, Clavell. I must have “Shogun” somewhere in the house.
You know where I’m at with this. And it’s not a happy place.
Books, records, CDs and tapes. That just about defines my personal adult life outside of sports. It’s been a long, slow, painful slide into oblivion, as one by one, my favorite music stores — and now bookstores — are disappearing into history.
You know that my abode is enduring an X-treme Home Makeover. My Better Half has been after me for years to “get rid of things,” but now with the backing of all her friends and neighbors (“oh, what a PERFECT time to throw things out!!”) — my collections of a LIFETIME are slowly eroding, never to return.
So many good memories of Borders. The big 3-story store in Rockville, our town, with a fabulous section of history, current-event, and political opinion books — and plenty of good CDs to boot. The small store in downtown D.C., just off the subway line — I’d get off the train on the way home, run into the store, find some delightful book or musical nugget, and get back on the train a happier man. Even their Last Survivor, up in Germantown — a bit of a drive, but always well worthwhile — is now to be taken away.
Keep your All-Digital, All-The-Time world, children; it ain’t mine. Stuff your 1,000-book library in your KindlePad e-Device of the weak, and cram your 10,000-song (NOT album) half-baked library of scrambled jive up your iPhone, iPod, iMeMine iMeMine iMeMine. This angry dinosaur is going to sit home, stereo cranked up, with album cover/tape box/disc booklet/hardcover-paperback BOOK in hand, and enjoy his tactile world until he croaks…
Books aren’t going anywhere, Dave. At least not for awhile yet. My point in this post was to lament that a poorly run company has no chance to survive in this marketplace and that’s what Borders was, despite the good intentions and hard work of its employees. Management just didn’t see a change coming, which was foolish. I, too, will miss the events and community gatherings at my local Borders. We had two stores in the area and they were both great places for hanging out, having coffee, etc. Regarding your wife’s urging to “get rid of things,” I’m with her. I nag Michael all the time about it. Friends here have lost their homes in the wildfires and they realize how little all that “stuff” means to them in the long run.