Chain's roots extend back to Charles M. Barnes in 1873
By Bob Goldsborough Special to the Tribune
January 1, 2010
When Barnes & Noble closed its bookstore in the Town Square Wheaton mall for good Thursday, it was not without historical significance.
The national bookstore chain, which chose not to renew its Wheaton store's lease after almost 18 years in business, had its origins in the western suburb more than 135 years ago, according to historians and representatives of the company.
Charles M. Barnes started a bookselling business from his home near Wheaton College in 1873, said Mary Anne Phemister, a Wheaton author who has written extensively on the city's history. An alumnus of Knox College in downstate Galesburg and an ordained minister, Barnes came to Wheaton to follow his teacher and mentor, Wheaton College President Jonathan Blanchard, who had been Knox's president.
"Living in a small college town, Barnes got the idea of redistributing and selling his own books, and then his own personal library formed the nucleus of his business," Phemister said. "The rest is history."
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What will 2010 bring in the way of culture, media, world events, economic matters, technology and Tiger-sized scandals? Speakeasy asked several writers to offer their thoughts on the coming year. The predictions range from a vigorous defense of the book to the resurgence of a certain mustachioed ‘80s pop star. Over the next few days we’ll publish the results. Check back throughout the weekend for more 2010 essays.
One of my very favorite stories by John Cheever, “The Jewels of the Cabots,” contains a passage in which he describes what the newspapers would be like if they were constrained to publish good news. New Year’s prognostications should be similarly limited. It would be too easy to talk about all the horrible stuff that is liable to happen in 2010: an emboldened Tea Party movement on the right side of American politics, a quagmire in Afghanistan, further weakening in the real estate market leading to another sharp downturn in stocks, more saber-rattling among Islamists, and so on.
But if we were going to concentrate, instead, on what might be good among the possible outcomes of 2010, what might we include? I would like to concentrate on an area of personal interest to me: the future of the book! Just yesterday I happened to read that Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, in a slightly cooked account of Xmas 2009, had the temerity to trumpet the moment in which e-book sales exceeded traditional book sales (neglecting to carve out the numbers of free titles available online). What galls me, in a moment like this, is the baldness of self-interest included in the prediction. Bezos is trying to ship Kindles, the e-book readers his company produces. And so it’s no surprise, as a New Media type, that he would look down on the 500-year tradition of the physical book when he has a bottom line to worry about. He liked books back when all he sold was books, when he biked from customer to customer, but now that he sells Kindles?
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By Michael Stillman
No one will accuse 2009 of being the greatest year ever for matters of finance, but as we look back at auctions in the field of books and ephemera, we find it wasn't all that bad either. Perhaps we have reached a bottom. The AE Top 500 for 2009 reveals that there was still a lot of activity at the high end of the book world. Each year, the Americana Exchange looks at several hundred thousand books and related material sold at auction and compiles a list of the top 500 prices. For the record, the 500th most expensive book still would have put you out for $43,750. Regardless of the economy, there are still buyers at the top.
The price at #500 provides an interesting comparison to last year. In 2008, the price at the bottom of the list was $51,000. That's a decrease of 14% from last year, a sign that prices have dropped year to year. However, 2008 was a split personality, a strong start, bad finish. For the first six months, the comparable value was $61,000. For the second half, it was $43,750, a huge intra-year drop (28%), but the exact same amount as for 2009. The implication is prices have stabilized, at least at the high end of the book market. After last year's collapse, stability sure looks good.
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McNally-Robinson, once cited as a rare success in the independent book world, has been forced to close two of its newest stores.
John Barber
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009 9:38PM EST Last updated on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 4:25PM EST
A Cinderella story from the embattled book industry has turned sour with Winnipeg-based McNally-Robinson Booksellers Ltd. declaring bankruptcy, unable to pay millions of dollars to Canadian publishers, distributors and other suppliers.
“It is heartbreaking to see so many hard-working booksellers … lose their jobs,” co-owner Paul McNally said in a news release, acknowledging that his company's much-lauded opening of two new stores this year, including a major outlet in suburban Toronto, led to its downfall.
McNally-Robinson was celebrated as a rare success story in the independent book world, expanding when other stores were closing, and even being named 2009 Bookseller of the Year by the Canadian Bookseller Association. But the company's two newest stores, one at Polo Park in Winnipeg and the other in Don Mills in Toronto, closed for good Tuesday. The bookseller submitted a proposal on Monday under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to keep open its other two stores – the Winnipeg flagship, which opened in 1981, and a branch in Saskatoon, as well as maintain an online presence.
The bankruptcy comes at a time when bookstores throughout the English-speaking world are struggling to survive in the face of what Mr. McNally has called the “reckless discounting” of online retailers. Last week, bankrupt Borders UK closed the last of 45 stores it once operated in Britain. In the United States, the Borders Group is currently closing 200 Waldenbooks outlets, leaving some major urban centres without a single general-interest bookstore. Although Canadian chain Indigo Books and Music remains strong, independent retailers are suffering from the same dwindling traffic.
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Katie Allen
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 December 2009 19.29 GMT
Spare a thought for the humble hardback this Christmas. It seems the traditional giftwrapped tome is being trumped by downloads, after Amazon customers bought more e-books than printed books for the first time on Christmas Day.
As people rushed to fill their freshly unwrapped e-readers – one of the top-selling gadgets this festive season – the online retailer said sales at its electronic book store quickly overtook orders for physical books. Its own e-reader, the Kindle, is now the most popular gift in Amazon's history.
Amazon's shares rose sharply today after it updated investors on a strong Christmas performance. On its peak day, 14 December, the retailer said customers ordered more than 9.5m items worldwide, the equivalent of a record-breaking 110 items a second.
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