Anita's Notebook

Went into the local Borders bookstore the other day. It was in it’s last days of a going out of business sale and as the only place in town that I know of that sells Moleskine notebooks I thought I’d go in on the slim chance that there might be some left there.

It was shocking and sad to step in the doors. Jennifer whispered to me ‘It feels like a funeral in here’ and that was so true.


A FEW BOOKS

It was eerily quiet even though there were actually a fair amount of people in there. They were all clustered around the small amount of bookshelves that still had books left on them but no one was talking. Just a near silent, slow shuffling.

I felt like an intruder at a funeral for someone I didn’t even know. I never really liked Borders all that much and only went there when I was on a quest to find a particular book (or notebook) and couldn’t find it anywhere else in town and didn’t want to wait to get it online. This didn’t happen very often so over the years I’d only been in there a few times.

Still, it breaks my heart to see it go. One less bookstore here in Anchorage is not a good thing by any means and judging by the sadness of the people browsing the last of the books there I’m not the only person that feels that way.


GIVING UP TO AMAZON

What happened to make Borders go out of business? I don’t know the details but I bet it had a lot to do with the fact that they capitulated to Amazon and did all their online business through the Amazon website.

To me that seems…unbelievable…an irresponsible and outrageous act by the leaders of that company. I don’t know if they were forced into it or what but that was the exact wrong move for a bookstore to make in a climate increasingly defined by internet engagement (kind of like if Pepsi had Coke handle all their internet business). I would have liked to see Borders use the internet to complement and enrich their physical bookstores but…obviously that wasn’t the way things played out.


PROTECTION PLANS

There were no Moleskines at Borders that day. The whole section where the Moleskines used to be was filled with empty wire or plastic racks and taped off. Jennifer and I did a walk around the rest of the store but there wasn’t anything there we wanted to buy and anyway it felt kind of weird being in there.

The last thing we seen on our way out was an almost full display of black zippered cases that looked like big versions of the old Day Runners. They were ‘Borders eReader Protection Plans’, 90% off.