I know you're gonna think this is "hating" but the Borders in Silver Spring ain't nothing like Powell's. In fact, being there on Saturday, as we left, I said, "I hate to say this, since I used to go to Border's in Ann Arbor, before there was ever a second store, but I think Barnes & Noble does a better job."

That being said, Silver Spring is lucky to have the Borders. But does it do much in the way of readings and programming? I don't think it does, certainly not by way of comparison to the Barnes and Noble in Bethesda Row.

by Richard Layman on Dec 1, 2010 12:44 pm • link • report

You mentioned the economic impact of a chain store vs. a locally owned stroes "the money made there may not stay in the community." While you are correct that any profits the store makes are captured by a national chain, its payroll spending remains in the local community.

by Cullen on Dec 1, 2010 1:25 pm • link • report

When I worked in Howard County, I used to hang out all the time at the Borders in Columbia. There even used to be a saxaphone player that played often in the parking lot just outside of the entrance. Though the strip mall, like the rest of Columbia, is not known for its walkability, the Borders, with its cafe and sofas, encourages "hanging out" just like the one in downtown Silver Spring does.

by engrish_major on Dec 1, 2010 2:43 pm • link • report

I have been to Powell's twice and fail to see the fuss. I bought one book, but they didn't have anything I was looking for, and what I was looking for was not all that obscure.

There will still be bookstores to fill niches, but I see them largely going the way of Blockbuster. I'll get flamed for that, but sorry. I'm a luddite and not an early adopter, but I haven't bought a record, book, or video from a physical store in years.

by spookiness on Dec 1, 2010 3:07 pm • link • report

A Borders is NOT a good bookstore.

by Redline SOS on Dec 1, 2010 4:16 pm • link • report

spookiness -- I can't believe you didn't love Powells. What categories were you looking at? Plus the Powells Books for Cooks and Gardeners store in Hawthorne.... ?!!!!

by Richard Layman on Dec 1, 2010 7:19 pm • link • report

Redline SOS -- Borders used to be the king of the independent stores, when it was a single store in Ann Arbor. That's the basis of my love relationship with it. Of course, when it chained up it wasn't quite the same...

by Richard Layman on Dec 1, 2010 7:20 pm • link • report

RL,
Architecture monographs. Pretty lame. I ended up just buying something so I'd have a souvenir from Portland, but it was nothing special.

by spookiness on Dec 1, 2010 7:55 pm • link • report

While I love a good bookstore as much as anyone, it's important to realize the slow but steady change that is occurring: brick and mortar bookstores' days are numbered. The Borders in Downtown Portland (right on the MAX line) is closing in January. That will leave Powell's and the Barnes in Noble in Lloyd Center as far as centrally-located, transit-accessible large bookstores in the city.

Bookstores are great for lounging and for the occasional impulse purchase, but Amazon has far better selection and is much cheaper. As a college student, I can't justify the additional expense.

by Reza on Dec 1, 2010 8:24 pm • link • report

I'm with spookiness. The experience of browsing at Powell's was entirely underwhelming to me. I've had great experiences with them sourcing out-of-print items, but browsing, meh.

by dcseain on Dec 1, 2010 8:31 pm • link • report

Powell's is somewhat isolated from other key parts of downtown Portland; it's less of a magnet than you suggest, although it is a great bookstore. The original Powell's is one of the few retail options near U of Chicago and fails to magnetize--the funky coffee places nearby a greater hives of activity. Powell's built their current size by buying the inventory of Kay's Books in Cleveland back in the 80s; Kay's was a wonderful store--even better than Powell's but it failed to enliven the low-end Prospect Avenue retail strip and was probably kept alive by it's rather esoteric selection of porn. A great bookstore can contribute to a solid retail area. The Tattered Cover in Denver adds to the old warehouse district but is less of a magnet than the restaurants.

by Rich on Dec 1, 2010 9:23 pm • link • report

Borders isn't a good bookstore, but it's a great people magnet. While I agree that bookstores are becoming obsolete, I think the ones that will remain successful are the ones that serve a social function, too, like this one or Powell's or even the Tattered Cover in Denver. You can't replicate the experience of turning pages in a book, or hanging out with your friends, or attending a reading on Amazon.com.

by dan reed! on Dec 1, 2010 10:52 pm • link • report

Bookstores can't survive just by attracting people. They have to sell stuff and people have to buy it. The successful bookstores that remain will fulfill some niche market. Everything that Dan Reed just described can be fulfilled at a library. What can/must bookstores offer that is different?

by spookiness on Dec 1, 2010 11:04 pm • link • report

@ spookiness

Bookstores usually have coffee shops included, for one. Barnes and Noble has Starbucks, Borders has Seattle's Best, and Powell's has World Cup Coffee which gets a ton of traffic during the day. Just one thing that you usually don't see with libraries.

by Reza on Dec 1, 2010 11:09 pm • link • report

It's unlikely but not impossible for a chain to help revitalize a neighborhood - look at the Barnes & Noble in Bethesda (http://flic.kr/p/466f7w).

by M.V. Jantzen on Dec 1, 2010 11:34 pm • link • report

I haven't set foot in a bookstore since I discovered abebooks.com. You basically have 40,000 used bookstores from around the globe at your fingertips. The chains NEVER have what I'm looking for and it's too much hassle to drive/Metro to deal with some snooty hipper-than-thou jerk cashier. Although, I will make the exception for the occasional splurge at the Second Story warehouse in Rockville.

by monkeyrotica on Dec 2, 2010 8:43 am • link • report

The fact that bookstores have coffee shops is partly an indication that perhaps selling books in a store is not financially viable. Why would I want to read in a bookstore and pay money for coffee when my local public library now lets me read and bring my own coffee?

by spookiness on Dec 2, 2010 8:53 am • link • report

"Everything that Dan Reed just described can be fulfilled at a library. What can/must bookstores offer that is different?"

Start putting Starbucks and oversized sofas in libraries and maybe more people will start going to them (not a joke).

I went home for Thanksgiving to your typical American suburb, but to my surprise, the local Barnes and Noble -- in a strip mall with a Chili's, Quiznos, Starbucks and Rite Aid -- was teeming with people both at the cafe and at sofas set up at the rear end of the store, drinking coffee and chatting, working on their laptops and reading. It was a scene taken right out of an urban setting and plopped down in a sprawling suburb. Clearly, people desire these kinds of spaces, whether it be for relaxation, an escape from the home, a meeting place, or whatever.

by Scoot on Dec 2, 2010 10:33 am • link • report

You guys all overlooked another great example, Politics and Prose on Conn. Ave. Oh, there are also a few good stores in Georgetown.

by Kenf on Dec 2, 2010 10:58 am • link • report

"Start putting Starbucks and oversized sofas in libraries and maybe more people will start going to them (not a joke)."

Maybe.

I don't argue that bookstores can be places of urbanity in suburbs, (so is Panera in the burbs), and that people desire these types of spaces. And I understand and appreciate the value of public spaces for people to gather. I experience this when I visit family on the eastern shore. However, the issue remains that bookstores, chains or not, have to pay their rent. They have to make enough money on the books to pay the rent, pay for those sofas, and pay for the internet access.

A business can't make money when they have a bunch of people just hanging out at their stores for hours on end, and not really buying anything (bookstores are for selling books, not reading books and putting them back on the shelf).

So my issue/concern is that bookstores are doubly doomed because their core function (selling books) is threatened by online shopping and online media or direct delivery to e-readers, and also because they have customers who hang out and consume the space without paying for anything. Either the bookstores have to sell enough coffee to offset the loss in book sales, or charge for internet access, or charge admission to the store.

by spookiness on Dec 2, 2010 11:04 am • link • report

In my case, growing up in lively Rockville (ahem), the Barnes and Noble at Montrose Crossing was frankly the only thing opened late at night, so that's were people tended to congregate (and I'm not talking about the "undesirable" element). The bookstore closed at 11, and the Starbucks closed pretty close to midnight so that's where me and my friends would go if we were stuck with doing something in town. I might have bought a magazine there (oh yeah, let me know when libraries have the magazine selection of a chain bookstore) but rarely any books.

by Reza on Dec 2, 2010 11:08 am • link • report

@ Kenf

Got to chime in on P&P. It is a great bookstore, but the best part is the coffee shop that has real (i.e. not super-automatic Charbucks) espresso machines, and baristas that know how to use them! Makes me want a capp right now... :)

by Local on Dec 2, 2010 11:37 am • link • report

I am intrigued by a couple of comments on here:

What if libraries were more like book stores? That's an idea just so crazy that it would work. Too many modern libraries are sterile and have no where comfortable to sit. I loved my university's library built in the 1800s. It had gravitas and lots of comfortable nooks and crannies to get wrapped up in.

I fear the new Silver Spring library will largely be sterile and have no where comfortable to sit. I hope I am wrong.

I am also struck by the idea of charging admission to a book store or not having the book store function the same way. What if 5-10 years from now stores like Borders were more like private libraries, and you primarily went to hang out, drink coffee and eat food? The store would have books to look at and read through, but no physical books to buy. Rather the books would simply be there as part of the experience and to get you interested in books you hadn't read before. If you wanted to actually purchase one of the books, you would buy the e-book version.

Along those lines, if a store like that wanted to sell physical books it would only carry special editions that appeal to people who really want a physical copy of a book. Instead of selling paperback versions of Harry Potter, for instance, the store could sell a leather-bound special edition that was built to be a display piece.

But the idea of selling commodity products at above what stores such as Amazon.com can sell them for is dead. It just doesn't make sense. For book stores to survive -- and even thrive -- they'll need to blow the model up and become an experience. How much future is there really in dedicating thousands of square feet to commodity products that you can't match the price on? But an experience? That's something Amazon.com cannot match.

Barnes and Noble already sells e-books and an e-reader. If I were them, I would begin to move to a model where I sold mostly e-books and special editions. Let the stores be places for people to hang out and purchase food and drinks. You could keep commodity physical books on hand, but not for selling. They would be used to allow people to read a few pages or chapters before committing to the ebook version.

Themed book stores and cafes are another avenue that can work. You could have a book store that just focused on fantasy books and was themed as such. Or one just for politics.

by Patrick Thornton on Dec 2, 2010 12:10 pm • link • report

Spookiness,

Possibly, but I think bookstores (the large ones at least) are pretty resilient. We thought in the era of the Internet, they'd be dead, but they figured out how to combine themselves with a commodity that could not be duplicated online (food and drink). Now they all have cafes. Perhaps in the future, as Patrick mentioned, their sales of e-books and e-readers will be so high that they'll be able to pay rent from that profit and won't need to sell as many books. Maybe in the future, their store fronts will be almost like billboards advertising their e-stores, but with a cafe component.

In the end though, the best bookstores will be around for a while. iPads and e-readers are really popular, but from my understanding of the e-book trend, people still really like the experience of reading from a paper book.

by Scoot on Dec 2, 2010 1:45 pm • link • report

Scoot,
I also think that it is possible that libraries may become more like book stores, and some already are, but I'm thinking further such as leasing on-site space to food establishments. And what prevents a library to sell books if they generate funds for programs? I know that will be an offensive idea to some people, but from a fiscal standpoint I can easily see it happening.

by spookiness on Dec 2, 2010 3:44 pm • link • report

Libraries as bookstores (cafes, etc.) is discussed in the field and was a central element of the otherwise not very good DC Libraries Master Plan in 2005-6. But even the good parts of the Master Plan haven't been implemented.

A bunch of libraries around the country have decent cafes and programming, but they don't extend their hours. Although the Quebec "State" Library in Montreal is open til at least 10pm.

The other trend that is similar is the expansion of college student unions in a variety of ways. This predated the bookstores as cafe trends.

The Athenaeum library at Goucher (which I unfortunately never got around to checking out when I worked in Towson) is another example.

Years ago I suggested that MLK Library stay open late, and that they incorporate a cafe. Librarians who commented on the idea were more focused on dealing with the homeless for even more hours of the day, and the security issues.

But this kind of rethinking is pretty atypical amongst DC Government agencies. Cycle tracks and bike sharing and maybe streetcars is about as innovative as the city can get.

by Richard Layman on Dec 3, 2010 8:42 am • link • report