BBC News - Borders bookshops in the UK go into administration
Yet another big British retailer is on the verge of going bust. Borders was another victim, like Zavvi, of the Woolworth’s bankruptcy; they got their CDs and DVDs from Woolworth’s entertainment arm. However, there’s no denying that Borders could not compete with Amazon, and their stores have always been rather higgledy-piggledy, with books out of place and sometimes dog-eared from having been read in the in-store café. Of course, proper bookshops are acting as free showrooms for Amazon, particularly with expensive books. People go in, read the books, and buy them online. This is particularly true with technical books, like computer books, which often cost above £25, often for rather slim volumes.
One might have hoped that closing Oxford Street, and a few out-of-town shops, might have lessened their losses, but no. Of course, many of their shops are likely to be taken over by Waterstone’s, but I doubt the Borders in Kingston will be one of them as they already have a fairly big store in the Bentall’s centre. Borders took over Books Etc., and nearly all of them have since closed, and I have always felt that something in a town dies when a bookshop closes. The best thing about Borders in particular is that you can get American magazines which you can’t get in Smith’s. There are a few newsagents which stock them, but they are often staffed by people who aren’t very friendly (as with one I used to go to in Tottenham Court Road). It will be a huge shame if Borders Kingston shuts. It will also mean that Waterstones will have a virtual monopoly over high street book sales. (See earlier entry.)
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The Borders in the Bullring is huge, and if Waterstones do take over the Borders premises nationwie, it will leave them in a bit of a quandary. The Borders in the Bullring is over two floors on some of the best bit of retail space in Brum. There are already two lovely Waterstones in the Centre, one adjacent to the Bullring (in fact, it overlooks the big bronze Bull). The other is a short walk up New Street.
On a related note, there are excellent second-hand bookstores dotted around Birmingham, as well as charity shops that have decent second-hand books available. The ‘death of the highstreet’ means many storefronts are given over to charities, (speculation on my part but I’d imagine the owners receive tax breaks or some such). Shirley, (postcode B91) has about 10 different charity shops in a short walk, and I make a fortnightly run to see what esoteric delights they have to offer.
“I have always felt that something in a town dies when a bookshop closes.” - you’re such an old fashioned romantic :)
anyway if borders in england’s closing, borders in perth has no chance. bye bye coffee shop/bookshop culture.
sigh maybe someone else can take it over here. actually wait, i think borders in perth got taken over by angus & robertson… hmmmmm somethingtobe´s last blog ..Maryam’s Dead Ended Seemingly Rhetorical but Generally Futile Questions on Life (Part 29)
i was in borders in birmingham yesterday and as the post states its window shopping for amazon. the books i wanted i checked on amazon using my phone while I was in there and didn’t buy them. Although I did pick up a book on north african cooking which was on sale and cheaper than amazon.
Talking of american magazines I used to buy Islamica from there… but its no longer available as the magazine folded earlier this year. mash´s last blog ..re: I’ll get it
I always wonder what it would feel like to go into a book store and have a choice to buy any book I wanted! I go to book stores with my boyfriend and love the bigger ones because I feel a bit like a kid in a candy store, filled with awe and amazement that there is a huge room filled with books on every topic just waiting to be read.
Of course the talking book section is usually a pitifully small shelf in the back cluttered with abridged books on random topics, with nothing I’d be able to stay awake listening to…
I got really excited about Amazon before the Kindle came out, until it was decided that there was no reason for all books to have the talking option enabled for blind readers.
You know, when I was in Borders today and was looking at the sad scene and reflecting on the likelihood of the place (and others like it) closing, I realised that this was something people like you never been able to enjoy and wondered how you’d feel about me moaning about the decline of one of my privileges. I read one BBC report about a woman who’d lost her sight (a stroke, I thnk) and books were the thing she missed most. She even said that she’d once just gone into a bookshop, sat down and cried.
It would be so easy to make devices like Kindle talk. They can’t be saving much by cutting back on it.
After my spinal cord injury I really missed being able to read braille. Listening to a book just isn’t the same as reading one yourself. The thing about the Kindle 2 is is that it has a text-to -speech feature built in, but the Authors Guild claimed that it violated authors’ copyrights because it interfered with the author’s right to read their books out loud for audio books. The thing they didn’t seem to grasp is that audio books are completely different than books read with txt-to-speech software. Audio books are usually abridged, but do have a more person feel than text-to-speech, but text-to-speech for a blind, low vision or person with other reading problems is equivalent to a print book for other readers. If you have the software that costs hundreds of dollars and right equipment a blind person can scan every individual page of a book and read it using text-to-speech, but why should we have to do that over something like this?
Amazon finally decided to allow authors to decide if they want to offer the feature on their books or not, so instead of blind, low vision and people with other disabilities having easy and mainstream access to over 255,000 books for the first time ever now we have access to only a tiny percentage of that.