Evolution is crucial in today's bookselling

And Borders never really managed to evolve with the changes well.

Closing the Borders: End of an Era in Bookselling

I must admit, I never actually had a Borders in my town, although I think Waldenbooks was owned by them, and those closed a year or more ago here. As much as I like independent bookstores (and Borders was not one), I also love Amazon (Barnes and Noble I'm fairly tepid about), and I say that without remorse. They have a great selection, have quite possibly the best customer service I have ever encountered in a company, make it ridiculously simple to get what I want, and it's shipped straight to me, which is a boon if you don't have a car and can't afford to spend a day or two riding a bus around to different places. Plus, there is an Amazon warehouse in my town, so I'm actually supporting jobs here.

And I think that independent bookstores can still make it, if they find their niche and promote themselves effectively.

But the type of store that Borders represented never really appealed to me--they strike me as a bit generic, the type you find in malls and not in quaint buildings. Now for years I loved Joseph-Beth, our large bookstore at Lexington Green, because for years it was wonderful, but I think it made a lot of mistakes in recent years, their selection became very pedestrian, and they expanded into a chain when they probably should have stayed in place. It just wasn't the store it once was--and it was not Amazon's fault, although I'm sure some people would blame it. It had gotten to the point that if I wanted anything I had to special order it--assuming they would, as I once had an unfortunate run in with the worst customer service when someone sent me a condescending letter from that store about an apparently esoteric title I'd ordered for my thesis work. I used that as an example later when I was interviewed for a job there, actually. I don't think they were amused. Of course, from what I can tell, the majority of the people who they had working for them didn't know books (despite an extensive test as part of the application), didn't know where the books were in their store, didn't know how to find them on the computer, and in the case of women, almost all had the same physical type (thin to the point of anorexic, dark-framed glasses, etc.). (I don't fit that type). The customer service had gone way down. A few months ago the business was sold at auction. I don't know what its future will be. Sadly, I don't particularly care--they ceased to be particularly useful or special to me years ago, after I had been fond of the place for nearly two decades.

So I think the whole demise of the bookseller is more complex than people think. It's not just big vs. small, online vs. brick, etc. It's about taking the right course to navigate the choppy waters of the business, but in order to do that you have got to have excellent customer service, great selection, and a knowledge of what your customers are looking for.