Bookstore using crowdfunding to stay open

My daughter forwarded me this plea from Food For Thought Books in Amherst, MA.  They are struggling, as so many independent bookstores are these days, to stay open.  They have turned to crowdsourcing to come up with the funds they need to tide themselves over the gap they foresee as they reduce the footprint and try to forge a future as a smaller store.  See Food for Thought CrowdSource.  Food for Thought has been more than a simple bookstore for 38 years.  Located in the Pioneer Valley, it has served as a center for the social justice and progressive communities, and a safe space for the gay, lesbian, queer and transexual community, and for radical thinkers. 

* The Indiegogo website that Food for Thought Books was using to raise money seems to hve gone away. I am trying to find out if (I hope!) that means they met their goal and shut down the fundraiser. I'll let folks know if I can figure out what it means. (11/30/13). Their Facebook page as of 11/27 says: "It's 5pm and we've raised $11,427! Think we can reach $12,000 by tomorrow??" (the ultimate goal is $38,000) So I think the Indigogo page is just temporarily broken. If you are trying to reach it to make a donation, please try back later!
Betsy McK*

While there have been several articles (Economist, Smart Planet, NY Times, and Christian Science Monitor) recently noting numbers showing overall growth in independent bookstores, my personal experience is that most of my local independent booksellers have closed up.  That includes, of course, the chain stores that these articles are dissing. The edge of small, independent booksellers, according to all three of the articles I link above is that they can get to know their customers and form personal bonds with them.  That certainly seems to shine through in the announcement for Food for Thought, above.

The Christian Science Monitor, as usual, analyzes the issues in much more detail, and it's an interesting read.  They point to a variety of influences in the recent resurgence of small, independent bookstores:

1.  The closing of Borders -  many of the erstwhile brick-and-mortar customers of this large chain have wandered into small independent bookstores and found a new bookseller.

2.  "Buy local" isn't just for veggies any more.

3.  Social media has enabled small independents to reach a larger audience with a lower overhead.

4. Newer bookstore owners are coming in with a business-savvy attitude.

5. Younger owners.

6.  Community events, and more creativity in developing community events. Some even run summer camps in their bookstores.

7.  Enough bookstores have closed, the market is stabilizing. Maybe.

8.  Diversified revenue streams; some bookstores do more than just sell new books. Some publish, some sell second-hand as well as new, some sell alternative and niche titles and paraphernalia.

9.  Beyond the coffee shop:  Some are adding wine bars, cheeses, summer sausages, olives, jams and locally made breads, specialty coffees, Italian sodas, cakes and chocolate.

Even Playing Fields

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) published its Guide to Fair Business Practices for Publishers (2nd edition, 2008). They are now in the process of making what are really rather minor revisions to the document. The wonderful Committee on Relations with Information Vendors (CRIV) has a new blog where you can go to link to the proposed changes, and read about how to submit your comments.

The AALL Consumer Advocacy Caucus has looked over the changes and is submitting comments, but the more members who comment, the better. Publishers and consumers alike have an interest in fair business practices. When one or a few publishers engage in unfair practices, the other publishers or vendors who try to conduct their business along fair guidelines are put at a disadvantage. When everybody maintains fair business practices, there is an even playing field, which improves competition, benefiting the marketplace and consumers as well.

I was initially surprised when there were some publishers interested in joining the Consumer Advocacy Caucus, but after listening to a presentation or two from some of the more vocal, I understand better their point of view. It is not just a matter of large publishers against small publishers.... they are concerned about unfair business practices crushing innovation and competition in the marketplace. And consumers have the very same concerns. Speaking up and asking question about problematic business practices benefits everyone in the long run, including the publishers who think they are getting away with something!

The Sorry State of Academic Publishing

The article, "Libraries, Publishers, and a Plea for Shotgun Weddings," by Bryn Geffert, the librarian at Amherst College, really struck a chord with me. Geffert decries the sorry state of academic publishing which is exemplified by a book he was recently asked to review.

At first glance, the work appeared promising. The publisher's Web site pledges research based on "recently opened archives," "surprising" revelations, and a "comprehensive overview" of important and neglected topics.

The list of contributors includes important figures in the field. The editor, a reputable scholar, teaches at a good university.

The publisher is a well-known commercial press.

And the book is an absolute mess.

Sentences do not parse. Punctuation comes and goes as it pleases. Basic grammatical standards retreat in the face of indifference. Narrative coherence gives way to meandering, self-absorbed stream of consciousness. The essays largely eschew arguments and theses. New information and archival research: not so much. Inanities abound. And those essays that do evidence some internal coherence bear little relation to their neighbors.

Perhaps most troubling is the almost utter lack of correlation between the book's content and the content promised by promotional blurbs. "Key themes" noted in the introduction appear nowhere else. We can only assume that topics presaged in advertising copy took a wrong turn in Albuquerque.

Geffert concludes that a number of publishers are "charging outrageous prices for embarrassingly bad books, knowing that enough individuals and institutions will snap them up." I am responsible for most of the acquisitions decisions for my library and personally look at every book (except for standing orders) we receive before it is processed. Given the volume of what comes in and the scope of my other responsibilities, I can't spend more than a few minutes on each book. Obviously, this isn't enough time for me to make a thorough evaluation of every book, but it is enough time for me to form an overall impression of which publishers produce books of quality and which produce schlock. As a result, I have a list of publishers from which I no longer purchase because of the "inverse correlation between the price and quality of [their] books," as Geffert puts it. He concedes that there are "good university presses [that are] bucking" the trend to publish books "with meager or no editorial support." How do they survive?

[B]y canceling series, releasing fewer titles, slashing runs, and declining to consider manuscripts that lack broad appeal. The result: Scholars increasingly throw their lot in with the disreputables; libraries purchase garbage; promising manuscripts go unpublished; and good manuscripts go to press half-baked. University presses committed to publishing worthy books—the presses we admire and on which we rely—can no longer give us what we need. And those that try find that libraries—each year spending ever-greater portions of their budgets on commercially produced serials—can't afford to buy what we beg the presses to produce.

Geffert believes that the current situation will not be remedied until libraries "step into the breach." He points to the University of Michigan which merged its press and its library two years ago; it pledged to "publish all future books online, free of charge." He says there are similar experiments at Utah State, Penn State, and Stanford. Geffert concedes that library resources are so stretched that

We cannot provide those we serve with what they need. Perhaps it is time to produce ourselves what we can no longer afford to purchase; to use personnel and financial resources from our libraries ... to save and revive academic publishing of high quality.

The Oberlin Group, an informal confederation of 80 selective liberal-arts college libraries, is considering creating a "liberal-arts press" which would be a "serious, scholarly press committed to rigorous peer review, superb editing, and the free dissemination of publications." This would require libraries to "reconfigure" library positions to support such an effort. Time will tell if libraries will actually be willing to free up human and financial resources. For a good overview of the issues facing academic presses, see Sustaining Scholarly Publishing: New Business Models for University Presses, a recent report from the Association of American University Presses. Geffert's article is available online to those who subscribe to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

Well, it's not what you think.... I am being too poetical for my own good here. The Library at New Mexico State University is canceling hundreds of subscriptions due to a $600,000 budget cut, according to an article by Paige Chapman in the Chronicle of Higher Education (dated Sept. 8, 2010 in the Faculty section). Only 20% of the subscriptions are going to be possible to replace through consortial arrangements. The rest will have to be replaced with interlibrary loan requests as needed. And of course, there is not any extra money allocated for the ILL that will surge this year. And when the ILL money runs out, it runs out and the users will just have to fall back on their wits. The worst news in the article was that they are looking at even more budget cuts -- the same or higher -- for next fiscal year.

I am so outraged at the combination of publisher and vendor greed pumping subscription prices ever higher, and the ways that legislatures budget pressures can slash away at university budgets. And libraries look like innocuous places to cut. After all, it's not anybody's salary. And it's not the heating plant, or (heavens forbid!) a sports program. How rarely will anybody get together and protest the cutting of a library budget!

But I remember forecasting that the publishers wrongly assumed that there were bottomless pockets to tap in the academic libraries, so they could go on raising their prices for subscriptions and just squeeeeeeezzzzeee as hard as they wanted to get that last drop of blood out. See these two earlier posts here, which I illustrated with the goose that laid the golden egg. You remember that story, don't you?
Killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg (2006) and a related post on The Importance of Timing (2006)

PS. I note that the link to Jacob Stein's wonderful essay is missing. Here it is.

People magazine

The American Library Association has several new videos on YouTube for National Library Week. Here's one I enjoyed:

I wonder what number the avid People reader would be reacting to if the price increase scale had been based on the pricing of legal research resources instead? I suspect it would be rather higher.