Or, so says MobyLives. The end of an era? Not quite, I think. After all, the story of the modern book is 600 years old, while that of Borders (at least its predatory incarnation) is about fifteen (forty, if you take it back to its origins). I first heard of Borders when they set up shop in Singapore in 1997, its first store outside the US. In 2003, Borders had 1249 stores worldwide under its own name, and Waldenbooks, which it owned. The Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean stores were sold in June 2008, all the stores in UK and Ireland were shut on December 22, 2009 and on July 22, 2011. Borders started closing its remaining 399 stores in the US, with business operations expected to cease by September 2011. Harry McCracken, in his story , Borders is toast, But don’t blame the E-books in PC World says, MacCraken also says, "Until late 2010, San Francisco had four Borders stores-three of which were within a mile and a half of each other. I'm no retailing genius, but I couldn't figure out how the city could support so many giant bookstores in so little space ... Borders' smarter rival, Barnes & Noble, only had one store in San Francisco, although that, too, is now gone; there will be no major chain bookstores in the city once the last Borders is history."
(I have written before about the bizarre situation in the Klang Valley when we had twelve mega-bookstores here when Singapore had two. And Bangsar Baru had three MPH branches with their huge Mid-Valley store a kilometre away. Go figure. Then, when there is a financial crisis, the banks will get bailed out while the rest of us pay for it.)
He adds, “If e-books didn't exist, I'm pretty positive that Borders would have still collapsed in much the same way. It might have cratered even if the Internet had never been invented ... Borders is dying (dead?) because it simply wasn't very good at selling books in the 21st century.” I thought it sounded a tad defensive, but I am more inclined to agree with this view rather than with all those others who blame the demise of the chain (no, the entire book industry) squarely on e-books.
It has been a long time coming, and (to me, at least) a certain inevitability was always part of the script. One could feel the tiredness. It was as if Borders did not want to continue despite the quote in The Detroit Press by defense attorney, Paul Magy, ‘Borders really does want to continue, and I think they really do care about their employees.’ But, is this the end of the physical bookstore, as Laura Bartell, a bankruptcy law professor at Wayne State University says (in the same story)?
What are the implications of Borders closing shop? "The chain's demise could speed the decline in sales of hardcover and paperback books as consumers increasingly turn to downloading electronic books or having physical books mailed to their doorsteps," says the Wall Street Journal.’ So, is Amazon.com, with almost every title in print on its list, the winner? Or, will e-books rule? Or, both? Or, neither?
Miles of bookshelf space have been wiped out. More will disappear if Barnes and Noble goes under, or is sold. There will be less space for new titles and new authors, and one can’t see independents taking up the slack in the short term. Still, in contrast to dozens of blogs and websites I’ve read, I’m not unhappy to see them go. Borders was an aberration; a bull in a China shop. I can live with a bookshop that has every title in the universe, as long as they play fair. Borders didn’t. They undercut the market, sold books below cost and made hundreds of independents bankrupt. The good news is, they are gone. The bad news is, Amazon is now a virtual monopoly.
I have no sentimental attachment to Borders. When I was in school, I loved the MPH on Stamford Road in Singapore. Later, in KL, I became very fond of the MPH in Bangsar Baru. I would be sad to see MPH go, although they are nothing like what they used to be.
Says the New York Times, ‘The news exposed a deep fear among publishers that bookstores would go the way of the record store, leaving potential customers without the chance to stumble upon a book and make an impulse purchase. Publishers have worried that without a specific place to browse for books, consumers could turn to one of the many other forms of entertainment available and leave books behind.’
Help! The sky is falling!
