Monday, July 18, 2011

Borders to close

From the New York Times:

The Borders Group, the bankrupt 40-year-old bookseller, said on Monday that it will move to liquidate after no last-minute savior emerged for the company. . . . Borders will begin closing its remaining stores as soon as Friday, and the liquidation is expected to run through September.
For months now, the online welcome message from my nearby Borders has seemed tinged with pathos:
Learning your way around our store, or having trouble finding that title? Our knowledgeable booksellers can be found near the Area-E desk, and throughout the store, to answer questions, locate titles, and help you order something if it’s not on the shelf. If you’re in need of a pastry or a pick-me-up, visit our Seattle’s Best Coffee cafe, where our excellent team members will help you find what’s just right for you. We look forward to your visit.
I wish you well, Borders employees. I will miss what was for many years an excellent bookstore.

A related post
Goodbye, Pages for All Ages (The end of an independent bookstore)

comments: 3

Richard Henderson said...

What I miss isn't so much the Borders chain as such, but the original Borders store in Ann Arbor. My hometown, Detroit, has never been much for decent bookstores, but in the '70s one only needed to drive 45 minutes to find three floors' worth of books. The chain put an end to that. When I returned to Ann Arbor three years ago, I found only a single floor retail space, a clone of the other Borders outlets.

All the record stores were gone from A-Square's State St. neighborhood, too, but that's another story...

LCS said...

When my wife and I first started dating 7 years ago we would often meet up at our local Borders store. We still go to get a mocha at Seattle's Best and browse the magazines and bargain books. We are sad to see Borders go. A happy part of our lives resigned to the dustbin of history. Isn't that so with everything? So long Borders you had a good run.

Anonymous said...

Like some of the orchestras collapsing because of too much debt, Borders simply indebted itself into fiscal collapse.

The management style of debt-and-more-debt to expand has never equalled stability or permanence. How sad that borrowing has replaced sense, planning and simple profits plowed back into a business to pay its own way.

While I am sorry to see a Borders or a Syracuse Symphony implode, to me these events are simply corporate suicide through management beliefs which have never worked long term.

Borders committed fiscal suicide.