From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 21:53:52 -0600

There are some bookstores (and libraries) that have the Espresso Book
Machine installed, so that you as customer can order just about any
book not in stock and have it printed out in 15 minutes. In that way
physical bookstores cab rival Amazon.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: Ian Russell <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:01:13 +0000
>
> Interesting points, Jim.
>
> I guess that the lead time through the supply chain has shortened
> considerably so that a book store can order up a copy of anything in a
> very extensive catalogue more quickly than was the case in the past.
> That said, with Amazon I would assume that the physical stores are
> ceding the vast majority of that market to the online only retailers.
>
> Personally my online versus physical buying habits are now more to do
> with being able to get a physical product immediately instead of
> waiting even 24 hours rather than strictly price.  Convenience book
> store on every corner anyone?
>
> Ian Russell
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 15:32:44 -0500
>
> Liblicense readers know my amateur counting habits.  Today a report
> from two recent visits to Barnes and Noble -- one store in Clarendon
> VA (a DC suburb in a mall-let shared with an Apple Store, Chicos,
> Container Store, etc.), and one in Milford CT (in a strip mall with
> Walmart, a block from a larger but not high end indoor mall).
>
> I wandered both stores trying to estimate floor space and came up with
> the same count in both places:  40% of these B&N stores' floor space
> is devoted to what I would call books -- things in hard or soft covers
> with words in them, for people to read.  The children's section of
> both stores has grown remarkably, as also the toys and games sections,
> while magazines, Nooks, DVDs, gifts, and the coffee bar fill out the
> space.  I do count as books things like self-help and remaindered gift
> books and B&N imprints of various kinds.  Once upon a time a bookstore
> "superstore" (B&N or Borders) boasted of carrying 150,000 volumes.
> That number is way, way smaller now, and I wonder how far they are
> from carrying a line roughly equal to that of an old Waldenbooks or B.
> Dalton.
>
> One way in which the slimming down of stock happens is by thinning out
> the supply of older and classic authors.  In fiction and literature
> today in CT, there was one volume of Waugh, two Updike novels and two
> volumes of short stories, four Nabokov novels and the volume of his
> short stories, no Proust, a respectable collection of Hemingway, and
> four novels of Faulkner.  In the glory days of the bookstore
> superstores, I liked to say that I was confident I could always pick
> up a copy of the next "classic" (broadly defined) title I wanted to
> read.  Now, I have to transfer that confidence to Amazon or other
> web-based sellers.
>
> Jim O'Donnell