| | I know I've been griping about my employer, Barnes and Noble, recently, and wanted to offer this in their defense. A letter was circulating through management to the staff, and I had to laugh at the timing, given my recent speculation about responsibility of choice in bookstores.
Recently, the CEO of Barnes and Noble, Steve Riggio, received a letter from a "concerned customer." The "concern" is a book industry cliche these days, that the chain stores are destroying small bookstores and limiting freedom of choice.
(And here I am complaining that they offer too much unprincipled choice!).
The customer, who's name was omitted by Riggio to protect the writer, wrote "I do not mean to argue trends in restructuring capitalism or to sing the song of the unemployed owners of the mom and pop appliance stores due to the fact that BEST BUY now carries washers and dryers. The American corporate construction has long taken its hold and is beyond preventing. Though unlike home appliances, the sale of books should be approached with some level of social obligation."
The customer continues, speaking of how he or she walked into a local B&N and was bombarded by stacks of DA VINCI CODE, THE GAME, but no John Currin, Cornell Woolrich, Raymond Chandler (which we do carry) and lamented the lack of "modern artists" like George Rodriguez, Mark Ryden, and Cindy Sherman. (Which again, is wrong, we do carry the ones in print. I've shelved enough of them to know.)
The customer concluded "Shame on you, Barn (sic) and Noble for putting local bookstores out of business and taking with your success the social obligation to enrich the community you thrive off. If a bookstore is to become a city's only bookstore it must for the sake of education stock its shelves with more than simple profit....you must strive to edify and inspire your patrons on a higher level."
[Who is this, Michael Moore?]
The response included some premise checking for "the customer", like the fact that Cornell Woolrich's books are out of print but for one, the rebuttal that some of the author's not found by the customer were indeed in stock, and that the criticism of DA VINCI CODE is nothing but elitist backlash from the literary community against a struggling author (Dan Brown) for having a sudden hit after years of obscurity. Simple physics and economics were pointed out; to stock a certain title limits the selection of other titles, and every new title that may or may not sell has to compete with the hundreds of other titles introduced each month. (I shelve books every day, if there were no selection, I wouldn't have to cram the damn things on the shelf; they're overflowing!) Riggio points to the internet and online ordering as well as the introduction to print on demand publications making obsolete to need to stock every title. The result is that this "has enabled publishers to keep more books in print and, in fact, re-issue more and more titles that are out of print. "
This rebuttal to the "shame on you" part stands out for having a backbone: " Your claim that we put local bookstores out of business is nonsense. How does one conclude that our success is the cause of another store's demise? Wouldn't it be more logical to conclude that rising rents is the reason...? You seem to imply that when another bookstore closes, it is our obligation to offer what they had on their shelves. How does one go about copying another person's vision? Do you think we can just go in and copy what is one (sic) their shelves and then open up one down the street? If that were the case, there would be no bookstores left in America other than Barnes and Noble. It's not simply that we can't do that, we are not inclined to."
Now, I may claim that an independent Objectivist bookstore would have a responsibility to the philosophy, not a social obligation, to limit the selection of titles. But the fact remains that bookstore like B&N are general bookstores, offering freedom of choice to its customers. I've heard from independent stores I've worked at the communist shtick regarding the big stores, but the fact remains that the big stores offer the most variety for the best price, and I salute Steve Riggio for standing up to the arguments from intimidation.
(Edited by Joe Maurone
on 10/17, 3:23pm)
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