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Big Business Not Big Brother
The Book Mark on Speedway is going out of business. To some Tucson journalists this closure is not a singular phenomenon but part of a more sweeping sequence. The cause of the Book Mark's closure is the penetration of chains - Barnes & Noble and Borders - into the Tucson bookseller's market. Big business is taking over. And the result, according to the press, will be an incremental loss of choice. But what is the lost choice? Jeff Yanc of the Tucson Weekly says that the only thing we are surrendering today is the choice of bookstores. The aftershock, according to him, will be an inevitable decrease in the choice of books. But he, as well as others, make a logical miscalculation based on what we know of the Wal-Mart effect on product homogeneity. The Barnes & Noble effect will not be the same. Let me explain, for the comparison is worth analysis. When I go into a bookstore, I know exactly what book I want to buy, often because it was recommended to me by a friend or a press review. If the store doesn't have it on the shelf, I special-order it. Bookstores are demand-driven. As much as we dote on price breaks and fancy book jackets, the book is the substance of our desires. And the variety of books on the market is because there is such a demand. That will not change. In fact, one of the major advantages of book superstores is their on-hand variety. On the other hand, when I go into a department store, I have only a general idea about what I want. Before going, I write nonspecific names of things on a list: toothpaste, college-ruled paper, pencils. I am less brand-conscious when I shop at a place like Wal-Mart. I often buy things that aren't on my list simply because they are on sale or look like they will match my bathroom rug. The store's supply, pricing strategies and my momentary impulses are the essential players in this purchasing drama. I hate to argue for big business, because I usually root for the little guys who challenge Brobdingnagian foes. Give me David over Goliath and Don Quixote over the windmills anyday. But in the battle of the bookstores, the little guys I want to see win are we, the buyers. The choice of bookstores isn't nearly as important as the choice of books. As long as friends and the press help me find the right books, the switch from independent bookstores to superstores should not effect us. And the space that the Tucson press is using to lament the loss of The Book Mark is better spent praising currently unacknowledged books.
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