LSAClassOf2000

July 19th, 2011 at 6:55 AM ^

Channel 7  ran  the numbers - I was only half-listening as I had just gotten out of bed, but it was something like 10,700 people nationwide, almost 900 in Michigan, and 400 or so in Ann Arbor alone.  Some stores will be shuttered in the next few days, they said. 

Wolverine318

July 19th, 2011 at 7:04 AM ^

Border made many mistakes. Capt hindight says they should not have expanded too quickly, teamed up with amazon and then abandoned that partnership, should have adopted e-books much earlier, should not have had such high prices, should not have started their coupon program. I am sad to see them go. I have a few friends that work for Borders on the retail side and in corporate. It sucks they are losing their job. However, I am more pissed at earlier upper management for allowing this to occur. 

Barnes and Noble is next. Their business platform is doomed in the face of e-books and amazon. 

Wolverman

July 19th, 2011 at 7:22 AM ^

 Nah Barnes and Noble are fairly busy, borders was an overpriced mall book store. E- books are a fad just somethings technology can't replace, Curling up with a good book, the taste of chicken and sex.  they might try , but they will fail when compared to the real thing.

SanFrancisco_W…

July 19th, 2011 at 7:44 AM ^

As someone with a degree in Library Science, I can assure you that E-books are definately not a fad.  They are gaining ground as the technology continues to improve.  Sure, us old school people like to physically turn the page, but the younger generation has everything digitized.

Barnes and Noble will begin selling E-books in different ways and probably have to make some business plan changes down the road, but right now I don't see E-books legitimately threatening their business model. However, it will down the road.

 

OP, this should have an OT designation as well

BRCE

July 19th, 2011 at 2:49 PM ^

You're right, e-books aren't fads. They are easy, convenient and consolidated. They are also a sobering example of where society is headed with our obsessive need to cut costs, downsize employee pools and make everyone a slave to gadgets.

No one can tell me with a straight face that some kid in the future will have the same reverence or life-changing experience that real books had on so many lives when they are reading the words on the same screen they play World of Warcraft on or look at porn.

Borders obviously made mistakes by not shifting with the market, but the market is shifting to a pretty disturbing place.

mi93

July 19th, 2011 at 5:22 PM ^

If I have to look at one for god forsaken screen...

The problem with our tech savvy young folks is that few of them know how to interact with the people.  Um, that's a problem.

Give me the weight of a novel any day.  And yes, I do yell at the neighboorhood kids to get off my lawn.

Wolverine318

July 19th, 2011 at 8:32 AM ^

Yep. With the raise in costs of paper and ink, actual physical books are starting to become cost prohibitive, especially with textbooks. The only people who believe e-books are fad are the same people who believed that the internet was a fad. 

bluebyyou

July 19th, 2011 at 11:12 AM ^

It is happening quickly.  What surprises me is that I see many older people with Kindles or Ipads. Look at what has happened with newspapers....dying out all over the place (along with good investigative journalism).  Ditto for pagers...technology marches on.

I can see huge advantages for school systems, assuming kids have a viewing device. You could greatly reduce the costs of textbooks.

Noleverine

July 19th, 2011 at 8:43 AM ^

I wish they would do books like they do movies. I don't always want to bring my kindle (out to the public pool, for example) so I would love if they did a free digital copy for your kindle/nook/ipad when you purchase a hard copy. Buy the hard copy of the book, and you get one free download of the book to an e-reader.

08mms

July 19th, 2011 at 12:58 PM ^

That would be awesome for display-type books as well. I'd love to have a set of the Harvard Classics on the bookshelf by my fireplace, but I'd prefer to actually read them on the train on the way to work on my kindle.

Baldbill

July 19th, 2011 at 8:23 AM ^

I love reading books and have collected lots of books over the years. Of all the things that I have gotten rid of over the years, I couldn't get rid of books...until last Christmas I got a Kindle. It is a great thing, if anything is fading it is the old school book. The ebooks are growing and will replace paper ones at some point in the future.

 

08mms

July 19th, 2011 at 10:58 AM ^

Have you tried using a Kindle? I was a devout "books are irreplacable type" until I got one a gift and started playing around with it. The ease, conveniency and immediacy of a Kindle are just irresistable once you get a taste.  Everyone will likely still buy coffee table books or hardcovers of their favorites for living room display, but denying the potential of eBooks were like all those commentators saying printed newspapers would never be replaced because people liked the tactile feel with their morning coffee. 

Feat of Clay

July 20th, 2011 at 11:17 AM ^

I agree.  I have an early Kindle and I really didn't use it a lot for the first year or two.  Now that my books are also synced with the iPad and iPhone, the KIndle feels more convenient.  Any book I buy for my kindle, I really can read ANYWHERE (except the shower. I guess) thanks to the multiple platforms.

dennisblundon

July 19th, 2011 at 7:50 AM ^

Barnes and Noble will be fine because the soul less pricks bought up the rights to sell many of the colleges textbooks to students. So when you pay $200 for a book and sell it back for $40 they win twice. I hope and anticipate college text books to be obselete in the near future as well. With the rising cost of tuition, they have to or need to give you a break somewhere.

Seth

July 19th, 2011 at 8:16 AM ^

In my day most of my professors made us buy from Shaman Drum, which jacked up the price even further, in an attempt to keep that place alive.

Now it's a Five Guys. Good to see the scratch I could put together by flippin' pizzas and moving convention equipment to pay $150 for the professor's useless book on witchcraft went to a good cause.

I always loved the smell of Borders, though I bought into the corporate behomoth crap back in college. The upside is books are cheaper these days. I've spent less than $50 this year on new books reading digitally.

Don

July 19th, 2011 at 9:41 AM ^

I never had to buy a textbook there (graduated before Shaman Drum was created) so I don't have your beef with them. They carried a large number of interesting books that the mass retailers wouldn't touch, and I was disappointed to see them close shop.

I agree that like so much everything else with higher education, textbook prices are completely insane and students get cornholed coming and going. It was unwise for UM profs to require students to buy expensive books from SD, if they were available elsewhere.

It's nuts that there now isn't a single real bookstore near the campus of one of the world's leading educational institution. I think Borders sealed its own fate when they sold out to Kmart in 1992. Kmart didn't know shit from shinola about the book trade, even after acquiring Waldenbooks several years earlier, and most of the senior Borders management quit when Kmart made the purchase. Before long Kmart sold off Borders, but by then I think the gradual process of decline was in motion.

CRex

July 19th, 2011 at 10:05 AM ^

The Drum treated students horribly.  They had poor planning for moving massive numbers of kids through the upstairs and refused to let us carry laptop satchels in for fear we'd shoplift.  I remember standing on the stairs for 45 minutes, getting up there and ending up leaving is disgust.

All I can say to that is treat me like a criminal and you don't get my business.  I went in for a burger on the grand opening of Five Guys for a victory burger.  It has to rot the old owner's soul that a chain burger store now occupies the space.  At least I hope it does.

(Yes I'm a bit vindicative.)

Bando Calrissian

July 19th, 2011 at 12:34 PM ^

Don't forget their ridiculous return policy.  If you had the misfortune of having to drop a class 4 days after you bought your books there, enjoy your 200 dollars worth of full-price textbooks.  Which you could sell back for about 10.  And don't think that you could have just gone in and written down what the books were (or, God forbid, TAKEN A PICTURE!) with the hawkish staff staring you down and stopping you from doing so.  After all, profs gave Shaman Drum the book lists ahead of time, but never us students.  

I feel bad in theory for Shaman Drum as an independent book retailer, but not in reality, because it was just such a sham.  You gotta love how the owner publicly rallied against book lists being made public to students ahead of the first day of classes solely because it shot down his exclusivity.  

M Fanfare

July 19th, 2011 at 12:42 PM ^

Even better--Shaman Drum once ordered the wrong book for one of my classes (one of five for that class) and by the time the professor had given us the list so we could see the mistake they wouldn't allow us to exchange the books or sell them back. Because they fucked up and sold us the wrong book, we ended up saddled with a useless $50 book AND still were on the hook for the correct book which came in later. Fuck Shaman Drum. I was so happy when they shut down.

ypsituckyboy

July 19th, 2011 at 1:06 PM ^

Did you take the History of Witchcraft with the prof that looks like Obama? That class was awesome!

The Classic Civ Deptartment has some of the best classes in the University. Second only to Witchcraft was my Greek Myth class taught by Verhoogt.

Seth

July 19th, 2011 at 9:55 PM ^

naw, my class was a lady who wanted to make the Salem Witch Trials about the suppression of women, and only the suppression of women. When she taught anything but her book she put the class to sleep. However there was a theory someone had in the coursepack that was MGotacular -- the guy traced where the victims lived versus where the accusing families lived and there was a clear delineation between the uber-religious town and the victims who served the road to Boston.

08mms

July 19th, 2011 at 11:01 AM ^

I can't imaging a lot of those textbooks aren't going to move over to cheaper eBooks in the near future.  You can already get most books for English/Classics type classes for free or dirt-cheap digitally and this in year in law school I was able to get about half of my books for far cheaper on Kindle (albiet w/out the ability to attempt to resell them before new editions destroyed there value).  As I remember, in my last year at Michigan some of the engineering profs were giving students books as PDFs somehow.

justingoblue

July 19th, 2011 at 11:20 AM ^

I wish I was a freshman again, I would have saved a lot of money (and knew the texts better) if ebook technology was three years ahead. As a senior this year I wouldn't recoup the cost of buying a Kindle/Nook/iPad, but if I was going through college again it would definitely be worth it.

Hoke Saves Lives

July 19th, 2011 at 8:17 AM ^

Hey Guys, I know this is unrelated/off-topic but I just recently joined and I wanted to post a topic related to a video I made.  If anyone could help me out I would appreciate it.  The link is a parody of the Ohio State scandal using the Inception movie trailer.  

Here's the actual link to YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH1jeePj80A

Just so you know I'm not trolling, I posted it on Maize 'n Brew already.  Here's that link for verification:  http://www.maizenbrew.com/2011/7/19/2282663/ohio-state-inception-parody

Thanks in advance.

Canada loves S…

July 19th, 2011 at 8:27 AM ^

for every book I bought from Amazon instead of supporting the local guy.  Damn property values in Ann Arbor about to take another dive.

Anyone know how many Borders employees there are in Ann Arbor?

Tully Mars

July 19th, 2011 at 11:16 PM ^

That number is about right (quite low compared it it's high of about 1500 7ish years ago).    First round of layoffs will occur next Friday (7/29).  I'm not sure how long until everyone is gone, but probably under 2 months.

 

My wife works there, though I'm in Cincinnati for a postdoc, so I can't really say I'm quite as sad about them closing because she'll get to move down here with me!  If only we can find her a good job down here...

detrocks

July 19th, 2011 at 10:18 AM ^

But I loved going to the Borders here in Chicago.   It was great just spending time wandering up and down the aisles looking at books from authors I hadn't read, picking up something that I might never have seen before, listening to authors speak there.   I've adopted e-book readers because of the convenience, but it's definitely not the same as sitting with a good paper book.