In The News

The recent closure of two well-loved Toronto bookstores, Pages and David Mirvish Books, has left a void in the city's independent bookstore scene. But thankfully, as BlogTO reminds us, future of the city's neighborhood bookstore is not necessarily bleak. In a profile on Kensington Market's "This Ain't the Rosedale Library", a Toronto mainstay for over 30 years, BlogTO finds lessons for surviving Toronto's increasingly competitive (and big-box dominated) bookstore scene.

"...as important as the ability of the staff to interact with customers and recommend titles is, a bookstore is nothing without an excellent selection….Although they have well-stocked sections of fiction, auto/biography, magazines, urban affairs and books on art, the reward of shopping here is finding the gems you didn't know existed….

"Not only that, but they encourage a community of artists and literati to frequent the store (as buyers and sellers). I can't stress enough how important this community-creation is. Beyond the chapbooks and small-press magazines, the [the founders of the store], the Huiskens, have taken to hosting events at the store two or three times a month. To some extent, this is one of the ways to remain competitive with internet giants like Amazon. By taking steps to turn the store into a hub for creative-types, they might just be able to make the sympathetic customer think twice before buying online."

read full story here
original source BlogTO