Friday, November 20, 2009

Here Comes An Interesting Concept

Here's an interesting article by Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody.

Shirky makes some very astute observations about the nature of change, particularly driving home change and how it has affected physical bookstores. He makes some points that I'm certainly some booksellers would find offensive, but he definitely offers some good food for thought on the value, particularly the social value of the local bookstore.

"The local bookstore creates all kinds of value for its community, whether its providing community bulletin boards, putting rocking chairs in the kids section, hosting book readings, or putting benches out in front of the store. Local writers, harried parents, couples on dates, all get value from a store’s existence as a inviting physical location, value separate from its existence as a transactional warehouse for books."
- excerpt from Local Bookstores, Social Hubs & Mutualization by Clay Shirky

That's just a fun teaser blurb.

Go read Shirky's full article. It's definitely worth a read and definitely worth applying some further thought to.

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