The incident occurred last weekend. A variation of it happens every
time I work at the bookstore. I guess I mentioned that recently (Shelf Awareness, January 26 and January 31). Perhaps I'm obsessed. Or maybe I'm just a bookseller.
That I am still contemplating bookstore search and response strategies
also has something to do with an exchange I had recently with Hank
Jones of TitleSmart, the online service that provides bookstores with
search capabilities for current information on major media book reviews
and publicity.
It's all about those pesky questions.
Last Saturday, my customer was a tourist who had heard about a book on
her local AM radio station--historical novel, set in the Middle Ages,
with the words mistress, dark, and mystery in the title.
As usual, I employed every tool at my disposal and assumed one or two
of her keywords were incorrect. Still, I couldn't come up with the
answer, though I've already given you a clue that would have helped
immensely in this search if my own memory had kicked in.
Eventually, desperately, I led my customer to the hardcover fiction
section and we scanned the shelves together. I began with A, she with
Z. We hoped we'd get lucky.
We did.
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin.
There's a hard way and there's an easy way to find a book for a
customer. We don't always have time for luck. More often, we really
need the proper tools.
My conversation with Hank Jones made me think about search tools and
adaptation. Jones, former owner of Putnam Book Center in Carmel, N.Y.,
has been working on the evolution of a particular search device,
TitleSmart, for a long time. Thinking incessantly about search options
might be considered his job description.
"I was a bookseller for 14 years," says Jones. "Countless times people
would come to me and my staff asking about something recently reviewed
or on TV or the radio."
Like most booksellers, he routinely received information updates from
sales reps about reviews and publicity, but "we could never make these
gobs of info easily accessible to the salespeople behind the counter.
Though we certainly had a staff favorites area, I felt it was our job
to provide customers with a more comprehensive selection of
recommendations, especially when it came to categories like business,
armchair cooking, and other categories where we didn't have an 'expert.' "
During the 1990s, Jones unveiled the original TitleSmart, a sales floor
kiosk designed for customer interaction: "I thought that by creating a
deeper keyword database per title, but one that applied only to recent
titles getting major media attention, I would get a more manageable
list and a better chance of a correct match."
According to Jones, the original concept "was to provide a reference
tool for customers and a marketing tool for publishers. This was before
the days of DSL and other high speed connections, so all new material
was downloaded by phone lines overnight. It turned out to be a train
wreck . . . not only because the technology and hardware was unreliable, but
also because it compromised the person-to-person interaction that many
small stores prided themselves on."
I worked with one of those kiosks and can vouch for his assessment.
Undaunted, Jones continued to adapt TitleSmart as technological options
improved. Now the service is an online database used primarily for
behind-the-counter bookstore or library searches. "Unlike other
industry tools, my program concentrates its book info specifically on
what is getting great reviews and major publicity attention," Jones
says. "It is not designed to be a comprehensive Books-in-Print--stores
already have that--but is meant to supplement a current system."
Next step?
Jones would like TitleSmart "to be able to interface with store
inventory systems or books in print . . . TitleSmart already has built-in
capacity to link to the major distributors, but I have not yet come to
terms with any of them. I also see expansion of the database to
regional and second tier specialty magazines, newspapers, and media
sites."
Adaptation.
Search.
All, ultimately, working in concert with the at once erratic if persistent human mind.
Witness the clue I missed that would have solved the mistress book
quest. In the January 31 edition of Shelf Awareness, Costco book buyer
Pennie Clark Ianniciello's pick was in a piece just above my column. I
read, but didn't retain, the title.
Paying attention and adaptation are key bookseller tools. Improved
retention on my part wouldn't hurt, either.--Robert Gray (column
archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)