Congratulations to Eric Kelley, who on April 1 celebrates 40 years as owner of the Book Den, the new and used bookstore in Santa Barbara, Calif. He and business partner Michael Isador bought the store from previous owners Richard and Susan Phelps in 1979, when it mainly sold used books. Kelley bought out Isador in 1984. Since then, the Book Den has moved next door (and back again), opened a second store, in Isla Vista (and closed it), computerized its inventory, started selling books on the Internet, and added a large selection of new books to its offerings.
The Book Den was founded in 1902 and has been in downtown Santa Barbara since 1933. As Kelley wrote, "Like most successful bookstores, the Book Den owes much of its success to its customers--the generations of Santa Barbarans who have known the store all their lives, the visitors who say the Book Den is the first place they go when visiting Santa Barbara, and all those who have given their books a second or third life by selling them to the Book Den.
"Beyond that, the reasons for success and longevity fall mostly under the heading of innovation, the constant small changes that improve the look and operation of the store. In the past four decades, the Book Den has been through three sets of fixtures and furniture. The inventory system is like-wise on its third generation, the current one largely written in-house. The Book Den website lists every book in stock. And two decades of sales data help the buyers build a deep inventory of books in high demand, with little dead wood cluttering the shelves."