Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria in Washington Heights in New York City has not officially reopened for curbside pick-up, but founder Veronica Liu explained that they have been doing it on an informal basis if staff are at the store and they already have the title in stock. Otherwise, customers are still being encouraged to order online, and Liu noted that although Word Up's in-store inventory is roughly 75% used, most of their sales right now are for new titles, particularly the same 10 or so antiracist titles.
"I have about 100 copies of White Fragility in my foyer," remarked Liu. "And another 100 of How to Be an Antiracist."
Reopening for browsing, Liu continued, is still likely a long way off. While coronavirus case numbers are generally trending down in New York, cases are rising at record levels throughout the country, and the community her store serves is particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. There are high rates of overcrowding in apartments in the neighborhood, and it is hard to know what the prevalence of health care coverage among residents is. "The existing inequities in the health system have been so exacerbated by the coronavirus," she said.
Liu has heard about other booksellers doing things like reopening and allowing only credit card payments, but she is hesitant to do something like that as it would cut off a lot of customers from shopping at Word Up. Whenever she reopens, she wants the store to be just as open and accessible as it was when it closed in March.
At the same time, Liu and her staff are so busy working on other initiatives that there simply isn't time to work out the logistics of a partial reopening. Word Up has been partnering with a variety of organizations, including mutual aid organizations and food pantries, to distribute books to the community, and working with several book clubs that were already using Word Up as a home base.
The store has also started the online Lo'Mas Lit Book Club, through which teens in the area can get free books and participate in virtual discussions. The club launched in late June and will meet weekly through the end of August, and four times throughout the summer authors will join them, including Matt Mendez, Elizabeth Acevedo and Angie Cruz.
At the moment, the main thing taking up the store's time has been organizing a virtual summer camp. Word Up has partnered with 12 other local organizations to figure out programming, and there will be daily virtual events for children, ranging from three-year-olds to teens. The various curricula are all being planned around books, and the idea is to help combat the summer learning slide, which has followed a remote learning slide of the past few months; give kids something to do while stuck indoors; and give parents some time to themselves.
When "the revolution started a month ago," Word Up became immediately involved. In fact, the store, along with other community groups, helped organize three different marches. One march, which the organizers actually tried to postpone temporarily, still drew 500-600 people; the store was a drop-off and distribution point for things like water and granola bars. The march that the store was most involved with was a children's march on Father's Day. And even when Word Up wasn't explicitly involved with organizing a demonstration, many people still asked if they could use the store as a home base for doing things like making signs. Liu said it was "heartbreaking" to have to limit some of these activities because of safety concerns, adding: "They're used to having this space as a community space."
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In Duck, N.C., Duck's Cottage Coffee & Books reopened in the middle of May, when Dare County as a whole reopened for visitors.
Store owner Jamie Hope Anderson explained that the county, which includes parts of North Carolina's Outer Banks, had quarantined by limiting access to residents and essential employees only. Non-resident homeowners, tourists and the like were not allowed in. Non-resident owners, Anderson continued, were allowed back at the beginning of May and the gates were opened to everyone on May 16.
Downtown Books in Manteo, N.C., which Anderson also owns, reopened on May 20. While that store was shut down, she and her team decided to consolidate from two spaces and a total of 1,400 square feet to one space of 850 square feet.
At Duck's Cottage, which has a robust coffee business, Anderson and her staff have taped out a traffic pattern on the floor that keeps people moving in one direction. Only six customers are allowed in at a time, and for much of the day there is a staff member at the door who serves as "bouncer." There is a hand-sanitizing station immediately inside of the store, along with a sign asking customers to use it. There are plexiglass sneeze guards around the register and pastry counter, and surfaces are being routinely sanitized. At Downtown Books, meanwhile, there is also a hand sanitizer station and commonly touched surfaces are frequently wiped down.
Anderson added that both the county and the state are currently requiring masks, and that requirement is being enforced at both stores. Her community has a year-round population of about 35,000 and, since the county reopened to tourists and non-resident homeowners, that figure has probably quadrupled. When the county was locked down, it seemed that most people were being good about wearing masks and social distancing, Anderson recalled, but the summer visitors were much more careless, especially when they first arrived.
Before mask-wearing became required by law, the bookstores faced significant pushback, especially in Duck. Anderson's staff members were called "communists" and there were claims the store would receive a $150,000 fine for violating the ADA if customers were made to wear a mask (the claim, of course, was untrue). People have tried to use T-shirts for a mask, turn hoodies around so that the hood covers the wearer's face, or simply try to use their own hands. Those people are shown the door. In Duck, staff always offer to leave orders on the porch, and in Manteo staff offer to pick up a book for them, so no one is refused service.
Given that both stores are in resort communities, Anderson continued, they have not been affected by any of the protests over the past month. But the stores have had many requests for antiracist titles, and there is a table set up with those books that is seeing steady interest.