The European and International Booksellers Federation is launching the International Booksellers Forum, a Facebook group that aims to "provide insights into daily lives of booksellers, serve as an open space for raising questions and finding practical answers to challenges faced by the booksellers around the world, and enable sharing of opinions between members." The group is open to booksellers, aspiring booksellers and everyone interested in the profession. "We encourage all members to join, and please share the group further with your members, inviting them to join," EIBF noted.
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A new digital campaign is underway in the Netherlands that encourages customers to support their local bookshops and booksellers during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, EIBF News Flash reported. Using the tag #steunjeboekhandel, the campaign "aims to raise awareness of the precarious position booksellers have found themselves in--having to close their doors and not being able to offer click and collect services." The initiative is a joint effort of the Dutch Booksellers Association, Dutch Book Foundation (CPNB) and General Publishers Group (GAU).
Noting that the campaign has gotten off to a good start since its launch last Thursday, CPNB spokesman Job Jan Altena told DutchNews.nl: "We won't have the official figures until Thursday. But it's very clear that consumers have been heeding our call to support their local bookshop. We hope the effect will be a lasting one. A rise in sales is great but a couple of days are not going to make the difference, unfortunately."
Bookseller Arno Koek of Boekhandel Blokker, Heemstede said: "We have had to cut down on staff because of the closure and we had a productive talk with our landlord about the rent. But we have to pay distribution costs as well. We're not out of the woods by a long stretch but this campaign has been a great effort by the CPNB and everyone else involved."
In other news, the Dutch Indie Bookstore Day, which was supposed to take place in April, has been postponed to next fall due to present lockdown restrictions, EIBF News Flash noted.
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Paris "is losing one of its most celebrated bookshops," the Guardian reported. French chain Gibert Jeune will close its flagship shop in the Latin Quarter in March. With sales down 60% due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company's "most iconic shop" at 5 Place Saint-Michel will close as part of a restructuring plan, after the owner of the building decided to sell.
"Covid arrived and suddenly there were no more tourists and no more students," said Rodolphe Bazin de Caix, marketing manager of Gibert Jeune. "We're talking about a bookshop whose DNA is 80% textbooks, many of them secondhand. This shop was impacted much more than the others."
De Caix stressed that Gibert Jeune "is not dead, but it's having to reinvent itself. The first Gibert Jeune bookshop, opposite Notre-Dame, is staying put. The company is currently renovating its shop in the 10th arrondissement, after an independent bookstore owner's project to buy it and make it into a 'co-operative of ideas' failed. There are even plans to open at least four smaller Gibert Jeunes, spread out across the city, by April. In any case, the future lies not in the tourist centre, but in residential neighbourhoods, What we learned from the lockdown is that people aren't leaving their areas any more. We realized that the shop, which used to be a destination, no longer serves that purpose. It's our turn to move to where the customer is." --Robert Gray