Chapters Bookstore in Dublin city center, Ireland's largest indie, will close early next year after almost 40 years in business. Announcing the decision on Twitter Friday, owner William Kinsella noted: "Incredible to see such support already. A sincere thank you to you all for your custom over 40 years in business. We are truly grateful."
The business has operated from various locations around the city over the years including Wicklow Street, St Stephen's Green and Abbey Street. It moved to Parnell Street in 2006. The Irish Times reported that the "development in which the bookshop is located, the Ivy Exchange, is currently the subject of High Court disputes between the developers, who are members of the Cosgrave building family, and a management company over alleged defects in the buildings."
Kinsella told Newstalk's The Hard Shoulder: "Since the pandemic--if you go back earlier to when the first crash happened--we never had a year where we didn't grow our turnover. And then when the pandemic hit, it accelerated the move--for a lot of people--to online. And one of the areas where online excelled was books. We just didn't have the numbers, there was no tourists, people were working from home.... It's lovely to see some smaller shops in the suburbs do well--but we suffered and we just had to make the difficult decision."
After news of the closing broke, long queues began forming outside the bookshop to pay respect and take advantage of a clearance sale. "Thank you all for your support, kind words, and custom after today's announcement," Chapters tweeted. "It has been a pleasantly overwhelming day and we look forward to chatting with so many of you over the coming months.... I want to say a special thank you to our incredible staff who really carried us today. A wonderful team who make Chapters what it is."
Writing in the Currency, Ireland's Minister of Finance Paschal Donohoe observed: "The news that Chapters bookshops is closing will sadden anyone who loves books and as someone who shopped there regularly since the 1990s, it makes me particularly reflective.... Culture and our city need to work hand in hand to imagine a new future. But the responsibility goes beyond our city planners. It goes beyond those who set up and run bookshops. It goes beyond those who want to run theaters.
"We all have to play our role. If you value bookshops, if you value cultural landmarks then the best way of ensuring their existence is to support them and use them. But that may not be enough on its own. As we make further progress in emerging from the pandemic, city planners and the government are going to have engage in what is the future for our city centers."
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BookNet Canada shared insights regarding the impact of Covid-19 on book borrowing, using statistics culled from the Canadian Book Consumer survey fielded primarily in May and July 2021. In the first half of the year, 40% of Canadians said that Covid impacted their book borrowing, slightly more than for book buying (36%).
The survey noted that 82% of Canadians believe that it is important for society to have public libraries for people to visit, and 82% also said they have a public library branch located near them. About three out of 10 Canadians visited a library at least once in the first half of 2021--18% visited in person and 17% online. In 2020, 41% of Canadians visited a library at least once, and most of them did so one to four times.
Respondents who visited the library at least once in the past month checked out an average of 2.9 book per month in the first half of 2021--1.8 print books, 0.7 e-books and 0.3 audiobooks. By comparison, in 2020, the average checkout per month was five books--2.8 print books, 1.5 e-books and 0.7 audiobooks.
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China News Service featured a photo gallery exploring a bookstore by the Xinglong lake in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, noting: "Located in Tianfu New District, the 'underwater bookstore' has a glass curtain wall that extends into the water on one side of the bookstore, allowing readers to see water plants and fish in the lake." --Robert Gray