Noah Genner, president & CEO emeritus of BookNet Canada, a nonprofit organization that develops technology, standards, and education to serve the Canadian book industry, died August 27. He was 52. In a tribute on its website, BookNet wrote: "Thirty-seven years after he first entered the industry, when he took on a bookselling job working for BookShelf Cafe in Guelph, Ontario, Noah's impact on the Canadian publishing industry cannot be overstated."
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At the BookShelf cinema, he became Canada's youngest licensed projectionist and later led the supply-chain side of the store's Web presence, the country's first online bookstore. Following his studies at the University of Guelph and successful leadership roles at Project Canoe and Compusense Inc., he returned to the publishing industry and to the newly founded BookNet in 2004 and was appointed president and CEO in June 2009. Over his 20-plus years with BookNet, he led the launches of nearly all of BookNet's marquee projects, including SalesData, CataList, and BiblioShare.
Genner's love of fantasy baseball inspired the launch of PubFight, an annual fantasy publishing game that tested participants' ability to manage stock against real-world book sales. His publishing industry contributions were not limited to Canada. In 2016, he won the Book Industry Study Group's Most Valuable Volunteer award and in 2020 he co-founded the Green Book Alliance with BISG and Book Industry Communication in the U.K.
"His relentless dedication, positive attitude, and innovative mind will leave a lasting legacy," BookNet wrote. "Noah's leadership at BookNet was characterized by instincts to collaborate, empower, and better the company's people, products, and services. He was transparent, approachable, and, more than anything, deeply kind. He inspired greatness among our colleagues and his friendship and mentorship over many years will offer comforting memories and inspiration as we continue to serve. Noah cared for the industry and the people in it; indeed it was his life's work."
"Noah was somebody who was always interested in whatever the next thing happening was, and so when we were approached in the early '90s to build this first online bookstore, Noah was one of the team of gifted amateurs who excelled," Doug Minett, co-founder of the Bookshelf in Guelph, Ont., told Quill & Quire.
During the pandemic, when Minett was working with other booksellers to establish the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association, he consulted Genner for advice on navigating the complex funding possibilities. "I wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise," Minett said. "I started out as his mentor in bookselling in the 1980s, and in expanding the business into movies, and later online retail and technology, and later on he returned the favor."
"Noah was incredibly special," said current BookNet president and CEO Lauren Stewart. "He really wanted to make an impact and better the working conditions out there in the industry and make Canadian publishing work better, smarter, faster for the people working in it."