Industry News

ABA's Booksellers Forum tour heads to California in February. The first of three forums will be held in conjunction with the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) at its offices in The Presidio in San Francisco on Wednesday, February 18. This will be followed by forums at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena on Friday, February 20, and at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in San Diego on Saturday, February 21, both in conjunction with the Southern California Booksellers Association (SCBA).

The ABA Booksellers Forum scheduled for Wednesday, January 28, at McIntyre's Fine Books in Pittsboro, North Carolina, was cancelled due to snowy weather conditions up and down the East Coast. "The location of the forum required that booksellers would have to drive, and given the icy weather conditions blanketing the area, we reluctantly decided to cancel the forum and plan to reschedule sometime in the spring," said ABA COO Oren Teicher.

There are two important Book Sense 76 reminders this week -- both the March/April Book Sense 76 and the Easter/Passover Top Ten have a deadline of January 23. The Easter/Passover Top Ten is the next Book Sense and AAP Get Caught Reading list, and will feature both children's and adult front and backlist titles.

The following letter from ABA President Ann Christophersen of Women and Children First in Chicago was sent to booksellers via e-mail on Wednesday, January 21.

Dear Bookseller:

This past summer in Richland Center, Wisconsin, Jodee Hosmanek was contemplating a career change. She wanted to leave her position as a high school chemistry and biology teacher, but didn't have a game plan. On August 17, she decided she was going to pursue her lifelong dream of owning a bookstore. By August 27, she had bought the building to house it.

On Sunday and Monday, January 11 - 12, ABA's Booksellers Advisory Council (BAC) met with representatives of the ABA Board and senior staff in Miami, Florida, to offer the association guidance on a number of issues important to independent booksellers.

The BAC is composed of 25 members and represents a broad cross-section of views from within the community of independent booksellers. For a complete list of BAC members, click here.

Topics discussed at the two days of meetings included:

All employees of ABA member bookstores -- from staff at the front desk to those in the backroom -- are being asked to vote for the best Book Sense 76 titles of the past five years in adult and children's categories. By casting their ballots, participants will be automatically entered in a contest to win the grand prize of five nights' accommodations and admission to BookExpo America for the next five years or one of four first-place prizes, to be announced.

The American Booksellers Association continued its 2004 Booksellers Forum schedule on Thursday, January 15, in Chicago, where ABA staff met with booksellers in the Great Lakes region. The ABA Booksellers Forum, held in conjunction with the Great Lakes Booksellers Association, was hosted at the Allerton Crowne Plaza, the Hotel ABA/Chicago for BookExpo America (BEA) 2004.

This week, Book Sense and Givex announced the creation of a Frequently Asked Questions PDF meant to address common questions from booksellers using the WebPOS (Internet) method to process Book Sense Gift Cards.

The FAQ can be downloaded by clicking here.

After Police Investigation, Bookstore Pulls Adult Magazines

Following a police investigation after some residents complained that a Cullman, Alabama, bookstore had been displaying and illegally selling "obscene materials," the store, Books-A-Million, decided to clear its shelves of all adult magazines, as reported by the Cullman Times.

The opening of a large, new bookstore in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by an energetic young entrepreneur, is scheduled for the end of June 2004. Mitchell Books, which will open in the mall space formerly occupied by Million Story Book Company, is the project of 31-year-old Peter Bobeck, who is also the son of the upscale mall's developer and owner, Duane Bobeck.

The first Mountains & Plains Independent Bestseller List, published in a cooperative effort between Book Sense and the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA), debuted this week.

The following editorial appeared in the January 12, 2004, edition of Colorado's Rocky Mountain News.

Amend Patriot Act to Protect Libraries