Excellent! This is the kind of feedback I was fishing for. I am
reading some of Orca's materials on their CoOpness and can imagine that
it is a hard thing to pull together without one or a very few strong
personalities with the motivation to move it along crisply. That is
definitely not me.
I was not aware of *any* bookstore coops in existence so this is very
useful and motivates me to maybe look around for other examples.
Peggy has a new employee working there with her who seems pretty
competent and motivated, I will maybe stop in sometime when she is not
around (not sure when that is because she used to be there *all the
time*) and feel out his interest/ability to step up in any capacity...
she is a dedicated but difficult personality and I don't really want to
interfere with her process whatever it might be, just see if I can
facilitate a "better outcome" to show up.
On 3/1/23 3:50 PM, glen wrote:
FWIW, if there were a lot of people interested in helping out a little
bit, consider setting up a co-op. This store here in Oly did that soon
after we moved up here. It was difficult because they transitioned,
rather that constructed from scratch.
https://www.orcabooks.com/co-op
And I don't see Book Mountain on this list:
https://bookshop.org/pages/bookstores
It's probably too little/late for it to help Book Mountain now. But if
someone does take over, it would make sense to get on the list.
On 3/1/23 14:43, Steve Smith wrote:
I was just in Book Mountain which has been operating in SFe primarily
as a paperback exchange since 1980 (just before I moved to the area)
and discovered that the owner, Peggy Frank intends to shut down,
probably sooner rather than later. Here is an article about her move
and rejuvenation of the store a couple of years ago:
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/business/book-mountain-alive-and-well-in-new-location/article_9003513a-3c8b-11ea-a81e-373351759896.html
The new digs and layout were a modest upgrade from what she had going
before, and has a somewhat wider range of books shelved now, though
the emphasis is still on high-turnover paperback. She has one of the
most extensive collections of Science Fiction I think you fill find
this side of Powells (Portland) or Tattered Cover (Denver).
I probably unloaded 1/4 of my "2 cords of books" leftover from *my*
bookstore (Hunt and Gather circa 2006) on her for trade (my credit is
much too large to begin to drain in the short term).
What I am hoping is that one of her customers or someone in the book
loving circle would swoop in and buy it outright. I have already
talked to some of the other booksellers in town and she has already
approached them offering to sell them her inventory, but the ideal
would be for it to remain a viable business. Her current
setup/inventory/curation works and is by far more valuable than the
mere inventory (which would need to be sorted, shelved, etc. again).
If anyone here knows of anyone suitable for taking on such an
operation I highly recommend it, but I suspect the time is short.
Peggy is just coming out of some health-challenges and I sense she
will not be willing/able to wait very long. I am holding out a
slim hope that one of the other used-sellers in SFe might pick it up
as a satellite (Op Cit already has had multiple locations).
In any case, spread the word if you can. Maybe there is a coop
model or multiple-partner arrangement that might keep it going and
help Peggy leave the business cleanly/gracefully.
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