Building Community, Creating Consciousness, One Book at a Time

Maybe it’s the comforting smell of newly bound pages mixed with freshly brewed coffee. Maybe it’s the ubiquitous cat, usually a calico, rubbing against your ankles as you walk between the stacks. Maybe it’s the anticipation of a quiet evening spent with a really great book.

There’s something undeniably special about your favorite bookshop; you walk through the door and feel at home. My favorite had big translucent paper globe lamps hanging from the ceiling, blond wood bookcases, and, the best part, a location in the heart of town on Main Street, within walking distance of my office.

Independent bookstores like my favorite have become endangered, but not extinct. For the past five years, CC alumna Wendy Anderson ’93 has lovingly tended to the bookshop in her hometown of Carbondale, Colo., which her mother started in 1994. The Novel-Tea Shop bookstore in downtown Carbondale carries a variety of books, some which lean toward the values of the progressive mountain community it inhabits.

It hasn’t been easy.

Anderson’s main competition, she says, is not “big-box” retailers like Barnes and Noble, (there aren’t any in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley) but Internet booksellers who offer deep discounts and charge no sales tax on purchases.

“A discount mentality has permeated our culture; everyone is looking for the quickest, cheapest, thing, like Internet book-buying,” she said. “The downside is that, since there is no tax revenue generated, local economies receive no support for infrastructure. And none of the sales revenues generated by the purchase get invested locally.” Such is the price of purchasing John Grisham’s latest from your computer rather than your neighbor’s shop.

But Anderson, a sociology major while at CC, is optimistic, and passionate, about her business. She believes independent bookstores have the power to make communities stronger by building relationships and serving as a temple of ideas.

“A customer told me once that he feels a bookstore is one of the few places as powerful as a church. One book can make a tremendous difference in a person’s life.”

She also thinks more book buyers will come around as they realize the economic impact of their purchases.

A 2002 study comparing the economic impact of local merchants to corporate chain retailers in Austin, Texas, illustrates the potential of a small, independent bookstore. According to economic analysis firm Civic Economics, for each $100 spent by a consumer, the total local impact from a chain store is only $13, while the same amount spent at an independent bookstore yields over three times as much — $45.

But Anderson knows she has to provide something special, and different, to keep her customers coming back.

“I’ve worked to create a place where people want to be — good lighting, we painted the back walls warm colors like burnt orange and burgundy, while the front walls are a soothing soft yellow. I want people to come in, relax, and be comfortable, not just run in and run out.” She also offers discounts for local book club members.

And her customers have been very supportive.

“People make a conscious choice to shop here instead of online. It’s very touching for me to know that my customers are willing to spend slightly more to invest in a world they want to see.”