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rfmcdonaldThis Ain't the Rosedale Library, once of Church and Wellesley and now of Kensington Market, is my favourite independent bookstore. It is now at risk of being closed down.
This Ain't the Rosedale Library is facing the travails shared by small book stores generally, within and without Toronto. It's a race, really, a need to escape from the big-box book stores and the online booksellers that are cutting into profit margins and a need for a surviving independent bookstore to stop being a mere bookseller and to become more, the nucleus of a community. Other niche Toronto bookstores
As noted by various commenters at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dewline's post on the subject, independent booksellers that survive already command a certain amount of loyalty from their dedicated clienteles.
Is it possible for bookstores to make the transition? I've no reason not to think it's possible. Certainly it's probably the only thing that could save them.
Would it be possible for This Ain't the Rosedale Library to make it? As noted pretty much everywhere, the bookstore already has a pretty fanatical customer base; I don't know how much more it can take things. Certainly its efforts to save on money by shifting to a less expensive region, away from the Church and Wellesley district to cheaper Kensington Market, may have accelerated its downward spiral; I visit the bookstore much less frequently now that it's so much less easily accessible. (It was a couple minutes' walk from Wellesley station. It's now maybe ten minutes' walk south of Bloor.)
Book lovers in Toronto are alarmed by the bailiff’s notice posted on the door of iconic Toronto bookseller This Ain’t the Rosedale Library Friday.
The bailiff’s notice alleges the popular independent Kensington Market bookseller owes its landlord $40,000 plus costs.
The landlord has hired an enforcement agency to collect the money or seize the property.
The bookstore was closed Saturday, and the seizure of the premises has alarmed Toronto’s literary community.
[. . .]
Following the bookstore’s 30th anniversary in 2009, the Star described This Ain’t the Rosedale Library as “one of Toronto’s most cherished booksellers.”
Although owners Charlie Huisken and his son Jesse were not available for comment Saturday, the bookstore’s struggles came as no surprise.
“These are tough times, the senior Huisken said last year, “but the spirit is still here.”
In an effort to keep its doors open This Ain’t the Rosedale Library moved from a larger and more expensive location on Church St. to its current 86 Nassau St. location in 2008.
Just last year the bookstore and its owners were feted at Harbourfront to celebrate the fact that they were managing to keep the small struggling operation going.
This Ain't the Rosedale Library is facing the travails shared by small book stores generally, within and without Toronto. It's a race, really, a need to escape from the big-box book stores and the online booksellers that are cutting into profit margins and a need for a surviving independent bookstore to stop being a mere bookseller and to become more, the nucleus of a community. Other niche Toronto bookstores
Glad Day Bookshop, North America's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore and the only one of its kind left in Toronto, could be forced to close its doors at the end of summer, said owner John Scythes. It has been in business for 40 years.
Mr. Scythes said he cannot compete against Amazon, which uses its buying clout with publishers and buys books at deep discounts and then sells them at 30 per cent off the suggested retail price. As a result, he said, there is a two-tiered pricing system in the book retailing sector.
“That’s what’s killing people like Charlie,” he said, referring to the owner of This Ain’t the Rosedale Library.
Mr. Huisken founded This Ain’t The Rosedale Library in 1979 and later brought his son, Jesse, into the business. In 2005, the store made it on to the list of the Guardian newspaper’s top 10 bookshops in the world. A Guardian writer described it as “Canada's best independent bookstore, full of small-press publications” and “a model of how an independent can survive.”
Toronto Women's Bookstore, Canada’s largest feminist bookstore, was on the verge of closing until an employee, Victoria Moreno, hatched a rescue plan. She is in the process of buying the 35-year-old store and plans to add a café as well as high-speed Internet access for customers.
“I want to create a social setting as well as a bookstore,” Ms. Moreno said.
As noted by various commenters at
dewline's post on the subject, independent booksellers that survive already command a certain amount of loyalty from their dedicated clienteles. Is it possible for bookstores to make the transition? I've no reason not to think it's possible. Certainly it's probably the only thing that could save them.
Would it be possible for This Ain't the Rosedale Library to make it? As noted pretty much everywhere, the bookstore already has a pretty fanatical customer base; I don't know how much more it can take things. Certainly its efforts to save on money by shifting to a less expensive region, away from the Church and Wellesley district to cheaper Kensington Market, may have accelerated its downward spiral; I visit the bookstore much less frequently now that it's so much less easily accessible. (It was a couple minutes' walk from Wellesley station. It's now maybe ten minutes' walk south of Bloor.)
