[FRIAM] Book Lovers of Santa FE

[Steve Smith]

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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