How Barnes & Noble Came Back From Near Dead; The New York Times, January 28, 2023

Ezra Klein, The New York Times; How Barnes & Noble Came Back From Near Dead

[Kip Currier] Bookstores and libraries have their own distinctive communities and cultures. In 2004, during my doctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh, I took a still-resonant ethnographic studies course taught by the phenomenal Dr. Maureen Porter in Pitt's School of Education. For my term-long ethnographic study that term, I sat in, observed, and became an unwitting participant in the culture and community of the cafe in a strip plaza location of the now (sadly!) defunct Borders book store chain in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. In a wistful, encomiastic New York Times OpEd this week, frequent tech culture commentator Ezra Klein opines on the sense of community and "third place" that brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries can continue to provide in the digital age...

FYI: "How Barnes & Noble Came Back From Near Dead". (1/28/23). The New York Times.

[Excerpt]

"Barnes & Noble’s resurgence is a reminder that there is nothing inevitable about its (or any bookstore’s) demise. Great bookstores and libraries still provide something the digital world cannot: a place not just to buy or borrow books, but to be among them."