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Borders Goes Bankrupt - The Death of Print at Retail?

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40hz:
^Disagree on the books side of the equation. I like to really carefully look over a book before I buy it.  Especially some of those $50+ paperbacks we computer people are so fond of. Customer reviews and sample pages (a la Amazon) are ok, but nothing equals spending 20 or 30 minutes over a coffee while carefully perusing two competing book titles before making your purchase decision.

Guess that's going to go the way of the dodo too.  >:(

Renegade:
^Disagree on the books side of the equation. I like to really carefully look over a book before I buy it.  Especially some of those $50+ paperbacks we computer people are so fond of. Customer reviews and sample pages (a la Amazon) are ok, but nothing equals spending 20 or 30 minutes over a coffee while carefully perusing two competing book titles before making your purchase decision.

Guess that's going to go the way of the dodo too.  >:(
-40hz (February 12, 2011, 05:59 PM)
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You remind me of once when I was in a bookstore here in Melbourne with my wife. I just about had a heart attack at the nutty prices - 2x and 3x the USD price printed on the back. I commented to my wife, "Bookstores are for looking at books. Online is where to buy them."

Computer books were expensive in Seoul, but nothing like they are here.

Like you say, $50+. One book I bought a number of years ago was $130 on sale. Checking now the list is $170 and you can get it for $100. I hate to imagine what it would cost here. $200? $300? $400?

One of my favorite things when I was a kid was ordering books at school. We'd get a list of books that we could buy. When they finally came, it was uber-joy~! :D I remember one of the books, "Who is Bugs Potter?" It was such a joy to read. It was about a kid that wanted to be a drummer. Band names in the book included "Nuclear Tea Pot". I think the publisher was "Apple Paperbacks". Other favorites were the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series.


When it comes to ebooks, I print them out and bind them. I'd posted a bit on that here in this thread.

I suppose it would make sense for someone to sell a "do it yourself book binding kit" as I can see that becoming more popular as people switch to buying digitally, but prefer reading physical print.

40hz:
One of my favorite things when I was a kid was ordering books at school. We'd get a list of books that we could buy. When they finally came, it was uber-joy~! :D I remember one of the books, "Who is Bugs Potter?"
-Renegade (February 12, 2011, 07:50 PM)
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Wow! We had that at my school too. It came through a company called Scholastic Book Services. I still remember one of the books I got from that program. It was called Young Scientist Looks at Skyscrapers by Dr. George Barr.



It was the first of several books by that author that I read as a kid, my favorites being Research Ideas for Young Scientists and More Research Ideas for Young Scientists. These books introduced you to the scientific method. They taught you how to do background research, basic experimental design, accurate record keeping, and report generation while conducting experiments on topics such as the weather, animal behavior, simple chemistry, and physics.



These books encouraged you to go and find out about things that puzzled you.

It may sound trite, but Barr's books completely changed my life. They taught me to think scientifically and, even more importantly, how to conduct simple but very serious research. Those projects triggered a love for 'doing' science that has stayed with me till today.

On a lark, I looked these books up on Amazon, and found some of Barr's titles are still available used.

I was also gladdened to discover the series still continues, albeit updated with slightly different titles. Apparently the phrase "Young Scientist" must have offended somebody, or came to be considered 'sexist,' because the new books have replaced the term "Young Scientist" with "Young People."  :-\

 

Not that it matters. It's just great to see books like this are still being published.  :Thmbsup:

cyberdiva:
Go back before Amazon...go back to the 80's. Nearly every shopping mall around here had both a Borders and  B&N, with Borders being the smaller store with less stuff.
-app103 (February 12, 2011, 08:48 AM)
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Again, our experiences are very different.  Where I live, both Borders and B&N usually started out in malls, but never in the same mall.  And the first Borders stores in my area were larger than the B&Ns.  Oh well, it hardly matters now.  Sigh.

J-Mac:
Where I live there were always more Borders stores around than B&N. I usually went to Borders mainly because that was the first big box bookstore I ever used. I always felt that Borders and B&N were very close in quality, availability, etc. and so I just used the one that I was already familiar with. That is.... until I discovered Amazon.com! My first book purchase at Amazon was in early 1999 and I never looked back!

Jim

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