COLUMN: The last of the independents

From Michael Mugmon's, "The Way It Is," Fall '98 From Michael Mugmon's, "The Way It Is," Fall '98My town finally turned the page on independent bookstores. When I traveled back home for spring break, the old Cover to Cover Bookstore shut its doors for good. The owners made a practice of selling coffee and biscotti before the chain stores popularized the snack-while-you-read trend. They hosted discussion sessions with local authors. In recent years, they could help you snare out-of-print texts, rare short-story collections, radical political works and even ethnic cookbooks. But most important to their customers, the owners knew books. Need a book to read on the train? Try F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise or Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. How about something anthropological? Check out Milford Wolpoff's Race and Human Evolution or Colin Turnbull's The Mountain People. It's little surprise that the store's patrons remained faithful. And then Borders opened less than a mile away. At first, novelty might have driven Cover to Cover loyalists to the literary monolith. But the fact that the Kmart-owned Borders charged lower prices for bestsellers probably played the decisive role in destroying Cover to Cover's customer base. As a neighborhood store, Cover to Cover couldn't afford to slash prices as Borders could. No matter that the smaller store's staff knew you by name. No matter that they kept the last copy of the new John Grisham book under the counter for you. No matter that Borders' intrusion forced a vibrant intellectual community to fall by the wayside. Perhaps similar stories drove the American Booksellers Association and 25 independent bookstores to file an antitrust lawsuit against Borders and fellow bookstore behemoth Barnes & Noble. In the suit filed in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the ABA charges that Borders and Barnes & Noble have used their market strength to coax publishers into offering the superstores special discounts on both mass and individual orders. The independent trade organization also argues that Borders and Barnes & Noble threatened to return large quantities of books and magazines if publishers didn't provide demanded discounts. More relevant to antitrust claims, the suit contends that the national chains violated the Robinson-Patman Act -- federal antitrust legislation passed in the 1930s that protects independent retailers from unfair competition from chain stores. "Fair and legal competition is fine and benefits everyone," says Avin Mark Domnitz, executive director of the ABA. "But right now the independents are competing with one hand unjustly tied behind their backs." What does it all mean? Precisely that the ABA believes Borders and Barnes & Noble actively endanger the survival of independent bookstores. And the trade organization might just have a point. According to the NPD Group, an international marketing information firm, the independent booksellers' market share dropped 42 percent from 1991 to 1996. Barnes & Noble -- currently involved in a controversy over officials' disgusting decision to sell arthouse child pornography books in stores -- will not comment on the pending court case. But the company did fire back with a press release saying that "Barnes & Noble follows accepted industry practices in all of its business dealings. Programs that are available to us are made available to booksellers across America." With uber-bookstore Barnes & Noble set to invade Penn's very own Sansom Common this summer, the University City community should follow this case extremely closely. If the court decides that Barnes & Noble illegally solicited discounts from publishers, Penn officials should make certain that the new West Philadelphia branch plays by the rules. In that case, House of Our Own Books, recently named "Best Bookstore in West Philly to Browse and Buy" by Philadelphia Weekly, and the excellent Pennsylvania Book Center, in relocation limbo thanks to upcoming construction, should consider the possibility of filing an antitrust suit against Barnes & Noble in a Pennsylvania court. Even if the California federal court rules in favor of Barnes & Noble, the Penn community should actively support area independent bookstores such as House of Our Own and the Penn Book Center. Citing the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard, some administrators have claimed that small bookstores will ride the economic coattails of a powerhouse bookstore. But it's a real stretch to believe that a major bookstore chain would benefit small independents by fostering the community's desire to purchase books. Regardless of the case's outcome, the Penn community -- students, faculty, staff and area residents -- should watch Barnes & Noble's business actions vigilantly. Otherwise, University City might lose a vital component of a free intellectual community. And the two area independents might just go the way of my town's Cover to Cover.