Crossing Borders

I made my last trip to a Borders store ever today. For those of you unaware, the entire Borders chain is set for liquidation effective the first of September. When the news hit the web and, to an increasingly lessening extent, newspapers, the book nerds of the world briefly stepped out into the sunlight for a collective gasp... Then promptly returned to their reading. Vulture that I am, the impending going out of business sale was my first thought. I've been to many independent book store going out of business sales over the years, many of which following the arrival of a book retail beast like Borders to town.

Since 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Borders has proved a worthy opponent to booksellers worldwide, crushing competition left and right, and eventually growing to what it is today... Or was yesterday rather. With their competitors taking to the internet, Borders partnered up with Amazon to host their online store. Both companies enjoyed a mutually beneficial union leading up to the release of Amazon's first generation Kindle in 2007, also when Borders's financial woes began. Demand for the device was overwhelming and it remained out of stock until the following year. Borders, financially rocked and now partnered with their biggest competitors, wisely severed their partnership with Amazon in 2008, opting instead to host and process their own online orders. They never bounced back.

Meet the Kindle. There is little I can say about it that the likes of Oprah hasn't already said. This is fortunate since I happen to agree with her in this case. Only when you disagree with Oprah do your loved ones start inexplicably disappearing one by one... At any rate, like it or not, digital e-readers like the Kindle are growing in popularity with every year. Not only can you download thousands of entire books to one portable device, but a lot of public domain titles are available at absolutely no cost. Libraries are even offering more and more contemporary e-book titles for use on these devices, meaning no more worries about why the pages are stuck together! (Note that at this time Amazon does not allow library lending to the Kindle, but it will later this year.) For those  titles that do come with a price tag, you'll typically note the lower price on the digital copy compared to its print counterpart. Best of all, it makes buying books easy. You simply download your titles straight to your device and begin reading. Fresh air just may be a thing of the past!

Now, before you begin stashing books in the attic for when "The Man" comes to burn them, or curse the name "Kindle" for ruining civilization as we know it, let's take a look at this honestly. If our ancestors would have faced the same hesitation to change we might be reading our bestsellers in scrolls, or even on cave walls. The book was invented as a practical organization of information. The times are telling us now it's time to change. Besides, it's not like print will ever completely die, much in the same way vinyl records didn't. This also will open the door for independent bookstores to take over again.

So what killed Borders? Darwinism. Their inability to adapt to changing conditions caused their extinction. Those of you still not convinced that digital is the future, I urge you to check out On the Origin of Species for further examples of what happens to those unable to adapt. It's $6.99 in paperback or free on the Kindle. The choice is yours!

On that note, I'll leave you with this photo I took.. Apparently nobody cares what Bush has to say even at 70% off