[OSList] Reimagining Bookstores

Sun Oct 31 23:01:43 PDT 2021

Dear Peggy,

will send this to my publisher and to some of the tiny bookstores in my 
neighborhood and to a local newspaper that covers neighborhoods in detail.
What a grand undertaking!
cheers
mmp
Am 31.10.2021 um 23:31 schrieb Peggy Holman via OSList:
 > On October 18 and 19, for three hours a day, I co-hosted an online Open
 > Space on Reimagining Bookstores <https://reimaginingbookstores.org> to
 > explore what it looks like when bookstores are centers of community life.
 >
 > We had expected about 200 participants. When our registration pass 300
 > people,  I was concerned that we’d spend too much time getting the
 > agenda set and the number of topics would be overwhelming for the time
 > and space we had.  My tech host partner, Nancy White and I reached out
 > to Ben Roberts to rethink our approach. Nancy came up with the strategy
 > we used: after opening the space, we split into three cohorts to create
 > the agenda and hold the sessions. Ultimately, more than 600 people
 > registered and I’d guess about 350 people showed up over the two days.
 >
 > We used Google docs and Zoom with a landing page that provided links to
 > Zoom, the agenda and session notes for the three cohorts so people could
 > view all their options. Even with a tech-challenged culture, people were
 > able to navigate it all.
 >
 > We had a stellar team, with tech hosts Nancy, Ben, and Jyo Maan and as
 > process hosts, I enticed two friends to join me: Michelle Ferrier and
 > Sono Hashisak. Below is an article about the gathering. The writer
 > called it "one of the most invigorating gatherings on independent
 > bookselling in a generation.”
 >
 > If you want to know more, just ask.
 >
 > Peggy
 >
 >
 >> 
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/87766-reimagining-bookstores.html
 >> 
<https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/87766-reimagining-bookstores.html>
 >>
 >>
 >>   Reimagining Bookstores
 >>
 >> By Alex Green |
 >> Oct 29, 2021
 >> Reimagining Bookstore organizer Praveen Madan (l.), with author and
 >> consultant Peggy Holman.
 >>
 >> Earlier this month, Praveen Madan, CEO of Kepler’s Books in Menlo
 >> Park, Calif., delivered a dire series of observations to the attendees
 >> of Reimagining Bookstores, an online gathering of nearly 600
 >> booksellers and publishing professionals. Independent bookstores face
 >> multiple crises that threaten their existence, Madan said, ranging
 >> from declining literacy to unsustainably low employee wages that he
 >> characterized as “institutional poverty.”
 >>
 >> Then, before sending attendees into one of the most invigorating
 >> gatherings on independent bookselling in a generation, he offered warm
 >> encouragement: “Let’s have some fun. Let’s have some energizing
 >> conversation. Let’s go create some change.”
 >>
 >> Madan’s balancing act of pragmatism and optimism is what led him to
 >> purchase and revitalize Kepler’s, the nearly 70-year-old indie
 >> bookselling institution, in 2012. In the past nine years, he has
 >> transformed the store through creative partnerships—Kepler’s took over
 >> fulfillment for the community library when it closed at the outset of
 >> the pandemic—and by committing to implementing a living wage for
 >> employees.
 >>
 >> Those successes led Paul Wright, a board member of Berrett-Koehler
 >> Publishers, a Kepler’s Bay Area neighbor, to suggest last year that
 >> Madan convene booksellers to try to apply the same revitalization to
 >> its entire segment of the publishing industry.
 >>
 >> Madan wasn’t convinced. “In the beginning I was like, I don’t know,”
 >> he said.
 >>
 >> But instead of giving up, Wright took Madan’s reticence as a challenge
 >> to create a core group of potential participants, to persuade him to
 >> move from uncertainty to a firm yes. He started by introducing Madan
 >> to author and consultant Peggy Holman, whose work goes back to the
 >> earliest days of the internet and centers on “open space technology”
 >> (OST), a philosophy of creating intentional, nonhierarchical
 >> gatherings to address complex issues.
 >>
 >> Holman then introduced Madan to a squad of fellow OST adherents.
 >> Together, they said they were willing to help him organize everything
 >> he would need for participants to frame goals and generate ideas.
 >> Holman assured him that if he was prepared to start envisioning a new
 >> landscape of American bookselling, they could create and manage a
 >> simple framework for channeling the experience of hundreds of
 >> booksellers into the beginnings of a movement for change.
 >>
 >> The team’s enthusiasm persuaded Madan, who began sending out
 >> invitations to Reimagining Bookstores in mid-September, and by the
 >> first day of the gathering on October 18, the list had grown to nearly
 >> 600. Throughout the conference, participants split into groups,
 >> devising their own session topics geared toward creating new ways to
 >> combat endemic issues that have long hindered stability and growth in
 >> indie bookselling.
 >>
 >> In retrospect, Madan said, his initial reluctance mirrors a problem
 >> among indie booksellers. They are hesitant to ask for assistance.
 >> Speaking to the attendees on the second day of the conference, he
 >> said, “Bookstore owners and leaders can get better at asking for help,
 >> and they’re going to have to get better at asking for help in the
 >> future we are imagining here.”
 >>
 >> Madan acknowledged that what he is proposing is difficult. To succeed,
 >> he believes indie booksellers need to completely reorient public
 >> perception of what they offer, framing it as a social good that
 >> warrants an array of supports from individual customers, industry
 >> partners, and government leaders. At the same time, he is very
 >> skeptical that any of those stakeholders can be trusted to lead the
 >> effort to make the changes bookstores need.
 >>
 >> In a stark assessment, Madan told Reimagining Bookstores attendees
 >> that booksellers alone will have to take the steps to guide Americans
 >> toward embracing the importance of their place in their communities.
 >> “We really have to stop expecting that someone is going to come to our
 >> rescue,” he said. “There are many versions of this fantasy: publishers
 >> that are going to come rescue us, God is going to come rescue us, the
 >> American Booksellers Association is going to come rescue us.”
 >>
 >> Madan and his fellow organizers are also convinced that sustainable
 >> answers will only emerge if a diverse group of booksellers are at the
 >> forefront of sharing the ideas that lead to action. Time and again in
 >> the conference sessions, conversations appeared to affirm this
 >> sensibility. Participation and leadership by BIPOC and LGBTQ
 >> booksellers was notable, especially in a predominantly white industry.
 >>
 >> At Reimagining Bookstores, conversations generated radical ideas with
 >> potential, including a proposal for the creation of an independent
 >> bookstore fund to act as a lender in lieu of banks, which often deny
 >> booksellers—especially BIPOC booksellers—access to capital. And nearly
 >> two dozen industry professionals attended a session on creating an
 >> ongoing organizing committee to keep the discussion moving forward.
 >>
 >> For Madan, the key to success will be in resisting the creation of yet
 >> another single-solution mindset or a monolithic organization. “It’s
 >> not so much, to me, what//we are going to do as how, and the how is
 >> determined by the principles,” he said during the conference. “I think
 >> the reason the principles are so important is because we’re bringing a
 >> radically different set of them than what had been applied to this
 >> issue before.”
 >>
 >> Evan Karp, the only bookseller aside from Madan in the group’s
 >> organizing committee, said that the OST members’ enthusiasm for
 >> facilitating the event is a positive sign in and of itself—one that
 >> points to the potential for booksellers to create the radical change
 >> they need by drawing on broad communal support. What shape the effort
 >> will take from here is still an open question, but Madan plans to
 >> follow up with participants in the coming weeks, encouraging them to
 >> resist the pull to go back to business as usual. (Four new sessions
 >> have been scheduled for November so far, and four other leaders are
 >> looking for expressions of interest in their topics before scheduling
 >> meetings.)
 >>
 >> For Wright, whose enthusiasm sparked the idea to begin Reimagining
 >> Bookstores, the gathering was an affirmation that an ongoing effort is
 >> needed to ensure the long-term viability of independent bookselling.
 >> “I felt over the last two days the sense that community bookstores are
 >> one of the pillars this country stands on,” he said. “And whether
 >> their situation is dire—or as dire as we fear—I see them as
 >> institutions that must be protected for the sake of our larger society.”
 >>
 >> Reimagining Bookstore organizer Praveen Madan (l.), with author and
 >> consultant Peggy Holman.
 >>
 >
 >
 >
 >
 > ________________________________
 > Peggy Holman
 > Co-founder
 > Journalism That Matters
 > 15347 SE 49th Place
 > Bellevue, WA  98006
 > 206-948-0432
 > www.journalismthatmatters.org <http://www.journalismthatmatters.org>
 > www.peggyholman.com
 > Twitter: @peggyholman
 > JTM Twitter: @JTMStream
 >
 > Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into
 > Opportunity <http://www.engagingemergence.com>
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
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-- 
Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
+49 30 7728000     mmpannwitz at gmail.com