First Blog Written as Old SLC Bookstore Announces Historic Move

This is my first blog post. I've been meaning to blog thing for months now. A coalition of younger booksellers convinced me i must. But who reads this stuff? Aren't we all too busy? So i drew myself an outline of all the fascinating things i want to write. But other tasks always pushed blogging aside and i have always striven to put a wall between my work and my home. It takes effort since Catherine, my wife, and i operate the bookstore together. But tonight i am writing at home, when i want to be in bed. This night is second in surreality only to the evening of February 27th, when the scale of my judgment tipped and Cat and decided that we would be moving our old giant bookstore.

And since i know no better, i am writing in a word doc until someone shows me again how to post. That's also the reason why what was largely written last month, is only being posted today.

For my first blog, i had wanted to describe my strenuous relationship with language to you, as way of explanation, or excuse. But considering what other stuff has been happening, that will have to wait.

I am writing this only hours after delivering the press release announcing the immanent relocation of our 80 year old family-owned bookstore, Sam Weller's Books, also known as Zion Bookstore.

Late this afternoon after about two weeks of intensive planning, we announced that we have begun a search for a new location. Our store occupies 37,000 square feet. The public accesses 20,000. The other 17,000 is used for work space and storage, much storage. Some of it is well used. Since 1961 we have grown within the bounds of the David Keith Building, built on Salt Lake City's Main Street in 1902. Since my parents, Sam and Lila Weller, moved in here i think we have tripled in size with small expansions being nabbed when opportunity and necessity coincided. Our last expansion was in about 1996. When i think of what that cost and the last 13 years i wish i had invested in computers.

Catherine's and my decision to relocate this giant old bookstore did not come easily nor as quickly as it may seem. We have lived bookselling for many years. Like most booksellers, we love books. We are people shaped by books and certain of their importance to sane and civil society, and their relevance to the mind and one's sense of being. I have worked in books since i was 10 but when asked i start the ticker at the age of sixteen, so let's say i have been a mostly cognizant member of the trade since the late 1970's. Before computers altered our lives, i read Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and understood that change's pace continues to increase and that things are going to get faster and more fractured. I read Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media and knew that changes in technologies had unpredictable but definite effects on not only society but the workings of our minds and the physiology of our bodies. We see differently than our ancestors. We taste differently. We think differently.

So i am not really surprised to now be facing the prospect of moving the best of this giant old bookstore into a yet unknown location, in a manner derived to no small degree from my dreams. I am excited by the mere idea of putting our substantial experience to the task of creating a new kind of bookstore. I am overflowing with ideas and the grounding knowledge that only some can work. Oh but a lot of work precedes. I have moved from despondency to idiot glee.

Our press release went out at about 5:45 last night. Between then and 8:00, i gave four interviews and have two more coming. I saw it covered on television tonight and the sentiments caused me to briefly question our decision despite the years of analysis and consideration. But though i feel a certain affinity for Don Quixote, i cannot tilt further against the windmills of time. I have gone from dread to excitement.

We recognize that the market for books is shrinking. We are also certain that there are parts of the book trade that will endure. I'll write more about that some other time. Right now i am spinning darkness into light.

I am too tired to go on. The date is 12 March 2009. It is the day we announced the movement of an icon and one of the last remnants of an era i will miss.

I will awaken tomorrow, face more inquires and bargain hunters. Face the giant task of steering a massive boat into a tight harbor. Resist making too many plans until our new home is determined. Brace myself to greet my friends.

Bone