December 28th Moving Update

Moving began yesterday with crews of employees, volunteers, and movers packing up books on Main Street, and a crew of employees and volunteers setting up bookcases at Trolley Square. Here's a peek at the progress so far.

Book on carts waiting to be taken to Trolley Square.

We've already cleared out a large portion of the main floor!

View from the top of the stairs at trolley.

From the landing at Trolley. Just a few more bookcases to go!

We still need volunteers! Join us in our move by calling 801-328-2588 and talking to Jason.

Polaroid Pictures

While cleaning the office here at Sam Weller's Books in preparation for our move to Trolley Square we found a Polaroid camera and some film (best used by March 2004).

I love Polaroids. Birthday money supplemented with chore money bought my first camera, a Polaroid. It looked almost exactly like this one, except that it was a sporty red color. So I was immediately excited to start snapping photos.

Of course with film that expired seven years and nine months ago, there was no telling how they would turn out. They turned out interesting.

 Catherine is channeling the moving stress of all the staff.

 Tony and Joan are preparing the Rare Book Room.

 Getting things done.

 Frank staffing the side counter.

Hollis is holding down the fort in the office.

 Jason is organizing the volunteer schedule.

If you would like to volunteer, contact him at the store. 

801-328-2586 or jasonrabb@samwellers.com

Elizabeth is the returns queen.

 Our friends in the Coffee Garden on Main.

 Debra staffing the main floor info desk.

Stephanie is packing the office.

I don't know what caused portions not to develop. Perhaps the developing fluid had dried out. I have one cartridge (10 photos!) left. I'll use them in the move and post them in a future blog.

Worlds Collide in an Awesome Way

We recently received a shipment of awesome at the bookstore. Limited edition Star Wars moleskine journals. As you can see, they come in both Republic and Empire designs, or Light Side and Dark Side of the Force, if you will.

We also received some limited edition Pac-man moleskine planners.

Come in for your dose of awesome today!

New name for a new space

Catherine and I are the third generation of Wellers to serve the community's interests by selling books. My grandfather, Gustav, opened the original store at the onset of the Great Depression. It was then called Zion Bookstore. My father, Sam, took over in 1946. Sam and my mother, Lila, moved the bookstore to 254 S. Main Street in 1961. In the 1970s the name became Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore. By the 1980s we simply went by Sam Wellers.

I have worked in the family bookstore since childhood. Main Street was a vibrant place throughout my youth but beginning in the 1980's it began to decline as a shopping district due to the proliferation of new suburban malls, increasing parking costs and some poor development decisions. Sales weakened for independent booksellers in the late 1980s and the 1990s as stock funded corporate booksellers fought for dominance. A bit later the internet and ebooks gave users new ways to get information once found only in books. Today all the foregoing is exacerbated by our troubled economy.

We value the long heritage of our bookstore. Sam Weller was a gregarious, energetic bookman whose reputation was known across the country. He was a powerful man and a dedicated father who had a giant influence in my life. But his energy hasn't been strongly felt in the bookstore since he lost his eyesight in 1997. Sam passed away in 2009. For all our love and respect for the bookstore we have been on Main Street, we felt that our new store -- designed and built by Catherine, our team and me -- wouldn't be, and simply couldn't be called Sam's anymore.

When we open our store in Trolley Square on January 6th, it will be known as Weller Book Works. For months we pondered how to preserve the family name while embracing a new identity that reflects our new location, our new style of bookselling, and our changed culture. We settled on "Works" because it is an active term and we're active booksellers. I've often said we're the proletariats of the book world. Works has good connotations. This works. Books work (without batteries and for hundreds of years). It works for me. We work for you. We like the industrial association and think it fits nicely into the old trolley garages into which Trolley Square has been built.

We're excited about our new name and logo. We're also excited about the new web site that will follow shortly. We hope you'll enjoy the bookstore that makes them meaningful.

Trolley Square photos

Here are a few photos of the space in progress. I'm sorry they're so dark. But the lights aren't installed yet so it's dark in there! Don't worry, they're shipping.


This is the current outside of our store. The entrances, upstairs and down, will be immediately west of the atrium off the 600 South entrance.














This was how the space looked raw. It hasn't looked like this since early October.















This is the area Tony refers to as "The Grotto." Those spaces are transforming into offices and a meeting room.















Interior framing. The Grotto is off the the left. The mezzanine is above The Grotto. Big pipes are everywhere.














Still to come: electrical/phones/data/lights, a staircase from the balcony, flooring and railings for the balcony, main floor staining & sealing, painting, installation of sales racks and counters (to seismic code specs), signage and the facade, plus myriad little things I'm forgetting right now.

Oh, and a clothes line. Yes a clothes line. You'll see.

Stuff for Sale

You already know we've begun our Moving Sale. Oh, you don't? Well, used and rare books are 20% off. If you purchase 10 or more used books, or 10 or more rare books, the discount increases to 30%. The Bargain Rooms sale is still in effect, 10 or more items from there will get you 50% off.
Even better we've moved National Geographics published from the 1950's on to the Bargain Rooms. They're 25 cents a piece.

In addition to all that book goodness, we've got construction supplies for sale. We've got lumber, cinder blocks, oak doors, and enormous wood beams. Contact a manager for more details. More book cases have become available too. Come down and snag one or two today.

Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out

And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell & Justin Richardson
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Lush by Natasha Friend
What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

What do these books have in common? According to the American Library Association, they are the books that were most frequently challenged in the United States in 2010. Do some of the titles on this list surprise you? A quick survey of the books challenged most frequently in the last decade would yield similar results. Literature, classics, children's books, histories, religious books including the bible... they've all been challenged at one time or another.

The reasons people challenge books are many: sexually explicit or offensive content, violence, homosexuality, inappropriateness for age groups, anti-family and anti-religious sentiments to name a few. If successful, the results of these challenges are often the same: narrowed access to ideas and information, censorship, limitations on your freedoms as a reader. Lest any of us feel too sanctimonious, challenges come from the right and the left, the religious and irreligious, any side of any political or social spectrum you'd care to identify. Often the motivation is based in an attempt to do the right thing; sometimes it is based in fear. Again, the results are the same.

As booksellers, we at Wellers are categorically against censorship. We, like nearly all booksellers and librarians, have faced objections to materials we chose to sell. I view each time I talk with customers concerned about a book stocked or on display as an opportunity. I get to hear what is disturbing to my customer. That is important, I need to hear my customers and to understand their complaints. But at the same time, it is equally important that I let them know I consider freedom of access to information to be a cornerstone in the foundation of our democracy. I also believe that controversial -- even ugly -- ideas are better kept in the light where they can be seen, discussed, and dealt with rather than kept in the dark where they can flourish unconfronted and untouched. During our conversation I also let my customer know that I practice what I preach. Every season I buy books for the store to sell that I consider offensive. Yes, every single season.

So what does one do about "banned books?" Get the word out, of course. Engage in civic dialogue and education. This year's Banned Books week is September 24th to October 1st. On Saturday, September 24, we will be participating in the Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out. In bookstores and libraries across the country people will be reading two minute selections from challenged books of their choosing. This is an opportunity to dust off your old copy of Howl or recite your favorite passage from the Bible. Wellers staff will video your reading and post it to the Virtual Read-Out YouTube channel as well as Wellers own YouTube channel. And you'll go on record as a defender of the freedom to read.

Just call us at 801-328-2586 or email catherine@samwellers.com to sign up for a time on September 24th.

If you'd like more information about Banned Books week or would like to see what books have been challenged, visit the Banned Books Week web site. If you'd like to preview the Virtual Read Out channel on YouTube, go here.

The Banned Books Week awareness campaign is sponsored by Banned Books Week is sponsored by American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Library Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors,Association of American Publishers, National Association of College Stores, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council of Teachers of English, PEN American Center, Social Icons by Lenka.