Sunday, May 24, 2020

Bookstores, libraries, and All This

Before All This, my dear Horn Book colleague Cindy and I went on a field trip to a number of bookstores and libraries and took pictures for a planned article about, in short, creative shelving; we also put out a call to booksellers and librarians for their own photos. The exact purpose of the article morphed, because All This came and everything morphed. But we're proud of what it morphed into: Books beyond buildings, about the why and how of supporting bookstores and libraries these days, with resources gathered by intern Mikayla.

The photos we took show how, within their buildings, booksellers and librarians help readers find their way to information, education, entertainment, and comfort. Over the past few months, as pretty much everyone needs at least some of those things, they've found ways to do that beyond their buildings.

A lot of what I know about books, the book industry, and readers comes from my years at Brookline Booksmith. When it became clear this year that I wasn't going home for Passover, my Haggadah came from there, too.

Support bookstores and libraries, booksellers and librarians. See here for some ideas.