Support
Your Locally-Owned Bookstore: Oblong Books and Music
by
Ross Rice
The
music section, with a worldwide range of selections, has locals
like the Felice Brothersand Ollabelle next to the new Prince release.
Hermans still holds out hope to have live music on occasion in the
middle of the store, pointing to an area that at one time might
have had room for music, but is presently crammed with tables covered
with new releases. He chuckles ruefully...yeah, maybe someday.
The
Rhinebeck store’s first big test was when Barnes & Noble
moved in across the river on Route 9W in Kingston. “That knocked
our business down about 10 percent that first year. But we’ve
taken our hit from that.” One reason they have maintained
a loyal customer base is good service. You can request a CD that’s
not in stock at the store at 5 PM, the order goes to a company in
Florida, gets filled out in California, and is shipped out of Kentucky,
hitting the store the next morning. While I was chatting with Dick
at the Rhinebeck store, a woman came in asking for a new book, apparently
about a Jewish family. It had the word “day” in the
title. She’d heard something about it being pretty good from
a friend. Hermans ambles over to the computer and after a few quick
clicks guides the woman to the right aisle. (Of course, the book
title didn’t have “day” in it.)
Hermans
seems content although the two stores require his constant attention.
Keeping up with the “ones and twos,” making sure re-orders
are made, means a lot of computer time. But, when asked about the
potentially diminishing popularity of books in the face of electronic
publishing technology, he’s unconcerned. “It won’t
be this century… there’s still enough trees! Hopefully
by the middle of the century everything will be on some kind of
recycled material. I don’t see any sign of any publishers
letting up on the number of books they feel they need to publish...CONTINUE...
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