Most people who live in a fair-sized or larger community take the presence of a bookstore for granted. They shouldn't. There's no guarantee that eve a profitable a bookseller will remain there. Laredo, Texas, population 250,000, learned that sad lesson earlier this month.
B. Dalton, the last bookstore in the border town, was closed on Jan. 16 by Barnes & Noble, which owns the chain. The store was profitable, but the overall chain is not, officials report. The closure is part of a strategy to shut stores located in malls. That might make business sense, but the decision is cold comfort to residents who rightly say a bookstore is vital to a community's image and to its civic, social and educational life.
For the moment, Laredo appears to be the largest city in the United States without a bookstore. The nearest bookstore is in San Antonio, about 150 miles distant. The city and its residents are trying to make the best of a horrible situation.
A bookstore has opened inside a grocery store and reportedly is doing brisk business in a small space with limited stock. The public library system is working hard to meet demand, but that's proving difficult. The main facility and its branches serve about 400,000 visitors a year, but officials say it already is difficult to meet demand for new and popular titles. That situation likely will worsen now that the bookstore has closed.
The loss of the bookstore store is particularly grievous to Laredo. It is a community where almost half the population lacks basic literacy skills, according to the National Center for Education statistics, where about 30 percent of residents live below the poverty line and where less than 20 percent of residents have earned a college degree. The lack of a bookstore, many residents say, reinforces the view that the city is an intellectual and educational wasteland.
That's certainly not the case. The demand for books remains strong, a fact acknowledged by Barnes & Noble. The chain, a spokesman says, hopes to open a store under its own name in Laredo, but adds that the location will not be available for 18 months. That's a long time to for those who know the value of literacy and who love books to wait for a place that most Americans take for granted.