ABA Forum in Florida Next Week, North Carolina in Late January

Booksellers in the Southeast will have two opportunities in January to meet with representatives of the ABA Board and senior staff to discuss issues of concern and share ideas, as well as get an update on the association's past activities and influence future plans. ABA's first forum of 2004 will be held on Friday, January 9, at the John F. Germany Public Library in downtown Tampa, Florida. The season's second Southeast forum will take place on Wednesday, January 28, at McIntyre's Fine Books in Fearrington Village in Pittsboro, North Carolina (near Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill). Both forums are being held in conjunction with the Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA).

Representing ABA at the Tampa forum will be ABA Board member Carla Jimenez of Inkwood Books in Tampa and ABA's CEO Avin Mark Domnitz and COO Oren Teicher. Domnitz and Teicher will also be present at the Pittsboro forum.

The roughly half-day of forum programming (from 11:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.) will follow the same schedule at both gatherings. Special this year will be a discussion of Book Sense at Five, ABA's plans to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Book Sense in 2004.

The programs will begin at 11:00 a.m. with a Book Sense gift card demonstration, which will explain how the gift card works and how easy it is to get started. Specific case studies of bookstores' experiences this past holiday season when the stores converted from paper gift certificates to plastic gift cards will be included.

The gift card demonstration will be followed by the open forum from noon - 1:45 p.m. The forum discussion will cover whatever issues are on booksellers' minds, and attendees will have a chance to ask questions, express opinions, and hear from their fellow booksellers. Lunch will be provided.

Domnitz will be available from 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m., for one-on-one meetings with booksellers to demonstrate how easy it is to submit financial information to the ABACUS study, which provides participants with data that has proven to be extraordinarily useful in their efforts to improve store operations. (For more information about ABACUS, click here. Booksellers wishing to schedule a meeting with Domnitz should send an e-mail to avin@bookweb.org.)

Anyone planning to attend either forum is asked to RSVP to Kristen Gilligan at ABA at (800) 637-0037, ext. 1286, or at kristen@bookweb.org.

As part of its Book Sense at Five celebrations, ABA will be holding a bookseller contest, and the winner of the Grand Prize will have his or her hotel expenses and admission to BookExpo America paid by ABA for the next five years. The contest is open to all owners and employees of any ABA member bookstore. Individuals may enter the contest by either voting for the "Best Book Sense Books of the First Five Years" and/or by attending one of the 2004 Booksellers Forums. More details about the contest will be provided in future issues of Bookselling This Week.

A third January Booksellers Forum will be held in conjunction with the Great Lakes Booksellers Association in Chicago on Thursday, the 15th. For more on the Chicago forum, click here; for the complete Winter/Spring forum schedule, click here.

Tampa Forum:

Friday, January 9
11:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
John F. Germany Public Library (in the Auditorium)
900 North Ashley Drive
Tampa, Florida 33602-3788
Tel.: (813) 273-3652
Web: http://www.hcplc.org/hcplc/liblocales/jfg/

Pittsboro Forum:

Wednesday, January 28
11:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
McIntyre's Fine Books at Fearrington Village
2000 Fearrington Village
Pittsboro, NC 27312
Tel.: (919) 542-3030
Web: http://www.fearringtonvillage.com/mcintyres.asp (Directions can be found at this Web site.)