ABA Forum Tour Concludes in North Carolina

On Wednesday, May 5, ABA's winter/spring Booksellers Forum tour concluded in Pittsboro, North Carolina, with a program that was postponed in January due to inclement weather. ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz and COO Oren Teicher conducted the forum, which was held in conjunction with the Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) at McIntyre's Fine Books at Fearrington Village. Topics at the forum ranged from the Book Sense Gift Card Program to the BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program to the Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP). "It was fabulous," said Sarah Carr of McIntyre's. "It's nice to get together with fellow booksellers.... It was great to meet Avin and Oren."

The schedule began at 11:00 a.m. with a Book Sense gift card demonstration. SEBA Board member Sally Brewster of Park Road Books in Charlotte, North Carolina, said, "We learned even more about the gift card program, even though we've had the machine in the store for four or five months. [The gift card program] has been great. It has surpassed all my expectations. I'm surprised not everyone is doing it. They made a excellent case why everybody should be [participating in the program]."

"It's convinced me to use the Book Sense Gift Card Program," said David Friese of the Bookmark, also in Charlotte.

The forum followed the gift card demonstration, with Domnitz and Teicher presenting an update on the association's activities and plans for the future, and taking questions and listening to comments from booksellers.

Friese said there was talk about the BookSense.com Co-op Reimbursement Program, which helps publishers sell books and gives booksellers a way to claim unused newsletter co-op that can then be used to offset a significant portion of the monthly cost of their BookSense.com Web sites. "I have to find out more about the program," he said.

Park Road's Brewster noted there was some discussion about reporting to the Book Sense Bestseller List. "It's so easy [to do]," she said. "[Domnitz and Teicher] went over how important it was to report. We're sitting on all this information and we should use it…. I punch four buttons -- it takes a few seconds. People didn't realize it was that easy."

Another topic of discussion was CRP, www.readerprivacy.com -- a nationwide petition drive to raise awareness about the threat to the privacy of bookstore and library records posed by Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act -- that is sponsored by ABA, the American Library Association, and PEN American Center. In early April, ABA announced that phase one of CRP would culminate with a CRP presentation during BookExpo America, which will be held from June 2 - 6 at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.

"We're big on [CRP] in our store," said the Bookmark's Friese. "We were told that we should keep on collecting signatures" through the weekend of May 15, and on May 17 to mail all remaining petitions to ABA. "We've already sent a bunch of [petitions] up to Oren already. That's an important issue, and it's been going well for us. This is an important thing ABA is doing."

Overall, "Avin and Oren did a great job, as always," Brewster said. "It was a great forum -- very informative." --David Grogan