An Update on ABA Operations Post-Sandy

Dear Member: 

I would normally use this space to update members on current ABA initiatives, but, as you know, we’ve been through a challenging few days in the Northeast, and we’ve been forced to make some adjustments to our more usual schedule.

The good news, which I am pleased to report, is that, with only a few exceptions, it appears that ABA member bookstores got through Sandy with minimal damage. A small number of stores did not fare as well however, and we are doing our best to be as helpful and supportive of them as possible.  The disruptions in power have been a major inconvenience. Unfortunately, lots of stores clearly lost many days of business — which, as we know, is virtually impossible to ever recover — but, as far as we’ve been able to determine, everyone is safe and sound, and we send out our best wishes to all who have been affected by the storm.

Elsewhere in this issue of BTW, there is a more thorough report on how stores fared during the storm [1], and ABA has been communicating with stores in the affected areas with information about resources, including LIBRIS and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (BINC). Here’s a link [2] to what we’ve been sharing.

The ABA offices were closed for most of last week, but we were up and running as of this past Monday. Some of our servers are still operating a bit slowly and several of our staff members are without power at home, but we are all back at work and available. We did our best to send out several communications last week when we were operating under difficult conditions, but I’d urge anyone who reached out to us last week to resend their communications, as it’s difficult to know what we may have lost.

Our Winter Institute registration website continued to function during the storm, but I’d urge anyone who registered after October 28 to contact their Membership Relationship Manager (Kaitlin Pitcher [3] at (800) 637-0037, ext. 6666, or Nathan Halter [4] at ext. 6614) just to be sure their registration is in order. (Wi8 did reach its capacity last week. [5]) And, as announced in this issue of BTW, the Nominating Committee has extended the deadline for Board candidate submissions [6] until next Monday, November 12.

I know I speak for all my colleagues on the ABA staff when I express enormous appreciation for the many expressions of concern that we’ve received. Thank you very much.

I’ll have my regular update ready for next week’s issue of BTW.

Thanks for your patience this past week.

Sincerely,

Oren Teicher [7]
CEO, American Booksellers Association