News - Bookselling

A nationwide sales tax holiday held in February would save consumers $5.9 billion, according to a new estimate prepared for the National Retail Federation (NRF). The estimate by the Arthur Anderson accounting firm is somewhat lower than the $6.5 billion calculated for a proposed November-December sales tax holiday and takes into account February's lower sales.

What do you give a bookseller who has everything? Give them a front-row seat in the fight for free speech by making them a member of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE)--the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship. ABFFE is now offering introductory memberships for $15--a 70 percent discount on the cost of an individual membership.

R.J. Julia Booksellers, an independent bookstore in Madison, Connecticut, is branching out--or at least trying out a new offshoot. Owner Roxanne Coady told BTW that the store opened a "big, beautiful, mahogany book kiosk" in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 3.

On Wednesday, December 5, the Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments in the Tattered Cover Book Store's appeal to protect the privacy rights of bookstore customers. Law enforcement authorities have tried to obtain the Denver bookstore's records, asserting that they would assist in a case involving the manufacture of methamphetamines.

Consumer Reports magazine, perhaps the country's most influential buyers' guide, notes in its January 2002 issue that 88 percent of the readers responding to a survey said they were either completely satisfied or very satisfied with their shopping experiences at independent bookstores. The magazine noted that such high approval for independents "puts those stores on a par with the highest-rated stores from any Consumer Reports survey in recent years."

There was cause for celebration in Arkansas this September as That Bookstore in Blytheville at once reached a milestone and gained a colleague: That Bookstore has become those bookstores. The day owner Mary Gay Shipley held a party to mark That Bookstore in Blytheville's 25th anniversary, her protégé MaryAlice Hurst, new owner of That Bookstore at Mountebanq Place, opened for business in Conway, Arkansas.

On Wednesday, November 28, the question of free expression and First Amendment rights in cyberspace returned to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the justices heard oral arguments in Ashcroft v. ACLU, a case involving the government's second attempt to regulate access to material with sexual content on the Internet.

Support continues in Washington, D.C., for a proposed sales tax holiday, according to proponents. However, if passed, the initiative is likely to launch in mid-February, to help lift retail sales around the Presidents' Day holidays.