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Barnes & Noble has a huge digital library and their own e-reader. This is absolutely about the world moving away from bound print media, and also from brick-an

Barnes & Noble has a huge digital library and their own e-reader. This is absolutely about the world moving away from bound print media, and also from brick-and-mortar booksellers to online sellers. It's also about gentrification, rising real estate prices and a million other things (in addition to the fact that a SciFi & Fantasy book store is a somewhat dodgy proposition in the first place). This is not the first venerable San Francisco book store to close up shop in the past few years. It's not even the first one on that block. I love Borderlands and will probably go to their meeting to see what I can do to save it, but this is not a shock, and it certainly isn't just, or mostly, about the minimum wage.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Barnes & Noble has a huge digital library and their own e-reader. ...which loses tons of money, while the physical bookstores are profitable. The Nook unit is doing so bad that the long-discussed plans to split it off from the profitable physical bookstores into separate companies are now being widely discussed as in jeopardy because there is no credible business case to make to investors for the Nook unit as a separate business. B&N is a profitable physical bookstore chain tied to failed e-book effort that is swallowing all the profits (and more), which if it can't be sold off or turned around soon is likely going to have a stake driven through its heart.
DrDanDLyons 12y ago
"It's not even the first one ON THAT BLOCK" --actually the one that left the block relocated to 24th St.