"When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes." Desiderius Erasmus (1466 - 1536)

While I don't own a bookstore, my husband and I have a house full of books and I love them all. And when we travel, we spend a good deal of our time in independent books stores. I don't want to see them disappearing like dinosaurs!

Two recent articles focused on opposite views of the issue: independent book stores are on their way to extinction and the number of independent book stores is growing.

Today's Los Angeles Times, in Bookshops' latest sad plot twist, pointed once again to changing technology and online booksellers like Amazon and Alibris. The paradox of modern book selling: "...even in an entertainment-saturated age, people still buy books. But the casual reader has many other places to get bestsellers and topical books, from warehouses to the mall. Meanwhile, book nuts - the ones who simply must buy several volumes a week - are lured online. Few businesses can survive that lose customers from both ends of the spectrum."

The Christian Science Monitor, on January 26, wrote in We're not in it for the money, that "The swansong of the independent bookstore has been sung - then sung again... Membership in the trade organization for independently owned bookstores has dropped by more tha half in the past decade. Yet new stores continue to open... In 2005, the American Booksellers Association (ABA) registerred 90 new stores. Last year there were 97..."

While membership dropped from 4,057 in 1996 to 1,625 last year, things are looking better. From the mid-'90s until two years ago, store openings numbered 10 or fewer a year. Who knows why the numbers are going up, and so fast, but it's good news. Oren Teicher of the ABA specuated that entrepreneurial book lovers have spotted a vacuum for the type of services that independents can provide. Good news for us book lovers!