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By David Rothman

imageThe people of Laredo, Texas, may soon have to drive 150 miles to get to a bookstore.

Barnes & Noble plans to close the only bookstore in this town of about 233,000, as part of its shutdown of the B. Dalton chain. Ironically the Laredo store is profitable. But until a replacement B&N store opens, Laredo apparently will be bookstoreless. Great market development, eh? Schoolchildren are protesting, but I suspect that the bean counters will prevail.

Felix Torres, the TeleRead community member who was kind enough to point me to the Associated Press story, sees several angles here, and I agree with him on every one, especially the first—about e-books’ potential in Laredo:

“1. A vacuum e-books can fill.

“2. B&N closing a profitable store because of branding (what, they can’t just rename it B&N Mini?).
 
“3. What happens down the road when e-books start to eat up ever bigger chunks of the book market? Will more cities end up like Laredo?
 
“4. Bookstores are either a cultural center or ‘a pile of books under a roof’? Really? Color me skeptical, there.
 
“5. What happens in 2012 when the new B&N opens? Folks might have adapted…”
 
What would I do in a town with a low literacy rate and, at least temporarily, no bookstore after the B. Dalton shutdown?
 
If Mayor Raul G. Salinas, I would work with the local library to introduce e-book readers, but do so carefully with sufficient marketing and training and cooperation with local schools, employers and churches (the latter could promote literacy per se without getting into religious matters).
 
Come to think of it, doesn’t billionaire Jeff Bezos have some old family connections with Texas? In his place I might spend a touch less on space travel and a few million on an e-book library-and-school project, with provisions for the use of netbooks and other hardware for people like Robert Kingett who hated Kindles.
 
I dropped by the Laredo public library site and found that it already offers some e-books and they’re even in Jeff’s Mobipocket format. While I doubt the collection is well used now, the right initiative could change that.
 
Look, I’m an ePub booster, but if Jeff wants to buy Lardeo a bunch of e-reading gizmos and use Kindle- and Mobi-format books, that’s a lot better than nothing. Ideally he can also spend money on something not-so-glamorous: the hiring of tech-hip literacy tutors.
 
Why not some friendly competition, in literacy matters, with the Gates foundation? Laredo, geographically, might be a great place for Jeff to start.
 
Alas, for now, if the scuttlebutt in one blog is correct, Jeff isn’t one for big-time philanthropy. He’s said elsewhere that he wants to be charitable but that “Giving away money takes as much attention as building a successful company.” Well, Jeff, it’s pretty clear what could be done in Laredo. Hire the right experts and let them pay attention.
 
Detail: Laredo apparently will be the largest city in the U.S. without a bookstore.
 
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