Could an American city embrace and support a “community bookcase”?

Apparently there are cities across Europe where bookshelves sit on sidewalks, jam-packed with novels and non-fiction, just waiting to enlighten those passing by.  Each one operates on an honor system.  You’re welcome to pick up a book or two at your leisure, just as long as you’re willing to replace it with a book of your own in the coming days.

Here in Amurica (misspelling intentional), we’ve taken to a different type of book exchange.  We’re all about the online book exchange variety, such as BookMooch.

Without the strong community oversight of many European cities – like this one in Germany – the idea of putting free books out on an American street seems absolutely ludicrous.  Erect a bookcase, stuffed with books out on a sidewalk and it’s easy to imagine that within hours all the good books would be gone (and not replaced) and the not so great ones would be defiled and strewn across the ground.  The bookcase itself would then be hauled off quicker than most residential curbside items.

Too bad.  Because ultimately, it’s sort of a huge waste of energy to ship a book across the country for a trade you could have made with a neighbor down the street.

So, back to my original question.  Could a city like Decatur, or any of it’s surrounding Georgia city brethren and sistren, EVER support something such as this?  Maybe with a few tweaks? Or will we forever be regulated to online, long-distance sharing, supported by a heavily subsidized mail system?

h/t: DCPLive

Zach over at Wordsmiths’ blog gives his 2008 State of the Business a couple weeks early, ruminating over the the book store’s past year of start-up and looks to the future, promising on-site coffee and a used book section in the coming year. Both get a big thumbs up from me. [h/t: InDecatur]

But even local-loving Decaturites shouldn’t become complacent about supporting our independent book stores. They need our business. Outside (and probably inside) our little independent shop haven, writers, publishers and sellers all worry about the future of the medium.

A recent overview of the book industry in the L.A. Times (“A Dismal Year for Books“) summed up worries for the future of independent book shops nationwide and the solvency of the industry as media and publishing evolve into the digital space.

The article ultimately concludes with the uneasy feeling that many a book-lover with his/her wallet on the line must be dealing with these days.

Overall, as the publishing world looks back on 2007, it’s hard to reconcile the unease people feel about the business with the excitement they feel about the books themselves. When he goes to publishing dinners, bookseller Doug Dutton said, the conversation swings between lamenting the state of the business and exclaiming joy over a new novel or history.

“It’s about as murky a picture as I’ve seen,” said Dutton. Then he amended that slightly: “Sort of like last year and the year before.”

Buy local.

As mentioned on InDecatur a couple days ago, the city recently awarded ten Decatur residents, along with the Decatur Book Festival’s exec committee with 2007’s Hometown Hero Awards.Tom Bell over at the DBF blog thanks everyone for the award and points out that its many more people than just the exec board that makes the book festival possible.

Maybe next year instead of a plaque, the city could spring for a gold, asexual figure lifting a three-dimensional version of the “homes, schools and places of worship” logo over its head?

Now that’s something you invite the neighbors over to show off!

This 1888 illustration begs the question: what is more disturbing? A fox trying to eat its natural prey (like say a chicken) or a fox attempting to murder an anthropomorphized sausage?

The illustration above and others can be found in an excellent history of children’s books slideshow on Slate.com, called “Where the Wild Things Came From”. (Click here to view)

If the slideshow makes you nostaligic for great children’s books (like it did for me) might I suggest stopping by Little Shop of Stories on the way home and picking up a couple of classics under the pretense that you’re buying gifts for your 5 year-old nephew’s birthday party?

Photo courtesy of the NY Times

The “Pioneer Valley” that runs through central Massachusetts could portend the future of Decatur. Aside from sharing certain demographic attributes with our city, this string of towns along the Connecticut River Valley, boasts one of the largest concentrations of authors in the nation.

An article from today’s New York Times profiles this “author-saturated, book-cherishing, literature-celebrating” mecca, where you can’t go a couple miles without tripping over a book reading or festival at a local book shop or venue.

Looking like a matured Decatur, the area is rife with intriguingly-themed book festivals throughout the year and is saturated with independent book shops. (See the NY Times slideshow of local Pioneer Valley shops here)

So the question remains: can/will Decatur become a southern version of this bookish haven? Will authors continue to migrate to our city limits? Will our book festival continue to see its attendance grow and will local authors continue to replenish the line of speakers at our local shops? Only time will tell. Decatur certainly doesn’t have the rustic 18th and 19th century homes that provide part of the charm of these Northern independents, but the relatively recent emergence of book nooks like Little Shop of Stories and Wordsmiths coupled with the increasingly popular Decatur Book Festival, seems to indicate that Decatur could be well on its way to becoming the central hub for local southern writers.