The End of Borders

It has been buzzing all over the web that Borders is going to be closing the rest of their stores and liquidating all of their assets. I’ve read that the reasoning for the closing Borders not being able to enter into the eReader market and the downswing in the economy. The market for books is changing because of eBooks and Borders Kobo eReader hasn’t gotten nearly as much press as the Kindle or Nook. Honestly, I didn’t even know that Borders had an eReader until I was looking at their website to write this post.

For me, this news makes me a little sad. When I was younger, I’d spend hours in Borders browsing all the shelves upon shelves of books. I’ve always adored reading, so I’ve been a fan of the big book stores because their selection of fantasy and sci-fi books were always much better than smaller bookstores I frequented. This made me very happy, and I would always have a hard time deciding what book to bring home with me.

I do enjoy eBooks, but the move from traditional books to eBooks feels like the end of an era. When I was growing up, my dad had many bookshelves in our basement with lovely, geeky books. When I was in high school, I literally read my way all the way through his library. While I do have a lot of paper books, I’ve found that I’m buying more and more books for my Kindle. I like the idea of always having a portable, little library with me. But I do still love my built in bookshelves (a big reason I wanted to buy our house) filled to the brim with well loved books.

The closing down of Borders feels almost like the closing down of traditional books. I know there will be more stories to read, but the book industry is really changing right now. I wonder if any of the other big book retailers will have the same fate as Borders.

How do you all feel about the demise of Borders?