Borders, we hardly knew ye

America said farewell to its second-largest bookseller this weekend, in a flurry of vegetarian cookbooks, literary board games, and deeply-discounted industrial espresso machines. But the big box retailer’s loyal patrons weren’t letting a little thing like liquidation get them down! The Huffington Post reported from New York:

The scene this weekend at the last of the remaining Borders bookstores to close was more like a memorial service than a funeral. Shoppers reminisced fondly about their beloved bookseller rather than grieve its loss.
Amid upbeat jazz music and large red-and-yellow signs announcing the "Final Days" of the Borders store in Queens in New York City, customers snagged deals on used chairs and coffee machines. At a Borders in Cincinnati, readers were eager to grab book titles for up to 90 percent off. And signs at a Borders in Cambridge, Massachusetts, implored shoppers to haggle: "No Reasonable Offer Refused."

The high-profile closeout is expected to shake things up in the brick-and-mortar world:

[Borders is] a victim of a shift in the industry brought on by customers who'd much rather read their favorite titles on an electronic book or tablet computer than turn the page on a paperback. The chain's demise is expected to have wide-reaching effects on everyone from authors and publishers who will have to find new ways to market their work to competitors like Barnes & Noble that will benefit from losing a big rival.
"The absence of Borders is going to be felt across the industry," said Michael Norris, a Simba Information senior trade analyst. "The loss of the `showroom' effect of bookstores is not going to be replaced anytime soon."

Already nostalgic for those coffee-smelling, shelf-browsing, expensive-chocolate-bar-by-the-register impulse-buying days of yore? Never fear--at least fourteen locations will be taken over by Books-A-Million, and Berjaya Books will retain $15.8 million of Borders intellectual property in Malaysia. For more information, read the full article here.