NY Times, 20 March 2011 ¶ "…the company has also tweaked its vaunted search algorithm to point toward new, real, trusted content and away from link-bait generic content cranked out by so-called content farms. Even if it is a machine doing the executing, the company’s push for one kind of link over another is fundamentally an editorial exercise." inevitably curating, to ensure that search is satisfactory experience. ¶ seems to picking up from Tim Wu's argument in The Master Switch (2010) ; may turn out to be in no one's interest to point — like a telephone directory or cable register — to my little corner of e-landia… so be it.

"He opened books stalls in department stores, hardware stores, shoe shops...an idea many decades ahead of its time."

via http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-yo-takimoto-20101211,0,5214170.story

Alison Flood, Guardian, 14 June 2010 ¶ good range of comments, several critical of sentimental attachments to ye olde bookstore… one brings hardware stores into the picture. ¶ I like Harvard Book Store for its espresso printer, which oddly enough brings bookstores back into "publishing" that might have been done by "stationers" a couple of centuries back. hence the "genre" tag.

New Notes of California Libraries 17:4 (October 1922)

The Arbutus Library began in 1948 when local residents such as George Klein, Beatrice Williams and Elsie Ijams, discussed starting a local library with members of the Kiwanis Club and local business people. A library was created in the basement of the Arbutus Hardware store at 5417 East Drive. The Kiwanis gave $300; and a new floor was donated. A large table and 10 chairs were also acquired. Alberta Klein, George's wife, obtained more than 400 books from friends and local residents. ¶ ex A Brief History of the Arbutus Area and Nearby Communities | Baltimore County Public Library

“At a hardware store, you don’t want to find a predominance of washers that fit faucets from 10 years ago,” said Clark. “That’s my theory with books.” ¶ Hartland library extends reach worldwide (Bangor Daily News, October 27, 2009) ¶ dubious theory, but he is finding success; uses various book swap sites, trading dupes and low-demand items for others; ILL statistics have gone way up as well. ¶ N.B., the librarian blogs, at http://sennebec.livejournal.com/

Jesse LaCavalier, in Places : Design Observer ¶ got me remembering Masatoshi Ito and Ito-Yokado's interest in Walmart's POP data-driven business, back in the 1980s.

Sara and John had met in 1876 at a lecture he gave in Santa Barbara, California, where she owned a lending library and stationery store. ¶ Marion [Vermazen]'s Blog: Mountain View Cemetery, April 17, 2008

In 1908 the City of Forest Grove established a tax to support a public library, the first in Washington County. Initially housed in a stationery store at 21st Avenue and College Way, the library became a city department in 1974. ¶ Forest Grove City Library, Forest Grove, Oregon

Women Telegraph Operators : Emma Hunter

The Gustine Branch of the Merced County Free Library was opened on Nov. 22, 1910. It was located in the back of the Gustine Stationery Store next to the Park Restaurant…

service stations and beauty parlors throughout the South." ex Marc W Ryan, Trumpet Records: Diamonds on Farish Street (University Press of Mississippi, 2004) ¶ Willard McMurry had purchased the business in Jackson, Miss, in 1949; Lillian was sorting through the remnant stock, and discovered a stack of unsold 78s. ¶ I see porosity between, mutability of retail genres over time and space.

also, "itinerating libraries," "book club," &c. ¶ Chambers's Encyclopaedia vol 3 (1883)

Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine 32:6 (June 1855): pp776-77
An Omnibus Store.

20 october 09

Boston Globe, October 21, 2009