smaller intimate sites

Commerce As an addendum to the Borders obituary (for want of a better description), Neil said in the comments:

"I wonder if you can put a price on the simple pleasure of wandering the shop and browsing through the books? [...] I used to do that on my day off sometimes, or on my way home from work, just losing myself for an hour or two before coming away with a book, or discovering something I had never heard of."

I was immediately reminded of my old idea for rebranding the library service which boiled down to:

"Sure libraries should transform -- they should become bookshops were they ask you to bring the items back after three weeks. What I'm wondering is why some branch libraries don't adopt the model of having smaller intimate sites on the city centre high street with a format similar to Waterstones -- or in reality closer to a posh used bookstore -- were people can pop in whilst they're shopping or during their lunch break and borrow a few books. Ideally the stock would be arranged in a similar format to bookshops too with the fiction in an author a-z and subject headings were necessary. No internet access. No library catalogues (except with the staff behind the counter). And a decent coffee shop. And lovely pine flooring."

With empty shops opening up in city centres and on retail parks, many of which already have the fixtures installed (!), this is the perfect opportunity for the libary service to move in and take advantage of the situation.