After 38 years of serving the reading public, the only bookshop in Westlock is closing its doors.
The Bookshelf, which was started in 1974 by Sarah Pearson, was passed to her son Doug Pearson about 20 years ago. Declining sales over the last few years have simply made the bookstore unprofitable.
Doug Pearson, however, said that the issue has less to do with the book publishing industry as a whole and more to do with the declining population in the Westlock area.
“Actually, it’s just this area,” he said. “If you look at the demographics, when we opened this book store in 1974 the population of the town and county was 25,000.”
The population in the area has since dwindled to roughly half that number.
Pearson said he will remember his time in the business very fondly, with the highlight over the years having been the opportunity to meet interesting new people every day.
“I’ve had some great customers with some great stories and had lots of interesting conversations,” he said. “You learn a lot about your community.”
There have, of course, been many challenges over the years as well. As with any business, Pearson said, there are the behind-the-scenes challenges that most people are not aware of.
In the second-hand books industry, one of the big challenges is taking particular authors on trade-ins.
“There are about 30 per cent of the authors of books I take in on trades that I’ll never be able to sell,” he said. “On the other hand, I have to take them in because you have to have a clear policy people can understand.”
The biggest challenge, though, was simply seeing the slow decline of his business.
“The decline of the market here for the last 15 years — that’s the biggest challenge and source of sadness,” he said.
That’s not to say that will affect the good memories of running the store over the years. Christmastime in particular has always been his favourite time of the year, because for the most part customers are in a very happy, cheerful mood.
“It’s just a pleasure to deal with people around Christmas. Even this last Christmas when I was losing my shirt, it’s still a joy,” he said.
Despite having lost money over the past few years, Pearson said his intention was to run the store until April — he even took on debt to be able to do so.
Christmas season this year, however, was very slow so he decided to move up the closing date to the end of January.
Pearson said he now intends to focus his time on a home-based business he runs, as well as pick up a part-time job to help pay off his debts.
