Small Bookstores Struggle for Niche in Shifting Times

NYTimes: "ARLINGTON, Va. — Get on Twitter. Add a wine bar. Do as one bookstore owner did and rent out space for birthday parties. Or, as a veteran store owner from Kansas tartly suggested, just sell books. More than 500 independent booksellers debated their next step last week at the Winter Institute, the annual jamboree that is also attended by publishers who go to mingle with their customers and promote their most promising coming titles. ... " A death struggle is never fun to watch. Digital publishing, together with Internet-based direct-selling of on-demand paper books, are trains that will not, and should not, be stopped. Industries, like species, evolve. And so it goes.