The Future of Independent Bookselling: The View from Austin

The Harry Ransom Center presents a discussion between Steve Bercu of BookPeople, Susan Post of BookWoman, and Russell Etchen of Domy Books about the future of independent bookstores in Austin and beyond.

This program is held in conjunction with the Center's exhibition The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 1920–1925,

As early as 1921, noteworthy visitors to Frank Shay's bookshop, located at 4 Christopher Street in the heart of Greenwich Village in New York City, began signing the narrow door that opened onto the store's back room. When the shop closed in 1925, manager Juliette Koenig preserved the door and, with it, a revelatory slice of cultural history. Signed by 240 writers, artists, actors, publishers, and other community members, this unusual artifact presents a unique opportunity to reconsider the intersecting communities that made the Village an epicenter of American modernism and literary commerce.