Borders Set To Close Doors Tuesday

At the Cumberland area on Monday, a woman said aloud to her friend, “I’ll think about this,” and placed a book back on the shelf. She won’t have long to ponder the purchase because the bookstore will be closing its doors for good on Tuesday.

In February Borders announced that it had and would be closing one third of its stores. The Cobb Parkway location is one of the 200 stores nationwide that is closing.

There’s not much left inside. About 10 shelves remain filled mostly with paperbacks. Even the shelves themselves are for sale.

James Canada, an IT developer at The Home Depot, browsed the remaining merchandise with his wife. He had filled a basket with paperbacks that he planned to give to his parents as birthday gifts.

“I always wondered how they stayed in business to begin with,” Canada said. “How did they make money period? People download more and more, which I’ve never done that, but at some point definitely everybody will be.”

Catherine Efford is one of the people who download her books to a portable device like an iPhone or a Kindle. She got into this habit when she lived overseas and couldn’t purchase books in English.

“I normally buy online,” Efford said. “If I buy a hardcopy, I buy it online. But most of my books I buy them electronic and actually read them on my iPhone.”

Efford continued to buy electronic books when she returned to the United States because of the convenience.

“It’s much easier because then you have 200 books in your purse instead of carrying one big hardbound,” she said.

Borders prohibits its employees from commenting to the media, but a manager said they intend to sell all their merchandise at extreme discounted prices.