SCCBA Disbands
This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on May 11, 2006 Sign up now!
by Bridget Kinsella, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 5/11/2006
After more than 20 years, the Southern California Children's Booksellers Association disbanded because it could not find anyone willing to take over the group's leadership.
In March, SCCBA president Jody Fickes Shapiro sold her bookstore Adventures for Kids in Ventura, Calif., to Barbara O'Grady, a new owner, and announced she would retire at the end of the year. When no one stepped up to take over the association leadership the approximately one dozen members voted to disband. The association will distribute its $35,000 in accumulated funds to member stores to use as grants for programs in their communities.
The abrupt turn-around at SCCBA saddened and surprised much of the industry because California children's booksellers were a major force in the development of the national Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC) in 1985.
"California and the west coast really dominated children's bookselling and the ABC for a long time," said Kristen McLean, ABC president. She attributed the demise of SCCBA to the same market pressures that independent booksellers have faced for many years—chain store and online competition among them. But what the SCCBA decision came down to was booksellers not having enough time to volunteer for service on a regional trade association. "The truth is booksellers have all they can handle with staying afloat and staying competitive," said McLean.
But all is not doom and gloom in Southern California children's bookselling. Instead of closing, three member stores found new owners. "But the new owners are too new to run [the association] and the older owners are looking to retire," said Shapiro. She hopes that the children's booksellers regroup under the umbrella of the Southern California Booksellers Association, which has extended a one-year trial membership to SCCBA members
The Northern California Children's Booksellers Association found itself facing the same question of disbanding earlier this year but decided against it. "We decided that we liked being in association with each other and that we still had a lot of things to learn from each other and a lot of things to do together," said NCCBA's new president Luan Stauss, owner of The Laurel Book Store in Oakland.
One of the advantages the Northern California Children's Booksellers group had over its Southern counterpart is a closer geography that makes it easier for the group to meet once a month. Some of the Southern stores are several hours apart from each other while most of the booksellers in the Bay Area are less than an hour's drive away from each other.
Sharon Hearn, owner of Children's Book World in Los Angeles, had been a member of SCCBA since its inception but admitted that she had not been an active participant in recent years. "Most of us have got businesses that are doing okay," she said. "But we're peddling harder to stay in place." But even with the sad news about SCCBA she added: "There's still a bright future in children's bookstores."
