The Book City located in the Eastlands Mall at Rosny is a good example of how bookstores have been steadily changing from places to buy books to plces to enjoy books. It utilises an open plan layout that sacrifices some shelf space in order to give customers room to move around or sit down and browse through a novel. With its warm atmosphere and low couches it's halfway between a bookstore and a library. The open plan and flat floor also make for easy wheelchair access.
I found the staff to be friendly and helpful - they were willing to let me take these pictures after I explained why I was there - and the selection of material was fair. The stock is divided into categories by subject that are clearly marked and easy to browse through. There's no real plan as to how the different subjects are laid out, beyond having all non-fiction on free standing shelves and most of the fiction on the shelves that run around the outside walls. This can create a little confusion, but the store is simply too small for it to be much of a problem and the staff will help you find where books on a particular subject are kept if you ask for help. There is a moderate emphasis towards fiction and recreational reading even in the non fiction material (books on subjects such as wine, fashion and gardening) and a significant portion of the fiction works are for children and young adults. If you look closely at the pictures on my flickr photostream you can see that the entire rear part of the store is given over to books aimed at children. Curiously, there was also a section just for military history as well as a good selection of books that would be classified under science and technology (mostly cars and planes). There were also section dedicated to cooking, history and biographies. I also noted that this branch of Book City carres no DVD's or other audiovisual material.
This would be a good bookstore to serve the general fiction and nonfiction needs of a primary* or high school library - or a Polytechnic - but otherwise Book City, despite the quality of their outlets, is probably not a large enough organisation to serve the needs of a major institution. Their website reveals that they have only been in operation for 8 years and that this is only their second branch. The website did not, however, provide trading hours or make any mention of the new branch located at Rosny. I was surprised by this given that it did have an online catalogue that enables customers to browse Book City's stock by subject, in a limited way.
Overall this is a great bookstore to have fun browsing in or pick up something to read, but if you're looking for something obscure or require academic texts or similar in large quantities you should probably look elsewhere.
*Corpus Christi Primary School actually operates a program where money is rised for students to go to a bookstore and choose books to buy for their library. I believe that this is the bookstore the students visit.
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Excellent review
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