The Public Nature of Selling Books

Chapter 9: How I Became a Bookseller (9)

In December 2016, the Hachinohe Book Center opened in Hachinohe City, Aomori Prefecture. It is a rare example of a public facility directly managed by the city that also sells books.

The establishment of the Hachinohe Book Center was a key policy pledge for the third term of Mayor Makoto Kobayashi, aimed at promoting Hachinohe as a 'City of Books.' The mayor was deeply committed to this vision, and I was approached during the planning phase to determine how to bring it to life. Since 2014, I have been continuously involved as a director, from the initial preparations to the present day.

While there are bookstores in the city, they must focus their inventory on high-demand books to remain commercially viable. Books in fields such as the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, foreign literature, and the arts are difficult to handle and rarely appear on shelves. This is not unique to Hachinohe; it is a phenomenon occurring in many regional cities. The absence of these books on bookstore shelves means that local residents have no opportunity to pick them up and purchase them directly. When we consider that this is a service that is difficult to sustain as a private business, yet represents an opportunity that should be provided from an educational and cultural perspective, it can be said that there is a public value in the government undertaking such a project.

Of course, there are libraries. However, library books are shared resources. The experience of owning books within one's own living space and being able to handle them freely is qualitatively different. Furthermore, as the environment surrounding books has changed significantly since the advent of the internet, both bookstores and libraries are being called upon to evolve. In this context, I believed that Hachinohe City's goal of becoming a 'City of Books' by creating a third type of facility—neither a bookstore nor a library—could serve as a progressive initiative to redefine and share roles for regional cities in the coming era.

As a basic policy for this, the Hachinohe Book Center has set three goals: 'increasing the number of people who read books,' 'increasing the number of people who write books,' and 'revitalizing the city through books.' In addition to the area where books are displayed, the facility includes reading seats where people can read in various styles, a gallery for exhibitions related to books, and a cafe counter where visitors can enjoy drinks produced in the city and prefecture. Furthermore, as a unique feature, there is a 'Reading Circle Room' for book clubs, which is accessed by pushing a hidden door in the surrounding bookshelves, and two 'Writing Booths' located deep within the shelves, reserved exclusively for registered citizen writers. In terms of programming, the center hosts its own book clubs, a regular event called 'Book Drinks' where people recommend books to each other, 'Academic Talks' where university and vocational school professors are invited to discuss books, and 'Writing and Publishing Workshops' for those interested in writing and publishing.

There is also ingenuity in the staffing structure. The staff working at the Hachinohe Book Center are divided into three main groups: city employees who manage and operate the facility while considering the city's objectives; contract employees who have moved from other regions to handle book selection and planning; and staff from an LLP established by three local bookstores to jointly manage on-site operations such as ordering, shelving, and sales. By having these three groups work together, the goal was to provide high-quality service as a municipal facility while sharing the expertise of the contract staff with local bookstores.

Hoping that this will become a model that spreads to municipalities across Japan and enriches the world of books, I continue to visit Hachinohe every month to discuss operations with the staff.

*Reprinted from 'A Reader for Future Booksellers,' pp. 307-309