Top 3: Things Borders did right, from a former music buyer's perspective

AnnArbor.com files

As we have all held our collective breaths and waited for the news from Borders HQ about the fate of the bookstore chain, I’ve had some time to reflect on the 12 years I spent working as a buyer for the company.

While much of the chatter surrounding today’s announcement that Borders is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection is all about the myriad mistakes that were made, I can’t stop thinking about the things that made it quirky and wonderful. And I can’t seem to stop referring to Borders as “we” even though it has been three years since I worked for them.

A community gathering place. Borders used to brag that the average customer visit was just under an hour. You can argue that the comfortable seating and coffee shop environment turned the store into more of a library than a book store, but when the stores were staffed with legions of passionate expert staff, the conversion rate on each of those customer visits was very high. How many times did you take home a book you had never heard of because a bookseller recommended it?

In my twenties, the downtown Ann Arbor store was the hot pick-up spot for young singles. The strategy: grab a book or magazine that represents your interests, make sure the cover is visible, and wait for someone to strike up a conversation. It worked. Once I had a kid, Borders was the place to go to escape cabin fever. Rainy afternoons were always packed in the kids’ section. We could snuggle up with a book together or make a new friend.

A culture of giving. I was reminded of this just yesterday as my 9-year-old and I toured the Food Gatherers facility and came across a room that had been named for Borders Group. Borders gave generously to a multitude of local organizations here in Ann Arbor, including Food Gatherers, the Michigan Theater, the University Musical Society and Mott Children’s Hospital. They also created the Borders Group Foundation, a nonprofit designed to help Borders employees in need.

An emphasis on passion and expertise. At its peak, the heart of the Borders chain was the expert staff, both in the corporate offices and in the field. It was what set us apart from the competition. Barnes & Noble stores might have looked prettier, and their employees might have had fewer piercings, but Borders employees could talk your ear off about poetry or Russian literature or whether John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins was the better improviser.

My first Borders employee badge.

I was one of those experts. I was a record store geek who somehow landed a dream job with a salary and benefits, buying jazz CDs for one of the biggest jazz purveyors in the country. My friend the fiction buyer, and I would wink and nod at each other as we passed in the hall, each of us knowing that we had two of the best jobs in the world. Amazon tried to recruit me twice, but I turned them down each time, knowing that nothing could compare to what I already had.

I remain friends with many of the people I worked with during my tenure at Borders. Many of them have been victims of the endless series of layoffs that have plagued the company in the last five years. But some are still there, praying that they still have a job once the details of the reorganization are revealed. My thoughts are with them today.

We are all hopeful that Borders will emerge from this bankruptcy as a lean, mean, bookselling machine. It will never be what it once was, but it still has one of its greatest assets: passionate, dedicated people.

Jessica Webster leads the Food & Drink, Home & Garden and Books sections for the AnnArbor.com community team. You can reach her at jessicawebster@annarbor.com.