Looks like we struck a nerve with that last post

But it is sad but true that physical bookstores are very often used as "showrooms" by people wanting to browse books before ordering them on-line. This phenomenon is so important to amazon's sales that the books they have begun to publish themselves have not done well--because they are not on display in physical bookstores.

We did not, however, want to make everyone using a smart phone in our store feel unwelcome. Hey, we use the things ourselves! But given how widespread "showrooming" has become, we felt a need to point out that browsing local but ordering on-line is not a development we are thrilled with.

As for buying books for your kindle: we sell e-books that can be read on pretty much every device but a kindle. And that is because of amazon's policies, not ours. Amazon locks the kindle down to their site and their e-books. Of course there is a way you can hack your kindle and side-load e-books from non-amazon sources onto it. But you didn't hear that from us...

Memo to the guy scanning books with his cell phone in our science section

You can now browse books before you buy them from amazon at one of amazon's new retail showrooms! There's one in the 1300 block of Ninth Street...