News of the Australian publishing industry doesn’t usually make the front page of major newspapers unless the news is bad. So it was yesterday when news ran that REDGroup, the owner of Australia’s 26 Borders stores as well as the Angus & Robertson chain, had gone into voluntary administration. The stores will continue to operate in the short term, but the longer term prospects of the stores - and their 2500 staff - is more clouded.
Bloggers have already begun to post their post-mortems, not to mention today’s Book Show. We welcome any reading suggestions from readers.
Here’s a summary of media coverage. We’ve covered the woes of the US Borders chain here and summarised the e-publishing revolution here.
We end on an ominous note from Guy Rundle on Crikey: “The wider question, in terms of future life, is how we will sustain any form of public spatial life at all – as the last shared, necessary space dissolves. Doubtless we will, but there may be a long period before we realise that the very form of our lives is changing. That period has already begun.”