Business & Tech

VIDEO: To Give the People of Concord the Best Bookstore Possible

Micheal Herrmann of Gibson's Bookstore looks to the future.

After a recent press conference touting the benefits of community development and the public/private partnerships that have helped redeveloped South Main Street, Michael Herrmann, the owner of Gibson’s Bookstore, gave a quick tour of the beginnings of his new store, which will open at 45 S. Main St., Steve Duprey’s new building on the bindery site, sometime this summer.

Before setting up for a quick video clip, Herrmann said he wanted to take a look around at the floor plan.

Pensively, he made a quick sweep around the layout that will take up nearly the entire first floor of the building, significantly enhancing and enlarging the store’s retail footprint. At the end of the sweep, Herrmann said he couldn’t believe that the construction was happening exactly how he was told it would.

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The 100-plus-year-old retail institution is making a big jump into a larger space with an expanded children’s section, a public speaking area, a café run by the folks who own the True Brew Barista in Bicentennial Square, and will even feature a small used book section.

“We’re going to start with just four cases but it’s something that we might build over the years,” he said. “It’s just a service we haven’t been able to offer Concord yet but now we have room for (them).”

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The store will also feature a large children’s section with dedicated staff, he said.

“Kid’s books are very important to us because we’re serving families and we’re serving readers from age 1 on,” he said. “We’re going to people that specialize in children’s books on staff ... I’ve already hired (someone).”

The expansion is a crucial – and uncertain – leap of faith in an already volatile business. However Hermann said that the book business has always been changing during the last 2,500 years.

“Ever since then, the book business has been in a state of incredible flux and it’s not going change,” he said. “Our task and our challenge is to give the people of Concord the best bookstore that we can possible put up.”

The store is expected to be open sometime in July.


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