The Borders bookstore collapse has been a long time coming in Australia since the administrators of the beleaguered bookstore chain RedGroup went into administrative receivership a few months ago. There were no buyers willing to take the company over so the last remaining 9 Borders stores in Australia have officially closed up shop forever.
The closure of the last remaining Borders stores in Australia puts 315 out of work. Meanwhile, Angus & Robertson’s 61 locations remain unaffected, as would Borders’ online operations. The saving of the online aspect of the Borders stores insures that people can still purchase ebooks for their e-readers. In the USA, Canadian based Kobo has taken over all of Borders ebook duties and it remains unknown if they will do the same in Australia.
If you live in Australia I would find other places to shop such as the Canberra store, Sydney’s Bondi Junction store, as well as two stores in Queensland, at Chermside and Robina. Finally the other stores closing are mainly in Melbourne, the Carlton, Chadstone, Knox, and Melbourne Central. The saga of Borders closing is not just effecting that particular chain, but 64 Angus & Robertson stores were closed as well.
So Australia seems like it is a little bit lighter when it comes to going to the store and buying books, but what about New Zealand? Rumors were swirling that Whitcoull stores were closing, but it seems that the chain found a new buyer. 57 New Zealand-based Whitcoulls and five Borders stores to the James Pascoe Group. This saves Borders and Whitcoulls at least in the short term.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
