Editorial

The government's decision not to allow the Doulos, the floating bookshop, to sell books from its stock during its stay in Malta is almost embarrassing at a time when we are preparing to join the European Union. Moreover, now that the internet has opened up to buyers in Malta, as it has done to buyers all over the world, the possibility of by-passing local bookshops, it is less than reasonable for the Association of General Retailers and Traders to support the opposition of some booksellers to granting the Doulos' application.

One needs to remember that this vessel is not in the habit of entering Grand Harbour every year, or even every couple of years. The last time it was here was nine years ago. It is important to keep in mind too that the Doulos has a charitable mission in addition to its commercial one. Indeed, it claims that selling books is meant to finance its charitable projects, such as supplying free books to Third World countries that need them.

Malta is not blessed with hundreds or even scores of large, well-stocked bookshops, and more than a few of our booksellers combine selling books with retailing other commodities such as stationery.

Not many of them have a thriving business and its is not difficult to comprehend their fears of the irruption of competition, however temporary, from a bookshop the size of the Doulos which claims to have a stock of about half a million volumes.

In fact, however, this external competition is one local bookshops have been encountering for a number of years in the form of Amazon.com and its competitors in the online book trade. These competitors are able to provide a vast amount of information about recent and not so recent books they can supply, as well as a service that is often fast and efficient, the main deterrent to the Maltese purchaser being the steep postage and packing charges.

Some local booksellers have already devised strategies to combat this competition, whether by opening a number of outlets all of which are linked electronically, thus diminishing the space problem that determines the size of stock held, or by setting up their own website and allowing both foreign and Maltese customers to do their selecting and purchasing online.

Too many others, however, are content to stay within their familiar borders, behaving in many ways as if bookselling in 2003 were not all that different from what it was in 1983 or even in 1993. Have any of them thought that the future probably lies with a smaller number of booksellers, each of them stocking a fair amount of academic and professional books and a good selection of recent books in other areas? It also lies with being able to supply customers within a fortnight, if not a week, those books not in stock and making reasonable mark-ups on published prices.

The future certainly does not lie in flying into a panic if something in the nature of the Doulos occasionally turns up. Just as the prospects of EU membership gave the necessary push to entrepreneurs worth their salt to restructure, so also should such an opportunity as a visit by a floating bookshop induce those booksellers who have not yet done so, to pull up their socks.