Bookshops and libraries: exchanging spaces

After discussing the qualities of the network of independent bookshops in terms of diversity, aesthetics, and economy, the author then explores the relationship between a bookshop’s stock, display, identity, and image. He looks back at the successive layouts of his own bookshop, Ombres blanches in Toulouse, since it first opened in 1975, and his choices in terms of expansion, remodelling, window displays, furnishings, décor, and so on, to create a distinct identity for the various spaces.
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