Popularity among college
students Audio Transcript

Transcript

Hello book lovers, this is Helen Frazer from Emerson College and you're listening to my senior capstone project where I'm diving into the future of independent bookstores. Unlike online realtors and large bookstore chains, indie bookstores are able to be active members of their community, providing a human helping hand when it comes to picking up books. Now, there is a strong community here in Boston of young adults that support these indie bookstores.

Now, just for some facts, Boston is filled with college students with about 35 colleges in the city. There are about 21 bookstores just in the city of Boston, and there are more on the way. So I asked a few college students why they love bookstores. And here's what they had to say.
 

Hi, I'm Sarah Schmidt. I am a junior, and I'm 20 years old.

Hi, my name is Mike. I'm currently 21 years old. And I'm a junior at Emerson.

Hi, I'm Bella. And I'm 18 years old, and I'm from New York City.

Hi, Monica. I'm a freshman.

My favorite part about indie bookstores is probably the fact that it's kind of like a, like a stop to spend some time with people in kind of the community, other readers, there's kind of this shared sense of what everybody's looking for there. And there's just a personability to it that you don't get with bigger brands and corporations.

I love the charm. They just have like a very like calming, like experience. And I feel like everybody who works there, it's just like, nice and clean.
 

It's more focused on, you know, giving back to the community that's of coziness. And the way that it supports authors, more local authors, like you're giving money back to probably like someone in your community that owns the bookstore, it's more personable, where like, you can go to a bookstore and get like an experience rather than just like, it been like a transactional action, where it's like, you actually go for the experience. And you get something out of it as well.

There's a place called comic Opia on Commonwealth and it's super cozy, super small. And, yeah, just a great group of folks that work there and a great community that I interact with there.

I went to Beacon Hill books most recently, and it's like stunning and the fact that it was a brownstone and they like was converted, and I haven't been to the cafe if it's open, but I really want to go.

Sometimes hard to not save the money when you see the opportunity. But if it means spending an extra dollar and giving that towards people running into the bookstore versus saving that dollar using it on Amazon, try out not saving that dollar I promise it goes a long way.

It seems like the people of Boston especially that young college crowd love independent bookstores. I'm Helen and you're listening to my senior capstone project about independent bookstores. Visit my website to read more