Powell's Books
Encyclopedia
Powell's Books is a chain of bookstores in Oregon
's Portland metropolitan area
. Powell's headquarters, dubbed Powell's City of Books, claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore
in the world. Powell's City of Books is located in the Pearl District on the edge of downtown
and occupies a full city block
between NW 10th and 11th Avenues and between W. Burnside and NW Couch Streets. It contains over 68000 ft2, about 1.6 acres of retail floor space.
The inventory for its retail and online sales is over four million new, used, rare
and out-of-print books. Powell's buys around 3000 used books a day.
In 1984, Powell's opened its first branch store, in a suburban shopping center named Loehmann's Plaza (later renamed Cascade Plaza), near Washington Square. The new branch was not a replica of its City of Books location; Powell was concerned that the "edgy" neighborhood of its headquarters location was limiting its customer base, so the new store was "fairly fancy" with white shelving, a tile floor, and banners over the aisles. It was also four times the size of the typical chain bookstore.
A travel bookstore was established in 1985 on Pioneer Courthouse Square
, and others followed, one a year for the next few years; by the early 1990s, Powell's bookstores were part of the resurgence of the independent bookstore
, which collectively made 32 percent of book sales in the U.S. The travel store closed in 2004.
When the Oregon Citizens Alliance
qualified Ballot Measure 9
in 1992, an anti-gay rights measure, the bookstore actively campaigned against the measure.
Powell's established its Internet presence in 1993, beginning with email and FTP
-based access to its technical bookstore; it has since expanded to incorporate fiction and other genres as a traditional ecommerce site. Their website was established in 1994, before Amazon.com
, and has contributed substantially to the chain's recent growth. The Internet has also transformed Powell's used-book business, with most of its best used-books kept in warehouses for online sale; the shelves, which in the 1990s were often split between new and used, are now dominated by new and remaindered book
s.
The City of Books location grew to its current size after an expansion that opened in 1999; it included a new entrance facing the Pearl District which featured the "Pillar of Books", a Tenino
sandstone carving depicting a stack of eight of the world's great books, on a base with the inscription "Buy the book, read the book, enjoy the book, sell the book" in Latin. For the year ending June 2000, Powell's revenue was $41.8 million.
as one of America's 10 best bookstores.
Since 2005, its website has also offered DVD
s with free shipping, with an inventory of over 40,000.
In January 2008, Powell's announced plans to expand the downtown City of Books by adding as many as two floors to the store's southeast corner. The expansion will add at least 10000 square feet (929 m²) of new retail space. Plans submitted to the Portland Design Commission in November 2008 called for a rooftop garden atop the new addition and an "art cube" over a redesigned main entrance.
In March 2010, Michael Powell confirmed plans to hand over the business to his daughter Emily as of July. That same month, Powell's announced it would close its technical bookstore on the North Park Blocks
, moving its sections on math, science, computing, engineering, construction and transportation into "Powell’s Books Building 2" at the corner of 10th and Couch Street, near the main City of Books location; the consolidation was in response to a five-year decline in brick-and-mortar sales of technical books in favor of online sales.
In October 2010, Powell's announced it had bought 7,000 books from the library of author Anne Rice
; Powell's offers these association copies
on their website. The bookstore was revealed as a charter member of the Google eBooks service when the news was announced by Google on December 6, 2010.
In June 2011, Powell's participated in Google Offers
during that service's first month of operation; according to TechCrunch
—which characterized Powell's as a "Portland institution"—"5,000 Powell’s vouchers sold out in a matter of hours", making it "most popular deal in the month."
In September 1998, email from Powell's managers announcing reductions in employee’s wage increases prompted the creation of a new organizing committee of 26 employees. They chose the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
(ILWU) because they could charter their own self-governing local union
which would include about 350 employees serving in a variety of jobs in all stores and in the Internet, corporate, and shipping departments. By March 1999, they filed for a union certification election with the National Labor Relations Board
. A month later, by a vote of 161-155, ILWU Local 5 became official.
In September 1999, ILWU Local 5 met for the first time with Powell's management, to begin the contract bargaining process. After some early successes, 2000 saw a slowdown in the discussions, followed by rallies, filings of unfair labor practice
s, an unsuccessful decertification campaign, a one-day shutdown of the shipping department (accompanied by the slashing of a van's tire), and federal mediation. A three-year contract was finally announced in August 2000.
In February 2011 Powell's announced the layoffs of 31 employees, over 7 percent of its unionized workforce, in “response to the unprecedented, rapidly changing nature of the book industry." It was the first round of layoffs since the store’s workers formed a union. A union representative said that Powell's had reduced its workforce by about 40 in the prior year through attrition, but felt that layoffs were still necessary because of a decline in sales of new books and a rise in health care costs.
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
's Portland metropolitan area
Portland metropolitan area
The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area , also known as the Portland metropolitan area or Greater Portland, is an urban area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington centered around the city of Portland, Oregon. The U.S...
. Powell's headquarters, dubbed Powell's City of Books, claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore
Independent bookstore
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned.-Literary and countercultural history:Author events at independent bookstores sometimes take the role of literary salons. The bookstores themselves, "have historically supported and cultivated the work of independent...
in the world. Powell's City of Books is located in the Pearl District on the edge of downtown
Downtown Portland
Downtown Portland, the city center of Portland, Oregon, United States, is located on the west bank of the Willamette River. It is in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and is where most of the city's high-rise buildings are found....
and occupies a full city block
City block
A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
between NW 10th and 11th Avenues and between W. Burnside and NW Couch Streets. It contains over 68000 ft2, about 1.6 acres of retail floor space.
The inventory for its retail and online sales is over four million new, used, rare
Book collecting
Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given individual collector. The love of books is bibliophilia, and someone who loves to read, admire, and collect...
and out-of-print books. Powell's buys around 3000 used books a day.
20th century
Powell's was founded by Walter Powell in 1971. His son, Michael Powell, had started a bookstore in Chicago, Illinois, in 1970 which specialized in used, rare, and discounted books, primarily of an academic and scholarly nature. In 1979, Michael Powell joined his father in Portland, right after his father lost its lease; within a year, they found the location that became its current headquarters. Michael bought the bookstore from his father in 1982.In 1984, Powell's opened its first branch store, in a suburban shopping center named Loehmann's Plaza (later renamed Cascade Plaza), near Washington Square. The new branch was not a replica of its City of Books location; Powell was concerned that the "edgy" neighborhood of its headquarters location was limiting its customer base, so the new store was "fairly fancy" with white shelving, a tile floor, and banners over the aisles. It was also four times the size of the typical chain bookstore.
A travel bookstore was established in 1985 on Pioneer Courthouse Square
Pioneer Courthouse Square
Pioneer Courthouse Square, affectionately known as Portland's living room, is a public space occupying a full 40,000 ft² city block in the center of downtown Portland, Oregon, United States...
, and others followed, one a year for the next few years; by the early 1990s, Powell's bookstores were part of the resurgence of the independent bookstore
Independent bookstore
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned.-Literary and countercultural history:Author events at independent bookstores sometimes take the role of literary salons. The bookstores themselves, "have historically supported and cultivated the work of independent...
, which collectively made 32 percent of book sales in the U.S. The travel store closed in 2004.
When the Oregon Citizens Alliance
Oregon Citizens Alliance
The Oregon Citizens Alliance was a conservative Christian political activist organization, founded by Lon Mabon in the U.S. state of Oregon. It was founded in 1986 as a vehicle to challenge then–U.S...
qualified Ballot Measure 9
Oregon Ballot Measure 9 (1992)
Ballot Measure 9 was a ballot measure in the U.S. state of Oregon in 1992, concerning gay rights and public education, that drew widespread national attention.Measure 9 would have added the following text to the Oregon Constitution:...
in 1992, an anti-gay rights measure, the bookstore actively campaigned against the measure.
Powell's established its Internet presence in 1993, beginning with email and FTP
File Transfer Protocol
File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
-based access to its technical bookstore; it has since expanded to incorporate fiction and other genres as a traditional ecommerce site. Their website was established in 1994, before Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, and has contributed substantially to the chain's recent growth. The Internet has also transformed Powell's used-book business, with most of its best used-books kept in warehouses for online sale; the shelves, which in the 1990s were often split between new and used, are now dominated by new and remaindered book
Remaindered book
Remaindered books are books that are no longer selling well and whose remaining unsold copies are being liquidated by the publisher at greatly reduced prices...
s.
The City of Books location grew to its current size after an expansion that opened in 1999; it included a new entrance facing the Pearl District which featured the "Pillar of Books", a Tenino
Tenino, Washington
Tenino is a city in Thurston County, Washington, United States. The population was 1,695 at the 2010 census.-History:Tenino was officially incorporated on July 24, 1906, though it existed as a rural community since the mid-19th century...
sandstone carving depicting a stack of eight of the world's great books, on a base with the inscription "Buy the book, read the book, enjoy the book, sell the book" in Latin. For the year ending June 2000, Powell's revenue was $41.8 million.
21st century
In 2002, Powell's was cited by USA TodayUSA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
as one of America's 10 best bookstores.
Since 2005, its website has also offered DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s with free shipping, with an inventory of over 40,000.
In January 2008, Powell's announced plans to expand the downtown City of Books by adding as many as two floors to the store's southeast corner. The expansion will add at least 10000 square feet (929 m²) of new retail space. Plans submitted to the Portland Design Commission in November 2008 called for a rooftop garden atop the new addition and an "art cube" over a redesigned main entrance.
In March 2010, Michael Powell confirmed plans to hand over the business to his daughter Emily as of July. That same month, Powell's announced it would close its technical bookstore on the North Park Blocks
North Park Blocks
The North Park Blocks form a city park in downtown Portland, Oregon.Captain John H. Couch deeded the five blocks to the city in 1865, probably officially platted and dedicated to the city in 1869. An ordinance was passed in 1904, setting aside one park block for women and children. In 1906, another...
, moving its sections on math, science, computing, engineering, construction and transportation into "Powell’s Books Building 2" at the corner of 10th and Couch Street, near the main City of Books location; the consolidation was in response to a five-year decline in brick-and-mortar sales of technical books in favor of online sales.
In October 2010, Powell's announced it had bought 7,000 books from the library of author Anne Rice
Anne Rice
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...
; Powell's offers these association copies
Association copy
An association copy is a copy of a book that has been inscribed and signed by the author to someone somehow associated with the book or its author...
on their website. The bookstore was revealed as a charter member of the Google eBooks service when the news was announced by Google on December 6, 2010.
In June 2011, Powell's participated in Google Offers
Google Offers
Google Offers is a deal-of-the-day website that will be localized to major geographic markets in the United States and abroad. Google confirmed the website in January 2011, after an attempted buyout by Google of established competitor Groupon for a reported sum of US$ 6 billion was turned down...
during that service's first month of operation; according to TechCrunch
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
—which characterized Powell's as a "Portland institution"—"5,000 Powell’s vouchers sold out in a matter of hours", making it "most popular deal in the month."
Labor relations
In 1991, following some post-holiday lay-offs, some of Powell's employees formed an organizing committee, seeking to become part of the Oregon Public Employees Union (OPEU). They got more than 35% of the employees to sign union cards but chose not to file for a union certification election because less than 65% had signed, a threshold suggested by the OPEU. In response to issues identified by the organizing employees, Powell's updated and expanded its employee handbook in April 1992 with changes that addressed processes for problem solving and grievances, the probation and termination procedure, and other employee assistance, among other changes.In September 1998, email from Powell's managers announcing reductions in employee’s wage increases prompted the creation of a new organizing committee of 26 employees. They chose the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii and Alaska, and in British Columbia, Canada. It also represents hotel workers in Hawaii, cannery workers in Alaska, warehouse workers throughout...
(ILWU) because they could charter their own self-governing local union
Local union
A local union, often shortened to local, in North America, or a union branch in the United Kingdom and other countries is a locally-based trade union organization which forms part of a larger, usually national, union.Local branches are organized to represent the union's members from a particular...
which would include about 350 employees serving in a variety of jobs in all stores and in the Internet, corporate, and shipping departments. By March 1999, they filed for a union certification election with the National Labor Relations Board
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
. A month later, by a vote of 161-155, ILWU Local 5 became official.
In September 1999, ILWU Local 5 met for the first time with Powell's management, to begin the contract bargaining process. After some early successes, 2000 saw a slowdown in the discussions, followed by rallies, filings of unfair labor practice
Unfair labor practice
In United States labor law, the term unfair labor practice refers to certain actions taken by employers or unions that violate the National Labor Relations Act and other legislation...
s, an unsuccessful decertification campaign, a one-day shutdown of the shipping department (accompanied by the slashing of a van's tire), and federal mediation. A three-year contract was finally announced in August 2000.
In February 2011 Powell's announced the layoffs of 31 employees, over 7 percent of its unionized workforce, in “response to the unprecedented, rapidly changing nature of the book industry." It was the first round of layoffs since the store’s workers formed a union. A union representative said that Powell's had reduced its workforce by about 40 in the prior year through attrition, but felt that layoffs were still necessary because of a decline in sales of new books and a rise in health care costs.
List of locations
In addition to its "City of Books" location, Powell's Books also has several smaller stores:- a 32500 square feet (3,019.3 m²) general bookstore with the "largest children's book section of any book store on the West Coast", located at Cedar Hills CrossingCedar Hills CrossingCedar Hills Crossing, formerly Beaverton Mall, is a retail shopping center in the city of Beaverton, Oregon, United States. The center is notable in that it was the prior site of a historic airport, Bernard's Airport, where many of the early aircraft innovations of the 1920s and 1930s occurred...
in BeavertonBeaverton, OregonBeaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley.As of the 2010 census, the population is 90,267. This makes it the second-largest city in the county and Oregon's sixth-largest city...
and opened in November 2006, replacing a decades-old location near Washington Square less than half its size; - another in Portland's Hawthorne DistrictHawthorne, Portland, OregonThe Hawthorne District in Portland, Oregon is an area of Southeast Portland on SE Hawthorne Blvd., particularly between 30th and 42nd Avenues. The area has numerous retail stores, including clothing shops, restaurants, bars, brewpubs and microbreweries. Hawthorne district is known for its young,...
; - a store with cooking and gardening materials two spaces east of the Hawthorne store;
- technical books (computers, math, engineering, & science) in Powell’s Books Building 2 at 10th & Couch; and
- three stores at the Portland International AirportPortland International AirportPortland International Airport is a joint civil-military airport and the largest airport in the U.S. state of Oregon, accounting for 90% of passenger travel and more than 95% of air cargo of the state. It is located within Portland's city limits just south of the Columbia River in Multnomah...
, offering popular fiction and non-fiction, "choice" used books, games, toys, and gifts.
External links
- Powell's website, including a tour of the City of Books