Ingram, the independent bookstores who have relied on Ingram to fill their orders will find themselves buying from a distributor owned by the independent bookstore's biggest competitor. Barnes and Noble will be in a strong position to limit fair trade and competition. Ingram allows small bookstores to special-order titles which customers want. But as citizens of this country, our concern about the acquisition of Ingram by Barnes and Noble goes even deeper.
Information is the lifeblood of any democracy.
The odd point of view, the cranky opinion, are necessary for our system to function well, as Thomas Jefferson and our founding fathers saw. The big superstores may have thousands of titles, but the quirky or offbeat book is often poorly promoted, lost in the shuffle. As more and more readers turn to the Web for information and purchase of their books, we think it especially crucial that people still have access to equivalent information in their bookstores. We ask you, in the interest of the health of our democracy as well as good reading, to prevent the extinguishing of Ingram as a powerful independent book distributor.