Why start a bookstore? What was the original concept/intention with starting Boxcar Books? What is the mission of the bookstore?

Ali - It was originally my idea to start Boxcar Books. Matt, Abbey, Corinna and I and a lot of others were involved in an infoshop / show space / bookstore called Secret Sailor books. I began to feel frustrated with the space because it was so disorganized, there was never any money to pay rent or order new books, there was no clear structure to anything, and an overwhelming negative stigma in the community. It was time to renew the lease, and no one was willing to sign it and take on the financial burden of the space. I began to dream about starting over with a space that I could really invest myself (and my money) in. I approached Matt about this and he felt the same way. I was at a place in my life where I felt very directionless and needed a project to devote myself to. My intention was to start a bookstore that would be sustainable and also sustain me, and eventually be my job. Matt and I both thought it was very important to continue to house the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project (which was set up in the back of Secret Sailor) and have a free meeting space for community and literary groups. We wanted to provide a literary alternative for the community.

Abbey - The mission of the bookstore and the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project is to promote reading, self-education, social equality and social welfare through increased accessibility to literature and workshops- and the promotion of a community to support these projects.

It seems that your staff is completely volunteer. How are people chosen? How do you enlist new people?

Abbey - A few ways for shift-workers: We usually write something up in our newsletter saying that we’re looking for a shift-worker, word of mouth, or people who come in and fill out a volunteer form and mark that they are interested in doing shifts. We ask for a letter of intent from those interested, then they are interviewed and all shift-workers read over the notes from their interview and we discuss it. Things we look for are having availability at certain times of the day and/or week and how long they are planning to commit for. For non-shift-working volunteers, those interested fill out a volunteer form and are then contacted by their volunteer coordinator and a schedule is worked out based on their interests and availability. There’s no letter of intent or interview necessary for this.

Ali - We started out with six of us, Matt and I and four people we chose to be on the board of directors, working all the shifts. As time went on, we needed more people to work shifts, so we trained some of our friends who had expressed interest, and eventually built it up to a core group of 14 people. Soon we realized that we wanted to make our volunteer group less exclusive, so we set up an interview process for potential shift-workers, so that we could bring people in who weren’t necessarily our friends before-hand. Now, whenever someone leaves we try to bring the group back up to 14 people, and solicit shift-workers through the newsletter, asking them to submit a letter of intent. People are usually chosen based on their availability because everyone we interview ends up to be pretty cool.

What brought about the idea of running the bookstore as a registered nonprofit?

Ali - This was Matt’s idea. Neither of us had any intentions of making a profit anyway, and since the bookstore was meant to focus on topics of social justice, it made sense. This way, Boxcar and Pages can accept tax-deductible donations, and apply for grants (not that we’ve actually successfully done that yet!).

How are jobs and responsibilities divided between staff members?

Ali - Early on, Matt and I claimed the responsibilities of finances and book ordering, and we trade off occasionally. As Abbey got more involved, she began to take on bigger responsibilities, like magazine ordering, textbooks, and returns. She also does book ordering if Matt of I go out of town. Christopher is in charge of the AV rental section. Erin is in charge of zine ordering. Mle is in charge of the online store stuff. There are tons more responsibilities like these that various people have. Pretty much everything is decided when it is brought up at a meeting, and someone volunteers for the job.

Abbey - Over the years, those who have wanted the most responsibility and can commit the most time have taken on the most responsibility. Smaller jobs and responsibilities are divided up by interest. This does not include cleaning, shelf reading, etc, which are assigned by a “task card” system. (We have a deck of cards with cleaning and other like tasks written on them and you are responsible for picking at random and doing at least one per shift.)

Do you have meetings for the bookstore? How are policies determined? How do you communicate? Are decisions made in consensus?

Ali - Yes, we have store meetings every 3-4 weeks which are mandatory for all shift-workers. Decisions are made loosely by consensus, and we try to use that sort of model for our meetings, but it’s debatable whether we do a good job of that. We use the stack system in hopes that everyone will get a chance to say what they want to say. Usually at meetings an issue is brought up, and then we talk about it until it is resolved. There are also many decisions that are made by individuals during their shifts, or by working groups like the fundraising committee. These are then recorded in the “weekly decision making report,” for everyone to read and comment on. A good idea in theory, but I’m not sure if anyone reads it.

It seems to me that many of your titles are very hand picked and your selection is impressive as a result. Have many of you worked in a bookstore before? Was it just a strong interest in books that caused that? Even the zine selection is one of the most “curated” that I've seen.

Abbey - Secret Sailor was more of a hangout and show space than a bookstore, but it did give a few people a little book experience and experience on how to run (or not run) a business. I think most of the selection at Boxcar is a result of some avid readers and book lovers. Most volunteers are participants in the “section adoption program,” which is something we started to bulk up sections that were/are lacking. One of the responsibilities of adoption is researching new titles to order for that section. We also take suggestions from customers very seriously. We have a running list on our countertop of titles/authors/subjects that our customers would like to see us carry. Just about everything written on that list is ordered. We get a lot of suggestions from people by them placing special orders through us, too.

Ali - Aside from Secret Sailor, I’ve never worked in a bookstore, but have always been obsessed with books and with organization, so it kind of comes naturally. Though many times I’m amazed at how much I’ve learned about books, book ordering, finances, etc. I think Colin used to work at Borders, which is why he puts a bookmark in every book he sells! I’m not sure if anyone else has worked in a bookstore before Boxcar, aside from Secret Sailor. I know that everyone is WAY into books, obviously.

Why focus on carrying zines at all?

Ali - A few of us at least, Erin, Christopher, Corinna and I, come from a background of writing zines, so of course we would want to carry them! Also, we’re the only store in Bloomington that sells a lot of zines, and they sell really well! People love zines. And, a lot of people in Bloomington write zines, so it’s cool to have a place where they can bring in their zines and sell them to us on consignment, and then their friends can come in and buy them!

Abbey - Zines are super important! They are either or both, personal or informational, they are candid, cheap to make and buy, and interesting. They are also independent/small press and that’s very important to us. Why not carry zines?!

In my experience, your bookstore is also a pleasant place to sit and have a conversation as well as feel welcome to browse and spend some time. Was this planned and intentional?

Abbey - Most definitely planned and intentional. For those of us who came from Secret Sailor to this project and have been to other “punk” bookstores, it was a major concern because the Sailor was a place that was not welcoming or pleasant. We knew that in order to sustain and be a respectable business we’d need to make everyone feel comfortable.

Ali - We learned our lesson at Secret Sailor. There we had couches, and there would always be a ton of dirty kids hanging around like it was their clubhouse. This made anyone who wasn’t part of that very small social group, and even me sometimes, feel really uncomfortable and not want to shop there. At Boxcar, we were very careful to have chairs to hang out in, but only a few, so that a big group of people couldn’t all hang out and alienate others. It’s always really hard to tell people to stop laying around on the floor or whatever, but ultimately it has been really important in making it a friendly and pleasant place for everyone. So the idea is, anyone can come in and hang out for as long as they want, but we don’t let it become a clubhouse atmosphere. Does that sound really snobby??

What kind of work do you put into the dynamic of the store - creating a place where people feel comfortable bringing up issues or contributing to the work of the community outside of radical, young, punk kids?

Ali - I think the main things we do for this is providing the free meeting space for anyone who wants to use it, and having the flyer boards so that people can get in touch with like-minded people. And the main thing would be all the events that we have, which are an opportunity for people to hang out and meet other people who are into the same things they are. But we definitely help out the young radical punk kids in this way too!

Abbey - We also do a lot of community networking with other businesses/groups we support, which ranges from the local food co-op, to an after school program for girls, to a group looking to reform policies at the local jail and so on. We do displays for different groups and their events or related holidays, offer our meeting space, and give discounts when they order books through us as a group. I think making the bookstore open to so many different groups and different kinds of people makes it comfortable and relatively diverse.

What brought about the decision to do events at the store?

Ali - This has always been an important part of Boxcar. I don’t think there was a decision to have events, we were just always like hell yeah let’s have a ton of events! Lately we’ve been doing less music shows, because they don’t tend to add much to the store and usually just end up crowded and annoying.

What is the goal of tabling at events outside of your store, such as Warped Tour? Do you hope to spread radical ideas?

Ali - Yes I think that’s the main goal, especially with Warped Tour. A lot of kids that go to Warped Tour have never heard of any of the ideas in the books we sell, and they come to our table and even if it doesn’t totally blow their mind, it gets them thinking. Also the goal is to sell as many anti-George W. Bush patches as possible. But unfortunately we sold out on the second day. With a lot of other tabling events, within town we’re just trying to build awareness about the store and get some extra income and out of town it’s just fun to go to conferences and hang out.

Abbey - Spreading radical ideas, letting people know we exist, promoting small independent business, and giving people who don’t normally have access to our type of material access to it.

The idea of incorporating punk and DIY ethics into a project such a bookstore is of particular interest to me. How have you incorporated punk and DIY ethics?

Ali - Probably the main thing is the fact that we all volunteer our time. The punk lifestyle (sharing houses with our friends so that we have cheaper rent, getting food for free, etc.) allows a lot of us this extra time because we don’t have to work at our real jobs as much. As far as DIY, what could be more DIY than saying, “I want to start a bookstore,” and then doing it!! I would definitely not say that we’re a punk store though. A lot of us aren’t really punks at all.

Abbey - Well, we don’t have an owner, we’re all volunteer run, we have tons of stuff in the store that’s DIY from cds, stickers etc, to books and zines, we order from small distributors and publishers and individuals, we have musical events and author readings that fit into both categories… We’re doing it all ourselves!

Looking at your website, the work of the staff is all very anonymous. Other than features written by a specific person (such as a staff profile) or a book review, it didn't seem like much credit was given to the individual person responsible for their contributions to the mission of the bookstore. Is that intentional?

Ali - No, and actually we’re working to change this. I’ve just finished compiling staff profiles and photos of everyone, and those will be on the website soon. Also, we just finished writing a case statement that explains the history of the bookstore, and different people’s roles. That will be on the website soon too.

Abbey - Not really and I honestly never thought about it. Shift-worker profiles are coming to the website, though, and those will state everyone’s responsibilities/projects for the most part. I don’t really think there’s a reason to post on the website who has been responsible for what or who has what job(s). Because there’s no paid staff and there’s not a director or anything of that sort, I think it might make individuals who don’t have lots of time to commit feel unimportant. We are in the process of compiling a history of Boxcar with that type of info in it, but in doing so we have run into the problem of feeling like we didn’t give someone enough credit for some things, or struggling with how to incorporate certain people into certain time periods. I don’t know if this will be posted on our website or not.

What would you like to see in the future of the store?

Ali - It’s hard to say, because I never can tell how far it will go. I would like to see us in a few years in a huge space closer to downtown (on Kirkwood or something), but I’m not sure how many books you can sell in a small town in Indiana without compromising and selling bestsellers or right-wing books or something like that, which there’s no way we will do. I would like to see us be able to employ ourselves so that we don’t have to tire ourselves out working other jobs all the time. I would like to see Boxcar as an important Bloomington landmark. Other than that, it’s all up to the people that are involved and that get involved over time, and what they want to make of it.

Abbey - I would like us to eventually be able to pay staff, to move to a bigger permanent space where both pages to prisoners and boxcar could have more than enough space each, to do more business through our online store, and to continue to be respected by the Bloomington community.

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boxcar books
310a s. washington st. * bloomington, in 47401
812-339-8710 * www.boxcarbooks.org