Borders Finally Closing Down Walden Stores Quickly

Persona Non Data has rounded up details of Borders' accelerated store-closing pace -- 28 Waldens alone shutting this month, plus some superstores and Borders Express outlets.

I hate to say that closing any bookstore is ever a good thing, but Borders held onto far too many poorly-performing Waldens locations for far too long. There's no question in the industry that B&N's much more aggressive strategy of culling low-performing B. Dalton stores is one reason why B&N is more financially healthy than Borders. (The last time I saw numbers, there were just under a hundred Dalton stores and over five hundred Waldens -- ten years ago, before the cull began, they were about even.)

Yes, it sucks if you're in a location losing its only book store. But those locations are in many cases losing most of the tenants in their malls, so this is not a book-industry problem; it's a retail problem.