One of two East Lansing independent book stores will be shutting its doors for the last time at the end of February— Archives Book Shop has been on the corner of West Grand River and Beal Street since 1987.
Owner Ray Walsh said for the past year, his store, which carries rare, signed, first-editions, century-old maps, and '90s sci fi trade paperbacks among other literary ephemera, has struggled to recover from the COVID business dip.
“We were closed for three months during COVID. That didn’t help. Sales vary day by day so we’ve got to try to make some tough decisions,” he said, leaning against the side of bookshelves adorned with leather bound books.
Walsh said the decline in sales had been a long time coming, the result of corporations like Amazon which use algorithms to recommend books to customers online. Walsh said he offers a more personalized approach.
“[Big companies] have multiple copies of a book that they can make money off of. That’s not something we like to do so much— some books are hard to find. We’re more specialized and for the curious. We get people coming in from all over the world just to see us,” Walsh said.
Walsh’s book shop has been a tourist attraction, and sometimes held book signings, such as one by the late Marvel comic creator Stan Lee.
Walsh began his book-selling career when he was a student at Michigan State University, selling books out of his garage at the age of 19. Walsh said he knew of a professor who had wanted to open his own book store in East Lansing, but died before he could do anything with the 20,000 books in his inventory.
Those books laid the foundation for a tumultuous but rewarding career for Walsh, ”we ended up taking many van loads of books out of there, plus bookcases they had in his garage”
Walsh is many things other than a book dealer, he contributes to a column on books at the Lansing State Journal and in the past had called into WKAR Radio to talk about books and pop culture.
The first intern Walsh ever hired to help around the store, Randy Scott, ended up working for MSU as a Comic Art Bibliographer for 49 years. Scott transformed MSU’s collection of fewer than 5000 comic books to a publicly accessible collection of 350,000 items, the largest collection of comics in the country. Many of Walsh’s employees are MSU students.
For customers who frequent the store, the loss of Archives Book Shop cuts deep. Iris Paul is a customer at Archives who also used to work as a barista at a cafe that shared a space with the store.
“It’s sad. I can’t imagine not having it here. It’s definitely an East Lansing staple. I wouldn’t know where to go if I was looking for a specific kind of product. It feels so impersonal to buy it online.” Paul said, while browsing for a cookbook for her grandmother. “I’d rather talk to a person who is a member of my community than just Amazon.”
For now, Walsh is relying on a gofundme campaign and a half-off sale to offset his relocation cost. Walsh has to move all 20,000 books out of the store into Curious Book Shop, his other store.
Walsh is worried about the limited parking at Curious Book Shop.
“If you're handicapped, it's a little bit more challenging in East Lansing, because, yes, there are parking spots, but sometimes they're further away. And if you're older, and can't make it that easily, it's more challenging. If customers face challenges like that, they sometimes just say, well, we just won't come in,” Walsh explained, remaining optimistic about the future.
“We like being part of the community, and it’s been an interesting journey and we’re not through just yet.”