Quality is the name of the game in this branch of book selling. The decor includes a library-style, wood-and-leather table and chairs for extended browsing. Extras on display for impulse or gift buying run to fine German pens and mechanical pencils, and a series of youth books crafted to awaken the potential future professionals in adolescents such as 46 Science Fair Projects for the Evil Genius. The shelves and storeroom are sprinkled with antique curiosities. A customer who shows keen interest in economics and business cycles, for instance, is shown a copy of a brief, witty anatomy of the 1929 crash by Broadway comedian Eddie Cantor, Caught Short! A Saga of Wailing Wall Street.

Perry’s retail package is crafted with advice from the founder of the original store, Evelyn de Mille. At age 90, she remains an alert, keen advocate of independent retailing and preserving a market niche for hard-copy literature. “What a nice man he is,” she says. “He came out of the blue” as a new retailer. “I hope he makes it. It’s difficult in the book business.”

As a mentor, she draws on more than half a century of experience that began in 1945, when she moved to Calgary from a central Alberta farm and worked in the book section of the bygone Eaton’s department store chain. She rose to manager. In 1956, she set out on her own as an independent entrepreneur and became the first Canadian woman to build a bookstore chain.

A “non-compete” agreement suspended de Mille from the trade for five years when she sold her four shops to an international group in 1974. She came back with DeMille Technical Books as soon as the commercial exile period expired, and the brand survived after she retired and sold the store in 2002. The name disappeared when the buyer, the Winnipeg-based McNally Robinson chain, closed its Calgary branch in mid-2008 after selling its downtown building. Perry stepped forward soon afterwards.

The store’s early performance confirmed Perry’s view that there continues to be a hard-core market for professional and reference publications. “The summer was tough. Evelyn warned me,” Perry says. “But it wasn’t as rough as we thought it would be. This week’s a little better. Next week should be a little better again.”

His plans include building a competitive Internet operation on the store’s fledgling, information-only website (www.demillebooks.ca). But neither Perry nor de Mille are ready to give up on books, stores and libraries as artifacts of civilization by surrendering entirely to promotions of digital substitutes on e-commerce networks.

Perry views himself as following the finest and oldest traditions of his profession with his business venture. “Leonardo da Vinci was an engineer,” he points out.

Pages: 1 2

Related Posts

• The fine line between a subsidy and a tax credit
• The old anti-oil chestnuts, investing and you
• Hebron the start of a ‘bold new era’: Williams
• Managing the New “Gold”