Techniques of bookshop management

Teacher(s)

Glaude Benoît;

Language

French

Prerequisites

Prerequisites : a good level of general and cultural knowledge in the literary field, including analytical skills.

Main themes

The course will provide students with a short and critical overview of the main approaches to the contemporary bookselling profession and its management. This will include business aspects of bookselling, the bookselling market and its organisational aspects, customer surveys and specific management skills linked to this particular sector.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

The pressure between cultural and commercial aspects, which has always existed in the bookselling profession, has increased today with the additional pressures between traditional expertise and the industrialisation of so-called cultural products. Bookshops have become cultural enterprises, each one having specific projects. By the end of the course, the student should be capable of analysing these specific aspects.

Content

Since the early 19^th century, the bookselling business has been establishing links between publishing supply (upstream) and customers demand (downstream).
At the junction between symbolic and economic capitals underlying the cultural field of books, the bookseller profession undergoes as well tensions between a long standing practice and the globalised industrialization of cultural products. The traditional know-how of bookselling comprises stock, fitting, promotion and management. As for the industrialization of book trade, nowadays it results in publishing overproduction which overloads the booksellers' displays. This situation requires the modification of professional management practices. Moreover, the cultural industry currently experiences a radical transformation towards the digital format.
This course is aimed at giving theoretical tools to students for the analysis of any ongoing bookseller's business plan and for the study of movements in the current book market (notably the e-book market), especially in the Belgian French-speaking area..

Teaching methods

Lecture, evaluated by the writing of a personal analysis on current bookselling business, discussed during an oral examination.

Evaluation methods

Lecture, evaluated by the writing of a personal analysis on current bookselling business, discussed during an oral examination.

Bibliography

Roger CHARTIER: "Qu'est-ce qu'un livre ?" Les Cahiers de la librairie, hors série : Qu'est-ce qu'un livre aujourd'hui ? Pages, marges, écrans, 2010, pp. 9-22.
Fabien CHAUMARD: Le Commerce du livre en France. Paris, L'Harmattan (Fondements de la géographie culturelle), 2000, 223 p.
François COLBERT (ed.): Le Marketing des arts et de la culture. Montréal, Gaëtan Morin, 2000, 321 p.
Denis DIDEROT: Lettre sur le commerce de la librairie. Paris, Parangon (Mots & merveilles), 2001, 94 p.
Olivier DONNAT: "Les pratiques culturelles à l'ère numérique". BBF: Bulletin des bibliothèques de France, n°55(5), novembre 2010, pp. 6-12.
Milad DOUEIHI: La Grande conversion numérique suivi deRêveries d'un promeneur numérique, trad. par Paul Chemla, Paris, Seuil (Points Essais, n°667), 2011, 335 p.
Pascal FOUCHÉ (ed.): L'Édition française depuis 1945. Paris, Cercle de la librairie, 1998, 933 p.
Tanguy HABRAND: Le Prix fixe du livre en Belgique. Histoire d'un combat. Bruxelles, Les Impressions Nouvelles (Bâtons rompus), 2007, 149 p.
Frédérique LEBLANC et Patricia SOREL (ed.): Histoire de la librairie française, Paris : Cercle de la librairie, 2008, 719 p.
Frédérique LEBLANC: Libraire : un métier. Paris, L'Harmattan (Logiques sociales), 1998, 313 p.
Jean-Yves MOLLIER (ed.): Le Commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle (1789-1914). Paris, Maison des sciences de l'homme (In octavo), 1997, 451 p.
Jean-Yves MOLLIER: La Lecture et ses publics à l'époque contemporaine. Essais d'histoire culturelle. Paris, PUF (Le Noeud gordien), 2001, 126 p.
Jean-Luc NANCY: Sur le commerce des pensées. Du livre et de la librairie. Paris, Galilée (Écritures/Figures), 2005, 67 p.
Michel OLLENDORF: Le Métier de libraire. I. La Gestion de stock. Paris, Cercle de la librairie, 2004, 143 p.
Michel OLLENDORF: Le Métier de libraire. II. La Production de l'assortiment. Paris, Cercle de la librairie, 2006, 235 p.
Bruno RACINE: Google et le nouveau monde. Paris, Perrin (Tempus, n°380), 2011, 151 p.

Faculty or entity

ELAL