To get to where he is today he recently consolidated his Internet business into a single location. He’s had multiple locations and for a while thought he could run the business from his historic home. That proved impractical and zoning issues later scuttled a second plan.
Shortly after, he found the current site, an older two-story building with plenty of space. “It’s a charming building with river views of the Susquehanna. “When my partner Diana and I saw it on a grey day one late November, we fell in love. We knew it was perfect,” the potential clear to them for the second floor, an open 80’ x 50’ space with a hand-operated freight elevator, to become home to their sequestered inventory. “I love open space, which is one reason I love my house with all its fireplaces and high ceilings. At work I have the same good feelings.”
They went all in and the outcome is the space shown in the accompanying photographs. “I wanted an inspiring work space to greet me each morning, one that’s conducive to research and selling. "A lot of what we do here is data entry, and it can be really dry." His remedy is their comfortable and engaging environment. To ensure success they brought in a Feng shui expert. No use leaving anything to chance.
And the rest is history. They love the space, have embraced the hermetically sealed approach to efficient bookselling and find they love to come to work. Not bad.
These days most booksellers, in trying to pursue traditional bookselling, are encountering problems. No so at Willis Monie Rare Books in Cooperstown and not so here along the Banks of the Susquehanna.
In times of change fresh thinking is required. Who said that? Someone else who believed in Feng shui, Sun Tzu. He wrote the Art of War two thousand years ago and seems now to have had the specialist rare book business in mind.
For book collectors here is one more stop. Call ahead.
Mullen Books
717-618-0481
www.mullenbooks.com and on Facebook at Mullen Books, Inc.
Mullen Books is the largest seller of used / OP books on the Fine and Decorative Art, Photography and Architecture in America. With over a mile of shelving devoted to these subject areas, including over 10,000 unique monographs on artists, they supply books to libraries, museums, galleries and collectors on every continent. Celebrating their 20th year in 2013.
