Watch Now: The Great Good Place Conversation at Winter Institute 9

Booksellers who may have missed The Great Good Place Conversation between sociologist and author Ray Oldenburg and Third Place Books owner Ron Sher at the 2014 Winter Institute’s Small Press Breakfast can now watch the conversation in full on BookWeb.

Oldenburg, author of The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community (Marlowe & Company, dist. by PGW) and Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the “Great Good Places” at the Heart of Our Communities (Da Capo), discussed with Sher how independent bookstores can remain important “third places” in every community and become social spaces for the public to come together and create relationships.

“The first place — and the most important place — is the home, the second place is the work lot, and the third place is where you escape the role requirements of home and work,” said Oldenburg during the event. “You become a real third place when your regular customers know one another and count on meeting one another there, then you’ve got the essence.”

The three-part video is now live on BookWeb, starting here, and booksellers can also see a brief interview with Oldenburg recorded after the session in which he discusses the success of independent stores as third places and his own favorite third place to visit.

Other videos from Winter Institute, including Geno Church’s presentation “The Passion Conversation: Understanding, Sparking, and Sustaining Word of Mouth Marketing” and Ryan Coonerty’s advanced learning session “Managing the Changing Workplace,” are available on the ABA Education Curriculum page on BookWeb.

Stay tuned to Bookselling This Week for news about videos to be added from other ABA events, including the recent ABC Children’s Institute in San Antonio.