In January, Borders Group is closing some 200 Waldenbooks, Borders Express and Borders Outlet stores--all part of its mall store division--which will leave 130. Some 1,500 employees, the majority of them part-timers, will be let go. A list of the stores being closed can be found here.
The company called the closings part of its "ongoing strategy to right-size its Waldenbooks Specialty Retail segment and emerge with a smaller, more profitable mall chain." The closings are not final and do not include Borders superstores or seasonal mall kiosks.
"America has a number of malls that continue to do well and draw customer traffic even in the current economy," Borders Group CEO Ron Marshall said in a statement. "We believe there remains an opportunity to profitably operate a much smaller Waldenbooks segment that complements our core Borders superstore business and continues to serve readers in their communities."
In the last eight fiscal years, Borders has shuttered about 575 mall stores, 112 in fiscal 2008 alone. Rival Barnes & Noble is planning to close the last of its 50 B. Dalton Bookseller stores in January, too. In the 1970s and 1980s, Walden and Dalton were the giants of the bookstore world, with about 2,000 stores between them.