Analog Books has opened in Lethbridge, Alberta. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, the shop's debut was necessarily "to much less fanfare than originally planned," co-owner bookseller Scott Warris said. "We are pleased to welcome people after nearly a year of major renovations, preparations and delays. We are a family-owned store and will be offering a safe, comfortable community space for booklovers. It was designed to be easily converted into a space for book-related events once we are allowed to host them. Meanwhile, the response in the community has been overwhelming and we're looking forward to many years of serving it."
Launching an independent bookshop is always challenging, but the pandemic upped the ante considerably. The Lethbridge Herald reported that at the beginning of this year, Warris, his wife, Penny, daughter Willow and family cat Hugo "were on their way to start their dream of opening Analog Books Inc., leaving their life behind in the Crowsnest Pass to start from scratch in Lethbridge."
"About four years ago, we were spending more time in Lethbridge because we really liked Lethbridge, and with our daughter starting high school, we wanted her to start here and that is when we decided to open a bookstore in downtown," he said. "We have always loved bookstores and travelling, and we went into bookstores all around the world to see the different types and we liked the idea of a warm, comfortable, safe space which a lot of bookstores provide in their community and we thought that it would be nice to have in Lethbridge."
They closed on the retail space in March, just as the pandemic hit. "We ended up spending the whole summer renovating the building, and that was maybe an advantage that came out of the pandemic," Warris noted. "It gave us more time to focus on the details. We had originally hoped to open in September, but it was delayed and finally we came ready to go and got the details on how to operate with the new restrictions a few weeks ago."
He described the community's response thus far as "phenomenal," adding that extra staff was hired "almost immediately to help us out, along with our daughter helping us out. But the support and encouragement from the community has been great and we feel good that we were right, that there was a demand for a space like this in Lethbridge."