Customer profile
What was the name of your video store?
Bookseller
Where was the store located?
Lorain, Ohio (United States)
When did you start shopping at this store?
1984
Describe your video store - what did it look like? What were its distinguishing
features?
Bookseller was an independent bookstore that sold some new books and had a large trade in secondhand paperbacks books. At first the video section was a small area between the new book section and the used book section, but eventually it took over half of the store - actually, I think they rented more space next door, and knocked out an area for walkthroughs into the video area.
What were the employees and/or owners like, and what kinds of interactions
did you have with them? What particularly memorable exchanges or events
do you remember?
My father met my former stepmother there. Initially the employees were mostly middle-aged women with a few women in their 20s also working, and videos were rented at the same counter area that also dealt with paperback book purchases. As the video business grew larger, more young people came to work in the store and I believe there was a separation between the "book people" and the "video people."
What other services/products did the store offer besides the rental or sale
of videos? Did this change over time?
Well, all the book and magazine services you'd expect a non-chain bookstore of the 1980s to offer, and whatever might have been trendy at the time (for example, they had a selection of rubber stamps and inks for a while, and they also sold some greeting and post cards). They had the sort of candy rack that you'd expect in a convenience store, as well, and I think they eventually started selling drinks. In the rental area, I know that they rented cds out for a while - this would have been in the late 1980s, when CDs were catching on in popularity, but were the most expensive format compared to the dying vinyl trade and the still lively cassette trade. They also rented hardware - for many years my stepmother would bring home, every weekend when I visited, a stack of videos and a rented VCR. I don't know if they ever rented videos.
What video formats did the store offer (i.e. VHS, Beta, Laserdisc)? Where were
different formats kept in the store?
To my knowledge, they offered VHS and not Beta. They may have offered laserdisc and even eventually DVD, but I really don't remember. I believe formats had their own sections: I remember that CDs and VHS were kept seperately, so I'm sure that they would have gone with the same plan for new video formats.
In addition to mainstream Hollywood movies, what other kinds of videotapes
(for example children's, exercise, or X-rated) did the store rent/sell? Where were these
videos found in the store, and how often did you rent or purchase them?
I can't remember whether they had X-rated films.
Did you tend to rent or buy videos? Why?
At the time, movies were rented. They were too expensive to buy in the 80s, even when "priced to own", unless you got them at a discount. My family was blue-collar then, and I was very young (born in 1976). When I started acquiring my own purchased videos in the late 1980s, they were either very cheap, or store cast-offs, and I didn't get them from Bookseller (I no longer lived in that area, though my father and stepmother did and my stepmother continued to work there).
During the period that you shopped at this store, what changes did you see?
As described before, the enlargement of the video business, including its floor space, and the gradual focus of the management's attention on the video side of the equation. Concurrently, it seemed that the book side of the business suffered, and their new stock became old and boring, with less coming in each new year. The paperback books seem to have gone on as usual, and if there was a falloff in business, it probably had more to do with the secondhand paperback book market than with the fact that the owners were more interested in having a spiffy video section than a spiffy bookstore.
Is this store still open? If not, when did it close?
No. I'm not sure when it closed; sometime between 1998 and 2002.
In your own words, tell the story of your first VCR/video player. Where
and when did you buy it, and why did you decide to make the purchase?
Well, my family's first VCR was bought in 1987 in Florida, by my mother and stepfather. They bought it because we all wanted one. It was an RCA and lasted around 5 years. My personal first VCR, which I still have, is a JVC model purchased in 1995. It is excellent and, if I ever need to replace it, I will buy another JVC. I bought it because I had just purchased a TV at a very low price, and I wanted a VCR to go with it, since at the time I didn't have cable in my room, and I wanted to watch anime on the TV. Before my mom married my stepfather, we usually had a boarder for extra rooms in our house, and for a while the boarder was an uncle of mine (mom's brother) who had had VCRs since the very early 1980s. He would rent and copy videos, and had a large library of tapes. So while my mom didn't own a VCR, I would sometimes watch tapes at my uncle's (when he had his own place) or in his room when he wasn't home (which I was allowed to do). I think I saw most of the video movies that I remember from my childhood that way.
Did you ever rent a VCR or other hardware (a camera, for instance)? If so,
how often and why?
Yes, my father and stepmother frequently rented a VCR on weekends. I don't think I have ever rented one since. My mom once rented a video camera to tape a play I was appearing in. I can't think of any other hardware rented by anyone in my immediate family.