Nearly 30% of Japan’s municipalities noted the absence of “physical bookstores,” business agency Kyodo News reported on April 27.
The data was made available through a survey conducted by the Publishing Industry Association. The decline in outlets was due to population decline and the dominance of online shopping.
According to Japan Publishing, of the country’s 1,741 municipalities, 482 cities, towns and villages, or 27.7% of the total, had no bookstores in March, an increase from 26.2% in the previous survey in September 2022. of the year.
In Okinawa, Nagano and Nara prefectures, more than half of the cities and towns do not have bookstores: 56.1%, 53.2% and 51.3% respectively.
Depopulated rural areas were especially affected by the disappearance of bookstores, while all 23 central Tokyo districts still had bookstores.
The central government seeks effective measures to prevent the disappearance of physical bookstores. They are considered important for expanding knowledge because they offer opportunities to find books beyond common interests, in contrast to the online trend of highly specialized searches for specific queries.
There are currently 7,973 genuine bookstores across Japan, not counting used bookstores and university cooperatives, 609 fewer than in the previous survey, which was the first of its kind.
When combining the 343 municipalities with a single physical bookstore and those without, the overall percentage of cities, towns and villages with limited or no access to physical bookstores is 47.4%.
In 2023, estimated sales of printed books and magazines also fell 6% year-on-year to around 1.06 trillion yen (625 billion rubles), according to the Publishing Research Institute. This downward trend has continued since reaching a peak of 2.66 trillion yen in 1996.
“The (bookstore) environment is becoming increasingly tough as staff costs rise and sales fall.”said Shuichi Matsuki, director of the Japan Publishing Industry Cultural Foundation.
Matsuki added that bookstores, in collaboration with publishers and writers, should make their stores more attractive to customers.
Industry Minister Ken Saito expressed his vision after speaking to bookstore managers this month. “aspirations for a world in which libraries, websites and bookstores coexist”.
In March, his ministry launched a project group to promote the bookstore business.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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