WHEN Willie Anderson talks about books, you have to listen. He has a
passion for them: a lifelong love which colours everything he says on
the subject. If anyone is an ideal choice to succeed Robert Clow as
managing director of John Smith and Son, one feels, this is the man.
''People sort of fall into the book trade,'' he says. He himself had
''not the faintest idea'' as to what he wanted to do on leaving school.
He applied for several jobs, worked for a London branch of the Royal
Bank of Scotland, and got into the habit of spending his free time --
and spare cash -- at a little bookshop round the corner. He even helped
behind the counter, for nothing. He had meanwhile met his future wife
Pat, a Glasgow girl working in London as a teacher, and they had decided
it would be nice to return to Scotland. He fixed up a job with John
Smith, and presented himself at the famous St Vincent Street premises.
That was in 1973. His obvious enthusiasm for the book trade saw him
promoted five months later to manager of the paperbacks department which
he ran for three years before moving on to take charge of all the other
general departments -- hardback fiction, biographies, coffee-table
books, and children's publications -- before being made a director in
1979.
He feels that changes in the book trade have been dramatic. And
technology has revolutionised the way in which book shops locate, order,
and distribute an ever-increasing variety of titles, issue invoices, and
keep track of what is available.
John Smith has a computerised database of 1,750,000 titles which can
be rapidly checked to help a customer track down practically any book.
Should it be out of print, help can often be provided in tracing a
source where a copy might still be available. Work has already started
on adding European and American publishers' output to the database.
John Smith and Son is heavily involved in electronic ordering and
invoicing. EDI, or Electronic Data Information, is already saving a
great deal of time.
As for the changing habits and needs of customers, there are signs
that many university text books will in future be transferred to CD ROM
format, with students able to extract the information they need instead
of having to buy entire volumes.
''We have to be aware of the opportunities being offered by multimedia
in the fields of learning, studying, and leisure,'' says Willie
Anderson. ''Multimedia is in its infancy and CD ROM hardware still needs
to be made much more available and accessible. But the institutions are
looking at it favourably and we anticipate significant growth in this
area.
''Booksellers, including ourselves, will have to ensure that they
don't lose this business to other outlets.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article