5.3.1: 1910 - heden - Introduction


Most of the 3,000 or so books published in 1900 and the c. 6,500 books published in 1939 found their way from the publisher to the reader through general bookshops. In the twentieth century, the Centraal Boekhuis (CB) was the main intermediary in this distribution chain. International orientation and the blurring of borders in the period after 1945, was mirrored in the increased interest in translated books which increasingly took the form of paperbacks.

Bookshops became more accessible after the Second World War; establishments where one waited at the counter for the required book gave way to walk-in shops. After the war, besides the general and specialist bookshops, the antiquarian bookshops and remainders bookshops came into existence as were other outlets such as stationers, department stores, newspaper stands, tobacconists, supermarkets, mail order companies, book clubs and Internet bookshops. They all had a part in the distribution of books among the reading public at the end of the twentieth century. This distribution is actively supported by a joint promotional policy for publishers and bookshops though the foundation for the Collective Propaganda of Dutch Books (CPNB), founded in 1930, which organises the annual book week.

As early as the beginning of the twentieth century, the reading room movement advocated the establishment of public libraries. Their breakthrough was not until the 1950s. The activities of the provincial library centre and the affiliated local libraries and mobile libraries established a close-knit service network which extended out into the rural areas. Shop libraries and popular libraries thus became a thing of the past.


author: N. van Dijk
 
 


Introduction



general bookshops

Definition: bookshop focusing on a wide, general public, offering fiction as well as general non-fiction.



antiquarian bookshops

Definition: company trading in prints and old books which are no longer available in the regular bookshop.



French bookshops

Definition: term for the 18th-century production and sale of books in French, used to distinguish it from the trade in Latin books which was still predominant in those days.



Dutch bookshops

Definition: term for the 18th-century production and sale of books in Dutch, used to distinguish it from the trade in French and Latin books.



academic bookshops

Definition: bookshop aimed at providing publications for academic education and research, often for the benefit of specialist institutions in that field.



bookshops

Definition: business or shop of a bookseller, a company, a chain or a buyers' co-operative.



second-hand bookshops

Definition: bookshop which sells books that have been used before.



import bookshops

Definition: 1. trading in imported publications. 2. bookshop specialised in the sale of imported publications.



Internet bookshops

Definition: bookshop which offers books for sale on the Internet and sells them to order; without a shop or large stocks, but with the means of transporting books on demand quickly from the publisher to the consumer, making a varied supply possible.



children's bookshops

Definition: bookshop specialised in the sale of children's books.



women's bookshops

Definition: bookshop specialised in the sale of books on women or written by women.