A year and a half after its opening, Place des Arts du Grand Sudbury will finally have its bookstore. The business, awaited for ten years in Ontario – where French-speaking bookstores can be counted on the fingers of one hand – will open its doors on Friday.
“The goal is to be a welcome center to sell books, but also to organize events and meetings,” explains to Duty the chairman of the board of directors of the Librairie-boutique, Stéphane Cormier.
The business is dedicated to the sale of French-speaking books, stationery, games to “stimulate” the learning of the language, but also objects of art and crafts. A survey and consultations were conducted to properly meet the needs of the community. Residents were also asked to suggest ways to rename the bookstore in their image, and to volunteer there, in order to organize a book club, for example.
“We are going to listen as much as possible. A good bookstore is a dynamic business, it’s a business that changes, that adapts,” says Mr. Cormier. The team will, however, be “forced to make choices”. Indigenous literature will thus be promoted, as well as children’s works.
It will also be possible to buy books in English, but only on order. The latter are in fact already easily accessible on the Internet, explains the former bookseller, now with the publishing house Prize de parole.
Still “running in”, the team wanted to open in time for the holiday season. An opening ceremony is expected to take place next January. Within six months, the establishment hopes to be able to register on the Les Libraires site, in order to serve Franco-Ontarians who live elsewhere in the north of the province.
Staff are scarce
The opening was delayed for a long time by the search for qualified personnel, says Mr. Cormier. Recruitment took place in Ontario, Quebec, and internationally, before making a first hire after “more than a year” of research. It was ultimately Monica Meza Giron, who agreed to leave Quebec to become the general director of commerce.
Former cultural mediator at the McCord Museum, Mme Meza Giron is having his “first experience in the world of books”, apart from an internship in Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu. She is now accompanied by experienced booksellers to learn the ropes of the trade.
Coming from an immigrant background, she explains that she learned French through books. She perceives the bookstore as a “living space, a safe space”, in which all Francophones and Francophiles are welcome, and which will show the “vitality” of the language in the province.
Ensuring your survival
Two French-speaking bookstores have already emerged in Sudbury over the past fifteen years. They eventually closed their doors due to financial problems.
Today, Mr. Cormier says he is “very optimistic” about the survival of the Bookstore-boutique. The two establishments, which opened almost at the same time, competed with each other.
The business also hopes to benefit from the popularity of Place des Arts, which has “thousands of entries” each year. Nothing is “a foregone conclusion”, however, because “operating a bookstore is complex. Especially when you are in a remote region,” concedes Mr. Cormier.
Transport costs are particularly high. And unlike Quebec, Ontario does not have a law requiring institutions to source books locally. “It really helps regional bookstores to prosper,” he says, noting that around 45% of their sales are made to communities.
The result of a collaboration between Éditions Prize de parole, the Carrefour francophone de Sudbury, the Salon du livre du Grand Sudbury and Place des Arts, the Librairie-boutique hopes to “develop a range of services” and supply schools in the region .
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.