Dalton to give $80 million to Reisman and Indigo Books

Independent book stores were the first casualty of the book selling giant.

Depending on whom you ask, Toronto-based Indigo Books and Music has cornered at least 65 per cent and perhaps as much as 80 per cent of the Canadian retail book market. And now, according to some industry observers, it's positioning itself to become the dominant player in supplying non-text books to school libraries in Ontario and possibly the rest of the country.

Library Services look to be the next victim.

Members of the CBA and education wholesalers held an emergency meeting last Friday in Toronto to discuss the issue but are waiting for the results of the election before deciding what to do. This week they'll be arranging meetings with the Premier, the education and culture ministers and the Ontario School Library Association.

“What we really don't want is one supplier to our public libraries,” said LeFave, whose own store has sold books to more than 100 school libraries in Ontario. She and Ledingham are concerned that Indigo may lack the expertise in curriculum-related book selection and sourcing, invoicing, cataloguing and processing that wholesalers and community-based booksellers have developed over decades.

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