Community bookstore updates its technology

Boxcar Books will be closed Wednesday through Nov. 27 to update its inventory system and install new computers.

Accounts Payable Coordinator Christie McCloud Borders said the system update will improve staff members’ ability to serve customers quickly at the cash register and look more accurately at their inventory when customers request specific materials.

“It’s mostly a technical shift. Nothing at all will be changing inside, outside or structurally at all,” General Coordinator Steven Stothard said. “The only difference will be some new computers, a new network system and a really functional point-of-sales and inventory system. We’re basically gutting our information technology and getting everything very streamlined, very user-friendly.”

The last time Boxcar announced a long-term closing was more than a year ago, when it moved to its new location on East Sixth Street. This time, however, the shutdown won’t be quite as labor-intensive.

The closing will also be used to teach Boxcar volunteers how to use the new software, as well as to update the new system with all the bookstore’s current books.

“Volunteers will be entering each book into the new system,” Volunteer Coordinator Taylor Dean said. “We’ll also be using the time to begin familiarizing ourselves with the new system through a general training session.”

Another of Boxcar’s unique features among locally owned and operated shops is its nonprofit structure. Stothard calls Boxcar a diamond in the rough among Bloomington bookstores.

“Boxcar exists in a strange league of its own, and not only in Bloomington,” Stothard said. “There are very few bookstores, even in the U.S., that are like Boxcar – nonprofit, volunteer-powered and with a mission statement with social justice, progressive ideas and (the goal of) becoming a community center.”

Boxcar has been staple in the community for eight years, providing books to Bloomington residents but also to the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project, which distributes books to prisoners across the U.S. for free. The Pages Project is a nationally recognized program with which Boxcar has been working since its opening. It is now Boxcar’s main outreach project.

“Many volunteers span the breadth of Pages and Boxcar, devoting time and energy to each organization,” Stothard said. “Boxcar has housed and supported Pages to Prisoners ever since our doors have opened. The way I feel, without one, there wouldn’t be the other.”

In addition to Pages, Boxcar’s commitment to local causes has been flourishing since its start.

“Pages is Boxcar’s priority when it comes to supporting community groups, but we have donated to a wide variety of Bloomington organizations,” Borders said. “Economic times are rough, and since Bloomington is a small community, it is wise to filter the money that is earned here back into the businesses that keep Bloomington an interesting and diverse little town.”

The bookstore’s focus on social justice and independent literature is another of its defining features.  

“We have a great zine collection, a sizeable portion of which is made up of work by local writers and artists,” Dean said. “We host and support a great number of local writers, artists and community organizations.

“We love supporting art, activism and information-sharing with the resources we have.”