"Archaeological site" on bookshelves

Chen Ding, trainee reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network

"I'm really sorry, I was just receiving an old gentleman, and I ran from afar and delayed a little time." This is the first sentence that Hong Xia, director of the Beijing Humanistic Archaeology Bookstore, said to the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network. It turned out that an old man in his nineties lived in the Zhoukoudian area of Fangshan, Beijing, and now he hopes that the bookstore will help him find relevant information and materials about the family to deal with property problems.

"We have relevant information here about the study of the Zhoukoudian site, but we can't help the old man's matter, because he wants a family genealogy, which is private, internal, and not in the scope of archaeology." Hong Xia later patiently explained to the old man, saying that she understood the other party's feelings, and similar things happened occasionally in the country's only independent bookstore on the theme of archaeology.

Professionalism turns "niche" into "internet celebrity"

The bookstore, which has an unpretentious façade, covers an area of more than 120 square meters and contains more than 10,000 professional books on archaeology and literature, has been frequently reported by major media in the past two months. Hong Xia guessed that the ninety-year-old man might have seen one of them. Hong Xia doesn't like the word "net red shop", but "red" is always a good thing for bookstores. The biggest impact is that there are more people coming, and today, the daily traffic in the store is about ten times that of before, and the "before" here refers to the past 10 years. "One-month physical store sales in December last year were comparable to our sales for the whole year of 2020."

It's one thing to have more people coming, it's another thing to buy books or not. To Hong Xia's relief, most of the people who walk into the bookstore still value books, not just for "punching cards". Making books the core competitiveness of bookstores is Hongxia's firm business goal, and "professionalism" is the "secret" for her to achieve this goal.

"Under normal circumstances, I arrive at the store at about 9:00, receive a courier, then check the order, understand which books are off the shelves, need to restock, and then contact the publisher to enter the books. When there are books in the warehouse, and then to set the price and discount, after the completion of our online colleagues will upload these books to the website, during which if there are unit customers looking for me, I will reply to their messages..." Hong Xia said that her usual most important work is around the selection of books, into books, and push books. Bookstores recommend two books on social media accounts every day, and in addition to the amount of sales, the number of reads of these recommended articles will also become an important reference for bookstores to enter books. "We never build any readership, I think it's a distraction, people learn about books through our push, and then they can find us through contact information."

Daily accumulation is an important factor in achieving professionalism. Hong Xia said that when she selects books and enters books, she often looks at the title of the book to roughly determine whether the book can "sell well". "Through the title, I can probably see the positioning of the book, whether it belongs to general research or more theoretical research, partial theoretical research books, generally more popular, because we have more readers are researchers, they may pay more attention to the material attributes of the book; some more popular books, although to some extent, the audience may be wider, the average history lover can read, but because our bookstore readership is too vertical, so the more professional or more informative the book, Instead, it will be more popular. ”

The bookstore should be the place of warmth

Hong Xia believes that bookstores should not only be places to sell books, but also help readers find the books they need, which is like a derivative service of bookstores. The specific process is very simple, readers or institutions put forward the demand for the type or theme of the book, and Hong Xia makes a book list accordingly. If the books in the book list are not available in the store, Hong Xia will help find them. "One of the more important things we'll do is to check the weights, and for those schools, museums, archaeological institutes and other units that have been working together for a long time, I will tell them which books in the order they have bought before, so as to avoid repeated purchases."

In Hong Xia's concept, readers are not only consumers, but also friends. She once helped a university teacher in Wuhan find a set of books on bronzes, and eventually sold them to the other party for the price of the book. She has also taken page-by-page photographs of students who desperately needed literature to write papers and could not afford to buy full books and sent them. In Hong Xia's view, doing a bookstore should not only be professional, but also "have temperature". She said that now as a partner of China Youth Daily's "Warm One Square", the Humanistic Archaeology Bookstore will continue to bring more warmth to the public from practical actions. "I think bookstores should have a strong sense of public welfare, but also to assume greater social responsibility." As a bookstore operator, I think the most I can do is to provide readers with some convenience and meet their various needs about buying and reading books. ”

Regarding the imagination of the future, Hong Xia plans to hold book clubs and other activities on a regular or irregular basis through "Warm One Square". "Nowadays people actually have too little time to read, and I hope that through the campaign, people can take two hours a week to sit down and read, not be disturbed by anything else, turn off their mobile phones and put aside, and completely immerse themselves in books." I believe that reading books will not only make us learn knowledge, it can also allow us to temporarily withdraw from real life, change our mentality and mood, and when we return to reality again, our mentality and perception of things may be different. ”

Another of Hong Xia's wishes is to open a bigger branch. There, readers can have a more spacious and comfortable reading environment; there, she plans to open an area where people can quietly consult her collection of "less difficult to find, more precious" books.

Source: China Youth Daily client