Apr 28, 2020 (Kyodo) - Although not targeted by authorities for closure requests under measures to battle the spread of COVID-19, many bookstores in major metropolitan regions of Japan have chosen to bring down the shutters or curtail opening hours, dealing a blow to book and magazine publishers alike.
Meanwhile, for the public whose appetite for reading has only increased as it responds to the government's stay-at-home requests, the pain of bookshop closures has been compounded by an almost total shutdown of municipal-run libraries in urban areas.
The day after Japan's state-of-emergency was first declared by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on April 7 in Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures, Akira Yamaguchi, an executive at Hayakawa Publishing Corp., was dumbstruck as he read the list of Tokyo bookstores that had decided to close for the time being.
It included popular bookstores like Tsutaya in Daikanyama and Maruzen in Nihombashi, both trendy areas of Tokyo. Even Sanseido's flagship bookstore in the Jimbocho area -- Tokyo's center of used-book stores and a mecca for bibliophiles -- closed its doors.
Nippon Shuppan Hanbai said its March sales were greater than those at the same time last year.
It attributed the increase to comics and school children's books and educational material, stating the demand for the latter grew after the government's request at the end of February for all schools to close in response to the spread of the virus.
At the same time as bookshops were shutting, libraries, run by municipalities, were closing their doors. Around 890, or 60 percent of Japan's 1,550 libraries had stopped operating as of April 16, according to the saveMLAK disaster relief information site, whose main purpose is to monitor damage to museums, libraries, archives and community centers at times of natural disaster.
But that figure reaches more than 95 percent for public libraries in the seven prefectures covered by Abe's April 7 state-of-emergency declaration.
Though many have closed their doors physically, some have devised ways to stay in business by setting up temporary "window" slots from which people can borrow books.
Nonetheless, a growing number of public libraries are shutting completely, discontinuing their book borrowing services, as they abide by the state-of-emergency declaration by local government authorities that deem their facilities nonessential.
