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What’s Happening with National Book Store?
(lemmy.world)
https://www.esquiremag.ph/money/industry/national-book-store-updates-2023-a00289-20230810-lfrm?
The company has gone through multiple upheavals—wars, revolutions, natural disasters, and changes in customer behaviors, among many other challenges—but perhaps none tested the mettle of the 80-plus-year-old company more than the pandemic. “It was devastating,” Adrian Ramos, current president of National Book Store tells Esquire Philippines during that period. “We were hit on multiple fronts.”
My memories of National Bookstore was getting my big bro to open magazines so I can read it for free. This despite the huge "No private reading" sign.
HAHAHAHAHA! It's the closest thing we probably have to a functioning library system. And to "permanently check-out" something, we have to buy it.