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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 27, 2006 Essentially Ashland The pages of history Lance Pugh The Book Exchange is now one of the oldest bookstores in the Rogue Valley I was new to Ashland and liked to walk about and get the feel and flavor of the heart of this small town. A significant percentage of the downtown retail locations were papered and boarded shut, this an acknowledgment of the fleeting summertime festival surge, which began with the Feast of Will (then served in Lithia Park with plenty of beer, this until a photo depicting such copious consumption appeared in The Oregonian, prompting temperate locals to flagellate the parks commission, as no alcohol was therein permitted) and ending all too soon as fall fell like a headsman’s axe. In 1972, I walked by a new bookstore on Oak Street called Edna’s Book Exchange, named after the proprietor, Edna Asher. She started with 1,400 books that were inventory duplicates from a sister-in-law, who ran Shirley’s Books and Antiques in Klamath Falls. The number of books would grow to 25,000 within 5 years. Her husband, Jim, kept on building shelves as she gleaned the town for available literature. Once a year some Ashland High School buses would discharge a frolic of students to buy whatever they preferred to read. Many of the girls bought Harlequin romance stories, while the boys tended to glom on to Louis L’Amore and comics. The philosophy then was let the kids buy whatever they will read. The high school picked up the tab and soon all the students were nose deep into what they liked best and turning pages like a hot rod’s wheels on the way to the prom. Jaycin Dean and Cindy Munroe stand outside The Book Exchange ready to greet Ashland’s readers. Submitted photo Edna had a built-in customer base in the form of the prospective bus passengers who waited patiently for their ride next door at Ashland’s Greyhound Depot. The depot had sofas and chairs inside, and a bench outside, with each dent in the seat representing a person who could use a good used book. Edna’s shop filled a need and could be counted upon for a game of bridge in the back behind the curtains. Yet, as this was by invitation only, and I was both a poor player and fully engaged in running another shop, I simply smiled, bought the occasional paperback and continued my stroll to the Plaza. The Book Exchange would, in time, prove to be the Rogue Valley’s oldest used bookstore. When two buses arrived at the Depot at the same time, that section of Oak Street was effectively closed. We all knew it, so we just changed our driving route. Ashland had the feel of a very small, provincial town back then. Black diesel fumes wafted in and about the local shops, yet it seemed a necessary evil as with the buses came the passengers that had anywhere from zero to 45 minutes to gather up the town’s sights and shops, then squeeze the experience dry like a gym towel, including a snap at the end to race back and get a seat before the “schedule” called for a departure to either Medford or points south. In 1993, Cindy Munroe, an Ashland resident since 1970, purchased the store from Edna. She soon changed the name to The Book Exchange and began to implement what is now the temporary residence of approximately 35,000 books. I mention the books in terms of being fugacious and ephemeral, transient pages bound under an author’s name. Even though the turnover rate was high, the absolute number of books in the store remained just a few volumes short of crammed, jammed and forever compressed. Just as a handful of books would find new homes, an equivalent number of editions would pray entry to the shelves, there to be picked, chosen, culled and cuddled until taken home for consumption, diversion and often, gift-giving. In 1988 Cindy graduated from Southern Oregon State College and was voted “the most outstanding woman graduate in the school of business” by the staff. She now has two employees, her right arm/assistant manager Jaycin Dean and recently hired Shanna Hill. With seeming effortlessness they preside over a social phenomenon: a place where music soothes your soul as you browse the well-organized aisles, often running into friends and, during the high season, a crush of visitors who, like many in Ashland, are well-educated and addicted to books. Cindy and the staff know the whereabouts of every book in the inventory and which volumes have sold and been acquired during the last month. Cindy says that comments about the Book Exchange from customers are often: “What a great selection of books,” and that “it’s so clean and well-organized.” Cindy laughs and jokes with the customers that she has a great job for a obsessive/ compulsive person, as she likes to keep things clean, neat and in order. I know that finding what you want is a clear and simple process. The success of the business kept increasing each year, prompting and expansion in the year 2000. To accommodate Cindy’s design to maximize the shelf space and improve the customer flow, the Book Exchange took over the former Greyhound space next door. Her husband, Bob Munroe, who has manned the Good Ship Cabinet Works alone for the last 14 years, appeared on the scene and custom built all the book shelves. The result is a depository of great reads packed tight enough to preclude the addition of a single playing card, a sanctuary that is considered “a reader’s book store.” Cindy’s focus for 13 years has been to improve upon the quality, number and variety of books. Cindy attributes the ongoing success of the bookstore to that focus and to her business management education, love of books and the customers who read them. Most importantly, Cindy credits her knowledgeable and friendly employees. I just bought another copy of one of my favorite books, this owing to my rather haphazard gravity-based filing system at home. When I got it home I found that the pages were so compressed that the pages had reverted to a single block of wood. Now you know where the term “blockbuster” really came from. Having tried everything, it is now time to swing by the Cabinet Works and ask Bob if he can open the pages for me. 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