Current Store
Spartacus Books is a bookstore that is run by a loosely organized collective which operates on a very horizontal consensus decision making structure. Any member of the public can fill out an application to join the collective, and after an interview process to make sure that the prospective volunteer understands the basis principles of respect, and the general rules of the store, the volunteer gets trained, and after volunteering is considered a member of the collective.
It is usually described as a "radical bookstore", and among its sections are to find anarchism, "womyn", "queer lit", poetry, First Nations, "organizing", socialism, history and ecology, plus a section of non-specialized "sale" used books. The bookstore is often used for various events such as movie nights and book releases, which often bring in various different people into the store. Spartacus has been described over the years to be the nerve centre of alternative culture in Vancouver, where various organizations hold meetings. Groups that have used the space for meetings throughout the years include the anarchistic free school movement, Vancouver Indymedia, cooperative housing, the Vancouver esperanto group and the local chapter of Industrial Workers of the World. There are also some computers connected to internet and running free software in Spartacus Books (provided by the NGO Freegeek) and a telephone outside, which can be used for free.
Read more about this topic: Spartacus Books
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or store:
“What in fact have I achieved, however much it may seem? Bits and pieces ... trivialities. But here they won’t tolerate anything else, or anything more. If I wanted to take one step in advance of the current views and opinions of the day, that would put paid to any power I have. Do you know what we are ... those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society’s tools, neither more nor less.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
“Finishing schools in the fifties were a good place to store girls for a few years before marrying them off, a satisfactory rest stop between college weekends spent husband hunting. It was a haven for those of us adept at styling each other’s hair, playing canasta, and chain smoking Pall Mall extra-long cigarettes.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)