Michael McFee: Corporate and boring

Thanks for your Sept. 6 story about the new Meantime Coffee Co. at UNC-Chapel Hill. I’m glad the legacy of the Daily Grind may continue elsewhere on campus. Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for the Bull’s Head Bookshop, still in the Student Stores, though Barnes & Noble hasn’t neutered its name, as it did with “UNC Cafe.”

The glorious funky literary swirl of the Bull’s Head (started by Carolina professor Howard Mumford Jones in 1925) is gone, replaced by the same Lit Lite brand that can be found at B&N stores anywhere. An excellent homegrown bookshop – which, like other independent bookshops in North Carolina, faithfully served and supported the community of nearby writers and readers – is turning into another dull link in a chain of nearly 800 college bookstores.

The Bull’s Head was quirkily personal, in its staffing and its attention to customers; it was proudly distinctive, the kind of shop that no Ivy had; and it created a loyal community, through the decades and generations, patrons for whom books and reading and the best possible use of language mattered more than anything. Local and lively are being converted into corporate and boring. What a pity.

This story was originally published September 14, 2016 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Michael McFee: Corporate and boring."