By Emma Young
An independent Mount Lawley bookshop will be turning heads as well as pages this weekend as it moves premises in an unusual way.
Jane Seaton’s Beaufort Street Books is moving just 50 metres – to a new home at the corner of Beaufort and Vincent streets. More accessible, more prominent and twice the size, it will expand the events forming part of their core offering.
Seaton has made up a frame so volunteers can take selfies on the day.
How will Seaton and her staff move 14,000 books? With the help of community members in a conveyor-belt-style line along Beaufort Street, which she says will save weeks of work.
She has assembled 150 volunteers in an “overwhelming response”, with 15 more committed to deliver them home-baked goods.
Supervised by local author Annabel Smith, they will pass small boxes of books along the line to the new shop where staff will unpack swiftly into temporary shelving, then run the empties back to the old shop, where staff will repack them.
Empty shelves will then go into the new shop and be joined by more new shelves next month.
Next weekend the shop will hold a community sausage sizzle to thank the volunteers and mark its rebirth.
“In deciding to move to a larger space, I did really toy with the idea of closing the business, because it’s a tough slog,” said Seaton, who has owned the shop for 14 years.
“I am glad I didn’t … the community response to moving these books justifies my decision.”
Beaufort Street Books was loved, Seaton said, because it functioned not just as retailer but as community meeting space.
“We’ve done events with local and travelling authors that provide the connection between the reader and author,” she said.
Local authors man the barbecue at one of BSB’s community initiatives.
“Indie bookshops are the ones that give authors their chance, they champion authors and get behind the books. Trent Dalton’s first book Boy Swallows Universe was a bestseller in indie bookshops first; now it’s everywhere.”
The new space will fit up to 100 guests per event.
“Events help people not just buy a book, but experience the book.” Seaton said.
“Authors interview other authors … conversations go on that don’t relate to the book, you might catch up with a neighbour or your local politician.
“Over the years we have done some crazy events. We have done movies, book-based speed dating, yoga; we’ve done a community sausage sizzle when the whole street was suffering due to construction works.”
More volunteers are welcome to bake for the troops.
Asked if she or her staff would end up pulling an all-nighter, Seaton hoped not.
“But nobody has plans for Sunday,” she said.
The first event in the new space will be a dinner featuring sustainable farmer Matthew Evans discussing his new book, Milk, about that most controversial of superfoods.
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