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Nov 28 – Dec 4, 2011 Edition Canadian Booksellers’ President Resigns

CANADA/AUTHORLINK NEWS VIA QUILL AND QUIRE/November 28, 2011–At a time of major uncertainty for independent booksellers, the current vice-president and incoming president of the Canadian Booksellers Association has stepped down.

Lee Trentadue, owner of Galiano Island Books in B.C., sent a resignation letter to the CBA’s board of directors a week ago. She told Q&Q her decision stemmed from the fact that the executive had not been meeting regularly enough, and she felt shut out of several important decisions.

“Basically, I felt for the last year and half that decisions were being made that I had no knowledge of,” Trentadue says. “As an executive of the board and the incoming president I thought that was untenable.”

In particular, Trentadue says she was kept in the dark about the CBA’s role in consultations with Google, which launched its e-bookstore in Canada on Nov. 1. Like many Canadian independents, Trentadue saw the Google eBookstore as an opportunity for booksellers here to get into the e-book game. She was disappointed when Google’s Canadian retail partners were restricted to a conglomerate of campus bookstores and the Prairies-based chain McNally Robinson.

In the U.S., Google had partnered with the CBA’s counterpart, the American Booksellers Association, to roll out its online store. Hundreds of U.S. indies now sell e-books through their websites as licenced Google vendors.

Trentadue joined the CBA board three years ago. She was elected vice-president at the association’s annual general meeting in May and was in line to take over as president in about six months.

According to CBA president Mark Lefebvre, the board is scheduled to meet later this week and will discuss a strategy for finding Trentadue’s successor.

Source: Quill and Quire.