Libraries are reeling after a major distributor shutdown.

This Thursday brings bad news for book lovers. Baker & Taylor, one of the largest distributors for print library books in America, is closing down—and throwing the distribution pipeline into (at least) short term chaos as a result.

As 404Media reported this morning—with support from the MuckRock Foundation—more than 6000 libraries around the country will be affected by B&T’s closing. The company, whose “primary focus was distributing physical copies of books to public libraries,” has been in business for nearly 200 years.

We have private equity to thank for the blow-up. A series of acquisitions and divestments weakened B&T’s infrastructure over the past ten years, sending senior management into a perpetual tizzy.

But mismanagement was also paired with some spectacularly bad luck. A competitor launched a lawsuit against B&T earlier this spring, just as creditors were calling the company’s loans. Not even the hardware was spared from this perfect storm; earlier this summer, B&T’s servers weathered a major cyberattack.

In September, ReaderLink, the international conglomerate and “largest full-service book distributor in the world,” attempted to acquire the flailing company. But this Hail Mary fell through just a few days after it was announced.

On October 6, a B&T customer services account manager named Jennifer Kennedy “broke the news” to peer vendors and clients via Library Reddit: full operations would shutter soon.

Today, those rumors have been verified. B&T will officially close at the end of 2025, in a move sure to affect readers from Cuyahoga Falls to Jacksonville.

As American Libraries Magazine reported earlier this month, the timing is especially poor given how libraries have been structuring their post-pandemic budgets. As “demand for ebooks from providers like OverDrive continues to increase,” most places have seen a a decrease in “print-materials spending.”

This means that even as the print book supply is getting squeezed, libraries will have less money to take their business to other distributors, who now have the prerogative to price as they please.

It’s also not just libraries that’ll be feeling these paper cuts. Among the 4,000 “institutional customers” B&T serviced were several indie publishers you probably know and love.

Our own Drew Broussard, also of Rough Draft Bar & Books, notes that indie bookstores especially relied on B&T for small-print distribution. He’s currently dealing with an “availability nightmare,” attempting to secure stock for an upcoming writer visit.

There is a silver lining. Some libraries managed to anticipate this series of snafus. The Summerville Journal Scene reported that the Dorchester County Library saw the writing on the wall some time ago, and managed to establish “a purchasing relationship” with B&T competitor Ingram Book Company earlier this year.

DCL expects to see no pause in stocks or services, and this will likely be true for all districts that follow suit.

And for all the readers and curators in the hole-y boat, there’s always the canon. Jerry Reed, reference librarian at the Clark County Public Library, offered his patrons some practical advice in a recent edition of The Springfield News-Sun.

“Now might be the opportunity to get through some of the classics you never read, or perhaps delve into a new author or series that has already been around.”

Fair enough, Mr. Reed. Back to the stacks we go.