Dear Borders.

Backstory here. Inspiration to do something about it here. Readers: I encourage you to join me in my effort to bring some sensitivity back to the bookshelves.

Borders Customer Service
PO Box 7002
LaVergne, TN 37086

To Whom It May Concern:

Recently I was at your Boston store at 10-24 School Street. I was looking for a specific title on the subject of infertility, and was horrified to find where in the store the book was physically located (pictured above).

The infertility books were placed above a row of books that began the Pregnancy section, that expanded into the Pregnancy/Parenting section. This small shelf of books was also directly below a row of titles in the “What to Expect” series. This entire section was to the right of the Children’s section. To get to a specific title within the Fertility/Infertility section, customers must pass the Pregnancy/Parenting section, due to the layout of this particular store. While I understand the importance of grouping like subject matter together, this particular shelving arrangement is unintentionally insensitive at best, and emotionally damaging at worst.

The emotional pain associated with an infertility diagnosis is comparable to the grief felt of losing a close loved one, such as a spouse, sibling, or parent. RESOLVE: the National Infertility Association has stated that “Studies have shown that infertility depression levels can rival those of cancer.” For these people, even simple activities such as going to the store can be a painful, jarring experience, as there are reminders of failures and losses at every turn. Babies in strollers, the round bellies of pregnant women, and even unexpected pregnancy announcements at social gatherings can leave a person coping with infertility emotionally winded. I wish I could say that infertility is an isolated problem that would only affect a slim portion of your consumer base, but RESOLVE offers different numbers: “more than five million people of childbearing age in the United States experience infertility.”

To put it simply: cookbooks or diet books wouldn’t be placed next to or near books about coping with eating disorders. Books on mixology wouldn’t be placed next to or near books about coping with alcoholism. Books about coping with the death of a child wouldn’t be placed next to the Children’s book section. And that’s exactly what infertility is (especially diagnoses such as recurrent miscarriage): coping with the death of a child that might not be, with the death of a pre-imagined future of the way things were supposed to go.

It is my hope that these shelving arrangements are a store-by-store decision to be corrected by local managerial staff, and not a corporate-wide layout imposed by Borders. In either case, Fertility/Infertility books should be placed in the Health/Medicine section, ideally under Women’s Health. Although infertility is not strictly a female issue, “approximately 40% of infertility is due to a female factor and 40% is due to a male factor (RESOLVE, 2009).” Ultimately, infertility is a medical issue whose literature deserves proper placement in the appropriate section of the bookstore. Perhaps Borders could learn by Barnes & Noble’s example, as noted in a recent infertility blog post online. This blogger describes how infertility books were placed under Women’s Health and Pregnancy/Parenting near the Children’s section:

Barnes & Noble, I applaud you. I have bought, I don’t know, ten books on infertility in the last 18 months or so, and nothing has made me feel more crappy than having to pull a copy of “Infertility for Dummies” … out from between a copy of “What to Expect” and “The New Age Baby Name Book.” I mean, you wouldn’t put books about fighting alcoholism next to books about mixology, would you?

I have been a longtime customer of Borders for many years; I would hate to have to take my business elsewhere, much less advise others who are similarly coping with infertility, to a bookseller with more sensitivity toward its customers. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Miriam