At the soon-to-be-extinct Borders bookstore Sunday, those behind the bookshelves had different reasons for being part of the store's final days.
Some just stopped in the Augusta store for the 40-percent-off books offer and cheap CDs.
Rose Boyd, of Grovetown, said she was there because it was Sunday, and spending time in a bookstore is what you do on Sunday afternoons.
The pending loss of the Borders bookstore chain nationwide means different things to customers.
After announcing bankruptcy in February, the chain is closing its 399 stores and laying off almost 11,000 employees.
The merchandise is expected to be sold by September.
Analysts have said the closing has to do with the rise of e-book sales and a business model that couldn't keep up.
On Sunday, customers in Augusta took advantage of Borders' going-out-of-business sale and considered what's next.
"It's a tragedy," Kenya Lee, 40, said while browsing the literature section. "It's sad to see it close. I'm all about technology, I'm all about change, but there's nothing like lounging with a book, relaxing and drinking a glass of tea."
Lee said she has always been a reader but hasn't been able to convert to reading on a Kindle or other tablets.
For Sara Armstrong, 27, the change hasn't been so difficult.
About a year ago, Armstrong stopped buying printed books and started downloading digital versions to her iPad.
She stopped at Borders to take advantage of the sales, temporarily breaking her habit of e-reading.
"I just like it on an iPad a lot better," Armstrong said. "It's easier to travel with. If I go away, I used to have to take like four books with me because I didn't know how much I'd read. With the iPad it's all right here."
E-readers have pushed the Web site of Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Borders' main competitor, to now sell three digital books for every one printed book, according to the Wall Street Journal .
However the rise of e-books and the closing of one of the country's largest bookstores might not be reason to panic, said Ben Bowling, who browsed with his wife, Pat, on Sunday at Borders, where employees know them by name.
They packed a shopping basket with books on history, President Obama and faith.
When they go home, they will put the books on the shelves with the thousands of others in their home, which is how they plan to keep it no matter where books are sold.
"It's the picking it up, and putting it down and revisiting it," Pat Bowling said.
"Twenty years later you can pick it up again. It's like visiting an old friend. We won't lose that."
Bookstores are much more than the books they sell. They are also a social experience, one that ereaders don't offer. I guess bookstores are going the way of the buggy whip.
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