As school library folks, you’ve likely heard about Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. This annual event has become a callsign for spring, a day in late April that gives us the chance to celebrate local indie bookstores and the Canadian creators that fill their shelves. With contests, giveaways and lots of bookish swag, CIBD is a wonderful opportunity to say thank you to your favourite booksellers and explore the many different literary businesses that exist across the country, both in person and online.
In Ottawa, CIBD has taken on a whole new identity with the creation of an entire weekend dedicated to our wonderful independent bookstores. Back in 2023, a group of local business owners, spearheaded by the gang at The Spaniel’s Tale, created a unique literary event that many local residents now look forward to each year. The Ottawa Independent Bookstore Crawl is a 3-day family-friendly event that gets people out and about, heading to parts of the city that they might not otherwise visit. With 8 book stores participating, it’s a weekend filled with book love, supporting those neighbourhood literary hubs that work hard year-round to bring us the hottest new titles, special book requests, author and illustrator events, school book fairs and so much more.
Ottawa crawlers have three days to collect stamps in their passports by visiting at least seven out of the eight participating businesses. Although no purchase is necessary for the passport stamp, it’s hard to walk out of those places empty-handed! Many booklovers also use the event as an excuse to visit other local establishments, like ice cream parlours, coffee shops, pubs and specialty bakeries. Once the passport is complete, participants are entered into a draw for the grand prize of $200 to spend, plus eight runner-up prizes of $25.
I spoke with Cole Davidson about the event. He is one of the crawl organizers, the co-owner of The Spaniel’s Tale bookstore (1131 Wellington Street West, Ottawa ON) and board member of the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association. He told me that in the first year of the crawl, there were six participating businesses and over 200 people submitted a completed passport, with many more participating but not finishing. Two years later, they’ve added two more booksellers to the roster and had 464 participants hand in their completed passports.
If you know of any bookstores who might be interested in starting a similar event in your area, here are Cole’s top tips:
- Do it! The community has responded so well to it, and by early March we already have customers asking us if it’s happening again. We’ve done it since our first Canadian Independent Bookstore Day but we’ve heard from other stores that it has really taken CIBD to the next level for them.
- We develop a clear plan and present it to the others by email. The only thing we ask from the invited stores is a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ Everyone is busy so reducing the number of emails we send and being clear with what we’re asking has been really important. We follow up with additional requests only when absolutely necessary, like when we need volunteers to appear on the local TV morning show to promote it. Everything we ask the other booksellers is a simple yes/no approval.
- A couple of weeks after the Crawl, we invite everyone to a debrief meeting and dinner. This gives everyone enough time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t, while still getting together to share ideas while it’s fresh in our minds. This is the opportunity for everyone to share feedback and shape next year’s crawl. By soliciting their feedback at this stage, it makes it that much easier to present a clear plan for the next year that everyone has already discussed and agreed to.
- We time the crawl with Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. Having such a highly visible day anchor the crawl really increases promotion and participation.
For my family, the Ottawa Indie Bookstore Crawl has become a cherished yearly tradition and I’m grateful for our dedicated community of booksellers who put so much time and effort into creating this wonderful experience.
Meet the Author
Danny Neville is a primary educator, children’s author and former teacher-librarian.
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