[Summary]
Founded in 1971 by Catherine Domain in Paris, France, Librairie Ulysse
(Ulysses Bookstore) is the oldest bookstore dedicated only to travel,
with 20,000 books, maps and magazines, out of print and new, about any
country, all packed up in a tiny space, with some treasures impossible
to find anywhere else. Catherine, an avid traveler herself, started a
website in early 1999, as a virtual travel in the field of computing,
despite knowing very little about computers. She wrote in late 1999:
"My website is still pretty basic and under construction. Like my
bookstore, it is a place to meet people before being a place of
business. The internet is a pain in the neck, takes a lot of my time
and I earn hardly any money, but that doesn't worry me... I am very
pessimistic though, because it is killing off specialist bookstores."
Ten years later, in April 2010, Catherine was much less pessimistic,
because the internet had allowed her to become a publisher of travel
books.
***
Founded in 1971 by Catherine Domain in Paris, France, Librairie Ulysse
(Ulysses Bookstore) is the oldest bookstore in the world dedicated only
to travel. The bookstore launched its website in 1999 and a small
publishing venture in 2010.
Nested on Ile Saint-Louis surrounded by the river Seine, Librairie
Ulysse has offered 20,000 books, maps and magazines, out of print and
new, about any country, all packed up in a tiny space, with some
treasures impossible to find anywhere else.
# Beginning
What were the first steps of Librairie Ulysse? Catherine wrote on the
bookstore’s website: “After traveling for ten years on every continent,
I stopped and told myself: ‘What am I going to do for a living?’ I was
aware of the need to insert myself in a sociey in one way or another. I
made a choice by deduction, refusing to have any boss or employee.
Remembering my grandfathers, one being a navigator, and the other one
being a bookseller in Perigord [a region in Southern France], and
noting that I needed to visit more than a dozen bookstores before
finding any documentation on a country as close as Greece, a ‘travel
bookstore’ came to my mind during a world tour while I was sailing
between Colombo and Surabaya.
Back in Paris -- I already lived in Île Saint-Louis -- I looked for a
place, gathered information about the job of bookseller, did some
internships in other bookstores, wrote index cards, and thought about a
name for this new business.
One morning, while going out to buy my daily newspaper, I looked up and
saw the sign of the bookstore ‘Ulysse’ [Ulysses in French], a reference
to Joyce, at number 35 of street Saint-Louis-en-l'Île. ‘Here is a
name!’, I told myself. I climbed two stairs to get into this very small
16m2 store with a single beam. Four guys played poker. ‘What a cute
bookstore!’, I said. ‘It is for sale’, one of the players answered
without looking up. 48 hours later, I was a bookseller. This was in
September 1971. The first bookstore in the world specializing in travel
was born.
Twenty years later, I was hit by real estate development, like a number
of people, and I had to move out. Luckily, my stubborn side -- I am a
Taurus ascendant Taurus -- gave me the strength to move my bookstore a
few meters away into a larger place, on number 26 of street Saint-
Louis-en-l'Île, in a quite uncommon building. First, this was the first
building in which I lived in Île Saint-Louis. Second, this building
formerly hosted a bank branch that was famously burglarized by
Spaggiari.”
# In 1999
Even after she became a bookseller, Catherine went on traveling every
summer, usually sailing on the Mediterranean, the Atlantic or the
Pacific, while her boyfriend was running the bookstore.
She has been a member of the French National Union of Antiquarian and
Modern Bookstores (SLAM: Syndicat National de la Librairie Ancienne et
Moderne), the Explorers' Club (Club des Explorateurs) and the
International Club of Long-Distance Travelers (Club International des
Grands Voyageurs).
Catherine started the bookstore’s website in early 1999, as a virtual
travel in the field of computing, despite knowing very little about
computers.
She wrote in late 1999: "My site is still pretty basic and under
construction. Like my bookstore, it is a place to meet people before
being a place of business. The internet is a pain in the neck, takes a
lot of my time and I earn hardly any money, but that doesn't worry
me... I am very pessimistic though, because it is killing off
specialist bookstores."
Local bookstores were closing one after the other in Paris, having a
hard time keeping up with the competition of Amazon.fr, Fnac.com and
the likes.
# In 2005
Catherine nevertheless created a second travel bookstore in 2005, this
time facing the ocean, in Hendaye, a city on the Southern coast of the
Atlantic. Open from 20 June to 20 September, the bookstore can be found
along the beach in a Moorish building, a historical monument that
formerly hosted the casino. At high tide, the bookstore is like “a
steamer of books that is going to set sail, and sometimes does”,
because it is flooded by the sea.
# In 2010
Ten years after starting her website, Catherine was much less
pessimistic about the internet. This “new” medium had allowed her to
become a publisher of travel books.
She wrote in April 2010: "The internet has taken more and more space in
my life! On 1st April 2010, I became a publisher after some painful
training in Photoshop, InDesign, and other software.
This is also a great joy to see that the political will to keep people
in front of their computers for them not to start a revolution can be
defeated by giant and spontaneous happy hours [organized in Europe
through Facebook] with thousands of people who want to see, and speak
with, each other in person.
In the end, there will always be unexpected developments to new
inventions, among other things. When I started using the internet, I
really didn't expect to become a publisher."