![Spartacus Books on Findlay St](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Spartacus_Books_on_Findlay_St..jpg)
Spartacus Books is a
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
,
volunteer
Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...
and
collective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...
ly run
bookstore
Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...
and
resource centre in
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, Canada. It was founded in 1973. Spartacus sells new and used books,
zines
A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very sma ...
, comics, magazines, CDs, videos, T-shirts, patches, pins, posters and cards. Spartacus Books is one of the longest-running collectively run bookstores in North America.
It is usually described as a radical bookstore, and among its sections are
anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
,
women studies
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...
,
LGBTQ
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
literature,
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
,
indigenous studies and indigenous literature,
activist organizing,
socialist theory,
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
,
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
, zines and
chapbooks
A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch.
In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklet ...
from local writers/artists, a section of non-specialized used books, plus DVD rentals.
The building where it had long been located (311 West Hastings Street) burned down on April 25, 2004. The store once again opened for business on February 12, 2006, at 319 West Hastings Street, immediately adjacent to the old location.
However, due to the increasing cost of real estate in Vancouver, the store was forced to move again to 684 East Hastings Street. In 2014 it moved out of the Downtown Eastside to 3378 Findlay Street and again in 2022 to 1983 Commercial Drive.
History
Spartacus Books was originally started at
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...
by Roger Perkins, who worked at the SFU bookstore. It was initially called the Spartacus Socialist Education Society, however over the years it has become a meeting place for people of divergent political views. However, they all agreed that they needed to get books and other educational materials that either were difficult to get through any other means.
The bookstore originally was in a space shared by a pool-hall run by the
American Exiles Association, a group of American
military deserter
Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or Military base, post without permission (a Pass (military), pass, Shore leave, liberty or Leave (U.S. military), leave) and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with u ...
s and
war resister
A war resister is a person who resists war. The term can mean several things: resisting participation in all war, or a specific war, either before or after enlisting in, being inducted into, or being conscripted into a military force.
History, e ...
s. Later, it moved to 311 West Hastings Street, where it operated for 30 years until the fire in 2004.
Fire
A fire started at Spartacus Books on April 25, 2004, at 6:00 AM in a back dumpster behind the store. There has been an investigation into the fire. However, the cause of the fire wasn't certain. By the time the fire was put out, the entire building had gone up in flames and Spartacus Books had lost all of its inventory as well as materials detailing the history of the store. Spartacus Books has a large collective, and the collective operates by writing in a store journal. The store journal is an analog version of a
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
. Each volunteer would write down important information that happened on their volunteer shift. Over the period of time the original store was open, the journals would be the main piece of history as to what happened at the store. This was lost as well.
Fundraising, work and reopening
Fundraising for Spartacus Books came in the way of numerous donations, and the efforts of the collective and supporters over the years between April 2004 and November 2005.
They received money, used books and other donated items from the now-shut down Granville Book Company, which allowed the store to get space and shelving. In November 2005, the new space opened its doors to the public for a book release. However, the book store was not yet open for business. For example, there was no heat or electricity. By February 2006, Spartacus was back with a volunteer list of over 60 people.
2013 renoviction
In late 2012, new landlords bought the building that Spartacus Books is in. Soon after, the new landlords terminated Spartacus' lease and told Spartacus to vacate the premises by July 31, 2013. This eviction notice was cancelled following media attention to Spartacus's 'renoviction'.
The landlord announced that he would not be renewing the lease, which ran through to the end of July 2014.
Commercial Drive locations
![Spartacus Books Hangout Zone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Spartacus_Books_Hangout_Zone.jpg)
At the end of June 2014, Spartacus Books moved to a new storefront at 3378 Findlay St.
This location across the street from the Croatian Cultural Centre, near
Trout Lake and at the south end of
Commercial Drive
Commercial Drive is a roadway in the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada that extends from Powell Street at its northern extremity, near the waterfront, south through the heart of the Grandview–Woodland neighbourhood to the Victori ...
was a less-central location in a mixed-use area. By October 2020, volunteers learned that the Findlay St building where the shop was located had been sold. The store was already in a precarious lease situation at the time and a search began to find a new location for the bookstore. In the fall of 2021, the space just north of 4th and Commercial became available for lease and plans were put into place for relocation.
In December 2021, Spartacus Books announced that the store was re-locating via a fundraiser to help with the costs of moving.
As of February 2022, Spartacus Books is now located at 101 - 1983 Commercial Drive.
Community Space
Spartacus Books is a bookstore that is run by a
collective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...
which operates on a horizontal
consensus decision making structure. Any member of the public can fill out an application to join the collective, and after an interview process to make sure that the prospective volunteer understands the basic principles and the general rules of the store, the volunteer gets trained. After volunteering for two months, they are considered a member of the collective.
Working with an
anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economi ...
, not-for-profit model, aside from book sales, the store relies on donations to cover expenses. Supporters of Spartacus Books can make a donation to be signed up for an annual Spartacus Books membership.
Spartacus is also a community
third space
The human body and even its individual body fluids may be conceptually divided into various fluid compartments, which, although not literally anatomic compartments, do represent a real division in terms of how portions of the body's water, solute ...
and often used for various events such as movie nights, fundraisers and book releases.
Spartacus has been described over the years as a hub of
alternative culture
Alternative culture is a type of culture that exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more subcultures. These subcultures may have little or nothing in common besides their relative ...
in Vancouver. Groups that have used the space for meetings throughout the years include the Spartacus Book Club, the
anarchistic free school
Self-managed social centers, also known as autonomous social centers, are self-organized community centers in which anti-authoritarians put on voluntary activities. These autonomous spaces, often in multi-purpose venues affiliated with anarchi ...
movement, Vancouver
Indymedia
The Independent Media Center, better known as Indymedia, is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital and 1999 Seatt ...
,
cooperative housing, the Vancouver
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
group,
Under the Volcano Festival
Under the Volcano Festival of Art & Social Change was an activist, grassroots cultural gathering held at Whey-Ah-Wichen/Cates Park on the traditional lands of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in North Vancouver, Canada. The festival was held each August ...
,
G8 and
G20
The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigatio ...
protests and the local chapter of
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines genera ...
.
Spartacus Books offers multiple free resources for public use, include a book and zine lending library, a
seed library
A seed library is an institution that lends or shares seed. It is distinguished from a seedbank in that the main purpose is not to store or hold germplasm or seeds against possible destruction, but to disseminate them to the public which preserves ...
, free tea & coffee,
Naloxone
Naloxone, sold under the brand names Narcan (4 mg) and Kloxxado (8 mg) among others, is a medication used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids. It is commonly used to counter decreased breathing in opioid overdose. Effects begin within ...
training, an area for kids, and a
free store section organized by the Vancouver Free Market. There are computers connected to the internet, running
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
and a WiFi hotspot which can be used for free.
References
External links
*
{{Infoshops
Shops in Vancouver
Non-profit organizations based in Vancouver
Independent bookstores of Canada
Anarchist_bookstores
Social centres
Infoshops
LGBT bookstores