Picture: (above) Charlotte and Bettina Krüpe from Bücherstube am Rathaus in Stolberg, (below) A car blocking the water flow into the bookshop
Bookshop in Stolberg
‘The water stopped flowing at 5 p.m. and continued to rise into the next morning.’ Charlotte and Bettina Krüpe, mother and daughter, were affected by the devastating flood in 2021 in Stolberg. Their bookshop was spared the worst, thanks in part to a wedged car that kept the water out. In the days that followed, the clean-up was carried out in bright sunshine. Thanks to the help of many volunteers who, among other things, sorted and cleaned pens and ink cartridges in front of the shop.
Their shop was the only one open in Stolberg for the rest of the year: ‘An island of happiness’ for Charlotte and Bettina. Extreme weather events like these are becoming more and more likely due to climate change. Charlotte and Bettina Krüpe show a great deal of resilience and creativity in the challenges they face. During the coronavirus pandemic, they set up a book delivery service to enable easy access to books for everybody. They also introduced a deposit system with cloth bags to avoid plastic waste, and now they want to develop strategies in our CO2 reporting course to make their bookshop more climate-friendly.
Emons Publisher
Mike Jauß is also part of the CO2 reporting course and a producer at Emons Verlag. He hopes that the issues surrounding the path of change in the book industry will attract even more attention and sees this debate as unavoidable. He would like to use his participation in the course as an opportunity for Emons Verlag to be able to answer more precisely whether ‘we are on the right path?’ Forest fires and floods have a direct impact on the availability of raw materials for book printing, which has become more uncertain in recent years. Surprisingly, Jauß found in his review that the material for book finishing is far more resource-intensive than paper. This realisation has triggered important discussions and rethinking processes at Emons Verlag.
The project was made possible thanks to funding provided by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to the NRW regional office of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association.
Picture: Emons Team
