Thomas Jones writes:

>After your experience at Borders, Don, I pledge to never shop there, ever.
>We collectors have got to stick together.  ...

Some of us still like to shop in stores and not do our shopping online.
Here is what I have observed.  In the area where I live, there are many
Borders and a few Towers.  There is one crucial difference between the two,
Tower actually does have a classical buyer at their stores.  At Borders,
this does not seem to be the case.  There is one Borders near where I work
that rivals the Towers in the area.  I suspect that they must have a few
staff members who can keep on top of things and not file a Bernstein
performance of Beethoven under Bernstein for instance.  In general, I find
that Tower seems to often do a better job of having items and keeping their
stock organized but Borders is usually one dollar cheaper.  Despite my
mixed feelings about Tower's prices, I still like shopping there because
they at least have (usually) a well informed buyer in their CM sections and
seem to be somewhat more committed to CM than Borders who have a CM
sections but don't seem to really maintain them.

Steve M. (Northern Virginia)