The economic crisis has hit every industry hard, but the publishing and bookselling industry - always struggling in the best of times - is really taking a beating. Recently Powell's Books, one of the world's largest independent book retailers, asked its employees to voluntarily take unpaid sabbaticals, or to scale back their hours. Powell's management is currently unwilling to discuss layoffs publicly, but most people assume that layoffs are on the horizon at the "City of Books." The thought of Powell's actually shutting its doors strikes fear into the heart of every reader - or should! Powell's, founded in 1971 by the Powell family, bills itself as "the world's greatest bookstore," and who can argue? Powell's pioneered the method of selling used books alongside new copies. Powell's continued that business model on the internet, where you can find both new and used copies (ranked by condition) listed on each book's page. If a used copy is not available, you can sign up to receive an email alert when a used copy arrives. They even purchase used books over the internet, although the process is necessarily time-consuming. Spurred by the news of the bookstore's economic woes, I visited Powell's last weekend. Since it is a five hour drive each way from my home, I don't go there very often these days. (Although when I lived only a few blocks away from the main store in Portland, I stopped in several times a week.) I now visit rarely enough that there's always some major change, although the store's basic structure remains the same. The store was packed with visitors browsing books, and wandering around getting lost (myself included). I spent a full half hour in the Rose Room looking for books on agriculture (I'm planning to get chickens next month) to no avail. Once I returned home, I discovered that I had picked up the "wrong" (i.e. cute but uninformative) bookstore map. "Agriculture" is listed as a topic on the better, more detailed map - aisle 647 in the Rose Room, and I have no idea how I managed to overlook it. Actually, that isn't true. I overlooked it because Powell's on a Saturday afternoon is utter and absolute chaos. When I lived in Portland, I would have paid good money to NOT visit Powell's on a Saturday afternoon, but us out of towners don't have the same options. On the up side, the main Burnside store is clearly doing a brisk business. There are several other Powell's locations which are perhaps not doing quite as well. It would not surprise me if one or more of those satellite locations has to be closed some time soon. I can only hope that, no matter how bad things get, we will still be able to buy used and new books from the Powell's website. The experience isn't quite the same. After all, the website doesn't smell like book dust and fresh shots of espresso from the café. But in some ways, it's better. For one thing, if you want a book about chickens... you just type "chickens" into the search field, click to View Results by Section: Agriculture and lo, 50 books about raising chickens! Shuffling sweatily through a crowded room full of chaos not required.