For as long as Ashley Platz (BCS ’23) can remember, she’s always had shelves and shelves of books. What she hasn’t always had? A love of research.

It wasn’t from a lack of trying. Platz was about halfway through a science degree at another university before realizing hard, quantitative data research wasn’t for her. But when she found herself in a research methods class as part of her Bachelor of Communications Studies program at MacEwan, Platz says she fell for the qualitative, social-science style of research. 

“I love observing from the sidelines and putting together what I've found,” she told MacEwan’s Office of Research Services Research Recast(ed) podcast.

That’s exactly what Platz did for an independent study she’s presenting at MacEwan’s 2024 Student Research Day. Feeding on her lifelong passion for reading, she set out to compare book culture in two independent bookstores, one in Edmonton and one in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

“Bookstores are places where people can gather and exchange ideas,” she says. “And independent bookstores, in particular, are intended to be spaces for community and activism.”

After gathering data on the esthetics, event and bookstore customer behaviour at the Glass Bookshop in Edmonton, and with help from an Undergraduate Student Research Initiative project grant, she headed overseas in April 2023 to the Lighthouse Bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland. There, she matched the unobtrusive observation she had done in Edmonton, gathering data for a comparative study examining how each store’s social narrative was represented. 

"Every independent bookstore has a different vibe," says Platz. Some are more mainstream, and others are more radical. Regardless of where they land on the sociopolitical spectrum, independent bookstores aim to be “third places,” explains Platz – a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenberg that refers to locations that facilitate social interaction outside of home and work. 

Not only is that role a part of independent bookstores’ community-building efforts, says Platz, but it also makes good business sense. 

“The more people linger in a bookstore, the higher the chance they will buy something.” She found that Lighthouse Bookshop in Scotland did a particularly good job of ensuring people spent as much time as possible in their store. 

Platz’s biggest takeaway from this research? “That all research is valuable. While doing my literature review, I had to search for sources on Canadian-based research on independent bookstores and couldn't find anything. That was good, in a way, because it means I've found something I can pursue further.”