I make no secret of the fact that I work for an independent bookstore, so I won’t go on another diatribe about how everyone should support their local stores again. But here are 2 articles about local store owners who also have persuasive arguments. The first is an interview with Tom Holbrook, owner of RiverRun Bookstore in downtown Portsmouth. He’s independent and proud of it. Plus it’s cool that he keeps a dictionary in his car in case of emergencies. The second article is about the founding of the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance. When stores work together, great things can happen. Neal Sofman of A Clean Well-Lighted Place read a report that said local stores recirculate more of their sales dollars within the local economy than chain stores. So he showed this study to other mechants and the Alliance was born.