Spartacus Books

Since 1973, Spartacus Books is a non-profit, volunteer and collectively run bookstore and resource centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Located right on the edge of Vancouver's Eastside, Spartacus sells new and used books, zines, comics, magazines, CDs, videos, T-shirts, patches, pins, posters and cards. Spartacus books is one of the longest running collectively run bookstores in North America.

The building it was originally located in completely burned down on April 25, 2004. On February 12, 2006, the store was once again open for business at the new location 319 West Hastings Street, immediately adjacent to the old location.

History of the bookstore
Spartacus Books was originally started at SFU by Roger Perkins, who worked at the SFU bookstore. It was originally started as the Spartacus Socialist Education Society, however over the years it has become a meeting place for people of widely divergent political views. However, they all agreed that they needed to get books and other educational materials that either were extremely difficult or simply impossible to get through any other means.

The bookstore originally was in a space shared by a pool-hall run by the American Exiles Association, a group of American Military Deserters and War Resisters. Later, it moved to 311 West Hastings Street, the current location, where it operated for 30 years until the fire in 2004.

The fire
The fire started on April 25, 2004 at 6:00 AM in a back dumpster behind the store. There has been an investigation into the fire, however the cause of the fire wasn't certain. By the time the fire was put out, the entire building had gone up in flames and Spartacus Books had lost not only all of its inventory, but a lot of the old materials detailing the history of the store. Spartacus Books has a large collective, and the collective operates by writing in a store journal. The store journal is an analog version of a wiki. Each volunteer would write down important information that happened on their volunteer shift. Over the period of time the original store was open, the journals would be the main piece of history as to what happened at the store. Unfortunately, this was lost as well.

Fundraising, work and reopening
Fundraising for Spartacus Books came in the way of numerous donations, and the efforts of the collective over the years between April 2004 and November 2006. They managed to get enough money, used books and other donated items from the now-shut down Granville Book Company, which allowed the store to get space, and shelving. In November 2006, the new space opened its doors to the public for a book release. However, the book store was far from being open. For example, there was no heat or electricity. However, by February 2006, Spartacus was back, and had a strong volunteer list of over 60 people in the collective.

2013 renoviction
In late 2012, new landlords (Atira Property Management) bought the building that Spartacus Books is in. New landlords then (in early 2013?) terminated Spartacus' lease and told Spartacus to vacate the premises by July 31, 2013.

The current store
Spartacus Books is a bookstore that is run by a loosely-organized collective which operates on a very horizontal consensus decision making structure. Any member of the public can fill out an application to join the collective, and after an interview process to make sure that the prospective volunteer understands the basis principles of respect, and the general rules of the store, the volunteer gets trained, and after volunteering is considered a member of the collective.

The bookstore is often used for various events such as movie nights and book releases, which often bring in various different people into the store. Spartacus has been described over the years to be the nerve centre of alt-culture in Vancouver, where various organizations hold meetings. Groups that have used the space for meetings throughout the years include the Free School movement, Vancouver Indymedia, Co-Op Housing among others.