ABOUT US

West Circle Books was founded by Bruce Burg, the current President of the company. Mr. Burg is a former teacher and school principal in Chicago. In 1979, he came to his senses, declined the next contract, and decided to become a yuppie middle-manager of some large, well-paying corporation; and sent out enough resumes to wallpaper his apartment.

After acquiring enough rejection letters to wallpaper his apartment, Mr. Burg decided to sell books to libraries. It proved to be a good fit. Mr. Burg is a low-key,  affable, but not very aggressive person, and librarians, he found, tolerated low-key, affable, but not very aggressive salespeople.

Mr. Burg had had no previous sales experience except for clerking at the Ace Hardware during college:

“Can I help you, sir?”
“Get outta my way, Kid!”
“But, may I help you find anything, sir?”
“Last week you couldn’t find a box of nails.”
“Bet I could find them now, sir.”
“Get outta my way, Kid.”
“Yes, sir.”

Though his new employer (a fine, family-owned Texas library book distributor) did not offer formal training, he persevered and used to good advantage his presence in dozens of libraries every week; he became a voracious reader and listener (not to mention outstanding library patron) of how-to-sell books and tapes.

And his customers helped him. In speaking engagements in later years to library students, Mr. Burg gives credit where it is due: “If I had sold steel or soap or anything else,” he says, “I would have failed. But librarians are kind, intuitive, and trained to help anyone who walks into the library. I realize that when I walked in, librarians realized that I needed help and they kindly came to my rescue and made me a successful bookseller!”

Over the next fourteen years Mr. Burg represented four excellent companies to libraries in the four states surrounding Lake Michigan. Early in 1994, armed with a decent tax refund, a promise of cooperation (read: credit) from book suppliers, and a firm belief that he was capable of making his own mistakes, Bruce Burg started his library book business in the capacious 9 x 11 back bedroom of his home. He further demonstrated his business acumen and creative genius by naming his new company after the street he lived on, W. Circle Drive.

The rest, as they say, is history. The company has moved four times to successively larger quarters, and as this website is launched, management is looking to quadruple its warehouse and office space. While Mr. Burg and his associates remain just folks (“Hey, if we work real hard for a few more years, we’ll be so successful that the big guys will have to consider us small potatoes!”), they remain serious and true to their charge: Buy and sell the best books available, trust our customers, and do whatever it takes to make them happy. We love and respect librarians.

West Circle Books