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Awards winners triumph again

23.03.07 Tom Tivnan

There was a familiar ring to the awards held on the final day of the APSBG conference as all the previous year's winners retained their crowns.

Blackwell's flagship Broad Street, Oxford shop picked up the booksellers' year-round service to publishers award for the second year running, and the third time in four years. John Smith's University of Stirling shop was second, while Foyles, the 2005 winner, came in third. John Smith held onto top spot for the best chain award, pipping Blackwell for the second year in a row.

The two bookseller awards were a result of a survey of 194 bookshops rated by 24 publishers. The results were presented by Hodder m.d. Philip Walters, who announced that next year he would be handing over his duties to Hodder trade sales and marketing director Tim Mahar.

Oxford University Press, meanwhile, romped home with both the publisher and distributor of the year awards for the second and third years running respectively.

In the publisher category, rated by a cross-section of academic booksellers in key categories including rep support, terms, head office support and returns policy, OUP edged out runners up Elsevier and John Wiley. Category presenter David Prescott, Blackwell head of retail operations, quoted one respondent who said that OUP was "a joy to trade with".

In the distributor category, which was marked on criteria such as peak period service, packing and invoicing, OUP narrowly edged out Wiley. Presenter Colin Marshall, the Leicester University bookshop manager, said that OUP was noted by several respondents for its "very popular and very green reusable boxes".

tom tivnan APSBG

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