After roughly 10 years of owning Hearthside Books in Juneau, Brenda Weaver is turning over a new page in her life.
“I’m almost 65, so I’m looking forward to exploring more about life that I haven’t had the time to,” Weaver said.
Weaver recently sold Hearthside Books to Olga Lijó Seráns, who officially took over as owner on Sunday, Oct. 16. Originally from Spain, Seráns has been in Juneau since the early 2000s and said it was Hearthside Books where she spent most of her time and formed her earliest memories of Juneau.
“The first time I came it was for three weeks, it was a very unstructured trip, I was not doing anything special,” Seráns said. “I spent a lot of time just hanging around downtown and seeing the ebb and flow of how things were and I just found myself gravitating into Hearthside. I could go past 10 or 15 gift shops and not really enter, but if I went by Hearthside, I had to go in. I just gravitate into Hearthside Books all the time, I probably visited every day when I was here.”
Seráns worked for the Juneau Public Library for the better part of a decade as a library assistant while she was getting her master’s degree in library science. After she received her degree, she moved into her role with the legislative library, which she said she intends to keep for the time being.
“For the moment I’m planning on keeping my position,” Seráns said. “The ebbs and flows of when the Legislature is in session as opposed to when business is really busy kind of compliment each other, so I am hoping that I am still be able to do a good job at the legislative library, which is a specialized kind of research library, so not just everybody can jump in and learn what we do in a few days. We’ll see where we go from there.”
While it is still early into the transition of ownership, Seráns said one of the things she intends to do is to bring back her community involvement within foreign languages, which she said was halted because of COVID. Seráns, who is fluent in several languages, hopes to use the bookstore as a way of helping people connect through language while also continuing programs patrons already enjoy.
“I have been very active within the community since I arrived here was foreign language acquisition, mostly for adults, in the shape of conversation groups. Many people learned the grammar, learned to write, learned to read but they never felt confident enough to speak, so for years, for over a decade, I was part of a Spanish conversation group and an Italian conversation group and that all stopped with COVID.” Seráns said “I’m hoping to get at least the Spanish one restarted in the store after the Christmas season and I’m hoping to bring in more foreign language books that will be more attractive to the community.”
Weaver purchased Hearthside from its original owners, Susan Hickey and Deb Reifenstein in 2014. The store, which began in the Merchants Wharf and later expanded with its second store in the Mendenhall Valley, was a downtown fixture by the Front Street clock until it returned to its roots in the Wharf. Weaver said that while she’s excited for what the future holds and to be in a position to spend more time with friends and family, there are many things she’ll miss as being the owner of Hearthside.
[Downtown bookstore is on the move]
“I’m going to miss a whole lot about it, this has been a labor of love. It’s going to be strange not walking my dog and driving straight to work, I’m sure my car is going to drive this direction no matter what. I’ll probably still be the bookstore’s best customer,” Weaver said.
Though it’s somewhat emotional, Weaver said that she feels confident in Seráns ability to keep the store going down a positive path.
“The more I’ve gotten to know Olga, the more impressed I am with her, as a book lover and as a very well grounded person that is going to really help Hearthside grow and move into the future in ways that I probably couldn’t imagine,” Weaver said. “I think the thing I’m most proud of is being able to support local authors and having the honor of being a part of the legacy of Hearthside and now having the honor of passing it along to someone that’s going to continue to grow it.”
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
