Baker & Taylor (B&T), the largest library wholesaler in the country, is shuttering. At a town hall on October 6, CEO Amandeep Kochar told staff that B&T would cease operations.

More than 500 employees were laid off on October 6, according to a letter sent to terminated staff, as part of a five-phase plan. The company expects to only keep 14 employees as part of a “post wind-down group” by next January. The initial round of layoffs came after an acquisition deal with ReaderLink fell through in late September.

According to remaining employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity, there are no more books being shipped out to libraries, and it is unclear whether customers will get refunds or what will happen to remaining stock.

While the company’s struggles have now reached a tipping point, many say the problems are not new. Like all book wholesalers, B&T was hit by the downtick in library purchasing during the early days of the pandemic. Then the company faced a major cyberattack in 2022, which had a months-long impact on the company’s operations.

When new leadership took over B&T in 2021, Kochar emphasized diversifying the company’s products and focusing on software, according to a former B&T senior employee. This included an analytics platform, cataloging software, and digital book software, among others.

The company's financial strain led to B&T owing publishing companies a significant sum of money, and some publishers stopped doing business with the wholesaler. This meant libraries that buy from B&T could not get certain titles or faced long delays.

Jennifer Domenech, the assistant director at the Pine Mountain Regional Library System in Georgia, said she noticed increased wait times starting over a year ago.

At first, she said, the company noted online that some items would have delayed delivery. Domenech started buying those books from competitor Ingram instead. Eventually, even books without that label were arriving late from Baker & Taylor.

“This fiscal year, which started in July, I said I’m going 100 percent Ingram,” Domenech said. “We couldn’t trust that we were going to be getting anything from Baker & Taylor and I didn’t want to deal with it.”

Carolyn Morris, vice president of Ingram Library Services, said her company has seen a steady increase in customers this year. Most large libraries already had an account with Ingram, as bigger systems often have multiple avenues to purchase books. Morris said not only have large libraries moved more purchases over to Ingram recently, but smaller libraries are reaching out to get set up, too.

“We’ve opened more than a thousand new accounts this year,” she said. “And a significant number of new requests have come in since the ReaderLink deal was announced (and fell through).”

Morris said that to understand B&T’s collapse, it is important to note that there is less money in the physical book industry these days.

“We think at least $100 million has left the print book environment,” she said. “That’s because libraries are spending more on ebooks and e-audiobooks.”

Both Baker & Taylor and ReaderLink declined to comment for this story.

Former B&T employees who spoke with LJ said their experience started going downhill this year—especially when the company conducted voluntary buyouts and layoffs over the summer.

Lelia Price, a senior copy cataloger who was laid off from B&T on October 6, said that employees have been left with no severance packages. Both current and former employees also no longer have health insurance.

“Working 23 years in such a specialized type of environment, I’m at a loss,” she said. “I have gone from being sad and crying to mad and back to sad.... It was such a slap in the face.”

As book wholesalers and libraries look to a future without Baker & Taylor, some worry about the ability of other companies to pick up the slack in the market.

Morris is optimistic that Ingram can accommodate the increased customer base—and it has been increasing staff in recent months to accommodate more accounts.

“We think we can have libraries up and running and full shelf ready in early Q1” of 2026, she said.

Morris is also looking to see if Amazon makes a more concerted move into the library market. In the last three months, Amazon Business announced that it is going to start selling to public and school libraries.

“It looked like they were offering basically the book only, or book only and a MARC record that’s not customized,” Morris said. “We know libraries are looking for more specialized services than that. That's been our experience.”

But Domenech still has questions about what this will mean for libraries in the long run.

“My big concern is when there’s less competition, it hurts the consumer,” she said. “I do worry, with Baker & Taylor possibly going away, that will eventually result in higher pricing for us.”