I'm lucky enough to still have one of these nearby, and I buy things in there that I don't really want, just in the hope of keeping it in business.

When I lived in Bloomington Indiana there was a lovely bookstore in the town square kind of like the one you describe. It had books piled up everywhere. New books, old books, blue books, bold books. Books of every sort.

The owner could talk intelligently on just about anything and seemed to know every book in existence and just where it was in his shop, even though there seemed to be no order to the store at all.

I speak in the past tense, but I'm quite sure it is still there, but I no longer am.

Your article took me back to my hometown of Wabash, Indiana where there still stands the lovely old bookstore that I haunted nearly every Saturday from open to close when I was a teenager. I always felt happiest nestled in a ragged, overstuffed chair that had been crammed into one of many corners of the old place, with a good read or when just browsing the many shelves of written pleasure. The best times were when the owner would allow me to go to the basement of the shop and look around. Even though I loathed creepy old basements, this one was a wonderland of books! I was always broke in those days because I spent my allowance on as many paperback novels as I could afford.
In later years, while working at a job I hated (which happened to be directly across the street from the bookshop) I mosied in during an afternoon break, looked the owner in the eye and said, "If you ever need any help in here, give me a call." I handed her a slip with my number and left. She called me in less than 20 minutes.
The next few years I spent blissfully knee deep (literally) in the books that I love. In those few years I learned a lot about books, authors, publishers, etc...I often said that I would have worked for free, or for book money.
Today, I have since moved to another state and my taste in reading has changed considerably, but my bookshelves still contain many volumes from the book store of my past. I treasure them like children. I am still searching for a book shop to haunt in my area, but I know that none will ever take the place of the book shop of my youth.

I've still never found that bookstore, but my first public library was that magical. And, it was still that magic place in the years I was Library Director there. I've moved on, and the library has grown, added computers, and is no longer that small, intimate place. But, then, I don't think I know my books or public the way I did then. I was a hands-on librarian who knew the books by location, and my patrons by name and interest. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer public libraries like that, just as there are fewer magic bookstores.