This week, the incoming Obama administration gave a strong signal of its commitment to channeling federal economic recovery efforts to small businesses.

The American Booksellers Association, in conjunction with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, is asking bookstore members to take a few moments now to complete an Independent Business Holiday Sales Trends Survey.

Information compiled from responses to the survey's six simple questions will help ABA and the other participating organizations (all representing the interests of independent businesses) to better serve members' needs and plan future joint initiatives.

This piece about the implications of the retail downturn and the importance of independently-owned local businesses by Jeff Milchen (co-founder of AMIBA) originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.

By Jeff Milchen

This month, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) announced that it had found "fatal flaws" in the study Has Wal-Mart Buried Mom and Pop? by Dr. Russell Sobel, chair of Entrepreneurial Studies at West Virginia University, and Andrea Dean, a Kendrick Fellow in WVU's Economics Department. The study, published in the October issue of the academic journal Economic Inquiry, asserts that Wal-Mart has had no significant impact on the size, growth, or profitability of small businesses.

Women & Children First in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago has partnered with a local toy store, toys et cetera, for its own version of the cooperative holiday marketing campaign launched by the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Association at the beginning of December.

In a further indication of how far the "Shop Local" message has come, this week the International Council of Shopping Centers launched a print and television campaign "Give Your Community a Lift ... Shop Locally for Your Gifts!" The ads seek to drive home to consumers the importance of shopping locally this holiday season because it keeps sales tax revenue in the community.

Taking a cue from the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Association's (SFLOMA) holiday marketing promotion between book and hardware stores, Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, North Carolina, has partnered with a local bike shop, Liberty Bicycles, for a new cooperative marketing campaign. For a limited time, Malaprop's is offering its customers an added incentive to shop at Liberty Bicycles, and the bike shop is doing the same to drive business to Malaprop's.

If anyone doubts that now is the time to focus the spotlight on the importance of shopping locally and the unique contributions of independent businesses, they need look no further than the support the Shop Local movement recently garnered from local politicians in different parts of the country.

More than a year ago, when Borders announced plans to renovate an historic funeral home for a location in The Big Easy, Tom Lowenburg of Octavia Books and Garden District Book Shop's Britton Trice rallied fellow indie booksellers -- all members of the New Orleans Gulf-South Booksellers As