'The business was founded by Frederick Henry (Harry) Slamen in 1922 and operated as a newsagency at 622 Collins Street (hence the name) in Melbourne. It was registered in 1929 as a Proprietary Limited Company under the name Collins Book Depot when it opened two new branches at 95 Elizabeth Street and 361 Swanston Street in Melbourne. Mr Slamen remained the principal of the company until his untimely death in 1961.
Today, the company is still wholly owned by the Slamen family. Following Harry Slamen's death, Michael G. Zifcak, who joined the company in 1950, was appointed General Manager and in 1963 became Managing Director of the company. He retired in October 2001. During the 1960s the expansion of the company followed the then emerging pattern in the United States, where bookshops began moving from strip shopping centres to regional shopping centres. The first Collins Booksellers shopping centre branch was opened in 1966 at the Northland Shopping Centre in the Melbourne suburb of East Preston, followed soon by the Westfield Doncaster Shoppingtown branch. Today, most of the company's metropolitan branches are located in leading shopping centres throughout Australia. In April 1998 Collins Booksellers' first superstore opened in Sydney in the former Grace Bros building on Broadway offering 18,000 sq ft and some 40,000 titles plus a coffee bar, relaxed reading areas, local and overseas newspapers and magazines.
Collins Booksellers is an Australian owned private company comprising 57 company owned and franchised outlets. In terms of company owned branches, Collins Booksellers is the largest Australian owned bookselling chain in the country.' http://www.collinsbooks.com.au/aboutus.asp (Sighted 2/04/05).
