Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative
Rainbow is Madison’s only cooperatively owned and collectively managed bookstore. Founded by a dedicated group of volunteers in 1989, we are a community resource center for book lovers, activists, scholars, and engaged citizens alike. The cooperative is now owned by its consumer members, and staffed by several dozen volunteers and three paid staff.
Everybody can shop at Rainbow; however members receive a 10% discount on all purchases.
Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative offers more than books. In addition to a wide variety of magazines, zines, underground publications and craft items, we also serve as a meeting place and informational resource for Madison’s progressive community.
Each year we bring radical authors and speakers to town for public events, conferences and cultural events. We strive to support small presses and alternative publishers, especially worker-owned businesses. We also provide textbooks for courses taught by progressive faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Edgewood College and the Madison Area Technical College. Within the increasingly narrow context of the corporate bookselling industry, from the mega-chains to amazon.com, Rainbow offers a politically conscious alternative. Please come visit our store and see the difference a co-op makes.
As part of our mission to serve all in the community with access to great books and to actively advance ideals of social justice, we established the Wisconsin Books to Prisoners Project. Learn more about this project here.
See our Endorsements.
How does a Co-op bookstore work?
Rainbow Bookstore is powered by a wealth of community members who volunteer their time and talents to make the store run. Learn more about our fabulous volunteers or inquire about how you could plug in.
Rainbow Bookstore is governed by a Board of Directors, elected by the Rainbow Membership annually.
The heart of Rainbow Bookstore Co-op remains our members. Members support the bookstore by patronizing and using its services. We encourage all visitors to our Madison shop to join.
In this day and age of encroaching economic clout by the increasingly monopolistic corporate book chains and the online giants, we can only continue to do what we do through the support of like-minded friends and comrades, those who see the value and importance of an independent and progressive bookstore that provides alternative and radical messages to the broader activist world.
We're also a member of IndieBound.