The Borders story has been a roller coaster the last few days that tells you as much about book journalism as much as it does the book business. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the company was close to a refinancing deal with GE Capital and other lenders, and the company’s stock shot up 30 percent. The Times, however, was wrong — as a MobyLives report indicated the next day. Rumors of GE’s involvement had been circulating before the Times report, and several book trade publications had already discussed the fact that GE was unlikely to give Borders a deal if the company couldn’t convince its publisher-creditors to turn their debt into a loan. And as those trades also noted, publishers were making clear that wasn’t going to happen. So the Times report shoulda known, and lots of investors were left feeling schnookered.

The stock market was closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King holiday, but that didn’t stop Borders stock from plunging in after-hours trading, then again yesterday, as a Wall Street Journal report revealed the reality the Times had mis-read — and also revealed that Borders had hired a law firm that specialized in bankruptcy.

A report late Monday that Borders had laid off another 45 staffers at company HQ didn’t help matters any, either.

Meanwhile, as the story continues to turn into a story of investors gambling on the culture, and the so-called paper of record can’t be bothered to report seriously on book culture, a story in The Gothamist reminds us what it’s really all about. The story describes and shows photos of signs being left by distraught readers on the windows of the just-closed Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble in Manhattan — yes, it’s a Barnes & Noble, but it’s hard not to imagine people in other communities served only by Borders reacting the same way right now.

Wall Street and shoddy reporting shouldn’t obscure the impact of Borders’ potential bankruptcy on our literary culture. It shouldn’t obscure, for example, that there are numerous people who feel the same way about bookstores as the several people who wrote the note picture above — which, by the way, was taped next to a sign from store employees saying, in part: “Yes, it was just a store. But for us, the people who filled this store, it has been our honor and pleasure to serve this community for the past fifteen years ….”