NEW YORK (AP) — The longtime head of the American Booksellers Association is retiring. Oren Teicher, who presided over a resurgence of independent stores, is stepping down at the end of the year.

In a statement issued this week through the trade association, Teicher said the "time has come" for a successor. He has been with the ABA for nearly 30 years and was CEO for the past decade, when core membership rose from 1,401 in 2009 to 1,757 in 2018. Membership had once topped 5,000, but dropped drastically in the 1990s and 2000s with the rise of Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

Under Teicher, the ABA managed to halt the decline of previous decades even as Amazon and other online retailers drove out physical stores all over the country.