I have to write a university application piece which I have ill-advisedly left until the last minute (my interview is tomorrow). For some direct research, if anyone could answer the following questions I'd be most grateful:

1. What famous record shops do you know of (ie, in films and books - Empire Records, Championship Vinyl in High Fidelity, that kinda thing)?

2. Have there been cases of independent record shops closing down in your area, due to low sales, increase in competition from HMV, Virgin, Fopp etc?

3. Why do you go to independent record shops (if you do)?

If anyone has any interesting/related information to all this, it'd be great to hear it...

The assignment I have to do is:

"Write about your personal situation, but bear in mind we're not looking for your opinions, we want newsy, informative articles, based on fact." So, my personal situation is working in a failing indie record shop, so I'm going to factually expand on that topic...

Any help v.gratefully received. Thanks