Burkin says she takes pride in the store's inventory, which includes many books imported from Britain and titles carried on consignment from self-published authors.

"We're looking for things that are a little more quirky," she says. "There aren't necessarily 1,000 copies of the new John Grisham book in the store, but there are hundreds of books you can't find anywhere else."

Customer service is also a source of pride--and profit--for WordsWorth, Burkin says. She says the store always has at least five people specifically responsible for looking up titles at customers' request.

As for the discounts offered by on-line booksellers, Burkin says that for years before Amazon.com was offering across-the-board savings, WordsWorth already discounted every title every day.

Still, the store has had to adapt in the face of on-line giants.

WordsWorth's new policy of offering a 40 percent discount on new hardcover titles was a response to discounts offered by Amazon.com, Burkin says.

But the store's biggest draw, according to Burkin, remains "its indescribable nature"--specifically, its multi-level layout and the short outdoor jaunt required to travel between sections of the store.

"There is nothing chain-like about WordsWorth," Burkin says. "It's a great place to browse."

And apparently it's not just books that customers are browsing for. Boston Magazine rated WordsWorth the top pick-up bookstore in Cambridge, Burkin says.

Earning Its Letters?

But at least one on-line bookseller contends that, like small bookstores, it fills a niche and cares for its customers.

In December 1997, Varsitybooks.com president Tim Levy and fellow Georgetown law student Eric Kuhn thought of the idea for a company that could offer students all the books on their syllabi at the click of a mouse.

"Students can shop for textbooks any hour of the day or night," Levy says. "You can come home from a final club at three in the morning and order books."

The site, launched in August 1998 with syllabi from five Washington, D.C.-area schools, now offers books from a pull-down menu of 75 colleges nation-wide, and is still expanding.

Varsitybooks hung flyers on Harvard students' doorknobs this fall, despite the fact that Harvard is not among the 75 schools. The flyers advertised radical cut-backs from list prices for several popular textbooks.