Marc Starr watches silently as 116 boxes of used books, piled on the brick sidewalk outside his 29 Plympton St. storefront, are loaded into a van to be sold to Daedalus Fine Books in Oregon.

Inside the Starr Book Shop, stairs lead down to the basement, which housed most of the stores books before Starr closed that section of his store in January.

And soon the entire store will suffer the same fate.

Starr says he is trying to sell much of his inventory before he closes the used bookstore in July.

Although a petition asking the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization which used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine, to renew the lease of its 43-year-tenant has garnered around 150 signatures in the past month, Starr says he has no choice but to leave the Bow Street castle.

The Lampoon will no longer rent out the location after July in order to expand the magazines production facilities, says Tyler E. Chapman ’90, a lawyer for the Lampoon.

The Starr Book Shop has rented out the space in the Plympton Street side of the Lampoon’s building since 1958. Before the family’s used book business moved into the castle, Starr says they had two businesses down Mt. Auburn Street and one in downtown Boston.

“We all feel very strongly and positively about him and the bookstore, but the Lampoon wants to use that space,” Chapman says.

According to Chapman, the Lampoon has allowed the Starr Book Shop to remain in the Bow Street castle free of rent for the past year and will allow the bookstore to stay without paying rent until July. In addition, he says, the Lampoon plans to give the bookshop $10,000 in moving and relocation expenses.

“We like him, we like his store, but we need to expand our production facilities,” Chapman says.

But the news that the Starr Bookshop will be forced to leave has fueled the resolve of Cambridge resident Carol Bankerd, who says she will campaign for the Starr to remain in its longtime Square spot.

When she learned about the Lampoon’s plans to reclaim the space, she drew up a petition asking the Lampoon to renew the lease past July 2002. She placed copies of the petition in Café Pamplona, upstairs at Cambridge Architectural Books and at the Bow Street Florist.

She says she hopes her efforts will influence the Lampoon to allow the Starr Book Shop to remain indefinitely.

The Starr occupies a unique place in the Square, Bankerd says, particularly now that rising rents have closed many of the Square’s used bookstores.

Watching beloved used bookstores like McIntyre & Moore leave the Square taught her the importance of campaigning to make sure longtime establishments remain in the Square, Bankerd says.