A sample of the inventory at independent bookseller Schoenhof’s in the Harvard Square shopping district. Independent bookstores in the Square are feeling the ill effects of the national recession.

Louisa Solano watches a pair of bewildered new customers scour the Grolier Poetry Book Shop’s selection of poetry books, which fill nearly every inch of the one-room store.

Solano, who has owned the store for 30 years, knows people who need help when she sees them.

As she stocks shelves with her small dog underfoot, she offers the pair help.

But they refuse, saying they’re just looking.

A few minutes later, she asks again, and this time they accept her help. As it turns out, the book of William Carlos Williams poetry they’re looking for is on the shelf right behind them.

Solano’s shop is the complete opposite of a big-box super-bookstore, with their prominent signs and emphasis on breadth.

Grolier Poetry Book Shop is one of a handful of independent bookstores in Harvard Square which Cambridge aficionados say are integral to the intellectual, eclectic character of the area.

But for the past two years or so, Grolier and other shops have faced a tough economy and competition on every front—both from big-box booksellers and from online retailers like Amazon.com.

“Books are a luxury still and everyone’s watching their pocketbooks,” Solano says. “People just aren’t spending very much.”

“At least if they are,” she adds, “they’re not doing it here.

The skyrocketing cost of real estate in Harvard Square has left Solano and other booksellers wondering how much longer they’ll be able to pay the rent.

But Solano is trying to fight back.

In her effort to preserve the 75-year-old store, she has equipped the business with technology of the modern age.

The store now has its own 1-800 number.

Solano also recently launched a website for the store, which boasts an information-age database of poetry books and an online ordering page—as well as a prominent list of the old Plympton Street fixture’s famous former regulars, including e.e. cummings and T.S. Eliot.