This shift in conceptions of leisure is the chief force harming bookstores. “Browsing in bookstores is a leisure time activity, in the same way going to a café is,” says Sandra A. Naddaff ’75, the Director of Studies in Literature. “There was something about the way you interacted with Harvard Square [when I was a student] that had you going to bookstores and roaming the shelves and perusing the books there.”

Davis had a similar undergraduate experience—he thought that student life engaged the whole surrounding community. “Now, leisure time for students is more centered around the computer.” Without interest in the literary jabbering hub of bookstores, students see no reason not to get their reading material from online sources. At the same time, bookstores lose their most precious asset: sympathetic, learned listeners.

SELLING EXPERTISE

Any bookstore lover has to admit at least that ordering online is more convenient than going to a bookstore. “I have to confess there are times it’s a lot easier for me to order the 12 books I need online. Because there they are, and they’re discounted,” Naddaff says. “It’s not even so much the money that you save, but the convenience. Being able to—at three in the morning—to get that book.” Independent bookstores like Harvard Book Store and Schoenhof’s Foreign Books have been able to react to this need for speed by setting up online stores of their own.

It’s clear, though, that independent bookstores can’t—or shouldn’t—just be playing catch-up with the Internet. When I ask Eleni Sacre, store manager of Schoenhof’s, why people should come to the store instead of shopping online, she asks back, “Why not do both?” She is confident that the store presents an enduring worthwhile experience.

I walk down the spiral staircase to Schoenhof’s basement location and Sacre begins showing another Harvard student the variety of French-language literature books they have. Sacre’s first language is French, and she tells me that the other staff members, who proudly call themselves booksellers, speak from three to eight languages. “You can come here to talk and build relationships with booksellers, who know about books,” Sacre says, “who know how to research them.”

This expertise of all the booksellers of Schoenhof’s makes an impact on their selection. “You may find a lot of our books online, but you may not find all of them,” Sacre says. “Because some we really special order ourselves from specific editors and publishers that the public here doesn’t necessarily have access to.” Because Schoenhof’s stocks books that can be purchased only from publishers, foreign language literature professors at Harvard often set aside course books at Schoenhof’s rather than the Harvard Coop. Countless stacks of books labeled by class litter the floors of the store.

Gain brags that Harvard Book Store actually has a larger selection of books than online because of their new “book-making robot,” Paige M. Gutenborg. “Say you need ‘Hamlet’ by Shakespeare for a class that day,” Gain muses. “You can’t order it online because it won’t get to you in time, but all the stores are out of stock. Well, [Harvard Book Store] can just print one for you on the spot.” Gutenborg also provides access to books that are now out of print, as Harvard Book Store has access to databases of old editions.

SOCIETY SOPHISTICATES

These broad and expertly chosen selections may one day find themselves on the Internet. Yet the spontaneity and tradition of bookstore communities is inimitable.

Schoenhof’s, for instance, hosts foreign language events. “We had a Cambodian event not too long ago. It’s very diverse. There’s an interaction with a much broader public,” Sacre says. She even hosts “French Cafés” in the store Monday evenings at 6:30 p.m. where people from the neighborhood can get together and converse in French while drinking wine, coffee, tea, and juice. “There’s an energy [about Schoenhof’s]—it’s really an unusual place,” she says.

Harvard Book Store has an author talk practically every weekday evening, and Grolier often hosts poetry readings despite their small space. Last Saturday evening Grolier was brightly lit as both Ifeany and Carol Menkiti were mingling with a small group of patrons there to see Peter Dale Scott, a Canadian poet. Grolier radiated a warm glow, despite its having been a chilly fall day. As for The Million Year Picnic, Art Spiegelman and Craig Thompson, both critically acclaimed graphic novelists, have frequented the store for signings—and also just to check out some comics.

ABOVE RETAIL

The bookstores in the Square are assembled with the utmost care, and each are satisfying an unfulfilled need—without losing their histories and personalities. “It’s unfair to compare an independent bookstore to something like Amazon,” Sacre says. “It’s like an orange and a grapefruit. They’re both fruit, sure, but they’re very different and serve different purposes.” Bookstores aren’t just retail spaces that happen to stock books; they are neighborhood establishments that aspire to extricate passersby from their daily routines and deposit them in the world of ideas.

—Staff writer Susie Y. Kim can be reached at yedenkim@fas.harvard.edu.