In the first days of the year Canterbury Booksellers, 315 W. Gorham St., announced that it would give up its space for Avol's Books.
For both owners, the change is coming at an ideal time. Avol's currently occupies the Women's Building, 240 W. Gilman St., which is slated for demolition. Canterbury owner Trudy Barash said she is approaching retirement and wanted to move on.
Barash said she will retain ownership of the building and maintain the Canterbury Inn. Avol's will continue several Canterbury traditions as it moves in.
It is difficult to define what exactly Canterbury Booksellers is. It can be briefly described as independent, quaint and unique. The store keeps the shelves filled with the recent releases and has a hefty amount of classics, sometimes right next to each other. To see Jane Smiley's \Moo"" next to Upton Sinclair's ""The Jungle"" seems ordinary in the store.
Barash believes Canterbury's appeal was widespread, noting that its atmosphere set it apart as a store with a unique identity.
""One thing I think people really appreciate is the charm of an independent bookstore. Essentially it is quaint,"" Barash said.
Canterbury is one of the few bookstores where laughter is appropriate and even encouraged. With a skylight in the atrium and a staff that knows many customers' names, there is a friendliness that cannot be replicated. The appeal of a small town's main street somehow showed up in at the store.
As an independent store, Canterbury had its niche on State Street. It did not require
Madison's liberal atmosphere or feminist crowd to keep it afloat, like Rainbow Bookstore, 426 W. Gilman St., or A Room of One's Own, 307 W. Johnson St. Far enough from campus, it differentiated itself from University Book Store. At a time when most bookstores aspire to be the size of warehouses, Canterbury's great strength was in its coziness.
With only around 5,000 square feet, the store managed to pack in a variety of literature. There are nooks for local authors, crannies for books on cooking and a dozen other corners for poetry, spirituality and other genres. It may not have had the volume of books that other stores have, but Canterbury more than made up for it with the range of its selection.
When many authors bounced between Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities, Canterbury managed to make them stop in a relatively small city for an appearance. In the past few years, the store has welcomed successful authors like Alan Lightman, Gregory Maguire, Richard Russo and many others. It balanced out these notables with frequent appearances by local poets and authors.
While it is certainly a relief to see Avol's moving into the space, the loss of Canterbury is nonetheless unfortunate. Another unique store is bowing out of business and another small piece of downtown Madison will be written off as history. The echoes of authors and countless satisfied customers will fall silent. A distinct voice from an irreproducible place will no longer resound.
The new occupants will continue to special-order new and in-print books as Canterbury did. Avol's will keep up the 'Book-A-Night' program, which allows book receipts to go toward a night at Canterbury Inn, as well as the fall Run/Walk for Literacy to benefit the Greater Madison Literacy Council. Canterbury will turn over the December ""Readers in the Window"" program that assists the Boys and Girls Club and the Urban League.
Canterbury Booksellers will be open through Feb. 29 and then will hand its space off to Avol's on March 1.
Barash opened Canterbury as a bookstore and cafe in June of 1991. She said the store evolved into more of a restaurant and became rather elaborate in its offerings before starting to scale back the cafe's involvement.
""We realized we were booksellers, not restauranteurs,"" Barash said.
The store survived a rough period in the mid-'90s as Borders and Barnes & Noble bookstores opened up on Madison's west side and online sites like Amazon.com, took off. Since then, the store has been on the rebound and Barash credits the staff for Canterbury's recent success.
""We probably have the best staff we've ever had. It's interesting that they had to sit back and think, 'What do I do next?' It opens some interesting windows because some of them are going back to school,"" Barash said.
Barash said she will continue her involvement in the affairs of downtown Madison. She is part of the Greater State Street Business Association, Business Improvement District board and Downtown Madison Inc. board. She said she will also be devoting more time to her 90-year-old mother and five grandchildren.
Canterbury manager Soren Schoff said he, like all the employees at Canterbury, are sad to see it close. He said he respects the Barashes' decision and welcomes Avol's entrance into Canterbury's space. Schoff mentioned that Trudy and her husband Harvey have been very helpful throughout the conversion.
""We love our jobs and are sorry to lose them as well as to lose the bookstore, but the owners have been very generous helping people look for new jobs and the severance that they're giving. They're doing everything they can to make it easier for the employees,"" Schoff said.
Ron Czerwien, owner of Avol's, said the transition into Canterbury's space will come in four phases.
In phase one, Avol's will occupy the very rear of the store where the children's castle is and convert it to retail space. Phase two will also change the community room and staff offices into retail space.
By the third phase Avol's will move into the atrium, but keep it essentially unchanged. Czerwien will continue to use the area for readings and open mic performances, which have taken place in Avol's for the past year. The final phase will bring changes to the front of the store. These changes should be in place within a month-and-a-half.
""We hope to be open for business by March,"" Czerwien said. ""We will probably have some type of grand reopening later on, but I haven't chosen a date yet.""
He emphasized that Avol's will remain its own entity, but added that the store will retain Canterbury's special order services for customers.
""We're not going to be hosting any national tours, because we're not buying the business. We're not becoming a new bookstore; we're continuing to be a used and out-of-print bookstore,"" Czerwien said.
Meanwhile, only a few miles from State Street, Madison is home to Barnes & Noble, 7433 Mineral Point Rd., and Borders, 3750 University Ave. The chain stores have planted themselves firmly in Madison and have certainly registered their impact on downtown bookstores.
Two years ago, the State Street neighborhood had McDermott's, Canterbury, Avol's and More Books. As of March 1, there will only be Avol's. To deflect this change as one more transition of State Street is to ignore the larger trend. Independent bookstores are losing ground at an alarming rate. Czerwein commented that a few years ago there were more than 10,000 independent book sellers nationwide. Now that number is down to around 3,000. Madison, which has resisted so many other trends, is succumbing to the loss of the small store.
Czerwien, Schoff and Barash agree chain stores and Internet retail have put pressure on stores like Canterbury just to survive. The business is very different from when they started.
Czerwien sees the changes in bookstore ownership as a larger trend. He said the tension between chains and autonomous stores goes far beyond Madison.
""It's not just State Street, it's nationwide. There has been a dramatic, dramatic change in the landscape as far as the small, independent bookstores,"" Czerwien said.
Schoff said Canterbury has rolled with the changes and made things work despite the competition.
""Certainly the chain stores and Amazon.com haven't helped us. We had sort of adapted to their presence. Book people are book people. I know a number of people at Borders and they're great people,"" Schoff said.
As Barash prepares to move on, she realizes the convenience of the Internet is a draw for consumers.
""It's more than Borders and Barnes & Noble. It's online as well. It's so easy to shop online. It's always evolving. It's just the way of the world. It's just a fact,"" Barash said.
While Barash accepts the shift, the news of Canterbury's imminent closure had to make Madison's literature crowd feel a chill far more penetrating than what the weather could offer. Canterbury, one of the few places that could call itself an institution after only 13 years in business, was a rallying point for anyone interested in the latest fiction or who wanted to see bestselling authors give their readings.
CAs Canterbury counts down its final days, the staff, customers and the downtown Madison community will remember it as a precious place. Thankfully, this brilliant jewel of the State Street area will lose little of its luster in Avol's, but Madison will be deprived of the charm of one of the last remaining independent bookstores.
