Are you sitting down?
The "bookstore Barcalounger" is missing.
At the Barnes & Noble at the Power Plant in the Inner Harbor, the comfy chair that once sat across from the picture books is gone. So is the one in the Mystery section. Instead, two people sit forlornly on the carpet, open books in hand.
Just a decade ago, the trend in the bookstore industry was to fit nooks and crannies with big chairs for browsing, which, it was hoped, would spur buying. The idea was to recast the bookstore as a community place or an extension of the home. Out with sterile bookstores where customers stood at attention to check out a book; in with warm, sinking chairs where book lovers could be by their lonesome.
But now the availability of so-called "soft" seating - overstuffed chairs and sofas - is on the decline at some bookstores, done in by various complications: homeless squatters, overly enthusiastic young lovers, food trash left behind.
"We were finding people staying for hours and hours and not necessarily buying books," says Juliana Wood, district marketing manager for the Borders chain. "We obviously hope browsing turns to purchasing, but that's a chance you take when you offer people a really comfortable setting."
In recent years, Borders has cut its soft seating by as much as 30 percent. Backless seating - magazine benches, step stools - no longer takes the back seat. Also, given the choice between book space and seating place, books win every time. As Wood says, "You can't sell a chair."
There was early skepticism about the trend to bookstores so comfortable that a visitor might simply relax but not buy, but other factors arose that some operators hadn't predicted.
"People were falling asleep in the chairs, then spilling their coffee. We want you to be comfortable, but we also want to be able to clean up after you have left," Wood says. At another store, she once broke up two teenagers exploring something other than a good book - "by the children's section, no less."
Furnishing a bookstore or library is like furnishing a hospital or airport. The key is highly resistant furniture (no vinyl - it tears). Faux leather is good and patterns, which can be visually interesting and, more important, forgiving of stains. Some seating takes too much of a beating.
At the Barnes & Noble downtown, store employees say homeless people would come into the bookstore and use the chairs. Sometimes, the chairs would be vandalized. Sanitation became an issue. There's plenty of cafe seating, but the cozy chairs were removed a while back.
Not every bookseller is in retreat on the issue of the comfy chair. Although it's always assessing store seating, the company is not phasing out soft seating, says Mitchell Klipper, chief operating officer of Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest bookseller.
Depending on space, the company's stores have four to 12 of what they call plush chairs. They replace more than 1,000 chairs each year. "We have more chairs now than ever," Klipper says.
As for browsing, Barnes & Noble banks on it. "It's a question junior analysts say. They say people sit and read and they don't buy," Klipper says. "Let them read all they want. We encourage them to stay a while. They will show up at the register eventually."
Forever in competition with the chains, independent bookstores have traditionally added chairs for a homey touch, and that trend apparently hasn't changed.
"This is anecdotal, but my guess is there is more seating now than ever at our stores," says Meg Smith, a spokesman for the American Booksellers Association, a national trade group for independent bookstores. "It's no secret seating makes shopping more comfortable."
Public libraries - another way station for readers - face similar seating issues. Libraries are designed to be inviting - but again, the challenge is not to get people too comfortable.
"It's a topic we wrestle with in every project," says David Michaels, an Arizona-based interior designer who most recently worked on Enoch Pratt's Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown. Unlike the sparse soft seating at the main library, the new city branch on Eastern Avenue is furnished with habitable chairs.
"A public library should be every man's country club," he says.
Kathy Harig owns the independent bookstore Mystery Loves Company in Fells Point and Oxford. Her stores are known for their cozy atmosphere - and customer seating, which does encourage people to stay longer, she says. Generally, though, it's better to make room for bookshelves than furniture.
"I did notice at Bibelot they spent an inordinate amount of money on sofas. People ended up reading and not purchasing," Harig says. "My husband actually read an entire book at Barnes & Noble. And no, he didn't buy the book."
Not every independent bookstore has gone completely soft. One faded, hard-boiled lounge chair sits in the Science Fiction section of Normal's, the books, records (and "Curiosities") store in Waverly. There's hardly room for another chair - much less another book. In the far back, the vinyl chair is under a wall air-conditioning unit and surrounded by such books as Tarzan of the Apes and Sometimes Madness is Wisdom. A customer could spend all day here, which would be a problem.
"People just come in and spend the day with you and don't buy anything. That's one reason we're minimal on seating," says Al Ackerman, who volunteers at Normal's. "We're not a library or lounge. We're a bookstore, and we're very serious about our bookstore."
A few years back, Normal's had a regular nicknamed "the Growler." He would come in every Sunday, head for the back, and park himself in the chair for hours. When store employees would ask him to leave, he would growl, says co-owner Rupert Wondolowski.
A co-worker finally hauled the chair out of the store only on weekends to discourage the Growler, but the man would return and simply crouch among the shelves. The store was never inspired to increase its soft seating.
"One chair," Wondolowski says, "is the right amount."
rob.hiaasen@baltsun.com