Although the trends in book publishing have been toward chain stores, the trade market and best sellers, two independent book wholesalers, Christopher Doeblin and Clifford Simms of Great Jones Books Inc. in Yonkers, will open Labyrinth Books at Columbia University in early March at West 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

The store will likely be, according to the American Booksellers Association and an informal survey of other stores, the largest and most comprehensive scholarly bookstore in New York City. Indeed, with 6,500-square-feet of space and a 100,000-volume, $1.5-million inventory that includes 70,000 titles, the store will be larger than the famous Seminary Co-op bookstore, the University of Chicago fixture that was the model for Labyrinth.

Labyrinth is the official scholarly bookstore of Columbia and is the result of years of effort by Doeblin and Simms and by Columbia Provost Jonathan Cole.

"Cliff and I are a couple of guys who love books," said Doeblin. "This store has been a dream of ours. We have been saving our money and putting aside books for this place for years and have been negotiating with the real estate people at Columbia for years. We even enlisted the support of the Columbia faculty we knew. They were very supportive."

The store was also a dream of Provost Cole, who, as a Columbia undergraduate in the 1960s, was a frequent patron of a family-owned scholarly bookstore called Salter's. When Salter's closed in the 1970s, it created a void that is only now being filled. The university is assisting Doeblin and Simms by providing space at a favorable rent, and Columbia faculty, including Edward Said, Ann Douglas, Jon Elster and Ira Katznelson, are making recommendations about the books to be purchased.

The 100,000 books in Labyrinth will include no mystery, sci-fi, how-to, travel, cooking, children's or self-help titles. Instead, its divisions will parallel the academic structure of the modern university; more scholarly subjects will be covered and more titles will be available.

For example, rather than a single History section, there will be African History, Ancient History, three eras each of both American and European History, Art History, Labor History, Natural History and the History of Science. The entire ground floor will be devoted to new releases and 150 of the most important journals.

Said Cole, "It is a paradox that New York City, the publishing capital of the world, had an almost complete absence of a really good scholarly bookstore. We felt a responsibility to the university and the city to fill this niche. This association (with Doeblin and Simms) is a perfect combination."

Simms believes Labyrinth will help revitalize the book world of New York City, which, he said, had a greater variety of bookstores in the 1950s than it has now. He also expects the store to play an important role in the intellectual life of the community.

"I believe there are other places to learn beside the university," Simms said. "People complain about the absence of public intellectuals. Books have been the traditional means for them to go public."

Columbia President George Rupp pointed out that the new store is significant precisely because it runs counter to publishing industry trends. "In an era when publishers are pursuing blockbuster books almost exclusively, it is crucial for a university community to have access to specialized scholarly books that address fundamental issues, even if the sales of those books are limited," he said.

Labyrinth will sponsor a variety of public events, some of which will be held at the university, including forums, book signings, lectures, readings and "works in progress," discussions with authors still working on manuscripts who want to use the public forum to help structure their books.

The store is also expected to attract more visitors, including the faculty and students of other city universities, to Morningside Heights.