VOL. 22, NO. 15	FEBRUARY 21, 1997

By Virgil Renzulli

Labyrinth's Chris Doeblin, left, and Cliff Simms, right, with Provost Jonathan R. Cole in the new bookstore at W. 112th St and Amsterdam Ave. More Books will come. Many more books.

alters' Bookstore was both chaotic and wonderful. Provost Jonathan R. Cole, who was a frequent patron of Salter's during his undergraduate years at Columbia, remembers the family-owned scholarly bookstore as a riot of books, volumes stacked everywhere, seemingly without organization of any kind.

But Alberta and the late Richard Salter, who owned and operated bookstores in Morningside Heights from 1937 to 1972, knew where things were. More often than not, after a short search through the piles of books, they could fill a request for the most obscure publication.

"It was also a bookstore where you could come in and browse, and leave with a half dozen books you hadn't known existed," said Cole.

After the Salters retired and sold the store at Broadway and 115th, it eventually went out of business, leaving a void that has bothered Cole for decades.

Now, after more than five years of effort, Cole is seeing his dream fulfilled. With the encouragement of Cole, President George Rupp and a number of Columbia faculty, 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 W. 112th St. and Amsterdam Ave.

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.

When added to Posman's Bookstore at Barnard, W. 115th St. and Broadway, and the new Barnes and Noble store that will be housed in Lerner Hall, Morningside Heights may become something of a book mecca, not only serving the needs of the university and surrounding community but also attracting more visitors, including the faculty and students of other city universities, to the area.

"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," said Provost Cole. "We felt a responsibility to the university and the city to fill this niche. This association (with Doeblin and Simms) is a perfect combination."

President George Rupp pointed out that the new store is especially significant 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.

The 100,000 books stocked at Labyrinth, the official scholarly bookstore of Columbia, will include no mystery, sci-fi, how-to, travel, cooking, children's or self-help books. 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.

The university is 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.

For co-owner Clifford Simms, 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, and the store will 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. There are scholars who want to go back out but don't know how. Books have been the traditional means for them to go public."

The store 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.