It's reportedly closing because the $360K-$1M lease is looking a tad expensive when they consider declining sales. They're hoping that Sarkozy and the French government will step in and save them from doom.

I was reading excerpts from the blog to Jenni and she remarked, "How come we never heard of this place when we lived in NYC? Do they have a story time?"

Indeed, how come? We have kids, we love Barbapapa, Babar, and The Little Prince. We love France and I get off on things like chestnuts, European literature, and world news. We lived three blocks away from this place, yet we had never heard of it until I read this blog post.

Assouline points to the growing popularity of online book sales as a reason for the decline in sales at Librairie de France. He's right, of course, but that's not the whole answer.

Just as digital books are never going to bump print books out of the market, online book sellers are never going to completely destroy brick and mortar book stores. However.

If you're going to have a real "live" book store, you're going to have to offer something more than books to buy. I don't mean impulse-buy Eloise journals at the register. I mean you're going to have to get down and dirty and create an environment that people will come to regardless of the books on the shelves.

Jenni mentioned story time for kids. Is there a book store anywhere that doesn't do this anymore? It's a total hook for a market segment that includes parents and grandparents who fall in love with the books as much as the kids do. Duh.

How about story time for adults? How about a group world news-read and discussion?

Book stores are also going to have to offer information about the books from a real live person with some personality. The addition of computer kiosks that customers can use to look up book inventory seems like a way to keep up with the times, but in reality they're just making themselves even more irrelevant. Why drive to a store (or walk up Fifth Ave) just to type search words into a computer?

The best brick and mortar stores get this. Apparently Librairie de France doesn't. As much as I would have loved to have known about this place a few years ago (when it mattered to me), I wouldn't have kept going back unless there was something to keep me involved.

In Paris two years ago, our family shopped in a small, privately-owned toy store. The toys were not really spectacular. Most of it was stuff we could have found online or at any toy shop in the States.

What made this shop memorable for us was the man who engaged us in conversation for over an hour while we shopped. Sure, he was making sales, but it sure felt better than an online list of titles or a kiosk. Also, he hadn't planned on opening that day, a holiday, but saw us peeking in from outside. A large retailer can't compete with that kind of flexibility.

The last time I was in a Barnes & Noble, I approached the customer service desk to ask about a title. The guy behind the desk, whose only function in life at that moment was to help customers like me find stuff, looked at me with disdain. He wondered if I had looked it up on one of the kiosks yet. No, you big dummy, I could have, but I came to the human first. Is that really an odd choice?

What I've taken away from all of this unplanned research (and I hope you do, too) is that while it's important to keep up with the latest trends and technologies, you need to make an impression by simply being human.

So I'm sorry, Librairie de France, but Sarkozy is right. Ce la vie.