Almost exactly a decade after it was founded, The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore, Md., is starting a new chapter. The changeover becomes official on the last day of December when Ann Berlin, v-p of production and manufacturing in the higher education group at John Wiley, and her husband, Ed Berlin, an attorney who has held senior management positions at Citibank, Deutsche Bank, and Thomson Reuters, close on the largest city in Maryland’s only general independent bookstore. Darielle Linehan founded the store in November 2001 in the wake of the closing of Bibelot, a local independent chain.
“Our plan,” says Ed, who spent the past two weeks training at the store, “is to take Darielle’s blueprint and embellish it. We think of it as a great place, almost like someone’s living room. We want to warm it up a little bit and make it a little bit more comfortable for people to sit down. We can make it more of a destination for authors coming through the Washington area and embrace the notion of local.”
As someone who oversaw Web platforms for Deutsche Bank and Citi and, in his words, “made my fortune on the Internet,” Ed plans to begin by revamping the store’s Internet component. Currently it has a presence on Facebook. He will also expand the store’s book clubs and its event schedule. He’s already placed orders for moveable fixtures on casters so that the store can comfortably seat 60 to 75 people for events.
However, Ed plans to maintain the inventory pretty much as is. “The Ivy Bookstore will be a literary bookstore. If we can’t run it as a literary bookstore, then we’ll close it,” he says. Not that he’s worried about that possibility. He’s convinced that physical books matter and will continue to do so for many years, which is why he bought the store.
Beginning January 1, Ed will take charge of the store’s day-to-day operations and commute to Baltimore three weeks a month. His task should be made easier because he is keeping the entire store staff. Ann, however, will stay on at Wiley until the beginning of the summer and will oversee store orders remotely until July, when she moves to Baltimore. That will be just in time for Ed’s other new gig, teaching political science at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County. He recently received a masters degree in International Relations at New York University.
