Alum To Manage Harvard Book Store

A Harvard alumnus and his wife officially became the new owners of Harvard Book Store yesterday, purchasing the Harvard Square icon from Frank Kramer, who took over the independent book shop from his father 46 years ago.

The book store, nationally known for its academic selection, had been in the family since it was founded by Frank Kramer’s father on what is now John F. Kennedy Street in 1932. When he announced that he was planning to sell the store earlier this year, Kramer said that it was important that he sell the store to people who would maintain its unique character—something he said that he found in the new owners, Jeffrey Mayersohn ’73 and Linda Seamonson of Wellesley, Mass.

“Both new owners are avid readers, they love books, they plan their vacations around books,” Kramer said.

Mayersohn said in a phone interview yesterday that he has been a customer at the book store since 1969, when he began his freshman year at the College.

He also said that his longtime patronage led him to appreciate the book store as a unique literary center in the community. “It’s just a wonderful place to visit if you love books.”

During his time at Harvard, Mayersohn lived in Leverett House and concentrated in physics. He was active in politically progressive student organizations, including Students for a Democratic Society and the Spartacus Youth League, a left-wing, Trotskyist organization. Mayersohn added, “I also spent a lot of time at the Harvard Book Store.”

After receiving a graduate degree from Yale, Mayersohn went to work for BBN, a Cambridge-based technology company. In 1998, he moved to Sonus Networks, an Internet technology firm.

Now in “semi-retirement” from the technology business, Mayersohn said that he plans to make the book store a priority. He prepared to become the president of the store by traveling to major independent book stores across the country and studying their operations. He joined a booksellers’ trade association and even attended a school for booksellers. This helped in negotiations, during which Mayersohn and Kramer “shared a common vocabulary.”

Mayersohn said he believes that the book store fulfills a particular need in the community that a larger chain store could not. The Harvard Book Store holds community events with prominent authors that regularly attract over 300 people.

While acknowledging that the Internet and chain stores are stiff competition, Mayersohn said that the book store provides an “enormous amount of customer service” and that while independent stores have suffered from competition in recent years, “the pendulum is swinging back.”

He added that all the people involved with the book store are thinking about how to strengthen its ties to the broader Harvard community, admitting that there is always “room for additional creativity.”