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As stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble continue to dominate an increasingly competitive booksellers market, independent bookstores are finding it harder than ever just to survive. Yet these locally owned businesses contribute far more to the local economy than retail chains, according to several studies by the American Bookseller Association.

Traditional "Main Street" businesses have been replaced by "big-box" national retailers, and bookstores are no exception. Even mega-stores like Wal-Mart and Target are taking sales from independent bookstores and there is ongoing pressure from online giant Amazon.com.

In some areas of the country, independents not only survive, but thrive. In San Francisco, for example, independents account for 55% of book sales, compared to 10% nationwide, according to the San Francisco Retail Diversity Study. Yet many other major metropolitan areas like Dallas-Ft. Worth have almost no independent booksellers at all.

Major retailers present some obvious advantages to consumers. Barnes and Noble stores, for example, offer everything from books to music to movies, and sell coffee as well. Their children's section is larger than many independents' entire store. And they offer deep discounts that smaller business often cannot match. Both Barnes and Noble and rival Borders offer a comfortable environment, with large overstuffed chairs where customers can browse through books before making a purchase.

But there are costs to such convenience that are not so obvious. National chains take far more out of a community economically than they ever put back in. According to a study conducted by the firm Civic Economics in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago, trading independent retailers for big-box chains weakens the local economy. This occurs because while local stores recycle a much larger share of their sales revenue back into the local economy, chains siphon most of the dollars spent at their stores out of the community, sending them back to corporate headquarters or to distant suppliers.

The study applies to all local businesses, not only bookstores, but bookstores are a part of the local economy, and therefore the findings are worth considering. The study found that spending $100 at one of the neighborhood's independent businesses created $68 in additional local economic activity, while spending $100 at a chain produced only $43 worth of local impact. The difference was due to four factors:

Local Payroll: The locally owned businesses spent

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