Borders Open Digital Services

Borders, the nation’s second-largest bookstore chain, hopes to reverse years of sluggish sales by reinventing itself as a hub for knowledge, entertainment and digital downloading. Exhibit A is the new store that will open to the public here Thursday — the first of 14 that Borders plans to unveil this year. Borders’ plans underscore the anxiety in the bookstore industry, which has been hurt by the growing footprint of online-only sellers.

At the Borders concept store, new themed book islands are built around lifestyle genres, including travel, cooking and health. The digital centers, meantime, are geared to welcome people of all levels of tech know-how. Staffers will guide customers through the process of burning music to CDs, downloading songs to most digital music players (except iPods, which, for now, work only with Apple software) or books to a Sony digital reader. They’ll even print the cover art and fold it into a CD cover for you.

The strategy reflects Jones’ effort to capitalize on the very technology that has helped flatten his stores’ book and CD sales — and in doing so, perhaps overtake industry leader Barnes & Noble. Despite the economic slowdown, Jones says, traffic at Borders stores is up. Holiday sales for the nine weeks ended Jan. 5 rose 2.4% — which, in a tepid shopping season, was almost something to brag about. (Barnes & Nobles’ same-store sales were off 0.4% in the same period.)