{"id":282436,"date":"2026-09-09T19:52:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282436\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T19:52:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:52:25","slug":"moravian-book-shop-begins-a-new-chapter-under-university-ownership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282436\/","title":{"rendered":"Moravian Book Shop begins a new chapter under university ownership"},"content":{"rendered":"

BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 For generations, people have walked into the Moravian Book Shop knowing it would be there.<\/p>\n

Now, the nearly 300-year-old bookstore is back under the direct control of Moravian University. For Mayor J. William Reynolds, it\u2019s where it always belonged.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis space here on our historic Main Street has always been that \u2013 a place for people to come,\u201d Reynolds said Wednesday morning during a ceremony marking the bookstore’s grand reopening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need anchors here on Main Street. We have them with Hotel Bethlehem, at Central Moravian and the Sun Inn, but also the Moravian Book Shop, a place that people have always walked into as a place that they know is going to be here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is truly an honor for us to see it come back into the good hands of Moravian to be running on a day-to-day basis, and as an extension of all the wonderful things that are happening within the university, within the city of Bethlehem, within our community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Return to local management<\/p>\n

The university resumed operations of the Moravian Book Shop independently in June, marking a new chapter for a business founded in 1745<\/a> and billed as America’s oldest bookstore and the world’s oldest continuously operating bookstore.<\/p>\n

The change also gives the university more flexibility to shape what happens inside the Main Street storefront.<\/p>\n

Under its previous Barnes & Noble College operation \u2013 from 2018 until the current transfer \u2013 the bookstore did not have the flexibility officials wanted to feature local artists, authors and craftspeople, Moravian University President Bryon Grigsby said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Moravian University President Bryon Grigsby speaks before a ceremonial ribbon cutting to mark the grand reopening of Moravian Book Shop on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (Stephanie Sigafoos\/Lehigh Valley Public Media)<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t feel like we fit into their corporate model, and their corporate model won’t move, and we need it to be more flexible and more open to the kind of craftspeople we want to be bringing in, the kind of artists we want people showing up for,\u201d Grigsby said following a ceremonial ribbon cutting.<\/p>\n

That means the bookstore’s next chapter will involve more than selling textbooks and books.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have so many amazing craftspeople around that can fill our shelves and be alongside our local poets, our local scholars,\u201d Grigsby said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have fantastic faculty at Moravian, fantastic faculty at Lehigh that have published lots of work on the Moravians and other aspects of our community. All those should be showcased.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have so many amazing craftspeople around that can fill our shelves and be alongside our local poets, our local scholars.” – Moravian University President Bryon Grigsby<\/p>\n

The university and the bookstore are now developing an events calendar that could include poetry readings, book signings, painting classes and more.<\/p>\n

Dr. Angelina Carbalhal of ANC Consulting, which is now providing strategic guidance and operational support for the bookstore, said the goal is to create programming based on what the community wants to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it’s really about community, and it’s really about making authentic connections with the patrons,\u201d Carbalhal said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘The recognition of the World Heritage Site’<\/p>\n

The bookstore also will become a place where the city’s new World Heritage identity is more visible.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Bethlehem became part of the Moravian Church Settlements UNESCO World Heritage Site<\/a>, joining settlements in Gracehill in Northern Ireland, Herrnhut in Germany and Christiansfeld in Denmark as a single designation.<\/p>\n

Grigsby said the bookstore should help visitors understand that connection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s central to it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to have merchandise and other aspects of the bookshop that represent the history of the Moravians, the recognition of the World Heritage Site.\u201d<\/p>\n

The designation spans four countries, making it a particularly unusual part of Bethlehem’s history, Grigsby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re such a unique site because we’re the only transnational, transatlantic site, so we’re one site in four countries,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that makes it a real challenge to work with our partners in those other countries, what kind of gifts do they have? What kind of gifts should we have that represent this united world heritage?\u201d<\/p>\n

The university plans to work with its partners in the other settlements to make that connection more apparent inside the bookstore.<\/p>\n

For Grigsby, that means making the bookstore a place that serves both the university community and people coming to Bethlehem from around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is no longer just our students and their textbooks, though it’s still very much that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s our alumni coming home. It’s our Bethlehem neighbors, and increasingly, it’s travelers arriving from Northern Ireland, Germany, and Denmark to see the other points of this shared World Heritage story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visitors will find work from local craftspeople, World Heritage merchandise and shelf space for local writers and poets, Grigsby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to honor 281 years of history is to keep adding new voices to it, not just preserve the old ones under glass,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 For generations, people have walked into the Moravian Book Shop knowing it would be there.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-282436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}