On March 27, 2025, The Chronicle received a letter from Anderson’s Bookshop events and marketing director Ginny Wehrli-Hemmeter in response to a recent article covering Barnes and Noble’s return to downtown Naperville. Ms. Wehrli-Hemmeter was particularly concerned with the last sentence of the article mentioning Anderson’s, The Chronicle’s failure to address the impact of Barnes & Noble’s return to Naperville and the paper’s reliance on NCC students and staff for interviews.
Addressing the first complaint
The letter points to the last sentence of the Feb. 10 Chronicle article. This sentence read: “In the meantime, patrons can visit the nearby Anderson’s Bookshop while Barnes & Noble prepares for its comeback.”
“Suggesting that patrons can shop at Anderson’s while waiting for Barnes & Noble to re-open seems incredibly disrespectful, and it drips with condescension,” Ms. Wehrli-Hemmeter wrote. “Independent does not equal second-rate.”
The Feb. 10 Chronicle article was the third in a series covering the development of Barnes & Noble’s exit from and return to downtown Naperville. In all those stories, Anderson’s was mentioned as another location for book shopping. The Chronicle article focused on student and NCC campus reactions to the return of Barnes & Noble to downtown Naperville.
Ms. Wehrli-Hemmeter also noted that The Chronicle article did not link to Anderson’s website. Until now, The Chronicle has refrained from linking to business sites to mitigate perceived bias. Moving forward, however, The Chronicle will include links to businesses mentioned in its reporting.
Addressing the second complaint
Ms. Wehrli-Hemmeter noted that the Chronicle article failed to address the larger controversy of the return of Barnes & Noble to downtown Naperville.
“If the student had considered reaching out to Anderson’s or even Naperville residents, they may have found that the consensus about Barnes & Nobles’s reopening is not as positive as the article makes it appear,” she wrote. “There’s a larger story here.”
Ms. Wehrli-Hemmeter’s letter referenced Barnes & Noble’s “predatory behavior toward independent bookstores” and linked to this article as an example. The article, published in Oct. 2023 by local NPR affiliate WUFT in Florida. It featured an independent bookstore owner concerned about the presence of two “big-box” bookstores in the Gainesville area, including Barnes & Noble. The independent bookstore owner touted her store’s emphasis on local topics, small presses and marginalized voices. Other sources—two college students in particular—noted that their limited budget and proximity to campus often made Barnes & Noble preferable.
Ms. Wehrli-Hemmeter pointed out that Anderson’s employs NCC graduates and is owned by one as well. We do not wish to diminish Anderson’s impact on the NCC community, nor the role it plays in the lives of our students and graduates. But stories in The Chronicle are meant to serve the NCC community. The Feb. 10 Chronicle article featured student reactions to Barnes & Noble leaving downtown. Students discussed Barnes & Noble, especially in the first article, as a great place to study and hang out with friends that was just a few steps away from campus.
Looking forward
The impact of big-box booksellers like Barnes & Noble on independent bookstores remains an important story. The Chronicle remains committed to getting reaction from NCC students, Naperville residents and yes—independent bookshops like Anderson’s—to see how the new Barnes & Noble affects their lives.
