History
In 1957, Helen Woodward bought a bookstore by the name of Drawver's Old Books which had been in Wichita since at least 1943. That was a family name and had to be changed. She needed a new name and and didn't want to call it Woodward's, it left her at the end of the telephone listings and was too long to suit her. If she used her first name, Helen, it might connotate a "womens" store, possibly only carrying romance and cookbooks. So she chose to use her husband's first name, Al. Al's Old Books put her store at the front of the bookstore listings in the phone book and allowed people to think of it as a general bookshop, full of history, fiction, religion, classics, cookbooks, comics, just everything.
In 2005, Anita Siemer bought the store to keep it open, as Helen had suffered a stroke. Anita bought the right to use the name, not wanting to lose a long history of booklover's finding great books at good prices. Anita and her staff have worked to improve the inventory at Al's, bringing in more books all the time and constantly working to organize and categorize the books. Come in and see our new location! We are still a great bookstore, adjusting to the new space and continuing to add books.
In 2005, Anita Siemer bought the store to keep it open, as Helen had suffered a stroke. Anita bought the right to use the name, not wanting to lose a long history of booklover's finding great books at good prices. Anita and her staff have worked to improve the inventory at Al's, bringing in more books all the time and constantly working to organize and categorize the books. Come in and see our new location! We are still a great bookstore, adjusting to the new space and continuing to add books.
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Al's Old Books was originally in a shop attached to the civic theater at 731 W Douglas in Delano. When the Civic was torn down to make way for a modern bank, it moved to 1710 W Douglas where it stayed for the next 40 years. It has been in the same general area for 57 years. We lost our lease in 2014 as our building was sold. We then moved to 360 E William in downtown Wichita. Our landlord passed away and we moved again. Our current location is now 1700 W. Douglas. (Please note, there are East and West ends to Douglas. If typing the address into a digital map, do not forget we are on west Douglas).
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Anita, Ben, Abby and Jae We are committed to helping you find great books for good prices. Old or new, we love to read and to help you find what you want to read. Need a suggestion? Just ask, mystery or history, science fiction or fact, fantasy or philosophy, classics or religion, some one of us should know or be able to find out the title and author of the book you want to find.
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