Located on the second floor of our bookstore, The Great Hall offers a unique and relaxing atmosphere in which to shop. It is truly a book browser's dream come true!

An Architectural Treasure!

The architectural beauty of this room is quite astounding. The Hall includes quality wooden shelving and a series of four-meter-high, south-facing windows creates an abundance of natural light. The room's stone walls contain majestic and decorated columns and arches. And - the highlight of the room - the breathtaking basilican-style ceiling is elaborately engraved and painted in warm, autumnal colours - burnt orange, green, gold and cream.

A Brief History of the Koffler Centre

The building itself was originally the Central Toronto Reference and Lending Library. It was designed in the Beaux Arts Style by A.H. Chapman (an architect with Wickson and Gregg Architects) and was built in 1907 with Carnegie Foundation Funds.

In 1980, the UofT acquired the property for use as a student centre, and the Koffler Student Centre was born. Renovations were soon underway. The design for the rehabilitation was done by the architects, Howard Chapman (son of the original architect) and Howard Walker. In recognition of the interior and exterior restoration of a Toronto city landmark, the UofT was even given an award of merit by the Toronto Historical Board in 1986 for its "outstanding contribution to the preservation of the history of the city".

Combining ancient Greek and Roman forms with Renaissance ideas, the Beaux Arts architecture of the entire building is an eclectic Neoclassical style. It's a masonry-based structure, highly and beautifully ornamented with lintels, garlands, and floral patterns and contains columns, pilasters, balustrades, and window balconies throughout.

Who We Are:

Our staff is a knowledgeable, humble, and fun-loving team. At the risk of sounding like a classified ad, we have to admit that we all love to read, we enjoy learning new ideas, and we are inspired by creativity in literature, music, film, art, and life in general.

What We Do:

The UofT Bookstore is an independent, university bookstore and we, in the Trade Department, especially pride ourselves on our independent, non-chain-store status. In our department, we select, order, organize, display and recommend trade books to customers. All of our ordering is done on-site (not from an office tower miles away!) and all of our titles are maintained by experienced and knowledgeable staff members. Our front-list buyers examine countless catalogues and meet with publisher's representatives a-plenty in order to stock the best in new and current trade publications. Our back-list buyers work hard to ensure that we carry an extensive and solid body of bestsellers and noteworthy classics.

Our Selection:

With well over 100,000 titles, we have one of the most extensive general interest book selections in Canada. We sell the best in both new books and long-standing classics and we are proud of our personally chosen selection. Our emphasis is on academic titles with extensive fiction, philosophy, science, psychology, classics, business, law, literary criticism, and history sections. We also have a wide selection of mystery, science fiction, poetry and prose, drama, geography, media, sociology, women's studies, education, cookbooks, sports and much, much more. Our store is known for many unique aspects, including its Penguin Shop and Dover Shop (individual areas of our department where we carry Penguin and Dover Publications exclusively), its well-stocked Philosophy section, its superb language books area, and its University of Toronto Press books section, just to name a few.