ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — The signs have come down at the flagship store of the now-defunct Borders book store chain.

Work crews on Monday removed the Borders signage from the site on East Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor, where the chain began.

AnnArbor.com (http://bit.ly/Wgz7Tq ) says the building's owners are donating the letters to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation for use in raising funds.

Founded in 1971, Ann Arbor-based Borders Group Inc. pioneered the big-box bookselling concept and grew to 1,249 stores at its peak in 2003.

It went bankrupt in September 2011, a victim of a shift in the industry to e-books and online bookselling.