The net loss will be considerable. Focus, which is roughly analogous to the New York Times’ Week in Review section, will drop from five to two pages. Books will shrink from four to three. The only unscathed occupant of Focus will be the editorial section, which will continue to publish three pages — editorial, op-ed, and the back page, which alternates between “The Big Idea” and letters to the editor.

The Globe, like just about every newspaper across the country, has embarked on some tough downsizing moves driven by a dramatic drop in advertising, rising newsprint prices, and a slow, long-term decline in circulation. The Globe is offering buyouts to veteran employees in the hopes of shrinking its staff of more than 2000 by some 10 percent. The news hole has been cut and, last week, the paper announced that it would shutter New Hampshire Weekly, one of its regional Sunday supplements.

It’s painfully ironic that the Globe is cutting back on books just weeks after its lead book critic, Gail Caldwell, won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. But editor Matt Storin says he hopes to keep the number of book reviews constant by reducing or eliminating non-review features. The Books pages will be supplemented several times a year by eliminating Focus to make room for features on children’s books, holiday books, and the like.

Storin says he sees the cutbacks as temporary, adding, “The publisher does, too, which is more important” — a reference to Richard Gilman, the veteran New York Times Company executive who has held the Globe’s top job for the past two years.

Perhaps as soon as next spring, Storin hopes to restore Books as a freestanding section and unveil a “revamped and ultimately better Focus section.” The new section — which may be called Ideas — would probably incorporate the Sunday Learning pages, which this week will be renamed Education.