An Interview with Jim Hinck of Hinck & Wall and viaLibri

-Greetings Jim, and thanks for agreeing to this interview. Can you tell us a little about your background?

If “background” means what I did to prepare myself for being a bookseller, then there really isn’t much to tell. I graduated from college with a degree in Comparative Literature and spent a few years after that traveling to different places and trying my best to avoid starting a real job. Eighteen months of that time were spent in Berlin and Paris, working and learning the language. That probably helped me as a bookseller more than anything else I have done. And I met Ann Marie in Paris. She later became my wife and is the “Wall” in Hinck & Wall. Everything else I needed to survive as a bookseller was acquired on the job.

-How did you get into bookselling?

I was still young and didn’t know better. Actually, a certain portion of my youth was spent trying to avoid becoming a bookseller. Old books were always a fatal attraction for me and I spent most of my free time in college wandering through the library stacks fascinated by what I could find there. In the process I developed a recurrent premonition that I was fated to be around old books for the rest of my life. It rather frightened me because I was unsuited for work as a librarian (an occupation that usually involves being organized and having a supervisor) and my few experiences with second-hand book stores had mostly been depressing. The ones I was most familiar with were like dim quiet tombs that left you with the feeling that “this is where books go to die.” I had no notion of or experience with true “antiquarian” bookselling, much less rare book dealers. And the notion that a living could actually be made in selling old books did not become clear to me until some time later. So I spent several of my early years trying to discover something else to do.

When Ann Marie and I returned from Paris we moved to Newport, Rhode Island. We are both irresistibly drawn to older places as well as books, and Newport was, at least architecturally, the oldest city in America. It was also still filled with old and valuable books left over from the libraries of the numerous mansions for which that city is famous. We soon found ourselves attending all the local estate auctions and buying boxes of wonderful books mostly because they seemed so cheap. When our landlord, who owned a print and framing shop, saw all the books we had he showed us a copy of AB Bookman and introduced us to the idea that you could actually sell old books and derive an income (of sorts) from them. At that point our fate was sealed. I think we sold our first book in 1977. By 1979 we had opened a small shop and issued our first catalogue. What we did back then is nothing like what we do now—even the business name has changed—but that is how it all started.

-Your website stood out for me some months ago for one thing in particular, and that is the fact that you are based in both the state of Washington and Paris. Tell us all about that. Why, how does it work, etc.?

We moved to Paris in 2001. For several years we had been regularly flying over to Europe to buy books. It was becoming increasingly clear to us that the books our particular customers wanted most were the ones we could most easily find on the other side of the ocean. All the flying and hotels and restaurant food were expensive, and buying trips didn’t really put us on the spot for the best opportunities as they came up. We realized that it actually made the most sense to just live there. And if your customers are spread all over the world then your physical location is largely irrelevant to making sales. The internet had changed a lot of things too. US phone and fax numbers can link directly to an office in France. Banking can be done online. The arguments for moving to Paris seemed compelling.

But we are, still, an American company, incorporated in Washington State, selling in US dollars. My brother, who lives outside of Seattle, joined us when we moved and handles things in the US while we are in France. We do fly back to the US regularly and spend as much time in Edmonds as we can.

Apart from the headache of having a second set of bank accounts and tax forms to deal with, things are not that much different from what they were when we operated entirely from the US. It is not as crazy as it might at first seem. The biggest challenge for us right now is the decline in the dollar, which makes things so much more expensive than they were when we first came over. But the books still make it worthwhile.

-Gee, is it fun living in Paris?

Well, yes. As I mentioned before, Ann Marie and I first met in Paris and have always felt connected to it because of that. There is no question that it is a great place to live. But it is also a great city for booksellers. It is filled with book stores, including an amazing number selling old books. In the 6^th arrondissement alone (an area smaller than Central Park located in the heart of Paris) there are something like 94 antiquarian booksellers with ground floor open shops. Many more are spread throughout the rest of the city. There are at least a couple of book auctions every week. There is a large weekly flea market devoted entirely to old and used books. You see people reading everywhere. It is impossible, while living here, to ever think that the printed book might be on the verge of obsolescence. It is a place where the idea of selling old and rare books for a living does not seem at all remarkable. So after six years living here we feel completely at home. The one thing we miss is not having a garden.

-The other interesting thing of course is your specialty—the history of gardens, landscape architecture, and early horticulture. What led you to this field?

I can’t really say what first created my general interest in gardens, but it happened long before I became a bookseller. Once I started selling books, however, specializing in the ones on gardens was inevitable. We just enjoy handling them. One thing that makes it a rewarding specialty is the fact that there is relatively little bibliographic material supporting it. This is especially true of the aspect which interests us most: garden design and ornamental horticulture. It is still possible to find interesting books related to landscape architecture for which there are no modern printed references. The thought that we can occasionally introduce even our most knowledgeable customers to source material they did not previously know existed helps make what we do seem even more rewarding and worthwhile. A more traditional specialty, where all the significant material had already been thoroughly catalogued and described, just wouldn’t be as much fun.

-Can you give us a short primer on the history of horticultural works?

There’s a challenge. I guess the main thing to stress about early horticulture books is that they were necessarily practical in nature, while most other early books were not. The great printers largely ignored them. Incunables were not printed to instruct you in such trivial matters as growing a garden. Most early horticultural books are cheaply printed and in small format. And originality was of no value at all. Nearly every author stole from someone else. The first English authors stole from the French. The first French authors stole from the Italians. The first Italians copied the ancients. Indeed, everyone copied from the ancients, whose advice was usually the least reliable of all. Many authors were hacks who produced books anonymously. The few who wrote entirely from experience, with genuinely useful and original advice, stand out prominently (and were, of course, later plagiarized shamelessly). And the really good books were heavily used, usually until they fell apart. So they tend to be rare or in poor condition, even though they also tended to go through multiple editions.

Early books on garden design, however, are completely different. Most of these are also quite rare, but not so much from attrition as because the editions were usually quite small to begin with. And current fashion, rather than established practice, was what would have most interested the reader. So there is much more originality, and even novelty, in the various works that were published on this subject. Controversies abound, with new authors regularly mocking the opinions of those who preceded them. And the arguments and theories being discussed back then were not very different from the ones that are still being written about today. The truth of the matter is that all the major theoretical viewpoints regarding garden design had already been proposed and disputed two centuries ago. So books from that period can still seem quite interesting and relevant to a modern reader interested in the same subject.

-Where do you find most of your stock?

You mean apart from the secret wholesale rare book warehouse? The truth is, we look for and find books in all the usual places. We buy from other booksellers in their shops, at book fairs, from catalogues. We buy at auction. We buy at flea markets. We buy from private sellers (although our regular customers virtually never sell anything). And we buy on the internet. In fact, in the last several years, the internet has become the most fruitful place we hunt for books. It has been the source for many of the best rarities and most profitable bargains we have found. I am regularly amazed at what can turn up when I take the time to do some serious searching on the web.

-Can you share a few fabulous finds with us?

Our most fabulous find of the last few years, at least from my personal perspective, was something that most other people would probably pass over with little thought. While searching on the web one day I turned up an eight page letter from the 18^th century French landscape architect Jean-Marie Morel. Morel was the first professional landscape architect in France, designed several significant gardens (now mostly lost) and wrote one of the most original and influential books on garden design of the 18^th century. He also passed rapidly into obscurity after his death. Apart from his book and a biographical pamphlet, very little source material about him—and more particularly his gardens—has survived. I think only five other letters were previously known, and they were all short and revealed little about his work as a garden designer. The letter that we had found was, however, entirely different. It was written to one of Morel’s most important patrons and was devoted almost entirely to a detailed account of all the work he had just finished in laying out the grounds of the patron’s country estate near Dijon. The estate and gardens were still in private hands, totally neglected but unaltered. Regional preservationists had already been trying to find the means to save and restore them, but the competition for public funds and administrative backing was intense. Discovery of the letter helped to elevate the importance of the garden in the eyes of regional officials and probably helped to assure its eventual preservation and restoration. We actually did not make a whole lot of money on the letter, which is now in the regional archives. But that was hardly the point.

Another recent “fabulous find” came to us out of the blue from a dealer who had found us on our web site. The book was a copy of William Robinson’s Garden Design and Architect’s Gardens, with an inscription from Robinson which read “Frederick Law Olmstead / with the authors sincere & best regards Souvenir of Gravetye / August 11^th 1892.” Olmsted and Robinson were friends who had carried on a correspondence for many years before Olmsted finally came to visit at Gravetye (Robinson’s home) in the summer of 1892. Olmsted is, of course, the most important figure in the history of American landscape gardening. Some might argue that Robinson holds a similar rank among English gardeners. In any case, at the time they met, they were certainly the world’s two most influential figures in the field of garden design. Which was, naturally, the subject of the book. It was hard to imagine a more perfect association copy for anyone interested in the subjects we specialize in.

I think it’s also interesting to note that both of these items came to us because of the internet. In one case we found it by searching there, in the other case we bought it from a seller who found us there. It is a real mark of how much things have changed in the last ten or twelve years.

Is there a Holy Grail of plant books?

Another tough question, and I don’t really have a good answer for it. There are several very rare items that I would dearly love to find, but do not really expect to. Still, I don’t think any of them would rise to the level of a “holy grail.” I have, however, known individual collectors who have a particular unfindable item which has become, for them, something of a personal “holy grail.” Finding any of these would be good enough for me.

-How often are you able to purchase entire libraries in your field?

We have often purchased chunks and remainders of libraries from other dealers after the collections were disposed of by heirs who had no idea of what they were selling, but collectors in our field tend to hold on to their books until the bitter end and then donate them to a library or other institution. And there aren’t that many significant private collections to begin with, so the opportunity to purchase one en bloc is rare.

-You must have a nice reference library and a nice personal collection.

We would not exist without our reference library. It made up about 90% of our freight bill when we relocated to Paris. I cannot distinguish it from our personal collection. We won’t collect anything old or rare that might be of interest to our customers. As I see it, if you can’t bear to sell the most desirable things you find then you probably weren’t meant to be a bookseller in the first place. Or maybe it’s just the bills to pay.

-How do you deal with difficult translations of early non-English titles?

We don’t generally translate the titles of books we are cataloging, if that’s what you mean. If the identity and subject matter of the book isn’t clear to the average reader (a Latin title, for example) then we try to identify and explain the book as part of our description. We wouldn’t offer it if we didn’t know what it was about, even if we couldn’t actually read it ourselves. Japanese books are the biggest challenge for us. For these we usually will obtain an English translation of the title from someone and provide it along with the romaji version, if possible. But for the most part we don’t worry too much about the translations and assume that if our customer is interested in a German book they will be able to understand the original title. We might even quote from the text in German, with or without an English translation.

-Is it true you can lead a horse to water but you can’t lead a horticulture? Sorry—I always wanted to pose that questionable question in print and this was probably my only chance. Seriously, though, tell us about your customer base.

We have no horses for customers, that we are aware of.

-The following is from your website. “We prefer to offer items in their original form and in the condition in which they were received, without framing or decorative alterations. All significant repairs and restorations are noted. We presume that it is the intention of our customers to preserve historic documents, not to destroy or embellish them. For this reason we do not sell ‘prints’ that have been removed from published books, or engravings originally issued to illustrate a printed text. Nor do we add color to early engravings or purchase colored engravings from sources that regularly do. All coloring, where present, is believed to be contemporary with the period of publication. All purchases will be sent on approval and may be returned for any reason.” Very admirable.

It has always surprised me how many people assume that a bookseller who sold books on flowers would also want to sell prints. I am thankful that there are still so many wonderful books around for us to buy and sell, many of them beautifully illustrated. We both feel strongly that future generations of booksellers (not to mention researchers and collectors) should be able to get as much satisfaction from handling them as we have. Turning those books into wall decorations simply because it’s profitable is a generational theft that I would not personally be able to live with. So we make it clear on our web site that this is not what we do.

We also sell early engraved garden plans when we can find them. It has become upsetting to see that these have recently also become of interest to the print dealers. But the worst part is that many are not satisfied with the plans as issued and feel the need to tart them up with water colors. In doing so, of course, they destroy the historical accuracy of the plan. It is hard to fight against a trend such as this, but we try.

-I’m told by a botanical book buddy that you are famous for your wonderful printed catalogs. Tell us all about that. How has the catalog part of your business changed over the years?

Our printed catalogues are really rather modest I think, at least compared with some of the other large color-illustrated ones we still get in the mail. If we are famous for anything, it is probably for our long-winded descriptions. We take way too much time describing our books, but I guess it hasn’t hurt us since the catalogues have always done very well. With each catalogue that we send to the printer we say to ourselves “this is the one that no one is going to order from.” Each time we have been wrong. So far. Right now we are doing the last descriptions for Catalogue 59, which we hope to send out at the end of January. It’s the first time in years we have not sent the catalogue out in September, and it’s the first time in even more years that we have decided to also include things other than garden books. So I’m reluctant now to make too many pronouncements about catalogues, since anything I say will probably jinx the next one out.

However, I will say that of all the different ways we have sold books over the years—and we have tried them all—the printed catalogues have from the beginning always been the most consistent and profitable. I don’t think we will ever stop issuing them. If we have loyal customers, it is because of them. Nevertheless, we now find that our web site has become an even more effective tool for selling books. And we have a very simple web site. It’s really not much more than a digital version of our traditional printed catalogue, but with a few important differences. The biggest difference is that we can now provide digital images of all the items we are selling. Sometimes we include several. They are persuasive salesmen, and make scrolling through the entire list much more entertaining. The second difference is in the way the catalogue is distributed. In addition to printed copies, we send out an email to all our customers as soon as a new catalogue is posted on our site. In the past the arrival of our catalogues was dependent on varied time zones and unreliable postal services. Some who received their mail in the morning would jump on the choicest items while others, who did not see their catalogues until after work, or a day late, would be consistently frustrated. Now everyone in the world receives a notification at exactly the same moment. It is like when the doors of a book fair first swing open. And, of course, the internet catalogue costs virtually nothing to send. This makes it possible to post very small lists, something that is economically impractical with printed lists sent through the mail. We now periodically post “Recent Arrivals” lists on our web site with as few as 25 books. They get a better (and faster) response than anything we have ever done in the past. I fully expect, within a few years, that most specialist booksellers will be selling their books this way.

-Which online sites do you list with?

We actually don’t list on any online sites apart from our own web site. We did try listing on multi-dealer sites for a year or so back in 2000. We put all the leftovers from our previous catalogues onto ABE and Bibliofind to see what would happen. We hardly sold a thing, so we took them off. I may try it again in the future, but for the time being it probably isn’t worth the effort for us.

-How do you manage your inventory?

I wrote my own inventory/customer/want list/bookkeeping/invoice management system back in the late ‘80s. We still use it. It runs on DOS and has several features I can’t get from any of the standard programs, but it is definitely past its prime. I have been intending to build a new system for the last ten years, but never get around to it. Maybe next year.

-I know you are not into self-promotion Jim, but you are also the creator of viaLibri, which you are more than happy to talk about. You now have the floor. Give us the complete rundown on viaLibri.

ViaLibri started as a program I wrote to find books for ourselves. Or, more precisely, to find books we could sell to our customers. As I mentioned earlier, we buy a lot of our books on the internet. When the first metasearches came into existence I used them heavily, AddAll in particular. I would enter generic keywords that I knew might show up in the descriptions or titles of books we might want, and would then scroll though the results looking for anything we could sell. Initially I found a lot of great things that way. It was time well spent. But as the internet evolved and the total number of books online kept growing, I found that book hunting in this way actually became less productive and more frustrating. The biggest frustration came from the fact that books I might want were being left out of the results. This was mostly because the sites that I used were all designed primarily for bargain shopping. They would return a fixed number of books from each site they searched, and that was it. And when there were too many books, it was the most expensive ones that would be left out. This might be perfectly fine for someone looking for a biology textbook or an out-of-print knitting manual. But if you were like me and wanted to find early items on, say, Central Park, then the available metasearches were infuriating because many of the best books, which were also usually the most expensive, never appeared.

So I finally decided to build my own metasearch and design it to look for rare books as well as bargains. I ran it on my desk top and set it up to search all the sites that had proven most fruitful for me in the past. The first thing I wanted was complete results from every site. But sometimes that meant a LOT of results. So the second thing I wanted was a way to filter out things I knew I wouldn’t be interested in. In particular I wanted to be able to filter and sort by publication date. Very few of the multi-dealer sites handled their dates accurately or reliably, and the metasearch sites ignored dates completely. It seemed to me that publication date was an essential search and filtering criteria. It was for me at least. So I built that capability into it right from the start. I repeated a lot of my standard keyword searches on a regular basis, so I built a feature that would save these search criteria and let me repeat them with just a button click. The problem with that, of course, was that the same books kept showing up over and over. So I built another feature that would keep track of the books I had already seen and let me do a repeat search that would show only new listings. I kept thinking of more things I wished I could do, and then would spend days figuring out how to do them. It ended up taking a huge amount of time, but I actually enjoyed it. When I tell booksellers this some of them look at me like I have two heads. And maybe I do: one for old books, the other for programming. I’m just not sure yet which one is the boss.

Once I got to a certain point with all this I realized that I could also make a web site out of it. That’s when viaLibri began. To make it viable as a web site I had to add even more features and do a lot of work that was more tedious than challenging. But by then I had slipped into obsession. A limited version went through beta testing for half a year before launching the full blown version you see today. That was a little over a year ago. I continue to add things as I can. The library search is the most recent major addition. Actually, there was a very simple library search even in the beta, but it didn’t work very well and I had to revamp it completely. This was, again, something that I really wanted for my own use and finally decided to just build myself. If you spend as much time as I do searching in various library catalogues then I think you should be able to save a lot of time using it. I don’t think there is anything else available on the internet that is quite like it, and it’s gratifying to watch as the user numbers go up every month.

I still have a long list of things that I want to add to the site. I tend to think up new features faster than I can get around to building them, so the to-do list is longer now than when I first went online. Many of these items are enhancements to the book metasearch, which will always be the core of our site. But other things will be totally different. Some aren’t even possible yet, but will be some day.

Unlike many of my colleagues, I have always been optimistic about the changes that the internet will bring to antiquarian bookselling (and to collecting also, because the two are inextricably linked). I know that what has happened so far has not been particularly beneficial to booksellers. We belong to a profession whose members have always cherished their independence and thrived by building reputations and maintaining individual identities as unique as the materials they deal in. So far the internet has not helped them in this, but tended instead to homogenize them and treat them as interchangeable elements in a huge data machine. That is not what we need or want. But I think the future will be different. It certainly needs to be different, and the technology exists to make it different. As these inevitable changes occur, I’m hoping that viaLibri will find a way to contribute to them.

-Thanks again Jim. May your business continue to be fruitful and multiply.

Jim Hinck operates Hinck & Wall out of Paris and Edmonds, WA, and can be contacted at http://www.gardenhistory.com.

The viaLibri home page is at http://www.vialibri.net.