Email the editor
| Table of Contents Email the editor |
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I'm most happy to report that Ken Fermoyle will be working with me through the remainder of 2003 and will be taking my place as editor of The IOBA Standard in 2004.
Ken has worked with me on the last several issues and has done a wonderful job. He's enthusiastic, dedicated, smart and very, very talented. He has tons of experience in editing and writing, and lots of contacts in the book and writing worlds. I'm absolutely positive Ken will produce an excellent magazine that just keeps on improving, changing and growing in value to its readers and to IOBA (note we've changed to 'magazine' instead of 'newsletter' due to the size of this publication).
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Terry Gibbs, an IOBA member with an extensive background in editing and publishing, also, will be acting as proofreader and assistant to Ken-thank you, Terry!
Now, a bit about Ken and his background:
“Ken Fermoyle has been a writer, editor and journalist for 54 years. His credits include more than 2,500 articles published in magazines ranging from Playboy and PC World to McCalls, MacWeek and Motor Life. He was auto editor of Popular Science, editor of Petersen's Wheels Afield and QX Connection, wrote the syndicated Ken's Korner column on computers from 1997 to 2002.
“A voracious reader since childhood, he wrote his first book reviews while sports editor of a large Michigan weekly paper in 1948. “I was also a reporter, feature writer and proofreader,” Ken reports, “but when I learned the book reviewer got to keep books reviewed, I took that on, too.” His book reviews have since appeared in newspapers, including The Detroit News and Los Angeles Times Book Review, various magazines, and book newsletters. He has edited and produced several non-fiction books; currently he and his colleague Tran Ngoc Chau are completing work on Hawks, Doves & The Dragon, a memoir of Chau's involvement in Vietnam from the 1940s to 1975.”
I've enjoyed very much being editor of The Standard, and I hope you'll all be as supportive of Ken as you have been of me-it has meant a lot, believe me. I thank you all.
See you once more in November!
Shirley Bryant, Editor
The upbeat tempo of Jazz, Zydeco, R&B and Cajun music, punctuated by mournful wails of the Blues, echoes through the streets of the Big Easy. The sounds might be slightly muted Uptown and in the Garden District but blare at full volume in the French Quarter. And the music seeps into the pages of mysteries by James Lee Burke, Julie Smith, Tony Dunbar, Sandra Brown and Tami Hoag, among others.
By: Ken Fermoyle
Photos by: Liz Fermoyle
New Orleans boasts a storied literary history. William Faulkner wrote his first book in a French Quarter room that now serves as the Faulkner House bookstore. Truman Capote, Lillian Hellman and Elmore Leonard were born there. Anne Rice lives in the city's Garden District today. Suzanne Brockman's Into The Night and Stella Cameron's romantic thrillers (French Quarter, The Best Revenge) are recent novels penned by Crescent City authors.
Grace King's handwriting |
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But I digress; my focus is the mystery genre, and in that category the Big Easy serves as a favorite setting for authors from Leonard and James Lee Burke to Julie Smith, Tami Hoag, Tony Dunbar and Sandra Brown, among others. Robert Crais hails from just up the road in Baton Rouge but he arranged for Elvis Cole to visit N'Awlins and to meet his ladylove, Lucy Chenier, there. The city even has a Mystery Street in the area called Mid-City, a 20-minute bus ride from the French Quarter, as reported in the Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1996.
And just as the strains of traditional jazz, Cajun and Zydeco music fill the streets of the French Quarter so does music permeate many of the mystery novels set in New Orleans. Proof? Check these titles: Burke's Black Cherry Blues, Dixie City Jam, Cadillac Jukebox; Julie Smith's The Axeman's Jazz, Jazz Funeral, House of Blues, New Orleans Beat, plus her latest, Mean Woman Blues.
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Crossroad Blues offers more than just a murder mystery set in New Orleans and the Delta. It is almost literally a primer on blues history, especially as Robert Johnson is concerned. It could almost serve as the text for a Blues 101 course!
Music first stirred my interest in New Orleans. Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven records from the 1920s captivated me as a teenager during World War II. Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, Freddie Keppard, Johnny and Baby Dodds, Fate Marable, Jelly-Roll Morton, Earl Bostic and Lil Hardin Armstrong were in my pantheon of musical gods. Most of the Swing Era big bands paled by comparison.
Lil Hardin Armstrong, Louis Armstrong's wife |
A voracious reader from early childhood, I devoured books on New Orleans. The tale of Storyville, with its brothels, wide-open lifestyle and, above all, its statues as the incubator of many jazz greats, fascinated me. I learned about the famous funeral bands and how they switched from dirges going to the cemetery to lively jazz on the way back. “When the Saints Come Marching In” became my favorite song, with “Frankie & Johnny” and “St. James Infirmary Blues” close behind.
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I also discovered Julie Smith's books. They really honed in on the French Quarter. The Axeman's Jazz, second in the Skip Langdon series set in New Orleans, enthralled me. Music permeates this book about a serial killer with chutzpah. He tells the public that homes with jazz music will be spared in his murder spree, as he imitates the modus operandi of a legendary killer from the past. The later Langdon books continued to capture the ambiance of the Vieux Carre as few others have done. (Ms. Smith also turned me on to Ace Atkins' Nick Travers books, for which I am most grateful.)
No, you're not out in bayou country but in the lovely City Park, where the eclectic New Orleans Museum is located. |
Nor did I forget the mystery novels that lured me to the city. We sampled beignets at the Café Du Mond, perhaps at one of the same tables Dave Robicheaux and his partner Helen Soileau might have shared on a trip into the City. We listened to trad jazz from the house band and its Louis Armstrong sound-alike singer. We scarfed Po'boy sandwiches at some of the same spots Dave and Clete Purcell may have frequented in their NOPD days and muffulettas from the deservedly famous Central Grocery at 915 Decatur St.
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“I live in a three story townhouse in New Orleans built in 1830. It is so old -- everything breaks and plaster peels and yes, there is a ghost. The cat hates it. But the ghost smells wonderful! It smells like jasmine. I have never interviewed these ghosts. But the Psychic Network filmed an infomercial in our home.... They had many psychics here at the time.”
Ms Smith now lives in “a funk loft on the boundary of the French Quarter and the Marigny.” The Faubourg Marigny, which locals simply call "The Marigny," is the neighborhood immediately adjacent to the French Quarter across tree-shaded Esplanade Avenue. (We stayed in that area, at the Jean Lafitte House, 613 Esplanade Avenue, on our 2002 visit to New Orleans. Ms Smith has been kind enough to invite us to “come visit us for a drink” on our next visit.)
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Back in the Vieux Carre, we visited every bookstore in the area. One was Crescent City Books, just kitty-corner from the Quarter House on Rue Chartres. It surprised me to learn that the store had only a couple of James Lee Burke books.
“We can't keep 'em in stock,” the clerk told me. “They just jump off the shelves.” Other bookstore owners echoed his words.
Typical French Quarter building with trademark lacy ironwork galleries and, in this case, a lovely wrought-iron fence. |
On later trips we explored bookstores outside the Quarter, including a couple of nice ones on Magazine Street.
One I missed until I began researching this article is the Maple Street Bookstore http://www.maplestreetbookshop.com. Established in the mid-1960s, it's the oldest independent bookstore in New Orleans. Located uptown on (surprise!) Maple Street, just a short walk from the Cherokee stop on the St. Charles streetcar line, the store occupies a charming old house. Overflowing bookshelves fill six rooms and a comfortable back room tempts visitors to sit, relax and read. The store often hosts signings and is staffed by genuine bibliophiles, as I learned when I called to ask for information about local mystery writers.
I spoke with Becky Batchelor and Carol Antosiak, both cordial and well-informed ladies. They mentioned several local writers, including Tony Dunbar and Christine (Chris) Wiltz, and offered to relay a message to Ms Wiltz. Sure enough, I got a friendly e-mail from Chris just two days later. She informed me that hardcover and paperback copies of her Neal Rafferty mysteries are no longer in print. (I did find many used copies listed, several dozen at http://www.choosebooks.com and more at http://www.abebooks.com. They are offered in print-on-demand form from iUniverse. Titles in the Rafferty series include The Killing Circle, 1981; A Diamond Before You Die, 1987; The Emerald Lizard, 1991; and Glass House, 1994. Chris' latest book, The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld, recounts the life of Norma Wallace, a famous operator of a New Orleans bordello from the 1920s to the 1960s. This one is available in both hardcover and paperback.
Courtyard of the Jean Lafitte house where Fermoyle stayed during 2002 visit is just a sample of the hidden treasures in courtyards of the French Quarter. |
“LaRue carried a dull burgundy overnight bag in his left hand. That was the entire luggage he needed. Everything else was supposed to be in the van, unless Monk and his hillbilly partner from Mississippi had forgotten to bring it. New Orleans music seeped out of the intercom. At the moment it was Fats Domino [a New Orleans native] singing 'I am the Sheik of Araby. Your love belongs to me.' The chipper music did not add any bounce to Rue's step. His was a rigid composure that wouldn't crack.”
Music references pop up regularly in this and other books by Dunbar. I thoroughly enjoyed Shelter From The Storm and look forward to reading more in the Tubby Dubonnet series.
Another interesting source of books I discovered while researching this article is Britton Trice, owner of the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans, famous as Ann Rice's neighborhood bookstore. Britton actually wears two hats since he also heads B.E.Trice Publishing, a small press operation that started after Doubleday stopped publishing The Plantation Cookbook --the Junior League of New Orleans cookbook
"The bean counters at Doubleday thought a couple thousand copies wasn't good enough and let it go out of print," Trice reports gleefully. "I begged the Junior League until they let me pick up the rights, and I published it in 1992. Since then, I've reprinted it three times, 17,000 copies so far."
You find street musicians scattered across the New Orleans landscape. They close off some streets in the French Quarter on certain nights of the week (sections of Bourbon Street on Saturdays) and musicians like this jazz & blues singer & her guitar accompanist play for tips from passers-by. |
We plan to report more on Trice's bookstore-cum-publishing operation as part of a series on small press publishers, that begins in this issue. We planned to meet at BookExpo-America as this was written and I hope to visit his New Orleans store this fall.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm in need of some R&R after this long session at the keyboard. I believe I'll put on a CD of blues and Dixieland tunes, pour a cup of coffee (Louisiana-style chicory blend, of course) and settle down with a good book. Let's see, will it be Ace Atkins' Crossroad Blues, Tony Dunbar's City of Beads, or Julie Smith's second Talba Wallis mystery, Louisiana Hotshot. Tough choices!
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The internet wasn't as popular then, and people didn't seem to be as familiar with searching as they are today. I'd been a book collector for most of my life, but as I started to put together a set of "tools" to locate the books I was looking for, I began to learn more and more about both books and collecting. I became more professional, learned about edition identification, dust-jacket condition, and book club editions. I discovered news groups and mail lists, search engines and techniques, the details of book sizes and specialized vocabulary, more and more.
I'd just been starting up my web site, Trussel's EcletiCity, to publish my various interests, and so it seemed natural to put up my "tool box" for book collecting, so that others could use it too. Well, of course, the more successful I got at collecting -- using these tools -- the more excited I got about the Books and Book Collecting site, and so I spent a lot of time working on it and making it more and more useful... and I hope that it still is.
But now, to some extent, times have changed, and users and search engines have gotten more sophisticated, the web grew, on-line book-dealing turned the used-book industry upside-down, and, somehow, Books and Book Collecting is still around. A few years back I made a little search engine, BookSeek, to index the online book catalogs that weren't listed with ABE or the "biggies," but now there doesn't seem to be as much meaning in it. For a number of years SetMaker has filled a little niche, helping people finish off sets with missing volumes, but now I have trouble keeping up the energy to maintain it...
Trussel's EclectiCity is my hobby, and takes up most of my free time. There are so many nooks and crannies, and my interest moves from one section to another, but undoubtedly the largest single theme is literature, with sites on Lafcadio Hearn, Howard Fast, Georges Simenon's Maigret, Prehistoric Fiction, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Og, Son of Fire...
My guiding philosophy has been to provide detailed information in small areas, and I've had a love of bibliography for almost as long as my love of books. One of my collecting areas is Howard Fast, and I created a website focusing on his works. I used my "toolbox" to locate long out-of-print magazines with stories and articles which had never been reprinted, and created a site which provided access to "new" stories - stories which wouldn't be easily found in a library... Bibliographies formed the center for many of my other literary sites.
I found other collections around the house, stamps for one, and I thought, "Why hide them in a closet, when I can display them to the world?" And so my stamp pages were born. My students' prize-winning speeches became another page, my interest in Ukiyo-e another... I kept discovering areas of my life that were no longer in the foreground, but which had consumed enough of my energy to result in something to show... and so, more pages.
The site has grown very large, and this past year the page that has captured my interest most is Inspector Maigret - perhaps because this year is the Simenon birth centennial year. But one of my all-time favorites is Og, Son of Fire. Og is an offshoot of my Prehistoric Fiction page, and it was originally almost impossible for me to locate any copies of any of the volumes of this "classic" prehistoric boy series. But as I did, and was able to dig deeper and deeper, locating the original Boys' Life magazines in which the volumes had first been serialized, well... another page was born.
I could go on and on with this, but a picture is, in fact worth a thousand words in this case, and so I simply suggest you visit EclectiCity for yourself, and share some of my world. Thanks for stopping by.
Steve Trussel
Editor's Note: Steve is too modest. His Books and Book Collecting site is almost the 'bible' of book sites-always has been and I suspect always will be.
If you put 'Charles Dickens' into the booksearch search engines, lowest price upwards, the first 19 entries cost one penny. Only at the 166th entry does the price finally reach $1.
If you repeat the experiment with 'John Grisham', you have to go to entry 390 before you get above one penny! And you have to almost reach the 1,000th entry before a whole dollar is charged!
What on earth is going on? Are these people making money?
The answer is no, they are not. They are deluding themselves that they are making money, as against actually making it. They are deluding themselves that 'making a bit on the shipping' and 'making a bit on follow on sales' are leading to a profitable business. They will have a long wait.
But you, dear reader, are already virtuously saying that you list nothing under $3, or $5, or even $10.
The point of this article is to make it clear that you, too, are deluding yourself.
With an apparent 20,000+ 'book dealers' on the web, ranging through ABE, Amazon, Half Com, and eBay, they cannot all be real.
Having followed BookFinder's 'Insider' for some time, it has finally dawned on me that the vast majority are not real book dealers - they do not understand bookselling and, more importantly, they do not understand business and probably never will. What it shows is that any fool can become a book dealer, but relatively few understand the business.
Before I get masses of hate mail from people challenging this arrogant posit, let me say that if you are a 'book dealer' for any of the following reasons, do not bother to read on - this article is not for you:
But if you genuinely want to understand why you are selling masses of books but not making any real progress, read on.
The root of the problem lies in business, not in bookselling. The harsh realities of business permeate everything and bookselling is no exception. And there seems to be a limitless capacity for people to delude themselves into thinking they are making money when they are not.
So they spend countless hours cataloging thousands of books at 1c or 50c or $1 or $3 or $5 and so on.
After a year, or two, or more, they wonder why little progress is made - they are selling lots of books, then why are they not making any real money? After all, in addition to their $1 sales, there were quite a few books that they sold for $20 or $30, and even the odd one at $200, where they made a huge 'profit'.
The clue may come from our own findings. We are established book dealers with a seven-figure annual turnover and, after careful research, we have come to the conclusion that listing any single book under the $30 mark causes us to lose money in real terms - the cost of the sale exceeds the genuine profit within that sale.
Having said that, we have thousands of books on our catalogue under $30, but they are all multiple-copy books where one catalogue entry (and just as importantly, a standard email template reply for automating the sale) covers many sales. Even then, anything under $10 starts losing money, but that is another (allied) matter and this article is focused on single-book catalogue entries.
The key to any successful business is margins. The key margin is the net margin - the total annual income less the total annual costs. This is where most people seem to fall down, by deluding themselves into conveniently 'forgetting' many costs in their drive to convince themselves that they are 'making' a 'profit'.
So now we come to the meat of this article: The real costs of selling books on the web.
Although the headings are obvious, the notes to each heading are the crux of the matter, for these are the areas where people delude themselves most.
The basic cost you know, because that is what you paid for it, but the subsidiary costs are just as real. These include the time and cost you spent negotiating, valuing, sorting, researching, packing, collating, transporting, etc. And don't forget to include the time spent on abortive purchases - these have to be paid for out of actual sales just like anything else. As have books on which you spent the same amount of time but never actually sell.
Many seem to cost the time it took to catalog the book and perhaps add a small amount for the listing fees and commissions and think that that is it. Oh no, it isn't! Every book you list has to be paid for whether you sell it or not. All the time it takes to conclude some sales - sending scans, condition reports, answering questions. And don't forget the time-wasters, intentional or otherwise: The cost of servicing enquiries that do not result in sales - once again, scans, extra information, answering questions, etc., - can be considerable, with no return whatsoever. All the hardware and software costs. All the uploading time and problems, database corrections and adjustments, emails sorting out problems, research, experimentation with different listing sites, website development - all have to be paid for.
Tremendous scope for delusion here - it's just the cost of the stamps plus a bit! No its not - it's the cost of the stamps plus a lot! A common misconception is that by using secondhand materials you are saving money. In reality it is costs just as much in time to mess around cutting, shaping, repairing, and modifying unsuitable packing materials than it does to buy new tailor-made materials in the first place (and you get a more professional looking result). And mail order costs do not end with the packing materials - the time it takes to label and document and achieve actual posting is not inconsiderable, not forgetting the cost of advertising material you may choose to include in your parcel. But even that is not the end of the matter - you have to add on the time taken in subsequent email correspondence when a parcels are late, claims, lost sales, returns, and occasionally a total loss parcel, be it legitimate or a customer being less than honest.
This is where all your background costs creep in. (Why should a customer buying a $5 book pay for those? Well, if they don't pay for it, who will?) All the office equipment, shelving, fixtures and fittings, space rental if relevant, accounting fees, general telephone and transport costs - the list goes on and on and all have to be paid for. All the books you never sell (a major factor in bookselling, be it a bookshop or a virtual bookshop) have to be costed in too.
I am sure I have laboured the point long enough (the list of costs can be extended further!) but when you add then all up, the conclusion can be startling.
We did just that. We added up the entire cost of running our mail order department for one year and divided that cost by the number of actual sales achieved in that year. There are areas where you cannot come up with exact figures, but the figure I am about to give you is pretty exact.
The unit cost for every sale achieved, when you take everything into account, averages out at around $10.
Sure, some individual sales cost less, but that hardly matters, because others cost more and the average keeps coming back to around $10.
Now, when the book being sold costs $100, or $500, or $1,000, this unit cost hardly matters - it can be absorbed nicely into the profit margin (although being aware of the unit cost helps set the margin). But if a significant proportion of the books you sell are under $20, there is cause for concern. And if you are heavily into the $5 area (or, heaven forbid, below) you are totally deluding yourself - your cost of sales is actually exceeding the revenue being returned. Supermarkets can run loss leaders for some of the time but they sure as hell don't run the overall business like that!
I can almost hear the murmurings of those who do not believe these figures: 'You've costed in WAGES!' Yes, of course I've costed in wages. Just because you do not employ anyone does not mean that you shouldn't be aiming to pay yourself as if you employed someone - preferably more! In any case, if you hope that your business will grow, sooner or later you will have to pay someone and if you haven't got your margins and price structures able to bear that, your business will collapse as soon as it has to take that strain - you never had a real business in the first place.
Another old chestnut is the line that it is better to sell the book for a few dollars than to have it sitting on the shelf doing nothing. Wrong! If selling the book is actually costing you money, it is far better that the book waits for the right customer to pay the right price than to be forever reducing your prices just to make your stock move. Yes, you create turnover, but you do not create profit and if it ignores the unit cost of selling a book, you are losing money.
One of the basic realities of bookselling that many people do not seem to grasp is that half the books you have will never sell. Just like advertising, the problem is that you never know which half. It is this reality that is one of the major factors in the need for the apparent high margins needed on the books that you do sell. (The other major factor is the labor-intensive nature of the business.) Which is why you have to make sure that the books that you do sell include a proper profit margin. This has always been true for the B&M bookshop and it is just as true for the virtual bookshop.
If I have convinced you, what can you do about it?
You can do nothing, keep on having fun, and enjoy the fact that you are part of a movement of thousands of others intent on driving the price of every book on the web down to a penny.
Or you can wake up and realise that there is a lot more to selling books than making a few good 'finds' and listing them a little bit cheaper than the other booksellers and therefore contributing to the downward spiral.
Start learning.
Start listing upwards, not downwards.
And wait for a future article where I hope to expand the theme further ……
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Stuart Manley, co-owner, Barter Books, Alnwick, Northumberland, England
http://www.barterbooks.co.uk
By: Catlin Rice
Can a standardized, scripted reading program meet the diverse needs of a class full of unique students? During my credential program at the University of California in Santa Barbara, I was able to observe a scripted reading class on a daily basis for six weeks while serving as an observer/student teacher as in a “Reading for Success” class.
This class was composed of students who tested below their grade level on the standardized language assessment test administered at the end of the previous year. These lower level readers and writers are placed in the “Reading for Success” class to develop their basic language skills.
The state of California has developed a basic phonics and vocabulary development program, called “Breaking the Code,” which relies on alphabet cards and scripted instruction to teach phonics, spelling and vocabulary. The “Reading for Success” class and its curriculum were based on the program, “Breaking the Code.”
The role of the teacher in a scripted reading class is dramatically different than that of a traditional teacher. The teacher gets all the materials necessary to orchestrate a lesson, as well as a script to follow. Prior to the first day of class, I met the teacher I would be observing. She was a young, fresh, excited teacher who had just earned the title of “reading specialist.” She was given the sole responsibility for improving the school's reading scores by implementing this new scripted reading program, a daunting task for one person, since the school had close to a thousand students.
On the first day of class, I entered the classroom prepared to “observe” every detail and learn from this woman the secrets of teaching kids to read. Needless to say I was disappointed.
She began reading from this script, which can only be described as bland and impersonal. The students never had a chance to get excited or interested in the class because from the first minute, it was as though they were watching an informational video. The teacher had no room to deviate from the dull and detailed script, which dictated instruction down to the minute.
I felt very disappointed that I would have to spend the next six weeks sitting in the back of this classroom watching this scripted program, instead of observing the fresh ideas and enthusiasm of this young teacher. I could not even begin to imagine how the students were feeling. I could not help but think about the best teachers I had in school. The most memorable teachers, the ones whose names I still remember, were the people with the most dynamic personalities. Those teachers were passionate about their subject matter and were effective in infusing students with a curiosity and desire to explore the subject.
This scripted program sucked all the personality out of the class because there were no opportunities or time for this teacher to incorporate parts of herself into the lesson.
The “Breaking the Code” program also provides materials for teachers to hang on their classroom walls to facilitate instruction. Among these materials were large alphabet cards, which were reminiscent of the alphabet cards found on the walls in kindergarten and first grade. Despite the students' below average test scores and inability to read and write at their grade level, many of the students expressed their belief that they did not belong in such a remedial class. I believe this is a direct result of the inappropriate level of materials used in the “Breaking the Code” program.
Although the students in the class definitely needed basic phonics, decoding and reading skills, the materials provided by the program were misguided and not geared to the proper age level of the students. The result was a classroom full of students who felt insulted by and frustrated with the base material.
The materials used in a classroom and the exercises used to develop student learning must appeal to the students' age level and interest. I am convinced that successful language development must present the material in an interesting and engaging way. Language development in scripted classes tends to focus on very basic skills and use mundane methods to practice those skills. Variety in terms of lessons, activities, and assignments are all necessary elements of any successful language development class. Unfortunately many state-adopted programs, like “Breaking the Code,” lack the mental stimulation and variety necessary to sustain student interest.
After spending six weeks observing this scripted reading class I would argue that such a standardized reading program is not an effective tool for teaching students to read or motivating them academically.
I have since had many conversations with veteran teachers who have been forced to teach scripted programs after years of experience developing their own curricula. I recently spoke with one woman who teaches at the elementary level. She eloquently equated teaching a scripted program with the feeling of being a butterfly trapped in a glass box, continually and futilely beating her wings against the glass.
She said she feels as though she is dying creatively due to the lack of freedom she feels in her own classroom. She has over 20 years of teaching experience and is no longer able to use that experience to design lessons or personalize instruction.
After listening to her frustrations, I was left with this question: Why are experienced teachers or even human beings needed to facilitate this type of instruction? It seems ridiculous to require someone to continue his/her education to enter the field of teaching if he/she will be required to read from a script and use only designated materials for instruction. In teaching credential programs, student teachers learn - and are urged - to use their love of a subject to design dynamic lessons that will effectively engage all students. A large component of teacher training in my experience at UCSB focused on child psychology, diversity of learning styles, creative lesson design, etc… Scripted programs do not require that teachers know or put any of this knowledge into practice.
The enthusiasm, experience and personality of the instructor are missing from scripted programs. How can teachers pass on their love of reading to their students if they are unable to personalize their lessons? Every student is different and has a slightly different learning style, which should be reflected in the instruction of any subject.
The personal element, which the “Breaking the Code” program lacks, is necessary to create a nurturing classroom environment. This program reflects some of the larger problems facing the educational system in America, which is moving away from personalized towards standardized instruction and assessment. As an English teacher, I feel this is a dangerous shift that will result in increased student apathy towards reading and writing due to lack of interest.
Catlin Rice teaches 9th & 10th grade English at a Northern California high school. She received her Bachelor's degree from UCLA, earned her Masters and teaching certificate at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Betcha didn't know that Sherlock Holmes had five different cookbooks? Bet he didn't know either, what's more I bet Mrs. Hudson didn't know. We all know about Alice B. Toklas' cookbook, but did you know that there's a Hemingway Cookbook? A Steinbeck Cookbook? How about a Jane Austen Cookbook? Mind you, NONE of these people spring to mind as people most happy puttering around in a kitchen. But that doesn't stop people from pretending or publishing for that matter.
This rant isn't really about literary cookbooks, those cookbooks that are a better read than most NYT hypermoderns (without them some of us would never get up at two in the morning to whip up a three egg omelet); it's about those cookbooks that masquerade as part of a writer's opus. Those that exist only to give the avid Aubrey & Maturin fanatic a Christmas present, something they can't possibly cook out of but that looks impressive as hell when they unwrap it.
By far the most cookbooks cum literature have attached themselves to kids book series like limpets. EVERY storybook series that warms the cockles of your heart also has recipes for self same cockles: Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows, Wizard of Oz, Beatrix Potter, Secret Garden, Winnie the Pooh, Little House buy the cookbook, Anne of Green Gables cooks Cajun....Is it just me or does anyone else find Peter Rabbit's Cookbook a little unsettling? And just how many of these things have edible recipes in them? The thought of curds and whey makes me gag and unless Walker's Shortbread has gone out of business in the last ten minutes my guess is not many of these are going to ever see the top of a kitchen counter. Yet we buy them...well, cause they're cool.
At first glance there seems to be a cookbook for every fan base; Barbara Pym's, Frances Parkinson Keyes', Marjorie Rawlings', Mark Twain's, George Bernard Shaw's, Pearl S. Buck's, Len Deighton's. The mystery crowd seems to lean towards cookery at the drop of a corpse, Nero Wolf's and Lord Peter Wimsey's, and for some reason ones written by cats ...the Cat Who whatevered, Sneaky Pie's Cookbook (to me a cat lover's cookbook has a really bad ring to it). But upon further study I find there are some areas that aren't being catered to:
Where is my Mike Hammer Cookbook? "meat, potatoes, coffee, meat, potatoes, whiskey, cigarettes."
Where is the Proust Cookbook? "1001 Recipes For Madelines."
Where is my Sylvia Plath Cookbook? "preheat oven to 350, insert head, remove when done."
Where is the Tolstoy Cookbook? "potato soup prepared with or without weevils."
Where is Emily Dickinson's “Home Cooking for Agoraphobes.”?
And there just HAS to be a Agatha Christie Dinner Party Cookbook; how else would you ever get anyone to sit down with a detective at the table?
Hemingway and Steinbeck have cookbooks in their name but why not "F. Scott Fitzgerald: a Bar Guide"?
But then we would have to have one each for Brendan Behan, Charles Buchowski, and Dashiell Hammett.
I think Ms. Parker would prefer "How to Order Room Service....and Bar Guide."
What? no Tolkien cookbook? Is it because Hobbit's all taste like chicken?
What would a Hunter Thompson cookbook be like? I suppose just a DIY guide to psychopharmacology.
I would say there is as yet no Harry Potter Cookbook, but I haven't checked for one in the last twenty minutes, so I could be wrong.
Quick n Dirty list of Biblio-cookbooks:
Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, Toklas, Alice B.
Barbara Pym Cookbook, Pym, Barbara
Bookmen's Trio: Ventures In Literary Philandering, Blumenthal, Walter Hart
Books And My Food: Literary Quotations And Original Recipes For Every Day In The Year, Cary, Elisabeth Luther
Cat Who Cookbook, Murphy, Julie
Cross Creek Cookery, Rawlings, Marjorie
Dining With Sherlock Holmes, Rosenblatt, Julia Carlson
Gone With The Wind Cookbook, Mitchell, Margaret
Green Eggs And Ham Cookbook, Seuss, Dr.
Len Deighton's Cookstrip Cookbook, Deighton, Len
Lillian Beckwith's Hebridean Cookbook, Beckwith, Lillian
Lobscouse And Spotted Dog: A Gastronomic Companion To The Aubrey/maturin Novels, Grossman, Anne Chotzinoff
Madame Maigret's Recipes, Courtine, Robert J.
Mary Poppins In The Kitchen, Travers, P. L.
Mrs. Rasmussen's Book Of One-Arm Cookery, Lasswell, Mary
Mud Pies And Other Recipes: A Cookbook For Dolls, Winslow, Marjorie
Pearl S. Buck's Oriental Cookbook, Buck, Pearl
Peter Rabbit's Cookery Book, Emerson, Anne
Plots & Pans: Recipes And Antidotes From The Mystery Writers Of America Webb, Nancy And Jean Francis, Intro By Isaac Asimov
Sherlock Holmes Cookbook Or Mrs. Hudson's Stoveside Campanion, Wright, Sean
Sherlock Holmes Victorian Cookbook, Bonnell, William
Sneaky Pie's Cookbook For Mystery Lovers, Brown, Sneaky Pie
Star Trek Cookbook, Phillips, Ethan
Star Wars Cookbook Wookie Cookies & Other, Davis, Robin
Stone Soup To Bagels: A Children's Literature Cookbook, Amster, Barbara
The Alice In Wonderland Cookbook, Fisher, John
The Anne Of Green Gables Cookbook, Macdonald, Kate
The Beatrix Potter Country Cookery Book, Lane, Margaret
The Book Lover's Cookbook: Recipes Inspired By Celebrated Works Of Literature And The Passages That Feature Them
The Boxcar Children Cookbook, Blain, Diane
The Charles Dickens Cookbook, Marshall, Brenda
The Frances Parkinson Keyes Cookbook, Keyes, Frances Parkinson
The George Bernard Shaw Vegetarian Cookbook, Bates, Dorothy R.
The Hemingway Cookbook, Boreth, Craig
The Jane Austen Cookbook, Black, Maggie
The Literary Gourmet, Wolfe, Linda
The Little House Cookbook, Walker, Barbara
The Lord Peter Wimsey Cookbook, Ryan, Elizabeth Bond
The Louisa May Alcott Cookbook, Anderson, Gretchen
The Mark Twain Library Cookbook
The Nancy Drew Cookbook, Keene, Carolyn
The Nero Wolfe Cookbook, Stout, Rex
The Pooh Cookbook, Ellison, Virginia H.
The Secret Garden Cookbook, Burnett, Frances Hodgson
The Sesame Street Cookbook, Tornborg, Pat
The Sherlock Holmes Cookbook, Mills, Charles A.
The Sherlock Holmes Cookbook By Mrs Hudson, Cradock, Fanny
The Star Wars Cookbook Darth Malt And More Galactic Recipes, Frankeny, Frankie
The Steinbeck House Cookbook, Hillyard, Kay
The Storybook Cookbook, Macgregor, Carol
The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz Cook Book, Bayley, Monica
Walt Disney's Winnie-The-Pooh Cookbook, Illustrated By Color
Wind In The Willows Cookbook, Boxer, Arabella
Winnie The Pooh's Teatime Cookbook, Milne, A. A.
Wond'rous Fare, Stallworth, Lyn
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By: David B. Ogle, Proprietor of The Antiquarian Archive, Los Altos, California
Shortly after the turn of the last century, four men and one young woman were engaged in an unusual enterprise from their small suite of offices in Manhattan, little more than a stone's throw from the heart of the city's book publishing industry near Union Square. The location was no accident, since publishers were the most frequent buyers of their products. Known as The Decorative Designers, the firm had by this time established itself as a large-volume purveyor of a most unusual commodity--the graphic designs for decorated cloth book bindings.
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We have had many laudatory comments about the designs, as well as some inquiries from fellow book dealers who would like to sell them to their customers. As a result, we have developed an attractive discount schedule for resellers. The bookplates can also be used as premium gifts for important clients. Pricing and physical details can be found at the site above. Questions can also be directed to me personally at the address below. Happy viewing!
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We invite you to visit our interactive website at:
http://www.ippi.com/antiquarian-archive.html
Note: Accompanying photos are copyrighted in the name of David B. Ogle.
By: Felix Stenert
stenertfelix@aol.com
Editor's Note: Felix Stenert is a graduate student in Germany, and this article is a portion of his master's thesis (we will probably have other applicable portions of his thesis in future Standard issues, with Felix's permission). Felix is getting a degree in library science from Fachhochschule f|r das vffentliche Bibliothekswesen in Bonn (FhvBB) (University of Applied Sciences, Bonn/Germany) and he is writing his thesis on libraries using online bookshops and databases, and the advantages and possible risks to libraries in using them. I think this will give us online booksellers, in particular, important information about our business from the viewpoint of libraries and librarians and how to work with them. Footnotes and bibliographical references are available from Felix, at the email address above, if needed. Thank you, Felix, for allowing us to learn from your research!
The multiple offerings of the online antiquarian book market are already comprehensive and are an important innovation of this "fusty" and old-fashioned thought-of branch of bookselling. Not all of the possibilities and opportunities are utilised by the libraries, or the libraries aren't able to use them completely.
Today there is a splendidly constructed choice of online-magazines and publications on the (antiquarian) book market, like the IOBA Standard, The Bookologist or the German Aus dem Antiquariat - Onlinemagazin für Antiquare und Büchersammler. There is also the Insider mailing list of BookFinder.com, an often-attended forum for questions and suggestions in the world of books, collectors and booksellers.
All these publications are not limited to just the topic of antiquarian books and book-selling, but include a number of highly important things like history of books, distribution and printing, preservation of books and printed materials, book art and bibliography. All of these are things of interest not only for the bookseller, but also for the librarian.
A well-developed compilation and listing of antiquarian online-bookshops from all around the globe is available through the Bibliographischer Werkzeugkasten by the HBZ. The HBZ (Hochschulbibliothekszentrum) is the Online Utility and Service Center for Academic Libraries in North Rhine-Westphalia/Germany.
- Inquiry and order -
The internet brought a number of innovations and global contact by e-mail making international communication much more simple and much faster. But a number of libraries still use the traditional way of communication (by letter, by fax) to forward their orders to the bookshop or the library supplier - though the number of online orders or by e-mail is increasing in the last few years and is becoming more important. In a number of cases the order by a library is still an administrative act and all communication with the bookshop has to be in written or printed form, which excludes online-orders or orders by e-mails (or else they have to print hardcopy of all documents). Usually the library isn't in a hurry when ordering; however, it might be a good deal to contact the seller by phone or e-mail when the librarian finds a rare and long-wanted book to have it reserved so that nobody else is able to buy the book in the meantime.
In looking for the different possibilities the search for old, out of prints and rare books that the new media opens, there will be unknown ways so far that we are not able to use them.
Most of the publications written and printed in the last several decades and centuries are simple to find through the main search opportunities of the individual book-platform and could be ordered in a direct and easy way. Especially smaller (special) libraries are the winners in the new ways that the online-business provides. In the past there were these printed catalogues, arranged by an author, title or subject and all entries of a number of catalogues had to be looked through and proofed, before you eventually found the wanted book. Today there is the easy, clean and comfortable possibility to search not only one seller, but also nationally and internationally. That indicates a combination of the acts of bibliographic verification and ordering in just one simple step.
The systematical search for special subjects without any precise interest in single titles or authors or without a knowledge of concrete books for your enquiry is still not as simple. The different offerings like subject- or free text-search, or browsing though categories still isn't sufficient to find what you really want. Printed catalogues for special themes or subjects are often better and easier to handle - the results of the search are better and more precise. The browsing, one of the favourites of the layman, is not that important for a serious and professional search in the library.
Before a definite order there are several steps to do and, in a number of libraries, there is more than one catalogue to proof before the order will be placed. Not all of them are electronic or an OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue), but also card and book form catalogues (especially for smaller or very old libraries). The traditional print catalogue is in this case the easiest way; you can write in it, make notes and give it to your colleague next door. On the other hand the internet gives the opportunity to search trough the stacks of bookshops around the globe, never editing catalogues or sending them to your library as in the past.
As the main search menus are easy to work with and catalogues of individual book sellers are combined at larger platforms or search machines like the BookFinder or AddAll, the librarian is able to react immediately on current acquisition requests or inquiries by customers of the library. At the same time you can check the desiderata list of non-available books and are able to close gaps in the libraries' collections.
There are several antiquarian booksellers who search the OPACs of libraries and offer them books directly that are missing in the stacks of a (special subject) collection - but this will be only an exceptional case, only high-priced or rare books by an individual author or on a special subject will be offered that way.
Often an analysis or examination of the requests given by the libraries' customers for the inter-library loan may show gaps or deficits in the local collection - and most of the requested books are still available at antiquarian bookshops.
While reading reviews or critics on new books there will may be mentioned past editions or books printed in the past (mostly out of print) which have a certain similarity to the now announced publication that are even better or will complement each other, with the planned new purchase. So it might be better to acquire the important work from the past in a used copy than to copy the new one - via the internet you will find the one you are looking for and will have details (bibliographic dates, availability, price) in just a few seconds.
Your search might not be completely successful at all, but there is often the chance to receive an offer for the wanted book when you put out a request on a billboard or want list. This is probably not successful in every case, but it's often worth trying. Some of these boards are searched at regular times by automatic search robots or requests will be forwarded to a special subject book shop.
- Compare the prices! - A need? -
It's a wonderful side effect of the online-bookshops with all these antiquarian books that you are now able to compare the prices in just a second. Even if your library is traditional and still orders from the printed catalogues received by mail, it's enlightening and fun to compare the prices of different copies at different shops.
Almost all online-platforms for antiquarian books make it possible to sort the matching items by price - just to be right. This is definitely not a call for acquisitions as cheap as possible, though helpful in times of poor public budgets and stagnating or decreasing library budgets. But it's an observation that the price for the same book in the identical edition and condition differs in a relation around 1 to 3, or even higher.
It's not the inclination of libraries to buy the cheapest copy available; long-time business relations and trust between library and bookseller or a full-service procurer is certainly more important than a little savings. It is not worthwhile to invest time for a search just to find a copy a couple of pennies cheaper. But if there are noticeable differences between the prices - you have to use them, especially in times where public money is rare.
There is a special thing in the German speaking countries (Austria, Germany and Switzerland) not that known in the USA and the UK: price maintenance - one book : one price. There is only this one price for a new book at the shops, no discounts, no special price. The seller isn't allowed to sell it below this price.
But it's totally different in the second-hand or antiquarian market; the price will be calculated by the individual seller.
The customer hasn't got this choice between all identical copies as it is the case by a new publication, a used book has its own characteristics like condition, edition, provenance, inscriptions, etc. Every older book is a kind of unique copy with its characteristics, and the prices will differ depending on these characteristics.
The internet brought a never-known high level of transparency and the possibility to compare (the price, the condition, the individual copy). Prices of a publication are visible at a single look, but this is not the end of the "mystery of the prices" and the large number of internet marketplaces for books is not the end for local bookshops and auctioneers.
The seller with high-end prices now will have some problems to sell ordinary or regular items at the best prices. There might be a tendency to decrease the high prices and to increase the lower ones, building an average price for a book - and the bookshop in the middle of nowhere now definitely knows how to price a book, even if he has no shop on Madison or Park Avenue as through the internet he is able to contact customers nearly every place on earth.
In the market for old and very rare books, for exclusive copies and collectors' items, the prices may not differ that much or that blatantly, but it's worthwhile to compare, even for books worth a couple of thousands.
It is significant to see how many sellers react on catchwords like "first edition," "signed," "with a print," "collectors' edition" and include these words in their descriptions - while regularly posting a higher price for same. Often it's no odds it's really a scarce item; the first edition might be the only edition or all copies of a publication may be signed, so it's hard to understand why you'd want to pay a price two or three times higher than a cheaper offer.
Let's see one example :
On the other hand, there are books that are not available at the bookshops; this does not make them "rare" or "scarce;" maybe there are just no interested customers or the subject seems to be quite unattractive. In the worst case a book not available through the large search engines is just trash nobody looking for.
While you are often able to find a lower price at antiquarian bookshops, a few years after printing, a number of monographs, fictional books and exhibition catalogues, other things like reference literature, catalogue raisonnés or collectors' edition will become more and more valuable in this time and mostly unavailable at their original publishers price (in best condition).
Even if the library does not use all the possibilities of the online-bookshops for used and rare books and still orders from printed catalogues and lists, take a look into one or two internet-resources and do a critical comparison of prices.
Especially on the occasions of larger acquisitions (like collections) or expensive single works, it's a kind of need to make yourself familiar with the market and its prices. And don't forget the auctions; a number of titles could be better and even cheaper bought at auctions than in a bookshop with fixed prices. It's the responsibility of the librarian to use the financial resources in an adequate way and to hesitate before paying too high pricing. Saved money can be used for further acquisitions.
A number of libraries regularly receive gifts from the customers or from the public audience and some of them include scarce and rare books (most of it is just used paper and trash!). Not all of these books will enter the library's stacks, as they are still in the library, they are old-fashioned and obsolete, or their subject matter does not fit the library and its audience.
So the library might try to sell the better ones to a bookseller to raise money for the library (the other books may enter a charity sale or a flea market). The internet helps to find (special) shops who will acquire the books and helps to estimate the rare and scarce items between them - but it has to be clear that we will get only a part of the final price at the bookshops.
In difference to the acquisition of new books by libraries only a very few sellers of used, out-of-print and rare books have special discounts for institutional customers such as libraries. But a number of libraries order regularly and for higher sums and they are considered as reliable customers with good payment behaviour, and as with other booksellers ordering, many sellers give a special colleague discount at 5 to 15 percent. If the books are ordered directly from the shops and not via a platform like Abebooks or ZVAB, the shops don't have to pay fees for the sale, so they might give a discount for larger orders. The library has to ask for a discount and the seller should give it - support your customers, support the library!
- Online use for bibliographic checking -
No library will give priority to information or dates from bookseller listings or antiquarian platforms on bibliographic checking; there are the catalogues from the most important libraries on earth (Library of Congress, British Library and all the others) available online - most of them with an national library or national bibliographic character). The choice is wide and they will be used first.
But from time to time there is this observation: that you have a book, the actual publication, in your hands and you aren't able to find a single listing at any library (even the biggest and most important ones) at all.
Especially for non-book trade publications never seen at the bookshops it may be hard to find a library, although this object is cited in a text or is included in an important bibliography. Even with very poor details and only a little endurance you have the chance to find it with a free text search at one of the bookshops. I was looking for a Jasper Johns catalogue published by a New York Gallery in 1989 and found no entry at any library on both sides of the ocean, but it was quite easy to find a copy through BookFinder and Abebooks.
- To borrow or to buy : The inter-library loan -
If you take a look through the order requests for the inter-library loan by the libraries, customers might find a special interest in subjects or titles where the local library can not totally satisfy or locate a gap into your local collection. And most of the relevant books and papers printed in the last 200 years will be easily available for acquisition in the book shops.
And there is still another opportunity to use the antiquarian online-catalogues in the inter-library loan, more a "buy" than a "borrow."
Although the fees for inter-library loans are not very high, the internal costs for this service are expensive (too high). On the other hand, a number of clients using this service will also pay a little more to hold the book (and not have to return it after a couple of weeks) - so they will buy instead of borrow. Books published after WW2 are mostly available at a reasonable price. This will not only save human resources in the library, but make a number of people very happy, when they can hold a long-wanted books in their hands--maybe a picture book from the time of their childhood--and it's theirs, they don't have to return it! It's so easy to order, but so many people don't know anything about the today's possibilities in online-bookshops, so the librarian will order a copy for them at the information desk and the library-client will receive the book and the invoice just a few days later by mail - or you just give them advice and they will order independently on their own.
- From the virtual basket to the actual parcel: Order and delivery -
If any matching titles were found during a book search that the library wants to order for its collection, the possibilities to order are different: to order online or to order offline (letter, fax, etc.). Some online bookshops have an option to print an order slip (ZVAB.com does it). In many libraries any order has to be documented separately and step by step, so they need a written order beside the invoice papers; they print the e-mails or save them into their electronic systems.
It's still a problem to give the payment details in e-mail or online order windows as it's not 100 percent secure and most of the German or European libraries are not able to pay by credit card or automatic bank debit. Sometimes a registration is needed to order a first time, which is definitely okay, as it prevents the library and the seller from fraudulent use (packets never ordered and other things) - a single registration for the library seems the best way, with a contact to the acquisition department.
Most bookshops in Germany will send the books without any further notice by invoice to the library, and in contrast to some online sellers, they charge postage - the German amazon.de will deliver all new books and other orders Euro 20 and up without any postage charging. Most sellers will use the cheap book or media rate postage, heavier things by small parcel or packet. The German postal service gives insurance for all parcels up to Euro 500 and just for the very rare and expensive works is it necessary to insure separately.
Only very few sellers use other services like postal; some (but not many) use UPS or similar German firms.
Orders from overseas sellers are no problem at all, but details like payment and rates of shipment have to be clear, and it is no problem to contact the shop by e-mail, fax or phone. But the postage for larger and heavier works ordered abroad or overseas are high; often the charges and fees are higher than the actual book.
Especially when ordering from the USA, Canada and Australia, the library must decide whether it wants airmail or surface mail shipment. For large and heavy orders, the M-bag is a wonderful alternative way to send books overseas, but good wrapping is necessary. High valued items have to be documented and insured. For a single book ordered in the USA the charges between air and surface mail differ only a very little bit: The "Flat Rate Envelope" for global priority mail by the USPS (United States Postal Service) allows sending up to four lbs. at $9.00.
In any case, a written (typed or printed) invoice is essential and an email is not a full substitute for that; the invoice is the most important document in the libraries administration! There are sellers who send books without any invoice, just including a delivery note without the individual book price or the postage - e.g. Alibris never includes an invoice! Also a handwritten note on a post-it-sheet saying "Thanks a lot" is not the paperwork libraries need. Some sellers will send invoice and books separately, which is okay since all invoiced books will be send in one parcel.
The total absence of any papers, no delivery note and no invoice is additionally a problem for the library when the books were ordered abroad and customs will open the parcel…
- clearing and payment (the problem of credit cards at libraries) -
In the business connections between bookseller and library the clearing by invoice is the most usual way, as only a very few libraries can accept a payment requirement of cash in advance or automatic bank debit.
Some shops regularly only accept orders by bank debit (like the German Zweitausendeins, www.zweitausendeins.de
In the beginning of e-commerce there were a number of firms that did not allow any invoicing; nowadays most of them will ship this way (for private as institutional customers).
Most orders done in Germany will be sent with an invoice without any question. Sometimes you have to ask if the seller accepts new or unknown clients or requires payment in advance. A lot of booksellers in central Europe, like Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands, also have German bank accounts, as Germany is the most important market in Europe, so there will be no problem with paying in such cases. Only occasionally will the library will be asked for any references and a deposit is not usually required or perhaps maybe only on rare high-priced items. But normally no such payment is needed.
But there is still the problem with orders from the non-German speaking countries and from overseas: most of these transactions will require a credit card. I'm not really familiar with the situation of US libraries, but only a very few German libraries have a credit card to order books.
On the other side, there are a lot of interesting things on the American continent and important acquisitions to fill blatant gaps in collections. The usage of private credit cards by members of the libraries staff isn't a satisfying alternative way. There are only a few of the larger sellers in the US with a German account, as they are also participating at German fairs and shows. Lame Duck Books and Arslibri, both housed at Boston, have this arrangement.
An international bank transfer will be used from time to time. It takes a long time and the fees are quite high, however. It may be a way for larger or important orders, but no library will order an ordinary book this way.
Other kinds of payment like cash on delivery (COD) aren't used in the practise.
In the last few years, more and more libraries in private hands (firms, etc.) and foundations as well as some public institutions, received credit cards to use responsibly for their orders and acquisitions programs.
Special transfer payments offered by book platforms to individual sellers, as abebooks.com does, are not available for libraries.
Let's hope that there will be other ways of e-payment and more credit cards available at libraries in the future.
- A resume -
Today there are a number of ways to use the online databases of the antiquarian booksellers for libraries.
The search for special authors or title will be so much easier than the "look-though-the-printed-catalogues-method.” Mostly you can now find a matching item in a few seconds. In the past you had to look through stacks of catalogues or ask booksellers - now you will save a lot of time.
The weak point at almost all online bookshops (for new as well as for used) is the search for individual subjects or thematical interests; the number of matching titles by browsing through categories is too large and is not satisfying, as a large part of listed titles is not relevant at all. Here some more future innovations are needed to make the subject or special interest search easier and more convenient - but this is a problem with most library-OPACs, too.
The enormously high number of individual books and titles in just one pool opens new ways of acquiring books - the chance to find a wanted book are higher than before, and now you can compare several copies of different sellers in condition and price.
Every library has to express its own criteria for acquisition, i.e., whether to buy from the cheapest seller, from the well-known seller with a long serious business contact, or on other points.
The bookshops will be used in the daily work and service of the library to acquire books, but also to find bibliographic dates and at the information and reference desk.
The term "out of print" and "unavailable or no longer available" has changed into "available in a used copy" or "look at the antiquarian seller," so knowledge about the most important places on the internet for books is a need and a must for all librarians, in the public libraries as well as in the research library!
It's hard to define the future for the antiquarian book market, but also for a number of years the classic store will be there, the collector will look trough the stacks, will touch the volumes, look at the binding and browse through the pages, not touched for a couple of years. Most of them are not interested in special titles, but just love books - the old school bibliophile.
The internet will be a second and very easy way for the seller to offer his books to millions of people throughout the world and the individual customer will find most of the books he is looking for.
But the internet business will not be the only way or the solution; scarcely a seller will offer rare and very rare offerings through the web. The most important works will never be sold online, as the customer will still want to feel it with his own hands and see it with his own eyes before he will pay a cent!
And it's hard to imagine seeing a multi-thousand dollar book just beside a penny-priced novel paperback - but you will find them in the internet: books for a single cent and books with a five digit price. Some of the sellers have serious problems with putting their important books into this virtual flea market… and they are right. Special platforms are needed for special (rare, signed, collectors' edition, etc.) books - http://www.bibliopoly.com and http://www.worldbookdealers.com may be examples for a higher than the average market.
At libraries and at bookshops the future won't be either classic style or virtual, but will be “as well as.” Only the combination and close connection of both ways, of old and new, will be the future!
About the author
Felix Stenert, 25, is a librarian. He studied at the Fachhochschule für das öffentliche Bibliothekswesen Bonn (University of Library Sciences, Bonn/Germany). This text is an excerpt from his diploma thesis. The complete text is currently available only in German. Comments and suggestions are always welcome at stenertfelix@aol.com.
By: Shirley Bryant
I've been musing about something, brought on by the reactions of my husband and my sister to some of my risk-taking behaviors in buying books (they're horrified; wouldn't dream of risking the amounts I do but have grown used to my ways and seem to now feel I'll guess right 90% of the time--probably). Granted, most of the time, those behaviors have a 'sort of', halfway, educated guess behind them (maybe that 'book sense' Aimee spoke of), but some of my behavior is just flat willingness to take a financial risk on books.
I suppose some of you are just straight business-people and books 'could be' any other product. That you never buy without knowing ahead of time that you can make a profit on what you buy. But for many of us the main attraction to selling books is the fun of the hunt, the thrill of finding sleepers and, most of the time, learning something new about books or some esoteric subject. And we each have a personal threshold of risk tolerance that we're comfortable with. For me, depending on the state of my bank account, the level is $500-$1,000. I'm willing to lose that much money if I guess wrong on book buys (yeah, it has happened). I'd be horrified to lose that much gambling in Vegas or betting on the horses though I operate much the same way with that type of gambling-decide ahead of time how much I'm willing to lose and come back grateful for the fun I've had and happy if I bring any money home. The levels are just much, much lower with the horses or Vegas.
But…with books, I guess that's my personal form of gambling, my addiction. Even if I buy books I'd never personally read, I still feel like I have something with value-even if the market tells me differently. It's not the same as buying artwork by unknown artists (which I've certainly done) just because the object pleases my eye or speaks to me; a slightly grubby book that I think is a jewel in the rough doesn't have much visual appeal. In fact, much of the time, when buying books, I look for the obscure, the weird, the truly odd that may, in some cases, be personally ho-hum or even offensive. I do, of course, buy my bread-and-butter books, those I know I can sell and for what amount. But to stick to only those would soon become so boring I'd abandon bookselling-like I've abandoned other careers when they became boring.
So, what is it? Do antiques dealers have the same addiction? Do sellers of any object that has no absolute value have the same addiction to the hunt? Is this the same addiction people have who shop compulsively? Do we get an emotional 'rush' from the idea of finding that sleeper, or are we hooked on the buying, itself-and use books to channel that buying into an acceptable behavior? Or are we mental gadflys, who constantly need a knowledge fix and books are our route to that end?
And, for us online booksellers, I think we're actually exposing ourselves-willingly-to two addictions. Do you get withdrawal symptoms if your computer goes down, or if your ISP goes offline for a day? I panic, no doubt about it. And that addiction has progressed (a bad sign in addictions!). So, not only am I addicted to buying books (or buying, period), I'm also addicted to the internet and my contact with other addictees (is that a word?) and access to the unlimited world of knowledge out there.
It seems to me that our addiction, at least in buying books, differs in a couple of important aspects from more traditional addictions. It doesn't necessarily progress; we don't necessarily (though I'm sure all of us at one time or another have done so) do without necessities just to acquire more books on a given day. We are also willing to let go of our 'finds' and to share knowledge among ourselves-knowledge that cuts into our own chances of making more finds (though perhaps that is to get others hooked?). Granted, we normally want money in exchange for that letting go, though most of us have been known to give away more than a few books, and most of us give away knowledge every day. So maybe it is just the excitement of the buy that has us hooked. Or the smell or feel of the books. Or perhaps it is the endless quest for knowledge.
As for my internet addiction, I don't quite know what to say about that one. I like being able to reach at least semi-like minded people 24/7, I like knowing I can find almost any obscure information (notice I'm not saying I'll understand it all) 24/7. I even like the speed at which I live now, though I gripe about it. The other side of the coin is that maybe, just maybe, some of us are better equipped to deal with people via the internet. We always have the choice of not answering emails immediately-who's to know if we're at our computers or not? So we don't have the same instant demands made on us that interfacing with people in the 'real world' requires of us. Plus there is the attraction-very real for me, anyway-that we're dealing with other people in a mind-to-mind direct manner. No physical, cultural, ethnic, age, sex, geographical or social considerations really enter into our internet relationships unless we choose to have them do so. Political and religious-yes, sometimes, but hopefully kept to a minimum just as they are in the physical world unless dealing with someone you know well. But if you find a person interesting online, do you stop to think of how old that person is, what they look like, whether you like their kids, etc.? Or do you just relate to that person's ideas and intellect?
So, is it part and parcel of the type of people we are? Are we evolving or regressing as humans? Or have some of us oddballs just finally found a warm and fuzzy environment for ourselves? Or am I all alone on this??
By: Kathleen Gonzalez
sales@booksmaps.com
A bookseller is always either making decisions or postponing them.
About five years ago I attended an auction and acquired a station wagon load of books and ephemera. This would not be an auction that would fade from memory. I bought someone else's memories and I still have some of them.
Even before I drove down the driveway, I acquired another memory that also won't go away. I stuffed my little wagon and could not fit it all in. I had to make decisions about what to leave behind. I sorted and resorted then told the auctioneer I had to abandon six boxes. The staff was nearly ready to leave, rain was starting, and I made the mistake of looking out the side view mirror to see a helper heave the boxes in a dumpster. This auction was held in the 'suburbs of a small town.' How would any salvager know to look there? If found and I hadn't sorted carefully, someone else could profit or enjoy. But, this probably wasn't a road frequented by curious dumpster-peekers and the approaching clouds were black. Those rejects weren't even going to make it to the dump. It was very hard on a recycler.
I took all the ephemera. In the following weeks, I started going through the books, then the ephemera with the letters last. I had already learned that the father in the family manufactured a product of relevance and held patents. He must have been important in this town -- he was an employer. He was able to travel to Washington, correspond with some politicians, and attend an Inaugural. The town was also home to a very famous American who was not hyped by the auctioneers so I wasn't expecting anything, but I hoped I would come across something. All I found was an envelope with the famous person's name on it.
Instead, I became fascinated by a letter from a soldier to a home town girl, a daughter in the family (or the daughter in the family). I read another, then another, then sorted every letter from him to her. There were all kinds of other letters and all were easy to toss. Not his. I saved his. I couldn't explain my actions.
The time period was in the 1950's. I knew some of those years well. Crinolines, carefully ironed blouses with little collars, hair close to the head and sometimes held with bobby pins. There was an obsession with the social life of the school and post-graduation theorizing about what was going to happen to everyone and sustained gossip. I shouldn't have been interested in these letters as I hold turn-of-the century and up through the thirties interests, but there was something about his letters that chronicled his attempts to correspond and the hope he held of winning her interest. He was lovesick. She didn't seem to return the sickness, but kept writing to him.
I tied the letters together and found an appropriate box.
While I was reading, I started wondering if a publisher might find them interesting. They were one-way letters. There were only hints of what she wrote to him. And no hints of what she said to him while he was home on leave and before the letters started up again when he returned to his base. It appeared there were some not-so-frequent get-togethers while he was home.
I remember the letters were light on news about his military life and more focused on her. Wouldn't any girl like the attention even if he wasn't a candidate?
I thought there must be all kinds of little stacks and boxes of letters of so little importance all over the country. Why would a publisher be interested? There was no hero. The damsel wasn't in distress. But, if I was fascinated, why wouldn't someone else be?
About the time I was getting ready to move I came across the letters and knew I was going to have to decide if I would bring them along. I thought I'd check the internet to see if either of their names came up. I think I found him living in a larger sized town not that far from his hometown.
I had very little time to devote to the decision, but in the time I did take before the move, I wondered what permissions would be required to attempt to publish them. I thought about camouflage. I wondered whether the dates, names, and the locale could be changed. I somehow knew that changing anything would ruin it. Though this young guy graduated from high school, he must have been off fishing in his head during grammar classes. No one should correct the errors. All the names were just right; no one should substitute any. The circumstances and happenings were just right, no one could improve on the simplicity.
I thought about what might happen if I contacted him for permission. Would he be stunned? Would he stare? Would he be suspicious? Would he remember writing them? Would he be uncomfortable? He would certainly ask me how the heck I got them. He might be silent and I could leave not knowing anything. Would I get stuck listening to stories? Or would I listen and not call it stuck?
I thought about searching her out. I was sure the auctioneer would remember the auction and provide a clue. I could check civic records. Any older person would remember the family, there might even be brothers and sisters around.
I thought about who the letters belonged to? She had owned them, now I owned them.
He only wrote the letters. They were only his words. It was only his heart.
Then I thought, what if he had kept all her letters to him?
Next, I thought what if…what if…she was living in the same larger town…with him? Married for forty plus years?
I thought I would check out all the legalities when I had time. I wasn't fired up to contact him. I wasn't fired up to throw them away. I didn't have time to do any further research. The letters moved with me.
What I will do now is reread all the letters in time and in sequence to see if they still hold appeal.
All I know is that she saved them. Now, for some reason, I'm saving them.
Postscript:
In using the 'free legal opinions of the internet', it appears permission is required to publish letters and heirs must be found and contacted if the principals are no longer living.
On the letterhead of the Butte Saddle Mining Syndicate
Offices in the Bacon Building, Oakland
April 2nt, 1909
This is a memorandum for you,
I have this day put in escrow 100,000 shares of the Butte Saddle Mining Syndicate Stock owned by me with a like number of shares owned by each Mr. John R. Richards. And Mrs. Josephene Chick. This stock being pooled was put in the Security Bank and Trust Co. Oakland, Cal., for safe keeping. For three years. Mr. Richards. And Mrs. Chick have each signed over to me there proxy, to vote there stock for the next three years.
N.B. Williams, Pres.
I have looked at this particular memo many times (copied here with its original spelling and punctuation) and wondered about the story behind it. N.B. Williams was my great grandfather, and he spent at least the last twelve years of his life in California, far away from his Rhode Island wife and four children. Because the family back home kept some of his letters and papers, there is a collection of ephemera that keeps on tantalizing me. The collection reveals only bits and pieces of the story and raises far more questions than it answers.
The problem with inheriting a family ephemera collection is that the people who could have helped you understand it may already be gone. I used to love to listen to my grandmother, Mary and her sister Ruth, two of those children back home, talk about the old days. I remember them talking about their mother Essie and their brothers Ira and Ralph and their brothers' wives Alice and Gladys. I remember talk of the Esmond Mills, where some of them worked, and family friends like Josie Keefe, but I don't remember them talking about their father. If I had known about him and his gold mine, I probably would have asked a question or two. The main one that comes to mind is, “Why aren't we rich?”
As a child, I wouldn't have thought to ask them questions that occur to me today like, “How was it for your mother, on her own for all those years? How was it for the two of you?” And to my grandmother, “Did he get back for your wedding?” (My grandmother's wedding was in 1910.) But my grandmother and her sister Ruth had both been gone for many years when these papers came into my hands.
Following are some of the parts of the story, told through the papers I have. I still know few details except that we are not rich and that my great grandfather died with a few dollars in the bank, a gold watch and $10.00 of new underwear, some of which was sold to a rag man for 35 cents and some of which was stored.
In the following quotations I have preserved the original spelling and punctuation, but anything in bold face type is my own emphasis.
From the Prospectus
Butte Saddle Mining Syndicate
Page 3: The Butte Saddle Mining Syndicate was duly organized and incorporated under the laws of the Territory of Arizona on the 25th day of January, 1909.
Officers: President: N.B. Williams; Vice-President: A.G. Schindler; Secretary and Treasurer: G.W. Wheeler; Superintendent: O.E. Anderson
Directors: I.W. Bridenbacker; S.T. Chapin; G.W. Wheeler; A.G. Schindler; N.B. Williams
Depository, First National Bank of Oakland, Cal.
Page 7: Large deposits of very rich ore were continually encountered during the operations of the former owners, and we now have many fine samples at our offices taken from this vein that will run from $10,000 to $40,000 per ton, which we will be pleased to show to anyone who may be interested.
Page 11: OPPORTUNITY: Buttes Saddle Mine will prove a wonder. She is the King of the Sierras. The $48,000 taken out is just enough to prove the great worth of the property.
Page 13: In order to raise a small amount of money with which to complete the equipment of these works by installing the rock breaker and concentrator before referred to, which will not only more than double the capacity of the mill………..the Directors of the company have decided to offer for sale a few shares of the Capital Stock at ground floor prices, and those who would like to secure a few shares of this dividend-paying stock should apply early, for it will soon be taken up, and after this block is taken no stock can be obtained for less than $1.00 per share. Don't fail to secure some of this stock before the supply has been exhausted. While it lasts it will be sold at bed-rock prices. Call early at the offices of the company and inspect samples of ore, and obtain prices and further information regarding this wonderful mine.
February 4, 1909:
Stock Certificate
1 share of Capital Stock of the Butte Saddle Mining Syndicate
April 2nd, 1909
Letter from Newell B. to his wife Estelle
My Dear Essie,
……………Now Essie, you don't see how I can stand it to stay away from home so long. I know I could not stand it to stay home as things are now, so I just have to stand it and stay away… I think I have been away now two years on April 1….I will go home for a little. But not to stay for the west looks better to me than R.I. and I want to have you arrange to come back with me and stay for at least 2 or 3 months….Essie, I would like to help you a little and will as soon as I can, that you know. I have something more than $300 coming to me and it is good.
I have pooled my 100,000 shares of stock of the Butte Saddle mining Syndicate with Mr. John R. Richards and Mrs. Chick and signed there Proxy over to me to vote as I think best for the next 3 years. I do not know as yet what I will do with these papers but will let you know later on. Now you can see that I hold and will own 1/5 of the mine when sold or when paid for. We are going to try to put it in shape to sell for about 2 or 3 million and think we can do it inside of 3 years………..Net that would give me $100,000. That would not be bad for a 2 or 3 years trip to the west. Well this may be all a air castle but things look very bright and we must dig and hope………If this comes my way I can see where I can make it a million in something else I know of….I guess this is all for this time from Your Hubby Newell in the West.
September 21, 1909
Letter from Newell to my grandmother
My Dear Kid Mary D,
I have been thinking how much pleasure it be to me if I could have you all out here for at least the next six months so that winter would go by and you would not know it….The winter is no colder than many days that we have in the summer…I would like to have Ruth go to the Berkeley College. I understand they have about 3,000 this term on beautiful grounds….
From Your Pa Williams in the West
October 15, 1909
Two certificates for Capital Stock, 100 shares each, issued to N.B. Williams
February 11, 1910
One certificate for Capital Stock, 50 shares, issued to N.B. Williams
Undated:
A list of the shareholders of the Butte Saddle Mining Syndicate and the number of shares held by each
Undated:
Letter from Newell B. to his wife Estelle
Dear Essie,
I do not think these papers are of any use and I am sending them home. I hope some day I can look them over and tell you a long and interesting story about this mining venture.
N.B.Williams
California State Board of Health
Bureau of Vital Statistics
Standard Certificate of Death
Full Name: Newell B. Williams
Date of birth: 1876
Date of death: March 3, 1921
Age: 45
Cause of death: Pneumonia Lobar & myocarditis & acute dilation of the heart
Letter to Estelle Williams from F.W. Swigart, on the letterhead of F.W.Swigart Real Estate and Insurance
March 9, 1921
Your letter of March 4th to hand, in reply I will say, I have known Mr. Williams for about 5 years, and for the last one and a half years he has been a salesman in this office, am glad to say he was one of the squarest men I ever had around me. He took sick on February 24th and on the 26th we took him to the Providence Hospital. I saw him every day. We settled up all of our business before he got serious, he seemed to think he would never get out, I tried to cheer him up, at the same time I saw he was loosing, he died on March 3rd just one week after he took sick with Pneumonia….
Mr. Williams and I were very warm friends and on the morning he died had the nurse phone me to come down to the Hospital soon as I could as he was getting worse fast, I went down as soon as I could get there and he was gone before I arrived, I am sure he would want me to take charge of his affairs and if I had he would have been burried before this, as it is I can do nothing, but if I am aware of the time he is to be burried I shall certainly see that it is him before he is laid in the ground………….
Yours very respectfully,
F.W.Swigart
Undated:
Dear Madam:-
In cleaning out some papers and letter left in Mr. Williams room at our house I found the enclosed letter and am taking the liberty of writing to you to find out if you are a relative of his, or could locate them anywhere……….He was living at my house when he was taken sick & I thought perhaps they would like to know the situation as near as I can give it.
Yours truly,
Maude L. Silvester
March 14, 1921
Letter from a name I can't read. Looks like Roch W. Chirch
Dear Madam:
Your letter of March 9 just received. Mr. Williams was taken sick on a Thursday of one week and died Thursday of the following week. I saw him about 3 o'clock of the afternoon before his death: he died about 8 o'clock the following morning. At his request I interviewed the bank where he did business and ascertained that his balance in the bank was $507--. He wished us to draw the money and expend it in meeting the expenses of his sickness and funeral expenses. He had talked about his desires in case of his death: though thinking that death was so near I suggested to him to wait a day or two and if no change in his condition for the better appeared we could arrange as he desired then. It was his request that he be buried in an inexpensive lot with environments in the cemetery in this city……..
Remaining at your service
Yours truly,
Roch. W. Chirch
March 18, 1921
Letter to Estelle Williams from F.W. Swigart
Mrs. N.B.Williams
Esmond, R.I.
Dear Madame:
Your letter of March 14th to hand, I thought I ought to write you once more and explain a few more things.
Mr. Williams had a few articles that I think you and his children ought to have, for instance, he had a gold watch, gold chain, an extra gold watch fob with sliding buckle, the ribbon had worn out and I made him a leather ribbon as I used to be a leather worker, and while he was in the hospital I bought him about $10. worth of new underwear, all these things should be sent to you and if you write Mr. Hill the Public Administrator and demand them I think he would send them.
Yours very respectfully,
F.W.Swigart
Letter from Maude L. Silvester to Estelle Williams
March 23, 1921
Dear Mrs. Williams:-
Your letter of the 18th just received…I know you are anxious to hear from me…We only took over this place on Jan 1st so was not very much acquainted with Mr. Williams. He had a room here in our basement and done his cooking there too. He first complained of being ill on the 24th & came home from his office…My husband and I put two plasters on him, one on his chest & one on his back…I took his temperature on Friday the 25th & told him he should go to the Hospital where he could get proper care, but he said he didn't have any faith in Hospitals…Then his partner came up and brought him some oranges & some milk-he kept getting worse…there was no way to take care of him down there as I had carry all the slops upstairs. So we done the best we could for him until Sat when I took his temperature again and it was 103 so I said he must go to the Hospital and must have a Dr…The Dr. wouldn't even steady him to the Automobile, for we help him up and he took him thro the cold to the Hospital instead of calling an Ambulance…. I went to see him on Tuesday the first of March, (but we had phoned every day) and he was very low……I knew then that he was dying…….I was just beginning to go out on Thurs. when the Public Administrator came to get his papers, letters, etc. and said that he had passed away. He took everything that was of any importance in the way of letters, etc. and Mr. Williams watch and I think you should have that. There were a few clothes he had had when he worked in the shipyards. Mr. Hill said to burn them up but we sold them to a rag man for 35 cents-his best suit was used to bury him in. I will find out from the Administrator what became of his watch and let you know…….I'm sorry I cannot tell you more, but I thot you'd like to know that we don the best we could for him……
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. M. L. Silvester
August 24th, 1921
Letter from John A. Hill, Public Administrator of Alameda County
Re: The Estate of Newell B. Williams, Deceased
Dear Madam:
Regarding the correction of the Death Certificate, we regret to say that nothing can be done at this time. It will be necessary for you to write direct to the State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Sacremento, California, sending to them the enclosed Death Certificate and also the corrected one which you have made out……
Regretting that I could not correct this for you, I remain,
Yours respectfully,
Public Administrator of Alameda County
April 3, 1923
Letter from Bertha Heck, law firm of Dunn, White & Aiken to Mrs. Martha Williams Wood, Long Beach California, sister of Newell B.
Dear Mrs. Wood,
I have your letter of March 29th relative to the personal property belonging to the estate of N. S. Williams, deceased.
The attorneys have filed, on behalf of the administrator, a petition to set aside the entire estate to Estelle L. Williams, widow of deceased. The matter comes up for hearing on April 12th…
As the entire estate consists of a small amount of cash and personal property consisting of one yellow metal watch and compass-the personal property could be sent to you by express or parcel's post to whatever address you may send us as soon as the Order has been obtained and Receipt gotten from Mrs. Williams.
Mr. Hill examined the package which is at the store room of J.A.Munro & Co., belonging to your late brother. He states the contents, consisting of old shirts, underwear and socks, is absolutely valueless. There are no papers or letters.
Assuring you that we will do all in our power to bring the matter to a speedy conclusion.
Sincerely,
Bertha Heck
So there it is, excerpts from a set of documents spanning 14 years, raising many questions I will never be able to answer.
Did Newell ever get back home? See Essie again? His grandchildren and grandchildren? It seems unlikely, although his sister Martha (Mattie) seems to have made regular trips back and forth from California to Rhode Island.
Do I have distant cousins in California? Possibly, but Wood, Newell's sister's last name is awfully common, and it would probably be difficult to track the missing cousins down.
Did they get the right man in the coffin? Probably, but if not, it's too late to do anything about it now.
What is the error on the death certificate? I believe that his birthdate is misstated, perhaps a number reversal. Everything works out better if he was born in 1867 not 1876. If he was born in 1876, he was having children before he was a teenager, which is unlikely. He probably died around age 54, not 45.
What happened between 1910 and 1921? I don't think I will ever know, not without an awful lot of research.
I am certainly well informed about the cost and fate of my great grandfather's underwear, something I don't really need to know. (Message to self: Call the lawyer who has done my estate work and have him put language in the estate documents that says “disposition of underwear is confidential and private.”).
Over the years I have made sporadic attempts to learn more.
Early on we had the Smythe Company evaluate the stock certificates. They are worthless except to someone who collects old stock certificates. On par with the $10.00 underwear sold to the rag man. Nevertheless, way in the back of my mind, there is always the thought that there really is a family fortune. Those stock certificates are still there in a safe deposit box no one has paid for in a bank that no longer exists, and they are worth a fortune. Maybe that's that same kind of feeling that drove my great grandfather's search for gold. His daughter, my grandmother, herself married a man (my grandfather) who invested in gold mines and he too hoped one day to make a fortune. I have some documents about that too, but nothing as tantalizing as the Butte Saddle collection.
A few years ago I went to our public library and tried to find the surnames of some of the shareholders in the Oakland phone book. Not that I expected people who were shareholders in 1909 to still be living, but if the families stayed in the area, they might know more than I did about the mining venture. I believe I found a few familiar names, but I never followed up.
The advent of the Internet has made everything easier, and I did learn that the Butte Saddle Mine eventually produced gold, evidently in good quantity, but apparently not in my great grandfather's time. http://www.museumca.org/goldrush/dist-sierracity.html
I have researched surnames of the shareholders online, hoping to locate relatives of the shareholders, but with little luck.
I contacted the Oakland Public Library, which has mining archives, and they were extremely helpful, but I learned no specific details about Butte Saddle. I know that I will never know the personal stories of the people, but I might be able to locate the business records and find out what happened to Butte Saddle Mining Syndicate.
I have, on and off, used Ancestry.com but again with no particular luck.
It has always seemed to me that to get to the bottom of this I would have to go to Oakland and spend some time in the Oakland library or go to the town of Sierra City itself, just to get a feel for the area, or maybe research the corporation records in Arizona.
Last spring we had the opportunity to go to Oakland and San Francisco and maybe even visit Sierra City where the mine was located. I underestimated the time it would take to do this job in any kind of thorough way though and came back knowing little more than I had known before. Our vacation was just too short. I think doing a thorough job would involve quite a few hours of looking through old newspapers and other kinds of records. Maybe next time.
One thing we did do was visit Serendipity Books in Berkeley. Just as I have that feeling in the back of my mind that there still is a safe deposit box with valuable stock certificates, I expected to find a book there that would help me, maybe “The Rise and Fall of Butte Saddle Mining Syndicate.” If any place had it, it would surely be in Serendipity Books. Of course no such work exists, and although I did purchase two books on mining, and both were books I would have had difficulty finding anywhere else, neither helped specifically with Butte Saddle.
I suppose there is some kind of monetary value to the archives I have, but I wouldn't think of selling them. I will keep them for future generations to puzzle over.
###
I was asked to write an article about the history of Internet bookselling and the interaction between on-line bookselling and a proper bookstore, what in internet parlance has been called a “bricks-and-mortar” store but what will always, in my mind, simply be called a bookstore.
To be honest, I am not sure what I am going to say.
I started scouting books when I was about 16, being lucky enough to meet a couple of professional booksellers who became good friends of mine and showed me how they made their living. There is a popular misconception that booksellers buy cheap and sell high, that the primary source for books is the garage and church sale. I've been to thousands of these sales over the years, and turned up maybe a hundred worthwhile books. Piles of useful stuff, but there's only so many five-dollar books that you can buy for a quarter before you get sick of five-dollar books.
The best books I have ever bought I bought through bookstores--in fact, many of the best books I have ever bought came from high-end bookstores and not at high-end prices, either. Every bookseller has books that come to him by accident, or were on the periphery of a collection that he was focusing on the center of. That's always a good way to buy books--an important dealer's junk is usually way better than the best books in a low-end store. But I've just started to write this and already I feel that I am rambling.
The internet has changed the way we do business, and I am not so sure that it is for the better. Databases like ABE are operated on the “bigger is better” philosophy; the more books, the more booksellers, the better for the website. I disagree. ABE and many of the other on-line databases-- Alibris, Amazon, even eBay (although it's not a book database, it is an important aspect of on-line bookselling)--are full of five-dollar books for a reason: these books can be bought cheaply, by anyone, and the market to sell them exists. It used to be that if you wanted to open a bookstore, you had to invest a great deal of time and money, securing a location, buying stock, building shelves, buying reference books… the whole routine. Nowadays, in order to become a bookseller you need to do none of this. You just need to go to a few good book sales, buy a bunch of stuff, get a computer, download a free book cataloguing program, type in a few ISBN numbers and off you go. It's bookselling for dummies. A bookstore looks bad and has a hard time paying its bills when it's loaded up with 5-dollar books. A computer can hold thousands of 5-dollar books at virtually no cost and they don't even need to be shelved; they can be piled up in boxes in your basement!
I published my first print catalogue in 1984, and I opened up my first bookshop in 1986. I've used a computer since about 1985. My first few catalogues were typewritten, but starting with Catalogue Seven, I used an old Morrow CPM computer with absolutely no memory. I've published over 25 printed catalogues over the years, mostly done on computer, and because I always had a computer on my desk (usually just to play tetris), and I hooked up to the internet in the earliest days. I have watched it go from a few of us selling books in the usenet groups and on the earliest of book lists - the Biblio list - from Interloc to the formation of the first online websites--The Virtual Bookstore--and I was there at the beginning when ABE first started up as an online version of Interloc. I welcomed these changes with open arms, as I was always looking for new ways to sell books, and for new ways to create new customers.
I never foresaw what would happen.
The simplification of bookselling is threatening our trade. As more and more bookstores listed their books on the internet databases, more and more bookshops closed their doors to walk-in trade. And as fewer and fewer bookshops exist, more and more customers are driven to the online world to buy their books. And what a world awaits them! Databases like ABE with millions and millions of books being offered from every greasy shack in North America. Professional booksellers with perfect copies of wonderful books listing beside auction-scroungers with lousy copies of the same books, inferior copies at inferior prices, misdescribed, hopelessly inadequate listings, prices from $5 to $500 for similar- sounding items. I'm a very experienced on-line buyer and I still recently bought a book online that turned out to be an undescribed ex-library copy. It turns me off, and I am sure that it turns many serious book buyers off. There are too many copies of too many books, and anybody who understands the laws of supply and demand will understand that there are more books being offered than there are customers to buy them. A proper bookseller understands what the book is and understands how he can try to sell it to the right customer. More and more, that means NOT listing it on the internet, in order to try to keep it as something even moderately special.
I recently pulled my books from ABE. I list on two on-line web sites, Biblio.com and ILAB-LILA.com. I sell books on eBay. I spent a year on ABE's advisory board, being ignored. I quit the advisory board, and later I quit ABE. I was feeling guilty about cataloguing books and listing them on websites whose interests are self-serving. The ILAB website is owned and operated by the Antiquarian book trade. It's not available to everyone; only members of the ABA, ABAA, ABAC, and other ILAB-affiliated organizations can join. But it is a website with the bookseller's best interests in mind, rather than their own bottom line.
I will continue to sell books online. I use the internet as a tool, to effectively market books that I do not have any immediate customers for. I will not list my best books online in order to have them used as a free price-guide for those who don't know book clubs from bat shit. Selling books on large databases is sort of like having a small bookstore in a 100-mile long strip mall; the chances of anyone even noticing you are very small. You might as well put the books in a box and hide it under your bed; you have as much hope of selling them there as on-line with everybody else's copies. So I recently opened another bookstore, with high overhead, in a high traffic area, where customers can come and look at the books, touch the books, see the books, enjoy the books. Hopefully, my faith in the trade will pay off, and I will continue to sell enough books to make a fair living, and I will continue to be able to buy excellent books because of my presence in the community.
Abe has recently announced that they have 11,000 booksellers and 46 million books on their website. I am happy for them, and they are indeed an internet success story. Alibris and Amazon, along with Abe, are now considered “The Big Three.” I cannot fight the success of these websites, nor do I wish to. They are what they are, and they live in their own world. I use them when I have to - just today I bought two books off of Abe for which I had been searching for 2 years--the only available copies for a long time, and seriously underpriced to my mind. There are good things and bad things; the verdict is not yet in. But things are getting more and more distorted, and as time progresses, I feel much more safe and secure running my bookshop the way that I always have instead of becoming an unpaid data-entry employee of a big company whose interests are not the same as mine.
By: Rick Russell
T. S. Eliot, perhaps, described the end of AB Bookman best, it went out “… not with a bang, but a whimper.” For almost 50 years, it was the standard in the business. I was just talking to the current owner of its intellectual property, the owner of Bookman's of Arizona, and he, like so many of us, began his career with the want lists in AB Bookman. Quietly, without even a notice to its subscribers, it slipped away into our yesterdays. No more Tuesdays in the book room with postcards. The world passed on by, without so much as a honk of the horn.
The challenge is to rebuild and reshape AB Bookman into a new modern format, without losing what made it unique. It just hit me that in doing this, I am the “prospective” third editor to head it since it crawled out of Publisher's Weekly to slip inside its very own covers. I have had to think about how I could take what it was, and transform it, somehow, into something that fits modern bookselling. My approach will be on three fronts.
The first will be an auction format, similar to what is now done on flea market sites such as eBay and Amazon, but with some important differences. Books will be offered in much the same way, but with references to an online first edition guide or a printed standard. When you buy a first edition through AB Bookman, it won't be a Grosset and Dunlap reprint. Grading standards will be online, with the freedom to link to a grading standard of the seller's choice, so the buyer will know what the condition is. And the auctions will feature a “books wanted” auction working in reverse, where the prospective buyer can list a want, and dealers bid the price down, not up.
The second will be a database site, linking both an in-house database and want lists.
The third will be a homepage featuring articles and news of the trade as well as reprinting articles from the archives of the old AB Bookman.
The flea market sites have done many wonderful things. They have changed the way in which we trade in vintage and collectible items. Indeed, they've changed the way in which we look at them. More and more, however, I hear from collectors in many areas who are dissatisfied with the lack of information, the lack of any kind of authentication, on the flea market sites. Just yesterday, a rare coin collector mentioned to me that a rare coin auction site was sorely needed. By reviving AB Bookman as a book site, opening what it was to the general public, as a better place to bid on books, as a place to find that elusive title to complete a collection, with more information, reference material a click away, the hope is not to compete with the flea markets--they will always be a part of the scene--but rather to broaden and enhance the choices of both dealers and book buyers. Looking for a bargain will still tempt the buyer to take a chance on eBay or Amazon. Looking for the right book, to fill that empty space in the collection, is what AB Bookman will be for; at least that is the plan. Eventually, the auction format will have to move into specialty sites. Sites that are a part of a specific business, run by people who understand that business. The “policies” of the general audience “flea markets” can clash with the established book business, leading to such errors as the removal of an auction of Dick Gregory's autobiography, “Up From Nigger,” on a major site due to the use of the term “Nigger.” The book trade has always been one of the prime movers in the fight against censorship of all kinds, and the general market auction sites are, in fact, censors. AB Bookman will be a booksellers site, and, we hope, a prime mover in the fight against the censorship that the “flea market” sites are forced into by the breadth of their audience.
In short, we feel that the future of the auction site will not be competition for the general market sites, but specialty auction sites for the serious collector. In reviving AB Bookman, we are looking toward that future.
If readers would like to ask questions about the new AB Bookman I am available to them at this email address, and would be more than happy to give them what information and plans I have. Please remember, however, that currently I am in Tempe (near Phoenix) and the archives are still in storage in Tucson.
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Rick Russell is the author of “ Antique Trader Book Collector's Price Guide“, and (prospective) Editor of the new AB BOOKMAN.
In the course of selling books over the last eight years, I have had the good fortune to handle the letters and manuscripts of many authors. One of my favorites is a short note from J.B. Priestley, responding to a fan letter: “I am a writer and not a film star, and so have no signed photographs to give you or anybody else…As for the advice you ask for, I suggest that you should constantly practice writing, just as you would have to practice playing the violin if you wished to be a violinist.” I like the commonsense nature of the advice and the slightly peeved tone conveyed in just a few words. Technically the letter is for sale, but I've never catalogued it, exhibited it at a fair, or even priced it. Priestley, while rather out of favor with contemporary book collectors, wrote some fine novels, and I like the letter too much to let it go in a depressed market. It is carefully preserved in an acetate sleeve and an acid-free backing board and is stored with other as yet uncatalogued inventory.
On the occasions that I have prepared an author's papers for acquisition by an institution, I have always marveled at how cavalierly very valuable letters and even manuscripts are kept: filed with yellowing newspaper clippings, employed as coasters with tell-tale coffee cup rings, and even used for grocery lists. Letters and manuscripts are, to most writers, the stuff of their trade. They exchange work with other writers for comments and encouragement. People who write for a living also tend to write a lot of letters-the writing just pours from them, the practice to which Priestley referred-and they often write to other writers. These relationships, these “associations” in book collecting terms, are perfectly natural to authors, and they generally think no more of them than you or I think about the letters that fill our mailbox.
In publishing OP magazine, I've exchanged letters with quite a few good writers, some of whom are collectible now and others who may turn out to be in the future. My partner and I believe that we should offer only the best prose about books. After all, booklovers love good writing.
Even though I know better as a bookseller and collector, I can't seem to think about letters I have received in the course of publishing OP in collecting terms. They're just pieces of the magazine puzzle. Perhaps the most egregious example of my own cavalier attitude is the essay Larry McMurtry sent us for the July/August issue, a short piece about why he no longer autographs books. Mr. McMurtry (we're still on formal terms, not having met in person) and I wrote back and forth several times about possible topics for the essay. I sent computer-generated letters, and he always wrote back in long hand. The essay itself, “Why I Stopped Signing My Books,” is typed with handwritten corrections on every page. The book collector in me has taken stock of these details and their implications. The magazine editor, however, has not.
I realized that I had completely compartmentalized the two parts of my existence when I saw the McMurtry manuscript (yes, a four-page typescript, with handwritten corrections and a holograph letter, all in an envelope hand-addressed by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who happens to be the finest Western writer of his generation) lying on the floor underneath a sleeping cat. I am not by nature very organized and while preparing OP for publication, I keep in-progress articles on my desk. When I have finished with them, I email electronic copies to my partner, Dee Stewart, for copyediting and layout. At that point, my working hardcopy goes on the floor next to my desk. When the issue is finally done, my desk is empty, and all the detritus of the magazine is in the pile on the floor. Eventually, I bundle it all up and put everything into storage. I suppose I should have shooed the cat away, gathered up the manuscript, placed it in an acid-free file folder, and put it into the special boxes I keep for these sorts of things. But I didn't. Manuscripts go on the floor when I'm done with them, and the cat is free to sleep on them. Pulitzer or no Pulitzer, I couldn't bring myself to give Mr. McMurtry special treatment.
For a time I wondered about this behavior, this carelessness that I scold authors for. I realized that moving Mr. McMurtry into “collected” status and the rarified realm of archival storage would change my relationship with him. Anyone, for a price, can have a Larry McMurtry typescript or an autograph letter. By putting his manuscript on the floor, by letting the cat nap on the pages, I can think of Mr. McMurtry as a colleague, a fellow traveler in the difficult world of publishing. Now where is that McMurtry envelope? I have a shopping list to make.
Scott Brown publishes OP - the magazine for used, out-of-print, and antiquarian booksellers and collectors. In addition to Larry McMurtry, Nicholas Basbanes, Dana Gioia (American Book Award winner and NEA Chair), Paul Collins (author of Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books), Roy Parvin (Best American Short Stories), Amy Stewart (Barnes & Noble Discover author), and Billy Collins (U.S. Poet Laureate) have graced OP's pages. For more information, visit http://www.opmagazine.com
Elstercon, 2000 |
By: Dirk Berger
Nevermore is a new line of signed limited editions published by Festa Publishing. It will contain books in German language that may be interesting for foreign collectors, too. Why? I will tell a little later.
It all started some years ago, in 2000. As a member of a German Science Fiction organization in Leipzig in the eastern part of Germany (former GDR), we organized our fifth convention “Elstercon.” The theme was “Of Coming Horrors” and we were interested in connections between Horror Fiction and Science Fiction. We did a great conbook, 350 pages, hardcover with lots of stories by our guests and a breathtaking cover, which sometimes fills me with real horror (have a look at it and don't forget, it was done in 2000!). I was responsible for inviting guests and, with George R. R. Martin, Michael Bishop and Michael Marshall Smith, we had really great names. But of course as German authors should take part, too, we thought about who would match our theme. So we invited Frank Festa, a well-known German author who not only wrote some really weird stories but started to publish books in his own small press, Edition Metzengerstein. Some of the best works by famous authors of the genre were brought out here, like Ramsey Campbell, Brian Hodge, Dan Simmons and more. Frank was a very friendly and competent man and we stayed in contact
Festa, H. P. Lovecraft, der Cthulhu-Mythos, 1917-1975 |
I like to collect finely done books and so I started to buy from Cemetery Dance, Subterranean Press and others although I needed to read them in English. There are only a handful of small presses for signed editions in Germany; the most famous may be Edition Phantasia.
When Frank and I talked on the phone about this, the idea of Nevermore was born. The concept should be: really good stories (collections don't sell very well here, either) in beautiful illustrated editions, signed by all contributors. Soon we had the contents for the first book.
Festa, Wucherungen |
YES, AND HE WILL SIGN ALL 333 COPIES OF THE BOOK!!!
H. R. Giger painting, cover for Punktown |
And number two will be as great as the first: Kim Newmans Seven Stars, a haunting story about a cursed jewel with mummies, murder, occult sects and more, is breathtaking adventure for all readers who loved Kim's Anno Dracula. The Foreword will be by vampire lady P. N. Elrod, the art by Ugurcan Yüce.
We did a special website for Nevermore under http://www.festa-verlag.de/nevermore/index.html where you can find more information, or you could write me an e-mail to Dirk-Berger@gmx.de.
Next week we (Frank and I) will travel to Switzerland to meet Giger in person and to let him sign the signature sheets. He told us that he will show us his Museum he built up in an old castle with his collection of worldwide art and, of course, of his own works and then I will maybe know what the feeling it is to hold an Oscar/Academy Award (he got one for Alien). I'm afraid I will not sleep until then.
Author Ramsey Campbell and his wife (middle), Frank Festa (left) and Dirk Berger (right) in front of the People's Battle Memorial in Leipzig |
I am one of those newer booksellers who came into the market in the last ten years. My story starts back in 1995 or '6 when I was broker than broke, not working very much, and had started picking up little collectible pieces at garage sales that I could put in to the two consignment stores in town that would take stuff from me in an attempt to help cover some of my living expenses. I started to get fairly good at this and within a year was often paying most of my rent off of my sales. I noticed that both stores had consignment books and I started thinking about putting books somewhere to make a few more bucks.
The smaller consignment store had one of their book consignors pull out and so I approached them about my putting in a shelf of paperbacks in the available space and spent over half a year buying some assorted stock at garage sales while waiting for him to finally give me the OK. He finally gave me the word - he had sold his store to his biggest consignor of antiques and collectibles - so I went to work on the new owner. Unfortunately, the new owner decided to stock his own pocket books and I was left sitting on a pile of books with nowhere to put them.
I looked around and finally talked with the people who were running the local flea market and arranged for them to take my books on consignment, set up my first 5 foot wide 6 foot high bookshelf and quickly expanded to about 20 feet of shelving. It was making me a little bit of money but then all of the other permanent stalls in the market realized they could make a few bucks selling paperbacks at 25 or 50 cents and that market went a bit soft as I was asking the normal used bookstore half cover price.
In November of '98 the larger antique and collectibles store had their main bookseller pull out leaving them with just one smaller antiquarian book dealer and I approached them about having my books in their store. They let 3 of us move in to an area about 16 feet square and I immediately expanded into hard covers and all sorts of other books that I thought were interesting. I soon discovered that even a very good or fine first edition hardcover just wouldn't sell at even half cover in Vernon, which was quite depressing. The antiquarian seller and one of the other new sellers both told me that they were managing to sell books thru the internet and in October of '99 I downloaded Homebase and started putting books in. By the end of March 2000, I had passed the hundred book level and took the plunge, listing on ABE. I soon expanded all the way up to about 400 books by the end of May and coasted from there to November.
In mid November, I hired my son to do data entry as he had been having challenges finding work that he could actually make a living at and my books online quickly expanded, reaching about 1000 books by the end of the year and just about 4200 by the end of May '01 when my son accepted an invitation and plane ticket from a lady he had been chatting with online and escaped to Hawaii, never to return. At that point, I hired two college students and an older lady to do data entry for me and ended up with about 8400 books online by the end of '01. The college students eventually left and my g/f moved to town and took up doing the majority of my data entry for me as an employee, and I now have about 18,000 books online.
Working on becoming a real book dealer, even though I only sell through the internet, has been a real learning process. I have made every mistake possible from mistaking book clubs as possible first editions to listing hundred dollar books for $5 or $10. I actively follow a number of online or email discussion groups about books where I often learn just how much I really don't know. Many of the people who have been in the business for far longer than I have bemoan the loss of the time when the marketplace wasn't swamped with all sorts of newcomers like myself. However, a lot of the old-timers have gone out of their way time and time again to help those of us who are relatively new in the business.
As time goes on, the actual selling venues for books continue to change and grow in many ways. There are large corporate style listing services and smaller co-op style sites and all sorts of other places selling books.
About a year ago, a number of people who were selling online decided to try a slightly different co-operative venture in bookselling by opening up a place for independent booksellers to show a unified front to book buyers while maintaining more of the flavor of independent stores, and Global Book Town was the end result.
It is still in its formative stages but has grown quite a bit from the dozen stores it had when it first opened a site on the net last December. It now lists over 50 independent stores offering books for sale through their own private sites where customers can browse or search within a single bookstore's books or look through a category list to see who specializes in certain book types. Being involved in getting this new site off the ground was another learning experience for me and, luckily, a very capable person has shown up and taken over as webmaster during the summer to do most of the work.
The marketplace has definitely changed just in the three years I have been selling online. I am sure that it will continue to change as time goes on.
On June 23, 2003, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in United States v. American Library Association. The decision upheld the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) against a challenge based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Inasmuch as the law at issue in the case involved a requirement that libraries install filtering software to block obscene or pornographic material involving children, it was bound to be of interest, to say the least, to those who sell books and who have a very soft spot in their hearts for libraries.
On one of the book related discussion lists on the Internet, the comments were critical of the decision, and asserted the view that this decision represented a significant assault on First Amendment values. A representative comment went something like this: …I just want to underscore that the US Supreme Court decision means that libraries are being forced to impose automated censorship tools upon adult patrons.
I responded with the statement that, as I understood the decision, which I had not yet read, this was not true. The editor of this newsletter asked if I would like to expand on my response, and I said that I would. I hope this isn't too expansive. She asked, I suppose, because I have a law degree. Although I am blessedly free of the practice of law and now sell books, I once practiced law, and spent considerable time working in a partisan legislative advisory position, and also was a law clerk for a federal judge. I can still read a Supreme Court decision and figure out what it means.
I. The Law.
There are a couple of federal programs on the books which were designed to provide resources for libraries to offer their patrons access to the internet. The details of these programs aren't particularly important to this discussion, but that fact is necessary background. The value of those resources amounted to about $200 million in 2002 (counting direct grants, and discounted access fees).
In response to the growth of the internet in the years since these programs were instituted, Congress (and everybody else who connects to the Internet) became aware that there was significant pornographic content to be had on the web. And Congress became politically aware (angry constituents, I'd imagine) that it was accessible to children, and viewable by children while being accessed by adults, all within public libraries. They responded by passing the CIPA, which required the installation of filtering software to block access to such material.
It is important to note that this law applied only to libraries that received funds or benefits from those federal programs. It is also a given that Congress is given wide latitude to attach conditions to the receipt of federal funds. However, the American Library Association (ALA) and several other plaintiffs filed suit contending that CIPA was unconstitutional on its face.
II. The Trial.
A three judge panel in the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania agreed. It held that "any public library that complies with CIPA's conditions will necessarily violate the First Amendment." It is important to realize that this decision turned on the notion that the law was unconstitutional only because it forced the libraries to commit an unconstitutional act. In other words, a library governed or operated by a public entity - a state or local government or public school - could not, on its own, install filtering software without running afoul of the First Amendment. According to the District Court, libraries' content-based decisions are subject to a "rational basis" test. However, because internet access was used in public libraries for "expressive activity," it should be viewed as a "traditional public forum," and as such, the law should be subjected to strict scrutiny. Under that standard, the Court concluded that while the government may have a compelling interest in preventing the subsidization of pornography, the software filters required by CIPA are not narrowly focused enough, presumably because the filters are hardly a precise weapon. No one reading this will be surprised that it was generally conceded by all the justices that the filters blocked a lot of unobjectionable material.
III. The Decision.
The Supreme Court's decision overturning this decision is complex in that the decision of the Court was joined by only four justices (Renquist who wrote it, joined by O'Connor, Scalia and Thomas). That's called a plurality opinion. Justice Kennedy concurred, as did Breyer, but each wrote a separate opinion. Stephens dissented with an opinion of his own, and Souter also dissented in an opinion joined by Ginsberg. Generally, a plurality opinion does not provide a particularly strong precedent, and the concurring opinions which establish the majority are significant in that they are usually more narrowly focused and provide a more compelling basis for decisions which follow. However, for simplicity's sake, I'll refer to the opinions in the decision as the "majority," to include the plurality opinion as well as the concurring opinions, and the "dissenters," to include each of those opinions, unless context requires otherwise.
The majority, and more pointedly, the concurring opinions, notes as crucial the fact that CIPA permits libraries to disable the filtering software in response to the request of an adult, or presumably a child when the software is blocking material that would be appropriate for the child. In fact, Kennedy's decision intimates that he reads the law as requiring that action, and that the provision is constitutionally required.
As to the determination of which test to use to adjudicate this law (which I would suggest will almost always dictate the result), the majority (except Breyer) adopted the more permissive rational basis test. Breyer would have imposed an intermediate standard - "heightened scrutiny" - which requires a balancing of the government's interest and the seriousness of the speech related activity. The balance, in Breyer's opinion, tipped in favor of the government by virtue of the simplicity of getting the library to shut off the filters for adults.
The other members of the majority found the rational basis test appropriate, rejecting the trial court's opinion to the contrary. The justices reasoned that the public forum doctrine that formed the basis of the trial court's opinion was inapplicable because the provision of internet access to the public was simply not like the precedents that applied it. The easiest of those to understand is a couple of cases concerning restrictions on the use of student activity funds. The Court had held that such funds were designed and intended for providing the means to engender speech related activities. Under those circumstances, content-based regulations were subject to strict scrutiny. But libraries make content based decisions every day in choosing which materials to buy, and perhaps more importantly, which materials to segregate from easy public access. After all, the Court said, many libraries simply decline to stock pornography at all. Such decisions by libraries are not subjected to strict scrutiny according to well established precedent. The fact that the internet contains an especially broad range of information shouldn't make any difference because it could hardly be suggested that libraries could not choose to limit access to some material on the same basis they do with respect to books, periodicals, or any other material they provide.
The dissents concentrated on the factual record, which discussed how poorly the filters performed, blocking perfectly harmless material (and valuable material as well), and failing to block pornographic material. This fact was as important to the dissents as the ease of having the filters turned off for adults was to the majority. It was this problem that made the CIPA unconstitutional in the view of the dissenters. Representative is the following from the Stevens dissent:
Because of "underblocking," the statute will provide parents with a false sense of security without really solving the problem that motivated its enactment. . . . The effect of over-blocking is the functional equivalent of a host of individual decisions excluding hundreds of thousands of individual constitutionally protected messages from internet terminals located in public libraries throughout the nation.
Stevens also quoted the trial court's finding that there were less intrusive alternatives to accomplish the purpose including imposition of access regulations and punishments for those who violate them; requiring parental consent during unfiltered access or the presence of library staff.
Conclusion.
It is curious that the more conservative justices in the majority based their opinions on the freedom regularly accorded libraries. In the posture of this case, the deference traditionally shown libraries in their choice of materials determined the loss of the suit brought by the ALA. Since libraries could most certainly install filtering software on their own without Constitutional problem, it can hardly be unconstitutional for the Congress to condition receipt of federal funds on doing just that.
The answer to the assertion cited at the beginning of this essay is certainly that the assumption forming the criticism of the decision was incorrect. There is plenty of room for argument on the wisdom of the CIPA. Nevertheless it is hard to see how it runs afoul of the Constitution. The language of the law itself leaves no doubt that adult access must be unfiltered if requested.
Those of us who spend time on the Internet are well aware of both how prevalent pornography is and how imprecise filtering software is. But I can't help but wonder about both the efficacy and the appeal of the "less intrusive" ways of accomplishing a legitimate governmental purpose. Punishment for accessing forbidden materials and requiring parental presence or consent - these are hardly unobtrusive. It seems to me that they're pretty heavy-handed.
There was certainly much more to the various opinions in this case. It runs about fifty single-spaced pages. I hope that I've covered the important points, but I would suggest that anyone interested give it a read.
Flawed Policies Led To Disaster in Vietnam
The tragedy is "It needn't have happened!" say people who were on the scene during crucial years of early 1960s
By: Ken Fermoyle
It is hard to envision this book achieving the success or honors (Pulitzer, National Book Award) that Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie earned in the late 1980s. That is unfortunate. In many ways it offers more important insights into why, despite massive U.S. efforts, South Vietnam fell to the Communists
Excellent as Sheehan's book was, it was filtered through the eyes of a third-party. As good a journalist and writer as Sheehan is, he simply observed or researched the events he recorded. Active participants wrote this book. They lived and worked down where the real action was, not insulated by layers of bureaucracy from the nitty-gritty of life among the Vietnamese people.
A Bright Shining Lie also examined the Vietnam conflict largely from the viewpoint of John Paul Vann, a product of the U.S. military, and primarily a believer in military solutions, though he changed that view later as a result of a close friendship with one of the contributors to Prelude To Tragedy, Tran Ngoc Chau. As even a hawk like Vann came to realize, conventional military tactics at best only dealt with the more visible part of the growing Viet Cong insurgency during the 1960-65 period. It was like trying to get rid of weeds by pulling the tops off, but leaving the roots intact.
Certainly military efforts were necessary at the time, but not the conventional tactics favored by the French, U.S. and South Vietnam leaders. "Winning the hearts and minds of the people" became a hackneyed catch-phrase during this critical time but that does not lessen the importance of the concept. Failure to understand this, and to understand the psychological, cultural, economic and especially the political factors it involved, was critical to the loss of Vietnam.
Prelude to Tragedy: Vietnam 1960-1965 focuses on the unconventional military tactics and even more important non-military efforts needed to remove root causes of the insurgency. Sadly, such efforts, even those that showed great promise, were cast aside or perverted by U.S. policy makers and a succession of subservient South Vietnam regimes that took power after the coup and assassination of President Diem.
As the book's editors note in the introduction: "During this period, fateful decisions were made that led the United States and South Vietnam down the slippery slope to shameful defeat in 1975…The real tragedy of the Vietnam War is that it didn't have to happen."
Another tragedy is that few Americans realize that U.S. arrogance, compounded by lack of understanding, particularly of the peasantry, fueled the Viet Cong insurgency. There was almost an innocence in the lack of knowledge about Vietnam and its people on the part of most American civilian and military officials. We also had a military prepared for and trying to fight a totally different kind of war than what it faced. These are the factors that led to North Vietnam's victory in 1975.
Remember that this was during the heart of the Cold War. U.S. citizens, bombarded for years by dire threats of USSR plans to conquer the world for communism, could be excused for their ignorance about a small Southeast Asia country. Most knew little about Vietnam; few had even heard of the country before it began to make news in the 1950s.
Our leaders, however, should have known better. It would have taken very little investigation to realize that the vast majority of Vietnamese people knew little about communism during the 1940s, '50s and even into the '60s. Few even grasped the concepts of democracy or communism. Those few were the intelligentsia, nationalistic activists and more enlightened Vietnamese. Many of that group learned about communism and communist indoctrination tactics while serving time in French prisons for advocating independence of Vietnam, land reform and other measures to improve the lot of the peasantry. (Once again the old adage proved true: prisons are indeed the universities of revolution.)
The Japanese released thousands of political prisoners after they ousted the puppet French colonial government in March, 1945. Most of the communist cadres came from their ranks. To nationalist Vietnamese, these people were heroes because they had dared to defy the French and suffered in prison as a result. Vietnamese followed them not because of any political ideology but because they had proven themselves as anti-colonialists willing to fight and sacrifice for a free Vietnam.
Most Vietnamese, on all sides and from all strata of society, were nationalists. Some historians and scholars call Vietnam "the Ireland of Southeast Asia" with good reason. It fought against domination by China for centuries, suffered under the colonial yoke of France for some eight decades.
When France attempted to reestablish control over Vietnam after World War II, only a tiny fraction of the 25 million population were doctrinaire communists. Indeed, one contributor to this book, who was active from the very beginning, estimates that there were even fewer, perhaps two or three hundred, true communists in the Viet Minh military ranks and 2,000 in all of Vietnam (Translated. Viet Minh means League for Independence of Vietnam.) Tran Ngoc Chau, author of Chapter 6, My War Story: From Ho Chi Minh to Ngo Dinh Diem, adds: "In 1949, in my Viet Minh Regiment 83, I knew of only two dedicated communists, both high ranking officers."
(I must note here that Chau has been a close friend and colleague for some 15 years. He fanned my interest in Vietnam's history, the conflicts that racked it in the past, especially during the 1945-75 period, as well as the causes and results of those conflicts. I hold him in the highest esteem and consider him my mentor in many ways. Thus, I was pleased and honored when, more than a decade ago, he asked me to help him write the full story his memoirs. It has been a most rewarding experience.)
Some Americans who were on the scene did appreciate the situation in Vietnam during the critical 1960-65 period (including a few who were there even earlier). Chief among them was Col. Ed Lansdale, who at that time unquestionably had more experience with communist "people's revolutions" and counterinsurgencies than any other U.S official at any level of government.
Lansdale was the model for Graham Greene's "Quiet American" and for Col. Edwin B. Hillandale in the Lederer-Burdick bestseller, The Ugly American. He worked closely-and successfully-with President Ramon Magaysay in the Philippines to combat the Huk Rebellion. He headed the Saigon Military Mission in the mid-1950s. President John F. Kennedy, impressed by Lansdale's knowledge of and experience in Vietnam, wanted to appoint him ambassador to South Vietnam in 1961. Dean Rusk protested vigorously, threatening to resign if JFK made the appointment.
A few Americans learned from their experiences in Vietnam but many did not. Among the former were Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who first went to South Vietnam in May, 1963 as a junior Foreign Service Officer in the State Department. He was assigned to the Office of Rural Affairs under Rufus Phillips, director of the newly-created organization in a State Department experiment "to diversify the foreign service experience."
For Holbrooke, it proved fruitful personally, if a failure overall. He makes a powerful point in the Foreword he wrote for Prelude to Tragedy: "In retrospect I think that what we were doing in Rural Affairs had little chance of success. Our efforts failed not for lack of effort or good intentions, but because our work was part of a larger policy that was fundamentally flawed."
He adds: "My work in Rural Affairs was seminal. It gave me an on-the-ground view of the opportunities and limitations of America's efforts in Vietnam and, by extension, elsewhere…[it] shaped the rest of my career." Holbrooke explains that "Vietnam's lessons were still with me" when he went to Dayton, Ohio in 1995 as chief negotiator in talks that ended the war in Bosnia.
Other Americans failed to understand the causes of U.S. failure, even in hindsight. One was Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense during much of this period. Bert Fraleigh comments on this in his contribution to Prelude.
The five Americans and three Vietnamese contributors to this book offer more valuable insights of what went wrong in Vietnam than McNamara did in his book: In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.
One of the U.S. quintet was Rufus (Rufe) Phillips, a Lansdale protégé. Fittingly enough, he wrote the book's first chapter, which clearly lays out the problems and some of the solutions he endeavored to implement while director of Rural Affairs for the U.S. Operation Mission (USOM) in Saigon during the early 1960s. This was Phillips' second tour of duty in Vietnam. He was part of Lansdale's Military Mission during 1954-56 and also spent time in Laos, so he had significant experience in Southeast Asia.
His chapter, "Before We Lost in South Vietnam," details some of the egregious mistakes made at top levels of the departments of State and Defense in Washington.
Second chapter contributor Hoang Lac reiterates in "Blind Design" the recurrent theme that runs through this book: with few exceptions, Americans failed to "know the enemy." A 1950 graduate of the National Military Academy at Dalat, he advanced to brigadier general, was a province chief and served in important military and government posts before the fall of Saigon.
His summaries of the backgrounds of Ho Chi Minh and President Ngo Dinh Diem provide valuable insight into what shaped these two protagonists.
The third chapter is "Counterinsurgency in Vietnam: The Real Story" by Bert Fraleigh, A Canadian originally, he served with the U.S. Army Engineers as a civilian and in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Later he rose to senior positions in various American assistance programs throughout Asia.
Fraleigh begins his chapter by making the point that major U.S. players, even in hindsight, failed to understand why things went so wrong in Vietnam.
"I am appalled by the superficialities and misinformation contained in former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. This feeling is shared by most of us who worked at the grassroots level in this [South Vietnam counterinsurgency] program."
In preparing his chapter, Fraleigh reviewed trunk-loads of his own files, government records and the literature from 1945 to the end in South Vietnam in 1975. What strikes him most is "the persistent unwillingness of American military leadership to recognize that this was a different kind of war. Put simply, it was unconventional and it demanded a thoroughly unconventional response."
Fraleigh cites just two exceptions to American unwillingness to combat unconventional tactics appropriately. The first was Col. Lansdale's successful behind-the-scenes efforts to support President Diem and "stabilize South Vietnam for another six years."
The second came when "President Kennedy and his brother Robert, believing in the necessity of an unconventional response in South Vietnam, pushed both civilian and military conventionalists to develop one." Fraleigh says, "We were well along in the job when President Kennedy was assassinated," repudiating McNamara's In Retrospect claim that the U.S. simply lacked experts on Vietnam and how to cope with the situation there.
Fraleigh outlines his own extensive credentials in dealing effectively with local people "in the boondocks" and his theories, based on experience, on how it should be done. A key statement: "Experience…convinced me that world peace could best be achieved by helping equalize opportunities and living conditions among all peoples."
Lu Lan agrees in Chapter 4, “The People's War or War on the People,” that South Vietnam was lost because U.S. and South Vietnamese leaders did not understand the nature of the conflict. They should have heeded the words of President Kennedy when he spoke about the need for, and how to, combat communism in general.
"It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions," JFK noted, to fight an enemy that "relies on infiltration rather than elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerillas by day instead of armies by night…"
Lu Lan joined the local militia in 1945 but was discharged in January, 1947 "for reasons of social class." (i.e. He came from a family of mandarin landowners and, he reports, was told that serving in his militia platoon "was a high honor reserved for the proletariat.") Like the other two Vietnamese contributors to this book, he later was a graduate of the National Military Academy at Dalat.
He served in increasingly important posts in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) until the fall of Saigon, reaching the rank of lieutenant general. Thus, he had ample opportunity to experience some of the deficiencies and problems he documents in this chapter.
George K. Tanham tells us in Chapter 5, "Defeating Insurgency in Vietnam: My Early Efforts," how he came to play a part in the Vietnam story. The RAND Corporation realized in 1953 that the French might lose and that the U.S. might become more involved in Vietnam. They began a series of war games (Project Sierra) to study all types of potential conflicts, from guerilla to nuclear warfare. Tanham joined as a consultant in early 1954, just as RAND began a guerilla-level war game.
"After becoming involved and observing for several months, I thought that RAND was 'playing' the communist red forces, the guerillas, in almost exactly the same way that it played the blue forces, the Americans. This did not seem quite right to me because I had been following the war in Indo-China and noticed that guerillas seemed to behave quite differently from conventional soldiers."
Having studied the Belgian resistance movement and written about it in his doctoral dissertation for a PhD in history from Stanford, Tanham knew something of guerilla warfare. (What seems strange is that RAND think-tankers started their guerilla war-gaming the way they did. The very definition of "guerilla" makes it clear that guerilla tactics are unconventional.)
Tanham discussed his misgivings with a superior, Ed Paxson, who agreed that the games were unrealistic. With Paxson's blessing, Tanham began studying everything he could about communist revolutionary warfare in general and how it applied to Vietnam in particular. The French granted him permission to study a broad range of documents, including intelligence reports and post-battle assessments, pertaining to their fight against the Viet Minh. He also interviewed many French officers who served in IndoChina. He discovered that many were seriously critiquing operations there, determined not to repeat the same mistakes in future.
"These French thought that psychological operations were an important ingredient in communist doctrine and should be addressed in counterinsurgency programs.”
Tanham delivered lectures based on his extensive studies at the U.S. Army War College in 1947. He also prepared a 3-hour training film on communist revolutionary warfare at the Air University. These efforts and a handbook for RAND on the subject went for naught.
The rest of his chapter details his continuing efforts to persuade U.S. officials at various levels, both in Vietnam and Washington, to understand communist strategies and how best to combat them. He relates instances revealing that Defense Secretary MacNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk had no inkling of either factor, and no inclination to learn.
Tanham particularly criticizes failure of the U.S. to find, train and motivate qualified South Vietnamese to lead counterinsurgency efforts and to govern themselves. He singles out James Killeen, who took over as director of USOM in 1964, for special criticism. "He knew nothing about South Vietnam and even less about counterinsurgency…and, as far as I could tell, made no effort to learn…"
Finally, in frustration and disillusioned, Tanham left Vietnam, "deciding after about six months that I was wasting my time completely."
I've already mentioned my connection with Tran Ngoc Chau, author of Chapter 6, "My War Story: From Ho Chi Minh to Ngo Dinh Diem." My personal feelings aside, it is fair to say that Chau's contribution to Prelude to Tragedy is an extremely valuable one. Because of his unique background and innate intelligence, he understood the insurgency and how to cope with it far better than most Vietnamese or Americans. He proved that by initiating what was arguably the most successful pacification program of the era in Kien Hoa province, such a heavily Viet Cong stronghold that it was widely known as "the cradle of the revolution."
It was so effective, in fact, that American leaders in Saigon wanted to broaden it and convinced South Vietnam officials to create a national pacification cadres program, with Chau as director. Tragically, the CIA insisted on changes that destroyed the program's basic concepts. Chau resigned as director and what finally emerged was the infamous Phoenix program, a complete perversion of tactics that had made Chau's efforts successful in Kien Hoa. Instead of countering communist influence by political, psychological, economic and security measures at the local community level, as Chau had done, Phoenix used assassination and intimidation as its counterinsurgency tools.
(Zalin Grant covered this matter, and Chau's role in it, in detail in his 1991 book Facing The Phoenix.)
Chau's methods in Kien Hoa were so effective because he did indeed "know the enemy," far more so than any of the top Vietnamese or U.S. officials. He learned great respect and empathy for the Vietnamese peasantry while living among them and fighting beside them during his years with the Viet Minh. He fought against the French, acquiring knowledge of the political indoctrination and guerilla tactics later used so effectively. He had military training under both the French and the Americans. He incorporated the knowledge from these experiences to craft the programs he developed later.
Chau was one of many teen-age Boy Scouts who joined the Viet Minh's National Salvation Youth in the 1940s. These fervent young nationalists, along with tens of thousands of political dissidents imprisoned by the French and released by the Japanese during their occupation of IndoChina, swelled the ranks of the Viet Minh during that period. They helped make Ho Chi Minh's organization the most effective resistance group in Vietnam.
Chau played a minor role, serving chiefly as a courier for an intelligence cell until the (WWII) war ended. When Japan surrendered, Vietnam was in limbo. Japan granted it semiautonomous status with Emperor Bao Dai as titular head of state after deposing the French puppet government in a coup de force on March 9, 1945. Near the end of August, Bao Dai turned over his authority and claims to legitimacy to Ho Chi Minh's representative.
Chau immediately volunteered for active duty with the first Viet Minh Army of Liberation in 1945. All told, he served five years with the Viet Minh, learning their indoctrination, training, propaganda and military tactics. He suffered the privations of life as a guerilla soldier in the field and at least one serious wound.
"Like thousands of others, I received no pay, not even a uniform, during the first two years. We had one rifle for every three soldiers, a submachine gun for every platoon, usually about 40 men." (Chau once told me that he had no shoes, not even rubber-soled sandals, for nearly two of those years.)
From a rookie platoon leader in 1945, he moved up through the ranks to company commander in 1946, battalion commander and political commissar in 1947-1948 and head of the training section of Regiment 83 in 1949. By then, however, he began to question his allegiance to the Viet Minh.
He was being pressured to join the Communist Party. He knew of only two Communists in the Regiment at that time. He admired them, but felt that he could never share their commitment to communism. "Both were entirely devoted to the revolution," he says. "Their dedication, frugality and bravery were beyond reproach."
Chau's religious education, family background and beliefs conflicted with communist philosophy. (He was, and is, a devout Buddhist.)
"I also had grave doubts about the ability of the Viet Minh to defeat the powerful French military. I believed that a compromise would eventually be reached between Ho Chi Minh, Emperor Bao Dai and other nationalist factions and that a truly independent, noncommunist Vietnam would result."
So, near the end of 1949, Chau left the Viet Minh, transferring his allegiance to the newly-created state of South Viet Nam under Bao Dai. He graduated with Lu Lan, contributor of Chapter 4, in the first class of the National Military Academy at Dalat and served in the ARVN, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and earning the highest military medals in battle. He was awarded the Vietnam National Order while a lieutenant. Under President Ngo Dinh Diem, Chau served as province chief in Kien Hoa and mayor of Da Nang, second largest city in South Vietnam, and governor of the Danang- Quangnam area. He returned to Kien Hoa as province chief after the coup (the only province chief to serve under both Diem and the generals) and later was appoint director of the National Pacification Cadre program. He resigned in 1967 and ran for the National Assembly. He not only won the election but was elected secretary general of the House of Deputies. In mid-1968 Chau called for coexistence with the National Liberation Front in exchange for a peace settlement with North Vietnam. Consequently, Thieu's governent imprisoned him on trumped-up charges of being a "communist sympathizer.” He was released and placed on house arrest shortly before Saigon fell. When Saigon fell, the North Vietnamese quickly arrested this "communist sympathizer” and held him in re-education camps and jails for 2-1/2 years. Ironically, a near-duplicate of Chau's proposal for peace in 1968 became the basis for the 1973 Paris Accords. Meanwhile, casualties had soared as the war continued.
John O'Donnell (Chapter 7 - “Life & Times of a USOM Prov Rep”) and Harvey Neese (Chapter 8 - “Destination South Vietnam 1959”) were the civilian equivalents of the army and marine "grunts," American combat troops who began coming to Vietnam in 1965. They waged their part of the war among the peasants, in the hamlets and villages of South Vietnam. They were hands-on guys, not striped pants bureaucrats. Neither one came from the Ivy League background of most State Department personnel.
In fact, O'Donnell came from about as far from New England and Washington as you can get and still be in the United States: a sugar plantation in Waialua, Hawaii. He majored in economics and history at Stanford. After college (1956) he joined the U.S. Army and served in the Psychological Warfare Unit, spending time in the Phillipines, Thailand, South Vietnam and Laos (where he met the famous Dr. Tom Dooley). Upon completing military service, he attended graduate school at the University of Hawaii, and then joined the Agency for International Development (AID) in October, 1962.
Sent to Vietnam , he was assigned to USOM and the newly-created Office of Rural Affairs under Rufe Philips. At first he was assigned as provincial representative ("prov rep") for seven Mekong Delta provinces south of Saigon. His orders from Phillips:
"You go out there and work with the province chiefs and MAAG (Military Assistance Advisory Group) to get the Strategic Hamlet Program going and then come back here and tell us what we can do to support you."
O'Donnell provides valuable background on the situation in the Mekong Delta area at the time. Problems included corruption and indifference on the part of some Vietnamese officials. On the plus side, he was "very impressed by the quality, motivation and high morale of the U.S. military personnel [all volunteers] in the provincial advisory detachments and at Seventh Army headquarters."
Texas-born Neese earned a BS in agriculture at the University of Idaho and started graduate studies toward a masters. Tiring of school, he dropped out and went to Vietnam in March, 1959 with International Volunteers Service, a precursor of the Peace Corps. He stayed for two years, learning at first hand the country's customs, language and the difficulties rural Vietnamese faced. Neese's account of his two years with IVS is interesting and often amusing (e.g., his elephant ride and first attempt at roping bulls). His comments on the ineptitude of many of American USOM advisors are more saddening.
Neese worked with Nguyen Qui Dinh, who held a master's degree in animal nutrition from the University of Arkansas and was part of South Vietnam's Directorate of Animal Husbandry, to implement the Pig-Corn project. This program provided improved-breed pigs and information on how to raise them to the poorest farmers. The result: instead of 40-pound pigs that took two years to mature, farmers raised hogs up to 300 pounds that matured faster and provided more meat, more income and more fertilizer for the farmers' fields-all at reasonable cost.
It was exactly the kind of program that, expanded to other areas and encouraged from the top down, was needed to truly "win the hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people in rural areas. It was especially effective because it was a joint U.S.-South Vietnam venture, with American involvement staying low-profile, rather than appearing dominant.
This effort was too unconventional to impress top U.S. brass but the North Vietnamese government was quick to understand its value. The communists created a copycat program that duplicated the Pig Corn Project almost exactly. They even used a replica of the Pig Corn brochure, down to the Disney-type characters Neese and Dinh created!
Neese returned to the University of Idaho in 1961, completed work on his masters degree in the field of livestock, then returned to Vietnam in 1963 to join the Office of Rural Affairs. The account of his time there, again working in the field and living among the peasants, reveals the trials, and occasional triumphs, of Rural Affairs efforts in a very personal, anecdotal fashion.
The Conclusion of the book sums up the situation during those critical 1960-65 years. Reading the subtitles tells the story: Highest U.S. Policy-Makers Do Not Understand, Conventional Setting, U.S. Ambassador Requests General Lansdale (and was turned down, unfortunately), Beginning Of The End.
The book ends with an Appendix, Bibliography and comprehensive Index. The Appendix provides a brief chronological history of Vietnam, from its colonization by France in the latter part of the 19th century, invasion by Japan, first contacts between the U.S. and Ho Chi Minh to the defeat of the French and involvement of the U.S. The Bibliography lists a number of books that cover various aspects of the Vietnam tragedy.
One can only wish that Prelude to Tragedy had gained wide distribution, while facing the reality that such a happy result was never in the cards. The adage that those who do not learn from history are fated to repeat mistakes from the past is all too true. American arrogance has not disappeared in the past 28 years and lessons that could have been learned from the tragedy of Vietnam have been ignored all too often.
When I lived in St. Augustine, FL, I regularly attended the monthly antique dealer meetings, partly because I enjoyed the people and the food and partly because I enjoyed the Show and Tell portion of the meeting. Each dealer was encouraged to bring something from his/her antique shop that would be of interest to the other dealers, and we would try to guess what it was. This was my first encounter of a Palm Leaf Book, brought by another book dealer.
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In brief: palm leaf books are manuscripts printed on palm leaves and have been a part of the culture in India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia. The leaves, after being flattened and polished smooth with sand (or boiled in water or milk to make them strong depending on the type of tree used), are strung on cords, bound in boards and often ornamented with gold or ivory. The size varies with leaf strips ranging from approximately 16-36 inches long and 1 ½ - 3 inches in width. The leaves are inscribed with a stylus and then filled with ink made from charcoal and oil so the words are visible.
There are a few variations as to the exact leaf used (including lai-lan tree leaf, lontar palm leaves, talipot palm, palmyra tree) and some variance as to the source of the ink but the look of the items were as similar as our books are similar. Even after paper began to be used, the format remained the same! The manuscripts can last for 600 years and have been made since Roman times. Thousands of the books are now in monasteries and museums,
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I'll bet that there were good writers and illustrators then as well as those who weren't so talented! I wonder if it was all that hard to get published? Were there some poor 'wanna be' writers walking around Bali trying to find someone to sell him some boiled talipot palm to record his story? Did the preparers of the special leaves control the market? I would have thought that the religious groups would have done the most of the work but I don't really know. We only know about what has survived over the ages and that isn't necessarily all that was popular at the time!
You may also be interested to know that craft (or art) people have web sites with directions for making palm leaf type books: http://members.aol.com/leefamily6874503/palmbook.html
Sources: CoOL (Conservation on Line), Arca Vigraha.com and Kathy Stice at Preservation Fact Sheet, Washington.edu. and miscellaneous others.
Respectfully submitted by
Madlyn Blom
http://www.CenterAisleBooks.com
Madlyn@CenterAisleBooks.Com
Note: Two photo examples shown are from:
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Paper-exhibit/palmleaf.html (Cornell University)
http://faculty.luther.edu/~martinka/art43/daily/2nd/day11.html (Luther College, Iowa)
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A good portion of this ephemera is virtually worthless. A print ad showing Teddy Roosevelt selling bottles of ketchup, torn out of a 1970s magazine, is only of value in terms of demonstrating the enduring popularity of this figure (President Chester Arthur, for example, could not return from the grave to hawk some modern day product). A hundred years from now such material, which seems so common to us, may be of more interest. A handsome black and white Swedish poster from the turn of the century shows TR pitching Tiedemanns cigarettes. This has monetary and historical value right now, because the former asthmatic would never have advocated such an unhealthful practice, and because the poster is contemporary to his presidency and in very good condition. In our first column we described ephemera as “the heete of one daye,” that which is not meant to last longer than the temporary purpose for which it was created. Survivor ephemera renders any collection ten times larger, more interesting, and more unique than it would be otherwise.
The timing of this acquisition was fortuitous in another sense as well. We are undergoing a great resurgence in the appreciation of Teddy Roosevelt. A sickly lad, TR rose like a granite mountain to overcome every obstacle in his path. Though wildly popular in his day, there was a time not too long ago when the bluster and militarism of the man led to unfavorable revisionism. After decades of partisanship and scandal we now yearn for a president who combines robust decisiveness with incorruptible reformism (I do anyway, and this is a bully pulpit to say so). Not that he was perfect by any means, but read one of the many modern biographies on this scion of New York and you will be surprised and delighted on many fronts. One of Squair's finds, The Most Interesting American (1915), carries an inscription from one W.F.C., “a Teddy man,” which reads, “John Hay once said in the Century Editorial Office, 'If you don't want to like Roosevelt, you've got to keep away from him.'”
Lyall Squair produced a catalog of his TR acquisitions, housed in a black three-ring binder with the title, “The Theodore Roosevelt Library, 1961-1995” above a silhouette of his famous hero. It is arranged by category, and subdivided further by author, subject, or date. The largest category consists of “BOOKS ABOUT TR.” Although our main concern is ephemera, these books cross over due to their service to the larger collection, their inscriptions, etc. Let's plunge right in with some curious titles, such as The Teddysey (1907), Monkeys and Monkeyettes: A Reply to Ex-President Roosevelt (1909), the privately printed Who is Bashti Beki? (1912), and The Extraordinary Adventures of Theodorus Gunpowder (1915). Did TR: Hero to His Valet (1927) serve its author well? Here's the seventy-two page play Bully in book form (1979), with an intro by TR IV, in which James Whitmore portrays the ex-president on stage (John Davidson was doing the same thing in 1998). The Rev. S. P. B. D. Bland penned the eleven page President Roosevelt and Paine's Defamers (Boston: Boston Investigator Co., 1903). From this unfriendly-sounding title we learn that Squair has mixed booklets in with books. Journal articles too, for the very next entry is “Ambassadors at the Court of Theodore Roosevelt” in an author-inscribed reprint from the Mississippi Valley Historical Review (9/1955, Volume 42, No. 2). I find one I'd like to read, Camping with President Roosevelt (1907) by John Burroughs. Titles requiring further research such as the fifteen page Roosevelt's Dakota Ranches appear with notations like, “no place-no date-no publisher.” The Roosevelt That I Know: Ten Years of Boxing with the President pops up in an autographed, limited edition. Can't imagine boxing with Roosevelt. Who Was Who 5000 B.C. to Date (1914) seems like a stretch. One edition of A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career (1910) comes with forty-three lantern slides. Many of the book titles contain fragments such as, “strenuous life,” “stalwart companions,” “greatest living man,” “man of action,” “happy warrior,” “great heart,” and the apt “paradox of progressivism.”
And paradox he was. TR the ornithologist could record the hues of breast feathers one day and coolly blast a charging cape buffalo in the brain pan the next. His earliest work in the following section, “BOOKS BY TR,” is a four page folded sheet privately published at the age of nineteen and simply titled, The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks in Franklin County, NY. Squair has a first edition and three distinct reprints, as well as the original proof manuscript! (Little did TR know he would be whisked off this same mountain range to assume the presidency after McKinley's assassination.) Here's another rare and serendipitous item. R. W. G. Vail was a former director of the New York State Library, and a famous antiquarian book collector in his own right. Squair found several limited editions about TR which Vail was involved with, including a four page item titled, President Roosevelt's List of Birds Seen in the White House Grounds and About Washington During His Administration. As a local auctioneer is fond of saying, “Where ya gonna find one?”
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“BOOKS ABOUT THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR” includes eight pages of sabre-rattling titles. “THE ROOSEVELT BEARS” chronicles the children's book adventures of Teddy B and Teddy G in a beautifully illustrated series penned by Seymour Eaton and published by Edward Stern & Co. in the early 1900s. There's a section on books by TR owned by family members, followed by another on books written by or about seventeen different Roosevelt family members, not to mention Fala the dog. These include reminiscences, historical works, poetry, novels, outdoor adventure, etc. One cookbook simply contains a recipe for spice cake submitted by Edith Kermit Roosevelt. Squair collected blue, red and green cloth copies of this item. Many of these works contain family bookplates, or have calling cards laid in, and many are signed editions. One is inscribed to Squair himself by Alice Roosevelt Longworth. The Ideals of TR, with a forward by his sister Corinne, carries her 1923 inscription to one Albert Shelby Le Vino. “Le Vino was a big T.R. collector” follows this catalog entry. Most charming of all is the nondescript Sea and Shore, bound in cover-worn red cloth. You wonder why it washed up on these sands and will open it to hear, “Christmas/74, To Corinne from her brother Thee Jr.,” penned when he was only sixteen.
“SPEECHES, REPORTS, PROCLAMATIONS, AND EXECUTIVE ORDERS” is fertile ground for those collectors with a more political bent. Lyall Squair has two copies of the earliest example, a twenty-three page report TR made to the U.S. Civil Service Commission entitled Upon a Visit to Certain Indian Reservations and Indian Schools in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas (Philadelphia: Indian Rights Association, 1893). You can trace his streaking political career from a Naval War College address in 1897, through his proclamation for slain President McKinley and his first message to both houses of Congress in 1901, and on through many pages of speechifying right up to the last here, a July 1918 appearance before the Republican State Convention meeting in Saratoga, NY. Many of the public addresses in this section are personal use copies (some signed), and include photographs, menus, floor plans, and seating lists. Some are surely scarce, such as an address to “negro and Indian students” at a Hampton Institute Decoration Day event, some are in shorthand, and one is even printed in Dutch from a speech delivered in Amsterdam. There are a dozen or so official documents signed by TR as governor of NY or president of the U.S.
Scandal does not rear its ugly head much in this catalog, either by dearth or design. TR was involved in a natural history dispute regarding “revealing and concealing coloration in birds and mammals,” in which some experts disagreed with his writings on the subject. Not too revealing or concealing compared to modern standards. There is a lengthy, privately printed 1914 bound transcript of testimony taken in Marquette, Michigan, Roosevelt vs. Newett, in which the latter is sued for publishing a libel which claimed TR was an alcoholic. A 1913 letter from his attorney, laid into this transcript, offers to reimburse the expenses of those witnesses who testified on TR's behalf.
Rounding out the paper ephemera, we have additional lantern slides, stereoscopic slides, including fifteen of the Rough Riders, over sixty examples of sheet music, many bound, loose and mounted newspapers and clippings, and hundreds of post cards. Of this last group, many picture historical sites and events, some are boxed sets from his post-presidency African trip, but no connection is too tenuous. Any ship or hotel named after TR was fair game, and even an Ulaula fish post card (scientific name: Rooseveltia Brighami) felt the yank of Squair's hook.
There are several interesting manuscript collections represented. The wartime papers of John D. Miley, an aide-de-camp to Major General William R. Shafter, the Commanding U.S. General in Cuba, contains some fascinating items, such as correspondence from the front, a list of authorized press artists and correspondents and the warmongering newspapers they represented, as well as his Rough Rider discharge paper “signed twice by Col. TR.” Correspondent Frederick E. Sturdevant followed the ex-president on his world travels, and saved many interesting paper items. Conservationists Clarence L. Parker and Charles Christopher Adams are responsible for seventeen boxes of preserved materials as well. This includes the history, early records, and publications of the Roosevelt Wild Life Forest Experiment Station at the NY State College of Forestry in Syracuse.
Next follows a fourteen page list of autographic material, going back to a business transaction record of payments by John and Jacob Roosevelt dated 1771! Many are important and/or official, but this body of letters and documents covers such sundry subjects as maple syrup, a subpoena, and the gift of a sewing table. There is also a nice group of political correspondence to and from Eugene Philbin in this autographic section, in addition to smaller groups.
A cornerstone of the Squair Collection was his acquisition of glass plate negatives from the files of the photographic firm Underwood and Underwood. We see TR at his desk, in a buckskin hunting outfit, at the head of his Rough Riders in Montauk Point, taking the oath of office for president, enjoying the rustic hospitalities of Pocatello, Idaho, speaking to cowboys from a decorated platform at the Alamo, planting a tree, watching golf and polo, hunting in Colorado, traveling in Cairo, and visiting his son Quentin's WW I grave in France. One early negative is simply titled, “TR Speaking in the Sun.” If a picture is worth a thousand words, you can feel the warm sun on his live cheek again in an instant with an image like this in a way words would be hard pressed to convey.
This collection of fabulous glass plate negatives serves as a translucent stepping stone of sorts from books and paper to actual TR-related 3-D objects and artifacts of every description imaginable. It's the dividing line where the NY State Library hands off to the NY State Museum, and where Dewey Decimal numbers give way to collection accession numbers. The National Portrait Gallery, with the aid of several historical institutions, organized an exhibit (TR: Icon of the American Century), which began touring in 1999. The printed catalog which accompanied this exhibition is a lavishly published guide to the various collections lent. In contrast, Mr. Squair's typed list is simple, and its contents mirror the drive of the completist collector as opposed to that of the calculating curator with critical colleagues and limited exhibition space. Samples from both were on view when the national exhibition came to the State Museum, and I was able to observe the Museum staff selecting representative items for this pairing.
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Comparing the two collections, it's clear that Lyall Squair excelled in his acquisition of books and printed ephemera-particularly with some of the rare and unusual items. As for the artifacts, many of the best examples were owned by Sagamore Hill or snapped up by the Smithsonian and other institutions long ago through donation or purchase. With the exception of a relatively few important and valuable pieces, many of Squair's artifacts are more whimsical than valuable. (Their average age, for example, would date later than the average age of the paper items.) Squair might have secured the last four full bottles of TR Great American Buffalo Wing Sauce on this planet, but they only tell us what we already know about the man's lasting popularity. Enough, then! I will let him rest in peace for awhile. As Cary Grant said to Eva Marie Saint under Mount Rushmore on Reel 6, Page 21 of the script for North by Northwest, “I don't like the way Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.”
 Beljajew's The Tenth Planet (Der Zehnte Planet), 1947 |
I was born in 1969 and grew up in the GDR until its end in 1989. The seventies and eighties were a nicer time in this country than it had been in the time before. Some things were missed; we couldn't travel to capitalist countries (with the exception of if you were over 55/60 or to special events for family members). The economy wasn't very powerful but most people lived well, there was no unemployment, and you couldn't fall deeper than to a certain social level.
Reading books was very important here and the government supported it with lots of money for libraries and schools. Of course, not for all kinds of literature. At school we read books by authors from the Soviet Union, like Scholochow, Tolstoi or Gaidar, and writers from the GDR. Aside from that, of course, classics like Goethe, Heine and Shakespeare. Our education was funded and solid--tests in the nineties showed its advantage over those of many other countries. And if you have only two TV channels to watch (GDR 1 and GDR 2) plus a few more from the western part of Germany FRG (officially not allowed but not suppressed any longer then) it is understandable that people read a lot.
 Ludwig Turek's The Golden Bowl (Die Goldene Kugel), 1949 |
 Eberhardt del' Antonio's Titanus, 1959 |
 Baegemuehl's Das Weltraumschiff, 1952 |
 Rank's Die Ohnmacht der Allmachtigen, 1973 |
Oh yes, about the name. In the beginning the genre was called scientific-fantastic or utopian; in the fifties sometimes they were even sold as detective stories . But in the early eighties everything became less accurate and we said SF, too.
 Strugazki's Picknick am Wegesrand, 1976 |
Then, after the revolution that started in Leipzig in 1989 (I had the luck to take part and see this historic event) the great mystery happened. The SF-readers vanished. Thousands of readers didn't like the new kind with space operas, BEMs and soldiers in space. Today, even large SF-publishers like Heyne are in their biggest crisis ever. Tie-in novels like Star Trek or Star Wars don't sell that much now; years ago they were the big business and helped to bring out other non-bestselling titles. Fantasy and children books sell well because of the success of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. A few small presses try to survive with that, but they don't become rich at it.
 Jefremow's das Madchen aus dem all |
A last few words about the SF-fandom. Every organization outside the government's influence was unwanted. So in the seventies, the Stanislaw Lem-Club in Dresden was dissolved. Later things became easier and for instance in Leipzig the Circle of Friends of SF was founded, of which I've been a member since 1990. We often have authors from all over the world as our guests, so from the USA: Thomas M. Disch, George R. R. Martin, Tim Powers, Michael Bishop, Charles Sheffield, Nancy Kress and many more, and from the UK, Russia and other countries, too. We published some books, the best known is Lightyear 7, a final book in a series and a kind of conclusion to the GDR-SF. We collaberated with editor Erik Simon on the Kurd Lasswitz Award for that (a kind of German Nebula).
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I've attended many conventions of many types over the past half-century, but the 2003 BookExpo America (BEA) at the Los Angeles Convention Center, May 29-June1, was a whole new experience. Big auto shows in Detroit, NYC and Chicago were much easier to cover, with far fewer products on display. RV expos were only a little larger, but had far less hype and bells & whistles. Computer shows tended to be mind-boggling, especially Comdex in Las Vegas; sensory overload prevailed and I burnt out on those events a decade ago.
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This euphoria quickly gave way to panic. How on earth could I, even with help from my wife/photographer, cover this huge event in the single day that circumstances allowed? “You can't,” I told myself, and resolved to take in as much of the Expo as possible, and report as much as I could for The Standard.
Now in its 103rd year, BookExpo America offers a showcase of books in all formats, plus gift items and music CDs and DVDs, as well as new technology and services. It is an educational forum that looks at the business of books from many viewpoints and provides a meeting place for the entire book industry, from sellers and publishers to agents and authors.
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One complaint we heard from some publishers was that holding the Expo a month earlier (this was the earliest BEA in history) created problems for them. “We've had to prepare promotion and marketing material for some books due to be published in the fall without having seen the manuscripts,” was an off-the-record lament from one marketing rep for a major publisher. The same gripe may have simmered below the surface during the show but participants were careful not to let it spoil the generally upbeat tenor of the event.
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Various educational programs were offered during the show. The American Booksellers Association (ABA) put together a comprehensive array of sessions and events for independent booksellers “covering all aspects of the business.” (“All aspects,” that is, for brick-&-mortar store owners. I guess IOBA should do something similar for independent online booksellers in the future!) Other events focused on children's books and other specialized areas.
The BookExpo America Program featured a record breaking 650+ authors in the traditional autographing and in-booth program. The Author Photo Center, where you could have your photo taken with one of 30 well-known authors and receive a press release for your local paper, drew big crowds. (Unfortunately, we learned about this too late and came home sans photos and press releases.)
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There was lots more but we left after nearly eight hours, tired but happy, and weighed down with bulging bags of Show Specials, newly autographed books and stacks of catalogs for our reference files.
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The 9th annual Cooperstown Antiquarian Book Fair was held this past June 28 at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, New York. We had a full house again this year with dealers representing ten states and a multitude of collecting interests. The fair has now become an established yearly event in the final weekend of June in this beautiful and historic Catskill village of upstate New York.
The fair was once again sponsored by the New York State Historical Association, which is located in Cooperstown and operates the very fine Fenimore House Museum as well as an excellent research library. The gate receipts from the book fair are donated each year to NYSHA.
We try to attract a wide mix of dealers to exhibit at the fair. Both specialist and general dealers in books, maps, prints and paper ephemera bring a broad range from their stock. Among the fields of interest that seem to sell well are baseball and sports. Cooperstown, of course, is the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, but not many people are aware of the Soccer Hall of Fame down the road in Oneonta, New York. Classical music and opera also seem to sell well here. The highly acclaimed Glimmerglass Opera presents its summer performances in Cooperstown through July and August and the singers, musicians and production staff had been here for several weeks by the time our fair set up at the end of June.
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We have begun to put together our list of dealers for the next fair. Depending on the mix of full and half booth, we normally have space for approximately 60 exhibiting dealers. If anyone is interested in either a full booth (3 eight foot tables) at $225.00 or a half booth (1-1/2 eight foot tables) at $175.00 please call Ed Brodzinsky at (607) 638 9962 or Willis Monie at (800) 322 2995.
 The site of the 2003 Gold Rush Book Fair: Main Street Center Building at the Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley, California |
Holding the GRBF at the Nevada County Fairgrounds represented a change of venue, as the 2001 and 2002 Fairs were held at the Miners Foundry cultural Center in Nevada City. The venue change allowed for unlimited free parking, better lighting, better booth size and customer access, and better ingress and egress than the prior venue, and was greeted with enthusiasm by both dealers and the public.
 The Arthur H. Clark Company's Bob and Sheila Clark (2002 Honored Guest Bookseller) at the 2003 GRBF |
Sales were mixed as usual. Three dealers told us confidentially that they had more dollar sales at the GRBF than they had ever had at any fair anywhere. Particularly encouraging was the number of high-end sales, with customers looking for legitimate and enduring values. Indeed, the quality of material displayed was impressive, and several dealers remarked that they regarded their buying at least as successful as their selling.
Each year, the Gold Rush Book Fair designates a dealer as its “Honored Guest Bookseller,” for “Ethical leadership and scholarship in American bookselling.” Past designees were William Reese Company of New Haven, and The Arthur H. Clark Company of Spokane. The 2003 designee was Emmett Harrington Fine Books of San Francisco. As Honored Guest Bookseller, Harrington occupied Booth #1 at the Fair and stayed at a local B&B, all compliments of the GRBF.
 Honored Guest Booksellers Emmett and Bonnie Harrington attend customers at GRBF Booth #1 |
Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books with fellow bookseller Ed Glaser at the 2003 GRBF
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IOBA stalwart Gentleman Jim Arner traveled from The Book Ranch in Wyoming to display his goods at the GRBF
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 Opening to San Diego Open Air Book Fair (University & 5th, looking south down 5th Avenue) |
The 15th Annual San Diego Booksellers Association Open Air Book Fair was held on June 8th, 2003, with glorious sunny weather and about 7000 people roaming the booths of the 56 new and used booksellers, publishers, authors and literacy groups.
 Pacific Rim Press's Booth |
Authors Jean Ferris, Randy Wayne White, Mary Yukari Waters, J. F. Freedman, Diane Leslie and Ann Taylor Fleming, Abe Opincar and T. Jefferson Parker all held “author events” during this one day Fair.
Lots of folks really seemed to enjoy seeing how many of their fellow citizens enjoy reading and words!
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 San Diego Booksellers Ass'n Appraisal Booth |
 Materials for the 'Zine Making Workshop |
 Starbucks meets a traditional sewing frame used by a bookbinder |
 T. Jefferson Parker, author, speaking at his 'author event' |
Overview of the beautiful ballroom |
Well, at least I think so. The Ann Arbor Antiquarian Booksellers Association was proud to sponsor the 25th Annual Ann Arbor Antiquarian Book Fair, in conjunction with the Clements Library, on Sunday May 18th, 2003. Held in the beautiful wood-paneled Ballroom of the University of Michigan Student Union, the book fair was attended by about 40 dealers from around the Midwest.
It's a long day and a short book fair; the fair opened to the public at 11 am and closed at 4pm. There were just under 500 customers.
Book Fair buddies |
Dealers were treated to catered breakfast buffet of fruit and danishes, and bagels and muffins. Then, after a brief repast, the book fair was opened by the booming voice of John Harriman, a Clements Librarian, who heralded the dealers and customers alike with his great voice (a favorite part of the bookfair for me) saying “Ladies and Gentleman, The 25th Ann Arbor Antiquarian Book Fair is now open!” It's the coolest moment of the fair, if you ask me.
Julie Ellen Sheldon & Ray Walsh in a quiet moment |
While this fair is much more of a 'mellow' book fair than many in the Midwest, it still has a much to offer. One couple who came from Pennsylvania to attend the book fair were very pleased with their purchases and happy to have made the 250-mile trip. Book fair manager Jay Platt had met the couple at the Akron book fair and encouraged them to attend the Ann Arbor fair. They planned to make a day of it and walk to some of the bookstores in the downtown area, as well.
After a wonderful luncheon of cold cuts and pasta salad in the dealer room, it was time to go back to our booths and wait for the end of the show and for John Harriman to proclaim, “Ladies and Gentleman, The Book Fair is now closed. Thank you and have a good day.” Now, that's class.
Liz Sullivan shows off a Maurice Sendak calendar |
Another view of the ballroom |
Browser checking out the wares on the stage |
Booklegger's beautiful bindings |
The Midwest Bookhunters Spring Book and Paper show was held May, 3rd and 4th at the Joseph J. Gentile Center at Loyola University in Chicago.
This spring's show was the first two-day Midwest Bookhunter's show held in Chicago, and it proved to be a success. Many attendees who came on opening night were back on the second day to enjoy the book fair a second time. There were approximately 600 customers attending this book fair.
 Book Fair manager Charles Spohrer
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Pete Baugman of Frogtown Books (Toledo, OH) offered a fine selection of woodcuts suitable for framing by a famous artist of the 1930s. An amazing collection.
Larry Van de Carr of Booklegger's Used Books brought his usually beautiful selection of fine bindings and collectible illustrated books.
Maggie Page, Page Books, offering unique Thonton Burgess premium cards |
One of the highlights of this fair was the return to the Midwest of Jim Richards of Duck Creek Books, who had moved to Florida several years ago but has recently relocated to St. Clairsville, OH. Jim offered a fine selection of framed autographs and photos--one of the excellent pieces he had on display was a black and white movie still from To Kill A Mockingbird, signed by Gregory Peck.
Chicago Photographer Algamitas Kezys was on hand to offering copies of his book, Chicago by Kezys, and prints of his wonderful urban photographs. A former Jesuit, he proved interesting to talk to about this travels in his native Lithuania.
Tom Nicely, Leaves of Grass |
Parking in the campus structure was free for both days, and public transportation was just a short walk way. Nearby restaurants provided much needed book fair fuel for sellers and customers, alike.
The Midwest Bookhunters sponsor three book fairs a year: The Spring Book Fair at Loyola, The Twin Cities Book Fair at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in July, and the Fall Book Fair at DePaul University in Chicago, to be held Sunday, October 19, 2003 at the Student Center, 2250 N. Sheffield, Chicago, IL. Call 708-418-5620 for more information.
Vintage sports memorabilia, T. S. Hotter Gallery |
Browsers at Autumn Leaves Books' booth |
The Printer's Row Book Fair is always an incredible event and, this year, again lived up to its reputation. It's the Midwest's largest outdoor book and author festival, which cannot be rivaled. Printer's Row is great because it brings all the elements of the book world together; there are self-publishers, big name stores (Powell's, Barnes and Noble, Borders) and the used and antiquarian dealers, as well as amazing authors. As a bookseller with booth space at this event it is always hard to spend a lot time attending all the readings and signings offered, but still the added element they bring to the book fair always adds interest.
In the queue to unload |
Printer's Row is an outdoor book fair that stretches for three blocks in down Dearborn Street in front of Dearborn Station in Downtown Chicago. This year there were 46 20' X 20' canopies, with sellers on all four sides of each tent. Plus, many dealers were allowed to set up on the sidewalks along Dearborn Street. There are hundreds of booksellers and publishers to peruse. It's amazing the sheer variety of all the books and items being offered.
Rain protection |
Saturday there were numerous author signings, including such luminaries as former Clinton Administration official Sidney Blumenthal and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman. There was a Poetry Tent, a Culinary tent where hot and trendy chefs give food demos as well as sign their latest books, and Panels on literary theory and surrealism were presented. This book fair has much to offer young and old alike. Gems for the causal reader or advanced collector could be found.
Mike Gajda protecting books from rain |
As for Sunday… Day Two of the Adventure-
It started out slow and but soon the pace picked up and there was brisk selling until the rains came at about 1:30 in the afternoon. Torrential rain poured down and first we thought it would go away, but it didn't. A quick tour down the street proved that many colleagues were packing up and heading out; no one wants to sit around for three more hours in the rain, and once the rain started, most of the casual customers dispersed into the local eateries along the book fair route for protection.
Display at Booklegger's Used Books |
It always rains on Sunday at Printer's Row, but usually it happens just shortly before the closing and is a short burst rather than the prolonged downpour experienced this year. Many sellers were stuck; it was too wet to even leave the protection of the canopy at times. But luckily the rain didn't stop all the customers, and some of the dedicated ones were still trying to look at books under plastic sheeting and behind the protection of a shower curtain.
All in all a rainy and wet success, and we look forward the adventure again next year, because--admit it, we like the punishment we get from doing such a book fair. It's fun, you meet interesting people and you sleep really, really well on Sunday night.
2 happy book fair attendees |
Attendee took opportunity to advertise himself |
Former Chicago Cub Milt Pappas signing books for fans |
Browsing prints & maps at T. S. Hotter & Sons |
Vintage magazine cover art & prints at Branchwater Books |
Affable Roger Jones of Branchwater Books |
Mike Gajda, ready to set up |
Richard Wansch checking tent for water buildup |
The smell of the North Texas plains is the dusty scent of dried grass, mesquite bushes and ancient live oaks towering over red brick courthouses of the county seats. Archer City, however, also offers the complex, rich odor of aging paper and musty bindings peculiar to used bookstores. Five buildings in this oasis south of Wichita Falls house a myriad of offerings from two businesses, Booked Up and Three Dogs Bookstore.
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For a weekend in August, Book Seminars International will be joining hundreds of thousands of used and out-of-print books to be found in this prairie town. David Gregor will present his daylong multi-media programs, Book Collecting for Fun & Profit and Strategic Bookselling Workshop on August 23rd and 24th. Over a recent lunch, I quizzed the 17-year bookselling veteran about his own enterprises.
TF: Why Archer City Texas?
DG: It is the premier book town in America and it's in a region that has a strong literary heritage. Many people know about McMurtry's book town and I thought the programs would be an added advantage for book people to travel there. Scouting through five buildings, you really have to work at not finding something you or your shop needs.
TF: But August in Texas?
DG: (laughing) Well the venue [site of the original Last Picture Show] is air conditioned, but this was the best time to fit in with my class offerings which include extensive traveling across the country and my duties as co-producer of the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair.
TF: Why have you developed these programs?
DG: Because there is a growing body of book enthusiasts who want a basic education on collecting and library-building that is not offered any place else in the world. I developed the bookseller program as a crash course in business fundamentals for people in the trade and those interested in coming in to it-so as to give them every opportunity to succeed.
TF: How do your book seminar programs compare with the Denver Book Seminar?
DG: They're two different, but our students who have taken both say, compatible programs. I understand the Denver weeklong program is primarily aimed at advanced education for the antiquarian bookseller and collection-building librarian. My collecting program is designed as an introduction to the fundamentals of library-building for the fledgling collector, but we see again and again that the in-class exercises for identifying first printings and condition description help buyers and sellers. The Bookseller Workshop is relevant to both beginning and experienced booksellers. It shows blow-by-blow what your options are for your business if you apply the principals and tactics used by all profitable retail operations-regardless of size or product.
TF: What do you think is the biggest obstacle to the future of the used bookselling trade?
DG: I would say the fragmentary nature of the old school of bookselling. That school is slowly dying away because technology increases competition even though the marketplace has expanded beyond the local and regional customer base of even the general used bookseller.
TF: Define “fragmentary nature of the old school”?
DG: A lack of cooperative cohesion within the bookselling community and between that community and the population they wish to serve. This situation exists despite professional organizations. There is a small body of professional business people within the trade and a much larger number of hobbyists or owners who refuse to adjust to the changing retail paradigm of the used, rare and out-of-print book business. We are no different from any other retail business today-we all have to make adjustments. My goal for the programs is to provide a direction in transitioning from the old school to the 21st Century marketplace.
TF: Do the classes generate a lot of sales for your store, Gregor Books, in Seattle?
DG: Not really. I wish it were so. This is a service I choose to provide the book world. I create informed buyers, regardless of their interests. And we all want informed buyers-they better understand both the price of the item and the importance of establishing relationships with reputable dealers.
TF: What are your plans for 2004?
DG: We are still finalizing our schedule. By September I will know which three cities I will be traveling to for the programs. And of course, people can join me in Seattle for the programs. I do them right at the store, which makes it easy for them to browse the stacks during the breaks!
Web links:
http://www.BookSeminarsInternational.com
http://www.bookedupinc.com
http://www.threedogbooks.com
http://www.seattlebookfair.com
http://www.GregorBooks.com
A comment in a recent IOBA email thread occasions an offer to all-
About 1-1/2 years ago, under the auspices of the IOBA, I hosted a 'reference book familiarity' seminar/workshop here at my shop--an opportunity for those in attendance to learn about such references* as the BAL, Sabin, Osborne, Field, NCBEL, Wing, &c, &c as well as a day to answer questions about researching & cataloguing rare books. A past issue of the IOBA STANDARD has a column on the day (see: http://www.ioba.org/newsletter/V6/seminar.html).
If there is sufficient interest, I'd be happy to do the same sometime soon, probably October, probably a weekend day. Just send me an email expressing interest, and advising when you'd be available [weekday, weekend, general dates (e.g. mid-October)].
* My reference library is closing in on 2000 volumes, & has at least the basic references in most major subject areas.
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Tavistock Books
vjz@tavbooks.com
http://www.tavbooks.com
Early registrants for Left Coast Crime 2004 not only save (cost is $150 vs. $175 after October 20) but also get first consideration for panel slots.
The LCC convention for mystery authors and aficionados includes a variety of special events: Opening Reception at the Monterey Aquarium; Noir Film Night with Eddie Muller; Award and Guest of Honor special luncheon; Continental Breakfast daily; Bookbag and free books; the Dealers Book Room (where you can find great books); plus the opportunity to meet fans, writers, editors, agents, publishers in fantastic Monterey, one of the most beautiful sites in America.
And, there's more. There will be several special publications available only to registered participants: Program book; book of original short stories written for LCC by guests of honor Walter Mosley, Sharan Newman, Judy Greber (Gillian Roberts) and Richard Lupoff; Bibliography of attending authors; and pocket program.
“This material alone typically is well worth the price of admission to serious mystery fans and collectors,” notes Ken Fermoyle, West Coast editor of The Standard. “The convention also offers a prime opportunity for book signings by a large and varied group of mystery authors. As for booksellers, the event is so popular that booth space typically is booked solid a year in advance, though there may be an outside chance of openings created by cancellations.”
To register online or to find out more about Left Coast Crime 2004, go to: http://www.lcc2004.com
or write to: Noemi Levine, 2625 Alcatraz Ave #332, Berkeley, CA 94705.
Members of Mystery Readers International (MRI) named 19 nominees for 2003 Macavity Awards. The Macavity Award is named for the "mystery cat" of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats). Each year MRI members nominate and vote for their mystery-related favorites published during the previous calendar year in four categories: Best Novel, Best First Novel, Best Critical/Biographical Work, Best Short Story.
This year's nominees are:
Best Novel:
Nine by Jan Burke (Simon & Schuster)
Winter and Night by S.J. Rozan (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews (Harper Collins)
City of Bones by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
Jolie Blon's Bounce by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster)
Best First Novel;
A Valley To Die For by Radine Trees Nehring (St. Kitts Press)
The Blue Edge of Midnight by Jonathon King (Dutton)
In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming (St. Martin's Minotaur)
The Distance by Eddie Muller (Scribner)
Best Critical/Biographical:
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Crime Fiction edited by Mike Ashley (Carroll & Graf)
The Art of Noir: The Posters and Graphics from the Classic Era of Film Noir by Eddie Muller (Overlook Press)
They Died In Vain: Overlooked, Underappreciated, and Forgotten Mystery Novels, edited by Jim Huang (Crum Creek Press)
Intent to Sell: Marketing the Genre Novel by Jeff Marks (Deadly Alibi Press)
Best Short Story:
Boot Scoot by Diana Deverell (AHMM, October 2002)
The Adventure of the Rara Avis by Carolyn Wheat (Murder, My Dear Watson, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon Lellenberg & Daniel Stashower; Carrol & Graf)
Voice Mail by Janet Dawson (Scam and Eggs, Five Star)
An Empire's Reach by Brendan DuBois (AHMM, Nov 2002)
Too Many Cooks by Marcia Talley (Much Ado About Murder, edited by Anne Perry, Berkley Prime Crime)
Bible Belt by Toni L.P. Kelner (EQMM, June 2002)
By: Ken Fermoyle
The 2003 DIY Book Festival reports that its annual gala awards ceremony honoring independent authors and publishers will benefit the Beyond Baroque Literary Center of Venice, California. (DIY = Do It Yourself, of course.)
The 35-year old landmark bookstore/performance space/publisher will be celebrated on Thursday, October 2nd at the Derby Nightclub in Hollywood with a special night of spoken word performances, music, exhibits, panels and literary readings by some of Beyond Baroque's distinguished alumni, all capped by the 2003 DIY Book Festival Awards Ceremony.
Tickets for the event are $15 and available by calling the DIY Book Festival at 323-665-8080 or may be purchased online at http://www.diybookfestival.com. Entrants to the DIY Book Festival contest are admitted free to the awards program.
The Beyond Baroque Literary Center is a performance and publishing forum in the cultural heart of Southern California.
Formed in 1968 by a group of writers with the publication of an avant-garde poetry magazine, the center has grown into a hub for readings, performances, special events, and ongoing educational classes, including its long-running Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop. Among its most important missions is Beyond Books, dedicated to important emerging and overlooked work that is unavailable elsewhere or out of print.
Headlining the DIY Book Festival benefit will be performances by X's John Doe; Pleasant Gehman, author of The Underground Guide To L.A.; Larry Jaffe, International Readings Coordinator for the United Nations Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry program; and Shawna Kenney, author of I Was A Teenage Dominatrix. Other performers will be announced in the coming weeks.
Entries for the 2003 DIY Book Festival competition will be accepted through September 25 at http://www.diybookfestival.com. The DIY Book Festival will consider self-published or independent publisher non-fiction, fiction, children's books, how-to, photography/art, comics, 'zines, fan fiction and ebooks released after January 1, 2001.
All entries must be in English and have been self-published or issued by an independent house that has published less than 50 works since the entry cut-off point. Competition winners receive cash, travel, software and independent book selections.
The 2003 DIY Book Festival is sponsored by Soft Skull Press, Final Draft Screenplay Software, Alcasid.com, the DIYReporter.com and JM Northern Media.
Tool Box
With all the financial pressures on Internet booksellers, from declining prices to shipping reimbursements which don't quite cover the actual postage, it's become more important than ever to be efficient. This is true even if you are a one-person shop, but even more so if you have paid employees. You can't pay someone for fifteen minutes to ship one ten-dollar book and still make a profit. In my shop, much of the increase in efficiency has revolved around the use of bar codes.
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There's nothing particularly mysterious about what bar code readers do; they just decode the characters represented by the barcode and input them into your computer program as if you had typed the characters from the keyboard. In fact, most bar code scanners plug in between the keyboard and the computer.
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As helpful as barcode scanning is at the cash register, it really helps when doing inventory. The first inventory we took after getting all of our books bar coded went very quickly. We set up a computer at a central table and hired a bunch of strong young people to bring the books to the table a shelf at a time. We scanned them into a big long dBase file, which was used to update the on-hand field in the Anthology database.
When we started selling books on-line, I quickly realized that the really time-consuming part of filling Internet orders was just finding the books. Is that biography of Elizabeth the First in the Biography section or in English History? Anthology has a "BIN" field for the physical location of the book but we had never used it. So, before taking inventory again, every shelf got a barcode label identifying it.
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This is all very useful for those of us with brick and mortar stores, but what about Internet-only booksellers? The advent of ISBN look-up through such programs as Homebase and Readerware means that populating the fields of a book record can be very quickly accomplished. And using a bar code scanner lets you input the ISBN very quickly and accurately, saving you several seconds to be used in correcting the inevitable errors in the look-up data. If you look up books on ABE or Amazon for price-comparison, you can scan the ISBN right into the search field on the Internet. Likewise you can scan the ISBN into your invoicing program when you ship. We buy a database on CD-ROM from Baker and Taylor, the new book distributor. Anthology will make new stock records by importing data from the CD. I've written another little program that makes custom used-book records from the same data. The bar code scanner makes the process incredibly quick. Scan the ISBN into the program and two seconds later we have a new stock record.
Some other barcode tricks: Do you sell a lot of an item, and you'd really rather not stick a barcode on every one? Put one barcode label on your monitor or the countertop. We do it for Book Den coffee mugs and 30-cent souvenir postcards. I learned this from my local hardware store. Likewise, if there's a string of commands you type often, you can get an alphabet of barcode characters (Worthington has one on their web site) and then tape the correct string of characters to your desk. Since my inventory software will print labels, I cheat and make a stock record with the correct string in the ISBN field, print out the label and then delete the stock record. I've done the same with really long, elaborate passwords that I rarely use. I just keep a barcode label of the password in my wallet.
Something I've thought about but haven't done: When at book sales, I often find myself wondering whether I need a certain book. Do I have one copy back at the shop, or seven? Or none? And I might wonder how much we last charged for a certain out-of-print book. A little database in a scanner-equipped PDA would let me look such things up. And imagine having a web browser on an Internet-linked PDA. Look books up on Bookfinder or Addall right from the sale!
I once attended a seminar presented by the head used-book buyer for Powell's Bookstore in Portland. He said Powell's buys and processes three to five thousand books a day. When they buy large lots of books - the inventory of a closed bookstore, for example - they have a conveyor belt, which passes the books under a scanner. The scanner finds the EAN barcode, and by the time the book reaches the end of the belt, it has been entered into inventory and a price label is sitting there waiting. To me, that represented the ultimate in book-processing efficiency, but the technology seemed way beyond my reach. But, I did just buy a supermarket-style scanner on eBay and I'm working out the software to look up common used books and add them to inventory all in one step. Now, I wonder if I can find a conveyor belt on eBay...
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The Book Den is, to my knowledge, the oldest used-book store in California. It was founded in Oakland, California, in 1902 and moved to Santa Barbara in February, 1933. You can read about the store's history at http://www.bookden.com. We've been on the same block of Anapamu Street, across the street from the Public Library and the Museum of Art, as long as we've been in Santa Barbara. We moved from next door into our current 3,600 square foot store in 1990.
We stock between 20,000 and 30,000 general used and antiquarian books on all subjects, with a small selection of new books as well. We started selling on the Internet, on the late, lamented Bibliofind, in 1999 and launched our own web site in 2001. About 30% of sales come from the Internet, somewhat evenly divided between ABE, Alibris, Amazon and our own site, with a small contribution from the ABAA web site.
About Eric Kelley:
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By: Ken Fermoyle
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Using a relatively new mobile technology, a team of lecturers and classroom assistants from a London college gathered at London's famous landmark Leicester Square to demonstrate how easy, and enjoyable, it can be to work in the open air.
The technology that makes this possible is called Wi-Fi, or Wireless Fidelity. It allows you to connect to the Internet from your couch at home, a bed in a hotel room or a shady creek bank without wires. How? Wi-Fi is a wireless technology like a cell phone. Computers designed to use Wi-Fi send and receive data indoors and out, anywhere within the range of a base station. And the best thing of all, it's fast. In fact, it's several times faster than the fastest cable modem connection.
The mobile workforce in Europe is fast growing: the Institute of Employment Services in the UK recently predicted that the number of teleworkers in Europe could reach as many as 27 million by 2010, With more people looking to achieve a better work/life balance, Wi-Fi technology seems to be the way to go. Recent research also reveals that two-thirds of the world's 1,000 biggest companies are expected to use WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) technology by the end of 2004.
Britain is already becoming more mobile. Research conducted amongst UK companies indicated recently that half of the corporations, and over a third of medium-sized companies interviewed, already have WLANs in operation or intend to do so in the next year.
Wi-Fi networks use radio technologies called IEEE 802.11b or 802.11a to provide secure, reliable, fast wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used to connect computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wired networks. Wi-Fi networks operate in the unlicensed 2.4 and 5 GHz radio bands, with an 11 Mbps (802.11b) or 54 Mbps (802.11a) data rate or with products that contain both bands (dual band), so they can provide real-world performance similar to the basic 10BaseT wired Ethernet networks used by many IOBA members, including me.
Are there drawbacks? Sure there are. Your computer must be configured with a Wi-Fi certified PC Card or similar device (a radio, essentially). You must be in range of a base station, your access point or gateway, which can simply be your home or office computer. Range varies from about 500 feet to more than a mile, depending on your equipment, antennas (built-in or external) and environmental conditions. What is sure to happen, however, is that hotels, motels, resorts, and various public facilities (such as libraries, possibly) will provide gateways that you can access.
Is this pie in the sky? No way! Just think back 10 years or so. Who among us would have predicted how the Internet would grow and became a major force in our lives? Or how quickly it would happen?
This article is meant just to acquaint you with the term Wi-Fi and a few of the basics it involves. I will follow up with more information on the technology in future articles, and we hope to prevail on others with specialized knowledge of the subject to contribute also.
By: Nick Papageorge
info@vitaltitles.com
http://www.vitaltitles.com
There are two areas of focus when you've made that plunge into the life of bookseller; one is “How do I source my stock” and the other is “How can I determine how much of that stock I will sell”.
The first area, “How do I source my stock” is the focus for this article, because without having a grasp on what will sell, there is NO way to determine how much of that will actually sell!
But before we get to that point, I'd like to start off by imploring you to buy research materials. You don't have to spend a fortune to do so, but spend a little bit! Buy Book Collecting - A Comprehensive Guide and Collected Books - The Guide To Values by Allen and Patricia Ahern; ABC For Book-Collectors by John Carter; Old copies of “Firsts” magazine; the list goes on! Don't worry about having the latest and greatest version; the timeless information inside the book is what's really worthwhile, and whatever is time-sensitive (such as pricing and whatnot) can usually be extrapolated to fit today's time.
While you are focused on doing this research, join some book discussion groups for both collectors and sellers. These are invaluable, as they provide you with a wide range of perspectives. I wouldn't be where I am today without their help.
GOOGLE! I cannot stress this enough, this is the most comprehensive search engine around and before you decide to ask ANY question, make sure you've searched Google first!
Now that we have those points out of the way, we'll concentrate on the matter at hand.
What should you look for when sourcing stock?
First is stock quality. For this part, I will not focus on authors, or mass market paperbacks. The only focus is regarding the physical shape of a book.
As booksellers, when we search for books, we carry with us certain criteria that define what it is we want to buy. For some of us it is a specific author or a publishing company, some focus on specifically hardcovers and some on paperbacks. We all have something we look for and base our purchases on. But the problem is that some of us focus too much on this and not enough on whether the book has been attacked by the previous owner's rottweiler! Condition, more than almost any other factor, will take a $10,000 book and crush it into something that's not worth 1/10th of 1%. Try to stay away from books that look as though they've been put through a meat grinder, or those that look like they've not only been read in the bathtub, but have also joined the owner alongside IN the bath. Here are a few tips to keep your eye out for:
Second is stock pricing, and is almost as important as stock quality. If you pay $10 for a book and can only sell it for $15 - you have to ask yourself if you've really made money, or lost it on that book. Don't get suckered in by those people who take a book that is 100 years old and put a price tag of $20 on it. Often people at sales do this because they think “Well, it's old - I bet it's worth SOMETHING!” Trust me, often it is worth nothing. If I could count the number of books that I overpaid for when I started out that were “old and valuable looking”… well, I'd just rather not do that.
Third is demand for the book. This one is very difficult to teach, and often just comes along with experience. When you first start out, I'm sure you'll see a copy of a book that you think is going to be the “cats meow” and worth $200 - you'll pay $20 for it and get home only to realize there are 348 other copies of the book listed online for $6.99. You have to look at what you're trying to sell, and there HAS to be a demand for those customers to purchase YOUR book over and above those of the other 348 book dealers. What makes YOU special? Why is YOUR book worth “more”?
Just remember the tried and tested marking mantra:
Need, Benefit, Feature, Testimonial, AND THE CLOSE!
Remember, if you don't ask them to buy, they won't!
If you follow what I've stated above, you'll have a much better chance at actually succeeding in this chancy, cut-throat business.
Next article will focus on how you can use this technique to base “the numbers”
Until then - Good book hunting!!
Q. This will probably strike the more technically hip out there as a dumb question, but what is a "cookie" in computer language?
I talked to a guy who does tech support and he told me that one of the reasons my computer is acting so sluggish is that it is filled with temporary internet files.
Also in this file are a lot of things called cookies. I'm pretty sure it's ok to delete the temporary files that represent web browsing of bygone days but what is a cookie and is it ok to delete it?(them?)
Susan Halas
Wailuku, Maui
A. For simple questions like this, as well as surprisingly complicated ones, AskJeeves, is very good at returning the information you seek. Here is the #3 item returned from the search "What is a cookie?"
http://www.cookiecentral.com/faq/
You could delete your cookies, but this can be inconvenient. Currently many cookies are very useful -- for example, cookies contain the information that allows Amazon.com to tell when you are buying/looking. Deleting the cookie might have no harmful effects, but you might have to log on with your name and password.
The temporary files that accumulate minute-by-minute are another manner. Every website you visit will cause you to download and save 5-10-20 files, many are simple icons, labels, illustrations, etc., and they linger around forever. They are perfectly harmless but they take up room. So I think it's absolutely safe to delete temporary *.jpg and *.gif files.
If you tried the AskJeeves search, you will find other shareware products that will help clean out cookies, temporary files, spyware, adware, etc. I recently downloaded SpyBot-S&D (SpyBot Search&Destroy), and used it once, so I don't have any extensive experience with it. A simple search for SpyBot should tell you much, much more.
If you use IE, access Tools/Internet Options/General and you can clear some of the temporary files. You can even examine the LONG list of files in your Temporary Files directory. If you see some cookies from sites that you no longer use, I think it's safe to delete those.
Doug McClure
............................................................................ Q. Can anyone please tell me how to access the OCLC catalog?
(anonymous)
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A. Recently having begun to conduct research for a book and collecting specific items for reselling (and buying from this list), I was "reintroduced" to the concept of a "library" after about 35 years! (One day the inspiration hit me to stop and look around as I was driving by!) I was was dumbfounded to discover that there aren't card catalogs any more (got a strange look from the librarian when I asked where it was) and was pointed to a PC where I was shown a screen to get to on-line catalogs and on-line databases -- including OCLC WORLDCAT -- all of which can be accessed from home if you have a LIBRARY CARD, of which I am once again a proud owner! Notice that if you try Steve's link below, it says "This service is only provided for links from OCLC WorldCat partner pages. Your local library system is most likely a partner!
Having once thought that brick-and-mortar libraries where "obsolete," I'm now "re-educated" and recognize the unique portals they offer for research.
Although I do the research from home, I now find myself visiting the library most every week to "touch" books I'm considering purchasing. Although we have a small library, most of what I'm looking for is somewhere in the local system and I generally can get it delivered to my library within 2-3 days.
Dick Miller Q. If you're new at this and can't afford to buy more than the essentials, but willing to study to learn, which are the most essential and affordable price guides to buy?
Judith Broadhurst
North Andover, MA 01845
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Santa Cruz, CA
A. The Ahearn price guides are essentials, in my mind, but they are not cheap. But keep in mind they are pricing books in perfect condition, and they are a "guide" to values, not definitive. But they also contain an enormous amount of other information that is invaluable. American Book prices CD, also not cheap, also is essential for pricing rare books.
Dan Riker
Basset Books LLC
I second the recommendations made by my neighbor Dan Riker. In addition I would nominate these three specialty guides, all of which at least attempt to help with values:
Lee, Thomas. "20th Century First Edition Classic Fiction: a Price and Identification Guide. "Despite its rather clumsy title this little guide is a gem. The pricing info is as good as in any other guide (i.e., a piece of the puzzle of how to price the book in hand), but the real value here is the information on first editions and points of issue. Tom Lee has generously "opened his filing cabinet" and included things like number of copies in the first printing, book and jacket issue points, tricky book club editions, and other such. Obviously it is quite selective as to the authors included, but the latest edition covers 64 of them and 1,000 of their books. At something like $25 it is a real bargain, and perfect for someone like me who does not specialize in modern firsts.
Broadfoot, Tom. "Civil War Books: a Priced Checklist with Advice." (Fourth Edition). An amazingly comprehensive single volume reference. Unlike the Ahearns' guide mentioned by Dan, the prices for a lot of the books listed here tend to be low--partly because the latest edition (4th) is from 1996.
Howes, Wright. "U.S.iana (1650-1950).".Definitely an essential reference for Americana. Its concise bibliographic details are of far more use than its outdated pricing information, however.
There are many other "essential" references, depending on your specialties--particularly bibliographies as opposed to price guides.
Rock
Back Creek Books
No single simple answer. It depends on what area you focus on, what specialties you want to emphasize. If you deal in Americana, you really need a copy of Wright Howes' USiana. If you focus on Western Americana you need (in addition to Howes) Wagner/Camp/Becker: The Plains and the Rockies. If you emphasize cowboys or outlaws, you need Ramon Adams' Six Guns and Saddle Leather. Then there are other guides for medicine, for science & technology, for natural history, and on and on........
Trussel's website has a good list of references at
http://www.trussel.com/f_books.htm
Try Littera Scripta at
http://www.litterascripta.com/Refworks/index.shtml
These are useful.
C.O.Patterson
Madlyn
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Q. After searching ABE, Addall and Bookfinder, what, if any, data bases are left unsearched? Wasn't there a search engine for independent book web sites? How many, if any of these will Google search? Thanks for any and all assistance.
Center Aisle Books
BookRanch
Fetchbooks
Myownbookshop
Tomfolio
"the one that doesn't belong" -- bookranch -- a dealer site as opposed to general search. I can only attribute that to good marketing and a dry wit!
Dick Miller
North Andover, MA
A. Google is great for book searches. I got two queries off it yesterday that were both pretty vague, on the order of "I'm looking for information about Jose Maria Perez Martinez [a made up name] and found out from Google you have a book that mentions him. Please let me know if it is available."
Well, he wasn't someone I remembered & I couldn't figure out quickly what the book was, so I went to Google and did a search for Jose +Lynn +all the rest of his name +book. A link popped up that took me right to the catalogue on my home page where for some unknown reason I mentioned a reference to him in the comments on a book for sale. I was very impressed. Google knows my inventory better than I do!
I use Google for book searches all the time. It works best if you toss in a +book into the search. As near as I can tell it searches every page there is out there, or so close I'm never going to know the difference.
This has, I think, some implications for databases. I haven't quite figured those out yet, but, in my guise as president of one, it worries me. As a bookstore owner I sometimes wish I had the courage to drop them all for a couple of months to see if Google would pick up the slack. Dick Miller's comment, "It's odd, but I use Google more than any other tool on my computer, but seldom use it to search for books!" leads me to think that I better not try the experiment.
Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson
Forest Grove, OR
Thanks to all of our contributors, especially Lynn, who is owner of Bibliophile, a great venue for booksellers, collectors, and booklovers, and the source for our Q & A material.
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Jean S. McKenna, Editor
Chairman Education Committee
Author: Wade Hunter
ISBN: 1-59286-393-0, 362 pages, 6” x 9”
Available From: http://www.publishamerica.com, http://www.amazon.com, http://www.bn.com, Barnes and Noble (Brick and mortar), and any other bookstore willing to order digital print books.
Price: $24.99
Five years ago, Sam Yeager's family was brutally murdered. His nights since then have been a haze of whiskey, nightmares, and solitude. From the front window of his house, he watches for the return of the monster that killed his family.
Heather Jones has been plagued by visions of a dark presence lurking under her bed. As her visions intensify into reality, she must find a way to unlock the hidden strength inside of her in order to make it safely through the night.
Seth Joiner is battling for his life after a vicious attack. Falling in and out of consciousness, his mind supplies him with pieces of a broken puzzle that could lead him to the den of his attacker.
Hidden among the shadows, a monstrosity with unimaginable powers will bind these three souls together in a desperate scramble for survival.
* * * * *
Wade Hunter can't always be found working behind the pharmacy counter or writing on his computer. He enjoys reading many genres of writing and many authors, but his heart lies in horror and fantasy novels. He is a civil war enthusiast who enjoys visiting the hallowed battlegrounds of the war. He enjoys playing and watching golf in the summer, and cheering on his favorite hockey teams in the winter. He also enjoys trout fishing in mountain streams of western and central Pennsylvania.
Contact Info:
Aaron Buterbaugh
a.k.a.Wade Hunter
320 Sixth Street
McDonald, Pa 15057
zippy253@comcast.net
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Pocket Star Books Mass Market Original
Publication date: July 1, 2003
Price: $6.99
ISBN: 0-7434-6998-4
Meet Ryan Elder, a typical college student looking forward to spending Thanksgiving at home with his mother and father in suburban Oklahoma City. Less than an hour after he gets home however, his parents die in a spectacular double suicide. Seven years and many relocations later Ryan receives a letter that should have reached him long ago-a letter his mother mailed to him the day before the suicide.
In Department Thirty, Ryan is lured back to Oklahoma to meet a man from a mysterious government agency known as Department Thirty, a man with vital information concerning his parents. Just after meeting Ryan the man is shot by a sniper, his dying words the puzzling "Adam and Eve." On the run for his life, Ryan is rescued by a stranger with a hidden past of her own. As the two piece together clues from Ryan's life, it becomes clear that his parents were not the ordinary mother and father they appeared to be. Their past is catching up with Ryan in the person of a near-legendary figure in the American underground government, a shadowy figure who never speaks above a whisper. He is manipulating Ryan to revive an act of terror conceived before Ryan was born. The world of covert operations, domestic terrorism, and assassinations leads Ryan to doubt his own identity and that of everyone around him. To prevent an ultimate act of terror, Ryan must survive long enough to learn the truth about himself and his parents.
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David Kent is the pseudonym for Kent Anderson, a native of Madill, Oklahoma. He began his radio career at the age of fifteen, and has spent his entire adult life working as an announcer, producer, and programmer. He holds a degree in communications from the University of Central Oklahoma. Since 1992 he has been program director of KCSC-FM, Oklahoma City's classical music station. He has also served as a press secretary and speechwriter for Congressional-level political campaigns, and has taught university courses in communications and broadcasting. He lives in Oklahoma City with his wife and three young sons. Kent can often be found listening to many different kinds of music, particularly traditional and folk music. He enjoys driving aimlessly down rural back roads, walking through cemeteries, and swimming in obscure lakes during the summer months. He also works with All Children Together (ACT), Inc., an organization that sponsors activities including a summer day camp for special needs children in the Oklahoma City area. He somehow manages to find time to create homemade salsa with his wife and serve as a choir parent, sports parent, etc. for his sons' activities.
If the following comments sound pessimistic, they are not intended to be. The book trade will survive the present difficulties but I believe a certain measure of realism is in order.
Some three years ago there were about half a dozen book sites on the net. They all operated on the basis of a monthly subscription and dealers were in direct contact with their customers. The exception to this rule was Interloc/Alibris who listed uploaded inventories in their own name and charged the booksellers a commission on any sales. The bookseller never came into contact with the end customer.
At this point, two of my favourite sites, Bibliocity and Bibliofind were taken over by two of the major players, causing a chain reaction.
Among others, Sue and I, working as Collectable Books, were concerned that the sites where booksellers were in contact with their customers were disappearing. With our son, Andy, we started planning the structure and design of the book site that became http://www.bibliology.com and http://www.bibliology.com/classic. As it turned out, we were not the only ones, since other small, independent sites began emerging around the same time. Nobody could have foreseen the global political and economic changes that were to hit the world during the ensuing two years. Sadly, today we all know 9/11, Worldcom, Enron, Iraq and all the rest, only too well.
During the past eighteen months, many American booksellers have stopped attending European bookfairs. Similarly, European Community booksellers are apparently battening down the hatches, telling UK dealers about the poverty created by the Euro. Inseparable from the above causes, it is rumoured that some of the major London booksellers have cut down on buying because they are not selling as much as they used to. Whatever the true reason, the fact remains that the circulation of money in the used and antiquarian book trade has slowed to a relative trickle.
Of course, bookfairs and book auctions are but two of the easily visible parts of the book trade. Internet book sales are more difficult to feel and quantify but every independent online bookseller feels the downturn in the number and quality of books sold on the net. All of a sudden, in the book trade, as well as in the global business world, the name of the game has become 'survival'.
If the book-buying public is worried about job security, interest rates, the value of the investment portfolio, the pension plan, the cost of raising children, etc, adding another wonderful book to the collection has become but one part of a postponed wish-list.
The pages of Bookfinder Insider, have been full of problems caused by monthly dues to book sites. Bibliology, unfortunately, has also lost a few members who say that in the present circumstances they simply cannot afford the subscription costs.
Some have suggested that instead of charging a regular subscription fee, Bibliology should turn itself into a commission-based site. This, of course, would fly in the face of one of the declared principles behind its setup: “Bibliology does not interfere in the relationship between booksellers and their customers. Books are listed on the basis of a monthly subscription, with the benefit of a secure ordering system. There are no further charges or commissions.” We continue to believe in this fundamental principle.
Bibliology has always responded to suggestions. When site visitors and subscribers felt uncomfortable with Bibliology's black background we created a Light version which today is the Default format. We also continue with some added-value services. We offer free cataloguing software to members. Visitors to the site can register their 'Wants' - as lists or as individual titles - which are then matched against new uploads. Members can have a personalised Home Page at no additional cost. Some have chosen to use the Bibliology Search panel in their existing web sites, benefiting from the site's sophisticated search parameters and secure ordering system. Literary Genius Limited, Bibliology's parent company, can register domain names for Bibliology members for a very modest charge. Visitors to the site can view a growing calendar of book-related Events as well as Links to many useful book-related sites.
At last, “Accessibility” has become a universal requirement for internet sites requiring equal rights of access for everyone, irrespective of any disability a user may have. Literary Genius has just completed a project to ensure that all its websites (Bibliology included) comply fully with US Federal standards of accessibility. Why US instead of UK standards? The simple answer is that at present US standards are the most demanding.
Have a look at the range of services and facilities offered by other independent sites. These may easily justify the payment of a subscription.
Would a commission on sales cost less? Maybe, in the short term, but in the long run, as the independent book sites gain market share, we feel the subscription method will be better value for the bookseller and, indirectly, for the customer. We all know that the same book listed on commission-based sites is often 5% to 20% dearer than on subscription only sites.
At latest count there are about thirty book sites on the net, with more planned, offering an ever-growing range of choices to the bookseller.
- List your books in the name of the book site, have no contact with the end customer, and pay a commission to the site on orders received.
- List your books on the basis of a monthly subscription + a commission on the value of the sales, with direct contact between bookseller and the customer but where the book site may have quoted an unrealistic currency conversion rate and cost of postage.
- List your books on the basis of a monthly subscription, with direct contact between bookseller and the customer but where the book site may have quoted an unrealistic currency conversion rate and cost of postage.
- List your books on the basis of a monthly subscription, with direct contact between bookseller and the customer, without any interference from the book site.
Some of the above book sites are searched by the major sites-of-sites while others prefer to rely on their own “customer through the door” client base. Today Bookfinder searches 40 book sites (including some new-book dealers) while AddAll searches 15 used-book sites.
We feel this range of choices is vital to a healthy book-trade. One needs the diversity! We all know what can happen to a small town when a single mall opens up on the perimeter, but the final decision must be yours!
I suggest we all have a think about how we would like the second hand book market to look in 3, 5 or 10 years' time. Should we consider if it is worth taking a leap of faith and supporting one, two or more independent sites? The instant rewards may be quite depressing but the alternative may be to become a stockholder for one of the majors. Or, perhaps we should err on the side of caution and list on one or more of each.
Tom Biro
Director
Bibliology Limited
tom@bibliology.com
Booksellers now have the option of:
- choosing to have ChooseBooks.com process credit card or institutional IPO orders.
- setting their shipping matrix so that relevant taxes [state or VAT] are automatically calculated and added during the checkout process.
- issuing discount coupons for special customers or creating special sales for all customers. These discounts will be calculated automatically during check out.
-using the mutual dealer discount program. Those participating in this program will find discounted prices listed when they sign in before searching for books. Mutual dealer discounts are automatically calculated and applied at check out.
One of the things we are very much committed to is providing book sellers with options - allowing them to customize their participation in http://www.choosebooks.com to fit their business rather than requiring that every seller fit into a single mold.
Technology makes such options possible but it makes programming very complex. Every option must be coordinated to fit with every other option on the site. Allowing as few as 3 options in only two areas means that there are 6 separate programs to create and co-ordinate instead of one. There were times in the last few months when we were tempted to drop a few options in favor of a simpler program. But Poney Carpenter of Innovative Technologies assured us, "It can be done. It just takes extra time to program and co-ordinate all the extra interfaces." Poney did the job! Our booksellers have many options available in our very first year of service.
In July, Michael Tokman announced a revision in our charges. Starting in September we will charge 10% of each sale until these commissions reach a Maximum Monthly Commission Cap based on the number of books you list with us. After the cap is reached the rest of the month is free regardless of how much you sell. Example. The cap for 1,000 - 10,000 books is $25.00. And yes, we still offer a special discount for those choosing to prepay for services. Details of our charges can be read at http://www.choosebooks.com/info_general_5.jsp
Our new additions to ChooseBooks.com affect book buyers also. Book buyers will find an easier, more intuitive check out process. They will also be able to purchase gift certificates and use dealer discount coupons where applicable. Those who are shopping as part of our educational and non-profit outreach program can indicate their organization at check out if they do not choose to use the organizations' special URL to access ChooseBooks.com.
Our next goal is to add to and improve our preferred customer program with its frequent buyer points, etc.
As always we are open to new ideas from the book community. We are serious when we say, "extra services at no extra cost" and although we know we cannot do everything immediately, we keep a list of services to be added in the future. If you have suggestions, do feel free to contact Michael Tokman in customer services and support at info@choosebooks.com or Kate Lindemann in marketing at katebooks@earthlink.net.
Meantime thank you for your on-going interest and support of Choosebooks.
In mid-July, BiblioDirect unveiled a new look that improves upon the basic site design it has had since its inception a little over a year ago.
Here's what is new or improved at http://www.BiblioDirect.com
-- Softer, easier-on-the-eyes colors.
-- The basic search is now located in a more traditional spot on the page.
-- Easier to find search tips that are written for the more casual book buyer.
-- "Today in History" is back with interesting tidbits about the day along with literary births and deaths.
-- Information (address, email, phone, shipping terms, return policy, and payment options) about each of our dealers is now easier to access
-- A new "Now Featured" segment allows us to focus on a particular book, a specific author, or a general subject and lead buyers to more information about all the items in the BiblioDirect database that tie into the featured topic.
Effective June 1, 2003, BiblioDirect reduced its monthly fees for dealers and added a very modest service charge. It guarantees dealers that orders through the site must be at least twice the monthly fee or only the service fee will be assessed. Dealer information is available at http://www.bibliodirect.com/dealer_info.php and a dealer application at http://www.bibliodirect.com/dealer_app.php
BiblioDirect, with quality books from quality dealers, continues to attract more and more quality buyers.
Bibliophile Books, Inc.
Quality books from quality dealers at
http://www.BiblioDirect.com
111 East 6th St.
Pittsburg, KS 66762-3916
(620) 231-0999
Deanna Ramsay
deanna@ramsaybooks.com
Editor's Note: I've asked Deanna to provide us with a list of the services she provides since some of us are techno dummies and Deanna is, of course, a bookseller as well as a computer guru and understands our needs extremely well.
Shopping cart setup
Lots of features at reasonable cost.
All my hosting fees are listed here: Hosting Fees
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Now and then I try to sell a book
And when I'm not working, I'm out riding my horse...
A thread on a bookselling list this evening prompted this last minute article from me. I can't even say I thought it through well before writing it; it is based on observations over a period of time and on just plain common business sense and gut feeling. More important, I think, than rehashing what is in this issue.
I'm seeing a feeling of helplessness and despair in some fellow booksellers. Partly caused by the influx of so many people selling books online, partly caused by having to compete with non-professionals on 'their' terms, and partly caused by the over-all general poor economy (I'm speaking primarily of the U.S. on this-can't judge other countries' economies).
We cannot do anything personally or immediately about the over-all U.S. economy. For the foreseeable future, we will have to compete with non-professionals, price-wise-but only to an extent. They're not 'out to get you' personally. They're selling books most likely for these reasons: 1) the internet bookselling boom of past years made it look profitable (and it was, till it became overcrowded); 2) it didn't require a large cash outlay for non-professionals to acquire common books; 3) not all, but some of these people are displaced from other jobs and professions and this may be the only way they're eating; and 4) maybe they're just book lovers getting rid of their own books and don't really care about profits. It's not just happening with bookselling; it is happening with antiques, collectibles-anything people can find for little money and that is small enough to try to sell online, whether or not they happen to know anything about the product they're selling. They can copy knowledgeable sellers' listings and make themselves sound professional to an extent-but, since they don't have the same motivation we do, they can't match us in service. And (though I'm not sure what the outcome would be to us, personally) if we didn't conveniently list points, issues and identification of 1st editions for them to copy but instead said contact us for information, they couldn't even continue to sound professional (that would be a slow but very effective change). It is fine that we give knowledge to each other-to peers-but not fine that we've given it away freely to non-trade competitors. We did ourselves in.
What you can do differently is not to compete on their terms. Not allow them to degrade your products by following their ever-downward pricing practices. Even if they copy your listings, keep up the quality and consistency in the way you list products-even if you do decide to take out pertinent information. Make it prominent that you allow returns (and under what circumstances) and that you treat buyers fairly, and easy for buyers to get information from you. Allow buyers to pay in as many ways as possible-that's part of doing business. Get yourself a web page and put your picture somewhere on it-allow them to see you as a person and know a bit about who they're dealing with. Play up your personal strong points, as in what is it about you that would make you want to buy from a similar seller?
And finally, quit thinking of yourself as fodder for commercial book databases. Yes, they are powerful. Yes, they can attract customers you can't individually. But, bottom-line, you own the product and you ultimately have the power because of that…if we do not play follow-the-leader and if enough of us decide to act in particular ways. We 'could' exist without them though it would be painful for a while until we found alternative methods of selling and buyers found us; they cannot exist without us unless they own inventory of their own.
I'm sure you're saying that it won't make any difference if all the good booksellers leave any particular database. That is true to an extent only. It would take a while to have an effect, period (but, at the rate we're going as a trade, in the same amount of time, we'll reach the unprofitable bottom of the barrel anyway, so what's the difference?). It would have to reach that important critical mass. And, perhaps the databases can stay profitable with only books listed at $1.00 and under, but it will limit their market (no, not all customers are only interested in the cheapest copy available), it will be much harder for them to attract enough buyers to keep even those $1.00 sellers, and it will certainly cut into their profits. And, the tools are being made available to us now (like static web pages) to become much more visible on search engines as individual businesses-I think this will overcome a great deal of the branding of the past IF our wares are presented in very professional ways and if we act as a recognizable trade, rather than individuals scrambling for pennies. Whatever image you project is how buyers will see you; they don't have the means, online, to judge us any differently.
We still need and should want commercial databases-they are handy, they are an easy way to be seen by large numbers of buyers regularly and immediately, and overall they don't cost us too much. But for too long we've played their game instead of our own, and now the chances of our listings getting noticed are waning-unless we have that one-of-a-kind book (and how many of us have enough of those to make a living off them?). No matter where you list, if you are serious about staying in the business and being professional at it, act like a professional. Keep learning, keep improving your inventory, and quit competing with the lower 1% of our business. We can either stop the downward spiral and start the slow climb back up or we can continue on down to the bitter end. Your choice.
I can hear you saying that you can't afford to do this. How can you not afford it? Think it through to the logical end game of the way we're heading now, and then decide whether you want to remain a bookseller making a living wage, doing something you love, or if you want to sell interchangeable penny products until the supplies run out, under whatever terms are dictated to you by various middlemen (some of whom genuinely have your interests at heart, and some of whom do not). Let's take back some power, people! There's not an overnight cure, but we can turn it around.
Okay, now you've had not just a Joyce rant, but also a Shirley rant. Don't you feel lucky?
H. L. Fahlberg's Betatom, 1957
Hans-Peter Neumann's Bibliographie der Science Fiction in der DDR
Lichtjahr 7