Thursday, October 11, 2007

I was so excited to go to a large library book sale today. Then I get there and have to pay to get in. Okay I can live with that, it goes to help the library. But then I go in hoping to find some knitting or quilting books, and the place is crawling with "scanners". They have hand held scanners flipping through the books scanning ISBN codes on the back. I assume these are people who buy up out of print books and sell them for out of reach prices on ebay and through Amazon etc. You know, I know this is a capitalist system, and they are just taking advantage of the opportunity. But I was really disappointed that these people quickly scanned books and put the books that triggered something in their big boxes. There was a guy by me that needed a receipt so he could get the books "over the border".
I don't know, I just wish that the library would give the general public, their patrons, the people that pay taxes to support them, first dibs to buy books.. sans scanners. I like to go to these sales hoping to get a book that will be used. A book that I want. I wouldn't buy something I don't like as an investment. I just felt I was at a distinct disadvantage. Kind of like these ticket scalpers that buy up huge amounts of tickets and extort them on ebay. (Hannah Montana tickets ring a bell?)
I managed to find an old magazine with knitted baby sweaters, a few recipe books. Those little self published soft covers. I got one that had sorghum recipes in it. I found a small well loved bible. But nothing exciting. It could be that these scanners didn't have anything I would want anyway, but I will never know.
One time I got a book called STAHMANS SHAWLS at the library. I really liked it and wanted to buy one. I went to amazon, and as you can see, all of the books were at least $85.00. I don't want anything so bad that I will pay nearly 4 times the original cost. Then one day I walked into a local knitting shop and saw that she had several brand new books, still in the shrink wrap, and I only had to pay $25.00 for it. I know that some of the quilting books I own would have some of these people salivating. My husband has a collection of leather bound signed first edition books. I have made sure that my kids know that even though the books may mean nothing to them, they should check out the market before they toss them, or sell them in a yard sale to someone with a scanner....

2 comments:

carrie said...

What a shame. I agree that the general public should have first dibs

Jeri said...

I've never heard of this! How strange! I agree, at least the first day of the sale ought to be for patrons (with a library card) before the commercial buyers come in. What a disappointment.