51–60 of 157 posts
Just cleaned out a bookcase and put up a bunch that people want... glad to get them to good homes (where they might actually be read, rather than collecting dust on my shelves).
Used bookstores are a lot like gardens -- they must be tended daily and grown in 100 ways, year after year. The city I grew up in was legendary for used bookstores, and they sit all but empty now, decades later. The 'modern' people chiming in about how to "search faster" are missing an aspect of the experience that is literal and measureable, as well as partially undefineable simply because the portion of the mind an…
Like all the things I cared about, it is going. I'm starting to lose interest in the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like all the things I cared about, it is going. I'm starting to lose interest in the world.
You do realize that time will eventually grind down even the memory of every last thing you have ever known or loved, right?
I am honestly puzzled by the author citing the Oxfam shop on St Giles as an exemplar, because it's a poor shop full of tat and tired old guidebooks to Greece in the 1960s. Even the Oxfam bookshop 15 miles up the road in little Chipping Norton has more interesting stock. But it's interesting that he cites an Oxford example, because independent retail in Oxford generally has been on the decline for 20+ years, and I suspect the woes of the secondhand bookshops in Oxford are the same as those of small retailers generally.
Abebooks and Amazon, eBay etc. are a more significant cause. You can now order the rare book you want from a dealer somewhere in the countryside without them needing to pay for retail premises. One of my favourite secondhand bookshops, Sedgeberrow Books in Pershore, has recently gone that way - the shop has closed but the operation lives on as an Abebooks dealer. Pershore still has a secondhand bookshop, which is a lovely relic that doesn't even take debit/credit cards. Many of the survivals seem to fit that mould: intentionally arcane dealers who've chosen not to move with the times.
In the UK, I've helped run some of the ninja bookshop crawls. There are usually guided routes that take you through independent bookshops - they are always interesting and great for discovering bookshops and the cities themselves. Independent and second hand shops have really benefitted from these events and they usually offer discounts and gift bags for crawlers https://www.ninjabookbox.com/london-bookshop-crawl
(Could you have words with your site designer, though? I honestly haven't seen Safari struggle with a site like that for months, even including the worst excesses of UK local newspaper sites or the Independent.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like all the things I cared about, it is going. I'm starting to lose interest in the world.
You do realize that time will eventually grind down even the memory of every last thing you have ever known or loved, right?
Used bookstores are a lot like gardens -- they must be tended daily and grown in 100 ways, year after year. The city I grew up in was legendary for used bookstores, and they sit all but empty now, decades later. The 'modern' people chiming in about how to "search faster" are missing an aspect of the experience that is literal and measureable, as well as partially undefineable simply because the portion of the mind an…
For me, the most magical thing about the small local bookstores is the people working there. Just getting into one, chatting with people genuinely and deeply passionate about what it is that they are selling. Having a coffee, talking about a book I read, what aspects I liked, philosophizing about the topic in general and getting recommendations what to read next based on that has beaten at least 10x any 'modern' and…
I'd like the coffee though if someone cld please figure that part out.
Used bookstores are a lot like gardens -- they must be tended daily and grown in 100 ways, year after year. The city I grew up in was legendary for used bookstores, and they sit all but empty now, decades later. The 'modern' people chiming in about how to "search faster" are missing an aspect of the experience that is literal and measureable, as well as partially undefineable simply because the portion of the mind an…
And I have indulged myself, acquiring a small mountain of books :-)
I also browse the books at thrift stores. It's how I've obtained a ton of strange books I never would have discovered otherwise. For example, I found an encyclopedia of electronic circuits I never knew existed. Goodwill is a book gold mine, I wound up getting a nearly complete set of the Star Trek novels (and cheap as dirt, too!).
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All books in the last ~50 years have a barcode already printed on them, and an ISBN printed inside. Any phone camera can read these. If you assume 15 seconds per book at pace, 40 books per shelf, 6 shelves per bookcase, and 30 bookcases in the average store, complete digitization of a collection should take only ... Edit: Responding comment is quite right, original calculation mistaken. It's 4AM here. 40 × 6 × 30 = 7…
Assuming ~600 man hours (your numbers) to digitize an entire used book store, at $15/hr cost for labor it would cost ~$900 to digitize a bookstore. I think you're shy a factor of 3 or 4 on the amount of labor it would take to digitize a book store, given my experience with running inventory at retail shops. Maybe it could be worth it if there was an inventory management system that could automatically post the books…
Easy answer: because they'll walk out with the book they were going to buy and the book next to it. We used to have second-hand bookstores that would send you catalogs that you would peruse (by subscription, you'd actually pay for the catalog), and you could order from that. It was worth the money, no recommendation engine comes close to browsing a well-curated store.