Wonder Books, an ABAABooks by the Foot This method of bookselling is still evolving. While much of the current energy is focused on the visual It has become much more difficult to sell many books individually.This is not new. They've been selling books by the foot for years at the strandStudent Edition - packagereader's editioncollector edition - all the works of your favorite author in the first edition.
Oakland’s New Secondhand Tax: The Used Bookshop Now a Pawnshop
The city of Oakland has implemented a new tax on sellers of used goods that, in effect, now places the used bookshop in the same realm as the pawn shop.The tax, which is based on the state's Secondhand Dealers' law; a 50-year-old law written to help police locate stolen goods, will cost bookshops at least $600 a year and force them to fingerprint employees and "keep meticulous, detailed notes of every item they buy and sell, including the private personal information of the persons involved in each transaction."Failure to comply with the law is considered a misdemeanor and carries a...
Update: Philly Free Dodges Bullet
We are pleased to report a happy ending to a potentially dire story featured recently on Book Patrol. In an encouraging development for threatened urban public libraries, the Pennsylvania State Senate voted to pass a bill which allows the Free Library of Philadelphia to remain open.Passed on September 17, 2009, Senate Bill 1828 allows the City of Philadelphia to avoid the "Doomsday" Plan C budget scenario, which would have resulted in the layoff of 3,000 city employees and forced the closing of all libraries. According to the Free Library's blog, more than 2,000 letters were received by state legislators, along...
On The Road With Minnesota Fats
“I’ve been shooting pool since I was four years old. No con. By the time I was six I was playing for stakes. My first sucker was a neighborhood kid in Washington Heights. I spotted him coming out of a candy store with an enormous bag of gumdrops. He was about five years older than me but I shot him straight pool and I won every last one of his gumdrops. He went home crying. When I was ten I started playing for cash” (Minnesota Fats, The Bank Shot and Other Robberies).My introduction to Minnesota Fats, legendary pool hustler: It’s...
Library Bling: The Chain’s The Thing
Bookish buyers break out your bucks. The British edition of Elle Magazine has chosen the must have fashion accessory for Fall 2009: "Dirty Librarian Chains."Reporter Amy Lawrensen announces the trend with her In Store This Week column: "Dirty Librarian Chains will add autumn’s essential punk edge to anything pretty." Promising to deliver "an edgy, understated and yet slightly askew elegance," designer Susan Domelsmith creates a collection of "vintage chains that were deconstructed and reconfigured into new designs, meticulously composed, but still exuding an easy, streetwise wearability." What to call these chains NOT made for fools? What else but "Dirty Librarian...