Finding inventory for an antiquarian book shop

There's a helpful article called "Beyond the Zero Sum Game" about
collecting inventory of rare books for your book store. See:
http://www.americanaexchange.com/aem.../aemonthly.asp

Helpful?

Some nutbar who knew nothing about books, prices off the internet and
sell library books on consignment? How exactly is this "helpful"? For
whom?

Or is this what it's all about these days? If so, count me out. I think
I'll go sell toothpicks to people with no teeth, makes more sense than
this bull****e.

/mjt



WB wrote:

There's a helpful article called "Beyond the Zero Sum Game" about
collecting inventory of rare books for your book store. See:
http://www.americanaexchange.com/aem.../aemonthly.asp

--

Michael John Thompson
Thompson Rare Books
950 Fort Street
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada V8V 3K2
Telephone: 250-384-9977
http://www.mjtbooks.com

ONLINE BOOKBUYERS: Tired of misdescribed books and incompetent
booksellers? Then go to the site where the world's best professional
antiquarian booksellers list their books:
http://www.ilab-lila.com

Mjt wrote in message ...
Helpful?

Some nutbar who knew nothing about books, prices off the internet and
sell library books on consignment? How exactly is this "helpful"? For
whom?

Or is this what it's all about these days? If so, count me out. I think
I'll go sell toothpicks to people with no teeth, makes more sense than
this bull****e.

/mjt



The only problem with this is they didn't take it far enough. Ideally
you'd have some high school kids do the cataloging and descriptions
for you. Hire somebody to write a spam program to contact all
libraries in the U.S. and you're set up for life!!! LOL. Of course
the AMERICANAEXCHANGE also has an interesting article by the
editor/publisher on how to buy books online. I beleive I can
summarize... always buy the cheapest copy offered. So what do you
expect from them?

David

David Holloway, Bookseller.

"hollowayd" wrote in message
om...

The only problem with this is they didn't take it far enough. Ideally
you'd have some high school kids do the cataloging and descriptions
for you. Hire somebody to write a spam program to contact all
libraries in the U.S. and you're set up for life!!! LOL. Of course
the AMERICANAEXCHANGE also has an interesting article by the
editor/publisher on how to buy books online. I beleive I can
summarize... always buy the cheapest copy offered. So what do you
expect from them?



Yes, there are some problems with *Americana Exchange Monthly*. In that
same article, Bruce McKinney says that you CAN'T save an eBay search that
searches both title and description. That's funny--I've got dozens of such
saved searches (some with email alerts, some without).

AEM has had some good articles: they turned me on to Harold Nestler:

http://americanaexchange.com/aemonth...?eid=38&type=A

and reminded me about H.P. Kraus's *Rare Book Saga*, which I read just in
time for the closing of Kraus's business:

http://www.americanaexchange.com/aem...?eid=35&type=A

But the heart of AE is their Americana database, fully searchable, combining
hundreds of thousands of records from classical Americana bibliographies
and--very innovatively--booksellers' catalogues. William Reese describes
that he

http://www.reeseco.com/papers/abr10.htm

I joined and have profitably used the database--although they recently split
the database into "Priced Records Database" and "Reference Database"--so now
I have to do two searches instead of one. So much for user friendly.

The addition of booksellers' records has been a great bonus, though--I've
found lots of interesting early Catholic Americana that was (how shall we
say) neglected by the classical Americana bibliographers.


William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

"William M. Klimon" wrote in message news:ko5Wb.3463$Yj.1148@lakeread02...
"hollowayd" wrote in message
om...

The only problem with this is they didn't take it far enough. Ideally
you'd have some high school kids do the cataloging and descriptions
for you. Hire somebody to write a spam program to contact all
libraries in the U.S. and you're set up for life!!! LOL. Of course
the AMERICANAEXCHANGE also has an interesting article by the
editor/publisher on how to buy books online. I beleive I can
summarize... always buy the cheapest copy offered. So what do you
expect from them?



Yes, there are some problems with *Americana Exchange Monthly*. In that
same article, Bruce McKinney says that you CAN'T save an eBay search that
searches both title and description. That's funny--I've got dozens of such
saved searches (some with email alerts, some without).

AEM has had some good articles: they turned me on to Harold Nestler:

http://americanaexchange.com/aemonth...?eid=38&type=A

and reminded me about H.P. Kraus's *Rare Book Saga*, which I read just in
time for the closing of Kraus's business:

http://www.americanaexchange.com/aem...?eid=35&type=A

But the heart of AE is their Americana database, fully searchable, combining
hundreds of thousands of records from classical Americana bibliographies
and--very innovatively--booksellers' catalogues. William Reese describes
that he

http://www.reeseco.com/papers/abr10.htm

I joined and have profitably used the database--although they recently split
the database into "Priced Records Database" and "Reference Database"--so now
I have to do two searches instead of one. So much for user friendly.

The addition of booksellers' records has been a great bonus, though--I've
found lots of interesting early Catholic Americana that was (how shall we
say) neglected by the classical Americana bibliographers.


William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

I like the AEM actually, and read their monthly quite frequently. (I
once sold Mr. Nestler a wonderful handwritten diary about an attempt
to bridge Niagara Falls even though he complained bitterly about the
price)..

I detect a strange anti-dealer bias in their editorial policy.
Remember the 'the buyer own's the description' debate about book
cataloging? Also their editorial about always buying the cheapest
copy makes it look like dealers are sharks out to 'bite' collectors at
every stage when I think that very, very few dealers take advantage of
collectors. Maybe I'm just not high end enough. It's possible that
dealers who handle five and six figure books routinely do
'overcharge'. But to be honest with you if I were a wealthy collector
I wouldn't shop eBay for my First Folio. I'd be shopping with the
high end dealers all the time...after all they do tend to have the
best books.

Actually, it rather reminds me of a local collector who always railed
against prices charged for first editions. It was so obviously a case
of champagne taste on a beer budget, that most of the dealers were
very kind to this cranky fellow, and tried to offer him bargains....

Is their search engine still very cranky and strange? It looked to me
like the database designers were stuck in the 1970's programming in
DOS when I first checked it out....

David

hollowayd wrote: Of course

the AMERICANAEXCHANGE also has an interesting article by the
editor/publisher on how to buy books online. I beleive I can
summarize... always buy the cheapest copy offered. --

Well, that *is* helpful. I knew I was doing something wrong.


/m



Michael John Thompson
Thompson Rare Books
950 Fort Street
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada V8V 3K2
Telephone: 250-384-9977
http://www.mjtbooks.com