I've had good experiences and good service from abebooks.com Gary M. >===== Original Message From "Gerald_A_Levy" <Gerald_A_Levy@email.msn.com> ===== >(The following post is dedicated to Claus G) > > >A joke from a few years ago: > >Q: Where do you find the Marxist when s/he is > not at a demonstration or at a political meeting? > >A: At a used bookstore, of course. > > >Living in New York City, a favorite pastime of mine >has been scrounging through dusty old bookstores. >I often had the feeling that I was in search of >buried treasure. When members of this list come >to NYC, they invariably want to go to used book >stores -- which are often unknown or very rare in >the area of the world that they come from. > >This is beginning to change, thanks to the Internet. > >To begin with, many long out-of-print books are >now being published on the Net and one can >download those books for FREE. (Of course, >if one wants "hard copy" then there is a cost to >print the book). Sometimes, with "shareware", >the authors ask for a nominal contribution. This >has already changed the publishing industry and >can be expected to continue to change the way >in which scholars conduct research. Instead of >going to university and public libraries, scholars >will increasingly be doing research through their >own computers and the Internet. Small publishers >of scholarly journals could very well be adversely >affected by these developments -- especially given >the cost of those journals. Yet, many scholarly >journals are now being published on-line. And, >of course, forums such as OPE-L, accessible >through our WWW archives, provide a source for >research for students and scholars that was >unavailable not so long ago. > >Most of us, though, are still "old dogs" who like >to collect (old-style) books. Who among us does >not have a considerable part of their living space >devoted to bookcases? > >Here, again, the Internet is changing how we >do things. > >One can be able to look for used books or in-print >books on sale at sites such as: > >http://www.addall.com > >http://www.bookfinder.com > >http://www.bibliofind.com > >http://www.booksold.com > >http://www.half.com > >http://www.barnesandnoble.com > >Does anyone else have any good sites for >locating books which are used or on-sale? > >Of course, locating books on the Net isn't the >same thing, is it? On the one hand, it is more >socially isolating than the social event of going to >a bookstore (this social side of book collecting is >well known to the booksellers themselves and in >the US at B&N there are often coffee shops >attached to the bookstore). On the other hand, >it does take less time to shop on-line, especially >since it eliminates transportation time to the >bookstore, and it is available to people world-wide. >If you look hard enough you can even find some >bargains. Indeed, I recently bought some books >on-line that in years of searching I had never been >able to locate before. Bookworms of the 21st >Century rejoice! > >In solidarity, Jerry
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