I just returned home from my bi-annual excursion to the Hara Arena for the Friends of the Library - Dayton Metro Book Sale. Like every April and October, I put on my comfy shoes and grabbed my two canvas totes and threw my self into the madness. The crowd is always the same: the old, the shut-ins, the homeschoolers, the Mennonites - naturally with some cross-over demographics. The fifth group I always refer to as the scanners, amateur online book sellers who attach a cheap external barcode reader to their smart phone and download some application that quickly allows them to determine the resale value of a book. Today was their national convention, or so it seemed. They were out in full force, stacking boxes, blocking aisles, marking their territory, furiously scanning and shoving, scanning and shoving, leaving a path of disheveled tomes in their wake. The scanners grabbed anything in good condition, of any recent vintage, and of any interest to the general public. Naturally, I was irritated beyond the point of enjoying myself. I would be less upset if this was some for-profit clearance sale by some liquidation firm or major publishing house, but the books were paid for by tax dollars and then sold to the public to raise funds for the continuation of public service. I will likely not be back to another book sale as long as the scanners are allowed to swarm in like a pack of vultures on a dying calf. If the library system is truly desperate to get rid of the books, perhaps Sunday could be open to the scanners, after the general public has had ample time to browse and shop peacefully and for the sake of reading, not for making a quick buck feeding from the public trough. On a more peasant note, I did quite well for my $20, including scoring an unprecedented 6 Loeb Classical Library editions! Score! The haul: 1. Verdis La Triviata (sheet music) 2. An Authenticated Contemporary Portrait of Shakespeare - Kingman 3. Richard Dawkins - An Ancestors Tale 4. Communists in Harlem during the Depression - Nakson 5. Johann Gutenberg and the Invention of the Printing Press - Harris 6. Pablo Neruda: All Poets the Poet - Bizzarro 7. Shakespeares Othello (Like New!) 8. Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (the play) 9. The Education of Shakespeare - Plimpton 10. Bertrand Russell: A Political Life - Ryan 11. The Oxford Book of Medieval Verse 12. Ovid - Amores 13. Sappho - Stung With Love (Like New!) 14. Tacitus - Agricola 15. Livy ... [Loeb] 16. Livy ... [Loeb] 17. Livy ... [Loeb] 18. Livy ... [Loeb] 19. Hesiod ... [Loeb] 20. Menander ... [Loeb] Dayton Metro Library Friends of the Dayton Metro Library
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 22:19:46 +0000
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