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Bookshop Opens on Saturday, December 2

by aadl-news

I am pleased to announce that the Friends of the AADL have entered into an interim agreement with the Board of the Ann Arbor District Library that allows the sales of used books to resume in all library locations.

Used books are already available for purchase in the lobby Downtown and will be available in the branch libraries by Monday afternoon, November 27. The bookshop in the Downtown Library opens with a Holiday Sale on Saturday, December 2 and Sunday, December 3. The shop will be open in December on Saturday, December 9, Sunday, December 10, Saturday, December 16 and Sunday, December 17. Hours are 10-4 on Saturdays and 1-4 on Sundays. The shop will reopen on Saturday, January 6, 2007.

Please contact the Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library for more information on sales, pricing, and opportunities to volunteer by calling 734-302-7774 or by visiting their website www.hvcn.org/info/faadl.

Comments

This is great news! Congrats to everyone who worked so hard to make this happen!

Hello,

I was recently informed by the person who runs your Friend's bookshop,Dianne, that she intends to ask the Friend's board to allow her to ban electronic devices from the book shop. Her purpose in doing this, she claims, is to decrease the level of chaos in the bookstore caused by those of us dealers who use the devices as a reference tool. I take issue with this as it is not the devices that are causing the problem, it is those who hoard books who cause the problem.

As you may be aware, when the book shop first opens on any given day, there is a mad rush by most customers to grab as many books as possible, and then those books are gone through later by the buyers to determine if a given book should be purchased or placed back on the shelf. However it is not only those with electronic devices who hoard books at the beginning. For example, there is a husband and wife team there most weekends and they grab dozens of books when the shop first opens and then they use a very large refence binder to go through the books they have grabbed to determine which books should be kept. They then put back what is left over. Simply put, they are not using an electronic device, but they are still hoarding books and contributing to the chaos when the shop first opens.

Tbe problem is not what reference tools or resources a buyer uses, the problem is hoarding. You should not implement a ban on electronic devices or other reference tools, you should implement a ban on hoarding. Why not have a rule that a buyer is only allowed to remove one or two books at a time from a shelf and then once they buyer has put the book in his/her bag, he/she has committed to buying that book?
If a buyer is seen removing more than a book or two from a shelf then he/she would be asked to leave.

Please bear in mind that book dealers represent a significant portion of your bookstore shoppers and income and that buyers that have access to book values are much more willing to pay a higher price for a book than those who are buying blindly. For instance, if I can look up specially price book that you are selling for $10 and I know that it can bring $30 or $40 when it is resold, I am much more likely to buy that book. In short, your shop can command higher prices for books when buyers are able to look up the value of books before buying.

Please do not ban electronic devices or other reference tools from your book shop. Instead please ban hoarding.

Sincerely yours,

Joe Ditta

I wholeheartedly agree by Mr. Ditta, except that I would favor both banning cellphones *and* take steps against hoarding. After the store reopened, there was a guy standing over one of the tables having a loud conversation with his expert over the edition of a book and what it might be worth and whether to get it or not. I beg to be spared loud private conversations by anyone. The next time I went, there was a guy with a box who went to the history shelf and simply dumpted everything in the row into that box, presumably to be sorted later at leisure without pesky citizens getting in the way. I'm not saying that being a book dealer is an easy way to make a living, and in general I wish them well, but I question whether serving their interests as under the current setup is providing the public benefit that would best accord with the Friends' mission. Perhaps there ought to be a maximum number of purchases per day; of course, this would require some sense of honor in addition to recognition of customers, but it might be worth a try. Since the Friends website doesn't have a comment utility, I hope someone from that group is reading the Library's blogs.

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