Book Sales
Posted in Kirkcaldy at 23:40 on 15 November 2008
This morning I went to my local area libraries’ book sale. They have one on and off – the good lady thinks every month or so – but we haven’t been to one for a while.
It is a tiny bit niggling when you find they’re selling off books you’ve already bought and read but it does afford the opportunity to sample an author whom you may be interested in but maybe not to the extent of punting the full price of a book.
They certainly sell their withdrawn stock at ridiculously cheap prices though, well undercutting any second hand book shop I’ve ever entered, and even the internet. And there were hundreds of books available, including loads for children, (plus some CDs) on the tables. But I suppose some of them (most?) are not in the best of nick.
However, today’s haul included an all but unopened paperback copy of “One Hundred Years Of Solitude” with spine totally intact. Only the plastic cover they put on (and the ripped out page where they would have put the date stamps if it had ever been borrowed) betrays it was a library book.
You have to question the buying policy in this instance. If this has been withdrawn unread, ought it to have been purchased in the first place? I would have thought that most people wanting to read “One Hundred Years Of Solitude” now (it is 35 years after it first appeared in British publication) would wish to own their copy rather than borrow it from a local library.
I know they’re recouping some money, here, and this will go to buying new books (at least I hope it will) but how cost effective is it? By no means all the books (not just the Marquez) were worn out. They could have stayed on the libraries’ shelves for longer, surely?