Amazon supplier loses warehouse lease, invites the public to loot its books

Bookbarn, one of Amazon UK's largest warehousing and fulfilment suppliers, lost its lease on its Bristol warehouse, so they flung open the doors and invited the public to come in and take all ~~the publishers' consigned books they had on hand, as that was cheaper than returning them to the publishers who still owned them.~~ (Update: It's a used warehouse, apparently!)

This reminds me of when I was working at a scholarly bookstore in Toronto and we bought the entire remaining inventory of Progress Books, the Soviet Union's English-language publisher, whose New York warehouse suffered a "mysterious" fire after the USSR fell apart. For weeks, I unboxed and sorted through smoke-reeking, charred expurgated works of Lenin, Marx and others, stacking the saleable merchandise in one corner, the briquettes in another.

Many arrived armed with crates, boxes and even prams to carry their horde away, some managing 150 books in a single visit.
Available genres range from horror, computing and cookbooks to sports, literary classics and religion - most of which were "musty" but otherwise in excellent condition.
By early afternoon, most shelves had been cleared but tens of thousands of books were left scattered around the floors of the warehouse in Bedminster, Bristol.

Books given away for free at one of Britain's biggest warehouses (Thanks, Kathryn!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

Hmmmm….why isn’t anyone taking the shelves? They look a little more valuable than the books! I mean they did say that they could have EVERYTHING!lol
libbymiller

I went down there on Friday, and it was surprisingly upsetting to see so many books heaped about, although the people sifting through them were all quite orderly and polite. There were thousands and thousands of books, too many to donate anywhere, though some people were picking them up to sell for charity. It felt like the end of civilisation somehow. I don’t recommend it!
Anonymous

When you have an abundance…share….give it to the hospitals, nursing homes, schools, library, after school programs, there are plenty of places to donate your items too, instead of filling a landfill.
Brainspore

This is the best deal in town since that whorehouse down the street went out of business!
Fancy

Everything is going digital it seems now. I guess even books are now. Sometimes it seems digital is not always better though. I have lost several things due to problems with digital things. I had lots of photos on my computer and then my computer crashed and I lost all of them. Things like photos you can’t always get back. If they were regular photos that had been printed then I would still have them. So, I guess it’s the same way with the books. If the digital device stops working or crashes then the books are lost and the money spent on buying those books digitally is also lost and you would have to purchase a new device as well as new books. With paper books you would always have them as long as you take care of them and they don’t get torn.
I tend to prefer regular photos that are printed out and paper books and stuff like that rather then digital things. I have gotten so annoyed with digital things so many times due to them not always working properly. If I have a paper book I could read it anytime, anywhere without having to be unable to because of a device not working or having dead batteries. And if I have regular printed photos then I could put them in photo albums and they would be there for as long as I wanted them to be without anything crashing and them getting lost forever.
But, back to the original topic of the books being given away, it’s a good way to get a lot of books that’s for sure. I would have liked to be there for that, but I wouldn’t have wanted to go through those books to find ones I wanted though. I wouldn’t just want to grab a bunch and then go through them at home because I’d most likely end up not wanting most of them.
kevindorsey

That’s one hell of a mess
Anonymous

COMMENT to a COMMENT #1 posted by Jeff , March 2, 2009 5:31 AM
This is one sort of mess we wouldn’have to deal with if most of our books were not made of paper. A room full of electrons is a lot easier to clean up.
==================
While your statement is true, it is also a too frequent practice of the electronic reader tools to stop supporting older file formats. SO to read the same book you already purchased, you have to buy the book again. Capitalism over Education. No much different than forcing hardware purchases to support new operating system that are worse than the older version that does not need new hardware.
Anonymous

It would have been a nice show of consideration if they had NOT thrown the books on the floor!!!
gingerdarling

Sadly, am reminded of Fahrenheit 451…
Anonymous

I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have contacted a local library or even local schools to donate them as long as they could come pick them up. Maybe even a hospital or VA center, women and childrens center, somewhere so all these books aren’t destroyed. I can understand needing to get rid of them in a hurry, but from the looks of this picture, it looks like alot of them will be ruined to the point of needing to be dumped into a landfill or burned somewhere. What a shame…such a waste!
Anonymous

Anyone read Farenheit 451??? haha…jk….but seriously why are all of the books in a pile…im sure they were stored a little bit more organized….
Anonymous

Paper books are better. They are easier on the eyes.
lillubelle

What a waste of papers, printing, ink, and jobs. This is one of the reasons why I stop buying THINGS. Parts of this world are really over producing, wasting all the natural resources, and creating more landfills than ever. If we all stop being such a consumer driven society, none of this would have happened in the first place.
Anonymous

cool! :]
Anonymous

It’s better than wasting the books. Once while touring a recycling center, several other teachers & I were shocked after spotting a guard near an unusually large pile of books. (probably 2 semis worth) The guard’s job was to make sure that the books were destroyed/recycled and not taken by anyone. There were many popular childrens books and teacher resources. We would have loved to have those books in our classrooms! Apparently there had been some kind of fire/water damage and the insurance company had already paid for the loss. Therefore, the books were to be recycled! What a disgusting waste!!!!
Cory Doctorow

@9 It’s possible to point out a mistake without being a dick, you know.
Anonymous

y wouldnt they just donate the books to schools or countries where children could have some good use with the books
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Community Manager

WLSecrist @74:

Is there any way to be the recipient of free books? I have 4 grandsons, ages 8,7,7,7 and one granddaughter age 15. Both my daughters are struggling. One with no job and ex-spouse does not pay child support as ordered. The other daughter is on short term disability and has been out of work since Nov. 2008 with a reduced income. My story is so much like a lot of other people but if there is any way to get free books for the kids….it would be greatly appreciated.

Where do you live, approximately, and where do your grandchildren live? Don’t give me any of the addresses. Just give me the areas, so I can get a rough idea.
Anonymous

WIsh I were there. I cleaned a few of my shelves the other day and donated the ones I hadn’t read in ages. I actually cried, but now most of my books can fit on the shelves. (Only three piles left on the floor- tabled books don’t count)
Jeff

This is one sort of mess we wouldn’have to deal with if most of our books were not made of paper. A room full of electrons is a lot easier to clean up.
zio_donnie

damn. why nothing like this ever happens near where i live? i would be at that warehouse with a truck if i could.

it’s a pitty that many of those books will end in a landfill after the best/more sellable ones will be gone.
rushkoff

How about when this is the food supply we’re talking about instead of books? The credit markets don’t distinguish between merchandise…
dainel

The place looked like it was hit by a tornado. Did the people who came to get free books throw the books they didn’t like on the floor? Or was the book stored as stacks on the floor (rather than on shelfs like a library) and when they pulled the books they wanted from the bottom, the stack toppled and the books gets strewn all over the floor.
Anonymous

Why couldn’t they just donate them to non-profit organizations, charities, shelters, public libraries, etc?

Now, some of those books will end up going to a landfill like it was mentioned in one of the comments. What a waste.

Unbelievable!
Brother Phil

I’m with Zio, on both counts.

I’d love to make myself a storage box in a book, but I just can’t bring myself to cut up even a complete piece of s**t to make one. Maybe I can find a spare cover somewhere, and make the filling out of fresh paper…
Anonymous

At least they didn’t burn the books.
Jeff

Zeo, Iâ€™m thinking in terms of strategic business planning. Poor countries where people canâ€™t afford readers is a good point. Iâ€™m not sure what book consumption is for the average â€œpoorâ€ person. Iâ€™d rather seem them with a solar powered reader that is built to last and can hold tens of thousands of books. Give each child an entire library and then letâ€™s see what happens. But publishers canâ€™t possibly continue with the old paradigm. Itâ€™s charming to think that weâ€™ll be able to walk into a book store and buy a book, and weâ€™ll have used books for ages. But online bookselling is getting bigger and bigger. And all those books that get sold can be produced on demand. A POD book should be cheaper, because transportation and warehousing should be eliminated. So, if you buy a POD book on Amazon you should be able to overnight mail it and not have to pay any more than you normally do. And if itâ€™s an E-book, it should be even cheaper, because you donâ€™t have material and shipping costs.
mortis

@20 On the Internet?!? No, sadly it’s not. :\

^m^
zio_donnie

@Brother Phil

damn i have the exact same problem. i have dozens of useless books that i’d like to use to make something like a storage box or those other book related DIY projects that often pass here on BB, but i can’t do it.

destroying even something useless like an 80′s penal code is hard for me. i keep telling myself that i will recycle them but i just cannot throw books in the trash and i keep piling up books that friends and family would throw away.
merreborn

I worked for a amazon used book merchant, not dissimilar from Bookbarn for several years.

One thing I learned is, there are tons upon tons of worthless books out there. 30 year old paperback reprints of classics (classics are reprinted every year), old romance novels, and cookbooks. Worth more as kindling than as books.

Most books of this variety have 100+ listings on amazon at a penny each. Several times a year, we’d walk the stacks and rip all such books off the shelves, and drop ‘em on the floor, to be picked up in a second pass.

If we were lucky, we’d sell some of those off by the box for a few pennies per pound to some sucker. One guy filled his pickup to the roof with boxes of romance novels, and we were glad to have $80 for ‘em.

If we had vacated a warehouse and taken the few valuable books we had with us, the scene would have looked just like this. Most of our inventory wasn’t worth the price of the truck rental it’d take to haul ‘em away.

There are absolutely some great used books out there — real treasures. The books places like Bookbarn carry aren’t those books. Instead, they’re full of Danielle Steel, James A. Michener, and paperback copies of The Joy of Cooking.
Dave Rattigan

Well done with the empty crates, kids. Staged photo op much?
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Community Manager

Anonymous @76

@58
even at 50 cents a piece the bookstore would have made more money returning the covers for credit. Although I work in a bookstore, I don’t know the exact numbers, but I believe there’s less than a buck in profit on mass market paperbacks (for the retailer). Also, the bookstore wouldn’t want to set a precedent, giving you the books, or selling them for cheap, that’s their livelihood afterall. If you want free books, then go back and dumpster dive at night after he closes, it’s not theft once it’s in the dumpster (just trespassing, so do it at your own risk), or get a job in a bookstore, most bookstores give away the stripped mass market paperbacks to their employees …

Don’t do that!

The mass-market book distribution system was built out of the magazine distribution system. Magazines have a limited shelf life. When they’re out of date, retailers tear the front covers off them and return them for credit. The distributor returns them to the publisher, also for credit — no one in the supply chain ever pays for a book or magazine, short of the individual who finally pays for their copy at the cash register.

Paperback books work the same way, even though they don’t have a natural one-month lifespan the way magazines do. In order to get magazine distributors to agree to carry paperback books, the paperback publishers had to agree to have their books handled the same way they handled magazines. Thus, stripped books.

If it really is a choice between reading a stripped book and having no book at all, well, a stripped book is better than nothing. But if you can afford a book, please don’t buy stripped ones. The distributor has already returned the cover for credit. The publisher and the author don’t get a penny of whatever you pay for a stripped copy.

Trade book publishers operate on very narrow profit margins, because they’ll always squeeze their own profits to publish a book they love, even one they calculate will at best break even. (Trade book publishing is nothing like the movie or music industries.) They depend on distributors to get their books out to the bookstores and wire racks. They’re terribly vulnerable to disturbances in the distribution system.

Remember the part about nobody paying for books short of the final purchaser? All the books held by distributors are in their warehouses on credit. They haven’t paid the publishers a dime for any of them. In theory, if books don’t sell, they’re obliged to destroy mass-market paperbacks, and ship hardcovers and trade paperbacks back to the publishers. They pay publishers only for the ones that sell, and they’re always behind on payment. If they go out of business, publishers are simply screwed.

Rule of thumb? When distributors go bankrupt, publishers go out of business. A year or two back, a distributor that specialized in small-press titles went boom. A lot of small presses shut down in its wake. Just recently a major mass-market distributor announced that it would be shutting down. It’ll never pay the publishers the millions of dollars it owes them. For a lot of trade houses, which are already hurting from the economic downturn, that’s going to be like getting hit with a sledgehammer: at minimum, it’s going to hurt like hell, and you’ll be a long time getting over it; and it may kill you.

Conventional publishing and distribution are a nontrivial hunk of communications and retail infrastructure. Ebooks, POD, and books bought online are a fraction of the size of the bookstore and mass market/wire rack retail system. Very few authors can make a living from ebook, POD, and online sales. If the conventional system gets smashed, there’ll be far fewer authors writing full time. Some of the books that will never get written will be ones you’d have wanted to read.
perfectnanna

Are you people crazy or something????? There are people confined to nursing homes who would love to have books to read and you talk about throwing books in the trash!! Box them up and take them to your nearest nursing homes and donate for a great cause. I have done this before and the people who are confined there are very appreciative. If you have children’s books, donate them to your schools. Kids love to read or be read to. You can get a receipt and claim the donation on your taxes.
Daemon

Oh, god… that would be mind-blowingly awsome. I would kill to have a chance to literally wade through piles of books looking for the good stuff.

Much as it pains me to think about how many of those books must have been trashed in the process.
skatanic

At the risk of incurring the wrath of Mr. Doctorow, i was a bit confused by the update until i read the original article. I was left wondering why the fact that the warehouse is used would effect the cost of shipping books. I think “It’s a used book warehouse, apparently!” might clarify it.
mrhaydel

I guess I don’t quite understand the legality in the whole idea of this being cheaper than returning the books to the publishers, who still owned them.

Will BookBarn still pay the publishers for their books, it’s just the cost of shipping them back is what BookBarn was trying to avoid?

Either way, I’d be all over that were I across the pond.
ThinkBeforeYouSpeak

Attention: Zombie , March 2, 2009 8:38 AM

Has your school ever asked the parents of the children at your school to donate their good condition used childrens books to your classrooms? Usually the parents are very helpful in doing this.

Ask the local community to donate good condition used books by having the local news do a story on the need for the classroom books or have the local newspaper do a story.

Contact local bookstores and ask for donations of childrens books.

What about someone writing a grant for books?

Another idea is to ask business’s if they would partner to provide classrooms with childrens books. You would be surprised how many business’s will help out a school in their area.(Car Companys, Retail business and more)

There are lots of ways to get help without a teacher having to pay for items out of their own pocket for their classrooms. Present your plans to your Principal and other teachers and see if all of you can’t come up with a plan for help.
Anonymous

Why couldn’t I have gone!!! I would have come in with every bag I own big enough to fit books in and just crammed in everything I could!
Anonymous

in such articles it is more fun reading all the other comments. :)) wasteful -vs- too many, paper -vs- electronic, greed -vs- cool, etc…
i had my dose of humor for today.
thanks everybody!
Jewelrygirl

Yeah, the whole concept of throwing out books reminds me of Fahrenheit 451, but libraries wont take books that are too old,and even the library culls and sells old books.As a learning jewelrymaker, its interesting to see old books that still have the basic techniques that haven’t changed over time. Personally, other than medical, almost no book is too old. Just like an old newspaper, its not news any more, but its still information.
Dave Rattigan

#10

“Dave Rattigan, how or why someone would “stage a photo op” in a chaotic scene like that is beyond me. Want to explain?”

A journalist would. “Hey, kids, hold these crates & go stand in the middle of that pile of books & look like you’re doing something.” The photo was from a news source.
Anonymous

I wish some of you supposedly literate people paid a little more attention to your spelling! most irritating example, the misuse of the word horde when the correct word is hoard. Look that up in your Merriam-Webster!

You e-book fans can go right ahead….I keep all my books, I enjoy re-reading many of them and I can’t afford to update my storage system every 5 years or so. Remember all this electronic storage becomes obsolete very quickly and you will end up being stuck with stuff you can no longer access because the equipment is no longer available even if the information hasn’t degraded beyond recovery.

And while we’re at it, the yard sale when I croak will probably look a great deal like that warehouse and the books that don’t sell and give may daughter a little bit of money to help bury me will go to the state prison which is conveniently located nearby.
Anonymous

This is a very outrageous thing! Giving away tons and tons of books for free just because the warehouse has got bankruptcy? How astonishing!!! I wish I were in there to load up some of the loots then scram..hehehe :P LOURIAN_0308
Anonymous

ouch!!! justice for bookworms! Justice for book lovers! justice for books…
Anonymous

Too bad people are greedy and taking books by the bus load. They should take whatever book they want, probably would have been 3 or 4 per person. Its a disgrace. Look at the photo, it look like a tornado ran by it. GREED
Brainspore

People, just because a few books didn’t find people that wanted them doesn’t mean that this warrants comparisons to “Fahrenheit 451.” Giving away books is the opposite of burning them to prevent people from reading them.

Also, for all we know the leftovers were user guides to Windows 2.0 and guidebooks for visiting East Berlin.
Anonymous

For those of you that are saying you have useless books…try this website http://www.paperbackswap.com
You can trade them for the cost of postaage. I love it.
timquinn

Ha Ha, Cory is playing fast and loose with the facts.

It’s a slippery slope, dude. Do you have your galoshes on?
Anonymous

i feel so horny when i am around books, i wish i could have been there.

austin smuthers
myrtle beach,sc
ThinkBeforeYouSpeak

If these were used books they probably had been bought in “lots” maybe on ebay or some other site or many may have been bought at garage sales or rummage sales.

We have bought many used items in “lots” from companys and we then sell them on ebay or other sites.

I’m sure if they were given away these books were already paid for, and now they can take a business loss on their income tax for 2009.

(Just a comment to those that think this person should have been given the books to HOSPITALS. Would you really want a used book that may be full of germs and mildew to be used by sick children in a hospital?)
Anonymous

Mr. Haydel:

“I guess I don’t quite understand the legality in the whole idea of this being cheaper than returning the books to the publishers, who still owned them.”

Books are often “consigned goods”, meaning that they are essentially owned by the warehouse with a certain percentage of profits going back to publishers/owners. However, once consigned goods are in possession of a retailer, they are the property of the retailer.

For more info on this idea, see the UCC 9-114(2)…
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/9/9-114.html
Anonymous

Hey just know this’ll only ever happen with a place like a book warehouse or bookstore or something really oddball like that. Why can’t this ever happen with some place like an electronics warehouse or a clothes warehouse, something that actually means anything. Again Britain pat yourselves on the back for being lame.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Community Manager

Dave Rattigan, how or why someone would “stage a photo op” in a chaotic scene like that is beyond me. Want to explain?

Mr Haydel:

I guess I don’t quite understand the legality in the whole idea of this being cheaper than returning the books to the publishers, who still owned them.

I doubt it’s legal. Bookbarn hasn’t bought that stock of books. They have them on credit from the publishers, who are getting screwed over.

It’ll be even worse if Bookbarn is going out of business. When big distributors go bankrupt, they always go down owing substantial amounts of money to all the publishers they distribute, some of whom go out of business in turn.
Anonymous

You may need to burn those for heat in a few years when the global iceage moves in in 2012.
Anonymous

Sorry, I agree with Ronnie and anonymous: Paper’s easier on the eyes; you don’t have to look away every few minutes–and I trust books and hard copy first for the most important things. There’s also something very satisfying about staying up ’til ? o’clock in the morning, finally putting something away, then realizing just how far you got the next day. Also, I can’t imagine cramming the fabulous illustrations in my Art Deco and Art Nouveau coffee-table books into some dinky little gadget. I admit the net gives you easier access to a lot of great stuff for research papers. I love that–but a person who relies on visual memory for a lot of things has a hellacious time trying to remember which file she wanted when they all look the same, compared to, say, “yeah, it was the blue tag in the orange book, about 1/2way through”.

I’ll also agree w/a lot of folks on not just grabbing up anything in front of your nose when you don’t really want it or know someone who does. I used to work at a library, and one time when they cleared their shelves, I gave some fairy tales in German to a friend who was teaching her little girl German. Another time, scored a whole shelf of stuff for an American Indian group. Both times, I said I wasn’t sure how much of the stuff they’d like, but could they drop off whatever they didn’t to the local libraries’ book sale? Either way, everyone seemed pretty happy and some unusual stuff had a better chance of finding a good home. And yes, I also scored some nice silversmithing/lapidary texts, old, but still good stuff :-)
hobartladydi

why didn’t they donate some of the books to hospitals and nursing homes and to shelters for those who would appreciate them. The people who took so many will just sell them and make a profit, how selfish 150 books — that is too bad.
Anonymous

Anyone ever heard of DONATING them to the needy libraries? Geezzsshhh, when will people get it? STOP BEING WASTEFUL!!!!
Anonymous

Dang one time I wish I was in the UK!!! I would be in BOOK HEAVEN!!!!
Anonymous

Dosen’t someone owe somebody in this scenario? There is value in the merchandise, shouldn’t their creditors get it? I understand that shipping costs might be prohibitive to some degree, but somebody is getting hosed here.
dculberson

The piles of books on the floor were probably caused by the ‘looters.’ People are like rabid animals when they get a hint of even a bargain, much less completely free stuff. I used to go to a military depot sale that opened with new stuff each morning; people would literally push each other aside, jump over tables, etc, all just to get at a hypothetical bargain they didn’t even know for sure existed. The DRMO tried a few things to calm people down, from putting new stuff out gradually throughout the day to strictly policing a ‘no running’ policy, but ended up just closing the store.

That’s why we can’t have nice stuff!!
Anonymous

You know they would have cleared it out easier if the books were stacked side by side to see the titles?????? What the hell???
Halloween Jack

Good thing that I wasn’t there.

/recovering book-hoarder
timquinn

TNH, do you have some knowledge not in the article? There is nothing there about publishers owning the stock. My guess, and the whole story makes a lot more sense this way, is that these were used books and that Bookbarn sold them through Amazon. Used books have almost zero value, especially the long term inventory of a huge store. The state of the inventory makes sense for used books, too.

Not as inflammatory, but more likely.
wlsecrist

Is there any way to be the recipient of free books? I have 4 grandsons, ages 8,7,7,7 and one granddaughter age 15. Both my daughters are struggling. One with no job and ex-spouse does not pay child support as ordered. The other daughter is on short term disability and has been out of work since Nov. 2008 with a reduced income. My story is so much like a lot of other people but if there is any way to get free books for the kids….it would be greatly appreciated.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  You can go to the public library.
Anonymous

I wish I was there I love book I would have taken every single one of them home
Budaguy

Fear not! the transition to all digital media will happen in time Jeff. There are enough of us people left who dreamily peruse libraries and book stores and think of the possibility of reading them all.
Sudo

This is a disgrace and underlines the overproduction to satisfy the spoiled consumer. They should have been redistributed to public libraries, etc., but of course that would be a cost.
chuck

The article, as usual clears it all up:

The store was a second-hand store.
They gave away the books because “it was cheaper than trying to sell them elsewhere,” i.e. shipping them to a new location and putting them back on the shelves for sale.
Anonymous

It would be so nice if the unwanted books left could be sent over to places were don’t have many as we do here in US.
Anonymous

If you have any books that you would like to donate, please think of the Child Protective Service, Long Term Treatment Centers, City and County Jails, Hospitals.
Just call a Social Service in your community and
they will point you in the right direction.
This would save our landfills and the books would
find a good home.
Anonymous

@58
even at 50 cents a piece the bookstore would have made more money returning the covers for credit. Although I work in a bookstore, I don’t know the exact numbers, but I believe there’s less than a buck in profit on mass market paperbacks (for the retailer). Also, the bookstore wouldn’t want to set a precedent, giving you the books, or selling them for cheap, that’s their livelihood afterall. If you want free books, then go back and dumpster dive at night after he closes, it’s not theft once it’s in the dumpster (just trespassing, so do it at your own risk), or get a job in a bookstore, most bookstores give away the stripped mass market paperbacks to their employees (presumably so they can know more about the product and sell it better), unfortunately, the books that get stripped are also the books that didn’t sell, and thus are often not very good.
Oh just noticed you said you wanted it for a school library, good thought, but I doubt a library would take a stripped book, as neither the author nor publisher has been compensated (as one of the pages in the front of a mass market will tell you)
raypiggy

i wish i was there. i wish i have been there before so that i would know what books i would get. i would find the books i would like and dump it all in a bucket.
raypiggy

i wish i was there. i wish i have been there before so that i would know what books i would get. i would find the books i would like and dump it all in a bucket.
josephmail

Hello to the UK. I think of you and your people so
much and am so happy to see this picture even wading through the books like swimming through a music hall of wondering music. I am soooo happy to see you and send a hello message to you..so thankful

I long to see you and embrace your people with a big hug and hope the books are enjoyed by many people. Sincerely, Joseph US

I think your people are most wonderful people in the world! joseph
mibluegal1

A book store near my home in Michigan recently had a huge dumpster full of books I kindly asked if I could fish some out for a school library that was really suffering for new titles- the owner said no he was told he had to burn them as the publisher would sue him if he just gave them away- I offered to buy them for .50 each still no.so he burned them–what a waste.
Jeff

The Com-manager said, “I doubt it’s legal. Bookbarn hasn’t bought that stock of books. They have them on credit from the publishers, who are getting screwed over.”

Don’t you think as the world changes so rapidly, that publishers may have a stategic reason for wanting to convert to digital books? And if that were the case, do you think they would be published without DRM? Granted, these Kindles are expensive, but the cost will go down as more are made. If a publisher can get screwed because it committed so much money to a paper book, the obvious solution is to not do that anymore. So, if you want good old paper, buy a POD book. Seriously, the news papers are going under, so the other paper media won’t be far behind.
Anonymous

Haha I remeber when I was little there was this grocery store that gave kids about a minute to take anything they want and I mean anything. There were dozens of kids lined up in the candy section takin watever was in sight. It was just that one day and one of the best days of my life :P
Anonymous

They should donate the remaining books to libraries or non-profits.
Anonymous

When I was working at BookStop years ago the practice was to simply pull the cover off of the paperbacks and shipped those to the publisher in lieu of returning the entire book.
josephmail

Hello to the UK. I think of you and your people so
much and am so happy to see this picture even wading
through the books like swimming through a music hall of wondering music.

I long to see you and embrace your people with a big hug and hope the books are enjoyed by many people.

Sincerely, Joseph US I think you people are
most wonderful people in the world.
Anonymous

What is a pram?
Zombie

Legal or not, I’m jealous. It would have been a treat to be able to get some new books for my class. I can’t afford to keep buying all my supplies on my own dime. Books are a luxury.
pinkshadow

Oh thanks… now my Amazon stock is even more worthless!!!
hbl

*phew*, according to bookbarn.co.uk, the Bookbarn described above has nothing to do with BookBarn International, a huge (and strikingly similar) secondhand book warehouse located just 30 minutes south of Bedminster in Bristol.

The Hallatrow warehouse (near Midsomer Norton) has an entire level of paperbacks, all priced a Â£1. I usually stop in there on a Sunday after a night out in Bath, and hangoverly curse at the shelves when I couldn’t find any William Gibson books… (they’re not in any order, and there are loads of William Golding books to get your hopes up, but have managed to pick up most of them).

So I’m glad to learn it’s not the same company! Also, I had better get down there soon and buy some more paperbacks so they don’t go to the wall like the one above did. I would never be bothered to turn up to a closure like that and horde books. Where would I keep them? Paperbacks don’t last anymore – what’s the lifespan now? 70 years?

Anyrate, if you live in Bristol/Somerset and you haven’t been to Hallatrow, you gotta check it out. http://www.bookbarn.co.uk/
Anonymous

there are plenty of 3rd world countries that could use those books
Narmitaj

The way I heard it (on the local area BBC news programme, Points West, which covers Bristol) is that the Bookbarn’s lease had run out and the Bookbarn people just left. The owners of the physical warehouse (not the book business) are the ones who opened the doors to the public rather than landfill the stuff. Then they’ll lease the space to someone else, if they can.

Hmm. I’m only about 20 miles away. Maybe I should go. Unfortunately, at my current rate of reading I have enough stock already to last me 200 years.
zio_donnie

@jeff

books will stay around for a long time even though i immagine that they will come at a premium.

i like technology but it is not a panacea for everything. ebooks are good for some uses, namely portability of large numbers of tittles in a small package but they have big issues too.

for example:

what do you do if the reader breaks, the battery dies etc? and if you lose your backup copy for a hardware failure?

you cannot resell ebooks and for many it will mean less books purchased, or pirating them

what about the countries that cannot afford ereaders

tho’ my biggest concern is about society in general more than individuals. how do you preserve culture in the long run without hard copies? until now writing and books have passed information for thousand of years. it’s as simple as using a pen and a paper and preserving it from the elements of nature.

but digital copies require massive infrastructure to be maintained. without electricity all information would be lost.

i keep thinking about my digital personal archive of photos and videos. in 10 years i had to pass it from floppies to cds to dvds to external hds and i always lost stuff not to mention the time and money. how will i preserve it for 30-40 years? and how will i pass it to my children? i eventually printed 100′s of fotos that i would really miss in case of hardware failure.

if preserving a relatively small personal archive is such a burden i cannot immagine the energy it will take for massive databases like google to keep on running for 100′s of years. and i can’t immagine the loss for humanity if all our culture is lost to a critical tech failure.