Rare Book Monthly

Articles - December - 2010 Issue

Follow-up to Better World Books Article


-"Also very few more traditional booksellers are as young, smart, hip, quick, hard working, coordinated and pleasant to deal with as this fast paced crew." Good point, but I don't know about the "hard working" part, as many of us work hard too in shifts longer than eight hours a day, though in a hand crafted rather than a brute force way; and many pickers are "pleasant" but they are ripping you off at the same time. And that raises another question I always have, about some of these books going home in knapsacks to be sold on the side. This must be an issue for outfits like BWB.

-"In all the years I've been buying and selling antiquarian books, and all the years my parents did it before me, I have never once heard the words "business plan" mentioned..." They should be compared to companies like AbeBooks, Alibris, and especially Amazon - all of which have business plans - rather than to traditional booksellers.

-Are the "funds raised for global literacy" totaling close to $9 million so far in cash, or does the value of donated books count toward that? I am not sure I get the "literacy" part either. Presumably most of these books are in English, going to classes that already speak English, as in the video they provide in which young folks say they want to become doctors, etc. It seems like "education" would be a better word, though it isn't quite as appealing to those who would give to charity.

-"I hope that the decisions to dump thousands of volumes from academic libraries has a rationale behind it that is more substantial than the limited revenue stream these books may eventually generate and the space their absence will make for newer and more recent acquisitions."

Your insightful comments under "Cultural Strip Mining" are the best thing I have read yet about why research and academic libraries in particular should be very hesitant to work with companies like BWB. My biggest surprise as a librarian was the realization that a significant number in the profession (often tending toward administration) are actually not very fond of older books and journals. Budget cuts, digitization, and renting subscription databases have provided cover for not buying new books and weeding out old ones, and now BWB comes along to cart the bodies off. The book is not dead with the advent of these new technologies, of course, but research libraries should hold on to their older materials in original artifact form, as they will be of even greater use and interest in the decades to come as their comrades perish or fall into private hands. Microformat and digital counterparts and subscription databases are rife with problems, including missing and unreadable pages and degraded images and homogenization. Libraries need to start thinking of these items as museums think of their own collections. Libraries will be able to leverage these original materials in the decades to come in ways that can barely be imagined now if they can only hold on through this current onslaught against the printed word.

The other huge issue with BWB is that they seem like charlatans to many of us. The founders say up front that they are for profit, right there in the small print, but they also take great pains to make the whole thing seem like a green charity, and library boards and administrators more interested in expediency than mission or legacy buy right into that. I would feel better about BWB if they could make a living from thrift store rejects and on-campus donation boxes rather than from community donation boxes and the deforestation of tax-supported libraries. It would be interesting to see the salary structures within this corporation too.

BWB has gotten tons of good press because it sounds like (and in many ways is) such a feel-good story, but some day an investigative reporter will get the inside scoop or gain access to the financial records, and we will see that you can't always judge a book by its cover. I agree that we should ignore BWB at our peril--especially at the cultural peril of research library collections--but they thrive under cover of charity and I don't think that is the wave of the future.

Shawn Purcell

Reach Shawn Purcell at mail@balopticon.com

Rare Book Monthly

  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
  • Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
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