The guys reiterated that professional booksellers know what's rare and antiquarian, and what's important in a rare book. The professional bookseller's knowledge of actual books as artifacts, pieces of art, or collectibles becomes more and more valuable. Amateurs do not have that. As we work more toward ecommerce, the knowledge of actual rare books or antiquarian books will become more important. It will be the people who have spent more and more time learning the trade that provide the best hope for the trade. Their position at Bibliopolis is like a clutch, where the two sides meet. The 500 year-old, venerable profession coexisting with some of the newest 21st century tools. If it's done right it teaches both sides of the business. If the penny sellers become the future, that's a profession, but it's a different kind of profession. Bibliopolis is more interested in maintaining the tradition - Gutenberg and all.

At present, Bibliopolis is designing a new and better website for the AABA. They have bookseller clients all over the country (see their client list) and several international sellers. They also have a listing on their webpage of books for sale and who has them divided by subject. There is a bookseller blog with info on coming book events, anecdotes, and just plain chat. In fact, I highly recommend that you go to their webpage, www.bibliopolis.com or give them a call in Berzerkly, as we westerners call it, at 510.705.1806, or email them at support@bibliopolis.com.

So here's what I learned: Bibliopolis offers complete e-commerce, website design, development, and hosting services for independent, used, and rare booksellers. They work hard to generate new customers from search engines such as Google and help you to build repeat business with tools such as weekly e-mail updates informing customers of new inventory in their categories of interest. Their system is easy to use, they provide excellent support services, and they are really nice guys. They are very reasonably priced, very approachable, and seem to love the book business as much as we booksellers do. What more could a bookseller want?

Afterword: We had dinner that night at "The Brazen Head" on Buchanan and Greenwich in San Francisco. It's been around since 1980 and bills itself as a restaurant and public house. The food is mostly classic American cuisine such as crab cakes, salads, New York pepper steaks, ribeyes, seafood, and other stuff of that ilk. It was quite good, not exceptional, but had a cozy, mature, hideaway atmosphere missing in so many restaurants nowadays. Prices were mid to upper-mid range with drinks and good wine. The best food we had all weekend though, was the night before at Toomie's Thai in Alameda. The duck was exquisite and the prices were quite reasonable. We can't say enough good about it. Ta, ta for now.