By Bruce McKinneyTwo hours north of San Francisco, on a recent beautiful May day, John and Susie Hardy, for the 7th year hosted the Gold Rush Book Fair at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley. It was a trip well worth making. It was also a
melancholy adventure for it provided a measure of the drought that plagues the world of rare and collectible books these days. Those selling, 50 dealers in all, were mostly
from California with the occasional otherlander thrown in. They brought their best material, met many dedicated collectors and yet did not encounter the next generatio...
By Michael Stillman
Google took a quantum leap forward in its search listings this past month, though it was a stealth leap. One look at Google's very simple search page, virtually unchanged in...
By Bruce McKinney
The motto was 'wise men fish here' but apparently buyers long ago scaled back their purchases at the Gotham Book Mart, a New York book seller since 1920. On 23 May, 2007 the ...
By Michael Stillman
Abebooks announced the soon-to-come launching of their long-anticipated seller ratings on May 29. This will undoubtedly be controversial with some booksellers, but one susp...
By Renée Magriel Roberts
Last month I discussed -- somewhat heatedly I admit -- the downward spiral of services from the United States Post Office, particularly with respect to the elimination ...
By Bruce McKinney
Libraries in America are a hot topic these days, deer in the headlights of both cost cutters and the next generation of technologists. They are easy prey. Twenty-seven years...
By Michael Stillman
The record-setting Forbes book and manuscript auction came to a conclusion this past May 22. Auctioneer Christie's described it as setting "a record total for any collection...
By Michael Stillman
There was a book burning in Kansas City Sunday, May 27, 2007, but it was not in protest of their content, as is usually the case. No extreme fundamentalist preachers or fri...
For book buyers in Chicago and the Midwest evidence of resurgence in the book auction market is apparent in the upcoming sale at Leslie Hindman in downtown Chicago. The sale will take place on Jun...
By Michael Stillman
The auction arm of the world's most visited website (according to Alexa rankings), Yahoo, is closing down. That would seem to be astonishing news. Online auctions appear to ...
By Bruce McKinney
Change is the order of the day not only in politics but also in book selling; the reactions and responses just as emotional and visceral. For those who became booksellers to ...
There are twelve new book catalogues reviewed in Section Two of AE Monthly for June.
Several catalogues with new selections of Americana recently arrived, from Almagre Books, William Reese Compa...
