Books online and shitThis year, the Kings County Public Library system is hocking its unwanted books via Amazon, which means you no longer have to live in Seattle to get your hands on a copy of New Tax Codes That Could Affect You in 1992. This is disappointing to the scores of spinsters and man-children who eagerly awaited the sale each year. "I was hardcore, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself because every year I would see people I saw once a year," [presumably because they otherwise never leave their basement apartment in their mother's house?] she said....The new arrangement will raise the price of the books but will also be more convenient for people who couldn't attend the sales, Iverson said. Last year books sold for $1 apiece, or $10 for a bag. Books yesterday sold at the online site for as much as $16.80, not counting shipping costs."I imagine they will miss this, and I think that's regrettable," Iverson said. "But when you look at the charge to King County Library System, it isn't to provide rock-bottom prices for citizens to actually buy and take the material."(Yeah, ok, I'm being a bit vitriolic. My humours are maladjusted.) Posted by Dana at 12:13 PM
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The Roar of the Masses Could Be FartsMe and the Mrs. used to go to library sales all the time. You don't think po' folks like us could afford all the books we own at full price?
But I'll freely admit to being a man-child. Those folks who dress up like babies and play in big playpens? I understand them. All except for the pooping part.
Posted by: jonmc at September 26, 2003 12:39 PMLibrary sales are great...but if King County wants to make more money on what they sell (and presumably they'll use that money to expand their collections), more power to them.
The reasonably decent-sized city where I grew up had an absolutely terrible library system. They would do things like buy 24 copies (per branch!) of the latest Danielle Steele romance and sell 23 of them the next year at the library sale for about a buck each. So while you could always get beaucoup copies of the bestseller du jour, their other collections blew. (I had to go to the college library in town to find literary criticism for high school assignments. You couldn't even get Chaucer in the public library. Chaucer!) It's since gotten somewhat better, and a library should exist to serve the masses...but it should offer more than the latest pulp. Sigh.
Posted by: Vidiot at September 26, 2003 01:09 PMAs one of the aforementioned man-children, it suddenly seems very important for me to point out that it's actually King county, not Kings.
*goes back to reading biography of Adlai Stevenson purchased at the Seattle Public Library sale last weekend for $.50*
Posted by: bmarkey at September 26, 2003 01:18 PMWhatever, nerds.
Posted by: dana at September 26, 2003 02:00 PM*cries for his pacifier*
Posted by: Vidiot at September 26, 2003 02:09 PMI'm not a nerd. Nerds have brains, dammit.
I'm a clod.
Posted by: jonmc at September 26, 2003 03:40 PM