SECOND-HAND AND ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS ON THE INTERNET

Abstract

This article is a distillation of thousands of conversations held over the past six years or so with collectors, dealers, and librarians about the buying and selling of second-hand and antiquarian books online. It was a gripping topic in 1995 and remains so in 2001. The ability to acquire books via the Internet has, after all, profoundly affected the professional lives of librarians and book dealers and has radically changed the face of both personal and institutional collecting. There is still much to talk about: The ground continues to shift beneath our feet as online book sites, originally an American . . .