Recently, I was at a library and noticed someone sitting by some books
being sold by the library. This person was using a laptop to connect
via wifi to Amazon. Apparently he/she was looking up the sale books
at Amazon, but I couldn't see in greater detail what was being done.
My guess is that he/she is listed at Amazon as a bookseller and was
listing the library sale books as being available from him/her, setting
the price at a level that would be competitive with the ones already
listed. Since the library typically sells the books for no more than
$2 each, that could be quite profitable if the book is ever sold by
that bookseller. Furthermore, the bookseller doesn't have to warehouse
the books: the library does it for him/her. Even the wifi hotspot is
provided by the library. True, an individual book might be sold by the
library before it can be ordered online, but these things happen and,
if the book is subsequently ordered, a bookseller can simply re****t
that the book is no longer available. That might reflect badly on the
bookseller, from Amazon's point of view. But a conscientious bookseller
engaged in this particular enterprise might regularly visit the library
book sale books and update the inventory to see which ones are still
available, making the scenario less likely in which a book is ordered
and found not to be available.
In fact, that might be what this individual was really doing: updating
the inventory and cancelling his/her listings of books that were no longer
available.
I have to admit, that does sound pretty enterprising. And one does often
find good books on sale at libraries. I can't go to every library to see
what it has to offer and, in effect, this bookseller is offering the
service of doing it for me.
The only thing that does bother me, I guess, is that I would much rather
see this source or revenue going to the library. Maybe the people who
run library book sales (volunteers, I think) should take a lesson from
this entrepreneur.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions
and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near
Boston.
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