I’ve been out and about today, attending house inspections, and as with all of these things they don’t line up neatly. I was driving between a few when I came across the Lions book mart. Anyone who’s a reader is probably familiar with these sort of things- a charity or community group run second hand bookshop, volunteer staffed, that takes donated books and sells them at low prices. They always have this wonderful book smell and bizarre shelving rules.
I wander into these things from time to time, and I’m always amazed at how the books always seem at least fifteen years old-perhaps a reflection on how they are acquired, or maybe the new ones just get snapped up quickly.
As I browsed through this one, though, it struck me- how long will these things be able to continue?
We’re moving to an eBook future, which is cool and all; I read ebooks on my tablet often and I love having them at my fingertips. What I feel though is that ebooks can’t be put on a second hand shelf.
As a consumer that’s troubling, as it makes books harder to discover. Wandering through a second hand shop you can have books jump out at you, be seduced by the form, flick through the pictures. No online book portal I’ve experienced can do that, make some obscure book on the renaissance from the eighties stand out as much as the latest bestseller. The current eBook market makes it easy to drill down by genre, and create a curated list, but it discourages discovery of books outside the milieu you’re steeped in.
And that’s a little tragic.
Skepticism and Dice 
Nothing compares to browsing a used bookstore and finding a book that you’ve never heard of and picking it up. Buying books online can be difficult because there are reviews and star ratings attached to them that can sway me in one direction or the other (even when I try to ignore them).
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Interesting. I’ve noticed similar (older books, etc) but never put much thought into it. Something else that might be a contributor is the source of the books – from my own perspective, I would be more willing to part with the books I no-longer want (whether they be hand-ons from relatives, etc) and would be less likely to pass on newer items as well. I’d also hazard a guess that less people are reading now compared to 10 years ago (particularly at and below our own age group), so once you throw in eBooks the turnover is somewhat reduced.
On eBooks in general, I can certainly see their appeal. While I’m yet to really take them up on my tablet, the ability to carry around a bookshelf in your back pocket without having to carry any extra weight. It also seems to me that with eBooks (like the music industry *cough* iTunes *cough*) people are only looking to grab what they want rather than spend the time to find something they may like.
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My guess about the age, actually, comes from where I reckon the books would come from. I reckon they’d be from a combination of people cleaning out, estates, and readers who donate everything they read after reading them.
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This post might make you feel better: http://kineticbeans.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/confessions-of-a-random-e-book-reader/
I actually just finished reading this post about using an e-reader to select books at random and get you out of your comfort zone đŸ™‚ I also think I’m more likely to pick up an old book on an ereader then in person, because the covers in person aren’t as attractive while on an ereader they often have the added appeal of an expired copyright.
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That seems like aninteresting experiment, might have to try it!
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