The AB Bookman's Weekly magazine
earlier known as The Antiquarian Bookman magazine
(and usually just referred to familiarly as "The AB")
recently announced that they are "suspending publication."
Some of the newer book people have never even heard of The AB.
Other book people knew the AB, and subscribed,
and watched as the AB gradually shrank
in number of pages, and number of subscribers,
and as the AB transitioned
from being a central feature of the old-books marketplace,
into being a publication about which more and more people
would occasionally ask each other:
"Is the AB still around?"
Many people continued to subscribe to the AB
because it served their needs.
Others continued to subscribe out of loyalty to a set of values,
others just continued to subscribe out of habit,
or to see what would happen to it next.
Fewer and fewer advertisers found it cost-effective to advertise
in the AB as much as they had before,
and more and more advertisers found that it wasn't really cost-effective
to advertise in the AB at all,
once the Internet book databases became available
and widely used.
Right up to the end, the AB provided a useful service
to advertisers and to subscribers
but the AB's relative importance in the old-books marketplace
had rapidly and substantially diminished
over a period of just a few years (5 years or less).
Some people see the AB's demise as a result of
refusal by AB leaders to "face the facts"
about the changing old-book marketplace
and about the new technologies and values
that the changed marketplace included.
But right up to the end, it appeared to me that
the AB decision-makers knew what their choices were,
and just preferred to make the choices that
matched their personal views of how
the old-book world and the old-book marketplace
should be.
It appeared to me that they consciously chose to
live by their own values,
rather than adapt to the new values that were entering the marketplace.
It appeared that they simply attached little value to changing
in a way that would allow their business to "survive" in a book world
where they didn't like the looks of much that they saw,
and they didn't like the taste it left in their mouths.
That's just my opinion, based on my own observations.
Maybe you see it differently.
-----
Here is some more information,
for people who didn't experience the AB in person:
For decades, the weekly AB magazine
was the main public channel of communications in the
USA buy/sell/trade marketplace for old books.
If you wanted to hire the AB to communicate for you, it was simple:
You handed the AB one arm and one leg (for a bigger ad)
or a just couple of fingers/toes (if you only could afford a small ad)
i.e. you gave them all the money you could afford, plus a bit more,
and in return they did a better job than anyone else could/would
of displaying your name, your book wants, and/or your book wares
to the biggest available audience of people who were interested,
and had books to sell or money to spend.
A big fraction of those interested people were
*so* interested that they actually spent many hours every single week,
reading the whole darn *thick* 4to magazine
-- line by line of tiny type, cover to cover --
or at least all of the advertisements
(which filled up most of it anyway)
just so they could find out who wanted the books they had,
who had the books they wanted,
and who-was-who / what-was-what in the old-books world
each week.
When computers and the Internet came along
the AB did indeed publish a few valuable articles on the topics,
including at least two very useful ones written by R. Weatherford.
But, pretty much,
it looked like the decision makers at the AB just attempted to
ignore the effects that computers and the Internet
were having on the old-book world.
It appeared that the AB leaders genuinely liked the existing hierarchy
of dealers, collectors, special-collections librarians, and Associations,
in which the AB played an important part.
Certainly it appeared that the AB leaders sniffed at the idea of
the smaller established operators and know-little newcomers coming in
to ignore and trample
the valued and often useful traditions, and the stable hierarchy.
Eventually,
the AB made some concessions to the computers and the Internet:
For example, as AB advertising revenues tumbled,
and the AB magazine came to have fewer and fewer pages of advertising,
(until eventually it had almost as much editorial matter as advertising),
the AB eventually set up an AB Internet advertising web site,
as an additional service to encourage people to buy print advertising
in the AB.
But eventually, over at the AB,
somebody's health became too weak,
or somebody got tired of paying out more money than came in,
or whatever,
and recently the AB abruptly announced the suspension of publication.
It appears that the decision-makers at the AB
simply refused to give in and switch over
to another set of values and a new form,
with which they appeared to disagree, and
with which they appeared to feel uncomfortable.
There may be something noble and endearing about an organization
that would prefer to disintegrate
in the natural course of adhering to its own chosen values and form,
rather than stay alive by transforming into something else.
Sincerely, Satya Prem
Member, AIOPD (The Association of Independent O.P. Dealers)
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