Members of exlibris:
I have read with interest and appreciation the varying tributes to AB and
have myself been thinking about the demise of a publication that was once
"the Bible of the book trade," and just what this means for the heterogeneous
readership of booksellers, collectors, and libraries that the magazine served
in different ways. Each of the several elements of this readership clearly
found very different things of value in its pages.
(To clarify my own relationship with the magazine: from November 1996 to
October 1999, I was employed by AB, as staff writer, principally, and as
managing editor and staff writer from May 1998 to October 1999; my
association with AB ended several weeks prior to publication of the final
issue dated December 20-27, 1999.)
There are two interconnected points that I would like to touch upon in this
(short) philosophical note. One is the erosion of the sense of community
that seems to be occurring at an accelerated pace. In this brave electronic
world, where will the common ground be found, so that people who share a
language of books will learn of things and exchange concerns? (By the
language of books, I refer not only to speech but to all the many other
nuances that are acquired through association with the book world.) I'm
trying to consider what forum will shape the many changes in the book world
still to come -- for as dramatic as the last four or fve years have been, in
my opinion even more fundamental changes in the world of old books are still
to come.
The second point is to wonder how well served serious customers for old books
("end-users," whether institutions or individuals) will be in the long term
of this electronic future. Some of the ground rules of buying and selling
books have undoubtedly changed forever; yet it seems to me that there is no
substitute for experience and knowledge (as opposed to sheer masses of data).
Not every book in the world can be found online -- but far too many copies of
certain other books seem to be on offer.
Far from lamenting the days of the nickel-postcard quote or advocating a
return to them, I am trying to put into words a sense that the internet
bookselling databases are really just an interim tool for the book world. I
am wondering how the "next generation" medium might look. With the closing of
AB, some booksellers' inventories are now behind closed doors and certain
collectors' needs and desiderata are not being met, because no one can learn
of them. Where now to learn of concrete news and issues affecting the book
trade, of regional book fairs or of new bibliographic titles from
booksellers-turned-micropublishers (or indeed from larger publishing houses)?
These and other matters vital to the book world will have to be addressed.
I will try to play my own part in doing so.
Henry Wessells
P.O. Box 43072
Upper Montclair, NJ 07043-0072
electronym: wessells@aol.com
http://ad.kosmic.org/wessells.htm