| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.23.22 |
OK, heavy title, but you get the point. Charity shops pulping old books; what to do? I put it that vacant shops become libraries run by volunteers. They stock old books that might otherwise have been pulped. They can lend books or sell them. They have a pc in the corner to order things from Amazon. They sell bloody coffee and have a sofa. No-one loses. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.147.148.35 |
The only problem I can see is that as soon as it is successful, whoever owns the vacant shop will want to have the site occupied by a paying customer. As I understand it, it has been town centre rents that force second-hand bookshops to 'relocate' online and only deal in rare books. There's an interesting article here (from 2004) pointing out all of competitive disadvantages as second-hand bookshop has when compared with a charity shop: http://www.inprint.co.uk/thebookguide/shops/oxfam.shtml | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.192.203 |
What about that machine that was a mobile publishing house, printing and binding anything from its database in minutes? It's about the size of a photo booth. Link that up with a machine that pulps old books and that'd keep 'em alive. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.23.22 |
Set up the thing I mentioned as a charity? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.234.184 |
Get those prices down! Today you can actually buy a mobile or a new hard drive for the price of a single book . . . Just a glance at my nethermost shelf tells me that the Panther edition of Machen's Tales of Horror and the Supernatural vol 2 cost exactly 60p back in 1975. A mere thirty-five years ago. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.192.203 |
The shortage is not of money, but of time. |