Metal Working Technology Transfer - Dearth of Used Books

[Orrin]

I find all the technical books I want on the Advanced Book Exchange:

http://www.abebooks.com/

Whenever anybody mentions a book on this and similar fora (forums) I go straight to ABE and order it. It has let me down very few times. On a few occasions, the book turns out to be scarce and the vendor knows it. When their asking price is in the $hundreds I prefer to remain ignorant.

Orrin

[Greg Q]

I find all the technical books I want on the Advanced Book Exchange:

http://www.abebooks.com/

Whenever anybody mentions a book on this and similar fora (forums) I go straight to ABE and order it. It has let me down very few times. On a few occasions, the book turns out to be scarce and the vendor knows it. When their asking price is in the $hundreds I prefer to remain ignorant.

Orrin

Remember after our scraping class the bunch of us comparing notes on good books to buy? The availablility/price curve got skewed heavily for a few weeks, just like the Biax prices It pays to pay attention to any thread about worthwhile books and order them ASAP before the rush. I was lucky enough to find most of them in the six months after the class...I expect that the number of available copies outside of landfills is dwindling though. I have stuck "NEVER DISCARD" labels on my library to remind my future widow that it may be in her, and our culture's, best interests to get them into the hands of someone who will value them.

[J Tiers]

I've been told by more than one used book dealer that they toss ALL technical books.

The excuse is that they know nothing about them, don't know what's good or bad, and that most of the older stuff is so obsolete anyway that it is no loss.

I imagine they have been told some of that by the "trend spotters", people who decide for the magazines etc what is going to be popular in the future..... Folks like Faith Popkin (aka "Popcorn") and other free thinkers at the ad agencies.

And people who have garage sales sometimes say "I was told that books are obsolete, everyone uses those reader things anymore and don't want books, so we threw them all out".

I hav gotten lots of good technical and shop books at estate sales, garage sales, and the big annual book sales here. There is one benefiting a charitable foundation, and one benefiting the YMCA, both with several acres of books. The YMCA has better tech books, the ignorant book dealers run the other one.

[Robin R]

With a day to myself, I visited some local bookshops yesterday

there
continues to be a major technical institute,

.

Have you checked out the said technical institute, it probably has a bookstore on campus. If so, they may well stock used books that are required for the various courses.

If you don't mind books from an earlier age, then the Internet Archive has large numbers of out of copy-write metalworking books. http://www.archive.org/ Just don't bother with anything from Google Books, that's America's cruel joke on the rest of the world.

[EddyCurr]

Have you checked out the said technical institute, it probably has a bookstore
on campus. If so, they may well stock used books that are required for the
various courses.

Yes, I am an alumnus of courses offered through their ConEd dept. These
courses use selected modules drawn from the full set of printed materials
prepared for the four year apprenticeship programs.

The printed materials are compiled by the Apprenticeship and Industry
Training department within the provincial ministry of Advanced Education
and Technology.

Some examples

There are some barriers that make it difficult for the man on the street to get
these materials. The bookstore requires proof of enrollment in a related
program before agreeing to sell the materials. (This is provided they even
have stock on hand, I have taken classes where materials have not been
available for the majority of the program's duration.) Those not enrolled
in a course can special order the materials, but delivery is 6-8 weeks.

If you don't mind books from an earlier age, then the Internet Archive has
large numbers of out of copy-write metalworking books. http://www.archive.org/ .

Thank you for the link. There is both a Sony Reader Touch and an iPad for
ebooks in the household. I have followed earlier threads at HSM with links
to various digital versions of out-of-print books.

eBooks have their strengths. Real books in the hand are still more satisfying
to me.

.

[EddyCurr]

J Tiers, PTSideshow and RussZHC post remarks about the 'business' that
perhaps cut to the core of the problem.

A while ago, I questioned a neighborhood bookseller with a varied selection
of subjects why he had nothing about machining - not a word of a lie, he
replied "why would anyone want to read about that?"

On my outing the other day, a shop owner told me they do not take texts
because of the high probablitity these are marked up with underlining
and highlighting. The shop caters to a higher end clientel and 50% of
sales comes from internet/distant customers so they do everything with
a view to maintaining a reputation for quality goods.

One scenario that hasn't been mentioned but which I do not think is
completely out of the question is that well-meaning agencies may have
gathered such resources for furtherence to third world countries in
the midst of their own industrial revolutions ...

As it happens, I am fortunate to already have the beginnings of a modest
collection of technology-related publications. A sampling of which
appears below:

.

[EddyCurr]

.

[EddyCurr]

.

[bob ward]

Its all to do with the preferences of the book buying public. 1 in 2 will buy a cook book, 1 in 10 will buy a Mills & Boon, 1 in 2000 will buy a machining book. I don't like it either, but thats just the way it is.

[John Stevenson]

In the UK there is a village called Hay on Wye close to the Welsh border, typical English village nothing changed for centuries, even have the old style parking meters.

This village advertised itself as the biggest second hand book shop in the world, probably correct as it holds about 30 book shops. Some are small single rooms in cottages and others like the converted cinema, church and yes an genuine English castle have just under a million each.

Now I collect old engineering books, have done for years and we used to make an annual pilgrimage to Hay every year for 2 days, you cannot do the village in one day.
First couple of years were ace, loads of quite rare goodies for not much money as the sellers think they are worthless.

However once the cream got skimmed off the top subsequent visits came up with nothing new. Last trip was about 18 months ago and we won't be going back because all that's left are the same books we saw 12 years ago but now at inflated prices.

Last trip I bought one book, "The history of Asprin" believe it or not quite interesting, trip before that two book on Rolls Royce engines.

In the early days we used to take the Donald down because we were frightened of overloading the car.

It's not just book dealers who have no clue, even the trade is guilty. One of the local gear cutting companies had a small office in the corners with overloaded shelves on gear machines that had been scrapped pre WWII. I asked to buy some and the foreman said no need, he'd sort them and give them to me.
This went on for about 5 years and one day called in, lace is al clean, office all tidy, no shelves. Asked for the foreman and a young guy came up, I asked after the old guy and the books and he'd retired and they had trashed everything.

I have stopped collecting now as I have too many and in truth many just repeat what others do, there are only so many ways to drill a hole We have boxes of books stored that have never been opened from buying them.

Earlier this year we sorted out a large stack of books, mainly fiction and odd books from where ever. We put these onto a standard pallet and they stacked 4' hight and they went onto Ebay and made something like £25. Just glad to be rid of them.
This winter I reckon we can clear out another two pallets of general books as opposed to collectables.

[Greg Q]

I will observe that I started woodworking 30 years ago because I wanted attractive yet affordable bookshelves; I had and still do have a wide-eyed astonishment that the incredible riches of knowledge are almost free. Now I have the additional astonishment that on top of being cheap, most people find printed knowledge worthless.

Greg

[Krunch]

I buy nearly all my books through a used-book "clearinghouse" website called alibris.com which, in turn, deals with dozens of third-party vendors ... almost like an ebay exclusively for books.

I have been buying books through them for several years now, and I cannot recommend them highly enough. I have probably bought 30 to 50 titles through them, and I have only been dissatisfied once ... and the seller made it right with me (apparently they made an honest, unintentional mistake in describing the book).

Shipping is always $3.99 per book (unless you buy multiple books from the same book seller, in which case you get a discount).

They just about always have "coupon discount promos" going on, and if nothing else, you can generally get at least $1 off. In several instances, I have found used books offered for 99¢ ... applied the $1.00 off coupon ... and basically bought the book for the $3.99 shipping fee.

Most of the books are priced pennies on the dollar. It's rare to find a title that you can't find a copy of. Highly recommended.

I should also note that I have no financial connection (or any other, except being a customer) to them.

alibris.com

[ironnut]

bookfinder.com

My wife has had good success using bookfinder.com to search for titles that she is interested in. She found the Connely tome Machine Tool Reconditioning for me and someday I will give it a thorough read. She also said that it includes the alibris.com stores.

gordon

[loose nut]

typical English village nothing changed for centuries, even have the old style parking meters.
.

The kind that you tied your horse to?

[loose nut]

I still go to Detroit every year or so, but I always leave depressed.

Greg

You think your depressed, what about all the people that can't leave. They must be damned near suicidal.

For those that haven't had the pleasure of going there, old downtown Detroit is scarey, the "burbs are fine, some are very nice.