Editor's note: What follows is Part 2 of Mr. Hardy's compilation of the
responses that were sent directly to him.
Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 9:09 AM
From: Ronald Hardy (Central College, Pella IA) HardyR_at_central.edu
Subject: Re: Libraries selling books? (Replies to Hardy, Part 2)
Mr. Hardy --
I'm happy to give you the benefit of my experience. I have seen
selling books on amazon.com and half.com for about a year with
great success. Like you, we occasionally purchase books by mistake,
which cannot be returned or aren't worth returning. We also get
books donated to us, which sometimes do not match our collection
profiles. We used to sell such material at the Circulation Desk for a
pittance, but the proceeds were not returned to the library budget.
I approached a couple of Lehigh's financial administration people,
asking for their permission to do this, providing that the library got
to keep the money. I wouldn't have done it otherwise, because being a
seller can be somewhat labor-intensive -- listing and providing accurate
descriptive comments, re-listing titles on amazon when their 60-day
period has expired, adjusting prices, packaging, etc. The original
listing does take a bit of time, because you really need to be accurate
about selecting the best bib record and describing each book's
condition, but after that the re-listing and re-pricing takes only a few
minutes. On occasion, if there is no record for the book in hand, I use
the best one I can find, then enter comments to indicate exactly what I
am selling. Others sellers do the same thing.
Once recently, I sold a book, then got a complaint from the buyer that
what he got wasn't what he'd ordered. It turned out that he had failed
to read my seller's comments, in which I had described exactly what I
was offering. He wanted his money back, but it was his fault for not
reading the comments. Buyer beware. Sorry, no refund.
Anyway, key to this process was getting access to a Lehigh bank
account for the automatic deposit of the proceeds. From there our
library bookkeeper moves the funds into the library book budget.
Actually, before I got this piece all figured out, I sold books only on
half.com, because at that time they provided the option of payment
by check.
Amazon would not do that. I think half.com now adds a surcharge
for paying by check. When I got the bank account info piece in place,
I switched nearly everything to amazon and now only sell things on
half.com which I don't find in amazon's database. I keep these
physically separate from the amazon books, so I know where to find
each book when it sells.
I do not list the same titles on more than one site, because it could
get confusing. Just think how messy it could be if a title sold on
amazon, but I forgot to remove it from half.com. Then I'd get a
buyer on half.com, but the book had sold to the amazon buyer, so
then I'd have to issue a credit. No thanks, too convoluted. When
checking addall.com's used book section, both amazon and half.com
titles (as well as many other sites) are included, so I don't feel that
I am getting less exposure by not using abebooks or Alibris. I do
think that more people use amazon than half.com, which is why I
made that switch to using amazon as my primary selling site.
Before I started selling, I checked various sites for their policies,
but ended up with amazon and half.com. At the time, Alibris required
sellers to be able to upload 1000 titles per month, but I had neither
the time nor the volume of material to do that. I am not sure that
this level of activity is still a requirement. abebooks.com charges a
monthly fee of some sort, and I knew that Lehigh's financial types
would not go for that.
Not to give away my strategy, but I do price things very competitively.
In fact, I try to be the cheapest, because that way my titles list
first, which means they are likely to sell before other, more expensive
copies. I like it when there is a buyer already waiting for a book I
want to sell, because it can be an instant sale. And I like it when
there are no other copies of my book for sale, because I can
command a higher price.
At certain point, though, I do give up. When the cheapest price is
under $1, it really isn't worth the effort (although because amazon
and half give the seller a postage reimbursement, there is still a small
profit). When prices go that low, there must be a lot of copies that
nobody wants, so why bother? Bestsellers fall into this category, as
you might expect.
Both amazon and half figure commission into the equation, which is fine
with me. So you have the sale price, plus the postage they give you,
minus the commission they charge. It's a lot more lucrative than
practically giving away the material at our Circulation Desk. So far
this FY, I have earned nearly $2,000.
So that I can provide a paper trail of my sales transactions if asked
(this was stipulated by Lehigh's financial people), every time I get an
automatic deposit of funds, I go into "my account" and print out the
titles, prices, and commission amounts for that 2-week period.
I have thought about compiling a list of duplicates and offering the
list to other local colleges, but that's pretty labor-intensive too. I
do donate to local book fairs books which haven't sold. And of course I
discard books that are heavily highlighted or in poor physical condition.
That's about all I can think of to tell you. If you have any questions,
feel free to ask. I view this aspect of my job as great fun!
Mr. Hardy,
We did this for a while and would have kept it up had we had the
staffing. We were using Advanced Book Exchange as the platform
for our inventory as the seller. We offered our nice duplicate books
as well as gifts that we could not use our collection. We handled the
money transactions with the individual buyer and shipped the books
out ourselves.
I know that Alibris also works with libraries in a similar manner
and I believe they even handle the money transactions.
Proceeds from our sales went to a special fund that in turn was
used to purchase more books.
Sheila Morrissey
Order Team Leader, UC Irvine Acquisitions
949 824-7205 Voice - 949 824-2059 FAX
Mr. Hardy,
The Dupre Library at University of Louisiana at Lafayette has a
"Friends Of Dupre Group" which sells books to the public--donations
which we do not add to the collection. Since they perform services
for the Library and donate the all the funds received at the sale back
to the Library this is acceptable. The donated gift books are technically
the Friends property. However, with anything that is a duplicate
receipt or error receipt, we enter a murky area. The state auditor has
upon occasion ruled that books paid for through the Acquisitions
Materials Budget are the property of the State and cannot be disposed
in a frivolous manner at a book sale without proper guidelines. Special
procedures have to followed, such as advertising in local papers that
the following state property will be sold. We have, however, given
such items away to Community Colleges and other state supported
libraries. Your state auditors may not be as "picky".
Beate Kukainis
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Mr. Hardy,
I don't have experience selling books online. At one library I worked
at, the director had a long-term working relationship with an OP
dealer who had first refusal of our books withdrawn for any reason.
This dealer also had our search lists and supplied books he found.
After this dealer had bought what he wanted, other dealers could
come and buy things.
At my present institution, we are not allowed to sell anything bought
with State money - we have to discard purchased books that are
withdrawn. This is something you might check with your
administration. However, we can and do sell books donated to the
library that we don't want. We get some $200+ monthly just by
selling books on campus.
Nancy Hill
Head, Acquisitions & Cataloging
University of Texas at El Paso
500 W. University, El Paso TX 79968
915-747-6722
nhill_at_libr.utep.edu
Hi Ronald,
Are there any libraries that have taken this route before? Have there
been issues / conflicts with doing this with your business office?
I have tried to pursue this option before, even for library discards
from this university library. However, there are legal considerations
that bind the process here: the Library is not allowed to sell on any
material its buys, due to the university constitution. This constitution
will need to be amended before such a procedure could be instituted
here.
As for the business side, processing of payments such as inter-library
loan payments, library fines, etc (paid by check, cash or credit card)
is a common procedure, and instituted here. The finance side would
need to be investigated, as the volume of transactions would be
increased, and according to the library size and type of item
transactions, this may be a large or small difference to a work flow.
Public libraries often have a book fair once a year, which both
sells off their old stock, and makes a good PR opportunity for the
library (benefits of cheaper prices to the public, less waste of resources).
Book fairs can be styled to be a marketing opportunity for the library
concerned. - Why not university libraries - students, faculty, and
interested public would benefit and the library would benefit from a
bit of cash inflow, all at one focused time, and with goodwill generated
in the client group. Perhaps this could be a once a year market for the
university as a whole with various stalls in a fair set-up. (I've seen
faculty members throw out 3 boxes of soil research (including
conference proceedings, and other useful documents) into a recycling
bin - not aware of donating to the library - or even selling it on. Maybe
it would be a useful opportunity to make aware that libraries also
accept donations.
Is there some aspect of selling books online that needs to be considered
for a library to set up an account?
As to selling online - what about a site like ALIBRIS
Are there any good reasons why we shouldn't do this?
It may be easier to start an account with a database provider, such as
Alibris etc, as booksellers do, then the commercial side would be
outsourced, as in library resource purchasing, the business partner
managing the business side - such as dealing with customers, deliveries,
credit problems, and provide a larger database for prospective
purchasers to choose from, so make visiting the site more time
effective. Individual library sites may be a waste of time and resources,
from both ends of the transaction, as these would need to be individually
maintained & visited.
As another option, are there any listservs or online forums for libraries
To offer duplicate materials (not periodicals) to each other?
Dup materials in particular subject areas are offered by special library
groups as I'm sure you're aware. ALia Health libraries distribute dup
lists in Oz for their members, some universities distribute lists, although
this seems to be a less common practice. Dups lists have to be waded
through, and this can be time consuming: database presentation is a
far more modern & technologically useful option.
Cheers,
...and let us know thru the list what you've found out
Nan
Nan Sweetser
Library (Acquisitions)
University of the Sunshine Coast
Maroochydore D.C. Qld 4558
Australia
Tel: +61-7-5430-2812
Fax: +61-7-5430-2810
email: nsweetse_at_usc.edu.au
web: www.usc.edu.au
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Received on Mon May 19 2003 - 17:00:06 EDT