A Leak In The Safe

As a used book dealer, that’s kind of how I feel these days and it’s all thanks to the appearance of the Scanners. If you go to a book, garage or estate sale, or any kind of second hand scrum where they have books you’ve probably encountered them. They’re the beings with the hand-held scanners who swipe the bar code on every book to see what the going value is and if it’s worth picking up.

The cool thing is that almost everybody else is bugged by them, the way they used to be bugged about us. When I used to stand in line before book sales the people around me felt free to vent about the perfidy of the dealers, those mercenary wretches who snatched all the good books before anybody else could get to them. Of course, the fact is that not only do most sales have more than enough to go around, but the goodies the majority of the general public are looking for are bestsellers like Grafton, Cornwell and Grisham, the very authors that our store already has way more than enough of. But even though we’re not really in competition with them as much as with each other, that didn’t prevent a free floating hostility, like when the sweet old lady at the church rummage sale screeched “At least I read them,” as she snatched a book out of my hand.

But that’s the thing about Scanners – many of them do actually appear to never have opened a book. Say what you will about the scruffiest, most socially and hygienically challenged book dealer or book scout, at least they know a thing or two about books other that the bar code. I have a very nice colleague from Ypsilanti who you wouldn’t want to sit next to on a bus, but who knows more about literature than most of the professors at the University of Michigan. We’re book people whereas the Scanners are just technology, aggression and the willingness to put a lot of effort into making not a lot of money. Most of us do it simply because we’re dotty about books, while some of them, well, seem more like the kind of people who would otherwise be collecting pop bottles and beer cans. A dealer or scout can triage a bunch of books rather quickly while a Scanner has to scan each one individually, all the while fending everybody else off. The ultimate irony is that the oldest books, the most valuable ones of all, don’t even have bar codes. To me it’s just another way, along with Kindles, online sales and everything else, that books are losing their unique centuries old magic and becoming just another commodity.

In the long run there are certainly worse problems in the book world than the Scanners, and I’m sure in my own way I’m being just as catty as that old lady at the church rummage sale. Some of them seem intelligent and respectful and try to be friendly, and, really, I should be more grateful that now they’re the ones that everybody is complaining about.