Buy Buy Buy

For those of you familiar with my library branch, the Donnell Central Children's Room likes to describe itself thusly:

Originally housed in The New York Public Library's landmark Central Research Library on Fifth Avenue, the Central Children's Room is a national leader in childrens services. Today, over 100,000 volumes provide a wealth of material for children of all ages, and for adults.

Emphasis on the "wealth". Recently the Bookseller Blog featured a little article entitled, Libraries Caught Off-Guard by Nostalgia Book Buyers. With the rise of eBay and all that jazz, plenty of people are checking out rare children's books, reporting them as "lost" to the library, and then paying a much lower fee than they'll eventually be paid online for the same book. My library, thank heavens, is probably not particularly prone to this scam. Still, we used to have a huge children's book sale every year at which booksellers would burst through our doors, hungrily snatching up anything potentially valuable that they could find. It put one to thinking of uncouth young baboons, only with slightly less inherant dignity.