Here's how to cut your inventory costs to the bone
Just think how much more profitable your online bookselling business could be if you didn't have to pay for your inventory. A man in Denver had this same idea, but the way he went about it wasn't very nice.Thomas Pilaar, 33, was suspected of using different names to obtain seven library cards from the Denver Public Library, then checking out 300 items per card and selling at least some of the items, according to reports."It appears his intent was to sell 2,100 (items) from the Denver Library collection," Denver Public Library spokeswoman M. Celeste Jackson told said. She estimated the losses at about $35,000.
posted by Steve Weber at 8/05/2007
11 Comments:
The Denver Public Library allows patrons to check out 300 items at a time? Talk about being part of the problem!
You would think that after 200 or so books, the library would insist that he borrow a librarian to go with them.
Is the Denver PL covered under Amazon's A-Z?
This is actually a growing problem and librarians account for a proportion of my buyers, replacing lost or stolen copies.
By the way, as an aside, did anyone here know that some libraries (maybe most) report unpaid fines to credit bureaus, especially when they are excessive? In other words, unpaid fines can affect your credit rating. Also, they can and will send employees to people's homes to try and "pick up" books. I'm amazed they'd let someone check out that many books!
Our library used to have a limit on the amount of books you could check out. I think it was about 10 or 12 at a time and even that seems like a lot.
I'm sure he did not check out 300 items at one time on each card. If he was able to do that then the library must not have a computer system or maybe it's one of those systems like the Federal gov't uses. ;-)
300 books! Man, he should have had my junior high school librarian, she wouldn't let us check out _anything_. If you checked out one book, she acted like you were stealing it from her personal collection....
How in the world did he think he could get away with that?
Loser.
I agree the guy is a loser. But... 10-12 books at a time seems like a lot? To whom?
I like to read. I go through as many as 3 books a day, so if I only visit the library once a month, 12 books is not a lot to me. I usually take out around 20 at a time, keeping in mind that some of them may be cookbooks or how-tos, and not all pleasure reading.
I also guess no one here has ever written a book requiring lots of research, written a thesis, or done much research as a student. An academic can often check out up to 200 books and have them out for 2-3 months at a time. Even a lowly undergrad working on their senior thesis usually works with a minimum of 15 books.
300 books seems excessive to me. But as for the rest, that's really in the eyes of the beholder.
My friends who are librarians believe that part of the issue with snarky circ desk people (who act as though any book being checked out is a crime against them), is that many of them aren't actually librarians, or if they are, they're being forced to work with the public, when they'd much rather do indexing or book binding.
Until recently I worked at our local township library as a library assistant. The patrons are allowed to check out up to 20 items per card for 3 weeks. And those could be renewed once.
We had lots of home school families and each member had a card, so they could check out loads of books. I know of one family who checked out approx. 100 books at a time, most of which came from interlibrary loans.
But once a patron had a fine of $2 or more, they were blocked and couldn't check out any more books until it was paid. This upset some folks but there needs to be some way of keeping fines under control.
And this didn't always work. One patron and her mother had large fines almost every time she came in. Last year alone she paid fines 75 times! I may have been cheaper for her to just buy the books.
Museum and archives have had to tighten security with the recent prices for old maps skyrocketing – a lot of old county atlases were stolen. The amount of money that old maps stripped out of an atlas can be sold for is astronomical. Smaller museums and genealogical society have been especially vulnerable to these thefts.
Hang him up by the thumbs after tar and feathering him.
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