The copy that is fifty quid on that site is "Hardcover,ex-library," - ie probably nicked!
When I tried to borrow Ewan MaColl's autobiography 'Journeyman' from our local library it, too, had been stolen, copies go for upwards of seventy five pounds. It takes a particularly low level of thief to steal from a library, they're stealing from all of us.
So please, don't buy 'ex library' books, if there is no market for them these gobshites won't steal them.
It does depend on whether the books are officially discarded from the libraries, if they are then date stamp pages will be removed and it will have 'withdrawn' stamped on it. Those ones are fine to purchase..
Hmm.. not necessarily
always that clear-cut, I'm afraid...
At our place, we don't use a 'withdrawn' stamp at all... which doesn't really help, does it?! (We do remove the date stamp pages though, but a tea-leaf could easily do that, too, couldn't they?!) Having said that, we don't tend to withdraw very much at all, apart from previous editions of management textbooks, and stuff like that. Perhaps we
would have a withdrawn stamp if we ever chucked out anything good!
People who steal from libraries are indeed the lowest of the low. We have to smirk at the idiots who think that simply removing the library's own barcode will get them through the security gate, though!
Anyway, back on topic (sorry!), I will hang onto my Heylin book as an investment for the future... along with my copy of 'The Complete Steeleye Span', insubstantial though it is (flimsy, printed on cheap paper, poor reproductions of photos... but still a gem!).
