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This is progress not. The King County Library System in the Seattle area has killed off its Real World semiannual book sale of 80,000 unwanted books–and replaced it with an online sale by Amazon.com. Talk about stupidity. The Seattle Times says:

Such traditions as people camped out at the doors at 6 a.m. in Kirkland, the bags of books for a few bucks and the orgy of book buying are giving way to the World Wide Web and the lure of the virtual marketplace….

Library officials say they will raise more money with less effort but acknowledge it will make the books more expensive and the shopping experience a little less memorable.

“Whereas we loved the book sale, it has become a difficult thing to sustain because of the sheer volume of books and the amount of time it took to hold the sales,” said library spokeswoman Marsha Iverson.

The Kirkland sale, usually held in October, is the first to be canceled. The final sale was held last spring in Kent. The cancellation does not affect local sales of donated books put on by supporters of individual libraries.

From another city, a Friends of the Library booster writes:

I think it’s a serious mistake–but perhaps the branches will now profit by holding their own book sales.

 
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