Please do not purchase this book

There’s a Word for Buying Books and Not Reading Them

---

Faculty book purchase requests via MyLibrary can be made by Hitotsubashi University full-time faculty and teachers. Student requests via MyLibrary can be made by Hitotsubashi University undergraduate and graduate students. Once the status is displayed as "Available," the book will be available within a few days.

Applicants who selected e-mail notification when they applied will be sent a Purchased Material Availability Notification email when materials become available for use. Applicants who selected e-mail notification when they applied will be sent a Cancellation Notification e-mail. Applications that are "Canceled" are mainly for the following kinds of books: Books that cannot be purchased due to being out of stock or out of print at the publisher Books that are already part of library collections, or that are on order Books that fail to meet selection criteria Books may also be canceled due to other reasons, such as budgetary constraints.

Student Book Purchase Application Forms Purchase requests from Hitotsubashi University students and student book recommendations from Hitotsubashi University faculty are accepted. Fill in the required information on a Student Book Purchase Application Form, available on the 1st floor of the main building, and present it along with your Student ID or Library User ID at the main counter, which is also on the 1st floor of the main building. Reservations See here for reserved materials.

Requests from students are processed as reservations. If a reservation is unnecessary, please clearly indicate the same on the application form. Requests from faculty are not processed as reservations.

Book Purchase Requests

If a reservation is necessary, please clearly indicate the same on the application form or let staff know at the counter. Applicants who included an e-mail address on their application form will be informed via e-mail.

Please specify the books to be purchased and present your application to the library information section. Please also let staff know if you require notification or a reservation when the materials become available. Take the reservation slip to the main counter, where the borrowing procedures can be completed. Books will be held for a period of 7 days from the slip being put on display. Please note that reservations will become invalid after this 7-day period. The following kinds of books will generally not be purchased: President Barack Obama even got pulled into the debate after New England Independent Booksellers Association Director Steve Fischer late last month condemned the president for visiting an Amazon warehouse in the wake of the Apple e-book decision.

In an interview with CNET on Friday, Clarke laid out his reasoning for why readers should shift support towards independent publishers -- even it if it means slightly higher prices -- and the current issues authors, publishers, and booksellers face in the rising e-book and Amazon era. The following is an edited version of that conversation. Why would you urge people not to buy books, or at least your book, from Amazon? Is it simply that people should not buy books published from independent publishers on Amazon, or that people should avoid all book buying on Amazon because of what you think it's done to the industry?

My campaign to urge interested readers to purchase my novel "Vernon Downs" directly from the publisher is mostly economical, which is to say small, independent publishers like Roundabout Press need all the capital they can lay their hands on. Unfortunately, most indie publishers rely on Amazon to sell their books, and to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, the price is high. Indie publishers realize a fraction of the purchase price and are at the mercy of Amazon's discounting policies.

As a bookstore owner, my obvious preference is that readers buy books at bookstores, but I know a lot of readers don't live in proximity to a bookstore. Given Amazon's dominance, where do you see both the e-book market and physical book selling at large in five years time? Industry numbers have borne out what I suspect all along: The e-book market is the new audio book market. E-books are settling to be about 20 percent of the book market, which is what audio books were in the '80s and early '90s. I actually think e-books might be creating new readers, which isn't a bad thing.

But people who love books, love books.

Resource purchase requests

And books have been around for years. A bigger threat is whether or not the current generation values the book. They'll be around, but will they be read? What will happen to independent publishers and bookstores as Amazon's hold continues to solidify? Amazon has done all it's going to do to the industry, I think. It's interesting that Amazon's early ambitions were to be the Walmart of the Internet. Books were incidental to their plans -- books just happened to be sitting in warehouses across the country ready to be shipped.

It could easily have been lawn furniture. Now that Amazon is the Walmart of the Internet, it's clear they want to take on technology service providers like Apple. They seem to be hanging around books and publishing mostly out of spite. Recent reports are saying that independent bookstores are thriving even in the age of Amazon.

InterLibrary Loan (ILL) Services

Do you find this to be true in your own experience with Newtonville Books, and if it is indeed true, what do you think are the causes of the uptick in interest? My wife and I bought Newtonville Books in , just before the economy collapsed. A number of stores were shed and, in fact, we bought Newtonville because it was going to close.

It's true that the number of new bookstores has increased in the last couple of years, which is likely owing to the improving economy.

Why you should care

I think any community that is so inclined can support a small, independent bookstore. But if having a neighborhood bookstore is important to the neighborhood, it can be done.

Even if it means only buying half your books on Amazon, or one in three. I recently heard [Amazon CEO] Jeff Bezos bragging about how Amazon is a customer-centric company, meaning he doesn't listen to all the criticism about Amazon's shoddy corporate policies, etc. All is in service to giving the customer the lowest price, fast and easy. But I'd argue it's not that customer-centric, especially if the customer's house catches on fire and the fire department can't come because the customer bought all their stuff on Amazon without paying sales tax.

Or the customer's kids have to be bused an hour away because the local school had to close because of the loss of tax revenue on all those Amazon sales -- on down the line. Some individuals claim that Amazon's self-publishing and digital selling tools have removed the barriers for young and upcoming writers to get published.

Is this accurate in your eyes?

Want to add to the discussion?

• 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed
• The Last Sunrise, A True Story
• Credit Scores, Credit Cards: How Consumer Finance Works...
• Asleep in Green
• The Multicultural Mystique: The Liberal Case Against Diversity
• Internet and Digital Economics: Principles, Methods and Applications