Boselli 1 John Boselli

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Dr. Cooper

Interdepartmental 105

1 March 2012

Alibris and Thousand Dollar Wordsfdhfhsdfhsdfhdshfsh

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Founded in 1997 by former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor Martin Manley, online book retailer Alibris, according to its own featured history page, acts as business liaison between more than ten thousand independent vendors and their clientele, cataloguing more than seventy million books across sixty-five countries into a tangible knowledge home delivery service. At its most basic, all that is necessary to engage Alibris is the use of a search bar, yet in the landscape about that unassuming vacancy the construction and arrangement are careful; the meditative color palette, the simple menus, and even the elegant-yet-handy sidebars the website features bear the comfort of a secondhand bookstore, but in a simulated fashion that nearly sterilizes the experience. In this way, the experience of Alibris page is at once antiquarian and humbly intellectual, and these strains are made uncomfortably at odds with one another. Alibris: Used Books, Used Textbooks, Rare & Out-of-Print Books, reads the page title at the home screen. A tripartite wash of beige, golden orange, and powder blue

Boselli 2 dominates the space. The former, of browns warmth and whites coolness, of piety and simplicity covers the background, canvas-like. The pale, disparate-yet-unassuming blue directs the eye to the filter options, hypertext, and aforementioned sidebars; while the more dramatic warm yellow tones are relatively dramatic coloring of the seller ratings and that paramount Add to Cart button: the end-all of the Alibris experience. These hues are the visual muzak of the page, subconsciously effective and unnoticeable until sought after:
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Boselli 3 The Alibris.com homepage.

A typical results page for a book search. However inspired by archetypal vintage, hole-in-the-wall, and Shakespeare and Company-style bookshops Alibris geography may be, its virtual form bears but a passing resemblance to the packed shelves rhymeless and nonsensical in their stocking pattern so indicative of a secondhand vendor. Perhaps the inability to represent the book smell of decomposing lignin may be the most upsetting violation. When the expected landscape is jettisoned due to total incongruity with the Internet medium, the thrill of the find is gone; the search bar yields a response if it is told what to find. Serendipitous experience, at its best, is limited to suggestions the site presents to us. Any aroused awe at their presentation is dashed when one considers that the site has algorithimically gathered these matches from previous selections; ones literary predilections are echoed stronger as his site history accumulates and extends. True, one who looks for these qualities online is misguided. The Age of Information has practically levelled the population of Alibris terra firma counterparts, largely eliminating that final

Boselli 4 romantic, Parisian semblance of the twentieth century old-fashionedness. Another consequence of this loss is that it merges two markets: those in pursuit of knowledge and those wishing to commodify it. The (diminished) experience of buying a used or vintage book is now confined predominately to the apeing, diorama-like Sales Annexes in Barnes and Noble stores nationwide, standing in all its diminishment. Consequentially, the presumably earnest, passionate former patrons funneled into the realm competitive rare book trade. Despite appearing last in that page title (Alibris:Used & Rare Books), these investors contribute great revenue to the the company, if its search parameters are any indication. Perhaps Alibris knows its chief demographic well. We may filter books by edition, condition, year of publication, collectibility, binding type, status as signed or unsigned, and with jacket or without, aside from the classical criteriaon of price, condition, and seller rating:
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The range of Alibris search criteria.

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Boselli 5 Operating on the dichotomy of books as economic and spiritual/mental stores of value,
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Handling its stock as both literature and as stores of value, Alibris now sees more returns from the self-interest of- former antiquarians than from of the latter seekerspursuers of self-intellectual betterment. As mentioned above. Quite menacingly, the retailer, in a matter that may only be described as menacing, has the self-aggrandizers and selfimprovers are tossed both partiestossed onto the trading floor of thewhere their stock to be bought or traded, the accomplishments of others, lay equally accessible to both. Essentially, where open outcry meets earnestnesssincerity. While this may sound far-fetched, consider the implications a signed, rare, first edition of a book may have for men of these poles. He who seeks personal aggrandizement in the selling of authorial memorabilia will most likely be interested in purchasing the volume, with no qualms to the potential cheapening of the contained experience, quite probably not opening once its covers. Conversely, he who seeks closeness to the works period of composition, to the writer whose material he has learned well into himself, as a reverent who holds text as relic, shall desire to purchase it as well. Alike only in action, these men have thus become one anothers adversary, even if their competition is less economic than it is ideological. , diametrically opposed in intent. Under the Rare Books tab of the website, twee platitudes are used as column labels. , e.g., First edition books evoke fond memories, and Author-signed books are truly unique treasures. best convey their overhanded attempts at pandering to bibliophiles. Furthermore, the section is absolutely riddled with

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Boselli 6 articles on the trappings of dealing in tired tomes, namely repair, restoration, and condition grading. Alibris is consciously aware of the steady drift into obsolescence modeled by the broad Used Books portion of its sites self-description, and has established guarded well its Rare & Out-of-Print cornerstone with sustainability initiatives;s, as well, for the aforementioned guides shall gather disheartened intellectuals into the stock-cum-book exchange, increasing competition and generating revenue for Alibris, all for the purchase of a hard-to-find work of literature.
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The twee platitudes of Rare Books. What is most disconcerting, however, is that even this online market is fading, albeit at a much slower rate than secondhand shops about the world. However, always dedicated to counteraction and preventative measures, Alibris begun to prepare itself for the ascendant age of the eBook, already possessing a dedicated tab for them. Better yet, the retailer was a charter member of Googles own eBook service, founded in 2010. In this way, the devices of the sites design are constant, while the stock is not. Alibris will not abdicate its role as middleman, especially in light of its growing out of Interloc,
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Boselli 7 another online company whose very name is born of interlocutor speaker between. As improved tablet and e-reader models simply pour from their outsourced centers of production, with annotation functions and exceedingly large memories, eBooks will become literatures emblematic medium for newer generations, further driving print media into obsolescence. After all, code cannot be vintage; the production of new literature will be one-dimensional.

Note Googles presence. These eBooks, for worse, are the final frontier, as there is simply no going beyond them, beyond the text itself. We are given, through this technology, the bones of a text. There is no historical reminder of their existence, such as a simple dust jacket, clothbound boards, or even paper. These muscles, as it were, are utterly peripheral. Paradoxically, however, are literatures most vital, wonderful, godliness-suffused pieces: the poetic structures for the God inside.
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Boselli 8
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Boselli 9

John Boselli Dr. Cooper Interdepartmental 105 1 March 2012

Essay Blocking: 1) Careful description w/ critical analysis

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-Color is predominantly beige, with blue and orange accents for emphasis +Warmth of brown and the coolness of white +Modern return to low-fashion colors -Beige is like the martini of color.quiet but toxic. New York Club organizer Erich Conrad in a 1997 Esquire article +Associated with piety and simplicity

Boselli 10 +Accents -Pale, tranquil blue directs eye to various editions along the left sidebar of the screen -Gold orange on the Add to Cart button 2) Characterize environment and ecology -Connects independent book retailers +Middleman -Search filters +Filter by edition leads parameters -Condition, publication year, first edition, autographed, jacket 3) Metaphors structuring our understanding of the space -Duality of the commodification of knowledge +At once a bookstore and store of value market -Introduces obvious element of economic self-interest +A means by which to self-aggrandize through the accomplishments of others, thus cheapening the experience to a degree -Search and purchase suggestions track behaviors +Under Rare Books tabs -Twee platitudes as subject heads, e.g. First edition books evoke fond memories and Author-signed books are truly unique treasures -Articles at the bottom of the page designed to introduce the

Boselli 11 enterprise of bookselling to the relative amateurs who employ the site for its more obvious purposes 4) Why do we travel there?

-To purchase knowledge and have it delivered to us 5) How does it re-conceptualize a familiar space? -Any dive, hole-in-the-wall vintage and rare book store +Or even the Sales Annex of Barnes and Noble -Which in a way is a upscale conversion of their relatively humbler inspiration

+Retains the characteristic discount prices 6) Does is it introduce an emergent one?

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-Alibris +Founded 1997 by Former U.S. Secretary of Labor David Manley -Grew out of Interloc, a company founded by antiquarian booksellers +Interloc-utor = go-between -Offers more than 70 million books from a network of over 10,000 booksellers in 65 countries +Charter member of Google eBooks service in 2010 +Sells music, videos, video games, but header atop the Internet window reads, Alibris: Used Books, Used Textbooks, Rare & Out-of-Print Books

Boselli 12 -Definite focus on literature above other sold media

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This topic presupposes that, phenomenologically, we have learned to experience information technologies as a space: we go online for increasingly immersive games, social interactions, virtual tours, shopping trips, and innumerable other pleasures. Your task here is to combine careful description of some particular online space with your own critical analysis. How would you characterize its environment and ecology? What sort of embedded metaphors structure our understanding of this space? Why do we travel there? The best essays will go beyond plot summary and help readers to think of online experience differentlywhether by reconceptualizng a familiar space or introducing an emergent oneand to think of online experience in relation to the non-virtual realm. Screenshots and other graphics are welcome, perhaps even necessary.