This is about one of those ideas so great, you wonder why it took as long as it did to come about.
"Book Stacks Unlimited" is a 3-year-old electronic bookstore with about 250,000 available titles on file. It's accessible to anyone with a computer and a modem. Perhaps the easiest way to explain how it works is to give a couple of examples:- In 1986 my wife, Cory, fell in love with a book of images by August Sander, a German photographer who made some stunning portraits during the 1920s and 1930s. But the price was steep and she passed it up. Ever since, she has wished she had it. Cory has looked in Salt Lake bookstores, but she has not been able to find it.
Recently she was reminiscing about trips to New York City and remarked wistfully that maybe she would be able to find a copy of the Sander volume in one of the big bookstores there.
In one of those wonderful moments of inspiration - just like the light bulb going off over Calvin's head in the comics - I remembered that other Deseret News reporters had been ordering books through a book shop reached via the Internet.
Using the "Net's" Veronica facility to hunt for the word "bookstore," I quickly connected with Book Stacks Unlimited Inc. After registering, I found search functions that are available for author's name, title, keyword or ISBN number.
The menus also provide an order form, allow a review of the request and let customers check the status of their orders.
We didn't remember the title of the book Cory wanted. But through the "Author Search" function, I quickly brought it up: "August Sander: Citizens of the Twentieth Century, Portrait Photography." Price, publisher (MIT Press) and type of binding were all listed, along with the information that this book had to be special-ordered.
It was a simple matter to request it and another title I wanted. All it took was typing in a credit card number, and the job was done. Book Stacks Unlimited will be shipping the books soon by UPS.
Another example:
- Brooke Adams, also a reporter at this paper, has been ordering through Book Stacks Unlimited for quite a while, including textbooks. She searched the local shops and chains for a novel titled, "And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos," by John Berger.
"It was a very obscure book that I needed to get for my book club," she said. "First, I tried all over here to get that book."
At one big local bookstore, clerks said they could order it for her. Delivery would take six weeks. But by connecting through Telnet, she placed the order and got the book in a couple of weeks. Orders usually show up at her house in two weeks or less.
"It's really convenient, because I can sit down on my lunch break and take five minutes, call up the bookstore and order it."
So bibliophiles now have a wonderful new outlet. Turn on the computer, fire up the modem and connect.
For those who have Internet connects through servers, use Telnet to books.com, or use the World Wide Web to connect into WWW.books.com. Manager Adam Wallace says Book Stacks Unlimited fields about 1,500 callers daily though its Telnet site.
Anyone who doesn't use the Internet but has a modem and is willing to make a long-distance call can call Cleveland at (216) 861-0467; settings should be N-8-1-Full.
On the Internet, Cleveland is as close to home as the next block - wherever that block is. So people in Tokyo hooked into the Internet can call as easily and as cheaply as someone in Cleveland.
And they do.
"Roughly 50 percent of our callers are international," Wallace said. "With our international customers, a lot of times they can't get the book anywhere."
For customers in this country, books are shipped via UPS. For those elsewhere in the world, they go out by U.S. mail.