Barbara Roig Equey
Graduated from the 1st promotion of the School of Libraries
Associate Professor at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF)
Legendre, Bertrand (dir.) (2023). The second-hand book. [Paris]: Ministry of Culture: SOFIA, French Society of the Interests of Written Authors. 156 pp. Available in: [Consulta: 13/08/2024].
The used book is a serious book, or rather, a very serious one, written under the scientific direction of Bertrand Legendre, professor emeritus in communication sciences at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, with the support of the French Ministry of Culture (Direction des médias et des industries culturelles). A book whose intention is to describe and make known the reality of the second-hand book market, which is only partially known. It should be noted that some researchers and specialists in the world of books such as Vincent Chabault and Hervé Renard had already raised questions in previous investigations about this market suddenly subjected to the violence of digital platforms, leaving it in a situation of extreme risk. due to the total paradigm shift that these platforms represented.
It is evident that not only the book market is a victim of this giant modification in the way of buying and selling, but it is interesting to observe the specific impact on the book trade, an impact that Bertrand Legendre – also author of an essay published by PUG (Presses universitaires de Grenoble) in 2019 called What digital technology does to books1– is able to describe better than anyone. Books have been part of the DNA of our intellectual and social identity since the invention of the printing press and they always deserve that we reflect on it appropriately.
This study, therefore, not only invites us to reflect on the impact of this global change on the second-hand book market, but also gives us the appropriate tools to redefine what an old book is, know how to differentiate it from the modern book and even from an old book. It allows us to become aware of the numerous economic lives that an old book has going forward. As a product, the old book is reintegrated after a first use in a market still willing to give it a new value and even increase it despite being a used object, but with a use that is “endless” and that gives it validity. eternal.
The old book, Legendre explains to us, also escapes the law of the single price, a law that, on the other hand, is imposed on publishers. This turns the old and antique book market into a market where the price is set by who buys and not by who sells. There is talk of a free sale price.
Bertrand Legendre also informs us about the aspects of taxation and copyright, an author who, in the context of the sale of an old or antique book, stops receiving rights that are only guaranteed at the time of the first sale, but not in the following acquisitions. You should know that the European Union plans to preserve copyright in the resale of original graphic and plastic works of art, but not in the resale of books.
The merit of this report is that it not only proposes an objective study of the issue, but also invites booksellers-sellers and buyers to participate, presenting their opinions to better study the practices of these key actors and to find out how their day by day, what are the hopes of these merchants and these clients and also their fears and sorrows.
Legendre’s very understanding and didactic way of disseminating knowledge means that this essay, despite being extremely specialized, is structured in an absolutely understandable way, within the reach of any reader. Legendre’s reflection begins from the announcement, in the first part, of the general data, to move towards more specific descriptions, in a second part and subsequent chapters, of the supply of used books online and their economic models, of purchasing practice and behavior. We discovered, for example, who and how the individuals who resell used books are: currently they are generally women who turn the resale of used books into an activity that is clearly becoming feminized at the pace of social changes that allow new realities to be incorporated.
In this study everyone is mentioned, those who buy, those who sell, those who doubt and look for solutions to revalue the old book. It is an essay that could be burdensome for the vast majority of readers who are not from the union; but the way of presenting and explaining thorny concepts, such as buy and sell pricing algorithms, the one of activity tracking indicators, the one of visibility or direct sale, They make this text – which is also enriched with very illustrative graphics – a necessary and accessible adventure for all those who say they love books.
The used book It is a work that sheds light on the big questions that surround this dissimilar market, forcibly taken towards the shocking modernity of online economic models, which have undeniably removed the major players in the old book trade, which are the buyer and bookseller. Some actors who, despite having few technological predispositions, must be able, for the good of all, to reinvent themselves in the digital world.
Legendre has the ability to synthetically order this new situation and turns it not into a desert where life is no longer possible, but on the contrary, moving it away from apocalyptic assumptions and subjective and hasty appraisals, he creates a fruitful terrain with possibilities of imagining an economically viable future for the old book.
Reading this study, we came to the conclusion that there is nothing like specialized knowledge on a subject, because it always makes us leave fear and go towards the light, rediscovering the necessary enthusiasm and passion, where it seemed that they had been definitively lost. .
This review is published together with the Blog of the Library School.
1 “What digital does to books” (trans., B. Roig Equey)
