But other online bookstores make similar claims. Then there's New York's Strand Book Store. With an inventory of 2.5 million items housed on four floors in downtown Manhattan, it's surely a contender in the size sweepstakes. But the Strand isn't online yet, though proprietor Fred Bass says plans are being laid in that direction. Nevertheless, the Strand already has cataloged its remainders electronically, and plans to do the same with its rare books shortly.
Large enterprises are the exception, however, in the field of used books.
Most such ventures are small, private affairs, and it is on those that the Net seems to have exerted its greatest impact, taking what has been mostly a cottage industry and positioning it right in the center of the global village. Typical is the Book Worm in Albuquerque, N.M., which has 1,800 of its 30,000 books listed online. For others, such as Wayne Pierce of Stellar Books, the Net has provided the perfect complement to an offbeat lifestyle. Pierce lives 20 miles from Oroville, Calif., itself no metropolis. He built his own house and two large book buildings, and uses solar panels and a small hydroelectric source to power his computer.