Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ico!vail!rcd
From: rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Subject: Jim Joyce, books, vendor booths, etc.
Summary: It would help to consider books separately
Keywords: book signing at BOOKSTORE
Message-ID: <15866@vail.ICO.ISC.COM>
Date: 19 Jun 89 23:59:09 GMT
References: <7552@hoptoad.uucp> <57038@uunet.UU.NET>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO
Lines: 38

Jim Joyce had written...
> >> The Usenix Staff will have info about where the suite is in the hotel
which was careless at best...it should have been sufficient to say that
there would be information (which Joyce would have posted himself) about
the location of his suite, and therefore...

In article <57038@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) had some 
fair cause to write:
> >Get real. Why should the USENIX Staff publicize your
> >commercial venture when you don't bother to buy a booth at their
> >exhibition?
i.e., USENIX has no reason to help a commercial venture that isn't giving
them any money or benefit.

But it's not clear to me that "buying a booth" makes any sense to a book-
seller.  They're obviously NOT in the same league as hardware and software
vendors.  What does a bookseller booth do?  You can't sell books there (by
the vendor-exhibit rules); all you can do is have sample copies around and
tell people where to go to buy the books.  You get to have two sets of
sample copies and staff two separate locations...it probably costs several
grand to do this, with no clear benefit.  Might as well just ask for a
charitable donation to USENIX.  (no :-)

I don't want to argue whether Joyce is good guy or bad guy, but I'd like to
see a way for people to be able to buy/sell books of interest at USENIX.
It's an obvious place where it's worthwhile to have a selection of books 
that might otherwise be hard to find.

From my recent perspective, teaching a tutorial, it's very helpful to be
able to tell people where they can get books related to the tutorial
subject.  They can buy them while the material is fresh in their minds;
they can fondle the book to see if it contains what they need (instead of
trying to guess from a two-paragraph hype in a publisher's brochure), etc.
So is there some way to set up a bookselling arrangement, perhaps separate
from the vendor exhibit, which answers Rick's objection?
-- 
Dick Dunn      UUCP: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd           (303)449-2870
   ...Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been.