Book dealers go high tech to tout their passion

Modern technology is changing the landscape for many endeavors, including the antiquarian book business. Some decry the advent of iPads and iPhones and Nooks and Kindles, with gloomy predications of the demise of the traditional book. More optimistic souls note that the more books are digitized and put on electronic devices, the more valuable traditional paper books become, scarcity and demand being the operative factors.

And though some antiquarian book dealers certainly eschew anything that smacks of modernity (including email), a new breed of booksellers is wholeheartedly embracing modern technology that helps them spread the word about their passion – antiquarian books. Podcasts have been around for years, of course, but this marks the first time we know of that they've been used to talk about the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

This year, before and during the book fair, dealer Steven Eisenstein of A-Book-A-Brac Shop in Miami Beach, recorded an Internet radio show. We'll have more about that soon but we also wanted to tell you about another podcast recently published.

Mike Cotter and Keith Wallace of Yeoman's in the Fork in Franklin, Tennessee, teamed up with their colleague, Greg Snider (who is responsible for the Internet presence at Yeoman's), to produce an interesting podcast of their recollections of this year's Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. We thought you'd enjoy listening to their program.