After work today, I went up to Bookbuyers in Mountain View to pick up a batch of books Mom dropped off this morning. Between the two of us we had six bins of books to offload.

They took about half of Mom's books, which was good. Unfortunately, they took very few of mine, because apparently they have a new policy - they won't take BookCrossing books. The reason is pretty straightforward, if somewhat disappointing - they won't take them because they can't remove the label.

That's actually a big bummer to me...and not just because that means they won't be taking any of my books in the future. I actually like getting books with a bit of history - that is, the name or bookplate of the previous owner still inside it. I think it makes the book much more interesting. Gives it a bit of a personality, if you will. One of the coolest books I own is an old L. Frank Baum title - one of his non-Oz books, The Enchanted Island of Yew which is an original printing. On one of the blank pages at the back of the book, a previous owner wrote her thoughts and reading record for the book. I think that's really awesome! (In fact, my fondness for such things is a major reason for why I'm so active on BookCrossing.)

So I guess I either need to stop putting Bookcrossing-related writing and labels in my books, or I need to find a new bookstore to trade in used books. Not that I need a local bookstore for trading books in, really - swapping sites have largely taken over that role, but it's always nice to have one.