Latest news with #HardToFindBooks
RNZ News
06-08-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Long running Auckland book shop on brink of closure
business books 23 minutes ago One of Auckland's best loved and long-running bookshops is on the brink of closure now its landlord, the Catholic Church, wants to sell up the historic central city property. Hard to Find books moved to the old Newton convent eight years ago, something the owner hailed a 'miracle' after they were forced out of their Onehunga store because of rampant rent rises. But the shop and its more than 200,000 books are one again in search of a new home and owner Warrick Jordan has no choice but to hope for yet another miracle. Evie Richardson reports.
Otago Daily Times
23-06-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
No book is entirely useless — let's support all of them
Warwick Jordan in his Hard To Find Books bookshop. Photo: Linda Robertson When Rudyard Kipling wrote "a man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition" he probably had me in mind — apart from the ammunition, of course. Thus, I almost choked on my pinot noir when I heard the National Library plans to destroy half a million books. Mark Crookston, encumbered with the title "National Library director of content services", informed us "most books haven't been requested in decades", which tells us more about the acquisitions policy of the National Library than about the quality of the books themselves. With a number like 500,000 in the firing line I feared that some of my works would be on the bonfire. However the books facing the death sentence "cover a range of topics like bibliography, religion, philosophy and computer science". Intellectual stuff — nothing of mine there. But is any book so unwanted that it should be pulped? Warwick Jordan, the standard bearer for second hand books, thinks not. Jordan started his second-hand book business from his Auckland garage in 1983 and eventually had nine outlets. His Hard To Find Books (But Worth the Effort) book stores were book lovers' meccas. The big move south came in 2013 when Jordan found just the place he needed to house 250,000 books. It was the 1873 Hallenstein building in Dowling St where once three hundred workers toiled making about 3000 garments each week "I love Dunedin: the people, the architecture and the climate," Jordan enthused. "I'm able to get a central-city location, the kind of space that would cost me $1million in Auckland." Container loads of books arrived in Dowling St and row upon row of shelving was gradually filled with thousands more books to now total 500,000. Among them were the personal libraries of Edmund Hillary, Robert Muldoon and David Lange. When my own big shift from Dunedin to Patearoa came along it was Jordan who turned up, offered a fair price and most of my books found a home at Hard To Find, including a few I should have held on to and may have to buy back. Many a university-type's library has found its way to Hard to Find and thus the lifetime collections of a professor of English or a highly respected historian await your perusal. Before long, the word spread and Dunedin's book lovers were making regular visits to the Dowling St treasure trove, using the irresistible chair lift at the front steps if they were getting on a bit. On cruise ship days you'd see the visitors happily clutching parcels of books they'd never find elsewhere. There's usually about three staff working at the Dowling St shop and when there's a vacancy applications flood in like the books themselves have. If you can talk your way into a guided tour behind the public area, you'll be in a bibliophile heaven. Stretching before you in every direction books, books and more books. Not arranged as you might find in a library but shelved as they arrive in an efficient system known only to the staff. Thus, the joy of tumbling upon the unexpected. But Jordan's David and Goliath battles with two formidable adversaries, the Catholic Church and the National Library, are making times tough for a man dedicated to books. Over 20 years ago the National Library was also in disposal mode and Jordan tendered successfully for about 30,000 books. More recently the library offered 45,000 books to Lions clubs to sell as fundraisers. Jordan believes only about 5000 books were sold and the library gave him the leftovers. Now, with another 500,000 books on death row, Jordan knows what type of book is involved. He believes about two-thirds of them would find a buyer and admits the rest could be junk which no-one wants. He knows his books and I wish him success. On the other hand, troubled waters for Hard To Find Books in Auckland could benefit the Dowling St treasure house. Jordan told the ODT last week he was looking at relocating all the Auckland shop's stock to Dunedin even though Dowling St was "already pushing it for space". If that happens it's "highly likely" Dunedin would become its sole retail outlet. Meanwhile Jordan is off to London to pick up an International Antiquarian Bookdealers' Study Scholarship to the University of London. Dunedin has been home to the country's largest second-hand book shop in the past when Newbold's in George St reigned supreme. Hard To Find Books in Dowling St carries the banner today and may yet be even larger, thanks to Jordan, the man who believes too many books is never enough. I'll drink to that — a red, of course. - Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
Otago Daily Times
16-06-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Shop set for influx of half a million books
Hard To Find Books Dunedin manager Blaze Forbes peruses the aisles at the Dowling St second-hand bookshop. PHOTO: GERARD O'BRIEN Half a million books could be bound for Dunedin if the closure of a prominent second-hand bookshop goes ahead, its owner says. While the possible closure of Auckland-based Hard To Find Books had plunged its future into "total chaos", owner Warwick Jordan said he expected its Dunedin store would continue "business as usual". "If anything, it could boost it in the longer run if we end up coming down there." The Auckland bookshop's lease is scheduled to lapse at the end of February next year. Housed in a former convent, the building is owned by the Catholic Church, which decided not to renew the lease as it intended to sell it. The bookshop had occupied the building since 2018 but has had a presence in Auckland for more than 40 years. Mr Jordan said he had wanted the bookshop located somewhere it could stay forever as it was "just too much of a mission to move". "I thought that was the case with where we are. Turns out I was wrong." The contents of the Auckland store could fill an estimated 20 shipping containers — roughly half a million books, he said. It would cost $100,000 alone to move the books and, because he lived above the bookshop, Mr Jordan would also need to look for a new home. "I just don't want to have to go through this again. I'm getting old, but I have no retirement plan whatsoever." He did not believe there was another suitable building in Auckland to house the bookshop. Renting a larger premises was also out of the question. Another option he was looking at was relocating all of its stock down to Dunedin, but they were already "pushing it" for space. "We've got 30,000 square feet in Dunedin pretty much packed already. "We'd be bringing down about half a million books, but we've got over half a million in Dunedin already." While anywhere with enough space was open to consideration, it was "highly likely" the Dunedin store would become the sole retail outlet, Mr Jordan said. Whether they moved everything to Dunedin was a separate issue. Their Auckland stock would at the least end up being sold from out of storage units, which could still get shipped down to Dunedin anyway. He also floated the idea of storing the books in a woolshed at a rural property on the outskirts of Dunedin, or in Milton.
Otago Daily Times
12-06-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Dealer sickened by plan to destroy half a million books
The country's largest second-hand book business wants to save half a million books from being disposed of by the National Library of New Zealand. The National Library claims they've been trying to re-home them since 2018, that there's no demand, and that most haven't been requested in decades. They say the process of shredding and recycling them, via a commercial service, has started. Book dealer and Hard To Find Books owner Warwick Jordan says he couldn't sleep last night and felt physically sick. His various offers over the years to take all the books himself haven't been accepted. 'To give you some context, this issue actually goes back to the 1990s. In the late 1990s, the National Library wanted to get rid of about this number of books. Initially, what they did was they started putting them up in small groups in tender. They put two tenders out. I won both of them, a total of about 30,000 books.' The process of dealing with the remainder was stalled when the issue became political, he says, until 2018 when only 5000 out of 45,000 were sold via a Lions Club book sale. Jordan labelled the book sale idea as 'dumb' because the books - although valuable to him - wouldn't be of interest to the average person. The library ended up giving him the leftover from the sale. 'I know what kind of books these guys are destroying. I know that two thirds of them I can use. There's about one third that really is just junk. I mean, it's just no one wants it. It's just out of date.' The books are international, mostly non-fiction and cover a range of topics like were bibliography, religion, philosophy and computer science. Jordan says one example of a book that was going to junk was a two-volume set bibliography of UFO books from the 1950s. He believes it could retail for $300-$500. 'I'm not saying they're all worth that kind of money. But there's a lot of interesting and unusual things that wouldn't sell to the average Joe public. But there are people out there who are interested, specialised interest.' Jordan says he continued to make offers for the remainder, including packing, delivery, and paying money for them. Although now he longer can afford to make the same financial offer as he did back then, he's willing to find a way to make it work. 'I mean, if I want to make money, I'd go and sell something that actually sells. I want to save the books. It's a disgrace. There could be books in there that is the only copy in the world. Who knows?' National Library director of content services Mark Crookston told Afternoons they had undertaken a range of considerations before reaching this decision. 'We've found homes for about 100,000 items and haven't found home for about 500,000 items. The sale option is one of those options that we considered and we discounted in this instance.' Rules of disposal of public assets suggest they could not make a deal like this unless it was run through auction or 'time consuming and expensive' tendering process, he says. Another reason was the costs required to stamp every book as 'withdrawn' and remove the sleeves, Crookston says. 'We'd have to either employ our existing people away from doing things that they're currently doing or employ additional people to do this … That's quite a considerable, many hundreds of thousands of dollars undertaken.' Jordan was baffled, saying there's no logic to it because he believes the service doing the disposal would charge a lot to be remove the sleeves and all the materials on books that can't be recycled. 'I don't understand because we could do that for them.' Crookston rebutted that saying 'collection management 101' principles mean they couldn't allow that. 'We think what's in the best interest of New Zealanders via the National Library is for these books to be destroyed. That's the most cost efficient and cost-effective way to deal with this issue. 'Library leaders around New Zealand and the world know that when there's large disposal projects or processes undertaken with books is that there's strong views held about it because a lot of people just don't like books being destroyed. But in collection management, that's just what a lot of libraries have to go through.'
RNZ News
12-06-2025
- General
- RNZ News
The National Library set to destroy 500,000 books
books national 43 minutes ago Yesterday morning, the National Library of New Zealand began the process of destroying half a million books and says they're going to be shredded and fed back into the recycling system. The library claims they've been trying to re-home them since 2018, that there's no demand, and that most haven't been requested in decades. Book dealer and Hard To Find Books owner Warwick Jordan disputes this. There is a demand, he says. In fact, he wants them himself, and says he's already made several offers. Warwick Jordan and National Library director of content services Mark Crookston speak to Jesse.
