Book Search Tips: A Guide to Finding Out-of-Print Books on the Net

Usenet Newsgroups

Newsgroups have been around much longer than the web. They are free and unmoderated - the net at its best and worst. In the last couple of years, the amount of spam in the groups has increased dramatically. Also, if you post a message to a newsgroup, it's very likely that your email address will be picked up by spammers and added to their mailing lists. One solution to this is to use one of the free email services like HotMail, or Juno, or RocketMail to post your messages - then if you start to get too much spam, you can just shut down that account. You can post "books wanted" messages to these groups by placingWTB:in the subject line along with a short descriptive subject. As in:WTB: James Michener titles, then just describe what you are looking for in the message. I suggest you read some messages within each group before posting to it.

rec.arts.books.marketplace (aka rabm) - There is very heavy traffic in this group. If you read a few messages, you'll get a feel for the format to use to post your request.
alt.marketplace.books - Much lower traffic than rabm
rec.arts.sf.marketplace - Science Fiction only.
alt.marketplace.books.sf - Science Fiction only.