And the Search Is On…

Unable to find an out-of-print book? BookLook.com might be of service. The Warwick, NY-based company, established in 1981, works with school districts and libraries, as well as individuals, to find books no longer available through publishers. "We can handle anything thrown at us," says Jerri Dodd, BookLook's president.

The company's inventory includes more than 100,000 books, manuscripts, and photographs. BookLook (www.booklook.com) will track down anything from relatively recent paperbacks to rare tomes, with prices ranging from about $5 to thousands of dollars. Roughly 80 percent of the requests that come in are found within 90 days. However, many books are found in about a week, says Dodd.

It's a "trade secret" just how the service goes about tracking down those books. What the company will disclose is the condition of the respective product when it is found. There's no obligation to purchase a book even if BookLook finds it. There's no membership fee either, but there is a weekly search fee of $2.50 per book. A customer can cancel a search by notifying the company, but must pay for the number of weeks the search has been performed. Users pay for the product plus shipping, and purchase orders are accepted.