Central directory of antiquarian books

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The Central Directory of Antiquarian Books ( ZVAB ) is an Internet marketplace for predominantly German-language antiquarian books that has been part of Amazon via AbeBooks since 2011 . Only professional second-hand bookshops may offer on ZVAB. It is considered the market leader in its field in German-speaking countries.

history

The ZVAB was founded in 1996 by the students Bernd Heinisch, Friedemann Kutschbach and Jens Bauersachs in Berlin to simplify the difficult and often unsuccessful search for antiquarian books in shops. It went online in November 1996, following AbeBooks, which was founded in Canada in 1995, as one of the world's first antiquarian bookshops with eight member antiquarian bookshops and around 20,000 titles.

From 1999 to 2011 the ZVAB belonged to mediantis AG (formerly called buecher.de AG). The takeover of Choosebooks, the American counterpart of ZVAB, in 2004 expanded the range by millions of mainly English-language titles. In 2006 the company headquarters was relocated from Berlin to Tutzing . Most of the employees left the company, as did the co-founders Friedemann Kutschbach and Jens Bauersachs. In 2011 there were around 4,100 second-hand bookshops from 27 countries with more than 30 million media (books, graphics, sound recordings) in the ZVAB.

In April 2011 mediantis AG sold the ZVAB to AbeBooks , which in turn had been bought by Amazon in 2008 . The ZVAB team moved from Tutzing to Düsseldorf in August 2011 to the European AbeBooks branch. However, the ZVAB division is to continue to exist as an independent brand. Since the vast majority of ZVAB customers come from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the English-language twin platform choosebooks was switched off in July 2011 in order to concentrate again on the core business of German-language antiquarian titles.

In the night of November 2nd to 3rd, 2015, the previous ZVAB platform was switched off and replaced by the Abebooks platform. The ZVAB logo and the color of the previous ZVAB have been adopted. However, some of the members are critical of the changes, both in terms of the handling of design and functionality, as well as in legal issues.

Online marketplace

The ZVAB bundles the offerings of many second-hand bookshops on one online marketplace. The second-hand bookshops pay a fixed monthly price and a commission for each book sold, the amount of which varies depending on the contractual relationship. In this way, a central directory of antiquarian books was formed analogous to the directory of available books (VLB). The ZVAB is not an antiquarian bookshop itself, but merely provides the database in which the affiliated antiquarian bookshops bring their ranges. The buyer's business partner is always the affiliated second-hand bookshop that sells the title.

The ZVAB is the market leader for German-language antiquarian books, and there are also numerous foreign-language titles. According to its own information, the ZVAB platform currently has around 1500 professional second-hand bookshops from 27 countries that offer more than 25 million (as of May 2011) individual titles. In addition to old or out of print books, there are media such as manuscripts , autographs , graphics , sheet music, maps , postcards , newspapers and a wide variety of information and image carriers (including sound carriers ). An average of 4,000 to 5,000 titles are ordered through the ZVAB every day (as of May 2011).

For academic work, the ZVAB has become an aid in obtaining literature. The full text search can be used to find titles on a topic that are not mentioned in the usual bibliographies. This means that hidden sources can also be opened up under certain circumstances.

ZVAB-Phoenix Art Prize

As part of the cultural sponsorship, the ZVAB awarded the ZVAB-Phönix art prize annually from 2005 to 2010 on the initiative of the chairman of the supervisory board, Richard Freiherr von Rheinbaben , which honored young artists in the field of fine arts . It was endowed with € 25,000, making it one of the most highly endowed art prizes in Germany . The award was accompanied by an exhibition in the Villa Kustermann in Tutzing . After the sale of the ZVAB to AbeBooks, the Phönix Art Prize has been awarded by mediantis AG since 2011.

Prize winners:

Web links

  • zvab.com - Official website of the ZVAB

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ boersenblatt.net “Thorsten Wufka, Head of the ZVAB Member Service, in conversation” , February 27, 2008. Last accessed May 12, 2008
  2. ↑ boersenblatt.net “ZVAB will be switched to Abebooks platform” , March 11, 2015. Last accessed March 16, 2015
  3. ↑ boersenblatt.net “Survey on the ZVAB changeover” , March 11, 2015. Last accessed March 23, 2015.
  4. ↑ boersenblatt.net "ZVAB / Abebooks: die Aussteiger" , July 14, 2015. Last accessed July 16, 2015
  5. ↑ boersenblatt.net “Changes to the Antiquarian Book ” , August 12, 2015.
  6. ↑ ZVAB company portrait May 2011 (PDF file; 135 kB)
  7. ^ Margrit Lauber-Reymann: Information resources. A handbook for librarians and information specialists , de Gruyter, Berlin, Boston 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-023120-5 , pp. 202 f.
  8. ↑ boersenblatt.net ZVAB-AbeBooks meeting in Düsseldorf ( Memento from August 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) March 12, 2011
  9. ↑ boersenblatt.net Choosebooks will be shut down June 3, 2011, accessed April 5, 2017.
  10. ↑ boersenblatt.net “The ZVAB after the changeover” , November 3, 2015.
  11. ↑ IT Law Chancellery Munich: "Book Directory ZVAB: Do the specified cancellation policy and the model cancellation form pose a risk for dealers?" , November 25, 2015.
  12. ↑ boersenblatt.net “The old ZVAB was far better and more well thought-out” , December 9, 2015.
  13. ↑ ZVAB media information from June 17, 2008 (PDF; 372 kB) , accessed on November 3, 2008