Our searchable database includes our rare-book listings (viewable in the store by appointment or chance only), plus a selection from the store (currently about 15,000 of about 65,000 titles). It doesn't include everything in the store, as we don't bar-code books and run them through a point-of-sale system in the store.

Our "rare books" are fully and carefully described, but the selections from our general stock are titles of which we've found multiple copies, either from their publishers or from other wholesale sources, so our descriptions of them are "generic" in order to represent several different copies at once. All are tight in their bindings and free of internal markings. They may show minor edgewear or bumping and may have been marked on the top or bottom edge when sold by their publishers, but all are guaranteed to be VG or better. We won't fill an order with a worse copy without contacting you first and offering it at a correspondingly lower price.

For subject searches, use the "keywords" field. Any keywords that appear on our subject list should work, though we may sometimes not have any listings in one area or another. Keywords of your own choice not on our list, whether more narrowly-defined or just different, may work, too. If you have trouble limiting a keyword search properly, try it instead at abebooks, which offers different possibilities. Our prices are marked up a little on ABE, though, to cover their fees, so you may want to e-mail us an order directly rather than ordering through them.

Some of our books are searchable by their provenance as well. Using the previous owner's last name as one of your keywords will find these. This won't work on many of our titles but will work on significant collections as we get them in.

If you're looking for a particular book not in our database, you can leave a voice mail at (617) 229-5644, option 3, or e-mail the request. Please tell us as much as you easily can about the book (title, author, publisher, and approximate date of publication are most helpful), and if it's something you saw in the store please also say where. Because of the large number of requests, we'll respond only if we find the book, so if you don't hear from us, please pardon us, and try addall.com or one of the other wider searches.