In the beginning of April I had blogged about the apparent disappearance of Bookpool. It’s since been by-far my most commented on post ever. I got in touch with my former boss there and got this update from him, so I thought I’d share it here:
I was the person in charge of IT in Bookpool from 1998 to 2008, which means I’m not an employee any more, but I know the site disappeared on March 23 around noon. They called me to shut down all the servers properly in case they revived the company later. The owners moved all the equipment to a location close to Boston, I don’t know the details but it seems to me unlikely that it comes back.
Although it wasn’t my business, I feel very touched by your comments, it’s great to hear that you liked our service so much. Richard said it was like “losing a relative”, and Koko was willing to promise to buy a certain number of books. This is better than hearing our boss saying that we made a good job, thank you!
I had the luck to work with great engineers, like Marc Hughes and others, also the office and warehouse employees (I won’t mention names in case they want to keep anonymity), everyone was awesome and we made a terrific team. We put a lot of hard work to provide the service you got used to. This is why today I feel as sad as you with Bookpool gone.
I agree with you, there should have been some type of notice explaining what happened,
unfortunately there was nothing I could do about it, the owners must have a good reason to do things this way.But not everything is bad news, I was also a fan of the famous Bookpool bookmarks, and I have saved some that I’d be happy to share with you. They’re somewhere in my basement, when I find them I’ll post a note here to distribute them to the people interested.
Regards,
Braulio Carreno.
Marc, thanks for this post. I was also a formed bookpool user and miss the service. It’s nice to have some closure.
Ditto! Thanks for providing some info about what happened to BP.
Thanks for the info. I just tried to go to BookPool and discovered they were gone. What a lost.
Found both your posts (thanks so much for clarifying all this) today as I was looking for
some more great books at great prices which made Bookpool so great since the mid 90’s.
Despite the number of books being published electronically (and seems to be a growing trend) I
need the paper versions upon which to write notes, mark sections and stop and muse while I read.
Thanks again for posting the outcome, tragic as it seems to us.
Marc,
Thanks for your post. Like others I tried to access the website sometime in late March or early April and I was dismayed to see the site down. I originally thought the outage was temporary, but given the economy I had a sinking feeling that it might be for good.
It is really good to get closure on this. Every couple of weeks I try BP, hoping that it will be back online. I’ve read earlier blog posts and your post is the most authoritative. (although I wish it weren’t so).
Best regards, Tom
After disappearing into a project for months, I surfaced to price check a few titles on Bookpool… imagine my shock to find it gone without much more than a whisper! This is a sad sad thing; Bookpool was a reliable source of books at great prices, and it didn’t hurt that their proximity to me meant really quick shipping times. Thanks for the info regarding its disappearance.
Bookpool was great. I was always confident that I’d find the right tech books there. Now I’m back into the vastness of amazon trying to find my way. Good luck to all the former employees.
Marc, thanks for the info. I just discovered bookpool’s demise about 3 minutes ago. I’m sure everyone has already expressed the disappointment that I’m feeling right now so I’ll spare the repeat.
Bookpool folk: if you run across this post, know that you were appreciated and will be missed.
p.s. I’m the dude kissing the slug in the bookpool customer profiles
This is a sad day for those of us in Technology.
This is really too bad
I can’t even recall how many books I have purchased from BookPool over the years. Simply the best technical book site on the Internet. At first I thought I had fat fingered the url. I thought, no way could BookPool be gone. After 10 years relying on it, I am at loss. I can’t fathom the thought of trying to find another sight on par with BookPool. Although digital books are becoming more popular, there is no substitute for a non-battery powered book with an unbreakable screen.
A message to the BookPool owners/proprietors:
We don’t know the reason for shutting down the site, but I am sure all the long time customers would appreciate a landing page with a statement. I don’t know about others, but I will check the URL frequently in hopes that the site comes back. If its a matter of going into “hibernation” due to the economy, I think we can understand and support that decision. Although quite disappointed to see the site go, I am most appreciative for the decade of great titles, reviews, and most of all the best prices.
-VA
Marc: Thanks for the post and update. It is a real shame to see a good company like Bookpool fade in the moonlight. I have ordered over a hundred + books in the years they were around to help me keep up on technology. They will truly be missed but if they ever do decide to come back on line I hope they send out an email to all their former customers that they are back in business.
-Jeff in D.C.
Wow, I guess I am a little late to the part for hearing about this. I too just tried to check details and price on a book and found the site to be gone. This is so sad. I used bookpool quite a bit, and I used them for all my tech and cert books. Such a bummer. I will hold on to my tattered bookmarks and use them until their demise.
What a bummer. Thanks to all who were a part of that awesome site! I feel as though I owe all of you a “Thank You” for getting me through my learning!
man what a bummer… been using bookpool since late 2001. Sad Sad day, guess I’ll have to spend way too much time and $$ dealing with Amazon. Thanks for the great service over the years. Just as the last post stated, I’ll continue using those old bookpool bookmarks for years to come…
I just now learned of the demise of my fave tech books site when I entered it’s URL and came up empty as well.
I wish I could find news story about this, but so far I’ve come up empty. A lot of my fave small online retailers have gone “belly-up” in recent years with little or no coverage.
Thanks for your post here. I appreciate the information.
In the meantime, I’ve also dealt with Nerdbooks (nerdbooks.com) in the past and have been happy with their service. The prices are right about where Bookpool were (e.g. usually lower than Amazon.com).
I still preferred Bookpool only because I had been with them for years and only discovered NerdBooks a few years ago.
It looks like they will get more business form me now.
I’m rally bummed about Bookpool.
I, too, want to add my condolences for the passing of BookPool. Perhaps the best thing to do is merely echo all the great things that have already been said about the site / store, but I would add that if BookPool ever revives itself I hope they pull out there old contact list and let me know. They had GREAT prices, good service, and a very good selection. Moreover, BookPool was at the top of the list whenever someone asked me where they should be shopping for my Birthday or Christmas present! While I rarely mourn the passing of another web site, I will definitely miss BookPool.
Here’s hoping they find a way back onto all of our reading lists!
-Danny.
Well, that sucks. Yet another decent business down the toilet. They should have posted a notice somewhere. Their site name has been sold so they are truly gone. I have bought books from them for a very long time since=I got cert in windows 95. amazon and nerdbooks are not a good replacement. off to ebay.
Yet another person chiming in late to the end of the party. Bookpool was where i went to look for books. I might read bits on amazon or sarari online, but bookpool is where i went to buy them.
I miss the site. (Not to mention there is a godaddy thing covering it at the moment.)
(sigh)
I share the sense that losing bookpool is a loss to the computer-literate public. I suspected y were gone when I couldn’t find them a couple of months ago, but only now did a googling to see what I could find. They were a good business to buy from.
I was really bummed when I referred someone to the site and they said it didn’t display a page. I had to check it out for myself and I was left shell shocked. It was the only place I would buy tech books from after learning about it in 2002. If they ever do start backup consider me an engineer that would love to work there.
Bookpool was *the* place to buy technical books. I would read reviews on Amazon or Barnes and Nobel, but go back to Bookpool to actually make the purchase. I remember when a co-worker told me about the site 8 or so years ago. I was flabbergasted at how wonderful Bookpool was. Here was a site that had all the technical books I was looking for and sold them cheaper than anyone else. I’m sad to see the site gone, but I understand that sometimes things happen that are beyond your control. I wish the former employees and the owners all the luck in the world. You had a good run.
I used to depend on Bookpool when I was stationed overseas. Great selection, prices, and they shipped to APOs without issue.
To the Bookpool folks: Thank you from another satisfied customer that will miss your service.
Wow! I am bummed as well. I moved to Australia in 2001, and always told my students to hit bookpool for tech books.
Then I neede some books myself and found that they had disappeared.
Thanks to Marc for posting what happened. RIP bookpool.
Ahhh, that’s a shame. They were an excellent source of technical books at decent prices, and always offered quality service. Another victim of the economic chaos, I suppose.
Best wishes to Bookpool employees, and thanks for your service.
I agree with everyone that Book Pool was great place to shop for technical books and I am very sad to see it go (for whatever reason). While it may be difficult to math the price and service of Book Pool, has anyone found another site that comes close to Book Pool? I’m still in need of techniacal books at a great price.
I am shocked with the closure of Bookpool’s site with no official statement. Since 1996 I was a frequent customer because of its amazing reliability to deliver books overseas. However, in the last 3 years or so, competitors, especially Amazon, cut their prices off for some tech books. Bookpool stayed competitve for a while with a little margin, but books begun to vanish from its shelves without replenishment. I guess it was the first knockdown, and I wondered how much time Bookpool would survive. When the financial crisis came, I thought Bookpool would have no chance.
Despite the high-quality service of Bookpool over the years, I felt myself betrayed. I had a list of books in Bookpool’s site which I would like to buy in the future. It’s gone now. Bookpool should have had dignity to go out of business. Like everyone, I accept that Bookpool had strong reasons to close, but a simple statement to its faithful customers would help very much keep our confidence on the brand Bookpool.
A wonderful history with a tragic end and an unfortunate mistake.
What a shame! I would only buy from them as they had the best prices anywhere. I used to tell everyone about this site, but obviously it wasn’t enough. I hope they have an opportunity to revive it as it was ALWAYS my first (and only) stop. Now I have to use the other guys. I will have to drink a cold one toasting them.