Here's a little thread on how essential Booksellers are.
So, as most of you know, my duties include all books from all times and places. That's a few books. So, my real duty is a balance between 1) research interests 2) teaching needs 3) restorative justice 4) market trends https://twitter.com/billybakkus/status/1334678743768576000

Booksellers play a vital role in almost every aspect of those 4 points.
So for research interest: Lets just talk about catalogues here. I first started with the idea - simplified - that Filipino book culture should be represented by UCLA library.

Lot's of reasons - we had no books from the colonial Philippines, LA's demographics, student/scholar engagement, personal inclination. Oh, and a catalog by @DSFineBooks at the Pasadena Book fair https://ilab.org/sites/default/files/catalogs/files/DSFB_BibliotecaFilipina_2019_Web_v2.pdf

This catalog is an impressive feat of scholarship - and represents years of work - by the collector, by the dealers, by Latin American bibliographers - and no institution could afford to support that much labor.

Now on to teaching needs: I use dealer descriptions for teaching - when I'm trying to design courses, when I see stuff that we already have but hadn't thought about, etc. They also help drive home that things have value. Try having students compare online descriptions to books!

3) Now the issue of justice is tricky here. But I'll make it simple, the feedback loop between collectors (institutions or private) and dealers literally determines what survives. I lean on these relationships a lot.

I'll tell collector friends about things on market that I can't afford to make sure they get "collected" and described. I work with some dealers to make sure they pick up collections that I'm certain someone will want saved.

Most importantly, perhaps, is that dealers can get into auctions 1000% more easily than institutions, and often won't even mark things up for institutions they like. They connect all portions of the market - high and low - to people who want to take care of stuff.

Finally, 4) this is the edge they get. I can't spend all my time following auctions. I try to follow some - but that dealer mark-up is to pay for a crew of full-time market watchers - to keep 1), 2), and 3) working.

And a final note, obviously our descriptions rely on their research. Only books with a certain price tag/cultural importance/personal interest can get much curatorial attention once they get into the library. We're all swamped.