At a book sale in support of your local library, you discover a title you really want, one you’ve longed to find for years, one you may have given up hope of ever owning. Now it’s in sight, now in your grasp, and the price is right, a dollar or two going to a good cause. But you’re not happy. In fact, you may be disappointed. You’ve found something you want, and it’s in bad shape. Its tattered dusk jacket bears the volume’s former shelf address as expressed by Dewey, its quota of library stamps and pockets and other stigmata attest to years of circulation, its dingy look and grimy feel suggest not so much as a single meaningful cleaning since the day it was cataloged. There may be evidence of many readers, from fingerprints to dog-ears to marginal notes....
Bern Marcowitz & Margot Rosenberg, How to Remove Library Markings from Books
As a general rule, book collectors almost never add ex-library volumes to their shelves:
My Wings Books, from whence comes the above image, has a number of other images of the gruesome damage that often is inflicted on books by institutional libraries.
Of course, not all libraries inflict such damage upon the books in their care. Since books in rare book and other special libraries do not circulate, much of this damage is avoided. A case for only buying discards from rare book libraries! Of course, if there is no withdrawn stamp somewhere in the book, you may be dealing with a stolen book:
Notice that we said ex-library books are almost never added to collectors' bookshelves.
Exceptions are made. For excessively rare books like the Audubon double-elephant foilio or the Shakespeare First Folio. For extremely rare bibliographies and other academic or scholarly works that traditionally have had very small print runs. And, of course, for that book that you just have to have 'cause you may never again find a copy of it for sale....
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