The secondary books market in Poland in perspective of 25 years of political transformations (history and present day)

Abstract

The article presents a crucial period in the history of the secondary books market in Poland. This market in recent years has undergone a deep reconstruction, which was, on the one hand, a consequence of political upheaval that took place in 1989, and on the other hand, of fundamental technological change that took place almost at the same time. An independent movement of private publishing and bookselling has been restituted; former state-owned companies have ceased to exist or have been privatized, also some entirely new have appeared. The severe shortages of previous years have been quickly satisfied - both in terms of quantity and quality. At the same time they followed the far-reaching transformations in terms of readership - its scope and structure, which combined with the abundant supply led to a profound reevaluation of antiquarian assortment. The book, especially in its traditional form, lost its former importance as the primary media content and source of information. The emergence and spread of the Internet, in turn, created new opportunities for trade and promotion of the book - both in paper and in electronic form, and in the area of antiquarian range it also allowed for deep penetration of distributed resources. The analysis of this phenomenon was based on press reports and the Internet, broadly defined observation of market offer, as well as my own observations and notes, accumulated over the years, particularly in years 2012-2015, when I made a research program NCN no. 2011/03/B/HS2/03908.