Secondhand booksellers operating in the UK and Ireland have begun noticing a significant increase in bulk orders from unidentified purchasers over recent months. The booksellers have reported receiving inquiries from buyers located across the US, Canada, continental Europe, and the UK, with similar patterns observed among sellers in Australia and other regions globally. The orders are characterized by their random assortment of titles, departing from the conventional practice of thematic grouping that typically defines the secondhand book market.
Several prominent secondhand booksellers provided accounts of the unusual purchasing activity. Stuart Manley of Barter Books in Alnwick stated that orders began arriving three months prior and consisted of disparate collections spanning unrelated subjects and formats. Jim Shaughnessy of MW Books in Ireland noted that orders arrived sporadically since May, comprising titles with no apparent connecting theme. David Gower-Spence of BookLovers of Bath received approximately 200 books during a concentrated period between May and July. One unnamed UK-based bookseller reported receiving orders for 6,000 books since January, with purchasers consistently paying premium prices without negotiating bulk discounts.
The buying patterns have generated considerable speculation within the bookselling community regarding potential motivations. Many booksellers suspect artificial intelligence companies are acquiring secondhand books to extract and process their textual content for training large language models. This theory gained credibility following reports that Anthropic, developer of the Claude chatbot, had invested tens of millions of dollars purchasing books, removing their spines to facilitate scanning, and subsequently recycling the materials. A tech publication reported that databases had marketed secondhand books as valuable AI training material, particularly noting that titles published before 2022 contained text unpolluted by AI-generated content.
The purchasing activity has created operational challenges for booksellers while also raising questions about the practice. Some booksellers expressed uncertainty about whether randomly ordered public domain materials would serve AI training purposes. Orders have been placed through major platforms including Biblio and AbeBooks, with evidence suggesting some buyers operated under multiple aliases and coordinated deliveries to shared warehouse locations near Heathrow airport. Anthropic stated that book sourcing represents standard industry practice for training language models and denied targeting rare or antiquarian materials.
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