Buying out of print books? (+my latest self portrait)

[Ninjerk]

So there are a number of out of print books about representational drawing/painting, illustration, and a multitude of other art-related subjects that I would kill to own. I briefly looked on Abebooks to see what they had available by Andrew Loomis (American illustrator) and from what I remember (I literally looked at the results for about 20 seconds) the prices ranged from 150-300 dollars. Are there any other reputable sites that I could use to shop around?

Also, I've found a number of books (e.g. a couple of George Bridgman books, one by Burne Hogarth iirc) in my community college's local library. I will probably end up checking some of them out, but ideally I'd like to see if I could purchase them from the library (without resorting to anything unethical like damaging a book or "losing" it). I spoke with one of the ladies at the circulation desk about purchase opportunities and she told me that the only way that could happen is if the book(s) in question were "weeded out" (which apparently happens every summer) of the library catalog. Apparently they just give the books away! Here I am willing to spend a good amount of money on them...

Has anyone had any success purchasing a book from the library OR know of any loopholes or petitions or any such thing where I could make a legitimate purchase (again, without resorting to vandalism or thievery)?

OK OK OK, I'm almost done. Since I haven't spoken to you guys in so long I thought I'd share a watercolor self portrait I did today. It took me from 7-10 hours (can't remember what time I started).

 

[roni]

nicely done. I like it.

 

[Short Bus]

I would volunteer at the library..at least until the summer

 

[Gerard K H Love]

The library might not hire you with the blue and olive colored hair.

Very nice portrait, it looks like you. What do you look like?

 

[hank solo]

In the meantime, do PDF files help?

http://alexhays.com/loomis/

Or even JPG scans for online viewing from anywhere.

http://www.fineart.sk/

Yes, you have to copy and paste - let's not link to things that might cause a stink for someone :)

 

[Ninjerk]

PDFs are ok, and I have found a number of texts by Loomis (although I can't remember where I found some of them, I had like 4 books in PDF in addition to "Successful Drawing"), but I would like to find print copies as well, if possible. Partially for collection, and partially because I prefer to read longer texts on ink/paper instead of a computer screen.

I attached a quick MySpace whore pic to give the general idea (obv. not the angle I painted from).



EDIT: Thank you soooo much captain solo. Those are the books I've been looking for in PDF.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Do you take a shower in there with the pink tile? He is not Capt. solo. He is Your Highness solo.

Your painting is very fine based on the photo.

 

[jordan]

check out addall.com - it searches multiple catalog sites (including abebooks.com). it's good for really difficult-to-find stuff, but it's annoying for more common books, since the same book from one bookseller will show up from 8 different sites.