Does anybody know what this thing is?

[whatisthis]

Hey everyone!

 

Don't know if it's appropriate to ask this kind of questions on this forum. If it's not I hope to still get a couple of answers before the thread gets deleted by a moderator.

 

Anyway, here's the question - can anybody tell me what this thing is:

 

i749.photobucket.com/albums/xx134/whatisthis77/weirdstrip.jpg

 

(Please excuse my posting the image in this way - the rules require new users to make at least 10 posts on the forum before including any attachments or links, and I just don't feel like spamming the place just to get there. )

 

I bought this book some time ago and discovered the weird thing just a couple of days ago. Apparently it is some sort of a magnetic... metallic - I don't know - strip attached to the bottom of the page. It seems that its back surface is sticky, and that's how it is attached to the paper. Looks like the kind of strip they put on banknotes in some countries.

 

What might it be? And what purpose does it serve? And how it got there?

 

Anybody have any clue?

 

I tried asking this question on Yahoo! Answers and received the following answer:

 

"It looks like the magnetic strip that we put in library books so that they set off the alarm when when people try to leave without checking out the books. Usually, we place the strip in the middle of the book (as close to the spine as possible), since it is sticky on both sides.

 

If you purchased this book from a library sale, this could be the situation. If you purchased it new, it could be that the booksellers magnetized their books to keep them from being stolen."

 

Well, I bought the book in an online store, and it definitely looks new. But why would the store magnitize the book? They're an online store and nobody could steal that book from them. And if they still needed to magnitize the book for some vague reason, why doing it at the bottom of the page and not on the back cover?

 

I'm sorry for my question being so lengthy and I certainly feel a bit stupid even asking this kind of thing, but I'm not from an English-speaking country and this is the first time I encounter a thing like that, and so I'm really curious. The book itself is in English, by the way - hence me posting this on an English-speaking forum.

[Ghost]

It looks like some kind of weird strip. But I think the assesment is correct that it's some kind of anti theft device, in fact the book I have just bought has one much akin to that in it.

 

Welcome along by the way.

[Janet]

I also think it's probably an anti-theft device. Maybe to ensure the employees of the store you bought it don't steal the books rather than the customers, if it's an online store.

 

Welcome to BCF. I look forward to finding out what you like to read, etc.

[Ghost]

I also think it's probably an anti-theft device. Maybe to ensure the employees of the store you bought it don't steal the books rather than the customers, if it's an online store.

 

On reflection it could also be some kind of stock control system so the employees can scan the book instead of having to read the title.

[Janet]

Hmm, maybe, although I'd have thought they'd just scan the barcode for that.

[whatisthis]

Thanks for the welcome and the replies!

 

The theory that the strip prevents employees from stealing books actually makes sense. It's still weird though, because I've been buying things from them for the past 5 years and have never seen anything like that before. On the other hand, they do sell a lot of foreign books (like the one we're talking about), and the case might be that they buy them from different sellers and some of those sellers implement anti-theft practices like this.

 

As for me, I'm not too much of a reader actually. I was puzzled by this thing and so I needed to ask somebody about it. I knew that I would need to have a photo storage account if I wanted to ask a question on Yahoo! Answers or a similar service, so I decided to try asking on some sort of a book forum - this one came up first in a Google search, so I registered. Then I discovered I couldn't post attachments, which meant I needed to get a Photobucket account anyway. :/ And then I discovered I couldn't post links either, so going back to the original Yahoo! Answers idea seemed to be the only option. And then I also posted the question here, hoping to receive more answers and that the moderators would not delete the thread because of the link included.

 

So yeah, I don't read much, and when I do it's usually something in English as I'm seeking to improve my language skills.

 

The book in question is Yukio Mishima's "Forbidden Colors". It may seem strange that a person would try to improve their English by reading translations of Japanese literature, but I just happen to read all kinds of translations into English recently without reading anything originally written in English. I don't know why, really. The only exception are the writings of Truman Capote and Kazuo Ishiguro. Well, not Ishiguro, since I had to read him in Russian (which is my native language), as I couldn't find the book I was interested in in English.

 

Anyways, if anybody has any ideas about the weird strip in the book that haven't been mentioned yet, I'll be glad to hear (read) and consider them all. The "anti-theft device againt crooked employees" theory seems to be the most plausible so far.

[whatisthis]

OK, I tried to post a rather lengthy reply yesterday, but the forum informed me it was supposed to be approved by a moderator first. And apparently it hasn't been - for whatever reason.

 

Anyway, thanks for the replies - the theory about the strip being a device against crooked employees seems to be the most plausible.

 

And thanks for the welcome, but that was the only thing I was about to post on this forum really, so I think I should be going now.

 

Thanks for the replies once again.

[Anika]

Have you ever noticed how the cashier will swipe books over their 'counter' when you purchase them? That is how they de-activate this theft device. If they fail to do that the alarm will go off when you try to leave the store.

[Michelle]

And thanks for the welcome, but that was the only thing I was about to post on this forum really, so I think I should be going now.

 

As we've now served all usefulness I shall soon delete the thread.