Help!
This website has been designed for use by professional customers: teachers and educational administrators, as well as students and all other private customers. Booksellers should use our trade website where they will find everything which we can supply on trade terms.
The following notes may help you to get the most out of your searches and this website generally:
- About the online catalogue
- Browsing
- Ordering
- Data Protection Policy
- Inspection Copies
- On Approval Supply
- Returns
- Shopping Basket
- Rating System
- Subscriptions (Periodicals)
- Stock and delivery
- Title search
The Italian Bookshop's Online Catalogue
The catalogue includes all those Italian books and other materials from Italian, British and other publishers which we have chosen and categorised according to their suitability for specific purposes, age-groups and ability levels. Of course many titles or series may well be suitable for other purposes: the descriptions will normally make that clear.
There are two basic ways to use the online catalogue. If you are browsing - looking to see what we have for your particular needs - use Options. If you have a specific author, title and/or series in mind use Search.
If you don't find what you want, Extended Search gives you access to all the other titles which have passed through our hands in the past two years as "special orders". We hold only limited information about these titles, and cannot guarantee its accuracy, or whether any particular title is still available.
All searching in our Online Catalogue is case-insensitive, (it doesn't matter whether you use capital letters or not) and ignores accents.
We add new books and materials to our catalogue every day, and the information in the online catalogue is updated every night. Estimated delivery times are based on our stock and ordering positions as at the previous day's close of business. They are based on small order quantities. It is always advisable to check when larger quantities are required. An e-mail inquiry facility is provided for this purpose.
Browsing
The Options section on the lefthand side of the search page allows you to specify just those topics, types of products, ability levels and age groups which interest you. If, as we hope, you will be using the catalogue regularly, you can specify publication date ranges to limit your search, for example to show you only what we have added since you last visited us.
In the drop-down lists you can select more than one option at a time. For example, you can look for titles suitable for all children from 5 to 14 by clicking on the appropriate age-ranges while holding down the Control key. And the same principle applies to the other category selections.
Ordering
To order single copies with one order reference, select the title(s) by ticking the box on the right of the title, then go to the foot of the page, add your order reference details and click 'add selections to basket'. You can delete any item, or change the quantity or order reference, in the basket.
If you are not sure about a title, click on the ESB code number to get more details.
Title Search
If you are looking for specific authors, titles and series, use the righthand search fields. The search here is by keywords. For example, enter 'Calvino' in the author field, and 'Marcovaldo' in the title field, and you will get a list of all the editions of Calvino's 'Marcovaldo' which we offer in our main catalogue.
Many products are better known by their series names, especially courses with several levels and parts. When you enter the name in the 'title' field, you will get a list of all the parts in the series, with brief details and a 'buy' option. If you want further details, clicking on the series will usually produce a description of the series, and clicking on the title will give you bibliographical, price and stock details.
Be cautious when searching by series; some of the paperback series contains 1000s of titles, and searching and compiling the list can take an appreciable amount of time.
In 'extended search' the search engine will use your keywords to search the author/title field in our full title database. So if you enter the words 'Calvino' and 'Marcovaldo' it will come up with any titles which contain those words in any order, including, for example, commentaries. The data held is basic, but generally includes the ISBN and last price at which we sold the item. However, this could have been up to two years ago, so the presence of a title in our extended database does not guarantee either price or availability.
Stock and delivery
Stock reports on our websites refer to our Cheltenham warehouse. If you intend to make a special journey to buy a particular book in one of our London shops please phone or email that shop first to check if your book is in stock there.
The delivery delay quoted in title information is based on the stock we had in hand in our Cheltenham warehouse at the close of business last night or, if that was not sufficient to meet your order, on the estimated delay before we get new supplies. We re-order most stock on a standard weekly cycle. Deliveries from Italy are quite quick - usually less than 3 weeks. Where we quote more than 4 weeks, it is usually because we cannot replenish our stocks on our normal weekly cycle, but only at longer intervals.
The quoted delivery delays relate to deliveries from our warehouse to customers in the UK mainland. Customers elsewhere in the world are asked to make due allowance.
The quoted delivery delays are also based on our normal delivery service and our very modest standard delivery charges. We can at any time arrange faster delivery at a higher cost.
Inspection copies
Books which are suitable for class adoption can be supplied for inspection. They are indicated in the title information panel where a special 'Inspection' button appears. Clicking on this button puts an inspection copy request straight into your shopping basket .
The inspection copy service is available only to recognised teachers in recognised educational establishments in Britain and Northern Ireland. Inspection copies cannot be sent to private addresses or booksellers, or to other countries.
Inspection copies are supplied for a maximum period of 60 days from the date of the accompanying invoice. They may be retained free of charge if 12 copies or more of the same title are ordered directly from the Italian Bookshop. Otherwise they must be returned to the bookshop, or paid for in full at the prices shown on the invoice.
Extensions to the 60-day inspection copy period can always be arranged when needed, but ESB must be informed in good time.
On approval supplies
Books and materials which are not available for inspection may often be available 'on approval'. The essential difference is that they can never be retained free of charge. They must either be paid for in full, or returned to ESB at the customer's expense and, most importantly, properly packed and in completely clean, resaleable condition.
Rating System
Our rating system is not a (subjective) judgment of quality, but is designed to help booksellers, librarians and teachers to identify titles in demand.
For the first six months that a title is in our catalogue, the rating is our assessment of likely demand, based on European bestseller lists, reviews and other information. Normal rating is from 1 to 5 yellow bars. Titles in the top bestseller lists start with a yellow star.
After six months our computer rates each title according to its sales relative to the category of title. For example, sales of a bestselling textbook or novel will be much greater than of a bestselling teacher's book, but both will be graded with a yellow star.
Returns
You have a statutory right to return any goods for any reason up to 7 (seven) days after receiving them. They must reach us in resaleable condition at your own expense. Thereafter our standard conditions apply, and returns can normally only be accepted if the goods are defective, or not as ordered.
However, we do make special arrangements for textbooks supplied direct to educational establishments in classroom quantities, to allow for last-minute changes in class numbers. Subject to prior notice, we will supply such textbooks on sale-or-return, on the same conditions as for shopping On Approval supply.
Booksellers should please refer to our trade website www.esb.co.uk for details.
Shopping
The best way to learn our very straightforward Web purchasing procedure is to try it. You can cancel a prepared order at any time right up to the very last 'submit' step.
Before you can place an order, you must show that you have read and accepted our Terms and Conditions of supply by ticking the appropriate box on the Order Form.
All information you submit via our Shopping procedure is encrypted on our secure website before being downloaded, so shopping this way is far safer than by telephone, fax or post.
Subscriptions (Periodicals)
The Italian Bookshop offers a subscription agency service for a wide range of Italian newspapers, magazines and journals. These titles can be found in the on-line catalogue in the normal way via Title Search.
The figure in brackets after the title indicates the frequency of publication, or number of issues per year, and the price quoted is for a year's subscription. Most periodicals are available on 6-month subscriptions at a proportionate price.
If the title you are looking for is not there, please use the e-mail facility to enquire further. We are always on the lookout for new titles suitable to add to our catalogue. If you find an interesting-looking magazine you have not seen before, we can usually arrange to send you a specimen copy.
Data Protection Policy
Every care has been taken to ensure the security and integrity of this web site and of all data submitted by visitors to this site. The policy of the Italian Bookshop and the ESB group is not to make available to any third parties for any purpose whatever any personal details other than those strictly necessary for the fulfilment of any orders or other instructions specifically requested by visitors to our sites.
