Before Sue Holbert moved to Evanston in 1998, she consulted an engineer to inspect her apartment building at 400 Main St. She wanted to be certain that the structure of her second-story apartment would be strong enough to support the weight of her books — all 10,000 of them.

Holbert — whose self-professed title is the “Book Lady” — is a retired state archivist from St. Paul, Minn., who now sells used and rare books over the Internet from her home.

Every inch of space is used in the apartment. Sixteen different versions of Betty Crocker cookbooks are sandwiched neatly in floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining her living room walls. A spare bedroom serves as her business headquarters and main storage area, resembling a mini-bookstore with cases forming aisles to wander through.

“We started out with $50 worth of books,” Holbert said. “It was going to be this little thing. Then it just got out of hand, as you can see.”

Holbert’s venture into the bookselling business started small. A friend found some books of value and offered to work with her to find an interested buyer. Soon she was scouring garage sales, estate auctions and flea markets, digging through musty boxes and blowing dust off bindings in search of valuable books to add to her growing collection.

In 1995 Holbert and another friend had a large enough collection to set up a used bookstore in St. Paul, which later closed.

Holbert relocated to Evanston in 1998 with 10,000 books in tow and no intention of establishing another bookstore. The city’s competition was already strong enough, she said.

“Evanston is a hotbed for used and rare booksellers,” she said, citing Bookman’s Alley, 1712 Sherman Ave., and Chicago Historical Bookworks, 831 Main St. “As far as I know, I’m a junior member.”

The used and rare book business has been shifting to the online world during the past few years, much to the chagrin of traditional booksellers, Holbert observed.

“I don’t think (traditional bookselling) will be extinct, but it’s definitely a different business,” she said.

Web sites like Advanced Books Exchange act as online marketplaces where vendors can list their collections online and customers can make quick price and condition comparisons before deciding to purchase.

“It’s really like magic,” Holbert said. “It has changed bookselling entirely.”

Armed with a dial-up connection and a scanty knowledge of computers, Holbert decided to see if this alternative world of rare and used book collecting would work for her.

Six years later, the Book Lady does all of her business online. At any given time she has about 2,500 books listed on www.Abe.com, the Advanced Book Exchange’s Web site.

“I’m still not really adept,” she said. “People say, ‘Send me a scan of that (book), and I say, ‘How about a color copy photo?’ and send that in the mail.”

Holbert admits that using a dial-up connection leads to an expensive phone bill. But she plans to invest in a digital camera to help place pictures of books online.

Holbert specializes in nonfiction and historical texts. The books in her collection span from the ordinary “Architecture in Old Chicago” by Thomas E. Tallmadge to the eccentric “Diary of Reverend Solomon Spittle,” an 1857 condemnation of smoking.

She once discovered an early edition of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” before learning it was a counterfeit.

“I haven’t really had any great coups,” she said.

Despite being surrounded by a bibliophile’s dream, Holbert said her free time doesn’t involve curling up with one of her rare volumes.

“I’m not just the Book Lady,” she said. “I spend too much time playing duplicate bridge.”

The Book Lady’s online inventory can be viewed at www.abebooks.com/home/BLADY.

Reach Beth Murtagh at [email protected].