Aww, bless his little heart. I so happy that the surgery went well. I hope still around for years and years to come. MeMo

Dyed alabaster, value unknown. See these for a lot of their cousins, although yours are less ornately carved than some. http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/parrot-figurine-alabaster-stone-bookend-italian

Yes - it was the public library and we ordered from Library suppliers - Brodart, Gaylord etc. Staples has a large assortment of bookends on their web site. Some are described as heavy duty steel with non-skid bottoms. They also have some nice decorative ones too made from marble or brass. One trick to use when shelving oversize volumes is to put an extra bookend between every third or forth book. When you remove one book it helps to keep the remaining ones erect and it isn't visible when all the books are in place. This post was edited by maire_cate on Mon, Sep 2, 13 at 21:55

cheryldee - we had thought about this for our kitchen, so I did a lot of reading about it. In regard to etching, it seems like it varies from slab to slab - some have an etching issue and some don't. And the degrees of etching seem to vary as well. It seems like you almost HAVE to get a piece from your exact slab to test it (or at the very least in your same lot) because it sounds as if the calcium content varies quite a bit. Definitely do a search for Bee's new kitchen (beekeeperswife) - she has some gorgeous Super White. And. Has. Etching. Even though the piece she was given (from a different lot than hers, as I understand) to test didn't etch. :( Best bet is to proceed very cautiously if you want this and aren't okay with etching. So many get this as an alternative to marble because they don't want the etching issues...but it's not a given that it won't etch. So, if you are okay with etching, you may do just as well going with a marble.