A growing concern, dubbed the “Panama Project,” has emerged within the antiquarian and used bookstore community. Booksellers report receiving unusually large purchase orders for older books, raising fears they will be systematically destroyed. The suspected purpose of these mass acquisitions is to provide source material for training artificial intelligence (AI) systems. This process involves digitizing the books, effectively sacrificing physical copies for the development of AI models. The practice has sparked outrage among book lovers and preservationists, who lament the loss of cultural heritage. The full scope of “Project Panama” and the entities involved remains unclear, but the trend is causing significant alarm within the book trade. It highlights a concerning trade-off between technological advancement and the conservation of literary history.