[bksvol-discuss] Re: rare out of print books, was, Re: Re: The Hold Issue & wish list books
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:09:01 -0700 (PDT)
It's too bad we don't have any Canadian or British scanning volunteers. I
found copies of My Philippa in a Toronto Canada library , one in a scottish
library and one inan english. library.
--- On Tue, 7/24/12, Julia <julia.kulak@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Julia <julia.kulak@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] rare out of print books, was, Re: Re: The Hold Issue
& wish list books
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tuesday, July 24, 2012, 10:34 PM
Hi everyone.
Speaking of hard to find books, Maureen Peters is another author
whose books are extremely rare. She's written several, mostly short
historical fiction under 200 pages. My Philippa, in particular, only
seems to be available on the net for a whopping $150, all the way
from New Zealand.
Julia
On 25/07/2012 1:02 AM, Ali Al-hajamy wrote:
That's a noble goal. I was thinking about this topic recently,
books that would, if not for the digitisation process, otherwise
be lost. Joseph McElroy, an author I have mentioned on here once
before, is practically unknown within the literary world. I don't
think there has ever been a single year where all of his books
were in print at one time (He's written eight or nine), and there
are two in particular, one called Hind's Kidnap, the other Actress
in the House, which were never reprinted after their firszt
hardcover run. (D. Keith Mano had the same thing happen to his
novel Take Five [according to him, 1756 copies were sent out, and
somehow, 1817 came back to the publisher].) Because of this,
Hind's Kidnap is, for now, incredibly rare and expensive. There
was a person at Constant Conversation who recalled going to a
bookstore, and seeing ten copies of it sitting on the shelves, all
available for the low low price of... $110. I was thinking about
what it would be like if, after a few decades, there would simply
be no more copies of Hind's Kidnap available for general
consumption by anyone who wasn't a rare book collector and who
would thus never read or sell them to anyone. I found the thought
very disturbing. Would we have to depend on the few people who
have read it to tell us what the book was about and what the
experience of reading it was like? Would the half remembered lines
of prose from a person here and there who had read it be the only
indication of the quality of its writing? Would Joseph McElroy die
knowing that his novel, over the years, had simply stopped
existing, all copies available having been destroyed or lost?
Alexander Theroux was glad that his books were not readily
available or read to or by the public, viewing it as the partial
punishment of a society which rejected his texts due to their
unconventionality; I see it as a tragedy. I even expressed a wish,
in the Goodreads comment I wrote about this in, that someone scan
the book and put it on the ebook pirate networks that I'm sure
exist somewhere should anyone wish to find them. I wouldn't like
that, I said, but it was far preferable to that book just
vanishing. Then I was given a link to a publishing house which is
going to digitize most of McElroy's books, Hind's Kidnap included,
and I wasn't disturbed anymore. The fact remains, though, that if
not for the process of putting print books into digital formats,
many, I might even take a guess and say the majority of, paper
only books can, and do, disappear, so any attempts to save them
is, I think, an incredibly magnanimous effort.
On 25-Jul-12 00:32, Valerie Maples wrote:
Cindy;
We buy copies of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books as
we can afford and find them, so eventually, if we are
allowed to continue our quest on kids series, they will be
done. Em Rose has access to many Nancy Drew and I have
proofed hers as well as Vivian Flores and Sister Dolores
Dean's as soon as they were up; usually within three days.
It is just getting them bought or located.
The bright side of this is my OCD need to preserve these
historical series will one day mean Bookshare will be the
only library in the country that has the only intact series
of several out of print series. We completed the Connie
Blair Mysteries, Cherry Ames, Vicki Barr, and Sue Barton,
just to name a few. We are working on Kay Tracey, Dana
Girls, Kim Aldrich, Robin Kane, Ginny Gordon, Donna Parker
and I have nearly half the Judy Bolton books, just to name a
few. We own about forty Nancy Drew and possibly 25 Hardy
Boys, among others.
I want to continue to help Bookshare grow and preserve
books that will soon be lost if not digitized.
Valerie
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