4 ms·

You can get them from libraries, but it really depends on location. If you're a resident of NYC, there is a great public library system with huge holdings. If y

by mjn 13y ago

You can get them from libraries, but it really depends on location. If you're a resident of NYC, there is a great public library system with huge holdings. If you're somewhere rural, not as great. University libraries cover a fairly different subset that can also be useful (skewed towards nonfiction and literary-landmark fiction), but vary significantly in their policies on access by the general public. Some allow general access, others require some kind of ID to even enter; most won't lend to the general public. Libraries also tend to have worse coverage of books from abroad. American library holdings of books only published in the UK are much worse than of those published in the US, and vice-versa. And only a few specialist libraries have significant holdings of out-of-print non-English books, even the most important ones. I've been particularly noticing this in the past few years, as an American working at a university in Denmark. The holdings here are quite good: they include just about every book ever published in Denmark, plus a huge number of foreign books. And they're integrated into a central catalog containing the holdings of all public and university libraries nationwide. But there are still many books I run across, especially American books published in, say, the 1930s-70s, where no library in the country has a copy. It's not even that uncommon for a worldcat.org search to turn up that no library in Europe has a copy. So then my next move is to start looking for a PDF. Sometimes I just give up and decide the book might as well not have existed. Something that would be quite cool, if the data is available, is some kind of access map quantifying that. If I am at [lat,lon], what % of books published in the U.S. in the 1950s do I have available within 100mi?

dalke 13y ago
In your initial US scenario, someone willing to wait a few weeks can likely get a copy of the book through Interlibrary Loan. I volunteered in our ILL for a couple of years. While most of the requests could be handled by other libraries in-state, occasionally we would get books coming from half-way across the country, and I think once from Puerto Rico. Now, an anecdote: I used it to get a copy of Neal Stephenson 'The Big U'. He had refused to reprint it and copies were on ebay for over $100. But raggedy copies through ILL were free.
- jrochkind1 13y ago
  ha, I think I got a copy of the Big U the same way! It's actually a decent book, I don't know why he won't let it be reprinted.
  - dalke 13y ago
    He has since let it be reprinted. I've seen a copy at the bookstore. According to Wikipedia: > Stephenson has said he is not proud of this book. By the time Snow Crash was published, The Big U was out of print, and Stephenson was content to leave it that way. When original editions began selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars, he relented and allowed it to be republished, saying that the only thing worse than people reading the book was paying that much to read it.

by mjn 13y ago

dalke 13y ago

In your initial US scenario, someone willing to wait a few weeks can likely get a copy of the book through Interlibrary Loan. I volunteered in our ILL for a couple of years. While most of the requests could be handled by other libraries in-state, occasionally we would get books coming from half-way across the country, and I think once from Puerto Rico. Now, an anecdote: I used it to get a copy of Neal Stephenson 'The Big U'. He had refused to reprint it and copies were on ebay for over $100. But raggedy copies through ILL were free.

jrochkind1 13y ago
ha, I think I got a copy of the Big U the same way! It's actually a decent book, I don't know why he won't let it be reprinted.
- dalke 13y ago
  He has since let it be reprinted. I've seen a copy at the bookstore. According to Wikipedia: > Stephenson has said he is not proud of this book. By the time Snow Crash was published, The Big U was out of print, and Stephenson was content to leave it that way. When original editions began selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars, he relented and allowed it to be republished, saying that the only thing worse than people reading the book was paying that much to read it.