Determining whether books are out of print

Harold Holland <harl<-a t->unb< . >ca>

>The responses to my inquiry about books out of print focused
>primarily on procedures for finding a book out of print.   More
>specifically is there a rule of thumb for assuming that a book is
>probably out print which can be used at the time of a disaster?

The idea of prioritizing salvage according to the likelihood of
being able to replace a volume seems to be a viable strategy. But,
as a part-time used-book dealer, I can say that there are no easy
rules of thumb to determine if a book is still in print. A book that
remains useful and in demand may be reprinted for years (consider
Shakespeare), while other less popular or more specialized volumes
may be finished after a single run. It would also be important to
decide if the book is most significant in a particular edition, or
if it is simply the information, in any edition or reprint, that is
of value.

I second Barbara Appelbaum's recommendation of www.amazon.com as an
excellent source of information on what is currently available.
Their on-line catalog attempts to list everything that is in print,
and they are more up to date than the printed or CD-ROM version of
the other standard, Books In Print. Searches can be done quite
rapidly so that, in a disaster situation, it might be possible to
have someone look up each volume as it is being handled and assessed
for treatment.

Sorry there isn't an easy solution, but I hope this information is
useful.

Jane Ketcham
Materiality

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:31
                Distributed: Wednesday, October 1, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-11-31-010
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