What do we do with our Books?

Shelley Cox posted an interesting query on the ExLibris-List on Tuesday. As she explained, she has "several thousand" books, and her partner has "over 6000":

I am not talking about very rare or specialized collections, which might have some considerable monetary value, individually or as a collection. I am talking about the general collection that any booklover of any kind might accumulate over 60-80+ years of life. Most of these books might have been bought at a general interest bookstore, and … include best sellers, general non-fiction, popular science, how-to books, cook books, and books on special topics like literature, economics, psychology, etc.

Having reached the stage of planning wills and trying to figure out where these books might go, Shelley and her partner "have no idea of how to proceed."

Our local library heavily weeds its shelves and would take only a tiny percentage, relegating the rest to the book sale at $.50-$1.00. As far as I can tell, even the largest research libraries are no longer interested in these titles, even if they do not have them on the shelf. The kind of bookstores that sell used books like this are slipping away, and few bookdealers have the time, energy, transport, etc., to wrangle a large book collection. Is there some organization that would help struggling libraries who do want books? … I've been asked variants of this question a hundred times or more and have never known how to answer this. Surely someone here would have some ideas?

Well, a few people did have ideas—dealers, charities—which you will find if you look in the exLibris List (just Google a chunk of the above text).

Having been a book-collector for a long time I have also "been asked"—and asked myself—"variants of this question a hundred times." Like Shelley, I have not really known how to answer.

For more than a decade I worked in a series of second-hand bookshops in Hobart and Melbourne; as a result I knew almost everyone in the "Trade" in these cities. And as a result of constant traveling, exploring and systematic book-shopping, book-catalogue-reading, etc, I was familiar with almost every bookshop of any pretension from Adelaide to Brisbane.

But times have changed. I haven't worked in a bookshop in years, many of the shops I knew have closed, and these days I buy almost everything online. So what I was particularly interested by about this query was the comment: "The kind of bookstores that sell used books like this are slipping away …" They certainly are.

In fact, even when I was working, cataloguing stock for the internet, the rot had already set in. And the rot—as far as the dealers are concerned—was caused by amateur dealers on the internet. For book buyers, especially for collectors like me, with interests that are not parochial, this last decade has been a paradise of new buying opportunities. I bless the internet every time another Eliza Haywood volume turns up (like today). But for the dealers … the last decade has been cruel.

When I first visited the bookshops of Melbourne, Prahran was the Mecca. It took two days for me to do the rounds. Now it is all-but deserted and, for me, there isn't a single shop there I'd want to visit. I spend just as much now as then, but not locally. I keep hearing about more shops closing, and every time I do I feel a little guilty.

(The latest very sad loss was a tiny place in Cheltenham full of cheap sci-fi paperbacks, with a mix of other books. I never knew the name of the shop, there was no point remembering it because the proprietor didn't have a phone or a web-page to look up. That was the beauty of the place: no margin added to cover such things. Well, without warning, it is gone. And no indication of where.)

And as each shop closes, there are fewer dealers left to help sift and recycle Shelley's general books for another generation of readers. And as the numbers decrease, the remaining dealers are so over-supplied by all the would-be sellers that they can be more and more selective about what they take and what they pay, that the situation becomes increasingly desperate for dealers and sellers alike.

So, what will become of all the gzillions of general books that Shelley mentions? Nine-tenths of them will probably be pulped. There is not, in fact, anything useful, uplifting, worthwhile, or satisfying to be done with them.

Ten years ago a standard $20.00 book—what was standard shelf-filler—was worth about $2.00 to a dealer. Now it is worth nothing, a liability. You can still sell such a book on eBay, and you can get your $2.00, but you have to ignore what you paid for the book, all your time, and your overheads (mortgage anyone?). In other words you have to ignore the fact that you loose money on every sale. You'd be better sending them to be pulped. (That people, nevertheless, keep selling books for $2.00 is great for the remaining buyers, at least until they have to consider what they will do with their books when they die …)

Funnily enough, there is a "lesson from history" on this subject. One of the reasons so few eighteenth-century books survive is that paper was quite expensive. If you needed a fire-lighter, or a pie-base, or a piece of paper to stop your curling iron burning your hair, or if you need something to use in the toilet, you used whatever scrap-paper you had at hand, and that "scrap" included books. Just consider a world in which toilet-paper was not to be had at your local grocer and you will understand why so few books survive. Although we pulp our paper before re-using it, the principle is much the same.

So enjoy your books while you have them, but you might just have to accept the fact that, when you are dead, your books are likely to become bum-fodder.*

*Public Advertiser, Tuesday, 17 April 1753: "This Day at Noon will be published, Price 6d. Bum-Fodder for the Ladies. A Poem, upon soft Paper. Printed for the Author, and sold at the Pamphlet-shops at Westminster-Hall, Charing-Cross, Temple-Bar, and the Royal Exchange."

The Society of Booksellers, 1741

The following extraordinary advertisement appears in The Country Journal; or, The Craftsman, Saturday, 18 July 1741 [Issue 785]. Although no copy of The Publisher’s Magazine is listed on ESTC, this "Society" did publish nine works.

To the Authors and Proprietors of Manuscripts, or other Copies design’d for the Press.

  The Booksellers in general having the Unhappiness to lie under the Imputation of making Properties of learn’d and ingenious Men, and enriching themselves by the Fruits of their Study and Labours, whilst they allow them but scanty Premiums, and make use of all Artifices to deceive and Impose upon them, to the great Discouragement of Learning and Detriment to the Publick, who are thereby deprives of many valuable Pieces; in order to remove these or any other Prejudices, several Booksellers have form’s themselves into a Society, and offer the following Proposals to all whom it may concern.
  1. That they will give ready Money to any Author or Proprietor of a Work which shall be approved of by two Persons of Judgement to be nominated one by the Author, the other by the Society, who shall also fix the Price to be given, on the Author’s conveying to the said Society his Right and Interest in such Copy.
  2. That if the Author chuses not to part with his whole Interest in the Copy, and had rather wait the Event of its Sale, he shall receive the full Moity of the Profits arising from its Sale of the first and all future Editions of it, freed of all Risque, (the Expenses of Paper, Print, and other incident Charges, being first deducted) the other Moity to vest in the Society for the Hazard they will run, the Money they must expend, and for their Skill and Care of Management &c.
  3. That the Paper shall be bought at the best Hand, the Work printed on the neatest Types, at the Rate Booksellers pay for both, and proper Vouchers procured to justify such Payments; and none but Persons of Credit, either Stationers or Printers, to be dealt with; and the Rates of Publication to be the same as Publishers usually reckon to Booksellers.
  4. That all Pamphlets, from three Sheets (which are usually sold for Six Pence) to books of any Size or Price, shall be received if approved, on and Subject in the whole Circle of Learning; nor shall Political Pieces be excluded on either Side of Questions, whee not offensive to good Manners; for one establish’d Rule of the Society will be, not to be of any Party themselves, but to observe a strick Impartiality; and Names to be conceal’d, and the utmost Secrecy obcserved, if required.
  5. That a reasonable Price shall be paid for such small Pieces as will not make three Sheets as above, in Order to be inserted in a Twelve penny Pamphlet, to be publish’d under the Title of the Publisher’s Magazine, by which Means the Publick may receive a curious Miscellany, in one, two, or more Volumes annually, and many beautiful small Pieces will be thereby preserved, and handed down to Posterity.
  So many Advantages will accrue to Authors from these Proposals, besides the Security of the Copies from Piracy, (as the Society will be able to make Reprisals on such as shall invade their Property) that no more need be said on that Head.
  And to the Publick in general this Design will be no less advantageous, as it will be the Means, at an easy and reasonable Rate, to bring to light many curious Pieces in every Branh of Science.
  Gentlemen therefore who incline to take Advantage of and encourage this Undertaking, are desired to apply to James Crockatt, at the Society’s-Office in Fleet street, near St. Bride’s Church; or to Messieurs Osbourne and Smith, in Grey’s-Inn.
  The said Messieurs Osbourne and Smith gives ready Money for any Library or Parcel of Books.

This advertisement re-appeared one week later, in The Weekly Miscellany, Saturday, 23 May 1741, but James Crockatt and the Mr "Smith" disappear, leaving only Thomas Osbourne to "transact the necessary Business."

This second version of the advertisement was reprinted in The London Daily Post and General Advertiser of 25 May, but on 10 June Crockatt and Smith reappear. On 13 and 27 June the advertisement is reprinted (in The Weekly Miscellany ) and the first of the titles "Publish'd, By the Society of Booksellers for promoting of learning." Another eight followed within the year, then nothing.

The full list of titles, in alphabetical order, is:

[1] Anon., The Christian Philosopher
[2] Anon., An Essay on the Divine Paternity, or, God the Father of Men
[3] Robert James, M.D., Proposals for Printing a Medicinal Dictionary [ESTC explains that A medicinal dictionary was published in three volumes, 1743-45].
[4] Robert James, M.D., A New Method of Preventing and Curing the Madness Caused by the Bite of a Mad Dog
[5] John Kelly, The Levee. A Farce
[6] James Nihell, M.D., New and Extraordinary Observations Concerning the Prediction of Various Crises by the Pulse
[7] Benjamin Parker, The Divine Authority of the Scriptures Philosophically Prov’d
[8] Charles de Saint-Yves, A New Treatise of the Diseases of the Eyes
[9] J. Shortess, Harmonic Architecture. Exemplified in a Plan, Elevations and Sections, &c. of a Building

I wonder what reflections can be made on the sort of manuscripts that were being held up by the "Imputation" that "Booksellers in general" were "making Properties of learn’d and ingenious Men … enriching themselves by the Fruits of their Study and Labours" while offering "but scanty Premiums" and using "all Artifices to deceive and Impose upon them"?

To me, the publication of this "Imputation" is more interesting than the titles this learned Society published; that, and the fact, that Thomas Osbourne was spruiking for manuscripts by acknowledging such criticisms. Advertisements like this tell us a great deal about the Trade in mid-1741 (at much the same time that Eliza Haywood was trying to establish herself at the Sign of Fame in Covent Garden).

Google Books, a Disaster for Scholars?

On Friday Beatrice Fink posted a link to a 31 August news item from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Geoffrey Nunberg titled "Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars" (2009) with the comment "To laugh or to cry, that is the confusion!" (here) Actually, to scream seems more appropriate.

After forwarding it to a colleague and fuming about it for a few hours, I decided to reply. I did this on the 18C-List, rather than on the The Chronicle of Higher Education for two reasons, [1] I try to avoid supporting any organisation that calls itself The [anything] (as if The Chronicle of Higher Education could speak to, or for, Higher Education everywhere on the planet) and [2] I figured that I would get a more interesting discussion on the 18C-List than in the feedback on the article itself. Although a few people wrote in to support my comments, it turns out I was wrong about no. 2.

So, for the record, what I wrote was:

Even though I have repeatedly pointed out the failings of ECCO, Google Books, etc, in a series of articles and papers, I think it is a bit rich to described Google Books as a "Disaster for Scholars." It is no such thing, it is one of the greatest developments in the history of scholarship: I'd place the printing press first, and email a close third.

I spent ten years working on Eliza Haywood, systematically trawling two centuries of scholarship, and the Rare Books collections of three continents. I thought I had been everywhere and seen everything. But five minutes on Google Books peeled my eyelids back. I still mourn the time I lost—not having Google Books earlier.

And the research I have done since simply could not have been undertaken without Google Books. Yes, it has failings, yes, the OCR is dodgy, the dating is dodgy, and it can be very frustrating knowing a reference appears in a work without being able to pin it down to a page, or even a volume, as has been rehearsed on this list many times over. But most of the criticisms carry very little weight for me, because they are easy to work round, or will inevitably be fixed.

No self-respecting scholar should accept a date of 1899 or 1999, or any other date for that matter, for Raymond Williams's Culture and Society (as the article in The Chronicle of Higher Education mentions). We teach our students how to cite a book, what details to use and where to find them. If we want to know the details of an edition we are quoting from Google Books, then we simply have only to scroll up to the imprint page and read it, which is exactly what we do every time we cite a book, regardless of how plausible the catalogue date is.

So, even if a subscription cost as much as that for ECCO, or EEBO, or the Burney Newspaper archive, I'd lobby my University to subscribe. But, instead, is free, fast, and vast.

Yes, Google have a market-leading position, but to grudge them that, given what they have invested and what they offer, seems pretty feeble; and to claim that Google will never have any competition is just ridiculous. Every market leader faces competition, eventually.

There really seems very little grounds for this sort of catastrophising.

It occurred to me after I posted this that I should have asked how many Edison light bulbs Geoffrey Nunberg happens to use, but the joke would probably have only amused me.

Associational Reading in the 18C

Eleanor Shevlin is seeking proposals for a panel to be held at the annual meeting of the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) 18-21 March 2010, in Albuquerque, NM

"'Associational Reading': Libraries, Reading Societies, and Book Clubs in the Eighteenth Century”

“Associational Reading” is a term used to describe formal library activity defined by the association and sociability of the participants. It is used particularly to distinguish subscription and membership libraries, book clubs, reading societies and specialist societies that had libraries (medical societies, law societies, agricultural societies etc) from other book-lending institutions, especially the commercial circulating libraries (which were usually owned and managed by a single profit-oriented entrepreneur) and charitable foundations. Although profit-driven, commercial circulating libraries sometimes adopted associational language to promote their ventures many private libraries facilitating an associational (or at least sociable) form of reading, lending books to friends, neighbors and relatives in their area. This panel invites paper that explore various forms of “associational reading” in the long eighteenth century. Papers may focus on a particular library, reading club, society or reading group, or may focus on another aspect of as this phenomenon. Panelists may also wish to consider the ways that associational reading intersects with issues of race, class, gender, genre, or commerce.

Please send one page abstracts to Eleanor Shevlin, eshevlin@wcupa.edu (or 2006 Columbia, NW, Apt. 42, Washington, DC 20009)

All panelists who are not members of the Bibliographical Society of America are kindly requested to join before the ASECS meeting in March.

The Eighteenth Century on Film: CFP

John H. O'Neill is accepting proposals—up to 15 September 2009—for the special session on "The Eighteenth Century on Film" at the 2010 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque. The session is sponsored by NEASECS, but participation is open to all members of ASECS.

John has said that he welcomes and encourages proposals for papers on any aspect of this topic, including film adaptations of eighteenth century narratives (e.g., Castaway, Tom Jones), films set in the period (e.g., Stage Beauty, The Libertine, Amazing Grace), and film explorations of eighteenth-century history (e.g., Peter Watkins' Culloden).

Please send proposals to John H. O'Neill, Dept. of English, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York 13323; Tel: 315/859-4463; Fax: 315/859-4390; E-Mail: joneill@hamilton.edu