Friday, February 24, 2012

In a library near you?

I’ve been keeping an eye on Worldcat as libraries — mainly at universities — acquire copies of my book. For a complete list, follow this link. I’m very pleased to report that seven months from the date of its publication, my book is now in more than 100 libraries. Those copies are spread across 34 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, as well as four countries outside the United States — Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

My book has made it into some wonderful university collections, including those at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Wheaton, Marquette, Cornell, Berkeley, Rice, and even the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy! I’m sure there are copies in municipal and other non-academic libraries as well, but I don’t know of any way to get a handle on that information. I do know it’s in the U.S. Library of Congress and in the British Library.

If you live in a U.S. state which doesn’t have a copy (at least, not one registered in Worldcat), then please contact a librarian and request that s/he purchase the book. Those states are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island. I know students, professors, and even librarians in some of these states. I won’t name names, but I will say, tsk! If you are reading this and can help get my book into another library, please do. :)

8 comments:

  1. I see your book is not yet in a local library, but it is found in an academic library two hours from here, where I spent all of Monday photocopying otherwise unavailable back issues of Mallorn and Amon Hen.

    Many public libraries are listed in WorldCat, in addition to those in colleges and universities. So are libraries in other institutions, like hospitals and museums, as well as corporate libraries, and even some primary school libraries. When I ask Worldcat to find a local library, it brings up 153 locations in Cleveland alone. So if your book isn't showing up in any municipal libraries, it may be that none yet have it. For a comparison, I checked The Road to Middle-earth, and find it held by 20 pubic libraries in Ohio alone.

    Also, WorldCat lists your books five different ways, so there are more listings than you thought:

    Tolkien and the study of his sources : critical essays /
    Libraries Worldwide: 103

    Tolkien and the study of his sources critical essays /
    Libraries Worldwide: 14

    Tolkien and the Study of His Sources Critical Essays.
    Libraries Worldwide: 6

    Tolkien and the study of his sources : critical essays /
    Libraries Worldwide: 1

    Tolkien and the study of his sources critical essays /
    Libraries Worldwide: 1

    The last two bring up libraries in Zurich and Bern, respectively, so add Switzerland to your list of countries.

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  2. Jason

    Hello from the UK! I Have been doing alot of research for my
    Tolkien Phd work at the British Library (which has all the Mythlores) and I can confirm your excellent book is listed in the catalogue as well as in The University of Wales Cardiff Catalogue.

    Thanks
    Andy

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  3. This is wonderful news! Congratulations!

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  4. http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac940/weblibs.html

    Is this any help? It's UK public libraries on the web, some of them with searchable catalogues. I'll check Senate House in London and suggest it if they don't have it

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  5. OK, done that - they didn't have it, so I have suggested that they get it. (They also appear to take Mythlore but not TS, so I mentioned that too.)

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  6. Thanks, all! N.E. Brigand, I couldn’t find some of those on Worldcat. I tried entering them the way you listed them, but, hmmm. I must have done something wrong.

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  7. Hi Jason--I just looked in the online catalogs for the Multnomah County library and the Washington County library (which are both in the Portland, OR area), and neither had your book listed, so I sent e-mails to both requesting that they purchase it.

    Ed Pierce

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  8. Congrats, Jason!

    Namarie, God bless, Anne Marie :)

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