Notes And References

(1) Advanced Booking, published in New Computer Express, issue 89, 21 July 1990, pages 45 and 47.
(2) Earlier editions of some books have found their way into the on-line catalogue but, at the time of writing, this is still a very hit and miss affair.
(3) HSS = Humanities and Social Sciences; SRIS = Science, Reference and Information Service.
(4) In a White Paper, The British Library (1971) (Cmnd. 4572). This proposed the establishment of a national library system with the British Library at its head. [Halsbury’s Laws of England, 4th Edition, Volume 28, Butterworths, (1979), page 147].
   The British Library Act, 1972 came into force on July 27, 1972, establishing a national library known as the British Library under the control of a public authority, [Halsbury’s, (ibid)]. All departments of the British Museum Library before 1st July 1973 were transferred to the British Library Board. [Halsbury’s, page 148, (ibid)].
(5) Written in 1990.

(6) A more recent search, (November 26, 1992), yielded the following:

library                         16,317
library then Bloomsbury              0!

   Evidently, bibliography is still very much an infant science!
(7) Ie June 1990.
(8) Liverpool City Libraries, which serve not just the City of Liverpool but Merseyside and surrounding areas, is one of the largest outside London, and stocks something like one and a quarter million volumes. * When one considers that this is a mere twelfth of the British Library’s stock, one begins to have some idea of just how enormous the British Library archive is.
   * On-line terminals in Public Libraries: British Library Project Report by Liverpool City Libraries, published in 1980. (A paper in the British Library).
(9) This is still the case. According to Dr Alston (in 1990), it costs seven pounds just to issue a receipt in the British Library.
(10) 1990 prices. In this age of rampant inflation, computer prices are still falling. An advertisement on the back page of the current issue of PC Answers magazine, (issue 19, January 1993), offers a 486 DX2/50 with 4Mb RAM and 200 Mb hard disk for considerably less! A good laser printer now costs around £800.
(11) British Library Information Sciences Service. [BLISS has now been integrated into the Humanities Collections].
(12) On-line terminals in Public Libraries, (op cit).
(13) The text has been reproduced verbatim with minimal editing.
(14) Computer Crime, published in New Computer Express, issue 110, 15 December 1990. Bloombecker, Director of the California-based National Center for Computer Crime Data, had just published a book called Spectacular Computer Crimes.
(15) Willings Press Guide 1991, Volume I, page 5 lists more than a dozen titles under Astronomy including Astronomy Now and the Journal for the History of Astronomy.
(16) Willings Press Guide, 1991, Volume 1, page iii claims that 13,000 newspapers and periodicals are published at least once a year in the UK. Whitaker’s Almanack, 1992, page 923 claims that more than 12,000 firms, individuals or societies published one or more books in recent years; while Whitaker’s Books in Print, 1992, Volume 1 page v says that the current edition contains 529,250 titles from 18,905 publishers. The first edition (published 1874) listed 135 publishers catalogues and 35,000 titles.
(17) Or somebody did. When I phoned him two and a half years later and asked him for further information, he denied all knowledge of it. But the totally automated library has got to come.
(18) Occasionally too a book’s shelfmark (or pressmark) does not tally with the title/author given by the catalogue.
(19) When I was researching a small publication on serial sex killers I found two books on Gilles de Rais, one which included translations from Latin and French. Most people today have never even heard of Gilles de Rais. Similarly, many books on popular science contain dozens of photographs, many in full colour, and are researched all over the world. Companies and organisations commission (and heavily subsidise) books for idealistic or ideological purposes.
  Many such books are not likely ever to warrant a second printing on commercial grounds, and no publisher could reasonably object to their being archived in such a manner as I propose.
(20) The Bodleian Library, Oxford; the University Library, Cambridge; the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; the National Library of Wales; and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
Mr Smail, (there is such a person, he phoned me once!) does not act as Agent for the British Library; in practice though, publications deposited with A.T. Smail at 100 Euston Street for the British Library are forwarded.
There are exemptions for, eg publications consisting wholly or mainly of advertisements, passenger timetables and calendars etc. * The fine for non-delivery under the Copyright Act, 1911, is £25. **
  * Halsbury’s, pages 153-4, (op cit).
  ** Halsbury’s, page 154, (ibid).
(21) In practice a lot of small publishers slip through the net, and sometimes even a book published by a mainstream publisher will not find its way into the nation’s archives. In recent years there has been talk of reducing or limiting the amount of material collected under this scheme.
(22) This happened at about 6.15pm on July 1, 1992, when I was 35! The charming Miss Delanauld was subsequently rewarded with a signed copy of United Europe/Divided Britain.
  One of the low points came when I sent copy of a publication to the Library of Congress and they sent it back!
(23) The Library Of The British Museum: Retrospective Essays On The Department of Printed Books, Edited by P.R. Harris, published by the British Library, (1991), page 146.
(24) Harris, The Library Of The British Museum..., page 147, (ibid). In 1812, Cambridge University Library prosecuted the publisher, Henry Bryer, (page 146).
(25) Harris, The Library Of The British Museum..., pages 149-50, (ibid).
(26) The last summons for default appears to have been issued in 1932. Between 1850 and 1874, 32 London publishers were convicted and fined, while 131 settled out of court. There were no prosecutions between 1879 and 1918. [Harris, The Library of the British Museum..., page 160, (ibid)].
(27) A much more terrestrial proposal is that British publishers be required (or asked) to deposit an extra copy of each new book with A.T. Smail for transfer to the Library of Congress, and that American publishers be asked to reciprocate. There are a great many American books in the British Library but many or most, (presumably those which are not distributed in Britain), are available only through inter-library loan.
A recommendation for a general system of exchange of publications with independent governments was actually made as far back as 1883. [Harris, The Library Of The British Museum..., page 108, (ibid)].


Back To Text
Back To Cataloguing Data
Back To Front Cover
Back To Introduction

Back To Baron Pamphlets Index
Back To Site Index