Re: thought for the week

On Tue, 10 Aug 1999, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Robert Cumbow <rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com> wrote:
> >
> > Increasingly, a lot of book dealers -- particularly Amazon.com and
> > Barnes & Noble -- pride themselves in being able to obtain "out of
> > print" books. Question whether a book is truly "out of print" if
> > copies are available through a major online ordering system. The
> > answer will depend upon the out of print clause in the agreement
> > between the author and the publisher, which defines what is meant
> > by "out of print" and determines whether a work will be deemed to
> > be o/p or not. One more resource that is not available to the
> > would-be re-user trying to find out if a book is o/p or not.
>
> Dealers have supplied o/p books, including the Gutenberg Bible,
> for a very long time. AB Bookman's Weekly has published desiderata
> lists ever since I can remember. The online thing is simply an
> extension of such services.
>
> It seems to me that under most publishing agreements,
> "out of print" status can be assigned only by the
> publisher and, with the publishers' default, by the author.
>
> Some publishers made agreements with UMI in the 1960s to
> permit UMI to supply microfilm and photocopies, the idea
> being to keep the book "in print" indefinitely.

And at a premium price, making the information really only available to libraries or those willing to pay rates much higher than the original book cost. But, it is an "on-demand" service, soooo...

BTW, they are now part of Bell & Howell Information & Learning.

Barb

Barbara Ruhmann
Text Buyer
UCD Bookstore
University of California
2828 Cowell Blvd.
Davis, CA 95616
Phone 530-752-5538
Fax 530-752-4791
e-mail brruhmann[_at_]ucdavis.edu
http://www-bookstore.ucdavis.edu/ Received on Wed Aug 11 1999 - 22:41:54 GMT