From: brock@ucsub.Colorado.EDU (BROCK STEVEN GARY)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.reviews,rec.arts.books
Subject: Review of Books in Print 1994-95
Date: 21 Nov 1994 22:36:23 MET
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Reply-To: brock@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
BOOKS IN PRINT 1994-95, 47TH EDITION, prepared by the R. R. Bowker
bibliographic group, Peter Simon, Vice President, Database
Publishing. R.R. Bowker, 121 Chanlon Rd., New Providence, NJ
07974, (800) 521-8110, (908) 665-6688 FAX. Ten volumes (Authors,
Titles, Out-of-Print/Out-of-Stock-Indefinitely, Publishers), 13,800
pp., $450.00 cloth. 0-8352-3498-3. Also available on CD-ROM as
Books in Print Plus (Macintosh or DOS format, updated monthly),
magnetic tape, microfiche (updated quarterly), and online. For
those with Dialog passwords, Books in Print is available in File
470 (The Books in Print family of titles). The DIALOG Books in
Print family is updated monthly (the most current information is
for October, 1994), and includes the Subject Guide to Books in
Print and the Book Review Index. Dialog may be accessed from the
Internet by telneting to 192.132.3.254 or dialog.com. For more
information, E-mail to dialog.com or call (800) 3-DIALOG. In the
United States, Books in Print is also maintained online and updated
monthly by BRS Information Technologies, Inc., as File BBIP. Users
may choose either a command or menu interface. BRS may be accessed
from the Internet by telneting to 192.188.13.253 or brs.com. For
more information, e-mail to BRS.com or call (800) 955-0906. The
Subject Guide to Books in Print is available separately.
Reviewed by Steve Brock
"Books in Print," one of the most-used reference books in the
United States (in most cases it is only surpassed locally by the
telephone book), made its stage debut last year in a performance
based on John Fowles' "The Collector" at London's Camden Studio.
In one scene, Miranda picks up a volume of "Books in Print" from a
coffee table (this is a coffee table book?) and brings it down on
the head of Cleeg. The act is just another case of "Books in
Print" coming to the rescue when things come to a head.
The 47th edition of this ten-volume set contains over one-and-
a-half million entries, with over 174,000 new titles, and just
under 160,000 titles that have gone out-of-print or out-of-stock.
The three-volume Author and four-volume Title indexes are
alphabetically arranged and include the following information, if
applicable: author(s), editor(s), translator(s), title, number of
volumes, edition, Library of Congress number, series information,
number of pages, language used, illustrations, grade range (if
juvenile), year of publication, type of binding, price, ISBN,
publisher's order number, imprint, and name of publisher.
The also alphabetically arranged Out-of-Print/Out-of-Stock-
Indefinitely (OP/OSI) volume is a guide to books that have been
declared out of print or out of stock indefinitely by the publisher
during the period July, 1993 through June, 1994. There are three
sections: titles, authors, and a very selective list of booksellers
who deal in out of print titles.
Several major publishers have declined to have their books
designated OP/OSI and listed in "Books in Print," including Viking
Penguin, E.P. Dutton, Harper and Row, Oxford University Press, and
Cambridge University Press. They did so because there are titles
that they are considering placing out of print but may also want to
do a last press run on them, depending on pending orders. While
book publishers take the pulse of the buying public, acquisitions
librarians stew, not knowing the status of books they have an
interest in purchasing.
The Publishers volume contains seven sections: an index by
abbreviation used in the Author and Title volumes, an index by
common name, a list of publisher's and distributor's toll-free
telephone numbers, wholesalers and distributors by geographical
area, new publishers, and a publishers obituary list. A typical
publisher's entry includes their name, address, telephone number,
ISBN prefix(s), and imprints.
The 47th edition of "Books in Print" discredits charges that
watching television has caused a decline in book readership. In
the last four decades, the number of books published annually has
quadrupled, from just over 11,000 in 1950 to over 44,000 in 1994.
Any library or research institution without a current set of
"Books in Print" does not deserve to call itself a reference
facility, and its acquisitions librarian need a good whack in the
head with a volume off the coffee table.
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