User:Holmesd

If you've any interest in Wrebbit puzzles or Canadian postal First Day Covers our paths should cross here or elsewhere.

TASKS

• Add Japanese Fairy Tales
• Have added Ace addresses based on Jimmie's book. Need to correlate to books, and establish dates.
  • Consider search of Henderson style directories, and trademark searches (based on address, did 1120 Avenue of the America).
• Tarzan and the "Foreign Legion" vs Foreign Legion - need to check physical copies.
• Tarzan's Quest was added. Put in picture and move verification (per Nimravus conversation)
• Check out accent in my copy of Seven Altars of Dusarra.
• Tarzan's Quest and next 3 have cover artist errors + Castaways(?)
• Title merge cover art for Tarzan and the Castaways. and the Lost Adventure.
• check Canadian(?) libraries for books of interest and see if they will send images of cover(s)/title page/copyright page.
• MARC record formats?
• To check at the library
  • braille books at Millenium? None of interest.

Conversations

Numbering SERIALs - impacts a few current entries, and Magasin d'Education et de Recreation - both volume-d and individual entries. See also this conversation with Linguist. Results would have no part ranges. Still working on whether Chapter XX would work instead of Part i of n. Note this allows re-use of titles from the actual Magasin to the bound volumes (doubly/triply so if you include brochés vs bound editions).

Canonical conversation regarding a Journalist in 2989, which has English translated to French and back to English with variable authorship. Not covered, but implicit in this is how many revisions make a story different enough to warrant its own title.

Changes to Voyages Extraordinaire series to publisher series. Started Jules Verne series topic with Linguist to hash out my questions and suggested approach.

Ongoing Project (Isaac Asimov - non-genre)

Tracking

• OCLC identified Publication Series with multiple Asimov books - check all books included. Check other authors (e.g. Ben Bova).
  • Saggi Zanichelli - Italian, 3 Asimov
  • Collana di storia della scienza - Italian, 2 Asimov
  • Asimov sensyū - Japanese, 31 Asimov
  • Franklin Book Program Collection - Persian, unknown
  • V mire nauki i techniki - Russian - 2 Asimov
  • Nauchno-populi︠a︡rnai︠a︡ biblioteka - Russian 16 Asimov
  • New Library of the Universe (spreadsheet tab)
  • Braille books. Fantastic Fiction had a cover image. Amazon mentions publisher William a Thomas Braille, (e.g. ISBN 1569561141) and there is an online bookstore and Google Books reference (H.G. Wells).

General Notes

• An editor identified a source of non-genre Asimov titles and a request for help when out. I stuck my nose in. This is an attempt to organize that effort.
• I've a tracking spreadsheet with all the titles, publishers and dates and links to any ISFDB titles (have not matched at the pub level), so I can notify them when I change existing titles from genre to non-genre.
• The first try going depth first was time-consuming, multiple editions, title merging and waits. Plan became breadth-first.
• Moderator suggested that unsupported entries en masse were not the best approach.
• Back to depth first, title by title, with a supporting spreadsheet to track sources and generate (most) text for notes. Checklist for searching being refined.
• Reference links are embedded in the spreadsheet, getting to be too many to track here. Links incorporate titles where relevant.
• Given the organization around going through these books, I thought I might check to see how well his genre work is covered by these sources. I may be tired of this by then.
• There is a section of the Bibliographic help for authors that has no Asimov sites. Should consider adding the helpful ones to it.
• Built a program to scan OCLC for an author/title combo and pull all results into a text file, easily imported into Excel. Have done all of the Asimov titles (except alternate titles).

Ongoing Project (Wiki)

Series Talk Wiki pages not linked to Series records (1)

• Talk'ed to Annie.
• On the hook to create the magazine and enter 'an issue'.

Series Wiki pages not linked to Series records (6)

• Clean up and repurposing of Bibliographic Projects page for things like the Asimov request.

Wiki Cleanup reports

• Maybe structure around Cleanup page (scroll down to Wiki for now, direct links for each one as I tackle them).

Wiki cross-ref

There are explanations of processes, how things work and history buried in a number of User Talk pages. May want to consider chasing some of these down before updating or creating help content.

• another example is work-arounds. Should check out the Feature requests etc. under Tickets. (current and past?) Might need to link to Development pages for historical stuff.
• have a copy of source code in case I want to check for messages, connections, etc.
• For content (and reference / tracking) there is the page, the source for the page, the Talk page and the history to worry about.
• Would like to be able to read, annotate and chase links (in document and in annotations) easily. Options are Access, Word (and comment/hyperlink), PDF (annotation/hyperlink?), cloning to my own wiki structure (on my PC or within ISFDB). I may want to create a replacement set of pages if I go beyond critiquing into revising / adding - where would they go?
• Help:What is the Wiki and How is it Used is a local explanation of wikis.
• Examples:

• Talk page of PV change notifications.

Wiki re-org

• Very big and worthy of breaking down into parts. I've started a survey while deciding what to do about Verne (cleaning up existing points / adding encyclopedia contents).
• For order to review - overall main menu based structure (for organization) and then Help for details.
• A couple of bullets - an introductory explanation of site/terms, dead sections of wiki (Publication:, bibliographic projects), making Help consistent (e.g. Policy has exclusions in the Included section), better menu/catalogue/linking structure?
• There is no description of 'how' things work as opposed to the current how to work things. Think (and document?) about tracking use cases as I go through the HELP sections.
• Once the rules and procedures are clearly articulated, look into how one could test them.
• A different focus for some help / tutorial would be sample title/copyright pages to illustrate points.
• Does the help cover this rule for Juvenile chapbooks? Will I need to go through all the User Talks to find these tips?
• Contemplating a (new) glossary of words, terms, concepts, actions. It would be interesting to see what paths lead to the explanations for concepts. May also need pairing of concepts, such as editing, viewing, defining, finding to go with things like publisher, publication, etc.
• I believe the proper term for what we call 'copyright page' is 'title page verso'.

Wiki Help augmentation

Alluded to in several points above (and below). Seems that Bill Longley started this and got this far: Projects\ISFDB\Wiki Review\using-the-isfdb-internet-speculative-fiction-database.pdf

Ongoing Project (Publishers)

Publishers Project

• What has already been talked about? Have the Verified Publishers project, but lots of conversations scattered about. Part of cleaning up the site wiki?
• resource to add: American Literary Publishing Houses 1900-1980: Trade and Paperback at archive.org. Earlier volumes or other parts of series may give different locations / times. No sign of volumes for private publishing houses as preface suggests. Access to full set available through university account?

Bibliography has:

• Blumenthal, Joseph, The Printed Book in America. Boston: David R. Godine, 1977.
• Bonn, Thomas L. Undercover: An Illustrated History of American Mass Market Paperbacks. Harmondsworth, U.K. & New York: Penguin, 1982
• Crider, Allen Billy. Mass Market Publishing in America. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
• Davis, Kenneth C. Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984
• Gross, Gerald, ed. Publishers on Publishing. New York: Bowker, 1961; New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1961
• Kurian, George Thomas. The Directory of American Book Publishing from Founding Fathers to Today's Conglomerates. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975.
• Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmut, Lawrence C. Wroth, and Rollo G. Silver. The Book in America: A History of the Making and Selling of Books in the United States. 2nd ed. New York: Bowker, 1951.
• Madison, Charles A. Book Publishing in America. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.
• Reginald, R. and M. R. Burgess. Cumulative Paperback Index 1939-1959. Detroit: Gale Research, 1973.
• Schick, Frank L. The Paperbound Book in America; The History of Paperbacks and Their European Background. New York: Bowker, 1958. (Hathi Trust).
• Tanselle, G. Thomas. Guide to the Study of United States Imprints. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. (Elizabeth Dafoe Library Reference Z 1215 A2 T35 1971)
• Tebbel, John. A History of Book Publishing in the United States. 4 vols. New York: Bowker, 1972-1981. (Reference Collection (Library Use Only) Z 473 T42 vols 1-3)
• Tebbel. Paperback Books: a Pocket History. New York: Pocket Books, 1964.
• University of Illinois Library School. Brief Studies of General Book Publishing Firms of the United States. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1931.
• Walters, Ray. Paperback Talk. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1985. (archive.org)

• how do imprints get registered? Trademark registry has some (e.g. Ace A), sounds like they could just be business names, registered at a state level. Found one by searching on address/owner name.
• What is a publisher? Is Permabound a publisher if they re-bind? ISFDB records show HC as format for (original) publisher who only did PB.

Ongoing Project (Jules Verne)

How many are non-genre as marked and in fact? Do I pursue all the clean-up? Is there too much to retain the non-genre? Check the rule.

• Have posed question on Community Portal, no response yet. Could knock on doors of primary PVers who are still active. Think about the query.

Series

• Voyages Extraordinaires
  • The series is by Hetzel (then Hachette when they bought them out). This might be a publisher series. A quick scan of some early English editions bears this out. So what makes a series a series?
  • The Voyages extraordinaires series is based on Wikipedia - not date order. Once cleaned up and original French novels are entered and it becomes clearer, reset this. Making it a publisher series.
  • There was an earlier discussion regarding both multiple titles and series. Probably the origin of the 'problem'.
  • Later conversation with Ahasuerus dealt with history and conclusion that publication series is best and raised the problem of multiple series in a book.
  • Initial question posted on Help Forum as Series: Voyage Extraordinaires (Oct 12, 2018). Not much response, have pinged Linquist (Oct 20, 2018).
  • Linguist response makes a point regarding Hachette.
    • Good response. Some considerations are: making sub-series; Collection Hetzel; Libraire Hachette; Biblioteque d'Education et de Recreation. What kind of series are these, and which ones should we track. Note that "Collection Hetzel" covers books by other authors, e.g. H. Rider Haggard.
    • Another consideration - if we can't yet have multiple series, couldn't we track the desirability with a Template? To be raised in Community Portal.
    • Looks like a template for additional series.
  • There were difficulties encountered in modifying Series (e.g. Marvel) that led to some heated discussion. Best to let this cool, check the situation and post intentions before proceeding.
  • There are existing publication series for Voyages extraordinaires, Collection des Voyages extraordinaires and Collection Hetzel. And Bibliothèque d'éducation et de récréation .
  • Start tracking the data - need a list of titles and pubs and check the French editions to see which have which series - [Les] Voyages Extraordinaires and Collection Hetzel. Year may be significant. Will also need to crosscheck entries to include this.
    • The collected Bibliotheques don't seem to have any series, but an ad in vols 61-62 claims many titles are in the series, right back to the first. This could be (interpreted as) a reference to the series of books rather than titles.

• Title Series
  • Several of the separate series (e.g. Barsac) are just one book done in parts. These should be merged back into the Voyages extraordinaires series. Still need to be looked at.
  • Two series are problematic - they are sequels to books by others. Which takes precedence? I'd like them under Verne, but there is a title note, whereas the other series wouldn't exist without the Verne sequel.

• FItzroy editions
  • Fitzroy editions should be recorded as a publisher's series per this conversation with Ahasuerus. Then the notes on the I. O. Evans author page can be removed.
  • So far I've a list of the 63 titles in a spreadsheet. Columns to track what's in ISFDB and it's not a lot (20%). Ace editions complete, the 6 Panther editions completely missing (referenced here to give titles and search criteria). From the sound of it, most of these should be new translations (or abridgements / bastardizations). So would likely need to see copies of most of these to be sure.
  • All titles entered, a couple of odd bits to follow up on (e.g. Jules Verne (in error), no French original for Cynthia). Still need to variant generated titles to French originals. . Many missing from wiki. Should do a clean-up run.
  • I've run across I. O. Evans "Jules Verne, Master of Science Fiction" a couple of times. Has some of his translations of short stories. Check it out.
  • There's a couple of his short stories with first pubs in magazines by Mercury Press that predate the Fitzroy. Mistaken attribution of translation or real? Possibly from the "JV, M of SF" above (hence the look)? Based on ISFDB entry for this book, no short stories, just excerpts.
  • The encyclopedia seems to have pretty specific information regarding dates, publisher and prices. Also states whether it is his translation and/or abridgement and sometime the source. Might be worth going through and recording on the spreadsheet. Done.

• Other publisher series
  • There are a number of 'unknown' books published in Manuscrit nantais, including L'oncle Robinson. Might be worth backfilling these as well. Best description is www.julesverne.ca. Also check out this list of titles and FRBNF35487581 and FRBNF37656501 at BNF.

• Abridgements
  • There is a sub-series for abridgements and excerpts of a title (in a larger series - Captain Nemo). Once Voyages Extraodinaires is a publicatoin series, would this approach be useful for abridgements in general?

Titles

Cleaning up

• Deal with the title notes for Omnibuses and Collections.
• Anniemod makes a point here that even a missing chapter does not make something a variant. So some of the different translations having different titles shouldn't. Thinking with my fingers - would adding another editor (e.g. I.O. Evans) be sufficient (as a change in author) be sufficient, but editorial changes (e.g. entomologist vs. Entomologist) not? Would mean some cleaning up - adding to title and pub notes and merging plus updating the wiki, but that would be good. The slippery slope is situations where known editors made minor edits vs abridgements. Where to draw the line. Even if it meant reading and comparing texts, what is the measure? I've pinged Annie here and the result is essentially the scope of the edit is the determinant and that is subject to the editor's discretion. The solution is lots of notes.

Publications

First Editions

• The first French appearances are done. Most were in non-genre magazines so have simply been identified in the notes (in a pretty much standard format).
  • Seems that the Societe Jules Verne published original manuscripts that had been modified by Michel. These are nicely catalogued at COPAC although most seem to be at Oxford University. These need to be entered to allow the translations to be entered.
  • There is a Palik series published by the North American Jules Verne Society. Details on web site may provide translators. ISFDB has a series as well.
  • I have an image listing books published by Le Cherche midi. No time yet to pursue finding out more information. See UofM066 IMG_3082.JPG.
• First French publication in book format. These are done, although only as far as the current Voyage Extraordinaires identified.
• May want to revisit the first French publications (generally Hetzel's magazine, but not necessarily) to see if they should be entered. Biggest drawback in my mind is the 24+ parts that would be generated. Is there an acceptable alternative - e.g. using the bound editions for parts or skipping part numbers - maybe using a (serialized) suffix instead of )Part i of n)? Notes could track issues. Using pages might work but would mean including the same content multiple times. That's why this is a note and not something I'm actively pursuing.
• First English publications - for each translation. Would like to get these as verified copies. Unsure about source and credit for other editions. Preference for Web sources as they are public domain.
  • There is the problem of alternate titles for the same translation. For now deal with them if they're intertwined somehow, otherwise leave them until I get to Other Publications. They get entered separately. Move on, nothing to see here.
• There are two magazine publications of Mysterious Island using first translation - St. James Magazine and Scribner’s Monthly Magazine. I may not be able to find copies of original, but should still enter them against the translation.

Other Publications

• All the copies for which I can provide verification. These are:
  • My personal copies. Recorded in my spreadsheet for now.
  • Miscellaneous copies, including CHBM. (Physical copies) This is ongoing. Recorded in my spreadsheet for now.
  • Winnipeg Public Library. (Physical copies) Recorded in my spreadsheet for now.
  • University of Winnipeg. (Physical copies). Need to follow up on Parkes volume splitting and a couple points highlighted in yellow.
  • University of Manitoba. (Physical copies and member access copies)
  • CHBM.
  • Miscellaneously sourced images
  • Downloaded copies.
  • Gutenberg editions - All currently recorded editions have had their source included where possible. There are additional editions that have not yet been entered.
• Copies for which I cannot provide verification. These include:
  • Online copies (available for view, not download). Sources and indexes to be developed (currently somewhat ad hoc).
    • University of Florida.
    • Bodleian Library at University of Oxford.
  • Online indexes - where no scanned copy is available. E.g. BnF.
    • Fantlab (Russian) sometimes has relevant page images.
  • Specific oddities
    • The Mysterious Island and here - first edition of Stump translation.
    • The Steam House in two volumes under 1 publication. Reminds me of the 10/15 volumes of Vincent Parke.
    • Is the Seaside Library considered a magazine by all entries, making the contents SERIALS - even if they are complete in an issue. The Help documentation talks about how to treat full novels in a single issue, check it again. Use of the SERIAL type, Seaside SERIES.
  • Enlisting others assistance at other libraries - e.g. Vasha at Cornell.
• Additional information for existing or to support new entries
  • Web sites (have a list in Firefox Bookmarks).
  • Catalogue of Books for sale in 1885.
  • Publisher's Weekly in Google Books. Or better yet the source Harvard College has most issues in order.
  • LibraryThing (example is Michael Strogoff in (presumably) Dutch.
  • www.euopeana.eu has about 300 publications in many languages, generally full text.
  • Dime Novels refers to many publisher series that included Jules Verne books (search by author).

Clean-up tasks

• Check that all of the publications are under right translation, including the unknown text ones.
  • Make a list of unknown translations with primary non-transient verifiers, and those with unknown text. Track verifiers and be able to re-sort list and generate text for each verifier with links to publications/titles.
• There are all those other languages too.
• Create translation wiki pages and update the title notes to point to them. There is some question as to how to refer to the pages - see this note on Ahasuerus's page on BREAK vs. Wiki.
• Yiddish translations awaiting confirmation of which are which.
• 1911 Vincent collection - when dust settles on multi-volume approach deal with National Alumni series and possibly other Parkes editions.
  • Looks like an interesting approach here - include the volume number in the title.
• Check the Wildside and Freedonia editions particularly, others generally to see if they are reprints of novels with only one translation - as they are unlikely to produce their own.
• Phare du bout du monde is not yet split into the original vs. modified. May be part of a different clean-up. Also Les naufragés du Jonathan. And Volcan d'or.
• William Storitz does not have the first French editions entered (with variant to Michel Verne edition. Is there a republication of the original? Answer - must be - there's a title (Schulman translatino) to be teased out.
• Voyage à travers l'impossible is listed as a novel, but should be a short fiction as it is a play and unlikely to be NOVEL length.
• First editions were usually in-18, which is a size, not a format (i.e. HC vs. SC). These formats are generally listed as 'unknown'. This is because they were often sold either unbound or bound for different prices. Need to check the source/veracity of this claim and figure out whether to change / duplicate the existing entries. Linguist is one good place, but PWendt seems to know a lot about the period publication world.
• The first translation of The Mysterious Island on gilead seems to be wrong - not matching the copy of St James magazine referenced in the TITLE record. Should check out the other editions and figure out what's going on.
• There are publishers split between known and unknown translations that could logically be migrated to the same known. Best wait until verified copies dealt with first.
• Godfrey Morgan publication has date for original, but is the 192x edition, x=1 for archive.org source and x=3 for julesverne.ca. Need to create first printing and re-date this pub. ../Doug H 12:59, 20 May 2020 (EDT)
• This pub of Cesar Cascabel is published by Sampson Low, but uses the French title record, making it French. User inactive for years.
• The publisher for this edition of Hier et Demain isn't likely to be Hetzel - check the images again.
• Is the Seaside Library a magazine or publisher series. See this conversation for background and then check that it has been consistent.

Jules Verne Translations Wiki

• Go through the wiki and reset the spacing of the box line terminators ( |- ) to be with the set and not set off by a blank line.
• Go through the wiki and standardize a) edits (see Begum and Hatteras for alternate approaches) b) sort order of titles within a translation c) order of translations. Based on what the documentation says. Un capitaine de quinze ans had an odd approach. As does Vingt mille lieues sous les mers for dealing with abridged editions of known translations.
• Add a bit of explanation to the multiple book sections regarding the French titles and how they relate.
• Serializations in the Wiki - do you put all of them (a la Fur Country) or only the first? Most are two part, but there is a 14-part in Headstrong Turk. What does the wiki documentation say? Think about the serializations where I link to the first part. Is there a better place to link? Do I include all parts? Should I specify how many parts? Is the point to have a complete list of the title links to match to? What about listing (Part n) and linking all of them and making the title link the magazine?
• Maitre du monde has a note in the Cranston translation about earlier magazine publications. Create the pubs to generate titles so this can be handled properly.
• Mathias Sandorf Hungarian edition refers to an earlier one with reference to OCLC, which should be entered. Either on its own or when scraping the OCLC.
• Une ville flottante has Sampson publications under both known and unknown translations. Latter also has Fredonia so maybe deal with it then?
• Find a way to extract data from backup and compare to see what's gotten out of synch.

Jules Verne Series Wiki

• First draft (based on post with Linguist).
• Bring to the Forum's attention.

Translation Wiki

Set up a new page with Requirements for translations. May want to set up sections for solutions and discussions. Solutions should be a) existing environment and b) future environment. Make sure requirements are hard-numbered to allow reference back to them.

• Be sure to distinguish between requirements and solutions and keep them separate.
• Translators (multiple, known and unknown) vs. editors vs. abridgers (as well as the whole question of when is a translation an abridgement).
• Translations (used to distinguish). How much? May need to refer to particular passages or structure (e.g. number of chapters).
• Does it need an explicit list of things that regular rules cover (e.g. case)? E.g. Multi-lingual publications.
• Multi-part on either side, or both with different numbers?
• How much of a difference makes it a different title? What about edits to existing translations (rather than new translations).
• Distinguishing anonymous translators (two different translations of a text). Is Anonymous a single individual?
• Handling of publications where text is unavailable or unexamined.
• When lengths change due translations / abridgements, the original length holds over according to this discussion. Worth noting.

Illustrations

One edition of Autour de la Lune details each illustration as it has a title (in French).

• Where I have copies, would I consider adding them to those editions.
• How about the English ones?
• What about building up a (private) image gallery in the process to facilitate this or simply to compare so proper credit can be given? Is there such a thing already?
  • Thought I'd seen something around. Check gilead.
• How do you date interior illustrations - by first appearance under a title? Need to check, that's been my assumption (incorporating the translation as well).
• Consider updating the notes for the generic INTERIOR ART titles to list the known titles. Cross-referencing individual entries back to the general would be nice but time consuming. And don't forget the translation factor.
• Linguist has entered the engraver for some books (e.g. De la Terre à la Lune / Autour de la Lune). He lists them separately from the artist(s), but shouldn't they be by artist AND engraver combined rather than separate? Will have to take up with Linguist. Definitely before any massive clean-up.

Web pages and Tags

There is a tag for Internet Archive on some Verne titles. They point to publications. This seems wrong as there may be multiple and no way to distinguish them, just as there is no way to document the content of a web page or reason for pointing to one.

• move them to the appropriate publication.

Abridgements

• Abridgements: Are these variants of the original? Could they be variants of translations (e.g. Hardwick vs. Lindbrooke)?
  • Abridgements are separate entities. See this discussion. Will need to flag in notes that they are abridgements and link to original - preferably in a standard way. Maybe a tag or standard way of using an existing tag. Need to check.
• An opinion: abridgements that don't claim to be so (either directly or through shared authorship) may stay as translations, otherwise make them abridgements.
• As a reference point in documenting: Wizard of Oz example for anonymous abridgements.
• Particular title(s) to note: Da Terra à Lua, Die Erfindung des Verderbens, Off on a Comet, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea vs my submission regarding varianting.
• See the line in Series regarding abridgements.

Other Points

• Single entry for multiple volumes or separate. For example The Mysterious Island by Sampson Low is here, but the Scribner spans this (different series), this and this. Leave it for now and deal with all of the at once.
• Catalogue of first Hetzel covers/editions. Bibliographie Analytique de Toutes les Oeuvres de Jules Verne: I by Piero Gondollo della Riva. Copy available for view at Stanford, available for inter-library load at UofM via student (not alumni).
• There is an external id for BnF to be populated as I go. No template for Gallica but I should use a standard approach. So far it's been (modifying link):

<li>scanned copy at <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8600252z">Gallica</a> at BnF.

• I raised a question about the difference between Omnibus and Collection (regarding Une ville flottante) here.

• Some of the publications (Fitzroy?) that were entered were discussed on the talk page for P-Brane, since departed.
  • Will ping Ahaseurus then close this up.

• Some scanned images have catalogues. These can be used to date (source unknown) and to price various editions. Or even to generate editions.
  • Seaside Library
  • Seaside Pocket Library and here.
  • spreadsheet has documented links to Gallica, which would make it easier to scan their contents. May want to wait until a catalogue of everything in Gallia (Bodleian, Internet archive, Hathi, Google books, etc) has been made to avoid redundancy.

• Should check OCLC - firstly for what is referenced against it and secondly for what it has that ISFDB doesn't.

• Different coloured covers should each be a separate publication. Community Portal question.

• Several people have done a fair bit of work on Verne - RTrace and Vornoff come to mind. Should cross-reference what and when and maybe get in touch with them.

• Discussion of several Jules Verne points here.

• Hunt and seek
  • Stanké published the first public French originals for some posthumous edits by Michel Verne. I have La Chasse au météore covered. I could probably find them. Of course there's the private editions for the true firsts. Mentioned in Verniana, I think.

• The Ward Lock Journey in(to) the Interior of the Earth is inconsistent - I think they should all be into. E.g. the Gutenberg edition is title in, but the content is into in the text.

Follow up

• Question to Chavey regarding Les Indes noires image used. No reply expected until summer 2019.
• Did I enter all the Icelandic text for translations?
• Once Rtrace replies to this query, change Seaside Library bedsheets to quartos.He says not to. While I disagree I'm not ready to make and present arguments.

Full Text

IF I got a good scanner, I might consider scanning copies of the various translations - or even originals.

• Would need a list of translations possible and check off which I have (including format and where).
• I've most of the Hetzel editions in PDF and they do allow a save to text. (Note - global change space^p to space, then a bit of line order, de-hyphenated words and paragraphing to do).
  • Save to text doesn't always work - maybe not on large documents (e.g. full issues).
  • There are online options but that's a hell of a lot of uploading.
  • Consider: PDFelement (Free trial), SuperGeek Free Document OCR [1], Investintech (limited trial) seem to be downloadable and free.
• Not sure what you get out of Gutenberg - may want to check that first. I now have all the texts from Gutenberg.
• I think purpose is to compare versions for differences - would that affect how to store it (paging, chapters, headers/footers, title) and how to compare them? Or would it be more visually laid out?

Upcoming Project

Library verifications

• Slavic Collection

[Beowulf] - nothing earlier than 1815, one Italian translation, rest are English. It's in the Icelandic collection.

• Icelandic collection. Spreadsheet tracks translations into Icelandic as to whether to scan or not. Pure Icelandic not dealt with yet.

National Libraries

• Organize them as a list as a model. Descriptions for name, searching, languages, help. Unique identifiers? (Do we care?) Linking to them? Templates? (OCLC membership?) Are these a table?
• Expand the list to other countries (e.g. Canada). Add two/three known ones (BL, Bodleian, COPAC, French)
• Search them for my 'completist' lists (Verne, Asimov). Add them to the wiki Bibiliography.
• Arrange for a place to list them on the wiki. The Bibliography?
• Go through them for 'old' searches like Asimov and Verne.

National Libraries

Country/Language	Library/Catalogue	External ID	Notes Reference
Argentina	Biblioteca Nacional "Mariano Moreno"
Australia	National Library of Australia		{{NLA|6978328}}
Belgium	De Belgische Bibliografie	KBR: Numeric part of the address bar (URL)	{{KBR|15789982}}
Bulgaria	Catalog of sff books published in Bulgaria	SFBG: The ID is embedded in the address bar - everything after /book/.
Bulgaria	Библиоман (Biblioman)	Biblioman: Appears to the right of "Книги / № "at the top of the page. Also the numeric part of the address bar (URL).	{{Biblioman|6076}}
France	Bibliothèque nationale de France	BNF	{{BnF|cb317942828}}
France	Gallica
Germany	Deutsche Nationalbibliothek	DNB: The ID in the DNB site. Contains numbers and x/X.	{{DNB|1076016375}}
Great Britain	British Library	BL: Look for the "system number" part of the "Identifier" line. Alternatively, get it from the UIN number by removing the leading "BLL01". At this time all BL numbers start with 0.	{{BL|011388149}}
Great Britain	British National Bibliography	BNB: Look for the "BNB" entry on the "Identifier" line. Do not use numbers starting with BLL. Even though they can find the book, these are BL numbers (see above how to strip them for find the BL number)	{{BNB|011585872}}
Great Britain	Bodleian Library (Oxford) - SOLO
Iran	National Library of Iran
Israel	The National Library of Israel: Merhav
Italy	Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma
Italy	Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze
Japan	National Diet Library	NDL	{{NDL|027806225}}
Japan	Japanese National Bibliography	JNB/JNPO: The name of the field in the library page is "National Bibliography No.(JPNO)". Usually contains only numbers	{{JNB|22859001}}
Mexico	Catálogo de la Biblioteca y Heeroteca Nacionales de México.
Netherlands	De Nederlandse Bibliografie	PPN: Look for the "Perma" button/link at the bottom of any publication-specific Web page and take the PPN number part	{{PPN|854168982}}
Norway	Nasjonalbiblioteket
Portugal	Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal	PORBASE: Look for "Link persistente deste registo", take the numeric part in the pop up window	{{PORBASE|727408}}
Spain	La Tercera Fundación	LTF: Record the numbers only; we need the publication IDs and not the title ones (the URLs should contain "ver/libro/" and not "ver/ficha/" before the ID. If you are looking at the ficha one, click on the exact edition.	{{LTF-pub|50465}}
South Korea	National Library of Korea
Sweden	National Library of Sweden Old system	Libris	{{Libris|7745025}}
Sweden	National Library of Sweden	Libris XL: An alphanumeric identifier using lowercase letters e.g. 4mfbn91g2dzt9tw. Can be found in the url after /katalogisering/ or above the title to the right.	{{Libris-XL|5ngcpb2h0p6rx5p}}
Serbia	Cobiss	COBISS.SR	{{COBISS.SR|21623559}}
Bulgaria	Cobiss	COBISS.BG	{{COBISS.BG|1042352100}}
Slovenia	Cobiss
Montenegro	Cobiss
North Macedonia	Cobiss
Albania	Cobiss
Bosnia	Cobiss
Herzegovina	Cobiss
Kosovo	Cobiss

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Some ideas -

1920's: Adventure, All-Story Weekly, Ghost Stories, Science and Invention

Wikipedia: New Worlds, Tales of Wonder, Doctor Who, Marvel Science Stories/Fiction, Captain Future, Startling Stories, Planet Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Imagination

Ahasuerus: Captain Future, have Startling Stories, but we don't have its sister publication Thrilling Wonder Stories.

Linguist: Fleuve Noir Anticipation publication series. It's books, not magazines.

• Done - Argosy, Magasin d'éducation et de récréation, SF-Magazine.

My new goals:

• Fanzine with books received - Foundation - had about the only internet reference to an obscure ISBN that I found the book for. Might be worth checking out the list, or other copies.
• New project on wiki (once cleaned up a bit?). Volunteering to visit local libraries to verify copies identified with OCLC numbers. Step one might be determining if automated queries to OCLC can be done. To limit, need a list of pubs, query locations progressively and maintain just the list of unique sites for volunteers to view. OCLC has location data buried in the MAP IT button (lat/long). Could pull location data for each unique location (or pull it based on a key).
  • On a related note - check out Books in Print catalogs for publishers, prices etc. query=%28bowker%29%20AND%20title%3A%28books%20in%20print%29%20AND%20mediatype%3A%28texts%29 archive.org query by title and publisher (Bowker), Hathi and Hathi don't forget these British ones.
• Develop a collection of data for an Ace dating process. Have already put out a call for an expression of interest. Some random thoughts:

• Ads are the biggest data point. Also consider addresses, prices and images. The ad contents may also have clues.
• over 7,000 un-seriesed publications in database. Also the mystery and western genre (may be overlap of ads?)
• about 1,000 undated pubs, but even some of the dated ones rely on external sources or are known to be inconsistent.
• Jimmie G's book has a list of some ads (ERB) but not all images. Not all ads have numbers. Not all ads are at the end. There's also the inserted page ads (e.g. cigarettes) that need to be mentioned but probably not tracked.
• Is there a period of time for which we are concerned or is it limited (e.g. no ads any more)?
• Use cases: Add info from a collection, add from a single book, find out what's missing, extract data for processing.
• There must be some discussion about this in some Talk pages. Do a search.

• Describe a test suite for ISFDB functionality.
• Merging maps and excerpts that are the same under a single title. See this for note about using series for title when it's the same map. And this note for a query about images for interior art and a reference to a shared map technique. And for Recluce maps.
• Cross-check Alan Dean Foster website bibliography with ISFDB. Notably "The White Hole" reviews in SFC.
• Tracking different English translations of Jules Verne works. Would be nice to identify key differences so the publications can refer to which translation they are from. See translation guide.
• Illustrated Classic Editions - inconsistent use of publisher / entry in series / credit for adapter.
• Jules Verne - mostly translations. This is a good model. Each credited version could have the key phrase, and would allow for different anonymous versions. Another active Vernian (PatConolly) is here. A discussion on translation notes is here. The help page.
• Hachette - this publisher operated under several names (See Wikipedia), but all seem to be listed under Libraire Hachette (one fixed). Should go through and check dates, look for copies (BnF?) and fix.
• Consider going through the Icelandic collection at the university - besides Verne there is an H. Rider Haggard. Who knows what else, and no one at ISFDB is likely going to go after the Icelandic stuff.
• Images - I've a directory of Frazetta and other images to check against the database for a) consistency in naming b) varianting c) missing links. There's also the idea of downloading all the images, matching to the database for unknown artists and using software to match my images against the unknowns.
• Updating some of the help entries. Ideas - how to interpret the publication submission page (e.g. ISBN checksum error). Might even dig through code. Ha.
• An index of the wiki entries. Try to cross-link based on some keywords. Track conversations that get revisited and try to document their resolution. Firstly though, check what I've been involved in and see if they reached resolution.
• Maybe not ISFDB, but getting a document scanner for full text. Then get/build analysis software and scan the Happy Hollisters for fun, and the Burroughs (Tarzan), Doc Savage and other early works for analysis and for other project on source-inference tracking.
• There is a rule for capitalization (however abused). Some DB queries of interest - how many different words in titles start with a lower case? (even initial words as they really never should). Not as simple as " x" because there are cases with hyphens (should be capitalized) and other punctuation (e.g. ",a" gives 6, one French, 3 capitalized and two and's). Which also leads to the idea of standardized punctuation - should there always be a space after a comma? after a colon or semi-colon? How much punctuation is there in titles? How to differentiate periods from dots/decimals (e.g. Zombie 2.0) and acronyms (Trouble with G.O.D.) and inconsistencies -
• A Series of Series - does this have lists of book titles? Does ISFDB have any/many of them? Are they complete?
• The WorldCat OCLC includes lists of libraries that hold publications. Could we use the Verification Forum to identify either people/locations willing to go look up books or lists of sites of interest. Would probably start with a survey of the number of OCLC verified publications with no PVs. See Help query.
• If I haven't had enough of digging for old publications see this for a link to Edgar Allan Poe.

A big project I'd like to see started is a database of fictional names. I see it as serving the same role as the cast listing in IMDB.com, allowing links, lists and searches. ISFDB seems to provide an ideal reference point for sources. It would give me motivation to re-read all those books I've decided to keep.

• bookscans.com has lots of cover scans organized by publisher for the 40's to 60's (70's?). Publication codes too. No titles, need to scan visually. Several possible projects here. Have dealt with my verified publication covers (spreadsheet in Covers folder). A future project is to correlate images to editions in ISFDB, for example I noticed four other covers for Airmont SF8 (James Blish, Duplicated Man) besides mine. Checking against ISFDB could be done by a similar search, although without verifications (We have all of these). Advanced publication search with publisher and Image URL not containing slash (/).
  • Done: Ace to Bantam, plus DAW.

My completed goals:

• Actually reading a lot of my books and probably getting rid of them. More of a state than goal since it never ends, so moving to completed. (31 March, 2018)
• Work my way through the books I expect to retain. My collection of primary verifications is growing. (19 October 2014)
  • Update - I've got all my own library entered and I'm managing to keep it relatively current, in spite of the books I keep picking up from my volunteer position with an organization that sells books.

• Finish entering a number of magazines and fanzines I picked up but won't be keeping.
  • Update - done. (May 2017)

• Getting at my Edgar Rice Burroughs collection.
  • Started. I've been in touch with someone publishing something (book maybe?) with all of the Ace and Burroughs variations. (July 2017)
  • Been through the books I own, annotating my list. Next I'll synch up the ISFDB and figure out what's a verification vs. updated vs. new pub. (Dec 2017)
  • Starting to verify what I own that has already been entered. (Jan 2018)
  • Next step is to add what is missing. (March 2018)
  • Clean up phase - based on notes of differences. (May 2018)
  • Book is, as yet, unpublished and may come back to this if/when it is. (June 2018)
  • Now that I have the Goodwin reference on US Burroughs books, should fill in the gaps in the ISFDB entries. (Sep 2021)
• Match up the images from the fantasy art cards to covers. Lots of varianting.
  • Update - done. (May 2018)

• Jules Verne clean-up of translations.
  • Entered all of my known and available publications.
  • Entered all first editions of original French and English translations.
  • Documented translations in a wiki page and included reference to it in the TITLE notes.
  • There are lots of tasks generated by looking at these translations which I'll keep under Jules Verne, but I think the translation clean-up can be considered done. (June 2020).

Things to track:

Jules Verne breadcrumbs

• Gzuckier Looking for actual text. Nope.
• Bluesman Looking for permission to re-parent Dent second printing.
• Chavey Works of Jules Verne notice of intent and request for schedule of updates.

Talk pages where I've left questions:

Don Erickson

• Tarzan and the Madman - fix cover artist.

Nimravus

• UK Pricing on Burroughs - a request for whether a sticker was used or not. - Was a sticker, update notes once N. approves.

Help desk

• Discussion of multiple part first editions is here.

PatConolly

• Jules Verne - pointer to Help desk discussion on handling multi-part titles. Response was made, but retaining this note as a reminder in case I need to check on a verficiation.

Useful links:

Clean up report - notably Series with Numbering Gaps, Series Names That May Need Disambiguation and I'm not sure what the problem is with the Wiki Cleanup reports.

Rules of Acquisition

NewPub rules.

Templates and HTML usage in notes fields.

Language Help and Title Regularization.

Linking templates for use in the wiki.

Contribution rank

73rd on list of Top Contributor's as of Feb 3rd, 2017 with 2361.

72nd as of Jul 1, 2017 with 2524.

71st as of Oct 22, 2017 with 2572.

62nd as of May 6, 2018 with 3492.

54th as of May 28, 2018 with 4151.

54th as of Apr 3, 2019 with 5090.

54th as of Nov 21, 2019 with 5903.

53rd as of Feb 17, 2020 with 6364.

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55th as of Sep 16, 2021 with 7371.

56th as of Feb 25, 2022 with 7774. ++ Self-admin granted.