Feedback needed (re: My Anne Bibliography)

[Hans]

It is early days yet and I'm only now starting to collate and write out all the data I gathered for the Foreign Editions (only about 48 pages so far) but I want your feedback on the format and your general remarks.

As I am planning to copy data from Mathhew Hargreaves wonderful book (especially on the English language front I'll never be able to lay my hands on everything he's seen and annotated) I have more or less adapted his format, the one he used for his bibliography of Anne and have worked with it for years now.

I have introduced a few, minor, changes. Main question is, of course: what do you, interested people and collectors, think of it? Have you any ideas for (further) improvement. Would you like things changed, rearranged.

One more thing: I am planning to have full colour illustrations of every cover in the book, which I think will be digitally published through LuLu's; so you can order your book copy online [Becky: I'll provide special bookplates ] But don't get your hopes up. as I said, it is early days and it will take quite some time to finish!

Since the Dutch part is relatively small and finished, with me personally owning every book listed in this section now I have made a PDF for you to view and/or download from my site:

click: http://www.pern.nl/AMC_TUB_NL.pdf

And either mail or post your remarks, comments etc. I am not looking for a quick answer but rather for serious stuff as this need to be what it's working title projects: The Ultimate Bibliography!

Thanks, Hans.

[Hans]

Forgot to tell: an asterisk (*) behind an item letter means the item has already been listed (sometimes only the title though) in the Hargreaves Bibliography.

[Cheryl]

On a quick read, it looks great. Will examine in more depth soon.

[~(_'>]

It looks good to me too. Reading such on the computer is hard on me though.

Are you planing to publish this as a book that I can hold in my hands??

If so, I would be happy to purchase such.

[Hans]

I am aiming to publish the bibliography as a book JJ. But probably through an online publisher like LuLu because if I would have them printed here (in my own country, where I could do it relatively cheap) it would mean that the majority of the customers/buyers would have to pay hefty postage fees.

Don't worry, I will let you know when the time comes

[~(_'>]

Cool.

[Becky]

Hans, it looks great and reads great! Just a couple of questions and comments......

Some books list original prices, will you be listing the original price for all books?

Is the asterisk really needed? Is it something that you must do for Hargreaves in order to use the information? Or is it just so folks know Hargreaves has it listed? (I can live with it or without it.)

I'll play proof reader here, since I'm sure someone else will notice them and post later on.
Under The Ship Who Sang there is an error in section A* where Hargreaves' error is mentioned. In the parenthesis the word 'given' is used twice.
Under The Smallest Dragonboy there are a few corrections to be made. First, the pages the story is printed need to be added. Second, an 'n' added to the section "drago tales". And thirdly, a space added between the names Lisa Tuttle and Gregory Benford. I didn't notice anything else

I like the information and how it is presented, similar to Hargreaves which makes it 'feel' familiar. I look forward to this ULTIMATE bibliography's completion!

Glad to hear you're planning on the bookplates, Hans!

[ghyle]

Looking good, Hans, and congratulations on embarking on this fine, fine project.

[Hans]

Thanks Ghyle.

Becky,

Some books list original prices, will you be listing the original price for all books?

Yes, if I can. The trouble is that in some European countries (The netherlands among them) the price is not printed on the book but on separate stickers which use to hold only price but which nowadays also have additional info like a barcode on them (especially for foreign language books for which the barcode might not work because it is foreign ). So, if I know the price or prices (for the German books published around 2000/2001 I sometimes list price in Deutschmark, Austrian Shilling and Euro as it was also done on the books at the time to get people used to the forthcoming Euro) I will list them but I will not be investigating what they did cost if the price sticker is removed. Wow, a real long archivist answer. Short answer is: yes, when I can

Is the asterisk really needed? Is it something that you must do for Hargreaves in order to use the information? Or is it just so folks know Hargreaves has it listed? (I can live with it or without it.)

I haven't had contact with Matthew yet (Anne can't find an email for him, but I do have his snailmail address somewhere). Since I am checking everything he wrote if humanly possible I don't feel I have to give him credit/copyright persé but since I am probably also using his format (if you users opt for it ) I might as well indicate that something was already listed by him so people know and could compare if they wanted to. I refrained from listing that he listed a certain title under section, letter, #xx, sub ii etc. but the asterisk isn't too much trouble and for my own sake I can see what is new (even if it is prior 1993) and what not

Thanks for proofreading, the volunteers will do a lot of it in the future It wasn't necessary yet but thank you nonetheless and it is grate to see I'm not making many mistakes (I hadn't even checked for spelling yet).

Bottom question is if the users will appreciate the format used or see means of imporving on Hargreaves (now is the time to say so or tell me what irritated you with Hargreaves) For me it was the listing of the endless page rows, indicating which pages are blanc and which not, which I found of no use. I do count blanc pages but that will be obvious to the collector. You will have noticed those lines with numbers have disappeared and the number of pages is now in the first para with the essential book data.

I also found Matthew skipped known ISBN's regularly. Now that is frankly a nuisance for the avid collector so I am putting them in if possible, even if a publishers (serial) number was already listed (not always the same as part of the ISBN).

[Becky]

Originally Posted by Hans

I also found Matthew skipped known ISBN's regularly. Now that is frankly a nuisance for the avid collector so I am putting them in if possible, even if a publishers (serial) number was already listed (not always the same as part of the ISBN).

I do like the inclusion of the ISBN. That's a keeper for sure!

[Lady Maelin]

Hans, This is a wonderful piece of work, you have obviously been working for quite a while on this.

It reads in a very clear and concise manner and it has all the information needed without any unnecessary frills to clutter up the work. This, as of yet unpublished work of yours, would make finding an Anne McCaffrey book of choice, extremly easy.

When you ask if there was something that bothered anyone about how Hargreaves has done his book I have one comment. When Heargreaves list a book on his content page, he list the year published. It would also make it much easier if the page number was also listed on the same line as its corisponding book title. This would make finding the book much faster, when searching for the same on the internet.

[ghyle]

Proofreading time:

Short Fiction: 2A The Ship who Sang

"(by Hargreaves given wrongly given as the translator)"

should read

(given wrongly by Hargreaves as the translator)

Reason: the prepositional phrase follows the verb, and the adverb intevenes, as it modifies the verb not the prepositional phrase.