I spent most of today at New York Public Library researching a new project about Galileo Galilei. One of the reasons I went to NYPL was because it holds two copies of The Private Life of Galileo, by Mary Allan-Olney. The book was published in 1870 and is currently available on Amazon for the bargain price of $165. NYPL has two copies, in fairly good condition, for free.
I’m ashamed to say it but it’s the first time I have been inside NYPL since I arrived in New York almost four years ago. The research room, as you can see, is spectacular.
I had a very productive day, not least because the wireless internet doesn’t stretch to the third floor reading room. But when the time arrived to xerox pages to study at home I hit a snag. I had to pay for library staff to make copies because the book was so delicate. The cost, 40 cents a page, wasn’t too bad. But someone had just put in an order for over 1,000 pages and there was a two-week waiting list for the service.
One of the librarians said I might be able to get copies sooner if the book was on microfilm. But before I looked into that, she wondered whether I had looked on Google Books. And there it was: The Private Life of Galileo, all 3oo pages, neatly scanned, easily searchable, instantly printable and free of charge.
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The NYPL is absolutely wonderful - I will definitely return there next time I am in NY.
As someone in the booktrade, but with bizarre academic interests, I am rather divided on the e-books issue. It is absolutley wonderful to track down pdfs of books that are no longer viable to keep in print, but I think they should be paid for.
I guess the Catholic in me believes that you have to suffer to get what you want, and so free books in Google is a little too easy - you should have spent 6-8 years browsing every second-hand bookshop in the Tri-State area before coming across the book in a charity shop just round the corner from your flat.
A bit like my search for an English translation of Zamyatin’s Lovets Chelovekov? I have been looking out for that for more than five years…
A long book search is fine. But when you’re on deadline, you can’t beat Google.
“”A graduate of the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, University of London, Paul is a fluent Russian speaker.”" Russian getting a bit rusty is it Paul?
Anyway, I know what you mean, as soon as I get “Bombay Boomerang”, my Hardy Boys collection will be complete. I even have a few of the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys crossover novels but, as any officionado will tell you, they are less collectable
“a fluent Russian speaker”
I never said anything about reading, Beau.
I have the dubious pleasure of having seen the finger of Galileo Galilei in a small glass dome. Apparently it was the finger he used to point at the moon.
I may even have a copy of that particular book (the Zamiatin, that is) lying around here somewhere - I never really rated it, and I think the teaching of it was more to do with Phil writing his PhD on “Evgenii Zamiatin and literary populism” than any great worth - surely I’lf & Petrov or some shorter Bulgakov would have been far more engaging.