Greetings, gentle readers! The end of Hot Data Summer is upon us, and I have nearly finished all my class prep for the next semester’s teaching. Around and among and before that, I’ve been busily embarking on Phase 2.2 of the project, which as stated in July’s update, involves breaking out the data by library/institution (it depends on the nature of the organization and its libraries — there’s a system, I promise) and verifying holdings via catalog searches and/or contacting the library directly in some cases.
Thus far I’ve completed a mere twenty libraries, but that’s still served to provide some interesting insights. I have eliminated some prospective holdings (either they don’t exist or were online access only), but I’ve uncovered at least as many that simply weren’t in ESTC or Worldcat when I used it, for whatever reason. I knew there would be missed volumes, so that isn’t that surprising, but the number and type of them is still intriguing. As an example, an early data point (we’ll see if it holds) is that out of those 20, six libraries have multiple pre-1850 editions of the Memoirs of the Duke of Sully. What does that mean? I’m not sure, but it’s something to ponder and look into further if it holds up.
As far as the database design goes, I’ve put it aside for the moment. I could, in theory, enter holdings in as I confirm them (almost certainly a good idea, now that I think about it) but I would like to get a bit more done in confirmation first, and then perhaps have phases of entering data as opposed to a more constant back and forth.
Number of libraries confirmed: 20
Number of libraries entered into the database: 2
Number of extant copies confirmed: 77
Lennox Bibliography Project 