Greetings, gentle readers! And a happy decorative gourd season to all who celebrate. As we reach midterms in the fall semester and all the grading that entails, I have taken a break to update you on this month’s progress.
The process of confirming or eliminating physical copies continues apace. Since the last update, I’ve worked through another 37 libraries*, completing the libraries that begin with the letter “B”. It will likely not be a surprise to anyone to know that there are quite a few libraries that begin with the letter B that have Lennox holdings, and that’s after some elimination of spurious, online access, or deaccessioned copies.
As for the database work, I’ve about decided that I’ll put in the libraries I’ve confirmed as locations for now, but not the individual titles. I may change my mind about that as I move forward, but we’ll see. I go back and forth on the utility of it prior to actually seeing and cataloging the data for a given copy.
In other news, I’m also trying to decide if I want to apply to any fellowships for next summer’s research. I’d been hoping to be further along than I am (though it’s not like every letter will have as many entries). It seems a shame to let a summer go to waste, but I’ve still got so much cataloguing to do. I have a little while more to ponder and see if the pace picks up in this portion of the endeavor.
Number of libraries confirmed: 77
Number of libraries entered into the database: 2
Number of extant copies confirmed: 299 (See Note)
* Note: Those observant readers among you will have noted that the letter “B” also applies to “Bodleian,” as in the famed library (or set thereof) at the University of Oxford. I cannot claim to have completed verification of my list of items at the Bodleian, given the nature of its search engine, the fact that defaults to including all the Oxford libraries, of which there are many, and the fact that it’s by no means uncommon to have multiple copies of the same work at different libraries within the greater institution of Oxford. I started working on it and quickly realized I was just going to need to pull out all the Oxford listings, put them in a big list with a couple of notepads and sticky notes as needed, and just do all of them in one big push. As I’m not planning to be in the UK any time in the near future, this isn’t really a problem per se, but it does mean that all Oxford listings are considered not fully confirmed until I clime that particular molehill.
Lennox Bibliography Project 