[CR]Library holdings, per Peter Brueggeman, an observation

(Example: Events:Cirque du Cyclisme:2007)

Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 20:02:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Hon Lee" <lejosun@sbcglobal.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]Library holdings, per Peter Brueggeman, an observation

The first hurdle for library acquisitions versus your own support for Jan's tome is to get a library to put out the bread. The credo for public libraries when I was aggravating my allergies reshelving misplaced treasures was the unfortunate financial reality wherein budgets for new acquisitions were less than the cost of replacing "lost" pieces of your collection that had a vociferous following. I would urge Jan to digitize his tome and offer a DVD for library collections, approaching the American Library Association to review it as a historical art piece, and press the likes of wheelmen to endorse its purchase for special collections. Similarly a gift with the proviso that the book not be summarily weeded is possible, but credo at Simmons, a bastion of library science in Boston, frowns on strings attached to gifts. If you manage to get the library to purchase this masterpiece, to ensure that it falls into the right hands if weeding books is handled much the same as pooches at the pound, keep your eyes on it periodically--but don't check it out--and when it is removed from the collection, make sure you attend the next library fund raiser, and go early and use your good specs to look at the stacks of discarded tomes for the shape and size of Jan's book. Then buy it for a buck.

Peter Brueggeman wrote "very few libraries own 'Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles'...I advise everyone go to their local library and request that the book be purchased... then check the book out so that there is at least one circulation to justify it remaining in the collection" and continue to check it out periodically to keep it from being weeded out.