WELCOME
TO
THE PERSONAL WEBSITE OF
<< Robin Alston
>>
¶The
Library History Database¶
Bibliography of the English Language
1958-2008
The Scolar Experience
The
Janus Experience
Essays and Papers 1975-2002
Review of Snyder’s History of ESTC
[Informal News & Happenings]
[Updated January, 2009]
CV
[Updated October 21, 2008]
Contact
&
&
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Bibliography of the English Language
Volume XXI – in three substantial volumes -
listing many hundreds of additional, editions, and new entries for all volumes
published to date, and several thousand new locations was published on April 1,
last year in three volumes. A second volume of Addenda [XXI Part 2] will appear
in 2010 in time for the data it will contain to be included in Volume XXII
which will provide comprehensive indexes to all volumes and will constitute the
final volume in the series. These indexes are in preparation by Jane Read, a
professional indexer. Volume XIX Part 2 which lists material in newspapers is
almost completed and should be published in December this year.
Work on Volume XX – materials in manuscript
– has been progressing steadily since the year 2000, when I discovered to my
horror that all the files which I had accumulated since 1960 had been lost in
transit from
John Jolliffe on Stone Age
Thinking at the Speed of Light.
Courtesy of David Helliwell (Bodleian
Library) I published the text of a paper given by John Jolliffe in America at
Terry Belanger’s Book Arts Press on March 17, 1983. John’s widow (Beryl) has
given permission for this lecture to be reproduced on this website. John’s
title (mischievous as always) was: “Stone Age thinking at the speed of light.”
For those who feel that computers and libraries are not entirely a good thing,
it makes refreshing reading. It is reproduced in Bits
and Pieces.
The Burney Newspaper Database
In 2008 - after many years of planning and, no doubt,
over-planning - the Gale Research conversion of the Burney microfilms was was
made available to readers in the British Library. Nowhere on the Gale trial
site (to which I have recently been granted access in
Book
1676-1800
British Isles –
I am currently engaged (pre-occupied seems more
appropriate) in the arduous process of putting together for publication in June
the notes I have made over a period of forty five years reading through the
entire contents of the Burney and other newspapers in the British Library, and
several other major research libraries, with a view to producing a better
bibliographical guide to book sales in the British Isles, North America and
India than Lawler, the British Museum list printed in 1915, or Munby-Coral
(1977) of sales of private libraries in the British Isles from 1676 to 1800. So
far I have edited the file up to the end of 1800 and have brought to light over
1,850 sales not previously recorded. The final process in this vast task which
has been accumulating in cardboard boxes for decades is proof-reading the
entries and attempting to document the names of the owners (over 5,300). I hope
to deliver copy to the printer in late September 2009. It now occupies 1,250
pages in quarto format, and will be published in two volumes. A copy of the
preliminaries can be consulted at munby-coral-final.htm.
Total accesses to date: 4,780,000 – the monthly average is +- 32,000
visits.
Statistics supplied by Sunbeach.Net
___________________________________________________________________________
Contact addresses in 2009:
May –
September
October - December
67 Ocean City, St
Philip,
Email: r_alston@sunbeach.net
Updated: 20-05-2009

This is the best picture I ever
managed to get of the Round Reading Room, in which I spent the greater part of
my working life between 1960 and the day it finally closed: the famous bell
rang for the last time at 4.45 on Saturday, October 25, 1997.
No place on earth where you
could search for knowledge like this was. The new British Library belongs to
the future, not the past.