I’ve been thinking about publishing a genealogical book on my family and have been looking for publishers. One of the publishers that I have found has this on their web page
This makes no sense to me, and when I was in the LOC a few months ago they said that if I did publish a book they would love to get a copy for their genealogy room.
Is this publisher just not right or are they just trying to get me to buy two more copies of the book?
To register your copyright, you must submit hard copies to the LOC - (cite from their website).
However, registration is voluntary. You have copyright protection without registering with the LOC. It makes it easier for you to defend your copyright in court in the future. (cite from their website)
Well, the copyright law is about the rights of the authors.
The law about legal deposit is for the libraries to have a chance to archive all books printed in their country, and therefore quite different and seperated from registering copyright or not.
The so-called grey literature, that is, printed matter not done by official publishers, is very hard for libraries to get ahold off and track. Similar with family and vanity press - when you go to the next copy shop to bind up 50 copies of your fanzine to sell at the next con, or of your family research to distribute at the next family gathering, then usually neither the copyshop nor the small-time author knows about this requirement, so the libraries miss out on it.
That’s also why saying that “my book is in the LOC/ BSB/ British Library!” sometimes said by authors of crackpot theories, doesn’t mean anything regarding the validity or value of said book, because the library didn’t make a critical assement along “Yup, this is a worthwhile book”, they got it automatically from the publisher.
These automatic “gifts” from the publishers have now turned into a mixed blessing. At the beginning, some centuries back, when states first enacted them, it was a cheap way for the libraries to get the books without spending limited funding; today, with the huge volume of printed matter, it means they quickly run out of building space. The LOC gets books that are equivalent to half a mile of shelf-space every year (probably more today, that figure is already several years old), the BSB “only” 500 m each year. Because of the law, the libraries can’t throw it away, they are required to archive it, but a new building costs several millions, much more than is saved from the price of the books themselves.
Do other libraries than LoC or British Library get legal deposits in the respective countries?
The Wiki article on Legal deposit gives some examples.
Thank you. I would also like to point out that the statement about Sweden isn’t completely correct. There are a number of other university libraries that get free copies, but only the National Library (it has dropped the ‘Royal’ in the official English name) and Lund university library are obliged to keep them.
So I guess then what does it mean to be published? If I have someone print 50 of my books and give them to local libraries and such is that published? Or is it more something that would be sold? I just can’t imagine what the LOC must do with two of each book, especially since there must be thousands published every year. I also wonder why when I visited the LOC they said they would love to have a copy of my book even though it seems they would get two.
I have no answer to your question, but my step-grandmother wrote a genealogy book on her family and we have a nice hard-bound copy, and on the cover page there is a LOC number and everything. Not sure how she did it, but it’s pretty neat.
Being published is not automatically equal to a certain number of sales. Getting an ISBN number because you’re working with a real publisher and not the copy shop next door is a first indicator; but I have also seen commerative scripts that were handed out at some festivity being considered published. So if you print up 50 copies, you presumably would distribute them not only to the local libraries, but also to relatives (in the case of genealogical research) or similar interested people.
In the olden days, people outside the mainstream writing about scientific theories or topics of current discussion would sometimes (back before copy shops, this was expensive) print some copies at a printshop “in commission” bookseller. Or I find a note “Self-published by the author, for further copies please write to Adam Smith, Nosuch street 12, Munich” at the bottom/ back of the title page.
In the 80s, people went to copy shops. Today, people write a blog or an entry on their homepage about their new book, available through print on demand.
If in doubt, the receiving library, in this case, LoC*, is the best place to ask and get answers if this is yet considered published or not**. As to why they want: probably because genealogic research is a steady interesting topic? Lay people who want to use scientific libraries and do research most often do so because of this reason.
*Likewise, if you write the great American novel and want to donate free copies to your local library to save them the expense of buying it, ask them first. A book costs more than the 10-20 $ for the bookseller; the cost of cataloging, indexing, inventorizing it, printing a label, maybe (for public libraries) putting a jacket on, can cost 40 to 50 Euros per book. So if they have similar books sitting on the shelves unread, or if it’s a paperback, it may not be worth the trouble.
And the necessary shelf space is another matter…
** Though my impression is that once you have managed to be accepted by a real - as opposed to a vanity press - publisher, they will send of their two copies just to be on the safe side, as they do with all their published stuff.
If the US works anything like Sweden the author has nothing to do with distributing copies of hir book to libraries, it is done by the printers, unless, of course, you reproduce it yourself (or publisher if printed outside the country). Whether it’s supposed to have been “published” or not is up to the writer/publisher to decide, but I am fairly certain that a national library is interested in having a copy even if it is a private publication (perhaps depending on content). They can never know who will be interested in it in the future.