From: Winston Tabb <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 04:39:03 +0000

Copyright registration (and deposit) is not required in order to
secure copyright. Therefore many works are never deposited.

Furthermore, LC has never treated copyright deposit copies as
"preservation" copies to be kept as a "dark archive."So some copyright
deposit copies have, over time, been lost or damaged.

Winston Tabb

----- Original Message -----
From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:31:13 -0600

But, as required by the copyright registration process, all those
trade publishers send at least two copies to the Library of Congress.
Doesn't the LC have a preservation policy?

Sandy Thatcher

P.S. University presses, in addition, usually have deposit at least
one copy of every book they publish with their own university's
library.

>>  From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
>>  Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:51:47 -0500
>>
>>  So an issue of the New Yorker from this fall (the double issue Oct
>>  29/Nov 5 with Mitt getting a tattoo on the cover) went missing, and we
>>  went to get a replacement.  Seems not to have shown up at all.  Called
>>  the New Yorker's subscription service number from the masthead in the
>>  back of the magazine and found that it can't be done.  They now retain
>>  only the current issue and two immediately previous and pulp
>>  everything else.  If you want a back issue older than that, go to the
>>  secondary market and good luck to you.
>
>  >
>  > 1.  Am I wrong that this is a big comedown in service over days of
>  > yore?  I understand the $$ drivers, but for a magazine as
>  > non-evanescent as the New Yorker, it still seems extreme.
>>
>>
>>  2.  Makes me realize that while we've been focused on assuring
>>  preservation of and access to e-versions of serial publications, we
>>  may be approaching the brink of losing the old assurance of print
>>  preservation.  Once upon a time, lots of libraries got things in
>>  print, bound them carefully, cataloged them, shelved them, cared for
>>  them lovingly.  Loving care for print materials is no longer something
>>  you can count on (colleagues trying to give away books at the point of
>>  retirement are getting some rude awakenings around me) and when people
>>  switch from p- and e- to e-only, there may well be things that just
>>  get lost.  Reminds me a bit of the great loss of print books in the
>>  Catholic church in the 1960s when Latin went out and mountains of
>>  stuff got trashed, replaced by mimeographed booklets.  It's actually
>>  hard to find those old liturgical books now.  Same of the New Yorker
>>  in 50 years?  Or Popular Mechanics?
>>
>>  Jim O'Donnell