A morning grumble: bibliographical carelessness

[redbird]

I'm proofreading the NY Review of Science Fiction. On the subway, as usual. One of the articles this time is by someone who cheerfully asserts that he's not providing a complete bibliography because all that information is available on the Web, notably on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

All very well, but in the text of the article he dates Ursula Le Guin's The Farthest Shore to 1991. I knew that was way off, because my parents bought me the first three Earthsea books when I was about 12. But I couldn't find my copy last night. So, this morning I checked the ISFDB. Which dates it at 1991: apparently they're not interested in when things were originally published, only in an available edition. (They'll be dating it to 2004 or so, at this rate.)

Fortunately, the Library of Congress has a nice thorough online catalog. First published 1972.

But the author--who cheerfully sends his readers to the Web rather than providing bibliographical information--didn't bother to think before copying that date out of the Web site he sends everyone to. Had he thought about it, in the context of this essay, he'd have known that 1991 was much too late, even if he wasn't fortunate enough to have read the book before then.

Also, I'm proofreading this: nobody caught it at the editorial meetings. Trusting authors on points like this is easy--and I don't think anyone else associated with NYRSF is as interested in Le Guin as I am.

womzilla, you might want to double-check (and not via the ISFDB) the other dates in the article on the afterlife in sf.

Comments

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Amateur online bibliographies generally suck, as you're discovering. I've heard people singing the praises of the Norrkopping SF Archive (if I recall the name correctly), which is a perfectly fine source if you want data that some Usenet poster tossed off the top of his head 15 years ago. There are some good ones (This one (http://hem.passagen.se/annuvin/tbchron.html) on Tolkien is a little eccentric but is mind-bogglingly accurate and detailed), but you have to already know the material to tell that.

LC is reliable but patchy, and its gets patchier the further back you go. For books from small presses, or for anything prior to about 1970, I'd always supplement it with other sources which are mostly only in print.

And the first place I'd go for any quick SF/fantasy book-date lookup is the Clute encyclopedias.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

ISFDB has it in the Series section dated 1972, as The Farthest Shore (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pw.cgi?4468b7). (link to ISFDB publication history) For some reason, presumably data entry error, there's also an entry under Novels, as Farthest Shore (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pw.cgi?446999). ISFDB is interested in all editions, but like any volunteer project, mistakes happen.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I am abashed that it got through several readings (including mine) with no one thinking to check the dates. That was hardly the only one the author got wrong, and it's not just items from the ISFDB that he got wrong. While I admire the author in question tremendously, this is also not the first time his bibliographical work has required a strong editorial hand; I'm glad someone thought to apply it.