So I know I bought it, and had it and now its disappeared. The Chicago Manual of Style which I now need for a project. Drat, blast, dang... want to kick something. I have been looking for it since I imported all my data into LT and just can't find it anywhere.

I can name three four books that I wish would resurface immediately but that I have little hope for:

The History of Love
Team of Rivals
The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Geography of Bliss

And there are another half dozen that came to mind as I typed this sure I would put them in, but they fled my memory. They are all in this house.

Good luck,

Robert

Message edited by its author, Aug 18, 2009, 1:33am.

You'll find it just as soon as you buy a replacement.

You know, I finally bought a replacement for my Buddhist Bible, and now I can't find either. I am pretty sure, even, that I know the room they are in.

Robert

Most of my missing books have been lent to my sister. She'll eventually get them back to me (she's the only person I'll lend books to anymore) but it's frustrating sometimes because I don't have them when I want them, and I often forget where they are. I was thinking the other day, did I really buy that book or or not? And then she mentioned that she had my copy, so...yeah.

I also had at one time loads of Macintosh books. Went windows (then the mac died of neglect) so I must have given the books away, but then I didn't take the books out of my library, which I do now. Now that I have a Mac again, I want the books, but the likely suspect for my generosity swears he doesn't have the books. Very irksome, but not as bad the Chicago Manual. I really need that and it is totally not in the places I put my style manuals, or the place before the place, or the place before the place before the place. Just gone...

I bought a book about hieroglyphs to use as a sourcebook for some art projects I want to do... its disappeared.

I left it in a bag on the kitchen table and I fear its gone to the recycling gods :(

Ack. Though I generally do support recycling.

Most of my books gone AWOL are the victims of known "bookkeepers" - never again!

I lent a computer book that I had read only partially, back when computers were young to a coworker and after a few weeks I started asking for it. Never saw it again. That coworker was not high on my list of trusted people.

An old copy of In Cold Blood, which I believe was a first edition, is no longer on my bookshelves. Don't remember seeing it in a few years. Many years ago I loaned a friend a copy of Clan of the Cave Bear and forgot about it. Last year I went to a yard sale she was giving, and there was my book on the table with a dollar sticker on it. You've got to love a friend like that. If I didn't, I'd have to kill her. :)

LOL sageboy... I was just going to post that.. or similar...
I have a neighbor that I have loaned some books to. After the first time, I only
"loaned" books I didn't care about. She is having a yard sale today and guess what I saw???

as you say, I do love her.. :P

Neighbor, how about Mother... She comes over, 'oh is that any good?' then never to be seen again...

When I joined LT and started to put my books in I found quite a few books have come up missing. Growing up an Army Brat and being an Army wife, I expect to lose things in transit, but I still hate it when it happens.

Take heart! I recently had a friend come to me and say, "O my gosh, I just found your book that I thought I'd returned!" So, sometimes the books do find their way home.

I was shocked when I found LT and started cataloguing. I would have sworn that I had certain books-but can I find them to add to my library? No, they are languishing in Read but unowned and wishlist.

Message edited by its author, Aug 15, 2009, 5:12pm.

Every once in a while I do a complete restructuring of my library (it's organised by DD) and occasionally a book or several seems to have disappeared.

I've decided to separate those 'missing' books into their own collection, because eventually they do turn up!

I have been suffering from *exactly* the same ailment! It is massively frustrating. You *know* it should be somewhere in the house, but where?! Where??!!?!??!!

*sigh*

Years ago I started this project. I then started sequentially numbering the books, and putting that number on the inside front of each book. In the old days i had to look at the copyright page, type everything in by hand. There was no quick look up by ISBN number to get it into my database.

So I have a fairly accurate count of my books. I arbitrarily started numbering at 1000, but I had decided not to enter my non-fiction into the list. I did as i purchase new non-fict, but there are a bunch around here still not entered. Those that are though, all owned by me, until the import your wishlist came along. Then I tagged those with unowned.

I have purchased and repurchased the alienist four times. I now have 2 copies, in case I go mental and lend it out again.

O.K. I didn't do much tagging when I started cataloging everything at LT, but the one thing I did religiously was to tag the location. Halleluia! Dear husband throws books up on the shelves as he builds them, and I will eventually organize and move them. Then will I change the location here? We'll see. Meanwhle, I need my copy of Celtic Designs (whatever the title may be) and Whisper of the River and When All the World was Young. They're here somewhere; you don't know how scary that is. (And I don't lend to anybody except my bookloving niece and her husband. So far they have a 100% return rate.)

I once borrowed The Inklings (an enjoyable group biography) from church, then lost it. Eventually I gave up and ordered a used copy off the Internet to replace the church's copy. No sooner had I paid for and received the book than somebody found the original copy and returned it to me. Works every time.

One of my friends once borrowed a book, and then when I asked about it, he had lent it to another friend. They said they would return. A year later, asked again, they would return it. A year later, same story. Finally they realized they had lost the book, and went and bought me a better used copy but in hardback.

A tip to increase the return rate of lent books: Stick a post-it note inside the front cover with "Borrowed From Your Name".

I do this for books I loan, as well as books I've borrowed. It helps the book get home to the proper person, without permanent marking in the book.

My name is Stephmo. I own a lot of books and they are stored everywhere. I swear I have a system to people, but I'm lying. I count on my system, which is this: I breathe deeply and picture the book until I am sure that I know where it is and sometimes that system actually works! I am so proud.

But there is a dark side. A very dark side. Because my "system" is no system at all. Here's what really happens. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don't. When I don't, I usually convince myself it is a sign I wanted to read something else.

Except...

For the three books I've checked out of the library this year to read that are duplicates of books I already own!

Now you all know. Can we start a group?

Until your copy shows up - and I hope it will - try this:

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home...

Thanks emaestra... I did order though a replacement as the project I am starting I figure I needed the guide at my fingers. After six months of looking for it in all the likely places (There are only a few areas, the Reference shelf next to me desk, not there, the history book shelves in the house, nada, the non-ficition bookshelves in the garage, nope.) I couldn't hold out any longer.

But thanks again...

I have one book that has disappeared three times. The last time, it took me months to find it.

I am usually quite good about not losing books. Books from when I lived at home are in boxes in my mom's attic, and I have no clue where to find them exactly, but that's just because I am too lazy to go digging, and they probably are all still there. If I ever do go digging it's bound to be a great time of remembering all the books!
With regards to lending out books, I only lend to a couple of people, and I religiously keep track of them in my book (or DVD or CD) management software (BookPedia) so I always know where a book is. The fact that I don't lend to many people is not only because I will want the book back, I also want them in good condition (ie. no breaking the paperback's back!).

I swear I loaned The Stolen Child and Special Topics in Calamity Physics to my mother-in-law, but she says no.

2 boxes of books destroyed by the Post Office in 1980 when I moved back home to California from Connecticut. It still bothers me.

I have bookpedia too, now, and I use it for keeping track of borrowed things also. I believe most of my gone missings are from prior to the ownership of the pedias. If there was a field in LT that was similar to bookpedia's tracking for lent books, it would make it easier to consolidate to one program. Many talk of using the tagging system, but that seems inelegant.

Maybe use Private Comments?

Bookpedia is still simpler to use. Then a private comment workaround. It tracks by the date of entry into the borrowed field, and indexes against your contacts also. While I don't expect LT from the internet cloud to call into my contacts, dating the change of a field, dedicated to borrowing would be within its capabilities.

Oh absolutely, I would never use LT for the tracking of borrowers, as Bookpedia does exactly what I want and gives me offline access on my iPhone. The only thing I wish for (and know I'll never get) is LT-BookPedia synchronization....