Flash mob TONIGHT? Jackie Kennedy's White House Library

If members are willing, I've got a Legacy Library/Flash-Mob Cataloging happening tonight!

There's a minor tempest-in-a-teapot brewing over the White House library. Apparently a conservative blogger on a tour took a snapshot of some socialist-oriented books, misheard that Mrs. Obama had selected them, and blogged about it. They turned out to have been selected by Jackie Kennedy, or rather by a prominent Yale librarian she selected, and to have been there since the early 1960s.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/02/white-house-library-socialist...

The list was apparently turned into a limited-edition book. So, a good Legacy Library, right?

Anyway, there are copies all over, including one at the Mass. Historical Society, where Jeremy works (see http://www.worldcat.org/title/white-house-library-a-short-title-list/oclc/775687....

But I need something to do that isn't coding today, so I'm going to drive down to UNH and xerox it. Apparently they even have some scanners too. I'll be posting it around 5pm tonight.

So, who's up for an overnight flash-mob session? Seriously. This is minor hot news, so I think we should try to do it fast. Any many hands make light work. Let's see what an insane pack of bibliophilic historians can do.

Once I have pages, I'll start posting them, and anyone who wants to help, can help!

So, who's in?

I've never flash mobbed before, but I'll help. I can't start until around 7:00 PM, though. Do you think you'll still be at it by then?

Sounds like fun! I should be able to help out for an hour or two this evening.

Darn, I have a class tonight!

Tim - having just looked at the book, I can tell you it's definitely doable (the short-title list gives enough bibliographic data), but we'll definitely need to be careful about how the account is set up. This certainly was not Jackie Kennedy's personal library, and it also is not the only White House library (a new book on the "first" White House library, from the mid-19th century, is to be released soon, if it's not out already, and I've been working with the editors to see if we can work something out for a LL of that collection).

So when you set up this account, it should be titled something to distinguish it from those collections (WhiteHouseLibrary1963 or something along those lines).

I'm in! You'll post them here?

Count me in!

Question: This short list was published in 1967. Haven't any books been added to the White House Library since then? I would have thought Bill Clinton would have added some.

Tim's out at UNH scanning the book in. He'll post back to this group with more information about how the flash-mob will work. He said he'd like to have it up by 5 (EST), which is in about half an hour. I don't know if he'll have it done, but start checking back to this group for further instructions.

>2 clamairy: How long it will take has at least 3 variables
*when we actually start
*how many people participate
*how many of the books are difficult to find

So, for anyone who isn't available till later tonight or even tomorrow, come check the thread and see where we're at. We may still need you!

Well, yes, I think things have definitely been added. But this 1967 list reflects the titles that were put into the library through 1963 by Jackie Kennedy (so far as I could tell by quickly looking at the intro). That was my point in #5 - we have to be sure to note that this is NOT the current or only White House library list, but rather the library at a very specific point in time.

I propose we contact the White House, explain our project, and ask for an updated list of the White House Library:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

I will contact them if no one else wants to do the honors.

I'm available - you picked a good evening for me.

Of course, lilithcat could just blow off that class...

I've never done it before either; will there be instructions? I'd like to join.

Jerry - I think that's a different project (not a bad idea, but a different thing). Tim's point here, as I read it, is to do a LL collection of the WH library as it was put together in the 1960s. Which is not to say that we couldn't do the other as well!

moibibliomaniac

Do it! Ask them! Whether or not the particular catalog we work on tonight includes the later additions, it'd be awesome to know.

I will query the White House, but first I want to see what we'll be cataloging tonight. That way I can give them the LT link to the library.

mibad. I posted from the SamuelJohnsonLibrary page.

I'm in for this FUN. Be sure to specify what we (I) need to do...And agree that it would be great fun to know about all the books in the White House Library. And I really despise conservative bloggers - so this is very happy-making!

I'm back. I'm getting the files up.

Jeremy, have you got the account up?

Username: WHLibrary1963
Password: jackie

Edited username because I made it too long the first time. Doh.

I'm in, just point and we will make it happen.

Okay, the files are:

http://www.librarything.com/pics/blog/whitehouse1.pdf : pages 1-51
http://www.librarything.com/pics/blog/whitehouse2.pdf : pages 50-147
http://www.librarything.com/pics/blog/whitehouse3.pdf : pages 146-219

Please option-click—or whatever it is on your browser—to download them to your computer.

I suggest people post ranges they are going to do. For example, I've got pages 1-10.

Shall we set up a Wiki page for who has what?

Rules (Jeremy, approve and add?):

1. Use the LC as your first option
2. Use other libraries as necessary; avoid Amazon.
3. There shouldn't be any problems, but if you can't get the right edition, tag it "uncertain edition."

Jeremy, shall we do tagging?

Absolutely. I am at your service straight away! Bring on the pages.

Edit : I'll start with pages 146-170, if that suits.

I will get 11-20

Cool! Rules look good - I've removed Amazon from the "Search where?" list for the moment; if we find it absolutely necessary someone can always add it back. I added a bunch of other potential sources, too.

Tagging would be good, but can we maybe get a volunteer or two to concentrate on that and settle on a tag-scheme, so we don't have too many overlapping tags?

I'll write up some profile text from the preface, and then pick a section after that.

I'll start with 50-59.

I'll take 21-30.

I'll do pages 171 to 190. Don't know where the Wiki is, so hope this is an OK spot to state this.

I'll take 31-40

I'll take 41-51.

Watch out for overlap - theophila and cpirmann both have 50-51 at the moment :-)

Also, it may be useful to sign in on two browsers so you can post here and sign in as the WH account to add books!

I shouldn't have answered the phone. Grrr. I'll check in later on and see what's left (if anything). Have fun.

I'll take 60 to 70.

I'm using the tag "wrong edition"
LoC had 1934, list has 1959 for Institutional economics
theophila

Thanks jbd1 -- I will stop at page 49!

I'll be going through and fixing the "wrong edition" tags - feel free to add them (or use the other sources to find the correct edition), but don't be surprised if they disappear :-)

For an update so people don't have to do their own checking.

71-145 and 191 on are available.

I'll take 71-80

I (this is TimSpalding) have 81-90 now.

Wow, this is going to be all finished before I get home tonight! You guys rock!

I think I over-estimated (as in this is taking longer than I thought was possible). I took 171-190. Would like to leave 184-190 for someone else if possible (if not, I will complete).

May I suggest 'pinko' and 'red' as tags?

>41 WHLibrary1963:

I've got a little open doc chart keeping track of claimed pages. I'll just mark 184-190 as available so we're sure someone gets to them.

I'll do 184-190.

Remember, when in doubt, try WorldCat to see where a book is. I'm finding a fair number of the books aren't the first edition. (These are mostly blockbuster books, which got reprinted a lot.) Anyway, I found one only in Australia. I'm irritated by one that I can't find in any LT libray, although if we had Gottingen and Kiel, we'd be good. :)

I'll add 91-100

Stupid question: Which account are we using??

>47 merry10:

Username: WHLibrary1963
Password: jackie

pages 41-49 are complete. Going to take a dinner break, will check back in a while & see if there is still more to do!

Folks, please try to check around a little bit before marking something wrong edition - at least use three of four of the libraries, or use WorldCat to locate the edition. It makes cleanup MUCH faster. Thanks!

(jbd1)

By edition we are talking date of publication and publisher, right? Is there anything extra I should be looking for?

(bokai)

That's right, publication and date
(jbd1)

I'll take 101 -110.

Do we have a deadline? Will I be able to go to bed tonight?

I'm dipping out for the evening (I'm afraid I had other plans before this project appeared :-) - I've tagged the first 500 or so, so feel free to use the scheme to add additional tags. I'll finish cleaning up wrong editions, &c. tomorrow. Have fun all!
(jbd1)

A good quote about LBJ's reading:

"He had no interests, really, except politics. That was his whole life. He was totally committed to it. He never read anything 'cept politics. He didn't care about any sports. He didn't read any books. I don't know of one book he read in all the years I've known him."

John Connally (seen in American Experience, LBJ)"

(timspalding)

By edition we are talking date of publication and publisher, right? Is there anything extra I should be looking for?

Right.

I will sign into LT later tonight, and work for a few hours. It should be around 10 pm in Hawaii (so, 3 am in Portland, Maine). Hopefully there will be work left to do then, because the LT team is always so efficient!

ok. 50-59 done - so to speak. sorry about all the wrong editions - took me a while to figure out the worldcat etc. I added 2 manually, adding no more info than I could get from the list and worldcat.

Those two worldcat could only find in catalogs we can't get.

I'll check in later...if there's work to do when I get off work (1 AM) I'm in!

71-80 are done. I should really get back to doing some work.

Pages 31-40 are done.

OK, I have Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the lowly. Cambridge, Belknap Press, Harvard University. 1962. WorldCat places it in the British Library, but LT can't find it there. Do I enter the WorldCat info manually instead?

Done with 146-170; are 111-145 still unclaimed? I'll take them if so!

(spookykitten)

GAH. I should have logged out. Sorry! (dieing of embarrassment, spookykitten)

I'm going to pick back up at 111-120.

Errr, just saw Tim's message. I'll pick up 121-130 -- Spooky you can take 111-120.

*salute* I'm on it!

(Man, I love data entry.)

(And I'll be more vigilant about logging so I don't inadvertently edit posts again. GAH.)

I (timspalding) will take 131-135, leaving 136-145 for someone else. Anyone?

There must be some sort of universal rule dictating that if there is a hard to find edition of a book it will make its way into these projects.

(bokai)

I'll take 191-200. Just got in, and don't see that they're taken.

phew! That took longer than I thought.
I stopped at the end of page 95, if anyone would like to take 96-100. I'm going to bed but will check in tomorrow morning to see how things are progressing.

21-30 is done.

I'm taking a break at 17 to get some food, but will be back to finish through 20.

At the moment 96-100 136-145 and 201 on still need claiming.

Okay, jjlong's got his, and 96-100 is now unclaimed.

Feel free to add "done" to the Wiki page.

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/WHLibrary1963_page_ranges

Unclaimed now includes:
*96-100 : unclaimed
*136–145 : unclaimed
*201-214 : unclaimed

I will do 96-100.

111-120 - done. Thank you for letting me help! I won't be greedy and take more this time. ;)

Well, it's funny. Sometimes you can run on for three pages with no problem and then WHAM you spend 30 minutes trying to find some library who has some damnable non-edition.

I think a lot of the problems stem from the fact that the books were donated by the publishers, and were all already eminent, popular books. So there's a lot of "fifth imprint of the 1947 edition" stuff—long after the libraries have slaked their thirst on the book. Indeed, that seems to be why some of the obscure foreign libraries are helpful. The LC got the 1947 one. The National Library of Australia waited a few years! ;)

(timspalding)

I'll take page 136. Maybe more, tomorrow.

Okay, you're down for 136.

We're going to try to finish this tonight!

I made it to the bottom of page 107, but I have to get some sleep. If anyone is desperate to do more they can have my last two pages, 108 & 109. Otherwise I'd be more than happy to do them first thing in the morning.

(clamairy)

P.S. Tim, is that your middle finger holding the page open on 108?

Apparently I'm giving the finger to William James.

Damnable machine was impossible to work. I HAD to put my fingers all over everything. So, now the whole world knows I bite my nails.

(timspalding)

PS: I'm writing the blog post now. I'll come back and help some more, but I feel like we need to leave something for the Californians and overseas characters. Surely we'll finish this soon!

I'll try to take on 108 and 109.

Pages 121-130 are complete. And with that, I must go do the work that I've been procrastinating on by participating in this fun little project :-)

11-20 are complete (bokai)

edit: I'll pick up 137- 140

I've "finished" 171 through 183. Still have some that I couldn't find - will finish those up tomorrow. I'm watching the Olympic ice dancing - and since I now am an expat American living in Canada it's pretty exciting. The top slots at this point (and probably as final) are a Canadian team and an American team - and they train together and are good friends. Quite the dances they did.
Anyway - more books tomorrow.

108 and 109 done.

Wow, this is my first attempt to help with a legacy library, and I'm impressed with how hard it is to find the right edition. Frustrating when WorldCat says a library has something and it doesn't look quite right when you search that library!

It's good practice in patience. I have to count down from ten when I'm looking for a 1923 ed. and can only find dozens of 1924s and 1932s. (bokai)

136 done. How are people searching Worldcat? Is it in the list of 600+ libraries, or direct on Worldcat's website?

(Momerath)

Pages 96-100 are done.

I'm using worldcat.org and then narrowing down the edition, but only if my first few searches through library thing doesn't reveal any results. If desperate I use google booksearch too. Once or twice I've found copies of the right edition that have a library stamp on them which directs me to the right library to search. Though I feel as if I'm going very slowly, so there might be a better way. (bokai)

137-140 are done.

Remaining unclaimed:

141-145 : unclaimed
201-214 : unclaimed

I'll do 201-205. Fortunately I don't have to work in the morning and I can hone my night owl skills for some good!

Hey, who's 92?

Sorry, I'm 92, didn't realize I was logged out of my usual account

Pages 60 to 70 are complete. Numerous reprints. I had a lot of manual entries, almost all verified by WorldCat entries. I'd stay longer but I got an appointment in the morning.

I've started a blog post. I'm going to see if Jeremy wants to write it, or change it, or whatever.

Tim

191-200 are done, except for the 1929 edition of Up from Slavery, which WorldCat shows in only 5 libraries, of which the only LT source is the NYPL, which isn't responding right now. Unless you want to add the Marian Central Catholic High School Library, Woodstock, Illinois :)
I'll try that one again in the morning.

California insomniac here -- do you have any unclaimed pages left?

California insomniac here

Music to our ears. Yes, remaining unclaimed:

141-145 : unclaimed
201-214 : unclaimed

We'd love your help!

ok -- I'll take 141-145

ETA: (SilentInAWay)

Duly recorded.

Can someone determine if

91-95 : bell7

was done?

Looks like ccc3579 did 208-210. So, that leaves only four pages unclaimed, and one of them's not even a whole page!

Who wants 211-214?

Take a single page? Half a page?

looks like 91-95 is done, with the exception of the American Notebooks by Nathaniel Hawthorne, on page 93

Hm. Thanks.

Incidentally, someone needs to address the question of copyright. So here's my statement on the matter.

It's unclear if The White House Library: A Short-Title List was intended to be copyrighted or not. It certainly has no copyright mark anywhere in it. At the time of publication, that was necessary to obtain copyright, although it is no longer and, I gather, copyright can be restored to some items that didn't have the necessary marks.

Whether intended or not, it's very questionable if the content can be copyrighted, for multiple reasons:

1. The catalog was commissioned as a government project, and US government work cannot be copyrighted.
2. The catalog is a fact, not an expression. LibraryThing has not copied the particular presentation of the catalog, which might enjoy some meagre protection, but the facts in it—the presence of such-and-such books in a room in the White House. Indeed, we have only used the Title List to create our own catalog (based on equally uncopyrightable catalog records) which is richer and more accurate than the title list's.

I think, however, that we shall be taking the book pages down once the work has been done.

Sheesh, it's like cake—nobody will take the last slice here.

Okay, I'm taking pages 211-212. Someone else has to take the last 1.5 pages!

I'm starting on page 213 now and hope to get through 214.

Okay. That's it.

Update http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/WHLibrary1963_page_ranges as needed. I'm going to bed!

(timspalding)

I've started a topic for discussing what the library "means," as it were: http://www.librarything.com/topic/85462

141-145 are entered -- I'm working on the tags

(SilentInAWay)

213 and 214 are entered. I couldn't always find precise data searching through many, many libraries after searching worldcat, etc. I made notes in the comments when that is the case.

Also, I ran into a few shared works with the user Punch, and had to do a fair amount of separating and combining, because Punch's 1 copy showed multiple editions (ghost copies from edits). In some cases, I can't get the works to re-join (example http://www.librarything.com/work/2550723), which I'll take to combiners if it's not cleared up in a day or two. But I thought Tim might be able to run a clean-up of Punch's data.

After entering tags for 141-145, I went to the tag page and consolidated those tags that only differed by case. This will inevitably have to be done again later as only about a third of the books have tags.

Goodnight.

Anybody who wants to jump in on tagging and/or cleaning up the wrong editions, please feel free ;-) I've got to go to the dentist this morning (blech) so I won't be able to spend much time on it. I've consolidated all the varieties of "wrong edition" into the tag "Wrong Edition" so they're in one place.

Tim in #104 - indeed, I don't think the list itself is copyrightable (it was first published in the NYT), and even the book itself probably isn't covered, but I agree that we ought to take the scans down once we're done.

>101 timspalding: and 103 - whoops, sorry about the missed one...

Just looking at the wiki page, and it appears page 110 fell through the cracks. I'll knock that out now.

#112 - I can drop in and out a few times during the day and add tags.

#86, #87 and others: Yes, it can be very frustrating. How about when you find the correct year and correct city, but the wrong publisher, or the correct publisher, but the previous year?

I started making a game out of it, after I would strike out at LoC. There was one Harvard edition I couldn't find and finally got the idea to check MIT, since they are so close to Boston, and they had it. After that, if LoC didn't have it, I searched a library nearest to the city where the book was published. It didn't always work, but it was much quicker than just working my way down the list.

#114 - Ooops. That was me. Some folks were taking packets that ended in 0s and others that ended in 9s and I mistakenly thought I'd signed on for 100-109. I'll blame the late hour. You sure you don't want me to do it?

I can start from the bottom, and you start from the top.

Okay, I added the last few and 110 is done. Sorry about that.

(clamairy)

Sorry, clamairy. I didn't check back here - I just started. Thanks :)

#118 - We did well. Only one dupe! I deleted the one edited by Willa Cather, as I didn't see that in the description on the PDF page.

Amazingly awesome job, folks! I'm off to the dentist so I'm giving up on tagging for a little while - have at it :-) Tooth-gods willing I'll be back this afternoon for some more editions cleanup and tagging.

Back now. Numbed. Can't eat lunch (but yay for chocolate milkshakes), so I'm going to tag away.

I'm working on the blog post.

Post looks great, Tim - go for it! I'm just about halfway through tagging, but have to go away for a few hours and do work, so anybody with spare time, jump in :-) I've tried to clean up the tags a little so hopefully those that are there now will encompass just about everything else (obviously new ones may need to be added for relevant states, countries, &c.). I realize I'm a little more neurotic about tagging than some, so pardon me on that :-)

There are still about 40 editions-cleanups to wrangle so anybody who wants to tackle those should feel free. I'll try to check back late this evening and see where we're at.

What's your tagging strategy, exactly?

Strategy? Heh. Get everything tagged with a basic subject :-) It's up to the gang though - I just started doing them like I normally would an LL (major subject area or topic, without getting too specific except in really weird cases).

I enjoy viewing covers, and dislike looking at the default covers in this (and other) legacy libraries. I don't think a user-submitted default cover is supported, but if it is, I'd be happy to make one for WHLibrary1963 ...

It would be cool if presidential libraries had one type of cover, the libraries of famous authors had another, etc.

Feel free to switch to a view (such at Style A) that doesn't show covers, if you want (that's what I do). Because I work in the LLs so often, (and thus almost never look at covers), I'm always surprised when I happen upon a view of my own library with covers.

I don't know how an individual default cover for a given LL would work; Tim?

I uploaded a hastily assembled default cover for this legacy library as a cover for this book:

The self-made man in America

Feel free to delete it of course, but I made it just to illustrate the idea. The cover text is at the bottom, so that LT's superimposed text of the book title and author (on default book images) in cover view might not overlap it. Because it's not the default image, though, cover view currently doesn't generate a text title and author.

So, how about a default image for each special library -- or heck, for any user's library?

(edited to make a working hyperlink)