how many books are lost forever?

Is it possible, using careful scrutiny of publishers weekly and other zines, to determine the titles, author, et al of books that no longer exist almost anywhere? Has anyone, anywhere, tried to do this by year, decade, or other methodology?

I'm more than curious. I am part of a small press and am looking for quality material to republish that seems to have been ignored by most, if not all.

Well, your method sounds like it could be very time-consuming and tedious. (Got any unpaid interns?) R.R. Bowker used to have something called "Books out of Print," but I just checked their website and the link booksoutofprint.com goes to a page called booksinprint.com. So I dunno. Perhaps a better way would be to talk with librarians, literature and creative writing faculty, and others of that ilk to discover the forgotten gems. Quite often you'll find some now-obscure authors described as "writer's writers," and their books seem to be good candidates for reprint. Cases in point: everything by Richard Yates, Stoner by John Williams, The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant. Good luck!

If you want book recommendations that are out-of-print, I'm sure people could give you recommendations. :D

I know I could for fiction, if nothing else.

Have you checked out the group: Reprint Please!

Link:
http://www.librarything.com/groups/reprintplease

Need the works be public domain?

And I know that the folks over at Readerville tend to have some very strong opinions about works that they feel it's pretty much criminal to allow be out of print. You may want to re-ask the question there.

many thanks for the answers, guys. tis appreciated, especially the readerville thingie.

The Book of Lost Books by Stuart Kelly is a list of known books that are gone, probably forever.

The LOC (Library of Congress) might be your best place to ask that question. I compose research lists, which also might have websites that could help you answer that question. It also might be useful for you to pick a time limit; i.e., are you asking as far back as the Alexandrian Library,
circa 300 B.C.? I'd also like to see the answer to your question myself. JK

I'm retired from Professional Research. Not just at IBM, but in Adademic Research and Educational Research as well, and I would have to say "no". I don;t think that anyone has done that yet. However, you might find something like that, having been done, by exploring the websites on my Academic Research List http://sdrv.ms/R4hwOv . I make Jae Kamel's Urls (JKU) with my partner.

That Book Of Lost Books is one of the best lists of such things.

I think that the reason there aren't lists of Out-of-Print Books is because, aside from the difficulty assembling such a list and keeping it up-to-date, they aren't all that useful any more.

For instance, the real question the OP wants answered is what books of quality (as they define it) are available for reprint. That means that they have to determine not so much whether the book is in print but whether the book is still under copyright, where it is under copyright, who is the copyright holder and does the copyright holder want it reprinted. That's a lot more complicated than whether the book is in print. There are a lot of books that aren't currently being published, where there is a publisher who has exclusive reprint rights and the author can't do anything about getting the book into print.

I hope that you're successful at getting things you like back in print, even if it's only in download form. It's a noble, if somewhat daunting, task.

Evidently Readerville is dead