Outofprintmath (was: Re: Rudin and Dedekind cuts)

In article <0ggra45d7e4nsvgfue3tq2v5ka2as32ai9@4ax.com>,
Angus Rodgers <twirlip@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:17:18 -0700 (PDT), MoeBlee
>>How does that work? How do I nominate a book?
>
><http://outofprintmath.blogspot.com>
>
>It's big and clunky and slow, and causes my creaky old Win98SE system
>to fall over gasping, but it works - although I'm afraid I've no idea
>how much attention it will get from people who matter - I only know
>about it from that sci.math thread a month ago.

I can speak to this, since the site was originally my idea (though Klaus
Schmid did all the work implementing it).

Since the site is new, the most urgent task in my mind is to try to make
sure more people know about it. I advertised it on Terry Tao's blog, as
well as on USENET, and have mentioned its existence to many mathematicians
that I know personally. I have some contacts at the American Mathematical
Society and at Dover Press and have mentioned it to them, so they're at
least aware of it, although it's not clear how much credence they will
give it. I have also written a letter to the editor of the Notices of the
American Mathematical Society about the site, and was informed that my
letter should appear in the November 2008 issue. A colleague of mine told
me that a blurb showed up on the Slashdot Firehose, although I don't think
it made it to Slashdot itself.

Ultimately I think it would be better if a big bookselling or booksearch
company incorporates the feature seamlessly into their site. There's at
least one person at each of Google Books, Bookfinder.com, Fetchbook.info,
and Booksprice.com who knows about Schmid's site. Whether they pick up
the idea remains to be seen.

>>And is there a realistic chance that if I nominate a book it will become
>>available?
[...]
>I've also often wondered if it's worth writing to Dover Publications
>to suggest books for reprinting, but I fear they would only seriously
>take note of suggestions from university teachers. Does anyone know?

I can tell you my experience. I've written both to the AMS and to Dover
with book suggestions. Dover gets lots of book suggestions and does pay
attention to them, although they won't necessarily reply to your email
unless they decide they want to go ahead with the book. The AMS gets
less traffic and will be more likely to reply. In both cases I have
successfully lobbied to get a book back into print.

I think their chances of paying attention to your email have less to
do with your social status than with the strength of the case you make
that the book is in demand. That's where the outofprintmath website
can come in. By posting a suggestion and collecting votes, you can see
whether other people are interested in the same book, and use that as
ammunition to make your case. Other evidence you can use includes the
price of the book on the used-book market and the Amazon sales rank of
similar books in the field (to demonstrate that it is an active area).
Anecdotal evidence is also of value to supplement your case.

Besides getting the AMS or Dover or whoever interested, though, there is
another issue, which is copyright. One needs to track down the copyright
holder, which is not always easy to do. Typically it is the most recent
publisher of the book, but sometimes that publisher no longer exists
because it has been acquired by someone else. Sometimes it is the author
who holds the copyright; publishers often (though not always) are willing
to return the copyright of an out-of-print book to the author. Now, Dover
might chase down the copyright if they are interested enough, but you
increase the chances if you do the work for them by making inquiries.

Here's a specific example. I saw that Cassels and Frohlich was the
"most-wanted" book on outofprintmath, so I decided I would try to do
something to get it back into print. Academic Press was the publisher,
but a colleague of mine told me that he contacted Academic Press back
in 1998 and was told that the copyright had reverted to the London
Mathematical Society. He wrote to the LMS back then but didn't get a
reply. So I wrote to the LMS again, and got a response. I am now in
communication with the LMS and trying to get a publisher interested.

By the way, when I say "publisher," I don't necessarily mean a traditional
publisher. One route to consider is to encourage the author to secure the
copyright and make the book available as a print-on-demand item on a site
like lulu.com.

Of course if you don't want to do all this work then you can just cast
your votes and make your suggestions on outofprintmath and hope for the
best. You'll improve the odds greatly, though, if you take matters into
your own hands, using the website as just one tool.
--
Tim Chow tchow-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu
The range of our projectiles---even ... the artillery---however great, will
never exceed four of those miles of which as many thousand separate us from
the center of the earth. ---Galileo, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences

On Aug 21, 6:54*pm, tc...@lsa.umich.edu wrote

a generous and interesting post.

Thanks, Tim, for that post, and for your project.

MoeBlee