
'I really want to find it before I die': why are we so fascinated by lost books? - Petiver
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/05/i-really-want-to-find-it-before-i-die-why-are-we-so-fascinated-by-lost-books
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ctdonath
My library correlates to my self. Most of the books therein either molded me,
or were chosen because of how I was molded; it's a reflection of who I am.
Already aware of how short my life can/may be (and even if long-lived), it can
outlast me as a guide to my children as to who, deeply, their father is/was.
Missing books means a piece of me is missing, that they will miss.

~~~
52-6F-62
I’ve always felt a little the same way. Having started out in literature
studies I’ve accumulated a bit of a collection.

Some of what I own correlate to me at different times in my life. Others are
references to subjects that do not at all line up with my morals, thinking, or
lifestyle— I keep them for the point of knowledge about something a little
more foreign to me— including even some pseudoscience and occult / pop-occult
works.

I have to sheepishly admit that I sometimes entertain the thought that I might
be one of a selection of people who in the future might be last remaining
protectorates of such libraries should the world ever turn on our public
physical archives. It’s lofty, probably naive, and pretty silly but I still
feel better having them line my wall than I would feel without them. Moving is
a bit of a bitch, though.

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btrettel
Lost academic papers are more interesting to me, probably because I am an
engineer and the papers I want have practical utliity to me.

One instance where I got lucky was tracking down a 1946 conference paper by
famous turbulence researcher J. O. Hinze. The conference proceedings were
unfortunately never published. After a lot of asking around Shell, where Hinze
worked at the time, provided me with a copy. The paper was less interesting
than tracking it down was, but still important enough to cite in my
dissertation.

There's a more well cited paper at the same conference by G. Darrieus that my
brother found with similar methods.

~~~
jacquesm
Is there a point in citing a paper that readers can not find for themselves?

~~~
gms7777
Purely from principles, one might consider it important to credit people for
the ideas that they contributed.

From a practical sense, it gives readers a way to find it for themselves --
contact the author that cited it.

~~~
jacquesm
> Purely from principles, one might consider it important to credit people for
> the ideas that they contributed.

That makes good sense.

> From a practical sense, it gives readers a way to find it for themselves --
> contact the author that cited it.

Right, but in the case of a paper this old the author is most likely dead or
extremely hard to reach. Maybe a standard part of any paper citing other
papers should be a reference to an archived copy of the papers cited?

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pmoriarty
The Library of Alexandria, the greatest library in antiquity, which by some
estimates contained half a million scrolls, was destroyed.

The Catholic Church was responsible for the destruction of many writings they
found to be somehow objectionable.

Almost all the great authors we know of from the ancient world had writings
that were lost, and for some authors all we have are legends of how great
their work was. Those are the ones I'd most be interested to find.

~~~
tenpies
This list is always quite depressing:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries)

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userbinator
If you do happen to find an old lost book, archive.org would be a great place
to upload a copy. There are lots of interesting books I've found there.

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ggm
I lost my 'rationalist press' copy of Joseph McCabe's book "ten years in a
monastery" in the UK, in the 1980s.

I found an identical copy (same emprint, same binding) in a bookshop in
Dunedin around 2002/3.

Never give up looking.

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JoeDaDude
One of the best stories on finding of lost books are those of the people who
went searching for ancient bibles and apocrypha. What they found shed an
unexpected light on the history of the religion. I recommend the Smithsonian
documentary on the subject [1]

[1] [https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/bible-
hunters/10033...](https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/bible-
hunters/1003347)

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DamonHD
Not all of us are, I suggest.

~~~
rovek
My reaction too, and quite a visceral one. Does this kind of lazy projection
actually work to make people care about whatever journalists feel like writing
about?

~~~
benbreen
I didn’t realize this before I wrote some freelance journalism myself, but the
author of a piece almost never writes the headline. It just seems to accrue
one in the editorial process after you submit your draft, and you often don’t
know what it’s called until you read the published version yourself. So
criticizing a journalist for their headline is criticizing them for something
they very likely had no part in.

~~~
mindcrime
Same here... I've done some writing for Infoworld and I was typically not the
one who decided the (final) title. I would, of course, send along my working
title, but it quite often got changed or outright replaced.

As far as I know the editor, or somebody, edits the title to be as appealing /
click-worthy as possible.

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Arubis
I can live without finding a lost book. But yes, the concept does have a hook
to it, especially in this age of everything remembered: to have lost ancient
knowledge is like a little bit of collective brain damage.

[edit: fixed typo.]

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empressplay
Uh, no.

