WHAT TO CALL PEOPLE WHO MUTILATE COIN CATALOGUES Pubblico Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 9, Number 30, July 23, 2006, Article 22
WHAT TO CALL PEOPLE WHO MUTILATE COIN CATALOGUES
Last week Fred Lake asked: "Is someone who cuts pictures from a
coin catalog a "bibliocast" or a "biblioclast?" I have heard both
used. I like biblioclast as in "iconoclast." I'm looking forward
to hearing from all of your correspondents."Alan Luedeking writes: "I call them idiots."
Howard A. Daniel III writes: "The item from Fred Lake about
mutilating coin catalogs brought back a bad memory for me.After I retired (for the first time) from the Army in early 1981,
I immediately went to the Library of Congress (LOC) on my first
civilian Saturday morning. I walked around the central area and
slowly found my way to the South Asia section, which has the Southeast
Asia publications under it.I found a small group of men working on cataloging stacks of books
from "my" part of the world and greeted them. They were somewhat
indifferent to me but courteous. I explained to them that I want
to start looking for every book in the LOC with anything to do with
Southeast Asian numismatics. Some eyes started rolling, and one
of them directed me to the index card file.As I found something of interest, I submitted my request form(s)
at a central desk, and about 30 minutes later, they arrived at the
desk and I was paged. I went through them at a public table, and
photocopied the pages.After a few Saturdays, I realized not every reference was in the
index cards. At about the same time, one of the men in the South
Asia section, realized I was serious, and offered me a researcher's
desk and shelving in a research room. I could keep my references
until I was through with them instead of returning them at the end
of my Saturday of research, even when I was not through with them!
This really sped up my research!After a couple of more Saturdays, I was presented with a stacks
pass, and I could go into the library and search for the references
myself! This was like a pass to heaven!!! I started at A and
worked to Z! It only took about two years, and I came out with a
little over 5000 photocopied pages. This was a time of 5 Cents
per page, and not the higher prices of today! I have tried to
replace every photocopied page with the original and I have been
about 70% successful.It was a great time, but one of my nightmares was coming across
references with the plate pages VERY nicely cut out with a razor
blade! It made me sick enough to know someone destroyed a
reference book, but it was also not theirs and it was preventing
future researchers the use of the plates!I pointed them out to my mentor, and he did some research and he
found one name was common for all of the mutilated references!
And I knew him, and I knew him to be a jerk too. His name was
put on their list of people banned from using the library. I do
not know if he returned to the LOC, but if so, I would have loved
to have seen his face when he was thrown out of the place!My mentor was and is Dr. Will Tuchrello. He is now the head of
the Southeast Asia office in Jakarta, Indonesia. His wife Anita
Hibler is also a friend and recently published a book about Siam's
(Thailand's) offer of elephants to President Lincoln for the Civil
War."- 2006-07-23
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