In this, the second article in a series, I continue to gather together titles in the category of older and hard-to-find books, for your research assistance in finding them, and ultimately, for your reading pleasure. As in the first such Older Books article, published 05/27/04, I offer titles that were originally published prior to the now common practice of establishing ISBN numbers. It should be noted that occasionally, such titles are later given ISBN designations, which makes the finding of these books much easier. My first article has already been updated with an ISBN that was later found for one of the cited titles.
Only after a title is given an ISBN is it easily located by some search engines. Searches conducted on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, for example, are tremendously facilitated if you list the ISBN. Occasionally, a search in which you specify both title and author, may turn up no results. But if you then search again, using only the ISBN, you get the exact book you have just searched for in vain, citing both the author and title. Unfortunately, it just works that way sometimes, and it proves just how valuable and important as a search term, the ISBN has become.
This second article in the series on older books, and those to follow under similar titles, will present a listing in no particular order, of some of these fine older works. To locate them you may wish to consult some of the sources I have listed in the first Older Books article. Another excellent resource is the introductory article on Rare Books on the Web, by Albert Masters, which covers basic search techniques and sources for finding rare and out of print books. Also see the article by Jennifer Wickes, which deals with another very helpful list of sources for locating hard-to-find books. Her focus is on cookbooks, but her sources are appropriate for a much wider range of subjects, at Hard-to-find Cookbooks.
To date, there remains no way to post pre-ISBN books to the normal My Recommended Books section of this Website. Hence, there is a continuing need to periodically offer these lists of "problem books." Please note that in these listings, where ISBNs are unavailable, a Library of Congress Card Catalog Number (LCCN) is given for your reference, as well as other descriptors for your library searches.
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