Dear all,

The Compendium of seashells was the first serious worldwide shell book I
had. I got the green, third reprint at considerable expense (well, at
least- for a student) and used it a lot. But names changed, especially at
family and genus level, and species fell into synonymy, and gradually I
began to trust my Compendium less and less, and it started to spend longer
periods on the shelf.

So when the much-heralded 1998 edition came out, I was extremely
disappointed to find that none of the major taxonomic changes since 1985
had been incorporated, and, even worse, the reference list was an exact
reprint of the 1985 edition, completely ignoring all those excellent books
that had been published in the previous 15 years!

Yet, we continue to recommend the book to novice collectors, and then go
crook on them when they use the name Cymatiidae! What do we expect?!

And I am even more disappointed to hear that the planned 2000 reprint will
be just that - a reprint. Apparently only the cover will be changed to
incorporate shells that look more natural than those on the 1998 reprint.

What a shame, what a shame. Again, we are bringing a generation of novices
into the hobby, who will use outdated classification, and will have severe
trouble finding out about recently published books.

We ought to do something about this!

An up-to-date edition of the Compendium should:

1. Use modern classification
2. correct error in previous editions
3. have an updated reference list
4. possibly contain a list of major shell clubs around the world

Think of it. This book is an ambassador for our hobby. It badly needs
updating.

I have about 6 copies left on the shelf. One sustained bumped corners in
the mail. I am willing to sacrifice this copy by starting to write
corrections in it. If we put a few heads together around the world, we
should be able to pull it off.

What do you think? Who can assist?

Patty
WWW: http://www.capricornica.com

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