Dear Conch-Lers,

I have once ordered a "facsimile" of:

Clark, H.L. (1946). The echinoderm fauna of Australia: its composition and its origin. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication, 566. Carnegie Institution Washington: Washington DC, USA. 1-567 pp.

The company (will not mention their name as I presume they all have about the same service) stated that it would be an exact replica of the original, but what I received was a cheap binding of print-outs, apparently originating from pdf-files, based on scans. The scans weren't even taken straight, as some of the pages are inclined in an angle of about 10 to 15°. And we had to pay US $ 65 (including shipping)!

Conclusion: you get better material when you go out to the library and take the time to copy the whole book you need yourself!!

I do hope though that someone has had better experiences since with Books-on-Demand services, as it is a very valuable resource, if properly managed!

best regards,

Jan Haspeslagh

------------------------
 Conchologists of America List <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
------------------------

>I noticed that a firm called "Alibris" (and another one named "AstroLogos
>Books") offers print on demand black and white facsimiles of original old
>books, including several conchological publications. They state that "charts
>and graphics may be obscured or resized to fit pages". Obviously this is an
>attractive option only with b/w books without visuals, and not too many
>pages. For instance, Abbott's "American Seashells 2nd edition" is not the
>right choice here, but Anton's "Verzeichnis der Conchylien" probably is
>(they actually offer it for $39.05 - and $10 more for additional buckram
>binding nothing mentioned about additional shipping costs).
>My question is, has anyone actually tried this option, and are the results
>satisfying, or should we ignore it for some reason?
>