Chapter 107 Research, Research, Research

Research is all I did all day long today. I have a few special items I’m planning to bring to the book fair next weekend, and I want to include descriptions with each. I like to have printed descriptions next to the items I place in my glass display case and for items over $100. And, yes, writing these descriptions allows me to list any books not sold at the fair on my website immediately when I return home.

I invested a good deal of my book money in reference books in 2007, occasionally against my better judgment, as purchasing reference books sometimes meant not much money was left to buy books to offer for sale. Today, that investment began to pay for itself. Among a few of the references I used today:

Carter’s ABC For Book Collectors (good for looking up things like the difference between a joint and a hinge and unopened vs. uncut pages)
American Book Prices Current – CD-ROM version (shows past 30 years of book auction records)
Sabin’s Dictionary of Books Relating to America
The Streeter Catalogues
The Eberstadt Catalogues of Americana
Storm’s A Catalogue of the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana
Cowan’s A Bibliography of the History of California
Adams’s Six Guns and Saddle Leather
Wagner/Camp/Becker’s The Plains and the Rockies: A Bibliography
Howes’s USiana, 2nd edition
Notable American Women
Scharnhorst’s Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Bibliography

I was so happy to have these resources at my fingertips. I didn’t find the information I was seeking in every case, but in many cases I did. It was very satisfying indeed.

See you in the stacks!