Trussell’s Books and Book Collecting Site, and EcletiCity

I’ve been invited to talk a little about my website, Books and Book Collecting, which you may be familiar with. It’s probably mostly used by people searching for out-of-print books… there’s a collection of search engines and a hodge-podge of information about, as you might expect, books and book collecting. The site has been up on the net since September of 1996, and so is a relative old-timer. It dates back to a time when there was no Google, no eBay, and online book searchers were using Interloc and BiblioFind— names which have somewhat faded from memory.

The internet wasn’t as popular then, and people didn’t seem to be as familiar with searching as they are today. I’d been a book collector for most of my life, but as I started to put together a set of “tools” to locate the books I was looking for, I began to learn more and more about both books and collecting. I became more professional, learned about edition identification, dust-jacket condition, and book club editions. I discovered news groups and mail lists, search engines and techniques, the details of book sizes and specialized vocabulary, more and more.

I’d just been starting up my web site, Trussel’s EcletiCity, to publish my various interests, and so it seemed natural to put up my “tool box” for book collecting, so that others could use it too. Well, of course, the more successful I got at collecting — using these tools — the more excited I got about the Books and Book Collecting site, and so I spent a lot of time working on it and making it more and more useful… and I hope that it still is.

But now, to some extent, times have changed, and users and search engines have gotten more sophisticated, the web grew, on-line book-dealing turned the used-book industry upside-down, and, somehow, Books and Book Collecting is still around. A few years back I made a little search engine, BookSeek, to index the online book catalogs that weren’t listed with ABE or the “biggies,” but now there doesn’t seem to be as much meaning in it. For a number of years SetMaker has filled a little niche, helping people finish off sets with missing volumes, but now I have trouble keeping up the energy to maintain it…

Trussel’s EclectiCity is my hobby, and takes up most of my free time. There are so many nooks and crannies, and my interest moves from one section to another, but undoubtedly the largest single theme is literature, with sites on Lafcadio Hearn, Howard Fast, Georges Simenon’s Maigret, Prehistoric Fiction, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Og, Son of Fire…

My guiding philosophy has been to provide detailed information in small areas, and I’ve had a love of bibliography for almost as long as my love of books. One of my collecting areas isHoward Fast, and I created a website focusing on his works. I used my “toolbox” to locate long out-of-print magazines with stories and articles which had never been reprinted, and created a site which provided access to “new” stories – stories which wouldn’t be easily found in a library… Bibliographies formed the center for many of my other literary sites.

I found other collections around the house, stamps for one, and I thought, “Why hide them in a closet, when I can display them to the world?” And so my stamp pages were born. My students’ prize-winning speeches became another page, my interest in Ukiyo-e another… I kept discovering areas of my life that were no longer in the foreground, but which had consumed enough of my energy to result in something to show… and so, more pages.

The site has grown very large, and this past year the page that has captured my interest most is Inspector Maigret – perhaps because this year is the Simenon birth centennial year. But one of my all-time favorites is Og, Son of Fire. Og is an offshoot of my Prehistoric Fiction page, and it was originally almost impossible for me to locate any copies of any of the volumes of this “classic” prehistoric boy series. But as I did, and was able to dig deeper and deeper, locating the original Boys’ Life magazines in which the volumes had first been serialized, well… another page was born.

I could go on and on with this, but a picture is, in fact worth a thousand words in this case, and so I simply suggest you visit EclectiCity for yourself, and share some of my world. Thanks for stopping by.

By: Steve Trussell steve@trussel.com

Editor’s Note: Steve is too modest. His Books and Book Collecting site is almost the ‘bible’ of book sites-always has been and I suspect always will be.

#collecting

Nevermore – How it Started

Nevermore is a new line of signed limited editions published by Festa Publishing. It will contain books in German language that may be interesting for foreign collectors, too. Why? I will tell a little later.

It all started some years ago, in 2000. As a member of a German Science Fiction organization in Leipzig in the eastern part of Germany (former GDR), we organized our fifth convention “Elstercon.” The theme was “Of Coming Horrors” and we were interested in connections between Horror Fiction and Science Fiction. We did a great conbook, 350 pages, hardcover with lots of stories by our guests and a breathtaking cover, which sometimes fills me with real horror (have a look at it and don’t forget, it was done in 2000!). I was responsible for inviting guests and, with George R. R. Martin, Michael Bishop and Michael Marshall Smith, we had really great names. But of course as German authors should take part, too, we thought about who would match our theme. So we invited Frank Festa, a well-known German author who not only wrote some really weird stories but started to publish books in his own small press, Edition Metzengerstein. Some of the best works by famous authors of the genre were brought out here, like Ramsey Campbell, Brian Hodge, Dan Simmons and more. Frank was a very friendly and competent man and we stayed in contact.

Later Frank founded his own publishing house, Festa Verlag (http://www.festa-verlag.de), and now he’s one of the biggest publishing houses of fantastic literature–often called “The House of Horror.” Most of his books are published in paperback; hardbacks don’t sell very well in Germany for SF and Horror and don’t have a big tradition, at least in the FRG (in the GDR most books were hardbacks).

I like to collect finely done books and so I started to buy from Cemetery Dance, Subterranean Press and others although I needed to read them in English. There are only a handful of small presses for signed editions in Germany; the most famous may be Edition Phantasia.

When Frank and I talked on the phone about this, the idea of Nevermore was born. The concept should be: really good stories (collections don’t sell very well here, either) in beautiful illustrated editions, signed by all contributors. Soon we had the contents for the first book.

Punktown is the name of a dark strange city on the planet Oasis in a far future, often compared to Philip K. Dick’s Blade RunnerWorld. The stories are masterfully written and show the author’s heart and eye for human beings and their problems. We contacted author Jeffrey Thomas, an extremely kind man, and soon the contract was signed. The next question: How to illustrate a dark feverish city with humans, machines and aliens in symbiosis? Of course there is only one answer: H. R. Giger! The Swiss artist who created the film Alien and other wonderful pieces of art would be a hit. And the wonder happened– Frank Festa knows Giger, and he allowed us the use of one of his New York City paintings for the book cover and more for inside.

YES, AND HE WILL SIGN ALL 333 COPIES OF THE BOOK!!!

Please have a look at auctions or shops and see what you have to pay for a signed- by- Giger item. Our book will cost only Euro 39.00 (about US $45.00)! And that’s not all! We asked the great English writer Michael Marshall Smith to contribute, and he really did a beautiful special foreword to the book. And he will sign it, too. It was a dream coming true.

And number two will be as great as the first: Kim Newmans Seven Stars, a haunting story about a cursed jewel with mummies, murder, occult sects and more, is breathtaking adventure for all readers who loved Kim’s Anno Dracula. The Foreword will be by vampire lady P. N. Elrod, the art by Ugurcan Yüce.

We did a special website for Nevermore under http://www.festa-verlag.de/nevermore/index.html where you can find more information, or you could write me an e-mail to Dirk-Berger@gmx.de.

Next week we (Frank and I) will travel to Switzerland to meet Giger in person and to let him sign the signature sheets. He told us that he will show us his Museum he built up in an old castle with his collection of worldwide art and, of course, of his own works and then I will maybe know what the feeling it is to hold an Oscar/Academy Award (he got one for Alien). I’m afraid I will not sleep until then.

#publishers

The Supreme Court Upholds the Children’s Internet Protection Act

On June 23, 2003, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in United States v. American Library Association. The decision upheld the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) against a challenge based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Inasmuch as the law at issue in the case involved a requirement that libraries install filtering software to block obscene or pornographic material involving children, it was bound to be of interest, to say the least, to those who sell books and who have a very soft spot in their hearts for libraries.

On one of the book related discussion lists on the Internet, the comments were critical of the decision, and asserted the view that this decision represented a significant assault on First Amendment values. A representative comment went something like this: …I just want to underscore that the US Supreme Court decision means that libraries are being forced to impose automated censorship tools upon adult patrons.

I responded with the statement that, as I understood the decision, which I had not yet read, this was not true. The editor of this newsletter asked if I would like to expand on my response, and I said that I would. I hope this isn’t too expansive. She asked, I suppose, because I have a law degree. Although I am blessedly free of the practice of law and now sell books, I once practiced law, and spent considerable time working in a partisan legislative advisory position, and also was a law clerk for a federal judge. I can still read a Supreme Court decision and figure out what it means.

I. The Law.

There are a couple of federal programs on the books which were designed to provide resources for libraries to offer their patrons access to the internet. The details of these programs aren’t particularly important to this discussion, but that fact is necessary background. The value of those resources amounted to about $200 million in 2002 (counting direct grants, and discounted access fees).

In response to the growth of the internet in the years since these programs were instituted, Congress (and everybody else who connects to the Internet) became aware that there was significant pornographic content to be had on the web. And Congress became politically aware (angry constituents, I’d imagine) that it was accessible to children, and viewable by children while being accessed by adults, all within public libraries. They responded by passing the CIPA, which required the installation of filtering software to block access to such material.

It is important to note that this law applied only to libraries that received funds or benefits from those federal programs. It is also a given that Congress is given wide latitude to attach conditions to the receipt of federal funds. However, the American Library Association (ALA) and several other plaintiffs filed suit contending that CIPA was unconstitutional on its face.

II. The Trial.

A three judge panel in the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania agreed. It held that “any public library that complies with CIPA’s conditions will necessarily violate the First Amendment.” It is important to realize that this decision turned on the notion that the law was unconstitutional only because it forced the libraries to commit an unconstitutional act. In other words, a library governed or operated by a public entity – a state or local government or public school – could not, on its own, install filtering software without running afoul of the First Amendment. According to the District Court, libraries’ content-based decisions are subject to a “rational basis” test. However, because internet access was used in public libraries for “expressive activity,” it should be viewed as a “traditional public forum,” and as such, the law should be subjected to strict scrutiny. Under that standard, the Court concluded that while the government may have a compelling interest in preventing the subsidization of pornography, the software filters required by CIPA are not narrowly focused enough, presumably because the filters are hardly a precise weapon. No one reading this will be surprised that it was generally conceded by all the justices that the filters blocked a lot of unobjectionable material.

III. The Decision.

The Supreme Court’s decision overturning this decision is complex in that the decision of the Court was joined by only four justices (Renquist who wrote it, joined by O’Connor, Scalia and Thomas). That’s called a plurality opinion. Justice Kennedy concurred, as did Breyer, but each wrote a separate opinion. Stephens dissented with an opinion of his own, and Souter also dissented in an opinion joined by Ginsberg. Generally, a plurality opinion does not provide a particularly strong precedent, and the concurring opinions which establish the majority are significant in that they are usually more narrowly focused and provide a more compelling basis for decisions which follow. However, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to the opinions in the decision as the “majority,” to include the plurality opinion as well as the concurring opinions, and the “dissenters,” to include each of those opinions, unless context requires otherwise.

The majority, and more pointedly, the concurring opinions, notes as crucial the fact that CIPA permits libraries to disable the filtering software in response to the request of an adult, or presumably a child when the software is blocking material that would be appropriate for the child. In fact, Kennedy’s decision intimates that he reads the law as requiring that action, and that the provision is constitutionally required.

As to the determination of which test to use to adjudicate this law (which I would suggest will almost always dictate the result), the majority (except Breyer) adopted the more permissive rational basis test. Breyer would have imposed an intermediate standard – “heightened scrutiny” – which requires a balancing of the government’s interest and the seriousness of the speech related activity. The balance, in Breyer’s opinion, tipped in favor of the government by virtue of the simplicity of getting the library to shut off the filters for adults.

The other members of the majority found the rational basis test appropriate, rejecting the trial court’s opinion to the contrary. The justices reasoned that the public forum doctrine that formed the basis of the trial court’s opinion was inapplicable because the provision of internet access to the public was simply not like the precedents that applied it. The easiest of those to understand is a couple of cases concerning restrictions on the use of student activity funds. The Court had held that such funds were designed and intended for providing the means to engender speech related activities. Under those circumstances, content-based regulations were subject to strict scrutiny. But libraries make content based decisions every day in choosing which materials to buy, and perhaps more importantly, which materials to segregate from easy public access. After all, the Court said, many libraries simply decline to stock pornography at all. Such decisions by libraries are not subjected to strict scrutiny according to well established precedent. The fact that the internet contains an especially broad range of information shouldn’t make any difference because it could hardly be suggested that libraries could not choose to limit access to some material on the same basis they do with respect to books, periodicals, or any other material they provide.

The dissents concentrated on the factual record, which discussed how poorly the filters performed, blocking perfectly harmless material (and valuable material as well), and failing to block pornographic material. This fact was as important to the dissents as the ease of having the filters turned off for adults was to the majority. It was this problem that made the CIPA unconstitutional in the view of the dissenters. Representative is the following from the Stevens dissent:

Because of “underblocking,” the statute will provide parents with a false sense of security without really solving the problem that motivated its enactment. . . . The effect of over-blocking is the functional equivalent of a host of individual decisions excluding hundreds of thousands of individual constitutionally protected messages from internet terminals located in public libraries throughout the nation.

Stevens also quoted the trial court’s finding that there were less intrusive alternatives to accomplish the purpose including imposition of access regulations and punishments for those who violate them; requiring parental consent during unfiltered access or the presence of library staff.

Conclusion.

It is curious that the more conservative justices in the majority based their opinions on the freedom regularly accorded libraries. In the posture of this case, the deference traditionally shown libraries in their choice of materials determined the loss of the suit brought by the ALA. Since libraries could most certainly install filtering software on their own without Constitutional problem, it can hardly be unconstitutional for the Congress to condition receipt of federal funds on doing just that.

The answer to the assertion cited at the beginning of this essay is certainly that the assumption forming the criticism of the decision was incorrect. There is plenty of room for argument on the wisdom of the CIPA. Nevertheless it is hard to see how it runs afoul of the Constitution. The language of the law itself leaves no doubt that adult access must be unfiltered if requested.

Those of us who spend time on the Internet are well aware of both how prevalent pornography is and how imprecise filtering software is. But I can’t help but wonder about both the efficacy and the appeal of the “less intrusive” ways of accomplishing a legitimate governmental purpose. Punishment for accessing forbidden materials and requiring parental presence or consent – these are hardly unobtrusive. It seems to me that they’re pretty heavy-handed.

There was certainly much more to the various opinions in this case. It runs about fifty single-spaced pages. I hope that I’ve covered the important points, but I would suggest that anyone interested give it a read. By: Don Gallagher gallabks@dimensional.com