Two Books Swapped at Birth

You know how sometimes two babies are swapped in the hospital and each ends up going home with the wrong parents?

I think that this happened to two books, but I've only identified one of them. Can anybody tell me how to find the other?

The book is Measuring Eternity: The Search for the Beginning of Time.

Here is the LoC link: https://www.librarything.com/work/37340.

Here is a more comprehensive record: https://lccn.loc.gov/2001037556/marcxml

You can see there that the book was first submitted to LoC in 2001. Then in 2003 it was resubmitted, with a new, sensible LoC#. The original number was not only wrong as to subject designation, but the Cutter number was wrong as well; it does not encode the author's last name correctly.

My theory is that this book was swapped by the publisher with another book and that book was also originally sent to the LoC with incorrect info. I'm trying to find the other book, but the publisher is, like most publishers, completely unresponsive.

I also asked the libraries of Massachusetts to fix their records. All the academic libraries did so, but all the public ones didn't.

So, I want help finding out what the other book was, and help getting libraries to fix their records, so that this book gets the correct LoC or Dewey # as the case might be.

I would welcome suggestions, thanks.

It is quite normal for there to be US and UK editions of the same book, often with rather different titles, and for other editions (paperback) to come out a year or two later. It is also very normal for different libraries to give different call numbers for the same book. This shows quite normal variation.

You give a touvhstone. Then a link to the LT work (not LoC). The next link doesn't give me anything I can deal with. I have no idea what problem you think you see.

I have combined this work with the UK edition.
Aeons: The Search for the Beginning of Time

I've pasted the relevant part of the MarcXML link, since you are unable to view it in your browser.


01349cam a22002894a 4500
12435116
20130828124151.0
010608s2001 nyua b 001 0 eng

7
cbc
orignew
1
ocip
20
y-gencatlg


Acquire
2 shelf copies
policy default



to SSCD pc22 06-08-01; sh17 06-11-01 CIP held for pub. info; sh27 06-18-01; sh43 to Dewey 06-18-01; aa11 06-20-01

ps11 2001-11-23 bk rec'd, to CIP ver.
sh16 2001-11-28
sh16 2001-11-28 to BCCD;
Copy 2 to BCCD SA55 2002-03-19
tp02 2003-05-28 reclassed from BD638.G64 2001
aa07 2003-05-29 reclassed


You are telling me that most books get "reclassed" by the publisher 2 years after they are submitted and that most books are classified with an incorrect Cutter number to begin with?

I myself think that must be a very unusual circumstance.

And here is the LoC link: https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=Measuring+Eternity+gorst&sear...

Oh, and a related question. Does anybody have any idea when it will be possible to look up book classifications in the British Library? Since it was hacked that seems to be impossible.

I would like to look up the original classification of "Aeons" in the UK, to see what number it was assigned.

>5 themulhern:

If you’d looked at their website, you would have found the following: We're continuing to experience a major technology outage as a result of a cyber-attack. Our buildings are open as usual, however, the outage is still affecting our website, online systems and services, as well as some onsite services.

>5 themulhern: You can access a pre-April 2023 interim version of the catalog here:

https://bll01.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44BL_INST:BLL01&l...

I don’t know how the info in this catalog compares to what was available before the hack.

You can follow news about the restoration of services on their blog here:

https://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2024/10/restoring-our-services-10-october-2...

>6 lilithcat: I've been looking at their website for months. I know they were hacked. I knew it at the time. I am waiting for them to recover...

>7 Charon07: Thanks!

>7 Charon07: Actually, there is something missing from that catalogue that I thought would be available: the classification information that is available from the LoC. If you get a book manufactured in the UK it will have some line about how cataloging information is available from the British Library in the front matter where the copyright info and so forth are. Unfortunately, by the time I got to understand that this custom existed, the British Library had already been hacked. So, at this point, I don't know if the info that I got from the link you provided is all the British Library has ever been able to provide, making their website really inferior to that of the LoC, or if the inadequacies of their backup website are a consequence of the hacking. I guess I won't know until they claim that they are fully restored.