Wednesday 22 March 2017

Eric, the Manchester Pubs book and the Bodleian Library not forgetting Trinity in Dublin

Now you know you have arrived when you get an email that begins, “on behalf of the Legal Deposit Libraries” with a request to hand over five copies of  one of your books.

The libraries in question are, “the Bodleian Library Oxford University, The Cambridge University Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales and Trinity College Dublin.”

The email continues “in accordance with the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 or the Irish Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, as appropriate, I would like to request that the following title(s) be deposited with ourselves."

The book in question is Manchester Pubs - City Centre : The Stories Behind the Doors which came out in late December.

Like many people I was vaguely aware that a copy of all published books is sent to the British Library and assumed that the others I had written were sitting on a shelf but never realized that another five libraries had a call on what was produced.

Three of the four books were published by commercial publishers and I assume they saw to it that copies made their way to the named five along with the British Library.

But as this one was self published the person from legal Deposit Library came knocking at our door.

On one level it is rather flattering, but I am intrigued to know what an undergraduate visiting Trinity Library or a Latin scholar sitting in the Bodleian will make of Eric’s opinion on the Hare and Hounds in Shudehill or would feel the need to correct Eric’s huge historical mistakes when talking about the Old Wellington in Exchange Square.

But then they might just enjoy reading about the 78 iconic Manchester Pubs and be tempted to go looking for the sequel on Chorlton’s Pubs and Bars due out later this year.

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