Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Hugo Perquy book

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Posted by Michael Cleveland (Member # 10931) on 07-13-2019, 12:23 AM:

Did anyone here know or know of Hugo Perquy? In the late 1990's, he had a book about to be published, titled "Memory Mirrors: Cine-Cameras of the 20th Century." Did it ever get published? It was due in 1999, but I have a pre-pub flyer with a hand-written change to 2001, and I think he may have died before it saw print. Anyone know if it exists?

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 07-13-2019, 03:52 PM:

My wife works at the Library of Congress and will check the database on Monday.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-14-2019, 12:10 AM:

This page includes a photo of the book, so it appears to exist. The text below states: "Un livre de référence “Memory Mirrors, the evolution of the cine-camera” a été mis sur le marché" ("A reference book, Memory Mirrors..., was put on the market").

The actual book doesn't appear to have a publisher name on it, so I'm guessing that he self-published it. A surprising number of valuable reference books in this area were self published (Alan Kattelle's Home Movies and Robert Shanebrook's Making Kodak Film being two important examples), probably because of the combination of an obscure topic (a very geeky area of movie technology) limiting potential sales figures, and high production costs (lots of color plates needed). Put those two together, and most publishers will run for the hills.

The kicker is that unless you snag a copy soon after the self-publishing is done, the only way you're going to get one is by keeping an eye on Ebay and specialist used booksellers (e.g. the place on Hollywood Boulevard about halfway between Vine and Highland, the name of which I've forgotten, but from where I've bought copies of several books I'd given up on ever getting hold of).

Posted by Emiel De Jong (Member # 4225) on 07-14-2019, 01:42 AM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
(e.g. the place on Hollywood Boulevard about halfway between Vine and Highland, the name of which I've forgotten, but from where I've bought copies of several books I'd given up on ever getting hold of).

Larry Edmunds! One of the highlights of my last Hollywood trip [Cool]

http://larryedmunds.com

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 07-15-2019, 05:01 PM:

The library of Congress does not have this book or the author in their database. They do get some self published books but obviously not all of them.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-15-2019, 06:33 PM:

Thanks Emiel. Forgetting that sort of thing is one of the perils of entering middle age, I guess!

Presumably the book would have to have an ISBN or a Library of Congress Control Number in order to be in the LoC's catalog. I'm guessing that a self-published book would get an LoC control number if the author offered the LoC a copy and they accepted it, but am not sure about this.

There are a variety of agencies that are authorized to issue ISBNs, some of them public sector (e.g. large, legal deposit libraries), and others private sector. In the USA, R.R. Bowker will issue one for a self-published book for $125. I don't know if there any other requirements that a DIY author must fulfill in order for their book to be eligible for an ISBN (e.g. actually deposit a copy of the book with a legal deposit library). But I have seen ISBNs on lots of self-published books, so the hurdles can't be insurmountable.

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 07-31-2019, 11:04 AM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
In the USA, R.R. Bowker will issue one for a self-published book for $125.

I used to be an exec at Bowker (I left in '96) and the ISBN Agency actually reported to me for a short time before I left. You're not paying for the ISBN number per se. You're paying for the ISBN prefix representing you as a publisher. Within that prefix, you can publish and assign as many ISBN numbers as you want within the range you were given. Big publishers have smaller prefixes, small publishers have larger prefixes. I don't know what Bowker is doing today, since the corporate ownership has changed, but in my time, if you pleaded poverty, we'd give you the prefix for free. (In fact, it was during my time that they started charging at all - it had always been free for all publishers before that).

The ISBN was originally 10 digits with the first digit representing a country/language code, the following digits (after the first hyphen) representing the publisher, another hyphen, the digits representing the book, a hyphen and a check digit, calculated by Mod10 or Mod11 (I forget which.)

Some years ago, they began to run out of ISBN numbers and they decided to make the ISBN compatible with the EAN, so ISBN's are now 13 digits with the first 3 digits comprising of either 978 or 979, which represents "Bookland" and the remaining 10 digits the same as the ISBN-10 except that the check digit is recalculated using a different method.

FYI, the last digit on all credit card numbers is also a check digit.

The purpose of the check digit was protection against keying errors, although if you made two errors, including an error on the check digit, you had a 10% chance of getting the check digit right for the error that you made.

Edit: There are no other requirements, such as deposit, for an ISBN prefix. You don't even have to report back the metadata on the book so Bowker can publish it in "Books In Print", although Bowker obviously hopes that all publishers do.