Basics Books in Libraries (Actual Figures)

[Dulloldfart]

I did a bit of searching in online catalogues. Here are the ten biggest cities in England, both the city libraries and main university library. I searched for author "hubbard, l. ron" and only considered books that were both 2007 publication date and also regular non-fiction Basics books. I searched the main catalogues, with the broadest possible search criteria. Lots of other stuff came up, like earlier Hubbard books, Mission Earth titles, books about Scientology or Hubbard, videos of Hubbard etc., but I haven't listed any of that. Where the date of publication was not immediately evident, I searched in the detailed entries each time, so the data given below is exact, as best I can do. Where Liverpool, for instance, shows "0" this is only what is covered in the main city libraries' catalogue. There may be a smaller library that has sets galore available for borrowing. :)

Birmingham — City: EOS, DMSMH, ISE, FOT, DMSMH; Uni: All 18

Liverpool — City: 0 Uni: 0

Leeds — City: 0 Uni: 18

Sheffield — City: 0 Uni: 0

Bristol — City: 0 Uni: 0

Manchester — City: 0 Uni: 0

Leicester — City: SA, TWTH, FOT, ISE; Uni: APA, COHA, EOS, Dn55, DTOT, HFP, ISE, POW, HOM, NSOL, 0-8, 8-80, 8-8008, SA, TWTH

Coventry — City: 0 Uni: HFP, APA, DTOT, Dn55, 0-8, 8-80, 8-8008, FOT, NSOL, ISE, DMSMH

Hull — City: HOM, HFP, APA, ISE, Dn55, POW, TWTH; Uni: 0

London — There is no centralized London library database, although 12 of the 24 boroughs have a combined one. So this is maybe 60% of London covered below.

Westminster DMSMH; Kensington & Chelsea 0; Hammersmith & Fulham 0; Lambeth HOM, NSOL

Barking & Dagenham, Brent, Enfield, Ealing, Hackney, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth: COHA, Dn55, DMSMH, ISE, 0-8, 8-8008, NSOL, FOT

London uni: 0

-----

APA — Advanced Procedures and Axioms
COHA — Creation of Human Ability
DMSMH — Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health
Dn55 — Dianetics 55!
DTOT — Dianetics the Original Thesis
EOS — Evolution of a Science
FOT — Fundamentals of Thought
HFP — Handbook for Preclears
HOM — History of Man
ISE — Introduction to Scientology Ethics
NSOL — New Slant on Life
POW — Problems of Work
SA — Self Analysis
0-8 — Scientology 0-8
8-80 — Scientology 8-80
8-8008 — Scientology 8-8008
SOS — Science of Survival
TWTH — The Way to Happiness

Paul

[Axiom142]

Thanks for doing that Paul.

Rather gives the lie to the CoS’s claim that thousands of libraries are demanding Hubbard’s books and that their public need to donate even more to buy books.

I wonder how these public Scientologist’s would react if they knew that their money was being spent on books that never make it out of the packaging and often end up in the shredder?

Axiom142

[Tiger Lily]

Paul, those are amazing numbers. It really hits home when you see it in black and white like that. Thanks for taking the time to do that research.

I wonder if the SP times would do a segment on THAT?

-TL

[Feral]

Thanks Paul,

Is this all of England? Probably a dumb question, I know, it doesn't look like enough libraries by a long way.

Or is it a specific area of England.

I'm wondering if once all the libraries are counted whether England will beat Australia's 186 books.

[Iknowtoomuch]

Nice to real figures. :thumbsup:

Specially because there are few books there as well.

[Dulloldfart]

Thanks Paul,

Is this all of England? Probably a dumb question, I know, it doesn't look like enough libraries by a long way.

Or is it a specific area of England.

I'm wondering if once all the libraries are counted whether England will beat Australia's 186 books.

It's simply the ten largest cities in England, and for each one the main city public lending library catalogue, and the main university library catalogue. I didn't examine the individual catalogues in huge detail to see which libraries they contained, but in my city (Newcastle), there are 21 different local libraries included in the catalogue as well as the main city library. You can order a book from any one of those 22 libraries and it will be delivered free of charge to your local one, so it would be silly to have individual catalogues. Similarly, it is not so helpful to combine catalogues with a different city fifty miles away that comes under a totally different city administration and funding and so forth.

I'm not going to research hundreds of online catalogues to try and cover the whole country! I might do the next ten largest cities, or the other countries in the UK, but not the whole lot.

Paul

[Dulloldfart]

Paul, those are amazing numbers. It really hits home when you see it in black and white like that. Thanks for taking the time to do that research.

I wonder if the SP times would do a segment on THAT?

-TL

Maybe. We could even do most of the research for them, as it is publicly available data and involves nothing harder than sitting at a computer terminal and searching catalogues. You don't even have to email anyone.

To do a story — a world scoop as no major media has done this one that I know of — would involve rounding up some CofS promo saying what they have done and asking for more money, checking out the online catalogues of libraries around the globe, asking the CofS for comment, then publishing. Who will be the first to do this? :)

Paul

[Doom]

Thats some interesting data, just shows what the CofS delivers when it said it was done, More lies:angry: I think so, and at the same time disapointed because some of the staff are really trying, dont know whether to laugh or cry(i guess because i watched my best efforts wasted for so many years on staff).:grouch:
Great post DOF:D

[Dulloldfart]

OK. Ten largest cities in the US. I'm still just checking 2007 Basics books in English, and nothing else. Also note that I'm not counting the number of copies. For example, Philadelphia shows 13 copies of Fundamentals of Thought in their catalogue at different branches in the city, but they don't get extra credit for that.

New York City: All 18

Los Angeles: DMSMH, FOT, HOM, SA

Chicago: All 18

Houston: 0

Phoenix: DMSMH, FOT, ISE, 0-8, SOS

Philadelphia: DMSMH, FOT

San Antonio: 17 (all except TWTH)

San Diego: 17 (all except DMSMH)

Dallas: 17 (all except TWTH)

San Jose: COHA, DTOT

Paul

[Dulloldfart]

Australia. There is a national online catalogue, which saves a lot of work. According to it, this is the total number of 2007 Basics books in all 5189 libraries:

APA 10
COHA 12
DMSMH 18
Dn55 9
DTOT 21
EOS 16
FOT 22
HFP 9
HOM 10
ISE 15
NSOL 19
POW 13
SA 14
0-8 14
8-80 9
8-8008 10
SOS 12
TWTH 12

Paul

[LA SCN]

OK. Ten largest cities in the US. I'm still just checking 2007 Basics books in English, and nothing else. Also note that I'm not counting the number of copies. For example, Philadelphia shows 13 copies of Fundamentals of Thought in their catalogue at different branches in the city, but they don't get extra credit for that.

Los Angeles: DMSMH, FOT, HOM, SA

San Diego: 17 (all except DMSMH)

San Jose: COHA, DTOT

Paul

Good work, man! You would think that of all places the LA and California cities would be flooded with them.

I also want to thank you for the fine job you did on the Dart Smohen ebook in pdf format and making it available on one of your websites. It is a great read and it made it much easier on my eyes to read the printed page, not to mention having it all in one place rather than spread over many threads.

[Dulloldfart]

UK. I found a combined catalogue, the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries, that contains the catalogues of just under 50 academic institutions in and around London. The first ones are: Anglia Ruskin University; University of the Arts London; Birkbeck College, University of London; University of Brighton; Brunel University; Buckinghamshire New University; Canterbury Christ Church University. So I searched all of them at once.

41 returned results, the others being offline. I simply searched for the author "hubbard, l. ron," as I couldn't limit it better than that. This gave the following results: Greenwich 1; KCL/Courtauld 4; ULRLS 6; Oxford Brookes 19; Reading 4; Univ Arts London 2; Hertfordshire 1; Kent 4; Middx. 1; OU 1; St Mary's UC 1; Sussex 2; Wellcome Library 3. Remember these are ALL the LRH titles, not just the 2007 ones.

I'm just going to do a closer look at a few to check if they have the 2007 editions:
Oxford Brookes: They do have a complete Basics set.
ULRLS: 0 (0/4 are 2007 editions)
Kings College London: FOT, ISE (2/4).

Paul

[Dulloldfart]

UK, Oxford and Cambridge, very famous universities.

Oxford: There is a combined catalogue of about half of the 10 million books in all the college libraries there. But out of 126 LRH titles, zero are 2007 Basics ones.

Cambridge: There is a combined catalogue for all the colleges there. Out of about 30 total, zero are 2007 Basics.

Oh well.

Paul

[justaguy]

very interesting statistics. I approve heartily.

[Dulloldfart]

India. There are roughly 1.1 billion English-speaking people in India, but they don't have nice neat online library catalogues like the UK and US. I eventually found an online catalogue for Delhi, the capital, which has 14.5 million volumes in the university one.

City: 3 sets of lectures, but no LRH books at all.

University: 10 LRH titles, but zero 2007 ones.

Pakistan. I couldn't find an online catalogue for a public library in Islamabad, the capital, despite the country having 165 million English-speaking people in it.

Paul

[Dulloldfart]

US. The next 20 biggest cities by population. 2007 Basics books in English only. Combined searches for all the city branches included in the main city catalogue, so for example although Portland is listed here as having "all 18" books available there are about 20 branch libraries in Portland included in that database, and there certainly aren't 20 complete sets of those 18 books.

Detroit: DMSMH, FOT, NSOL

Jacksonville: All 18 except SA

San Francisco: DMSMH, FOT

Indianapolis: DMSMH, FOT, POW, SA, SOS, TWTH

Columbus: DMSMH, Dn55, DTOT, EOS, HOM, ISE, NSOL, POW, SA, 8-80, SOS, TWTH

Austin: All 18 except TWTH

Fort Worth: catalogue offline when I checked

Memphis: DMSMH, DTOT, FOT, NSOL, POW, 0-8, TWTH

Charlotte: DMSMH

Baltimore: 0

Boston: DMSMH, DTOT

El Paso: 0

Milwaukee: All 18

Seattle: DMSMH, EOS

Nashville: 0

Denver: All 18 except TWTH

Washington: No centralized city catalogue that I can find; LOC doesn't count. :)

Las Vegas: All 18

Louisville: DMSMH, DTOT, EOS, FOT, ISE, NSOL

Portland: All 18

Paul

[Free to shine]

There is one hell of a lot of books missing out there somewhere!

[Dulloldfart]

US, top universities, usual search criteria.

Harvard: All 18 except POW

Princeton: APA, COHA, HOM, 0-8

Yale: All 18 except DMSMH

MIT: 0

Stanford: EOS, HOM, NSOL, POW, SA, 8-80, SOS, TWTH

CalTech: 0

Penn State: All 18

Columbia: 0

Duke: APA, HOM, 0-8, 8-80, TWTH

Chicago: ISE, NSOL

Dartmouth College: DTOT, FOT, ISE

Northwestern: DMSMH, DTOT, TWTH

Washington in St Louis: 0

Cornell: 0

Johns Hopkins: 0

Brown: All 18

Rice: APA, COHA, DTOT, EOS, HFP, HOM, ISE, NSOL, SA, 0-8, 8-8008

Emory: All 18

Vanderbilt: 0

Paul

[Iknowtoomuch]

I live in one of those cities. I checked a few months ago and they didn't have many of the books in the libraries.
I wonder if DM is trying to cover his ass?

[Lohan2008]

Thanks for all the work Dull

How much money is CofS asking for putting books in Libraries ?

[Dulloldfart]

I live in one of those cities. I checked a few months ago and they didn't have many of the books in the libraries.
I wonder if DM is trying to cover his ass?

Dunno. It's easy for us to check what books are in the library catalogues. But there is no easy way for us to check how many books were shipped to the libraries that they declined to put on the shelves. It could be that the CofS genuinely sent out 10,000 full sets to libraries in the US and less than 5% ended up on the shelves. On the other hand, maybe they sent out 500 sets. They know, but we don't.

Paul

[Dulloldfart]

Thanks for all the work Dull

How much money is CofS asking for putting books in Libraries ?

As far as I know, they are selling them at full price, i.e., about $450 for the set, including shipping.

Paul

[Alanzo]

Way to go, Oaul.

Actual content.

Nice....

[Feral]

Australia. There is a national online catalogue, which saves a lot of work. According to it, this is the total number of 2007 Basics books in all 5189 libraries:

APA 10
COHA 12
DMSMH 18
Dn55 9
DTOT 21
EOS 16
FOT 22
HFP 9
HOM 10
ISE 15
NSOL 19
POW 13
SA 14
0-8 14
8-80 9
8-8008 10
SOS 12
TWTH 12

Paul

WOW 255 new basic books in Aus! That means they got another 70 or so out since Scooters thread.

Big effort from the CofS! That's a set of basics in 14 of 5189 libraries!

That's what they call 100% in the church.

So glad I didn't donate to that one!

[SweetnessandLight]

At my local public library, the donated set of basics went right into the ongoing booksale that raises extra funds for library programs not covered in the budget. They were sold for $1.00 each. (How do I know that?) :D

I do feel badly for the people who are donating a lot of money to support this project, especially when they are required to do so to make amends. I think it's no longer a donation at that point.

[ChuckNorrisCutsMyLawn]

At my local public library, the donated set of basics went right into the ongoing booksale that raises extra funds for library programs not covered in the budget. They were sold for $1.00 each. (How do I know that?) :D

I do feel badly for the people who are donating a lot of money to support this project, especially when they are required to do so to make amends. I think it's no longer a donation at that point.

NICE !!! :thumbsup:

[Gadfly]

This is one of the things that I noticed early on in my Scn career - just how much staff and INT management heavily exaggerated statistics. In fact, often it was just plain lying. I would be at an event, hearing these obviously bogus numbers being rattled off, and looking around me wondering how all these people could actually believe what they were being told. The deep contradiction of continual lies on a "Road to Truth" never made any sense to me.

I guess when people want to hear something, they hear it no matter how obvious the opposite truth might be. :confused2: