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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David C
Date: 2020 Dec 11, 21:13 -0800
Jared wrote (in 2004)
They should be available at any "repository library". The US has a "federal
repository" program where major libraries are sent all sorts of official
publications to be kept in archives 'foreverClearly the NZ National Library and the GeneraL Assembly Library (of NZ Parliament) are not Repository libraries. The former is getting rid of tens of thousands of books which are not about NZ and/or have not been taken out for ten or twenty years or more. The justification is to create space for new aquisitions. Recently many thousands of books were for sale near where i live at $2 per volume. I did not attend because the sale covered dewey classes 0 to 4. If classes 5 and 6 are for sale I may attend subject to Covid restrictions at the time.
The National Library does (or did) have various volumes by H S Blackburne. I do not know if the fact that he was Principal Examiner of Masters and Mates to the NZ Government would save his books - assumining that the librarians know anything about him. It is possible that some of Blackburne's books have not been borrowed for 100 years.
I have two volumes which came from the General Assembly Library of NZ. I purchased them from secondhand bookshops. I do not know the policy of the General Assembly Library. but clearly they had a "cleanout" at some stage.
When I locate a pdf on google books or Hathitrust the names of one or two US University libraries usually pop up. I hope that the Universities will continue to have the money to maintain their collections.
