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December 21, 2019

A Quick Way to Find Out of Print Books

Annie asked me for help finding a book that is out of print:
There is a book, now out of print, that traces my family history back centuries.  It's called the Stapletons of Drom. Do you have a resource for finding such books, long out of print?
Annie, the first thing I do is search Google books. Then I try WorldCat

Trying WorldCat I found 11 Libraries that have this book. Since I don't know where you live, you will need to go to WorldCat and type in your postal or zip code.

If you want to purchase a copy, Amazon has it

5 comments:

Peter said...

I'd also suggest people trying Ancestry (If you're on it.), the Internet Archive and doing a general Google search. This can be especially useful if you don't have a title, but either have a general idea or want to check to see if there might be a book related to your interest. In one case doing this I found a book on the genealogy of local residents of a place in Quebec that a few of my ancestors came from.

Unknown said...

I have NEVER been able to access a book through inner library loan.

antiquebookworm said...

Bookfinder.com is another website to search for out-of-print books that are for sale. It searches through the inventories of more online book sellers than Amazon. In fact, Amazon is one of the sites it searches

Peter Bush said...

If the book is in a foreign language, or published in a foreign country, try also the local or country-specific version of Google, such as google.de for Germany or google.fr for France. I found an out-of-print book of vintage photographs of a small German village where some of my ancestors lived by searching in google.de -- a used book dealer in Germany had it for sale.

Teresa said...

As a cataloguer, WorldCat is something I use at least once a week, but I've also used it plenty of times for finding genealogy resources as well. It's super helpful!