Outgoing

Ships in WorldCat Identities

A colleague was in my office wondering if Captain Cook's ships are in WorldCat Identities.  Sure, they are.  Here are the ones I found:

Resolution
Discovery
Adventure

and Endeavour (suggested by Debbie below).

In honor of Darwin's 200 birthday here is the HMS Beagle.  And of course the Titanic.

If ships, why not spaceships?  The key word is spacecraft:

• Hubble Space Telescope
• Apollo 13
• Columbia
• Vostok

There are even imaginary space vehicles (e.g. Rama).

Mostly people write about ships, but under AACR-2 the ships themselves can be considered authors (e.g. of their logs).  If you look at the LC/NACO authority record for the Hubble Space Telescope you will see it established as a corporate name.  Which almost makes sense!  Rama however, is established only as a subject, so it can't author anything.

--Th

Popular authors

In the UK, EU authors get paid a few pence for every loan of their books, so lending is tracked nationally.  Lorcan pointed me at a Guardian article about the latest book-lending statistics which show that James Patterson (an American mystery author) was the most borrowed author in the UK last year.

Here's the list (linked to WorldCat Identity pages):

1. James Patterson
2. Jacqueline Wilson
3. Daisy Meadows
4. Nora Roberts
5. Francesca Simon

The article points out that part of the trick is being prolific.  I read recently that Nora Roberts had 100 books on the New York Times bestseller list over the last ten years.

Looking at what these authors write, it's easy to see what people read: mysteries, love stories, children's books, mystery love stories, young adult mysteries, young adult love stories, and the occasional young adult Christmas paranormal love story mystery.

--Th