The Top 1000
Nov. 27th, 2004 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowThe OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) has compiled a list of "the 'Top 1000' titles owned by OCLC member libraries — the intellectual works that have been judged to be worth owning by the 'purchase vote' of libraries around the globe." The top ten, in order, are: the US census; the Bible; Mother Goose; the Divine Comedy; the Odyssey; the Iliad; Huckleberry Finn; Hamlet; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; and The Lord of the Rings. (I guess they're counting any edition or translation, but only one per library.)
It's an interesting list. "Garfield" comes in at #18 (between Tom Sawyer and Macbeth). The Koran is 13th, the highest-placed non-Western work. The first work from India is the Bhagavad Gita, #21. Music gets its first representative at #46, Handel's "Messiah". After the Census, the first work of non-fiction (other than holy books) is Walden, which is 41st. China's first entry is the Tao Te Ching at #52. "Peanuts" is 70th. (This is a travesty. Jim Davis, fifty-two slots ahead of Charles Schulz? And they misspell Charlie's name, too! Gary Larson's "Far Side" is 118th.)
It's an interesting list. "Garfield" comes in at #18 (between Tom Sawyer and Macbeth). The Koran is 13th, the highest-placed non-Western work. The first work from India is the Bhagavad Gita, #21. Music gets its first representative at #46, Handel's "Messiah". After the Census, the first work of non-fiction (other than holy books) is Walden, which is 41st. China's first entry is the Tao Te Ching at #52. "Peanuts" is 70th. (This is a travesty. Jim Davis, fifty-two slots ahead of Charles Schulz? And they misspell Charlie's name, too! Gary Larson's "Far Side" is 118th.)
