R Stevens May Get This Letter Someday
Mr. T. Campbell,
Your new Manga work "Divalicious!" is being added to the growing collection of works of this genre at the Library of Congress. Your work presents a special problem since your name is very common and conflicts with other authors of the same name. In cases such as yours, where the author has used only an initial with a very common surname, we try to find out what the initial is for, or some other distinguishing information, such as a birth year. We use that information to qualify the name to separate it from others using the same name.
We currently have 20 other authors that use the name "T. Campbell". writing on such different topics as native Americans, Northern Irish politics, rotational bridge bearing, drugs for arrhythmia, the Bible, and birds of South Africa. We can't be sure that you aren't one of these other writers since single writers sometimes write on different topics.
It would help us tremendously, if you are willing to divulge the information, if you could provide us with a fuller name, if only the name for which the initial "T" stands. Since there are many many Terrys, Thomases, Timothys, Toms, and Tracys in our catalog, your birth year could also be invaluable. We would use this information as a qualifier to your name, keeping as the main heading for you as a writer, the form you have given on the title page. If your surname had been as distinctive as Amy Mebberson's, we wouldn't need this additional information. There is only one other Mebberson in our entire catalog of over 30 million entries. (Scott Mebberson)
I hope you are able to help. Lacking additional information, we will have to set you up in our catalog as an undifferentiated name, which will lump you with all the other "T. Campbells" whom we have been unable to differentiate. We are loathe to do this, since it invariably lumps together writers of considerably different genres and interests.
Sincerely
[name and address]
Your new Manga work "Divalicious!" is being added to the growing collection of works of this genre at the Library of Congress. Your work presents a special problem since your name is very common and conflicts with other authors of the same name. In cases such as yours, where the author has used only an initial with a very common surname, we try to find out what the initial is for, or some other distinguishing information, such as a birth year. We use that information to qualify the name to separate it from others using the same name.
We currently have 20 other authors that use the name "T. Campbell". writing on such different topics as native Americans, Northern Irish politics, rotational bridge bearing, drugs for arrhythmia, the Bible, and birds of South Africa. We can't be sure that you aren't one of these other writers since single writers sometimes write on different topics.
It would help us tremendously, if you are willing to divulge the information, if you could provide us with a fuller name, if only the name for which the initial "T" stands. Since there are many many Terrys, Thomases, Timothys, Toms, and Tracys in our catalog, your birth year could also be invaluable. We would use this information as a qualifier to your name, keeping as the main heading for you as a writer, the form you have given on the title page. If your surname had been as distinctive as Amy Mebberson's, we wouldn't need this additional information. There is only one other Mebberson in our entire catalog of over 30 million entries. (Scott Mebberson)
I hope you are able to help. Lacking additional information, we will have to set you up in our catalog as an undifferentiated name, which will lump you with all the other "T. Campbells" whom we have been unable to differentiate. We are loathe to do this, since it invariably lumps together writers of considerably different genres and interests.
Sincerely
[name and address]
Posted at
4:34 PM
8 Comments:
Actually, I'm really impressed that they provided such a personalized letter. I'd have expected much more of a form letter.
Though, where the writer used "loathe" he or she actually ought to have used "loath." That's something I learned this week!
Reading that whole message I just imagined some super OCD librarian spasming and muttering "must keep things organized..."
Am I the only one who thought "COOL! The Library of Congress has manga now!"?
I want a comics-can't-be-literature debate just so I can use that as a point. :D
I am one of the privileged few who knows what the T stands for.
Damned if I can spell it, though.
I wanna know who the hell Scott is. He's based out of Adelaide, so he MUST be related to me somehow. My dad would know.
I'm MARRIED to a Scott, but last time I checked, he doesn't write and if he did, he'd write under his own even MORE distinctive surname.
"Privileged few", hah! It's just a matter of google-fu: "t campbell" google.
I don't know why you've always been so shy about what T really means.
I'd love to have a name like Tornado-tongue.
So...what are you going to do about it?
And some may know what the T stands for...but how many know your real first name? :-)
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