Rare Book Monthly
Articles - September - 2002 Issue
Using the Americana Exchange Resources to Their Fullest Potential
AE Database Roosevelt Results Page
In our case, paid subscribers will be able to tell instantly when and whether any auction lots featuring material by Theodore Roosevelt are being featured in an upcoming sale. They will also be able to go immediately to those lots to examine them for details like condition, price, and provenance. Paid AE subscribers will know the specific bibliographic data for the items listed in the sale within minutes so long as these items are included in the sources within our database. This bibliographic data often includes information on rarity; and over time, we expect to include an accumulation of pricing information as well so that eventually through our database you will be able to find out which Teddy Roosevelt titles are worth what in mint condition on the open market. This information is otherwise difficult but not impossible to obtain, but the traditional process for collecting and analyzing this data was and is very daunting. AE’s auction notification service is kind of like the Monarch Notes of auction catalogs: it allows you to extract crucial information from countless lengthy and expensive auction catalogs without having to either purchase or read the actual catalogs themselves. It transports the world of auction catalogs from the 20th to the 21st century as it instantly extracts and imports the relevant catalog lot description hidden within one of many printed pages directly to your AE home page on your home or office computer.
Once youve established the frequency of appearance of titles by Theodore Roosevelt at auction as well as their estimated auction values, paid members can continue their research into Theodore Roosevelts place in the Americana canon and market by using AE’s Database module. At launch (September 3, 2002), AE’s database will consist of upwards of 190,000 detailed bibliographic records from some of the major Americana reference sources, and by late September or early October we will add 30,000 to 50,000 additional bibliographic records. The AE database will be growing and honed daily: we don’t expect to slow down until we have passed the 400,000 record level. (See the footnote 2 for specific data about which sources well be using). What this means in practical terms is that AE subscribers will be able to log onto our database from any location at any time and conduct an unlimited number of searches using an infinite combination of nearly 29 data fields, of which 20 are searchable fields at start up.
