I don't grok the library market at all. I can't imagine any library with such a collection being willing to loan out individual copies, the risk of loss or damage to a single copy would be too great given that the cost would be irreparable harm to an irreplaceable collection. So the only application would be for in-house inspection? How many libraries in the world would be interested in such a proposition? I don't geddit.

You put them in special collections, and make them available for use by scholars and those with permission. Standard practice, I'm afraid. Although oddly enough, the Orange County Public Library has at least one branch that loans them out -- I recently read Erle Stanley Gardner's personal first edition copies of three or four early Perry Masons. Quite a thrill, that.

At the risk of disagreeing with my distinguished colleague, I think he and the Trustees are caught in an archaic thought process. While libraries will always be an important final repository for published works, I don't believe that they are individually key to modern research. Electronic availability (direct or scanned) and, as RJ points out, interlibrary lending from a few key sites serves the former need to have every major library equally well stocked.

It was probably a strategic error to ever consider library sets a major portion of sales. Even before the downturn, few libraries would commit that much capital to a niche reference set.

I also note a shift in concept being batted about. The VE was supposed to be a reader's collection, with a true standard edition to come later and (likely) be smothered in the anti-readerly scholarly trappings. There seemed to be a sea change at some point and the set is being slowed up by, and perhaps burdened by, an attempt to move the scholastic quality up the scale and make it a formal "standard edition." I can see that being a case of necessary coping with reality, but I think it further hampers all aspects, and all markets for, this collection. It's neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat... and the only market left for it is the uncritical compleatist collector (with a deep pocket). And (as discussed in other places) that calls for a level of commitment far above armchair cheerleader - a rare level.

Received today from Leah McCarrick, the new PM of the Virginia Edition (Sean is off to law school): "I am working on getting access to the blog today. Sean left some instructions, but so far no success. I am going to send him an email as well hoping that I will get to the blog this week. As you are in on some of the other Heinlein... blogs and forums - We are very close to printing the next 10 books: Future Histories 1 & 2, Friday, Number of the Beast, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Sixth Column, Job: A Comedy of Justice, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Expanded Universe, and Podkayne of Mars."

Feel free to distribute (and move if this isn't the right spot for such things).

Great news, Geo. Thanks for posting.

Thanks as well. Positive sign that they're trying to get access to the blog!

I wonder what "very close" means.

Access has been acquired.


Leah states: "hopefully within the next week the files should head to the printer (as long as we get some copyright issues resolved)."

Combining these thoughts, with benefit of hindsight: could not the trustees have negotiated with a book producer (not necessarily a "publisher") to allow Bill to appoint proofreaders who already are comfortable with Heinlein's prose style, idioms and all? After all, a lot of folks grew up reading Heinlein and find his prose perfectly natural, with very few "false positives" to wonder about.

The Virginia Edition Blog today got this update:

Greetings to all those following the Virginia Edition Updates.

My name is Leah and I have taken over most of the Virginia Edition concerns while the previous fearless leader, Sean, has moved on to bigger, better, and more torturous things - namely law school.

I have heard some whispers about the project and finally figured out how to log into and update this blog that was started by my predecessor.

Let me bring you all up to speed on what has happened since July, 2009.

I began working for the Virginia Edition in October and we are just about to go to print with the next ten books. Four of these books were prepared and edited by Sean as is reflected in his last entry. The other six were my first foray into the world of RAH. The list of books shortly to be printed are:

1. The Future History of Robert Heinlein, Volume 1
2. The Future History of Robert Heinlein, Volume 2
3. Friday
4. The Number of the Beast
5. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (my very first Heinlein)
6. Sixth Column
7. Job: A Comedy of Justice
8. To Sail Beyond the Sunset
9. Expanded Universe
10. Podkayne of Mars

The hand-off of responsibility and health issues with our editors have contributed to the silence on the VE front. Today I found out just how much it costs to print just one chunk of this collection. I was a bit staggered (which as I write that phrase seems mistaken somehow, but fitting). But finding out the prices means we are very close to actually printing them - hopefully within the next week the files should head to the printer (as long as we get some copyright issues resolved).

I'm off to write some reminder emails that were brought to my mind as I let you know what we were up to over here. I hope this give you an insight into the project for the time being. I'll write again soon.

The New Sean - Leah

It bothers me to strike an unrelentingly negative tone in this thread, as I admire both the concept and (in very general) the execution of the VE, not to mention boundless personal and professional admiration for its chief editor. But it's been a front-seat row at a demolition derby for - what? - seven years now.

Such a project really needs ONE person that knows what he or she is doing in a position to make and execute decisions. I don't believe that person has ever existed. Sean: very nice guy. I bet he was a helluva law clerk or paralegal or whatever function he performed. But knew next to nothing about Heinlein and even less about publishing. Sean leaves in July; bye, Sean!

Leah shows up in October. Hi, Leah. Leah finally figures out how to log into the only public face the VE has, the blog, some four months later, and communicate with the people who matter most here, the subscribers. She then professes to bring no knowledge of Heinlein with her... and then strongly implies she knows nothing about publishing.

(Nor, from my limited but not entirely outsider viewpoint, have Sean or Leah have anything like high-level decision-making authority; I guess someone, somewhere is making choices based on their input.)

To adequately convey my dismay, I have to reach outside my own culture for the only words that seem to do the situation justice... the same words Einstein is reputed to have said when he heard about Hiroshima.

Oy vey.