Systematists know the tome by Gareth Nelson and Norman Platnick, Systematics and Biogeography (1981), as the Blue Book (shades of Wittgenstein!). It was published once and is now so hard to get that I have been unable to find a copy in ten years of looking. Now, Malte Ebach tells me, the series at UCP of which my book is part, is making a legal PDF available here.
I’m taking it to the local print shop for a physical copy. It’s not searchable (but give me a copy of Acrobat and I’ll make it so), but at least it’s there. The core historical narrative of it started me off on what became my book. If anyone can send me a scan of the cover and spine, I’ll upload it on my box.net page.
In morphometrics (my field), the “blue book” is a different book entirely. We also have the orange book, the black book, the red book …
Now there’s a meme, John.
“Decode the book:”
I add “the white book” and “the camel book.” For bonus points, pick the field as well.
Sounds like an O’Reilly computer book. Perl?
Not to brag, but I got myself a copy of the blue book, dust jacket and all, after only 8 years of looking. I got Platnick to sign it before I left the AMNH (ok, now I am bragging).
I’ll get you a scan next week after I return home from holidays [/brag]
And as soon as I said this I went on ABEBooks and found four copies. Bugger.
@ Lynch – The red book? Wasn’t that written by hobbits?