I think it somewhat troublesome that the message from the LOC
representative refers to "corrections" and the corollary need for an errata
sheet (or two, or three), when the issues regarding this book are more
serious than a series of "mistakes" would imply.  The lifting/borrowing of
verbatim or hardly-altered passages from multiple authors, including our
own Kent Rasmussen, without attribution or obtained permissions, doesn't
pass the smell test for a mere "mistake," especially when the creators of
this work have had an affiliation with the LOC, i.e., they should know
better, and my guess is that they were required to attest, to the
publisher, in writing, the original nature of their work.  The message from
the LOC representative reads more like an attempt to distract the
recipients from the issues which require, at a minimum, a
prominently-displayed apology, but I realize that such an apology, in such
a public forum, could have implications for liability issues.  Nonetheless,
the whole situation, IMO, stinks.

Martin Zehr

P.S.- The above is not a legal opinion, and does not necessarily represent
the opinions of the Mark Twain Forum, or its members, and is not to be
construed as anything more than the rantings and ravings of one individual
with possibly suspect bearings, but you knew that already.

On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 7:20 PM, Barbara Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> I appreciate the Library of Congress's effort to get things right and set
> the record straight regarding the book _Mark Twain's America_.  Prior to
> today's posting, Forum readers of this book had helped compile an errors
> and omissions list of 128 entries. The errors list posted today at the LOC
> website features about 71 errors but included 31 errors that had not been
> previously spotted by our readers. The two lists overlapped on 40 errors --
> many of them errors that were identified in Kevin Mac Donnell's review of
> the book several months ago.  The total number of errors now stands at 159.
> Less than half of them appear in the list now online at the Library of
> Congress.
>
> After all issues related to this book are resolved, I hope that the more
> comprehensive list compiled with the help of Forum readers can be made
> available.  It would ultimately be a mistake to proceed with an ebook or
> second printing of this book until all the errors can be corrected.
>
> Barb
>