------------------------------------------------------- | How to Use Meyer Boswell Books, Inc. | | E-mail Search Service | ------------------------------------------------------- Searching Meyer Boswell's on-line inventory of 6,000 books is very simple, but quite powerful. You send us an e-mail search request, and we send you an e-mail reply. For those of you who would like to "jump right in", some sample searches are immediately below. For those who wish to examine the whole help file, its contents and complete detail follow after that. To search our inventory, just send an e-mail message to "search@meyerbos.com", with the word "search" in the subject field, and the message text again with the word "search" and any other word you want to search for (no quotes in any instance). For example, here is a sample search for any book we have in stock by or about Blackstone: To: search@meyerbos.com Subject: search Message: search Blackstone Here is an example of another search, this for a subject: To: search@meyerbos.com Subject: search Message: search international law Soon after you send us your message, we will send you a reply. It will be an itemized list of all the books we have matching your search. You can browse to your hearts-content, and, if you like, order one or more books per the instructions which accompany our reply. Happy Searching! Table of Contents ----------------- 1. Introduction 2. Getting Help and Additional Info 2.1 This Help File 2.2 Reaching a Human 3. Searching for Books 3.1 Basic Search 3.2 Limiting Your Search 3.3 Author Only Searches 3.4 Title Only Searches 3.5 Short-list Searches 3.6 Quantity of Books in Searches 3.7 Multiple Searches 3.8 Truncation 3.9 Searching Tips 4. Ordering Books 5. Getting on Our E-mail Mailing List 6. Selling Us Your Books 1. INTRODUCTION =============== Welcome to the Meyer Boswell Books, Inc. e-mail catalog system! Meyer Boswell Books, Inc. is the only bookshop of its kind in the English-speaking world, specializing exclusively in rare and scholarly books on law. We have over 6,000 volumes dating from the 14th century and through the 20th century on our shelves, and now you can browse through our selection simply by sending electronic mail to us. Feel free to send as many searches as you wish. The searches are automated, you should get your results back very quickly (however, this will depend on the speed of your Internet mail gateway.) You may also order books directly through our e-mail system. 2. GETTING HELP AND ADDITIONAL INFO =================================== 2.1 This Help File ------------------- This help file contains instructions on how to send your mail message to our system so that it will be properly processed. If your message is not understood by our automated mail manager, you will receive a copy of this help file. You may also get this file by explicitly requesting it. To get this file at anytime, just send a message to "search@meyerbos.com" with the word "help" single line in the body of the message. If you notice any errors or omissions in this file, you can send your suggestions to rarelaw@meyerbos.com. 2.2 Reaching a Human -------------------- If you are having trouble with our system, or would just like to connect with a human to complain, compliment or clarify something, just e-mail to "rarelaw@meyerbos.com" 3. SEARCHING FOR BOOKS ====================== 3.1 Basic Search ---------------- Searching is very easy. Just think of the word you want to search for, and send us an e-mail message as follows: In the "To" field, enter "search@meyerbos.com" (no quotes) In the "Subject" field, enter "search" (again without the quotes) In the "Message" field, enter "search searchword" (again, no quotes), where "searchword" is the word you are interested in. For example, perhaps you want to find all the books we have on Jeremy Bentham; your search would look like this: To: search@meyerbos.com Subject: search Message: search Bentham This search will look up and provide to you all the books we have, whether written by Bentham, or mentioning his name in the book's title, or in our description of the contents of the book. Here's the first few records from the example "search Bentham": Author: Bentham, Jeremy Title: A Fragment on Government; Being An Examination of what is delivered, On the Subject of Government in General, In the Introduction to Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries: with a Preface in Which is Given a Critique of the Work at Large Publisher: Printed for J. Sheppard, W. Whitestone, J. Hoey [etc.], Dublin 1776 Description: Bentham's first work of any substance in which he critically examines Blackstone's political philosophy and introduces the utilitarian principle which was to inform his own jurisprudence, this edition used for the two principal succeeding editions Condition: Some embrowning, but quite crisp, in a modern speckled calf Price: $3500.00 Order No: 11427 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Author: Erskine, John Title: An Institute of the Law of Scotland. In Four Books. In the Order of Sir George Mackenzie's Institutions of that Law. Two Volumes Publisher: Printed for John Bell, at Addison's Head, Edinburgh 1773 Description: First edition of Erskine's principle work, and one of the pre-eminent Institutes of Scots law, bringing nearly to perfection the Scots Institutionalist tradition and, in Erskine's case, foreshadowing both Austin and Bentham Condition: Modern 1/4 crimson morocco over decorated boards; presentable Price: $750.00 Order No.: 11082 ------------------------------------------------------------------- [Some 20 more books are listed in the actual search results] If your search result contains more than 100 books, you will only get descriptions for the first 100. We do this in case someone has inadvertently attempted an overly broad search. However, if you really do want to see more than the first 100, a message is provided saying how to do that (see section 3.6 below). 3.2 Limiting Your Search ------------------------ You may limit your search by adding more terms to the search request. For example, the search: search bentham fragment government finds all the books that contain "bentham" AND "fragment" AND "government". This search would return the first book of the two sample searches above, but not the second. 3.3 Author Only Searches ------------------------ If you want to search only authors, just substitute in your message the word "author" for "search". For example, if you wanted to search only by books written by Bentham (as opposed to all that we have which might either mention his name in the title or in the description of the book), your message text would be: author bentham Of the two examples above, this would again return you the first book (written by Bentham), but not the second (written by Erskine). 3.4 Title only searches ----------------------- If you would like to restrict your search to titles only, simply substitute the word "title" for "search" in your message. For example, the first book in our example above (Bentham's Fragment on Government) could be searched by: title fragment This title search would, of course, also return any other books with the word "fragment" in the title, not just Bentham's. 3.5 Short-list searches ----------------------- If you wish to have a short-list response, which will save you the trouble of paging through the longer information we provide by default, put "-s" at the end of your search. This is useful if you feel you will get a lot of books in our reply, and you want to browse more quickly. For example search trials -s will get a long response from us, because we have lots of trials in stock. The "-s" will provide the response in just a few screens instead of many, and you may be able to determine more quickly those books you want more detailed information about. 3.6 Quantity of books in searches --------------------------------- By default, we return only the first 100 books that satisfy any search. So, if anyone inadvertently searches too broadly, they will not receive back an inordinately long reply from us. However, you may override this default by specifying the number of books you are willing to have included in our response to your search; just add the minus sign with the number of books you want. For example, this search will return the first 200 books we have in stock on trials: search trials -200 rather than the default number of 100 which would result from: search trials You could also combine the short-list feature, as follows: search trials -200 -s and you can also specify a number less than the default of 100: search trials -15 which would bring you the first 15 trials only 3.7 Multiple Searches --------------------- You can combine more than one search in one e-mail message; this saves on general wear-and-tear on your typing, and cuts down on the number of e-mail messages you need to send. All you need to do is put each search on its own separate line; you will get back a separate e-mail reply to each search. Here are three separate searches, as examples: search Bentham search torts author Graham Note that you can combine a "regular" search with a search by author or title. 3.8 Truncation -------------- It often helps to truncate your search; for example: search constitution will retrieve "constitution", "constitutions" and "constitutional"; likewise: search engl would retrieve "England" and "English" 3.9 Searching Tips ------------------- 1. If you are searching for a particular author or person, it is often best to search just by lastname, unless that name is awfully common; for example, if you were searching for works by or about Justice Holmes, you might search: search Holmes It is true that this would get you works by or about anyone named Holmes, but even with 6,000 books the amount of "garbage" returns should not be great. If you include a firstname (such as search Holmes Oliver), then you take the risk of missing an entry where (as was true with Justice Holmes) only his first initial was used, e.g. O.W. Holmes, Common Law. If the name is particularly common, then you might try picking one word out of the title, if there is one particular work you are after. For example, suppose a work by Smith entitled "A Treatise on Railroads": search Smith Railroads 2. Avoid using punctuation; so, if you are searching for Bentham's treatise, "A Fragment on Government", try: search Bentham Fragment 3. All searches are case insensitive; the following searches are identical, and will produce identical results: search bentham fragment search Bentham Fragment search BENTHAM FRAGMENT 4. ORDERING BOOKS ================= To order a book, you need to know the book's Order Number. The Order Number is in the last line of the entry for every book, following its price. For example the book "A Fragment on Government" in the first example above has the Order Number 11427. To order a book send a e-mail message to "search@meyerbos.com" with the subject "order". In the body of the message type "order" plus the five digit number. For the Bentham, this would be: order 11427 If you wish to order more than one item, just continue with the additional order numbers: order 11427 11082 When we receive your order, we will send back a confirmation note that includes the Author and Title of the book and price as well as an estimate of shipping and any applicable taxes. It is important to review this confirmation note and contact us immediately if the order does not match what you had intended to purchase. If you have never ordered from us before, we will automatically send you an account form, so you can give us your billing information and shipping address. You will only need to do this once. Once we have your account form, we will ship your books to you within two business days after sending your confirmation note, unless we hear from you in the meantime. 5. GETTING ON OUR E-MAIL MAILING LIST ===================================== If you would like to be on our mailing list, so that you receive notices about special new acquisitions, and other news items that may be of interest to our customers, just send a message to "lawbooks-list@meyerbos.com" with "subscribe rare-lawbooks" in the subject or as the first line in the body of the message. 6. SELLING US YOUR BOOKS ======================== We are always interested in purchasing books and book collections related to the law. Please send us a note to "rarelaw@meyerbos.com" describing your book(s) and we will respond promptly. ----------------------------------------------------------------- For Book and Account related questions contact: Jordan D. Luttrell Meyer Boswell Books, Inc. E-mail: rarelaw@meyerbos.com Phone: 415-255-6400 FAX: 415-795-3982