“Many of the pages in Worldcat Identities are for corporate authors, Ohio State University, for example. It is interesting in these cases to see what the most widely held items about the institution in question are. Here are some examples from universities … So, the list of most widely held items about Ohio State University, maybe not unsurprisingly, has a strong football flavor. Quite a few universities have strong sporting coverage. Thinking along these lines, I tried Notre Dame, only to discover that the list is dominated by mystery novels by Ralph McInerny. Where an institution figures centrally in a popular work of fiction, it may not be surprising to see it in the list, although it might not be what immediately comes to mind. So, E.M. Forster’s posthumously published Maurice is recorded as the most widely held work about the University of Cambridge. There are also two writers of mysteries set in Cambridge on the list …” (more)
[Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog, 16 February]