Requests

Asking for something the library does not hold

Almost everything in the catalogue arrived through this form. It is read, requests for the same title are counted together, and the ones that keep coming back are the ones that get built.

How a request is handled

Requests are grouped by title rather than treated one at a time. A title asked for once sits in the list. A title asked for repeatedly moves up it, because repetition is the only honest signal about what people actually want. Nothing is promised on any individual request, and there is no queue position to check, but the library has grown almost entirely from this page.

What makes a request easy to act on

• The exact title, as the publisher writes it rather than as people abbreviate it.
• The publisher name, which settles it when several products share a word.
• The version or year you need, if a specific one matters to you.
• A line about what you need it for, which helps when a request is ambiguous between two editions.

What will not be added

Titles that no longer have a working build for any current desktop system, and anything where the request is really for something already in the library under a different name. If a title has been requested and turned down, the reason is usually one of those two.

Already here

Check all titles or the search field at the top of the page before sending. If the title is here but the version on it is behind, that is a contact message rather than a request.