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An obsessive cataloger with eclectic passions (calligraphy, Samuel Johnson, the Dewey Decimal System), Alexander Short is offended that his profession is neglected by Bartlett's Quotations: "Not one damn cite. There were quotes about libertines and lice, but librarians didn't make the cut." This despite the fact that Mao Tse-tung, Casanova, Ralph Ellison and Stephen King had once worked in the stacks. "Each of them was an invisible man in a universe of printed words." (USA Twoday)