• I started collecting number sequences when I was a graduate student at Cornell University in the mid-1960's, in an attempt to identify a sequence that had arisen in the work on my dissertation.
• For the full story, see the article "My Favorite Integer Sequences", in Sequences and their Applications (Proceedings of SETA '98), C. Ding, T. Helleseth and H. Niederreiter (editors), Springer-Verlag, London, 1999, pp. 103-130. Available in pdf or postscript format.
• The idea of a "dictionary" of integer sequences was received with enthusiasm by many people, and in 1973 Academic Press published
  A Handbook of Integer Sequences,

  containing about 2400 sequences.

• Over the next twenty years an enormous amount of new material arrived, preprints, reprints, postcards, typewritten letters, handwritten letters, etc., and it was not until 1995 that - with Simon Plouffe's help - the sequel appeared:

  

  The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences,
  N. J. A. Sloane and S. Plouffe, Academic Press, San Diego, 1995, 587 pp.
  ISBN 0-12-558630-2.

  This contained about 5500 sequences.

• The book is still useful since it contains many of the most important sequences. The database (which is now more than 150 times the size of the book) is too huge to use except as a reference.
• Additional information about the book, including links to reviews, can be found here.
• Some reviews will be mentioned in the last demonstration page.

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