A
book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of
paper,
parchment, or other various material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a
leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a
page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an electronic book (
e-book).
Books may also refer to works of literature, or a main division of such a work. In
library and information science, a book is called a
monograph, to distinguish it from serial
periodicals such as
magazines,
journals or
newspapers. The body of all written works including books is
literature. In
novels and sometimes other types of books (e.g. biographies), a book may be divided into several large sections, also called books (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, etc.). A lover of books is usually referred to as a
bibliophile, a bibliophilist, or a philobiblist, or, more informally, a
bookworm.
In 2010,
Google estimated that there were approximately 130 million unique books in the world.
Etymology
The word
book comes from
Old English "bōc" which itself comes from the
Germanic root "*bōk-",
cognate to
beech.
[2] Similarly, in
Slavic languages (e.g.
Russian,
Bulgarian) "буква" (bukva—"letter") is cognate to "beech". It is thus conjectured that the earliest
Indo-Europeanwritings may have been carved on
beech wood.
[3] Similarly, the Latin word
codex, meaning a book in the modern sense (bound and with separate leaves), originally meant "block of wood".
History of books
Antiquity
When
writing systems were invented in
ancient civilizations, nearly everything that could be written upon—stone,
clay, tree bark, metal sheets—was used for writing.
Alphabetic writing emerged in
Egypt about 5,000 years ago. The Ancient Egyptians would often write on
papyrus, a plant grown along the Nile River. At first the words were not separated from each other (
scriptura continua) and there was no
punctuation. Texts were written from right to left, left to right, and even so that alternate lines read in opposite directions. The technical term for this type of writing is '
boustrophedon,' which means literally 'ox-turning' for the way a farmer drives an ox to plough his fields.
Scroll
Egyptian papyrus showing the god
Osirisand the weighing of the heart.
Papyrus, a thick
paper-like material made by weaving the stems of the papyrus plant, then pounding the woven sheet with a hammer-like tool, was used for writing in
Ancient Egypt, perhaps as early as the
First Dynasty, although the first evidence is from the account books of King
Neferirkare Kakai of the
Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC).
[4] Papyrus sheets were glued together to form a
scroll. Tree bark such as
lime (Latin
liber, from which also comes
library) and other materials were also used.
[5] According to
Herodotus (History 5:58), the
Phoenicians brought writing and papyrus to Greece around the 10th or 9th century BC. The Greek word for papyrus as writing material (
biblion) and book (
biblos) come from the Phoenician port town
Byblos, through which papyrus was exported to Greece.
[6] From Greek we also derive the word tome (
Greek:
τόμος), which originally meant a slice or piece and from there began to denote "a roll of papyrus".
Tomus was used by the Latins with exactly the same meaning as
volumen (see also below the explanation by Isidore of Seville).
Whether made from papyrus,
parchment, or paper, scrolls were the dominant form of book in the Hellenistic, Roman, Chinese, and Hebrew cultures. The more modern
codex book format form took over the Roman world by
late antiquity, but the scroll format persisted much longer in Asia.
Codex
Woman holding a book (or wax tablets) in the form of the
codex. Wall painting from
Pompeii, before 79 AD.
Papyrus scrolls were still dominant in the 1st century AD, as witnessed by the findings in
Pompeii. The first written mention of the codex as a form of book is from
Martial, in his Apophoreta
CLXXXIV at the end of the century, where he praises its compactness. However the codex never gained much popularity in the pagan Hellenistic world, and only within the Christian community did it gain widespread use.
[7] This change happened gradually during the 3rd and 4th centuries, and the reasons for adopting the codex form of the book are several: the format is more economical, as both sides of the writing material can be used; and it is portable, searchable, and easy to conceal. The Christian
authors may also have wanted to distinguish their writings from the pagan texts written on scrolls.
Wax tablets were the normal writing material in schools, in accounting, and for taking notes. They had the advantage of being reusable: the wax could be melted, and reformed into a blank. The custom of binding several wax tablets together (Roman
pugillares) is a possible precursor for modern books (i.e. codex).
[8] The etymology of the word codex (block of wood) also suggests that it may have developed from wooden wax tablets.
[9] In the 5th century,
Isidore of Seville explained the relation between codex, book and scroll in his Etymologiae (VI.13): "A codex is composed of many books; a book is of one scroll. It is called codex by way of metaphor from the trunks (
codex) of trees or vines, as if it were a wooden stock, because it contains in itself a multitude of books, as it were of branches."
Middle Ages
Manuscripts
The fall of the
Roman Empire in the 5th century A.D. saw the decline of the
culture of ancient Rome. Papyrus became difficult to obtain due to lack of contact with Egypt, and
parchment, which had been used for centuries, became the main writing material.
Monasteries carried on the
Latin writing tradition in the
Western Roman Empire.
Cassiodorus, in the monastery of Vivarium (established around 540), stressed the importance of copying texts.
[10]St. Benedict of Nursia, in his
Regula Monachorum (completed around the middle of the 6th century) later also promoted reading.
[11] The Rule of St. Benedict (Ch.
XLVIII), which set aside certain times for reading, greatly influenced the monastic culture of the
Middle Ages and is one of the reasons why the clergy were the predominant readers of books. The tradition and style of the Roman Empire still dominated, but slowly the peculiar medieval book culture emerged.
Before the invention and adoption of the
printing press, almost all books were copied by hand, which made books expensive and comparatively rare. Smaller monasteries usually had only a few dozen books, medium-sized perhaps a few hundred. By the 9th century, larger collections held around 500 volumes and even at the end of the Middle Ages, the papal library in
Avignon and Paris library of
Sorbonne held only around 2,000 volumes.
[12]
Burgundian author and scribe
Jean Miélot, from his
Miracles de Notre Dame, 15th century.
The
scriptorium of the monastery was usually located over the
chapter house. Artificial light was forbidden for fear it may damage the manuscripts. There were five types of scribes:
- Calligraphers, who dealt in fine book production
- Copyists, who dealt with basic production and correspondence
- Correctors, who collated and compared a finished book with the manuscript from which it had been produced
- Illuminators, who painted illustrations
- Rubricators, who painted in the red letters
The bookmaking process was long and laborious. The parchment had to be prepared, then the unbound pages were planned and ruled with a blunt tool or lead, after which the text was written by the
scribe, who usually left blank areas for illustration and
rubrication. Finally, the book was bound by the
bookbinder.
[13]Different types of ink were known in antiquity, usually prepared from soot and gum, and later also from
gall nuts and
iron vitriol. This gave writing a brownish black color, but black or brown were not the only colors used. There are texts written in red or even gold, and different colors were used for illumination. Sometimes the whole parchment was colored purple, and the text was written on it with gold or silver (for example,
Codex Argenteus).
[14]Irish monks introduced spacing between words in the 7th century. This facilitated reading, as these monks tended to be less familiar with Latin. However, the use of spaces between words did not become commonplace before the 12th century. It has been argued that the use of spacing between words shows the transition from semi-vocalized reading into silent reading.
[15]The first books used
parchment or
vellum (
calf skin) for the pages. The book covers were made of wood and covered with leather. Because dried parchment tends to assume the form it had before processing, the books were fitted with clasps or straps. During the later
Middle Ages, when public libraries appeared, up to 18th century, books were often chained to a bookshelf or a
desk to prevent theft. These chained books are called
libri catenati.
At first, books were copied mostly in bars, one at a time. With the rise of universities in the 13th century, the
Manuscript culture of the time led to an increase in the demand for books, and a new system for copying books appeared. The books were divided into unbound leaves (
pecia), which were lent out to different copyists, so the speed of book production was considerably increased. The system was maintained by secular
stationers guilds, which produced both religious and non-religious material.
[16]Judaism has kept the art of the scribe alive up to the present. According to Jewish tradition, the
Torah scroll placed in a
synagogue must be written by hand on parchment, and a printed book would not do, though the congregation may use printed prayer books, and printed copies of the Scriptures are used for study outside the
synagogue. A
sofer (scribe) is a highly respected member of any observant Jewish community.
Paper books
The
Arabs revolutionised the book's production and its binding in the
medieval Islamic world. They were the first to produce
paper books after they learnt
papermaking from the Chinese in the 8th century.
[17] Particular skills were developed for script writing (
Arabic calligraphy),
miniatures and
bookbinding. The people who worked in making books were called
Warraqin or paper professionals. The Arabs made books lighter—sewn with silk and bound with leather covered paste boards, they had a flap that wrapped the book up when not in use. As paper was less reactive to humidity, the heavy boards were not needed. The production of books became a real industry and cities like
Marrakech, Morocco, had a street named
Kutubiyyin or book sellers which contained more than 100 bookshops in the 12th century; the famous
Koutoubia Mosque is named so because of its location in this street. In the words of Don Baker:
The world of Islam has produced some of the most beautiful books ever created. The need to write down the Revelations which the Prophet
Muhammad, may peace be upon him, received, fostered the desire to beautify the object which conveyed these words and initiated this ancient craft. Nowhere else, except perhaps in China, has writing been held in such high esteem. Splendid illumination was added with gold and vibrant colours, and the whole book contained and protected by beautiful bookbindings.
[18]
The medieval
Islamic world also developed a unique method of reproducing reliable copies of a book in large quantities, known as
check reading, in contrast to the traditional method of a single scribe producing only a single copy of a single manuscript, as was the case in other societies at the time. In the Islamic check reading method, only "authors could authorize copies, and this was done in public sessions in which the copyist read the copy aloud in the presence of the author, who then certified it as accurate."
[19] With this check-reading system, "an author might produce a dozen or more copies from a single reading," and with two or more readings, "more than one hundred copies of a single book could easily be produced."
[20]Modern paper books are printed on
papers which are designed specifically for the
publication of printed books. Traditionally, book papers are off white or low white papers (easier to read), are opaque to minimise the show through of text from one side of the page to the other and are (usually) made to tighter caliper or thickness specifications, particularly for case bound books. Typically, books papers are light weight papers 60 to 90 g/m² and often specified by their caliper/substance ratios (volume basis). For example, a bulky 80 g/m² paper may have a caliper of 120 micrometres (0.12 mm) which would be Volume 15 (120×10/80) where as a low bulk 80 g/m² may have a caliper of 88 micrometres, giving a volume 11. This volume basis then allows the calculation of a books PPI (printed pages per inch) which is an important factor for the design of book jackets and the binding of the finished book. Different paper qualities are used as book paper depending on type of book:
Machine finished coated papers,
woodfree uncoated papers,
coated fine papers and
special fine papers are common paper grades.
Wood block printing
The method (called
Woodcut when used in art) arrived in China in the early 14th century. Books (known as
block-books), as well as
playing-cards and
religious pictures, began to be produced by this method. Creating an entire book was a painstaking process, requiring a hand-carved block for each page; and the wood blocks tended to crack, if stored for long. The monks or people who wrote them were paid highly.
Movable type and incunabula
The Chinese inventor
Bi Sheng made
movable type of earthenware circa 1045, but there are no known surviving examples of his printing. Metal movable type was invented in
Korea during the
Goryeo Dynasty (around 1230), but was not widely used: one reason being the enormous
Chinesecharacter set. Around 1450, in what is commonly regarded as an independent invention,
Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and
hand mould. This invention gradually made books less expensive to produce, and more widely available.
A 15th century
incunabulum. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses and clasps.
Early printed books, single sheets and images which were created before the year 1501 in Europe are known as
incunabula.
A man born in 1453, the year of the fall of Constantinople, could look back from his fiftieth year on a lifetime in which about eight million books had been printed, more perhaps than all the scribes of Europe had produced since Constantine founded his city in A.D. 330.[21]Modern world
Steam-powered printing presses became popular in the early 19th century. These machines could print 1,100 sheets per hour, but workers could only set 2,000 letters per hour.
Monotype and
linotype typesetting machines were introduced in the late 19th century. They could set more than 6,000 letters per hour and an entire line of type at once.
The centuries after the 15th century were thus spent on improving both the printing press and the conditions for
freedom of the press through the gradual relaxation of restrictive censorship laws. See also
intellectual property,
public domain,
copyright. In mid-20th century, European book production had risen to over 200,000 titles per year.
Book manufacturing in the modern world
Main article:
Bookbinding
The
spine of the book is an important aspect in book design, especially in the cover design. When the books are stacked up or stored in a shelf, the details on the spine is the only visible surface that contains the information about the book. In stores, it is the details on the spine that attract buyers' attention first.
The methods used for the printing and binding of books continued fundamentally unchanged from the 15th century into the early years of the 20th century. While there was of course more
mechanization, Gutenberg would have had no difficulty in understanding what was going on if he had visited a
book printer in
1900.
Gutenberg’s invention was the use of movable metal types, assembled into words, lines, and pages and then printed by
letterpress. In letterpress
printing ink is spread onto the tops of raised metal type, and is transferred onto a sheet of paper which is pressed against the type. Sheet-fed letterpress printing is still available but tends to be used for collector’s books and is now more of an art form than a commercial technique (see
Letterpress).
Today, the majority of books are printed by offset
lithography in which an image of the material to be printed is photographically or digitally transferred to a flexible metal plate where it is developed to exploit the antipathy between
grease (the ink) and water. When the plate is mounted on the press, water is spread over it. The developed areas of the plate repel water thus allowing the ink to adhere to only those parts of the plate which are to print. The ink is then offset onto a rubbery blanket (to prevent water from soaking the paper) and then finally to the paper.
When a book is printed the pages are laid out on the plate so that after the printed sheet is folded the pages will be in the correct sequence. Books tend to be manufactured nowadays in a few standard sizes. The
sizes of books are usually specified as “trim size”: the size of the page after the sheet has been folded and trimmed. Trimming involves cutting approximately 1/8” off top, bottom and fore-edge (the edge opposite to the spine) as part of the binding process in order to remove the folds so that the pages can be opened. The standard sizes result from sheet sizes (therefore machine sizes) which became popular 200 or 300 years ago, and have come to dominate the industry. The basic standard commercial book sizes in
America, always expressed as width × height, are: 4¼” × 7” (rack size paperback), 5⅛” × 7⅝” (
digest sizepaperback), 5½” × 8¼”, 5½” × 8½”, 6⅛” × 9¼”, 7” × 10”, and 8½” × 11”. These “standard” trim sizes will often vary slightly depending on the particular printing presses used, and on the imprecision of the trimming operation. Of course other trim sizes are available, and some
publishers favor sizes not listed here which they might nominate as “standard” as well, such as 6” × 9”, 8” × 10”. In Britain the equivalent standard sizes differ slightly, as well as now being expressed in millimeters, and with height preceding width. Thus the UK equivalent of 6⅛” × 9¼” is 234 × 156 mm. British conventions in this regard prevail throughout the English speaking world, except for USA. The European book manufacturing industry works to a completely different set of standards.
Some books, particularly those with shorter runs (i.e. of which fewer copies are to be made) will be printed on sheet-fed offset presses, but most books are now printed on web presses, which are fed by a continuous roll of paper, and can consequently print more copies in a shorter time. On a sheet-fed press a stack of sheets of paper stands at one end of the press, and each sheet passes through the press individually. The paper will be printed on both sides and delivered, flat, as a stack of paper at the other end of the press. These sheets then have to be folded on another machine which uses bars, rollers and cutters to fold the sheet up into one or more signatures. A signature is a section of a book, usually of 32 pages, but sometimes 16, 48 or even 64 pages. After the signatures are all folded they are gathered: placed in sequence in bins over a circulating belt onto which one signature from each bin is dropped. Thus as the line circulates a complete “book” is collected together in one stack, next to another, and another.
A
web press carries out the folding itself, delivering bundles of signatures ready to go into the gathering line. Notice that when the book is being printed it is being printed one (or two) signatures at a time, not one complete book at a time. Thus if there are to be 10,000 copies printed, the press will run 10,000 of the first form (the pages imaged onto the first plate and its back-up plate, representing one or two signatures), then 10,000 of the next form, and so on till all the signatures have been printed. Actually, because there is a known average spoilage rate in each of the steps in the book’s progress through the manufacturing system, if 10,000 books are to be made, the printer will print between 10,500 and 11,000 copies so that subsequent spoilage will still allow the delivery of the ordered quantity of books. Sources of spoilage tend to be mainly make-readies.
A make-ready is the preparatory work carried out by the pressmen to get the printing press up to the required quality of
impression. Included in make-ready is the time taken to mount the plate onto the machine, clean up any mess from the previous job, and get the press up to speed. The main part of making-ready is however getting the ink/water balance right, and ensuring that the inking is even across the whole width of the paper. This is done by running paper through the press and printing waste pages while adjusting the press to improve quality.
Densitometers are used to ensure even inking and consistency from one form to another. As soon as the pressman decides that the printing is correct, all the make-ready sheets will be discarded, and the press will start making books. Similar make readies take place in the folding and binding areas, each involving spoilage of paper.
After the signatures are folded and gathered, they move into the
bindery. In the middle of the last century there were still many trade binders – stand-alone binding companies which did no printing, specializing in binding alone. At that time, largely because of the dominance of letterpress printing, the pattern of the industry was for typesetting and printing to take place in one location, and binding in a different factory. When type was all metal, a typical book’s worth of type would be bulky, fragile and heavy. The less it was moved in this condition the better: so it was almost invariable that printing would be carried out in the same location as the typesetting. Printed sheets on the other hand could easily be moved. Now, because of the increasing
computerization of the process of preparing a book for the printer, the typesetting part of the job has flowed upstream, where it is done either by separately contracting companies working for the publisher, by the publishers themselves, or even by the authors. Mergers in the book manufacturing industry mean that it is now unusual to find a bindery which is not also involved in book printing (and vice versa).
If the book is a
hardback its path through the bindery will involve more points of activity than if it is a
paperback. A paperback binding line (a number of pieces of machinery linked by conveyor belts) involves few steps. The gathered signatures, book blocks, will be fed into the line where they will one by one be gripped by plates converging from each side of the book, turned spine up and advanced towards a gluing station. En route the spine of the book block will be ground off leaving a roughened edge to the tightly gripped collection of pages. The grinding leaves fibers which will grip onto the glue which is then spread onto the spine of the book. Covers then meet up with the book blocks, and one cover is dropped onto the glued spine of each book block, and is pressed against the spine by rollers. The book is then carried forward to the trimming station, where a three-knife trimmer will simultaneously cut the top and bottom and the fore-edge of the paperback to leave clear square edges. The books are then packed into cartons, or packed on skids, and shipped.
Binding a hardback is more complicated. Look at a hardback book and you will see the cover overlaps the pages by about 1/8” all round. These overlaps are called squares. The blank piece of paper inside the cover is called the endpaper, or endsheet: it is of somewhat stronger paper than the rest of the book as it is the endpapers that hold the book into the case. The endpapers will be tipped to the first and last signatures before the separate signatures are placed into the bins on the gathering line. Tipping involves spreading some glue along the spine edge of the folded endpaper and pressing the endpaper against the signature. The gathered signatures are then glued along the spine, and the book block is trimmed, like the paperback, but will continue after this to the rounder and backer. The book block together with its endpapers will be gripped from the sides and passed under a roller with presses it from side to side, smashing the spine down and out around the sides so that the entire book takes on a rounded cross section: convex on the spine, concave at the fore-edge, with “ears” projecting on either side of the spine. Then the spine is glued again, a paper liner is stuck to it and headbands and footbands are applied. Next a crash lining (an open weave cloth somewhat like a stronger cheesecloth) is usually applied, overlapping the sides of the spine by an inch or more. Finally the inside of the case, which has been constructed and foil-stamped off-line on a separate machine, is glued on either side (but not on the spine area) and placed over the book block. This entire sandwich is now gripped from the outside and pressed together to form a solid bond between the endpapers and the inside of the case. The crash lining, which is glued to the spine of the pages, but not the spine of the case, is held between the endpapers and the case sides, and in fact provides most of the strength holding the book block into the case. The book will then be
jacketed (most often by hand, allowing this stage to be an inspection stage also) before being packed ready for shipment.
The sequence of events can vary slightly, and usually the entire sequence does not occur in one continuous pass through a binding line. What has been described above is unsewn binding, now increasingly common. The signatures of a book can also be held together by Smyth sewing. Needles pass through the spine fold of each signature in succession, from the outside to the center of the fold, sewing the pages of the signature together and each signature to its neighbors. McCain sewing, often used in schoolbook binding, involves drilling holes through the entire book and sewing through all the pages from front to back near the spine edge. Both of these methods mean that the folds in the spine of the book will not be ground off in the binding line. This is true of another technique, notch binding, where gashes about an inch long are made at intervals through the fold in the spine of each signature, parallel to the spine direction. In the binding line glue is forced into these “notches” right to the center of the signature, so that every pair of pages in the signature is bonded to every other one, just as in the Smyth sewn book. The rest of the binding process is similar in all instances. Sewn and notch bound books can be bound as either hardbacks or paperbacks.
Making cases happens off-line and prior to the book’s arrival at the binding line. In the most basic case making, two pieces of cardboard are placed onto a glued piece of cloth with a space between them into which is glued a thinner board cut to the width of the spine of the book. The overlapping edges of the cloth (about 5/8” all round) are folded over the boards, and pressed down to adhere. After case making the stack of cases will go to the foil stamping area. Metal dies, photoengraved elsewhere, are mounted in the stamping machine and rolls of foil are positioned to pass between the dies and the case to be stamped. Heat and pressure cause the foil to detach from its backing and adhere to the case. Foils come in various shades of gold and silver and in a variety pigment colors, and by careful setup quite elaborate effects can be achieved by using different rolls of foil on the one book. Cases can also be made from paper which has been printed separately and then protected with clear film lamination. A three-piece case is made similarly but has a different material on the spine and overlapping onto the sides: so it starts out as three pieces of material, one each of a cheaper material for the sides and the different, stronger material for the spine.
Recent developments in book manufacturing include the development of digital printing. Book pages are printed, in much the same way as an office copier works, using
toner rather than ink. Each book is printed in one pass, not as separate signatures. Digital printing has permitted the manufacture of much smaller quantities than offset, in part because of the absence of make readies and of spoilage. One might think of a web press as printing quantities over 2000, quantities from 250 to 2000 being printed on sheet-fed presses, and digital presses doing quantities below 250. These numbers are of course only approximate and will vary from supplier to supplier, and from book to book depending on its characteristics. Digital printing has opened up the possibility of print-on-demand, where no books are printed until after an order is received from a customer.
Digital format
The term
e-book is a contraction of "electronic book"; it refers to a digital version of a conventional print book. An e-book is usually made available through the internet, but also on CD-ROM and other forms. E-Books may be read either via a computer or by means of a portable book display device known as an e-book reader, such as the
Sony Reader,
Barnes & Noble Nook or the
Amazon Kindle. These devices attempt to mimic the experience of reading a print book.
Throughout the 20th century, libraries have faced an ever-increasing rate of publishing, sometimes called an
information explosion. The advent of
electronic publishing and the
Internet means that much new information is not printed in paper books, but is made available online through a
digital library, on
CD-ROM, or in the form of e-books. An
on-line book is an e-book that is available online through the internet.
Though many books are produced digitally, most digital versions are not available to the public, and there is no decline in the rate of paper publishing
[citation needed]. There is an effort, however, to convert books that are in the
public domain into a digital medium for unlimited redistribution and infinite availability. This effort is spearheaded by
Project Gutenberg combined with
Distributed Proofreaders.
There have also been new developments in the process of publishing books. Technologies such as
print on demand, which make it possible to print as few as one book at a time, have made self-publishing much easier and more affordable. On-demand publishing has allowed publishers, by avoiding the high costs of warehousing, to keep low-selling books in print rather than declaring them out of print.
Book structure
Main article:
Book design
Scheme of common book design
- Belly band
- Flap
- Endpaper
- Book cover
- Top edge
- Fore edge
- Tail edge
- Right page, recto
- Left page, verso
- Gutter
The common structural parts of a book include:
- Body: the text or contents, the pages often collected or folded into signatures; the pages are usually numbered sequentially, and often divided into chapters.
- Back matter
- Flyleaf: The blank leaf or leaves (if any) preceding the back free endpaper.
- Rear endpaper
- Rear cover
A
bookmark is a thin marker, commonly made of paper or card, used to keep one's place in a book. Bookmarks were used throughout the medieval period,
[22] consisting usually of a small parchment strip attached to the edge of folio (or a piece of cord attached to headband). Bookmarks in the 18th and 19th centuries were narrow silk ribbons bound into the book and become widespread in the 1850s. They were usually made from silk, embroidered fabrics or leather. Not until the 1880s did paper and other materials become more common.
Some large reference books such as dictionaries, may have a
thumb index which is a round cutout in the pages with some printing, allowing the user to see approximately where the wanted entry may be, and open the book to the appropriate section, without looking at the table of context, or index.
The process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper is
bookbinding.
Sizes
The size of a modern book is based on the printing area of a common flatbed press. The pages of type were arranged and clamped in a frame, so that when printed on a sheet of paper the full size of the press, the pages would be right side up and in order when the sheet was folded, and the folded edges trimmed.
The most common book sizes are:
- Quarto (4to): the sheet of paper is folded twice, forming four leaves (eight pages) approximately 11-13 inches (ca 30 cm) tall
- Octavo (8vo): the most common size for current hardcover books. The sheet is folded three times into eight leaves (16 pages) up to 9 ¾" (ca 23 cm) tall.
- DuoDecimo (12mo): a size between 8vo and 16mo, up to 7 ¾" (ca 18 cm) tall
- Sextodecimo (16mo): the sheet is folded four times, forming sixteen leaves (32 pages) up to 6 ¾" (ca 15 cm) tall
Sizes smaller than 16mo are:
- 24mo: up to 5 ¾" (ca 13 cm) tall.
- 32mo: up to 5" (ca 12 cm) tall.
- 48mo: up to 4" (ca 10 cm) tall.
- 64mo: up to 3" (ca 8 cm) tall.
Small books can be called booklets.
Sizes larger than quarto are:
- Folio: up to 15" (ca 38 cm) tall.
- Elephant Folio: up to 23" (ca 58 cm) tall.
- Atlas Folio: up to 25" (ca 63 cm) tall.
- Double Elephant Folio: up to 50" (ca 127 cm) tall.
Types of books
Types of books according to their contents
Fiction
Many of the books published today are fictitious stories. They are in-part or completely untrue or
fantasy. Historically, paper production was considered too expensive to be used for
entertainment. An increase in global
literacy and
print technology led to the increased publication of books for the purpose of entertainment, and allegorical
social commentary. Most fiction is additionally categorized by
genre.
The
novel is the most common form of fictional book. Novels are stories that typically feature a
plot,
setting,
themes and
characters. Stories and narrative are not restricted to any topic; a novel can be whimsical, serious or
controversial. The novel has had a tremendous impact on entertainment and
publishing markets.
[23] A
novella is a term sometimes used for
fictional prose typically between 17,500 and 40,000 words, and a
novelette between 7,500 and 17,500. A
Short story may be any length up to 10,000 words, but these word lengths are not universally established.
Non-fiction
In a library, a
reference book is a general type of non-fiction book which provides information as opposed to telling a story, essay, commentary, or otherwise supporting a point of view. An
almanac is a very general reference book, usually one-volume, with lists of data and information on many topics. An
encyclopedia is a book or set of books designed to have more in-depth articles on many topics. A book listing
words, their
etymology, meanings, and other information is called a
dictionary. A book which is a collection of
maps is an
atlas. A more specific reference book with tables or lists of data and information about a certain topic, often intended for professional use, is often called a
handbook. Books which try to list references and abstracts in a certain broad area may be called an
index, such as
Engineering Index, or
abstracts such as chemical abstracts and biological abstracts.
There is a large set of books that are made only to write private ideas, notes, and accounts. These books are rarely published and are typically destroyed or remain private.
Notebooks are blank papers to be written in by the user.
Students and
writers commonly use them for taking notes.
Scientists and other researchers use
lab notebooks to record their notes. They often feature spiral coil bindings at the edge so that pages may easily be torn out.
Books for recording periodic entries by the user, such as daily information about a journey, are called
logbooks or simply logs. A similar book for writing the owner's daily private personal events, information, and ideas is called a
diary or
personal journal.
Other types
There are several other types of books which are not commonly found under this system.
Albums are books for holding a group of items belonging to a particular theme, such as a set of
photographs, card collections, and memorabilia. One common example is
stamp albums, which are used by many hobbyists to protect and organize their collections of
postage stamps. Such albums are often made using removable plastic pages held inside in a ringed binder or other similar smolder.
Types of books according to their binding or cover
Hardcover books have a stiff binding.
Paperback books have cheaper, flexible covers which tend to be less durable. An alternative to paperback is the glossy cover, otherwise known as a dust cover, found on magazines, and comic books. Spiral-bound books are bound by spirals made of metal or plastic. Examples of spiral-bound books include: teachers' manuals and
puzzle books(
crosswords,
sudoku).
Publishing is a process for producing pre-printed books, magazines, and newspapers for the reader/user to buy.
Publishers may produce low-cost, pre-publication copies known as
galleys or 'bound proofs' for promotional purposes, such as generating reviews in advance of publication. Galleys are usually made as cheaply as possible, since they are not intended for sale.
Collections of books
Celsus Library was built in 135 AD and could house around 12,000 scrolls.
Private or personal libraries made up of non-fiction and fiction books, (as opposed to the state or institutional records kept in
archives) first appeared in
classical Greece. In ancient world the maintaining of a
library was usually (but not exclusively) the privilege of a wealthy individual. These libraries could have been either private or public, i.e. for people who were interested in using them. The difference from a modern
public library lies in the fact that they were usually not funded from public sources. It is estimated that in the city of Rome at the end of the 3rd century there were around 30 public libraries. Public libraries also existed in other cities of the ancient
Mediterranean region (e.g.
Library of Alexandria).
[24] Later, in the Middle Ages, monasteries and universities had also libraries that could be accessible to general public. Typically not the whole collection was available to public, the books could not be borrowed and often were chained to reading stands to prevent theft.
The beginning of modern public library begins around 15th century when individuals started to donate books to towns.
[25] The growth of a
public library system in the United States started in the late 19th century and was much helped by donations from
Andrew Carnegie. This reflected classes in a society: The poor or the middle class had to access most books through a public library or by other means while the rich could afford to have a
private library built in their homes.
The advent of
paperback books in the 20th century led to an explosion of popular publishing. Paperback books made owning books affordable for many people. Paperback books often included works from genres that had previously been published mostly in
pulp magazines. As a result of the low cost of such books and the spread of bookstores filled with them (in addition to the creation of a smaller market of extremely cheap used paperbacks) owning a private library ceased to be a status symbol for the rich.
In library and booksellers' catalogues, it is common to include an abbreviation such as "Crown 8vo" to indicate the
paper size from which the book is made.
When rows of books are lined on a book holder,
bookends are sometimes needed to keep them from slanting.
Identification and classification
Each book is specified by an International Standard Book Number, or
ISBN, which is unique to every edition of every book produced by participating publishers, world wide. It is managed by the ISBN Society. An ISBN has four parts: the first part is the country code, the second the
publishercode, and the third the title code. The last part is a
check digit, and can take values from 0–9 and X (10). The
EAN Barcodes numbers for books are derived from the ISBN by prefixing 978, for
Bookland, and calculating a new check digit.
Commercial publishers in industrialized countries generally assign ISBNs to their books, so buyers may presume that the ISBN is part of a total international system, with no exceptions. However many government publishers, in industrial as well as developing countries, do not participate fully in the ISBN system, and publish books which do not have ISBNs.
A large or public collection requires a
catalogue. Codes called "call numbers" relate the books to the catalogue, and determine their locations on the shelves. Call numbers are based on a
Library classification system. The call number is placed on the spine of the book, normally a short distance before the bottom, and inside.
Institutional or national standards, such as
ANSI/
NISO Z39.41 - 1997, establish the correct way to place information (such as the title, or the name of the author) on book spines, and on "shelvable" book-like objects, such as containers for
DVDs,
video tapes and
software.
Books on library shelves with
bookends, and call numbers visible on the spines
One of the earliest and most widely known systems of cataloguing books is the
Dewey Decimal System. Another widely known system is the
Library of Congress Classification system. Both systems are biased towards subjects which were well-represented in US libraries when they were developed, and hence have problems handling new subjects, such as computing, or subjects relating to other cultures.
[citation needed]Metadata about a book may include its ISBN or other classification number (see above), the names of contributors (author, editor, illustrator) and publisher, its date and size, and the language of the text.
Classification systems
Uses for books
Aside from the primary purpose of reading them, books are also used for other ends:
- A book can be an artistic artifact; this is sometimes known as an artists' book.
- A book may be evaluated by a reader or professional writer to create a book review.
- A book may be read by a group of people to use as a spark for social or academic discussion, as in a book club.
- A book may be studied by students as the subject of a writing and analysis exercise in the form of a book report.
- Books are sometimes used for their exterior appearance to decorate a room, such as a study.
Paper and conservation issues
Though
papermaking in Europe had begun around the 11th century, up until the beginning of 16th century
vellum and paper were produced congruent to one another, vellum being the more expensive and durable option. Printers or publishers would often issue the same publication on both materials, to cater to more than one market.
Paper was first made in China, as early as 200 B.C., and reached Europe through
Muslimterritories. At first made of rags, the
industrial revolution changed paper-making practices, allowing for paper to be made out of wood pulp.
Paper made from
wood pulp became popular in the early 20th century, because it was cheaper than
linen or
abaca cloth-based papers. Pulp-based paper made books less expensive to the general public. This paved the way for huge leaps in the rate of literacy in industrialised nations, and enabled the spread of information during the
Second Industrial Revolution.
However pulp paper contained acid, that eventually destroys the paper from within. Earlier techniques for making paper used limestone rollers, which neutralized the acid in the pulp. Books printed between 1850 and 1950 are at risk; more recent books are often printed on acid-free or
alkaline paper. Libraries today have to consider
mass deacidification of their older collections.
Stability of the climate is critical to the long-term preservation of paper and book material.
[26] Good air circulation is important to keep fluctuation in climate stable. The
HVAC system should be up to date and functioning efficiently. Light is detrimental to collections. Therefore, care should be given to the collections by implementing light control. General housekeeping issues can be addressed, including
pest control. In addition to these helpful solutions, a library must also make an effort to be prepared if a disaster occurs, one that they cannot control. Time and effort should be given to create a concise and effective disaster plan to counteract any damage incurred through “acts of god” therefore a
emergency management plan should be in place.
