A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a sheet is called a page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an e-book.
Copyists, who dealt with basic production and correspondence
Calligraphers, who dealt in fine book production
Correctors, who collated and compared a finished book with the manuscript from which it had been produced
Rubricators, who painted in the red letters
Illuminators, who painted illustrations
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.[10]
Desk with chained books in the Library of Cesena, Italy.
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 the typical brownish black color, but black or brown were not the only colours used. There are texts written in red or even gold, and different colours were used for illumination. Sometimes the whole parchment was coloured purple, and the text was written on it with gold or silver (eg Codex Argenteus).[11]
Irish monks introduced spacing between words in the seventh 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,[12] that the use of spacing between words shows the transition from semi-vocalized reading into silent reading.
The first books used parchment or vellum (calf skin) for the pages. The book covers were made of wood and covered with leather. As dried parchment tends to assume the form before processing, the books were fitted with clasps or straps. During the later Middle Ages, when public libraries appeared, books were often chained to a bookshelf or a desk to prevent theft. The so called libri catenati were used up to 18th century.
At first books were copied mostly in monasteries, one at a time. With the rise of universities in the 13th century, the Manuscript culture of the time lead 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 stationers guilds, which were secular, and produced both religious and non-religious material.[13]
In woodblock printing, a relief image of an entire page was carved into blocks of wood, inked, and used to print copies of that page. This method originated in China, in the Han dynasty (before 220AD), as a method of printing on textiles and later paper, and was widely used throughout East Asia. The oldest dated book printed by this method is The Diamond Sutra (868 AD).
The method (called Woodcut when used in art) arrived in Europe 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.
Movable type and incunabula
Front cover: hardbound or softcover (paperback); the spine is the binding that joins the front and rear covers where the pages hinge
Body: the text or contents, the pages often collected or folded into signatures; the pages are usually numbered sequentially, and often divided into chapters.
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 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.
Notebooks are blank books to be written in by the user. Students use them for taking notes. Scientists and other researchers use lab notebooks to record their work. Many notebooks are simply bound by a spiral coil at the edge so that pages can be easily torn out. Books to be partly filled in by the user include a personal address book, phone book, or calendar book for recording appointments, etc.
Albums are books for holding collections of memorabilia, pictures or photographs. They are often made so that the pages are removable. albums hold collections of stamps.
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 daily the owner's private personal events and information is called a diary.
Businesses use accounting books such as journals and ledgers to record financial data in a practice called bookkeeping.
Pre-printed school books for students to study are commonly called textbooks and Schoolbooks. Elementary school pupils often use workbooks which are published with spaces or blanks to be filled by them for study or homework.
In a library, 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, is often referred to as a reference book. A very general reference book, usually one-volume, with lists of data and information on many topics is called an almanac. 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 with technical information on how to do something or how to use some equipment are called manuals.
An encyclopedia is a book or set of books with articles on many topics. A book listing words, their etymology, meanings, etc. is called a dictionary. A book which is a collection of maps is an atlas. 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, Biological Abstracts, etc.
Bookmarks were used throughout the medieval period,[15] consisting usually of a small parchment strip attached to the edge of folio (or a piece of cord attached to headband). Bookmarks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were narrow silk ribbons bound into the book and become widespread in the 1850's. They were usually made from silk, embroidered fabrics or leather. Not until the 1880's, did paper and other materials become more common.
Books may also be categorized by their binding or cover. Hard cover books have a stiff binding. Paperback books have cheaper, flexible covers which tend to be less durable.
Publishing is a process for producing books, magazines, newspapers, etc. pre-printed for the reader/user to buy, usually in large numbers by a publishing company. Such books can be categorized as fiction (made-up stories) or non-fiction (information written as fact). A book-length fiction story is called a novel.
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.
The term e-book (electronic book) in the broad sense is an amount of information like a conventional book, but in digital form. It is made available through internet, CD-ROM, etc. In the popular press the term e-Book sometimes refers to a device such as the Sony Librie EBR-1000EP, which is meant to read the digital form and present it in a human readable form.
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.
On the other hand, though books are nowadays produced using a digital version of the content, for most books such a version is not available to the public (i.e. neither in the library nor on the Internet), and there is no decline in the rate of paper publishing. There is an effort, however, to convert books that are in the public domain into a digital medium for unlimited redistribution and infinite availability. The 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 have made it easier for less known authors to make their work available to a larger audience.
Paper and conservation issues
Halfbound book with leather and marbled paper.
A book may be studied by students as the subject of a writing and analysis exercise in the form of a book report.
A book may be evaluated by a professional writer in order to produce a published 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.
Books are sometimes used for their exterior appearance to decorate a room, such as a study.
^ Avrin, Leila (1991). Scribes, script, and books: the book arts from antiquity to the Renaissance. Chicago; London: American Library Association; The British Library, p. 83. .
^Dard Hunter. Papermaking: History and Technique of an Ancient Craft New ed. Dover Publications 1978, p. 12.
^ Leila Avrin. Scribes, Script and Books, pp. 144–145.
^ The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature. Edd. Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, Andrew Louth. Cambridge University Press 2004, pp. 8–9.
^ Bischoff, Bernhard (1990). Latin palaeography antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 11. .
^ Leila Avrin. Scribes, Script and Books, pp. 207–208.
^ Theodore Maynard. Saint Benedict and His Monks. Staples Press Ltd 1956, pp. 70–71.
^ Martin D. Joachim. Historical Aspects of Cataloguing and Classification. Haworth Press 2003, p. 452.
^ Edith Diehl. Bookbinding: Its Background and Technique. Dover Publications 1980, pp. 14–16.
^ Bernhard Bischoff. Latin Palaeography, pp. 16–17.
^ Paul Saenger. Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading. Stanford University Press 1997.
^ Bernhard Bischoff. Latin Palaeography, pp. 42–43.
^ Clapham, Michael, "Printing" in A History of Technology, Vol 2. From the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, edd. Charles Singer et al. (Oxford 1957), p. 377. Cited from Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge University, 1980).
^ For a 9th century Carolingian bookmark see: Szirmai, J. A. (1999). The archaeology of medieval bookbinding. Aldershot: Ashgate, p. 123. . For a 15th century bookmark see Medeltidshandskrift 34, Lund University Library.
^ Miriam A. Drake, Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (Marcel Dekker, 2003), "Public Libraries, History".
^ Miriam A. Drake, Encyclopedia of Library, "Public Libraries, History".
External links
Find more information on Book by searching Wikipedia's sister projects
We welcome your Comment on this story.Comments are submitted for possible publication on the conditiin that they may be edited.Please provide your full name.We also require a working email address-not for publication,but for verification.The location field is optional. Read our Publication guidelines.
Receive hundreds of new customers for your business
ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Over 90% of Internet users in Brazil are using search engines to find local businesses, services or products. List now to ensure your business is found.
Client Testimonials Brazil Crawler has delivered what they promised. My company shows up at the top of most relevant searches, people call me from that listing, and my business sales and web traffic have increased David Knowling - Anime International,Inc. Read More
Help us improve Brazil Crawler Encyclopedia Search - Send Your Feedback
Search for Encyclopedia right from your Brazil Crawler Toolbar. Its easy.Try it.
™ Company. All Rights Reserved.