Book History: Book Anatomy

AbeBooks Explains the Parts of a Book

If you have ever been confused by the jargon used to describe the physical parts of a book, then this video will help.

When we hear the word "bibliography," most of us probably picture a list of books, like you might find at the end of a research paper. But that's only one meaning of the term! For practitioners of book history and textual scholarship, the term "bibliography" is generally used in the sense conveyed by the second definition in the Oxford English Dictionary:

"The systematic description and history of books, their authorship, printing, publication, editions, etc."

(The use of "bibliography" to mean a list of books is actually the fourth definition in the OED!)

So what does that mean?

When we talk about bibliography in this sense, we mean the study of books as objects that are created, sold, bought, used, read, and shared by people in time. Jerome McGann coined the phrase "bibliographic code" in 1991 to distinguish the meaning conveyed by the physical form of the book from the meaning conveyed by the text.

Linguistic code: The words of a text; the content
Bibliographic code: "The material features of the text such as layout, illustration, size and kind of lettering, use of space, binding, cost, and the like.” (from The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and Digital Culture, by George Bornstein and Theresa Lynn Tinkle, University of Michigan Press, 1998)

So what can these "bibliographic codes" tell us? As Michael Suarez puts it, the “aim of bibliography is to discern the human presences in every recorded text.” It’s a methodology for analyzing a text and its material form in order to illuminate its purpose, audience, production, reception, and social context at a moment or moments in time. It’s about recognizing the social and material meaning of texts, to humans, and with humans, over time.

The resources in this section are designed to provide an introduction to the study of bibliography and textual scholarship, so you too can judge a book by its cover!

Glorious Bookishness | Michael F. Suarez, S.J. | TEDxCharlottesville

In his talk, Director of Rare Book School at UVa, Michael F. Suarez, S.J. teaches us how and why we should judge a book by its cover.