This new edition of The Dictionary of the Book adds more than 700 new entries and many new illustrations and brings the vocabulary and theory of bookselling and collecting into the modern commercial and academic world, which has been forced to adjust to a new reality. The definitive glossary of the book covers all the terms needed for a thorough understanding of how books are made, the materials they are made of, and how they are described in the bookselling, book collecting, and library worlds. Every key term--more than 2,000--that could be used in booksellers catalogs, library records, and collectors descriptions of their holdings is represented in this dictionary. This authoritative source covers all areas of book knowledge, including: The book as physical object Typeface terminology Paper terminology Printing Book collecting Cataloging Book design Bibliography as a discipline, bibliographies, and bibliographical description Physical Condition and how to describe it Calligraphy Language of manuscripts Writing implements Librarianship Legal issues Parts of a book Book condition terminology Pricing of books Buying and selling Auctions Items one will see an antiquarian book fairs Preservation and conservation issues, and the notion of restoration Key figures, presses / publishers, and libraries in the history of books Book collecting clubs and societies How to read and decipher new and old dealers catalogs And much more The Dictionary also contains an extensive bibliography--more than 1,000 key readings in the book world and it gives current (and past) definitions of terms whose meaning has shifted over the centuries. More than 200 images accompany the entries, making the work even more valuable for understanding the terms described.
Sidney E. Berger was the Ann C. Pingree Director of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem; he is now that librarys Director Emeritus. For the past 18 years he has been on the faculties of Simmons University and the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, teaching rare-book classes in both institutions library schools. He was also Curator of Printed Books and then Curator of Manuscripts at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA, and he headed the Special Collections Department at the University of California, Riverside. He is widely published in several fields, and his book Rare Books and Specials Collections won the 2015 ABC-CLIO/American Library Association award for the Best Book in Library Literature. He makes paper and casts type by hand, and he is the proprietor of the Doe Press, publishing short texts from handset types, printed on a handpress
As Mark Twain observed, there is a world of difference between the almost right word and the right word. In this enlarged edition, Professor Berger gives us the right word for every possible term related to books. Going far beyond Carters ABC, he has produced a true Booktionary, defining thousands of terms related to the making, getting, keeping, trading, and loving of books. The whole history of books and printing, bookselling and collecting, librarianship, and much more is in this immensely useful resource. Bergers definitions, so wonderfully precise and clear, give us the confidence to speak intelligently about books--always using just the right word.--Valerie Hotchkiss, Azariah Smith Root Director of Libraries and Professor of English and Book Studies, Oberlin College & Conservatory
Sid Berger has been a positive influence on the book collecting world for many decades. His expertise ranges from the micro (his paper collection for example) to the macro (the vast language of old and rare books in all its forms) and is painstaking, accurate, well presented, and up-to-date. The second edition greatly enlarges and improves the first and will be the standard to which all collectors, librarians, and booksellers should adhere.--John Windle, Owner, John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller, and the William Blake Gallery
