An incunable or incunabulum is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. Incunabula were produced before the printing press became widespread on the continent and are distinct from manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. Some authorities on the history of printing include block books from the same time period as incunabula, whereas others limit the term to works printed using movable type.
Bibliography, as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology. English author and bibliographer John Carter describes bibliography as a word having two senses: one, a list of books for further study or of works consulted by an author ; the other one, applicable for collectors, is "the study of books as physical objects" and "the systematic description of books as objects".
Octavo, a Latin word meaning "in eighth" or "for the eighth time", is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multiple pages of text were printed to form the individual sections of a book. An octavo is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more full sheets on which 16 pages of text were printed, which were then folded three times to produce eight leaves. Each leaf of an octavo book thus represents one eighth the size of the original sheet. Other common book formats are folios and quartos. Octavo is also used as a general description of the size of books that are about 8 to 10 inches tall, and as such does not necessarily indicate the actual printing format of the books, which may even be unknown as is the case for many modern books. These terms are discussed in greater detail in book sizes.
Edmond Hoyle was an English writer best known for his works on the rules and play of card games. The phrase "according to Hoyle" came into the language as a reflection of his broadly perceived authority on the subject; use of the phrase has since expanded to any appeal to a putative authority.
A Term Catalogue is a serial publication compiled to inform customers—most importantly book traders from other cities—of the book production as available on the book fairs. The first such catalogue was issued by Georg Willer in Augsburg in 1564. Several projects followed the model including the series of English Term Catalogues issued by John Starkey and Robert Clavell under the title Mercurius Librarius, or, a catalogue of books from 1668 to 1711. "Term" referred to the dates of the fairs that would be held as platforms of the trade.
The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, an affiliated library of the University of California, Los Angeles, holds rare books and manuscripts with particular strengths in English literature and history (1641–1800), Oscar Wilde and the fin de siècle, and fine press printing. It is located about 10 mi (16 km) southeast from UCLA, in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, and 2 mi (3.2 km) west of the University of Southern California. It is administered by UCLA's Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies, which offers several long- and short-term fellowships for graduate and postdoctoral scholars to use the Library's collections. However, any reader with an interest in the collection is able to study.
A short-title catalogue is a bibliographical resource that lists printed items in an abbreviated fashion, recording the most important words of their titles. The term is commonly encountered in the context of early modern books, which frequently have lengthy, descriptive titles on their title pages. Many short-title catalogues are union catalogues, listing items in the custody of multiple libraries.
The Text Creation Partnership (TCP) is a not-for-profit organization based in the library of the University of Michigan since 2000. Its purpose is to produce large-scale full-text electronic resources on behalf of both member institutions and scholarly publishers, under an arrangement calculated to serve the needs of both, and in so doing to demonstrate the value of a business model that sees corporate and non-profit information-providers as potentially amicable collaborators rather than as antagonistic vendors and customers respectively.
Frederic Sutherland Ferguson was an English bibliographer.
Quarto is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produce eight book pages. Each printed page presents as one-fourth size of the full sheet.
Donald Goddard Wing was an Associate Librarian at Yale University from 1939 to 1970, best known for his publication of the bibliographic work A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America and of the English Books Printed in Other Countries, 1641-1700 (1945–1951), and companion work A Gallery of Ghosts; Books Published Between 1641-1700 Not Found in the Short-Title Catalogue (1967). Wing's Short title catalogue was a continuation of the earlier A Short-Title Catalogue of Books….1475-1640 (1928) compiled by Pollard and Redgrave. His Short-Title Catalogue became so popular that librarians and booksellers viewed it as an “indispensable tool.” Books referenced in Wing's Short-Title Catalogue became known as “Wing-books,” or books in published in the “Wing-period.” In 1999. American Libraries named him one of the 100 most important library leaders of the 20th century.
The Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) brings together information on all books published in Europe between the invention of printing and the end of the sixteenth century, creating a powerful resource for the study of the book and print culture.
A miscellany is a collection of various pieces of writing by different authors. Meaning a mixture, medley, or assortment, a miscellany can include pieces on many subjects and in a variety of different forms. In contrast to anthologies, whose aim is to give a selective and canonical view of literature, miscellanies were produced for the entertainment of a contemporary audience and so instead emphasise collectiveness and popularity. Laura Mandell and Rita Raley state:
This last distinction is quite often visible in the basic categorical differences between anthologies on the one hand, and all other types of collections on the other, for it is in the one that we read poems of excellence, the "best of English poetry," and it is in the other that we read poems of interest. Out of the differences between a principle of selection and a principle of collection, then, comes a difference in aesthetic value, which is precisely what is at issue in the debates over the "proper" material for inclusion into the canon.
Alfred Forbes Johnson, MC was an English academic librarian, bibliographer, curator, and expert in typography. He was Deputy Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum. He is author of many bibliographical reference works, and the standard Encyclopaedia of Typefaces.
Iberian Books is a bibliographical research project set up to chart the development of printing in Spain, Portugal and the New World in the early-modern period. It offers a catalogue of what was known to have been printed, along with a survey of surviving copies and links to digital editions. It is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The records created are made available in an open-access database under a Creative Commons license.
In 2018, two firms in Spain ranked among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Grupo Planeta and Grupo Santillana. In 2013, there were 524,213 titles in print in Spain, including 76,434 new titles.
As of 2018, Wolters Kluwer ranks as the Dutch biggest publisher of books in terms of revenue. Other notable Dutch houses include Brill and Elsevier.
Books in the United Kingdom refers to books in the United Kingdom. In other words, "written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers", in the United Kingdom.
Handlist of publications of, or about, music printed in England before 1660. If a work is undated the date is italicised. The handlist does not give every detail about the publications but presents an overview of music publishing in England. The 1557 London Charter limited printing to members of the London Company of Stationers and this was strengthened and further enforced in 1566..
Walter Newton Henry Harding (1883-1973) was a ragtime pianist, collector of rare books, primarily relating to music, and major donor to the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford.
