What is a book Plural books What are Books

What is a Book? Plural - Books

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Book (disambiguation).
Literature

Major forms
Epic • Romance • Novel
Media
Performance • Book
Techniques
Prose • Poetry
See also
History • Modern History • Books • Authors • Awards • Criticism • Theory • Magazines • Basic Topics

Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon, 1902.Look up book in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.A book is a collection of sheets of paper, parchment or other material with a piece of text written on them, bound together along one edge within covers. Each side of a sheet is called a page and a single sheet within a book may be called a leaf. A book is also a literary work or a main division of such a work. A book produced in electronic format is known as an e-book.

In library and information science, a book is called a monograph to distinguish it from serial publications such as magazines, journals or newspapers.

Publishers may produce low-cost, pre-proof editions 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.

A lover of books is usually referred to as a bibliophile, a bibliophilist, or a philobiblist, or, more informally, a bookworm.

A book may be studied by students in the form of a book report. It may also be covered by a professional writer as a book review to introduce a new book. Some belong to a book club.

Contents [hide]
1 History of books
1.1 Antiquity
1.1.1 Scroll
1.1.2 Codex
1.2 Middle Ages
1.2.1 Manuscripts
1.2.2 Block printing and incunables
1.2.3 Paper
1.3 Modern world
2 Structure of books
3 Conservation issues
4 Collections of books
5 Keeping track of books
6 Transition to digital format
7 See also
7.1 General
7.2 Online book databases and lists
7.3 Book classification systems
8 External links

[edit]
History of books
[edit]
Antiquity

Woman holding a book (or wax tablets) in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 AD.
Old books at the Merton College Library at Oxford. The oral account (word of mouth, tradition, hearsay) is the oldest carrier of messages and stories. 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.

[edit]
Scroll
In Ancient Egypt, papyrus (a form of paper made from the stems of the papyrus plant) was already used for writing as from 2400 BC. Papyrus sheets were glued together to form a scroll. This custom gained widespread popularity in the Hellenistic and Roman world, although we have evidence that tree bark (Latin liber, from there also library) was used from earlier times in Italy. But during most of the classical period papyrus was nearly synonymous with writing material and so the words 'paper' and 'Bible' both come from Greek words meaning papyrus.

In schools, in accounting and for taking notes wax tablets were the normal writing material. Wax tablets had the advantage of being reusable: the wax could be melted and a new text carved into the wax. The custom of binding several wax tablets together is a possible precursor for modern books.

[edit]
Codex
Papyrus scrolls were still dominant when codices appeared in the first century A.D., as witnessed by the findings in Pompeii. Gradually the codex became more and more used; the first written mention of the codex as a form of book is from the end of the first century by Martial in his Apophoreta CLXXXIV, where he praises its compactness. In the pagan Hellenistic world however, the codex never gained much popularity and only within the Christian community was it popularized and gained widespread use. The idea of a codex is probably influenced by the way several wax tablets were joined together, as does the etymology of the word codex (block of wood) suggest. At first used mainly for accounting, the codex together with the development of parchment slowly phased out papyrus scrolls during the third century A.D.. This happened already in the Christian environment and the reasons for adopting the codex form of the book are several: the codex format is more economical as both sides of the writing material can be used, it is easy to conceal, portable and searchable. It is also possible that the Christian authors distinguished their writings on purpose from the pagan texts which were written normally in the form of scrolls.

[edit]
Middle Ages
[edit]
Manuscripts
The fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D. saw the decline of the culture of ancient Rome. In Western Roman Empire mainly monasteries carried on the latin writing tradition, because first Cassiodorus in the monastery of Vivarium and later St. Benedict of Nursia, in the sixth century stressed the importance of copying texts. This greatly influenced the importance of books through the Middle Ages, and is why the clergy were the predominant readers of books.

Before the invention and adoption of the printing press, almost all books were copied by hand, which made books comparatively expensive and rare. There were four types of scribes:

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; and Illuminators, who painted illustrations
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 12th century. It has been argued[1], 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 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 demand for books increased 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 book production speed was considerably increased. The system was maintained by stationers guilds, which were secular, and produced both religious and non-religious material.

^ Paul Saenger. Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading. Stanford University Press 1997.
[edit]
Block printing and incunables

A 15th century incunabulum. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses and clasps for holding the book shut.In the early 14th century, block printing arrived in Western Europe (the technique had been developed in the East centuries earlier). In block printing, a relief image of an entire page was carved out of blocks of wood. It could then be inked and used to reproduce many copies of that page. Books, as well as playing cards and religious pictures, began to be produced by block printing. Creating an entire book, however, was a painstaking process, requiring a hand-carved block for each page. Also, the wood blocks were not durable and could easily wear out or crack.

Talkin' Texan Home Page Our Pricing Policy

What is an SEO? Top 10 Website Rankings

Order , or y'all could hit your "back button.