The Dictionary of the Book: A Glossary for Book Collectors, Booksellers, Librarians, and Others

by Sidney E. Berger

Overview

From Library Journal's Starred Review: "This ambitious and entertaining update solidifies Berger’s volume as a must-have title for librarians, booksellers, collectors, and students of the book arts and book history."

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538151327
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/16/2023
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	574
Sales rank:	1,063,528
Product dimensions:	9.03(w) x 11.15(h) x 1.38(d)

About the Author

Sidney E. Berger was the Ann C. Pingree Director of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem; he is now that library’s 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.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Nicholas Basbanes

Introduction to the First Edition

Introduction to the Second Edition

The Dictionary

Appendix A: Paper and Paper-Related Terminology in the Present Volume

Appendix B: Typeface Terminology

Appendix C: Paper Sizes

Appendix D: Binding Terminology in the Present Volume

Appendix E: Book Collectors’ Clubs and Societies

Bibliography

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

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 Carter’s 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. Berger’s definitions, so wonderfully precise and clear, give us the confidence to speak intelligently about books—always using just the right word.

Valerie Hotchkiss

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

Each of the more than 2000 entries is comprehensively researched and exhaustively cited. There is also an extensive bibliography which will enable the reader to extend their research beyond the entries in this dictionary. It would also enable anyone with an interest to check that their own holdings on the history of the book are complete or guide those who wish to develop a collection in this area. It will be of interest to book collectors, booksellers, librarians, historians, and artists specialising in printmaking and handpress printing. The Dictionary of the Book is one I would like to add to my own collection[.]

Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association

03/01/2024

Books get treated like the treasures they are in this wondrous work that details every aspect of book production in combination with historical and artistic gems. This hefty, updated volume gets its value from its expansive coverage of 2,000 book terms, including 700 new entries, arranged alphabetically. More than 200 illustrations, along with a massive list of book clubs and book societies worldwide, boost this title's worth even more.

Library Journal

I’ve been racing through Sidney E. Berger’s The Dictionary of the Book: A Glossary for Book Collectors, Booksellers, Librarians, and Others from cover to cover as if it was one of those unputdownable, page-turning blockbusters. This lively, wide-ranging, finely detailed glossary is high entertainment for bibliophiles of every stripe. Berger is a Renaissance bookman, at once scholar, collector, bibliographer, rare book-librarian, paper historian, curator, hand press printer and papermaker. Like John Carter before him, whose venerable ABC for Book Collectors often serves as the inspiration for this book collector’s glossary, Berger is personal, witty and opinionated in the way he writes up these entries. We badly needed not just an update to Carter’s ABC, but a fresh book-collecting glossary that is more in-depth, comprehensive, and scholarly—and that’s exactly what Sidney Berger’s passionate dictionary is.. . .Berger means this for the use of scholars and bibliophiles alike. He wears his scholarship lightly and informally, making the whole task of writing and producing this book look easy, but a decade of work went into it, and of course, a lifetime of being a devout bibliophile.. . .Two reference works are now indispensable to the bibliophile: the Oxford Companion to the Book in two volumes, and now this portable one volume by Sidney Berger. I have been, since getting hold of his Dictionary of The Book, reaching for it so many times, I can’t imagine how I—or any bibliophile—got along without it so far.

The Hindu

The Dictionary of the Book is a reference work that is as wide-ranging and encyclopedic as its author. Sid Berger has produced an essential tool for the trade.

Phil Salmon

An authority on rare books and special collections, Berger offers this dictionary for ‘anyone who wants to speak intelligently about books—to use the right terms in the right contexts and with the right meanings.’ The work begins with the ABA, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (‘the British organization of high-end booksellers’), and concludes with Zinc Cuts (‘metal plates made from zinc that contain images for printing’). Entries contain pertinent further readings cross-referenced with URLs where relevant. ‘Online Books Sales’ is just one of many examples of informative entries of varying length. Five helpful appendixes discuss paper and paper-related terminology, typeface terminology, paper sizes, binding terminology, and book collectors' clubs and societies. The concluding, partly annotated bibliography usefully assembles many printed works and internet resources mentioned in the main dictionary…. The handsome work is sturdily bound for reference collection use in a quarto double-columned format with numerous black-and-white and color illustrations. Clearly written and updated for the present age…. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Choice Reviews

With its plentiful illustrations and extensive – and largely print – bibliography, [The Dictionary of the Book] will be a valuable and often entertaining point of reference for people whose interest in physical books goes beyond simply collecting them.

Times Literary Supplement

Berger’s work will perhaps appeal most to the individual with a comparatively modest book budget and without ready institutional access to the OCB. Yet for institutional libraries catering for any element of book production or history, and for anybody who enjoys comparing descriptions in different dictionaries of the book, it is an essential addition to the corpus.

Library & Information History

Book terminology can be complicated and esoteric, but Berger’s entries provide concise and often entertaining explanations for book history terms from papyrus to e books. Berger’s Dictionary of the Book updates and expands the classic reference work on this topic, John Carter’s ABC for Book Collectors, which was first published in 1952. In compiling his dictionary, Berger has drawn on his more than 40 years of experience as a special collections librarian, scholar, teacher, collector, and practitioner of the book arts…. Berger covers a wide range of subjects in a manner both clear and erudite. Berger’s extensive experience in the library and the classroom is much in evidence: He understands what readers need to know about book history, and he knows how to explain it. From a technical services standpoint, Berger’s dictionary is a useful addition to the reference shelf for anyone tasked with creating metadata that highlights the historic aspects of material texts. Berger’s Dictionary of the Book is an accessible and comprehensive guide for anyone who needs to gain a vocabulary for talking about books and the processes that create them.

Technical Services Quarterly

First published in 1952 with eight revised later editions, the ABC for Book Collectors by John Carter has long served as the standard glossary for the book trade. Nicely illustrated with photographs and drawings, The Dictionary of the Book updates Carter’s classic volume with additional coverage on book-printing terms, typography, papermaking, and binding, among other topics. A former museum library director and curator of manuscripts at different institutions, Berger is highly qualified to compile this informative and important work. A venerable bibliophile who delights in all aspects of book production and history, he hopes the readers will get as much 'pleasure out of this book' as he did in compiling it.

Booklist

An authority on rare books and special collections, Berger offers this dictionary for ‘anyone who wants to speak intelligently about books—to use the right terms in the right contexts and with the right meanings.’ The work begins with the ABA, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (‘the British organization of high-end booksellers’), and concludes with Zinc Cuts (‘metal plates made from zinc that contain images for printing’). Entries contain pertinent further readings cross-referenced with URLs where relevant. ‘Online Books Sales’ is just one of many examples of informative entries of varying length. Five helpful appendixes discuss paper and paper-related terminology, typeface terminology, paper sizes, binding terminology, and book collectors' clubs and societies. The concluding, partly annotated bibliography usefully assembles many printed works and internet resources mentioned in the main dictionary…. The handsome work is sturdily bound for reference collection use in a quarto double-columned format with numerous black-and-white and color illustrations. Clearly written and updated for the present age…. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Choice

An authority on rare books and special collections, Berger offers this dictionary for ‘anyone who wants to speak intelligently about books—to use the right terms in the right contexts and with the right meanings.’ The work begins with the ABA, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (‘the British organization of high-end booksellers’), and concludes with Zinc Cuts (‘metal plates made from zinc that contain images for printing’). Entries contain pertinent further readings cross-referenced with URLs where relevant. ‘Online Books Sales’ is just one of many examples of informative entries of varying length. Five helpful appendixes discuss paper and paper-related terminology, typeface terminology, paper sizes, binding terminology, and book collectors' clubs and societies. The concluding, partly annotated bibliography usefully assembles many printed works and internet resources mentioned in the main dictionary…. The handsome work is sturdily bound for reference collection use in a quarto double-columned format with numerous black-and-white and color illustrations. Clearly written and updated for the present age….

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

CHOICE

First published in 1952 with eight revised later editions, the ABC for Book Collectors by John Carter has long served as the standard glossary for the book trade. Nicely illustrated with photographs and drawings, The Dictionary of the Book updates Carter’s classic volume with additional coverage on book-printing terms, typography, papermaking, and binding, among other topics. A former museum library director and curator of manuscripts at different institutions, Berger is highly qualified to compile this informative and important work. A venerable bibliophile who delights in all aspects of book production and history, he hopes the readers will get as much 'pleasure out of this book' as he did in compiling it.

Booklist