Book terminology

thumb|right|Christ Pantocrator seated in a capital "U" in an [[illuminated manuscript from the Badische Landesbibliothek, Germany (from )]] thumb|right|Image of two facing pages of the illuminated manuscript of "Isagoge", fols. 42b and 43a. On the top of the left hand page is an illuminated letter "D" – initial of "De urinarum differencia negocium" (The matter of the differences of urines). Inside the letter is a picture of a master on bench pointing at a raised flask while lecturing on the "Book on urines" of Theophilus. The right hand page is only shown in part. On its very bottom is an illu

thumb|250px|Bibliographies at the University Library of Graz Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). 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 (or enumerative bibliography); the other one, applicable for collectors, is "the study of books as physical objects" and "the systematic description of books as objects" (or descriptive bibliog

thumb|Front cover of The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (4th ed.) by [[Paul Dirac]] A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, most often created by a single author or artist. Traditionally it is in written form and published as a book, but it may be an artwork, audiovisual work, or exhibition made up of visual artworks. In library cataloguing, the word has a specific and broader meaning, while in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration uses the term to mean a set of published standards as well as various guidelines.

manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration

label affixed to a book to indicate ownership

thumb|378x378px|1823 facsimile of the United States Declaration of Independence made by William Stone A facsimile (from Latin fac simile, "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of reproduction by attempting to replicate the source as accurately as possible in scale, color, condition, and other material qualities. For books and manuscripts, this also entails a complete copy of all pages; hence, an incomplete copy is a "partial facsimil

brief statement of a book's own information, such as publisher, location, and date of publication

thumb|Miniature of Vincent of Beauvais writing in a manuscript of the Speculum Historiale in French, Bruges, c. 1478–1480, [[British Library Royal 14 E. i, vol. 1, f. 3, probably representing the library of the Dukes of Burgundy.]]

thumb|Composite order|Composite columns of a bookshelf from the [[Bibliothèque Mazarine (Paris)]] thumb|Household bookshelf arranged by color

thumb|upright=1.2|A blank paperback book thumb|upright=1.2|Glued binding

list of words or phrases with pointers to their locations

thumb|The foreword to Men I Have Painted, by John McLure Hamilton; 1921 thumb|Foreword, to a 1900 book in German A foreword is a (usually short) piece of writing, sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Typically written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the book's primary author or the story the book tells. Later editions of a book sometimes have a new foreword prepended (appearing before an older foreword, if there was one), which might explain how that edition diff

section of a work, most commonly a book

10-character alphanumeric unique identifier

illustration facing a book's title page

thumb|A book with a bound bookmark. thumb|Book with florentine paper bookmark. thumb|Fabric bookmark with Bedouin embroidery, [[Lakiya, Israel]] thumb|A metal bookmark with a fabric tassel and decorative beads

thumb|upright|A pile of books and papers, compiled yet unread

expression of friendly connection or thanks by the author towards another person

thumb|Jules César tome 2 – p. 585 – Erratum An erratum or corrigendum (: errata, corrigenda) (comes from ) is a correction of a published text. Generally, publishers issue an erratum for a production error (i.e., an error introduced during the publishing process) and a corrigendum for an author's error. It is usually bound into the back of a book, but for a single error a slip of paper detailing a corrigendum may be bound in before or after the page on which the error appears. An erratum may also be issued shortly after its original text is published.

in classical scholarship, first printed edition of a work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts and that was written before the invention of printing (letterpress printing was invented in Europe around 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg)

paper wrap for a book

__NOTOC__ A preface () or proem () is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface. The preface often closes with acknowledgments of those who assisted in the literary work.

book in a series, typically identified sequentially (e.g. Volume 3)

entry or passage in a text that was not written by the original author

gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work

subdivision of a chapter in a book

"front" and "back" sides of a leaf of paper

thumb|300px|right|The catchword (in this case the last three letters "dos" of a divided word) is at the bottom of the page thumb|300px|right|The first page of the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Berachot, folio 2a). The catchword "דילמא" is found at the bottom of the Talmud text (center), and the commentaries of [[Rashi (center left) and the Tosafot (center right) as the word will begin each text on the next page, 2b.]]

folded down corner of book page

first proofs printed from type, usually before breaking into pages

novel genre

process of converting physical media into digital media

A bookend is an object tall, sturdy, and heavy enough that is placed at either end of a row of upright books to support or buttress them. Heavy bookends—made of wood, bronze, marble, and even large geodes—have been used in libraries, stores, and homes for centuries; the simple sheetmetal bookend (originally patented in 1877 by William Stebbins Barnard) uses the weight of the books standing on its foot to clamp the bookend's tall brace against the last book's back; in libraries, simple metal brackets are often used to support the end of a row of books. Elaborate and decorative bookends are comm

thumb|The 1906 front dust jacket of Gelett Burgess|Burgess's Are You a Bromide?, which contains the first use of the word "blurb."

common name for any insect which bores through books

thumb|upright=1.35|Diana and Actaeon (Titian)|Diana and Actaeon by [[Titian has a full provenance covering its passage through several owners and four countries since it was painted for Philip II of Spain in the 1550s.]]

group of leaves, folded in the middle and bound together into a book binding

book by Benedikt Kotruljević

overstocked printed book marked and sold at a discount

storage area for books in a library

An antilibrary is a collection of books that are owned but have not yet been read. The term was coined by Umberto Eco and popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The concept it describes has been compared to the Japanese tsundoku.

paper embrittlement of a book or document

method of discouraging the theft of manuscripts

number of words in a document or passage of text

type of genre fiction novel

fastener for a book cover

book which is intended to be written in or otherwise modified.

A potboiler or pot-boiler is a novel, play, opera, film, or other creative work of low quality whose main purpose is to pay for the creator's daily expenses—thus the imagery of "boil the pot", which means "to provide one's livelihood." Authors who create potboiler novels or screenplays are sometimes called hack writers or hacks. Novels deemed to be potboilers may also be called pulp fiction, and potboiler films may be called "popcorn movies".

special kind of bookmark used in medieval Europe