“The Day Has Not Yet Come…”: Book-Jackets in Library Catalogs

Abstract

In 1971 the eminent American scholar G. Thomas Tanselle wrote: “the day has not yet come when one can learn anything of a library's holdings of jackets by consulting its catalogue.” Forty-four years later, library catalogs still do not allow that. Book-jackets, whose “original sin” is their being physically separate from the book, are nevertheless essential documents for the history of publishing. This article aims to show the necessity for access to the information about a single book's book-jacket directly from the library catalog; it considers the reasons why catalogers usually “distrust” book-jackets; and it aims to determine whether there is any change in attitude about taking book-jackets into account in cataloging.

KEYWORDS:

• book-jackets
• dust-jackets
• bibliographic description

Notes

¹ G. Thomas Tanselle, “Book-Jackets, Blurbs, and Bibliographers,” The Library 5th ser. 26, no. 2 (June 1971): 115. Most of Tanselle's works on book-jackets, including the item above, have been recently republished in a single volume: Book-Jackets: Their History, Forms, and Use (Charlottesville: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 2011), to which the author of the present article refers for any in-depth analysis of the topic. The present article basically refers to and expands on, with regard to cataloging, the work of Paola Puglisi, Sopraccoperta (Rome: Associazione Italiana Biblioteche, 2003) where historical, artistic, paratextual, and library science aspects of the subject are more deeply debated; see also, for an English review of the book, Conor Fahy, “Book Reviews,” The Book Collector 53, no. 1 (2004): 142–144.

² Tanselle, “Dust-Jackets, Dealers, and Documentation,” in Book-Jackets: Their History, Forms, and Use (Charlottesville: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 2011), 77.

³ Artistic aspects of book-jackets on the basis of a large international sample were first discussed in Charles Rosner, The Growth of the Book-Jacket (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954).

⁴ About features and significance of blurbs see Arlene Schlegel, Laura Cummings, and Milton Imberman, “Do Book Jackets Encourage Reading?” Library Journal 74 (15 November 1949), 1738–1739; Heinz Gollardt, “Studien zum Klappentext” (Phil. Diss., Göttingen, 1965), Börsenblatt für deutschen Buchhandel 22.78 (1966): 2101–2212; Tanselle, “Book-Jackets, Blurbs, and Bibliographers,” 102–103; Kate Douglas, “‘Blurbing’ Biographical: Authorship and Autobiography,” Biography 24, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 806–826.

⁵ “For printed monographs published without a title page … use the part of the item supplying the most complete information, whether this be the cover (excluding a separate book-jacket), caption, colophon, running title, or other part”: Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, prepared under the direction of the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR, 2nd ed., 2002 revision, 2004 update (Chicago, Ottawa, London: American Library Association, Canadian Library Association, Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, 2004), 2.0B1 (Chief Source of Information), 2–3.

⁶ “Book-jackets (or ‘dust-jackets,’ as they are often called), along with other detachable book coverings such as slip-cases … though removable from the books they cover are essential parts of those books as published”: Tanselle, “Preface,” in Book-Jackets: Their History, Forms, and Use (Charlottesville: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 2011), ix.

⁷ The book is Frithjof van Thienen, Jan Vermeer of Delft (1st edition) (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1949) and it is quoted in Herbert Kleist, “Librarian, What of the Book Jacket?” College and Research Libraries 13 (1952): 319; Montale's blurb is quoted in Stefano Campagnolo, “A Cremona un 150esimo tra ‘Risorgimento familiare’ e prime edizioni,” Accademie e biblioteche d’Italia: Trimestrale di cultura delle biblioteche e delle istituzioni culturali N. ser. 6, nos. 1–4 (2011): 88; the text on the jacket of Il nome della rosa is discussed in Walter E. Stephens, “Un’Eco in fabula,” in Saggi su Il nome della rosa, ed. Renato Giovannoli (Milano: Bompiani, 1985): 127–153, and Puglisi, Sopraccoperta, 99.

⁸ References to paratextual issues, in this article, are based on Gérard Genette's work Seuils (Paris: Seuils, 1989), although Genette never specifically refers to book-jackets among the examples he discusses.

⁹ IFLA Cataloguing Principles: Steps towards an International Cataloguing Code, 5. Report from the 5th IFLA Meeting of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code, Pretoria, South Africa, 2007, eds. Barbara B. Tillett, Tienie de Klerk, Hester van der Walt and Ana Lupe Cristán (München: K. G. Saur, 2008), 15.

¹⁰ See note 1.

¹¹ Julian Rota, “The Fate and State of Removable Dust-Jackets,” Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association Newsletter no. 333 (Aug/Sept 2005): 1–3.

¹² See “Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Library Dust Jackets Collection,” http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/british-library-dust-jackets-collection/ (accessed January 10, 2015).

¹³ See “NYPL Digital Gallery, Dust Jackets from American and European Books, 1926–1947,” http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/?col_id=157 (accessed January 10, 2015).

¹⁴ “Il bibliotecario che condanna alla distruzione la sopraccoperta ha già risposto in senso negativo alla domanda se essa sia parte indissolubile del libro. Eppure, anche se materialmente può esser tolta dal libro-oggetto senza intaccare l’integrità del libro-testo, non v’è dubbio che la sopraccoperta asportata mutila il libro, in quanto prodotto dell’arte tipografica e dell’industria editoriale, di una sua parte viva.” Francesco Barberi, “Conservare le sopracoperte,” Associazione Italiana Biblioteche: Bollettino d’informazione N. ser. 2, no. 6 (1962): 185.

¹⁵ Puglisi, Sopraccoperta, 125.

¹⁶ John Carter, ABC for Book Collectors, 7th ed. with corrections, additions, and an introduction by Nicolas Barker (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1998), 83.

¹⁷ Rota, “ The Fate and State of Removable Dust-Jackets,” 1; Tanselle, “Recent Book-Jacket News,” in Book-Jackets: Their History, Forms, and Use (Charlottesville: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 2011), 83–87.

¹⁸ “Library of Congress Collections Policy Statements Supplementary Guidelines, Book Jackets,” (revised November 2008), http://www.loc.gov/acq/devpol/bookjack.pdf (accessed January 10, 2015).

¹⁹ “John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, Digitised Sections of the Collection,”, http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/johnson/jj-images/digitsed-sections (accessed January 10, 2015); Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC), “Book Jackets Designed for Anthologies, Novels, Biographies, Histories, etc.,” http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005690971/ (accessed January 10, 2015); Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC), “Dust Jacket Cover Illustration for The Herblock Book,” http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2009633396/ (accessed January 10, 2015); “Regione Emilia-Romagna, Istituto per i beni artistici culturali e naturali, Imago—Catalogo regionale di opere grafiche e cartografiche,” http://ibc.regione.emilia-romagna.it/servizi-online/catalogo-delle-biblioteche/imago/imago-catalogo-regionale-di-opere-grafiche-e-cartografiche (accessed January 10, 2015); Elisabeth Betz Parker's work Graphic Materials: Rules for Describing Original Items and Historical Collections, published by the Library of Congress in 1982, is now updated and available online as “Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Graphics),” http://rbms.info/dcrm/dcrmg/ (accessed February 7, 2015).

²⁰ Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2004, 2.0B1, 2–3. All further quotations from AACR refer to this 2002 revision, 2004 update. Italics in quotations by the author.

²¹ See, for instance, ibid., 1.5D2, 1–34: “Optionally, if the item is in a container, name the container and give its dimensions either after the dimensions of the item or as the only dimensions.”

²² Ibid., “Appendix D—Glossary.”

²³ Ibid., 2.7B10 (“Physical Description”).

²⁴ Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico delle Biblioteche Italiane e per le Informazioni Bibliografiche, Regole italiane di catalogazione REICAT, ed. by Commissione Permanente per la Revisione delle Regole Italiane di Catalogazione (Rome: ICCU, 2009).

²⁵ Translated by the author. The original REICAT statement is the following: “La descrizione si basa di norma sull’esame di almeno un esemplare, possibilmente integro e perfetto, per registrare correttamente le caratteristiche della pubblicazione come è stata prodotta e diffusa originariamente”: ibid., 1.2A (“Analisi dell’esemplare”), 20; to indicate that the item is not complete see 1.2.1B (“Esemplari incompleti o imperfetti”), 21 e 7.3 A (“Completezza, mutilazioni e imperfezioni”), 307.

²⁶ “Una pubblicazione … può essere corredata da un contenitore staccato (scatola, busta, astuccio, custodia, etc.) o da componenti accessorie analoghe (p.es., per un libro, una sopraccoperta o una fascetta)”: ibid., 1.4.1 (“Pubblicazioni con parti non autonome”), 23. The author found the word “flash” to be used in Tanselle's works as equivalent to the Italian “fascetta” (a thin, blurb or advertising band turned all around the cover).

²⁷ “Parte non autonoma”: ibid., 1.4.1 e 1.4.4 (“Allegati”), 23 and 26.

²⁸ Puglisi, Sopraccoperta, 11.

²⁹ Ibid., 616.

³⁰ “Rientrano tra le fonti interne anche eventuali parti staccate (p.es. la sopraccoperta, il contenitore o la custodia) … che fanno parte di una pubblicazione come è stata diffusa”: ibid., 3.1 (“Ordine di preferenza delle fonti”), 63.

³¹ “Il sostituto del frontespizio si sceglie secondo il seguente ordine di preferenza: 1) la copertina, compresa una cartella o custodia staccata…”: ibid., 3.2.2.1 (“Sostituto del frontespizio per le pubblicazioni monografiche moderne”), 66. “Folder” does definitely not mean “jacket.”

³² “Sono fonti complementari … la copertina, compresi il dorso, la parte posteriore (‘quarta di copertina’) ed eventuali risvolti, e, se presenti, la sopraccoperta, la custodia o altri contenitori”: ibid., 3.4B (“Fonti complementari della fonte primaria”), 76.

³³ “Gli elementi dell’area si ricavano dalla pubblicazione stessa, in tutte le sue parti”; “si considera la pubblicazione nel suo stato originale, come è stata edita”: ibid., 4.5.0.2 (“Fonti d’informazione prescritte”), 192.

³⁴ Ibid., 4.3.5.7B (“Dimensioni del contenitore”), 219, and 4.7.5.8 (“Note su contenitori o custodie”), 265.

³⁵ International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, ISBD International Standard Bibliographic Description, Consolidated ed. (Berlin: De Gruyter Saur, 2011).

³⁶ International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, ISBD (NBM): International Standard Bibliographic Description for Non-Book Materials, rev. ed. (London: IFLA Universal Bibliographic Control and International MARC Programme; British Library Bibliographic Services, 1987), 1.

³⁷ See the first statement, Art. 1, of the Italian Legal Deposit Law: “Al fine di conservare la memoria della cultura e della vita sociale italiana sono oggetto di deposito obbligatorio, di seguito denominato ‘deposito legale’, i documenti destinati all’uso pubblico e fruibili mediante la lettura. …” (In order to keep the memory of Italian culture and social life, documents at public disposal for reading are object of compulsory deposit, henceforward named ‘legal deposit’ …), and especially Art. 5, paragraph 2: “L’obbligo di deposito … si intende adempiuto quando gli esemplari sono completi, privi di difetti e comprensivi di ogni eventuale allegato.” (Deposit duty is fulfilled if the items are complete, flawless and comprehensive of any accompanying material). (“Legge 15 Aprile 2004, N. 106, Norme relative al deposito legale dei documenti di interesse culturale destinati all’uso pubblico,” http://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:legge:2004-04-15;106!vig= (accessed January 10, 2015). Translation by the author.

³⁸ IFLA Working Group on Guidelines for National Bibliographies, National Bibliographies in the Digital Age: Guidance and New Directions, ed. Maja Žumer (München: K. G. Saur, 2009), 13.

³⁹ ISBD Consolidated, 2011, A.2.1 (“Object of the Bibliographic Description”), 3. Italics in quotation are supplied by the author.

⁴⁰ Ibid., A.4.3 (“Prescribed Sources”), 30, and 5. (“Material Description Area”), 193.

⁴¹ Ibid., A.4.2 (“Preferred Sources of Information”), 25, and A.4.2.1.1 (“Resources in Roman Script”), 26.

⁴² Ibid., 5.2.1 (“Other Physical Details”), 211.

⁴³ Ibid., 5.3.1.3 (“Resources Issued in a Container”), 223.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 5.3.2.1 (“Bibliographic Format and Dimensions for Older Monographic Resources”), 225.

⁴⁵ See Tanselle, “A List of Pre-1901 Examples of British and American Publishers’ Printed Book-Jacket, Boxes, and Other Detachable Coverings,” in Book-Jackets: Their History, Forms, and Use (Charlottesville: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 2011), 103–239.

⁴⁶ ISBD Consolidated, 2011, 7 (“Note Area. Introductory Note”), 245.

⁴⁷ Ibid., 7.5.1 (“Additional Physical Details”), 279.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 7.11 (“Notes Relating to the Copy in Hand”), 295.

⁴⁹ The quotation is from Richard P. Smiraglia, “Be Careful What You Wish For: FRBR, Some Lacunae, A Review,” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 50, nos. 5–7 (2012): 364. IFLA Study Group on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records Approved by the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section on Cataloguing, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records: Final Report (München: K. G. Saur, 1998).

⁵⁰ IFLA Study Group, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, 1998, 7.

⁵¹ IFLA Study Group, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, 1998, 83.

⁵² IFLA Study Group, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, 1998, 77.

⁵³ IFLA Study Group, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, 1998, 7.

⁵⁴ IFLA Working Group, National Bibliographies, 2009, 40.