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The Book on the Bookshelf / Henry Petroski
Books
REF.BC.1088
x, 290 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
1999
Shelving for books, Bookbinding, History of the book
Henry Petroski explores the development of books and bookshelves, discussing the process of how books came to be arranged vertically on horizontal shelves. Readers will learn how the ancient scroll became the codex, and this in turn, became the volumes we are used to.
From inside cover: “Petroski takes us into the pre-Gutenberg world, where books were so scarce that they were chained to lecterns for security. He explains how the printing press not only changed the way books were made and shelved, but also increased their availability and transformed book readers into book owners and collectors. He shows us that for a time books were shelved with their spines in, and it was not until after the arrival of the modern bookcase that the spines faced out.”
Also included are an appendix (on varying methods we might employ to arrange books on our shelves), author’s notes, a bibliography, and an index.