The word book in all languages

How to say book in different languages in the world | words for book in other languages | book translated in other languages | book in all languages | different ways to say book? | book said in different languages | book in other words | How to Say book in Many Languages

Know several ways to say book in other languages

कैसे कहें दुनिया में विभिन्न भाषाओं में पुस्तक | अन्य भाषाओं में पुस्तक के लिए शब्द | अन्य भाषाओं में अनुवादित पुस्तक | सभी भाषाओं में पुस्तक | किताब कहने के अलग–अलग तरीके? | विभिन्न भाषाओं में कहा गया पुस्तक | दूसरे शब्दों में पुस्तक | कई भाषाओं में पुस्तक कैसे कहें

How to say book in foreign languages | Ways to say book in foreign languages?

 

 How to say book in Latin language | Latin word for book | what is the word book in Latin?

S.No	say book In Latin language
1	liber

How to say book in Haitian Creole language?

S.No	Say book In Haitian Creole language
2	liv

How to say book in Esperanto language?

S.No	say book In Esperanto language
3	libro

How to say book in Asian languages | Ways to say book in Asian languages

How to say book in Nepali language?

S.No	say book In Nepali language
1	पुस्तक

 

How to say book in Vietnamese language?

S.No	say book In Vietnamese              language
2	sách

 

How to say book in Tajik language?

S.No	say book In Tajik language
3	китоб

 

How to say book in Mongolian language?

S.No	say book In Mongolian language
4	ном

How to say book in Uzbek language?

S.No	say book In Uzbek language
5	kitob

How to say book in Tamil language?

S.No	say book in Tamil language
6	புத்தகம்

How to say book in Telugu language?

S.No	say book in Telugu language
7	పుస్తకం

How to say book in Malayalam language?

S.No	say book in Malayalam language
8	പുസ്തകം

How to say book in Urdu language?

S.No	say book In Urdu language
9	Kitab

How to say book in Turkish language?

S.No	say book in Turkish language
10	kitap

How to say book in Sinhala language?

S.No	say book In Sinhala language
11	පොත

How to say book in Thai language?

S.No	say book in Thai language
13	หนังสือ

How to say book in Kazakh language?

S.No	say book in Kazakh language
14	кітап

How to say book in Korean language | Korean word for book

S.No	say book In Korean language
15	도서 [doseo]

How to say book in Marathi language?

S.No	say book in Marathi language
16	पुस्तक

How to say book in Lao language?

S.No	say book In Lao language
17	ຫນັງສື

How to say book in Japanese language | how do you say book in Japanese | Japanese word for book | what is the Japanese word for book | the word book in Japanese

S.No	say book In Japanese language
18	本

How to say book in Hindi language | Hindi word for book | Book के लिए हिंदी शब्द

S.No	say book in Hindi language
19	किताब

How to say book in Khmer language?

S.No	say book in Khmer language
21	សៀវភៅ

How to say book in Kannada language?

S.No	say book In Kannada language
22	ಪುಸ್ತಕದ

How to say book in Georgian language?

S.No	say book in Georgian language
23	წიგნი

How to say book in Hmong language?

S.No	say book in Hmong language
24	phau ntawv

How to say book in Bengali language?

S.No	say book in Bengali language
25	বই

How to say book in Gujarati language?

S.No	say book In Gujarati  language
26	પુસ્તક

How to say book in Chinese Traditional xìnyòngkǎ fùkuǎn) language

S.No	say book In Chinese Traditional xìnyòngkǎ fùkuǎn) language
27	書 [shū]

How to say book in Chinese Simplified xìnyòngkǎ fùkuǎn) language

S.No	say book in Chinese Simplified xìnyòngkǎ fùkuǎn) language
28	书 [shū]

How to say book in Azerbaijani language?

S.No	say book in Azerbaijani language
29	kitab

How to Say book in Armenian language?

S.No	say book in Armenian language
30	գիրք

How to Say book in Middle Eastern languages | Ways to say in book Middle Eastern languages

 

How to say book in Persian language?

S.No	say book In Persian language
1	kitab

 

How to say book in Hebrew language?

S.No	say book in Hebrew language
2	סֵפֶר

 

How to say book in Arabic language | Arabic word for book

S.No	say book In Arabic language
3	[kitab]

 

How to Say book in European languages | Ways to say book in European languages

How to say book in Basque language?

S.No	say book in Basque language
1	liburu

 

How to say book in Albanian language?

S.No	say book in Albanian language
2	libër

 

How to say book in Bosnian language?

S.No	say book in Bosnian language
3	knjiga

 

How to say book in Belarusian language?

S.No	say book In Belarusian language
4	кніга

How to say book in Bulgarian language?

S.No	say book In Bulgarian language
5	Книга

How to say book in Croatian language?

S.No	say book In Croatian language
6	rezervirati

How to say book in Catalan language?

S.No	say book In Catalan language
7	llibre

How to say book in Czech language?

S.No	say book In Czech language
8	rezervovat

How to say book in Danish language?

S.No	say book In Danish language
9	Bestil

How to say book in Estonian language?

S.No	say book in Estonian language
10	raamat

How to say book in Dutch language?

S.No	say book In Dutch language
11	boek

How to say book in Finnish language?

S.No	say book in Finnish language
12	kirja

How to say book in Galician language?

S.No	say book In Galician language
13	libro

How to say book in French language?

S.No	Say book In French language
14	livre

How to say book in Greek language |Greek words for book | book के लिए ग्रीक शब्द | Greek word for book | what is the Greek word for book

S.No	Say book In Greek language
15	Βιβλίο [Vivlío]

How to say book in Icelandic language | Icelandic word for book

S.No	say book Icelandic language
16	Bók

How to say book in German language | German word for book

S.No	say book in German language
17	Buch

How to say book in Irish language?

S.No	say book In Irish language
18	leabhar

How to say book in Hungarian language?

S.No	say book In Hungarian language
19	könyv

How to say book in Italian language?

S.No	say book In Italian language
20	libro

How to say book in Romanian language?

S.No	Say book In Romanian language
21	carte

How to say book in Latvian language?

S.No	say book In Latvian language
22	grāmata

How to say book in Lithuanian language?

S.No	say book in  Lithuanian language
23	knyga

How to say book in Macedonian language?

S.No	say book In Macedonian language
24	книга

How to say book in Norwegian language | Norwegian word for book |book in Norwegian

S.No	say book In Norwegian language
25	bok

How to say book in Portuguese language?

S.No	Say book  In Portuguese language
26	livro

How to say book in Polish language?

S.No	say book In Polish language
27	książka

How to say book in Maltese language?

S.No	Say book In Maltese language
28	ktieb

How to say book in Yiddish language?

S.No	say book In Yiddish language
29	בוך

How to say book in Welsh language?

S.No	say book In Welsh language
30	llyfr

How to say book in Ukrainian language?

S.No	say book In Ukrainian language
31	книга [knyha]

How to say book in Serbian language?

S.No	say book In Serbian language
32	књига [knjiga]

How to say book in Swedish language?

S.No	say book In Swedish language
33	bok

 

How to say book in Slovak language?

S.No	Say book In  Slovak language
34	kniha

 

How to say book in Slovenian language?

S.No	say book In Slovenian language
35	knjiga

 

How to say book in Spanish language | Spanish word for book

S.No	say book In Spanish language
36	libro

 

How to say book in Russian language | Russian word for book | book रूसी भाषा में

S.No	say book In Russian language
37	книга [kniga]

 

How to say book in Austronesian languages | ways to say book in Austronesian languages

How to say book in Filipino language?

S.No	say book In Filipino language
1	libro

How to say book in Cebuano language?

S.No	Say book In Cebuano language
2	basahon

How to say book in Indonesian language?

S.No	say book In Indonesian language
3	Book

How to say book in Malagasy language?

S.No	say book In Malagasy language
4	boky

How to say book in Maori language?

S.No	say book In Maori language
5	pukapuka

How to say book in Malay language?

S.No	say book in Malay language
6	buku

How to say book in Javanese language?

S.No	say book In Javanese language
7	buku

How to say book in African languages | Ways to say book in African languages

How to say book in Somali language?

S.No	say book In Somali language
1	buugga

How to say book in Swahili language |book in Swahili language

S.No	say book In Swahili language
2	kitabu

How to say book in Yoruba language?

S.No	say book In Yoruba language
3	iwe

How to say book in Sesotho language?

S.No	say book In Sesotho language
4	buka

How to say book in Igbo language?

S.No	say book In Igbo language
5	akwụkwọ

How to say book in Hausa language?

S.No	say book In Hausa language
6	littafin

How to say book in Chichewa language?

S.No	say book In Chichewa language
7	buku

How to say book in Afrikaans language | African word for book

S.No	say book In Afrikaans language
8	boek

How to say book in Zulu language?

S.No	say book In Zulu language
9	incwadi

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English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• enPR: bo͝ok, IPA^(key): /bʊk/
• enPR: bo͞ok IPA^(key): /buːk/ (Tyneside; otherwise obsolete)^[1]
• plural
• Rhymes: -ʊk
• Homophone: buck (accents without the foot–⁠strut split)

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English bok, book, from Old English bōc, from Proto-West Germanic *bōk, from Proto-Germanic *bōks. Eclipsed non-native Middle English livret, lyveret (“book, booklet”) from Old French livret (“book, booklet”). Bookmaker sense by clipping.

Alternative forms[edit]

• booke (archaic)

Noun[edit]

book (plural books)

1. A collection of sheets of paper bound together to hinge at one edge, containing printed or written material, pictures, etc.

   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 3, column 1:

     Knowing I lou’d my bookes, he furniſhd me / From mine owne Library, with volumes, that / I prize aboue my Dukedome.

   • 1962, James East Irby translating Luis Borges as «The Library of Babel»:

     I repeat: it suffices that a book be possible for it to exist. Only the impossible is excluded. For example: no book can be a ladder, although no doubt there are books which discuss and negate and demonstrate this possibility and others whose structure corresponds to that of a ladder.

   • 1983, Steve Horelick & al., «Reading Rainbow»:

     I can be anything.
     Take a look!
     It’s in a book:
     A reading rainbow.

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, page 51:

     Trefusis’s quarters could be described in one word. Books. Books and books and books. And then, just when an observer might be lured into thinking that that must be it, more books… Trefusis himself was highly dismissive of them. ‘Waste of trees,’ he had once said. ‘Stupid, ugly, clumsy, heavy things. The sooner technology comes up with a reliable alternative the better… The world is so fond of saying that books should be “treated with respect”. But when are we told that words should be treated with respect?’

   She opened the book to page 37 and began to read aloud.

   He was frustrated because he couldn’t find anything about dinosaurs in the book.

2. A long work fit for publication, typically prose, such as a novel or textbook, and typically published as such a bound collection of sheets, but now sometimes electronically as an e-book.

   I have three copies of his first book.

   • 2022 December 6, Stephen Marche, quoting Sam Bankman-Fried, “The College Essay Is Dead”, in The Atlantic‎^[1]:

     “I would never read a book,” he once told an interviewer. “I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that.”

3. A major division of a long work.

   Genesis is the first book of the Bible.

   Many readers find the first book of A Tale of Two Cities to be confusing.

   Synonyms: tome, volume

5. (gambling) A record of betting (from the use of a notebook to record what each person has bet).

   I’m running a book on who is going to win the race.

6. (informal) A bookmaker (a person who takes bets on sporting events and similar); bookie; turf accountant.
7. A convenient collection, in a form resembling a book, of small paper items for individual use.

   a book of stamps

   a book of raffle tickets

   Synonym: booklet

8. (theater) The script of a musical or opera.

   Synonym: libretto

   • 2010, David Baskerville, Tim Baskerville, Music Business Handbook and Career Guide (page 172)

     The guild helps ensure that the ownership and control of the music, lyrics, and book of a show remain in the hands of its authors and composers—not the producers.

9. (usually in the plural) Records of the accounts of a business.

   Synonyms: account, record

10. (law, colloquial) A book award, a recognition for receiving the highest grade in a class (traditionally an actual book, but recently more likely a letter or certificate acknowledging the achievement).
11. (whist) Six tricks taken by one side.
12. (poker slang) Four of a kind.^[2]
13. (sports) A document, held by the referee, of the incidents happened in the game.
14. (sports, by extension) A list of all players who have been booked (received a warning) in a game.

    • 2011 March 2, Andy Campbell, “Celtic 1 — 0 Rangers”, in BBC‎^[2]:

      Celtic captain Scott Brown joined team-mate Majstorovic in the book and Rangers’ John Fleck was also shown a yellow card as an ill-tempered half drew to a close.

15. (cartomancy) The twenty-sixth Lenormand card.
16. (figurative) Any source of instruction.
17. (with «the») The accumulated body of knowledge passed down among black pimps.
    • 1974, Adrienne Lanier Seward, The Black Pimp as a Folk Hero (page 11)

      The Book is an oral tradition of belief in The Life that has been passed down from player to player from generation to generation.

    • 1994, Antiquarian Book Monthly (volume 21, page 36)

      On the other hand The Book is an oral tradition containing the rules and principles to be adopted by a pimp who wishes to be a player.

18. (advertising, informal) A portfolio of one’s previous work in the industry.
    • 2017, Nik Mahon, Basics Advertising 02: Art Direction (page

      Getting your book (portfolio) organised is the first step, and knowing both what to include, and what to leave out, is an essential step towards achieving that important agency placement.

    • Idea Industry (page 27)

      Your portfolio — your book — has to be killer.

19. (chess, uncountable) The sum of chess knowledge in the opening or endgame.

    • 2018 April 6, Leonard Barden, “Chess: Schoolboy Vincent Keymer secures shock triumph at Grenke Open”, in The Guardian‎^[3], archived from the original on 2023-01-12:

      White to move and win. How can he do it? The BK plans a march to h8, eating the f4 pawn en route, for a book draw.

    • 2020, Andrew Soltis, How to Swindle in Chess, Batsford Books, →ISBN:

      This seems certain to simplify into a battle between White’s king, rook and two pawns against Black’s king and rook. In some cases a book draw is possible. But a book win is more likely.

Synonyms[edit]

• See Thesaurus:book

Hyponyms[edit]

• See Thesaurus:book

Derived terms[edit]

Descendants[edit]

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

• incunable
• scroll
• tome
• volume

Etymology 2[edit]

From Middle English booken, boken, from Old English bōcian, ġebōcian, from the noun (see above).

Verb[edit]

book (third-person singular simple present books, present participle booking, simple past and past participle booked)

2. (transitive) To reserve (something) for future use.

   I want to book a hotel room for tomorrow night.

   I can book tickets for the concert next week.

   • 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 68:

     I haven’t booked, so I don’t have a clue as to whether the service will be busy or not. Supposedly, reservations are compulsory, but I want to find out what would happen if you just turn up.

   Synonym: reserve

3. (transitive) To write down, to register or record in a book or as in a book.

   They booked that message from the hill

   Synonyms: make a note of, note down, record, write down

4. (transitive) To add a name to the list of people who are participating in something.

   I booked a flight to New York.

   Synonyms: sign up, register, reserve, schedule, enroll

5. (law enforcement, transitive) To record the name and other details of a suspected offender and the offence for later judicial action.

   The police booked him for driving too fast.

6. (sports) To issue a caution to, usually a yellow card, or a red card if a yellow card has already been issued.
7. (intransitive, slang) To travel very fast.

   He was really booking, until he passed the speed trap.

   Synonyms: bomb, hurtle, rocket, speed, shoot, whiz

8. To record bets as bookmaker.
9. (transitive, law student slang) To receive the highest grade in a class.

   The top three students had a bet on which one was going to book their intellectual property class.

10. (intransitive, slang) To leave.

    He was here earlier, but he booked.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

From Middle English book, bok, from Old English bōc, from Proto-Germanic *bōk, first and third person singular indicative past tense of Proto-Germanic *bakaną (“to bake”).

Verb[edit]

book

1. (UK dialectal, Northern England) simple past tense of bake

References[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

• Boko, Koob, boko, bòkò, kobo

Chinese[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• 卜

Etymology[edit]

From English book.

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

book

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, colloquial) to book; to reserve

[edit]

• booking

Limburgish[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• bouk (Sittard, amongst other dialects)
  • Bouk (Eupen)
• Bock (Krefeld)

Etymology[edit]

From Middle Low German bôk, from Old Saxon bōk, from Proto-West Germanic *bōk, from Proto-Germanic *bōks.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /boːk/
• Hyphenation: book
• Rhymes: -oːk

Noun[edit]

book n

1. (many dialects) book

Declension[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Mansaka[edit]

Noun[edit]

book

1. piece

Middle English[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Noun[edit]

book

1. Alternative form of bok

Etymology 2[edit]

Noun[edit]

book

1. Alternative form of bouk

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Verb[edit]

book

1. imperative of booke

A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover.^[1] The technical term for this physical arrangement is codex (plural, codices). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page.

As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle’s Physics is called a book. In an unrestricted sense, a book is the compositional whole of which such sections, whether called books or chapters or parts, are parts.

The intellectual content in a physical book need not be a composition, nor even be called a book. Books can consist only of drawings, engravings or photographs, crossword puzzles or cut-out dolls. In a physical book, the pages can be left blank or can feature an abstract set of lines to support entries, such as in an account book, appointment book, autograph book, notebook, diary or sketchbook. Some physical books are made with pages thick and sturdy enough to support other physical objects, like a scrapbook or photograph album. Books may be distributed in electronic form as ebooks and other formats.

Although in ordinary academic parlance a monograph is understood to be a specialist academic work, rather than a reference work on a scholarly subject, in library and information science monograph denotes more broadly any non-serial publication complete in one volume (book) or a finite number of volumes (even a novel like Proust’s seven-volume In Search of Lost Time), in contrast to serial publications like a magazine, journal or newspaper. An avid reader or collector of books is a bibliophile or, colloquially, «bookworm». Books are traded at both regular stores and specialized bookstores, and people can read borrowed books, often for free, at libraries. Google has estimated that by 2010, approximately 130,000,000 titles had been published.^[2]

In some wealthier nations, the sale of printed books has decreased because of the increased usage of ebooks.^[3] Although in most countries printed books continue to outsell their digital counterparts due to many people still preferring to read in a traditional way.^[4][5][6][7] The 21st century has also seen a rapid rise in the popularity of audiobooks, which are recordings of books being read aloud.^[8]

Etymology

The word book comes from Old English bōc, which in turn comes from the Germanic root *bōk-, cognate to ‘beech’.^[9] In Slavic languages like Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian буква bukva—’letter’ is cognate with ‘beech’. In Russian, Serbian and Macedonian, the word букварь (bukvar’) or буквар (bukvar) refers to a primary school textbook that helps young children master the techniques of reading and writing. It is thus conjectured that the earliest Indo-European writings may have been carved on beech wood.^[10] The Latin word codex, meaning a book in the modern sense (bound and with separate leaves), originally meant ‘block of wood’.^[11]

History

Antiquity

When writing systems were created in ancient civilizations, a variety of objects, such as stone, clay, tree bark, metal sheets, and bones, were used for writing; these are studied in epigraphy.

Tablet

A tablet is a physically robust writing medium, suitable for casual transport and writing. Clay tablets were flattened and mostly dry pieces of clay that could be easily carried, and impressed with a stylus. They were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Wax tablets were pieces of wood covered in a coating of wax thick enough to record the impressions of a stylus. They were the normal writing material in schools, in accounting, and for taking notes. They had the advantage of being reusable: the wax could be melted, and reformed into a blank.

The custom of binding several wax tablets together (Roman pugillares) is a possible precursor of modern bound (codex) books.^[13] The etymology of the word codex (block of wood) also suggests that it may have developed from wooden wax tablets.^[14]

Scroll

Scrolls can be made from papyrus, a thick paper-like material made by weaving the stems of the papyrus plant, then pounding the woven sheet with a hammer-like tool until it is flattened. Papyrus was used for writing in Ancient Egypt, perhaps as early as the First Dynasty, although the first evidence is from the account books of King Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC).^[15] Papyrus sheets were glued together to form a scroll. Tree bark such as lime and other materials were also used.^[16]

According to Herodotus (History 5:58), the Phoenicians brought writing and papyrus to Greece around the 10th or 9th century BC. The Greek word for papyrus as writing material (biblion) and book (biblos) come from the Phoenician port town Byblos, through which papyrus was exported to Greece.^[17] From Greek we also derive the word tome (Greek: τόμος), which originally meant a slice or piece and from there began to denote «a roll of papyrus». Tomus was used by the Latins with exactly the same meaning as volumen (see also below the explanation by Isidore of Seville).

Whether made from papyrus, parchment, or paper, scrolls were the dominant form of book in the Hellenistic, Roman, Chinese, Hebrew, and Macedonian cultures. The Romans and Etruscans also made ‘books’ out of folded linen called in Latin Libri lintei, the only extant example of which is the Etruscan Liber Linteus. The more modern codex book format form took over the Roman world by late antiquity, but the scroll format persisted much longer in Asia.

Codex

Isidore of Seville (died 636) explained the then-current relation between a codex, book, and scroll in his Etymologiae (VI.13): «A codex is composed of many books; a book is of one scroll. It is called codex by way of metaphor from the trunks (codex) of trees or vines, as if it were a wooden stock, because it contains in itself a multitude of books, as it were of branches». Modern usage differs.

A codex (in modern usage) is the first information repository that modern people would recognize as a «book»: leaves of uniform size bound in some manner along one edge, and typically held between two covers made of some more robust material. The first written mention of the codex as a form of book is from Martial, in his Apophoreta CLXXXIV at the end of the first century, where he praises its compactness. However, the codex never gained much popularity in the pagan Hellenistic world, and only within the Christian community did it gain widespread use.^[18] This change happened gradually during the 3rd and 4th centuries, and the reasons for adopting the codex form of the book are several: the format is more economical, as both sides of the writing material can be used; and it is portable, searchable, and easy to conceal. A book is much easier to read, to find a page that you want, and to flip through. A scroll is more awkward to use. The Christian authors may also have wanted to distinguish their writings from the pagan and Judaic texts written on scrolls. In addition, some metal books were made, that required smaller pages of metal, instead of an impossibly long, unbending scroll of metal. A book can also be easily stored in more compact places, or side by side in a tight library or shelf space.

Manuscripts

The fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD saw the decline of the culture of ancient Rome. Papyrus became difficult to obtain due to lack of contact with Egypt, and parchment, which had been used for centuries, became the main writing material. Parchment is a material made from processed animal skin and used—mainly in the past—for writing on.
Parchment is most commonly made of calfskin, sheepskin, or goatskin. It was historically used for writing documents, notes, or the pages of a book. Parchment is limed, scraped and dried under tension. It is not tanned, and is thus different from leather. This makes it more suitable for writing on, but leaves it very reactive to changes in relative humidity and makes it revert to rawhide if overly wet.

Monasteries carried on the Latin writing tradition in the Western Roman Empire. Cassiodorus, in the monastery of Vivarium (established around 540), stressed the importance of copying texts.^[19] St. Benedict of Nursia, in his Rule of Saint Benedict (completed around the middle of the 6th century) later also promoted reading.^[20] The Rule of Saint Benedict (Ch. XLVIII), which set aside certain times for reading, greatly influenced the monastic culture of the Middle Ages and is one of the reasons why the clergy were the predominant readers of books. The tradition and style of the Roman Empire still dominated, but slowly the peculiar medieval book culture emerged.

Before the invention and adoption of the printing press, almost all books were copied by hand, which made books expensive and comparatively rare. Smaller monasteries usually had only a few dozen books, medium-sized perhaps a few hundred. By the 9th century, larger collections held around 500 volumes and even at the end of the Middle Ages, the papal library in Avignon and Paris library of the Sorbonne held only around 2,000 volumes.^[21]

The scriptorium of the monastery was usually located over the chapter house. Artificial light was forbidden for fear it may damage the manuscripts. There were five types of scribes:

• Calligraphers, who dealt in fine book production
• Copyists, who dealt with basic production and correspondence
• Correctors, who collated and compared a finished book with the manuscript from which it had been produced
• Illuminators, who painted illustrations
• Rubricators, who painted in the red letters

The bookmaking process was long and laborious. The parchment had to be prepared, then the unbound pages were planned and ruled with a blunt tool or lead, after which the text was written by the scribe, who usually left blank areas for illustration and rubrication. Finally, the book was bound by the bookbinder.^[22]

Different types of ink were known in antiquity, usually prepared from soot and gum, and later also from gall nuts and iron vitriol. This gave writing a brownish black color, but black or brown were not the only colors used. There are texts written in red or even gold, and different colors were used for illumination. For very luxurious manuscripts the whole parchment was colored purple, and the text was written on it with gold or silver (for example, Codex Argenteus).^[23]

Irish monks introduced spacing between words in the 7th 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 the 12th century. It has been argued that the use of spacing between words shows the transition from semi-vocalized reading into silent reading.^[24]

The first books used parchment or vellum (calfskin) for the pages. The book covers were made of wood and covered with leather. Because dried parchment tends to assume the form it had before processing, the books were fitted with clasps or straps. During the later Middle Ages, when public libraries appeared, up to the 18th century, books were often chained to a bookshelf or a desk to prevent theft. These chained books are called libri catenati.

At first, books were copied mostly in monasteries, one at a time. With the rise of universities in the 13th century, the Manuscript culture of the time led to an increase in the demand for books, 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 speed of book production was considerably increased. The system was maintained by secular stationers guilds, which produced both religious and non-religious material.^[25]

Judaism has kept the art of the scribe alive up to the present. According to Jewish tradition, the Torah scroll placed in a synagogue must be written by hand on parchment and a printed book would not do, though the congregation may use printed prayer books and printed copies of the Scriptures are used for study outside the synagogue. A sofer «scribe» is a highly respected member of any observant Jewish community.

Middle East

People of various religious (Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Muslims) and ethnic backgrounds (Syriac, Coptic, Persian, Arab etc.) in the Middle East also produced and bound books in the Islamic Golden Age (mid 8th century to 1258), developing advanced techniques in Islamic calligraphy, miniatures and bookbinding. A number of cities in the medieval Islamic world had book production centers and book markets. Yaqubi (died 897) says that in his time Baghdad had over a hundred booksellers.^[26] Book shops were often situated around the town’s principal mosque^[27] as in Marrakesh, Morocco, that has a street named Kutubiyyin or book sellers in English and the famous Koutoubia Mosque is named so because of its location in this street.

The medieval Muslim world also used a method of reproducing reliable copies of a book in large quantities known as check reading, in contrast to the traditional method of a single scribe producing only a single copy of a single manuscript. In the check reading method, only «authors could authorize copies, and this was done in public sessions in which the copyist read the copy aloud in the presence of the author, who then certified it as accurate.»^[28] With this check-reading system, «an author might produce a dozen or more copies from a single reading,» and with two or more readings, «more than one hundred copies of a single book could easily be produced.»^[29] By using as writing material the relatively cheap paper instead of parchment or papyrus the Muslims, in the words of Pedersen «accomplished a feat of crucial significance not only to the history of the Islamic book, but also to the whole world of books».^[30]

Wood block printing

In woodblock printing, a relief image of an entire page was carved into blocks of wood, inked, and used to print copies of that page. This method originated in China, in the Han dynasty (before 220 AD), as a method of printing on textiles and later paper, and was widely used throughout East Asia. The oldest dated book printed by this method is The Diamond Sutra (868 AD). The method (called woodcut when used in art) arrived in Europe in the early 14th century. Books (known as block-books), as well as playing-cards and religious pictures, began to be produced by this method. Creating an entire book was a painstaking process, requiring a hand-carved block for each page; and the wood blocks tended to crack, if stored for long. The monks or people who wrote them were paid highly.

Movable type and incunabula

The Chinese inventor Bi Sheng made movable type of earthenware c. 1045, but there are no known surviving examples of his printing. Around 1450, in what is commonly regarded as an independent invention, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and hand mould. This invention gradually made books less expensive to produce and more widely available.

Early printed books, single sheets and images which were created before 1501 in Europe are known as incunables or incunabula. «A man born in 1453, the year of the fall of Constantinople, could look back from his fiftieth year on a lifetime in which about eight million books had been printed, more perhaps than all the scribes of Europe had produced since Constantine founded his city in AD 330.»^[31]

19th century to 21st centuries

Steam-powered printing presses became popular in the early 19th century. These machines could print 1,100 sheets per hour,^[32] but workers could only set 2,000 letters per hour.^{[citation needed]} Monotype and linotype typesetting machines were introduced in the late 19th century. They could set more than 6,000 letters per hour and an entire line of type at once. There have been numerous improvements in the printing press. As well, the conditions for freedom of the press have been improved through the gradual relaxation of restrictive censorship laws. See also intellectual property, public domain, copyright. In mid-20th century, European book production had risen to over 200,000 titles per year.

Throughout the 20th century, libraries have faced an ever-increasing rate of publishing, sometimes called an information explosion. The advent of electronic publishing and the internet means that much new information is not printed in paper books, but is made available online through a digital library, on CD-ROM, in the form of ebooks or other online media. An on-line book is an ebook that is available online through the internet. Though many books are produced digitally, most digital versions are not available to the public, and there is no decline in the rate of paper publishing.^[33] There is an effort, however, to convert books that are in the public domain into a digital medium for unlimited redistribution and infinite availability. This effort is spearheaded by Project Gutenberg combined with Distributed Proofreaders. There have also been new developments in the process of publishing books. Technologies such as POD or «print on demand», which make it possible to print as few as one book at a time, have made self-publishing (and vanity publishing) much easier and more affordable. On-demand publishing has allowed publishers, by avoiding the high costs of warehousing, to keep low-selling books in print rather than declaring them out of print.

Indian manuscripts

Goddess Saraswati image dated 132 AD excavated from Kankali tila depicts her holding a manuscript in her left hand represented as a bound and tied palm leaf or birch bark manuscript. In India a bounded manuscript made of birch bark or palm leaf existed side by side since antiquity.^[34] The text in palm leaf manuscripts was inscribed with a knife pen on rectangular cut and cured palm leaf sheets; colouring was then applied to the surface and wiped off, leaving the ink in the incised grooves. Each sheet typically had a hole through which a string could pass, and with these the sheets were tied together with a string to bind like a book.

Mesoamerican codices

The codices of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) had the same form as the European codex, but were instead made with long folded strips of either fig bark (amatl) or plant fibers, often with a layer of whitewash applied before writing. New World codices were written as late as the 16th century (see Maya codices and Aztec codices). Those written before the Spanish conquests seem all to have been single long sheets folded concertina-style, sometimes written on both sides of the local amatl paper.

Modern manufacturing

The methods used for the printing and binding of books continued fundamentally unchanged from the 15th century into the early 20th century. While there was more mechanization, a book printer in 1900 had much in common with Gutenberg. Gutenberg’s invention was the use of movable metal types, assembled into words, lines, and pages and then printed by letterpress to create multiple copies. Modern paper books are printed on papers designed specifically for printed books. Traditionally, book papers are off-white or low-white papers (easier to read), are opaque to minimize the show-through of text from one side of the page to the other and are (usually) made to tighter caliper or thickness specifications, particularly for case-bound books. Different paper qualities are used depending on the type of book: Machine finished coated papers, woodfree uncoated papers, coated fine papers and special fine papers are common paper grades.

Today, the majority of books are printed by offset lithography.^[35] When a book is printed, the pages are laid out on the plate so that after the printed sheet is folded the pages will be in the correct sequence. Books tend to be manufactured nowadays in a few standard sizes. The sizes of books are usually specified as «trim size»: the size of the page after the sheet has been folded and trimmed. The standard sizes result from sheet sizes (therefore machine sizes) which became popular 200 or 300 years ago, and have come to dominate the industry. British conventions in this regard prevail throughout the English-speaking world, except for the US. The European book manufacturing industry works to a completely different set of standards.

Processes

Layout

Modern bound books are organized according to a particular format called the book’s layout. Although there is great variation in layout, modern books tend to adhere to a set of rules with regard to what the parts of the layout are and what their content usually includes. A basic layout will include a front cover, a back cover and the book’s content which is called its body copy or content pages. The front cover often bears the book’s title (and subtitle, if any) and the name of its author or editor(s). The inside front cover page is usually left blank in both hardcover and paperback books. The next section, if present, is the book’s front matter, which includes all textual material after the front cover but not part of the book’s content such as a foreword, a dedication, a table of contents and publisher data such as the book’s edition or printing number and place of publication. Between the body copy and the back cover goes the end matter which would include any indices, sets of tables, diagrams, glossaries or lists of cited works (though an edited book with several authors usually places cited works at the end of each authored chapter). The inside back cover page, like that inside the front cover, is usually blank. The back cover is the usual place for the book’s ISBN and maybe a photograph of the author(s)/ editor(s), perhaps with a short introduction to them. Also here often appear plot summaries, barcodes and excerpted reviews of the book.^[36]

The body of the books is usually divided into parts, chapters, sections and sometimes subsections that are composed of at least a paragraph or more.

Printing

Some books, particularly those with shorter runs (i.e. with fewer copies) will be printed on sheet-fed offset presses, but most books are now printed on web presses, which are fed by a continuous roll of paper, and can consequently print more copies in a shorter time. As the production line circulates, a complete «book» is collected together in one stack of pages, and another machine carries out the folding, pleating, and stitching of the pages into bundles of signatures (sections of pages) ready to go into the gathering line. Note that the pages of a book are printed two at a time, not as one complete book. Excess numbers are printed to make up for any spoilage due to make-readies or test pages to assure final print quality.

A make-ready is the preparatory work carried out by the pressmen to get the printing press up to the required quality of impression. Included in make-ready is the time taken to mount the plate onto the machine, clean up any mess from the previous job, and get the press up to speed. As soon as the pressman decides that the printing is correct, all the make-ready sheets will be discarded, and the press will start making books. Similar make readies take place in the folding and binding areas, each involving spoilage of paper.

Binding

After the signatures are folded and gathered, they move into the bindery. In the middle of last century there were still many trade binders—stand-alone binding companies which did no printing, specializing in binding alone. At that time, because of the dominance of letterpress printing, typesetting and printing took place in one location, and binding in a different factory. When type was all metal, a typical book’s worth of type would be bulky, fragile and heavy. The less it was moved in this condition the better: so printing would be carried out in the same location as the typesetting. Printed sheets on the other hand could easily be moved. Now, because of increasing computerization of preparing a book for the printer, the typesetting part of the job has flowed upstream, where it is done either by separately contracting companies working for the publisher, by the publishers themselves, or even by the authors. Mergers in the book manufacturing industry mean that it is now unusual to find a bindery which is not also involved in book printing (and vice versa).

If the book is a hardback its path through the bindery will involve more points of activity than if it is a paperback. Unsewn binding is now increasingly common. The signatures of a book can also be held together by «Smyth sewing» using needles, «McCain sewing», using drilled holes often used in schoolbook binding, or «notch binding», where gashes about an inch long are made at intervals through the fold in the spine of each signature. The rest of the binding process is similar in all instances. Sewn and notch bound books can be bound as either hardbacks or paperbacks.

Finishing

«Making cases» happens off-line and prior to the book’s arrival at the binding line. In the most basic case-making, two pieces of cardboard are placed onto a glued piece of cloth with a space between them into which is glued a thinner board cut to the width of the spine of the book. The overlapping edges of the cloth (about 5/8″ all round) are folded over the boards, and pressed down to adhere. After case-making the stack of cases will go to the foil stamping area for adding decorations and type.

Digital printing

Recent developments in book manufacturing include the development of digital printing. Book pages are printed, in much the same way as an office copier works, using toner rather than ink. Each book is printed in one pass, not as separate signatures. Digital printing has permitted the manufacture of much smaller quantities than offset, in part because of the absence of make readies and of spoilage. One might think of a web press as printing quantities over 2000, quantities from 250 to 2000 being printed on sheet-fed presses, and digital presses doing quantities below 250.^{[citation needed]} These numbers are of course only approximate and will vary from supplier to supplier, and from book to book depending on its characteristics. Digital printing has opened up the possibility of print-on-demand, where no books are printed until after an order is received from a customer.

Ebook

In the 2000s, due to the rise in availability of affordable handheld computing devices, the opportunity to share texts through electronic means became an appealing option for media publishers.^[37] Thus, the «ebook» was made. The term ebook is a contraction of «electronic book»; which refers to a book-length publication in digital form.^[38] An ebook is usually made available through the internet, but also on CD-ROM and other forms. Ebooks may be read either via a computing device with an LED display such as a traditional computer, a smartphone, or a tablet computer; or by means of a portable e-ink display device known as an ebook reader, such as the Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, or the Amazon Kindle. Ebook readers attempt to mimic the experience of reading a print book by using the e-ink technology, since the displays on ebook readers are much less reflective.

Audiobooks

Audiobooks, or recordings of people reading books aloud, were first created in 1932 in the United States. The first audiobooks were created by the American Foundation for the Blind on vinyl records, where each side could hold 15 minutes of recording. The first recorded pieces were some of William Shakespeare’s plays, the Constitution of the United States, and the novel As the Earth Turns by Gladys Hasty Carroll. Gradually over the course of the 20th century and with the dawn of cassette tapes and compact discs, audiobooks began to be sold by booksellers who often had dedicated sections. Publishers of books additionally created divisions within their companies dedicated to audiobooks. By the turn of the millennium, audiobooks were digitally distributed on devices designed around audiobooks, and audiobooks began to receive different narrators for different parts. Some companies, such as the Amazon subsidiary Audible, are tailored to work exclusively in audiobooks, and while their effectiveness is subject to wide debate, sales of audiobooks continue to skyrocket in the present day.^[39][8]

Design

Book design is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the various components of a book into a coherent whole. In the words of Jan Tschichold, book design «though largely forgotten today, methods and rules upon which it is impossible to improve have been developed over centuries. To produce perfect books these rules have to be brought back to life and applied.» Richard Hendel describes book design as «an arcane subject» and refers to the need for a context to understand what that means. Many different creators can contribute to book design, including graphic designers, artists and editors.

Sizes

The size of a modern book is based on the printing area of a common flatbed press. The pages of type were arranged and clamped in a frame, so that when printed on a sheet of paper the full size of the press, the pages would be right side up and in order when the sheet was folded, and the folded edges trimmed.

The most common book sizes are:

• Quarto (4to): the sheet of paper is folded twice, forming four leaves (eight pages) approximately 11–13 inches (c. 30 cm) tall
• Octavo (8vo): the most common size for current hardcover books. The sheet is folded three times into eight leaves (16 pages) up to 9+3⁄4 inches (c. 23 cm) tall.
• DuoDecimo (12mo): a size between 8vo and 16mo, up to 7+3⁄4 inches (c. 18 cm) tall
• Sextodecimo (16mo): the sheet is folded four times, forming 16 leaves (32 pages) up to 6+3⁄4 inches (c. 15 cm) tall

Sizes smaller than 16mo are:

• 24mo: up to 5+3⁄4 inches (c. 13 cm) tall.
• 32mo: up to 5 inches (c. 12 cm) tall.
• 48mo: up to 4 inches (c. 10 cm) tall.
• 64mo: up to 3 inches (c. 8 cm) tall.

Small books can be called booklets.

Sizes larger than quarto are:

• Folio: up to 15 inches (c. 38 cm) tall.
• Elephant Folio: up to 23 inches (c. 58 cm) tall.
• Atlas Folio: up to 25 inches (c. 63 cm) tall.
• Double Elephant Folio: up to 50 inches (c. 127 cm) tall.

The largest extant medieval manuscript in the world is Codex Gigas 92 × 50 × 22 cm. The world’s largest book is made of stone and is in Kuthodaw Pagoda (Burma).

Types

By content

A common separation by content are fiction and non-fiction books. This simple separation can be found in most collections, libraries, and bookstores. There are other types such as books of sheet music.

Fiction

Many of the books published today are «fiction», meaning that they contain invented material, and are creative literature. Other literary forms such as poetry are included in the broad category. Most fiction is additionally categorized by literary form and genre.

The novel is the most common form of fiction book. Novels are stories that typically feature a plot, setting, themes and characters. Stories and narrative are not restricted to any topic; a novel can be whimsical, serious or controversial. The novel has had a tremendous impact on entertainment and publishing markets.^[40] A novella is a term sometimes used for fiction prose typically between 17,500 and 40,000 words, and a novelette between 7,500 and 17,500. A short story may be any length up to 10,000 words, but these word lengths vary.

Comic books or graphic novels are books in which the story is illustrated. The characters and narrators use speech or thought bubbles to express verbal language.

Non-fiction

Non-fiction books are in principle based on fact, on subjects such as history, politics, social and cultural issues, as well as autobiographies and memoirs. Nearly all academic literature is non-fiction. A reference book is a general type of non-fiction book which provides information as opposed to telling a story, essay, commentary, or otherwise supporting a point of view.

An almanac is a very general reference book, usually one-volume, with lists of data and information on many topics. An encyclopedia is a book or set of books designed to have more in-depth articles on many topics. A book listing words, their etymology, meanings, and other information is called a dictionary. A book which is a collection of maps is an atlas. A more specific reference book with tables or lists of data and information about a certain topic, often intended for professional use, is often called a handbook. Books which try to list references and abstracts in a certain broad area may be called an index, such as Engineering Index, or abstracts such as chemical abstracts and biological abstracts.

Books with technical information on how to do something or how to use some equipment are called instruction manuals. Other popular how-to books include cookbooks and home improvement books.

Students typically store and carry textbooks and schoolbooks for study purposes.

Unpublished

Many types of book are private, often filled in by the owner, for a variety of personal records. Elementary school pupils often use workbooks, which are published with spaces or blanks to be filled by them for study or homework. In US higher education, it is common for a student to take an exam using a blue book.

There is a large set of books that are made only to write private ideas, notes, and accounts. These books are rarely published and are typically destroyed or remain private. Notebooks are blank papers to be written in by the user. Students and writers commonly use them for taking notes. Scientists and other researchers use lab notebooks to record their notes. They often feature spiral coil bindings at the edge so that pages may easily be torn out.

Address books, phone books, and calendar/appointment books are commonly used on a daily basis for recording appointments, meetings and personal contact information. Books for recording periodic entries by the user, such as daily information about a journey, are called logbooks or logs. A similar book for writing the owner’s daily private personal events, information, and ideas is called a diary or personal journal. Businesses use accounting books such as journals and ledgers to record financial data in a practice called bookkeeping (now usually held on computers rather than in hand-written form).

Other

There are several other types of books which are not commonly found under this system. Albums are books for holding a group of items belonging to a particular theme, such as a set of photographs, card collections, and memorabilia. One common example is stamp albums, which are used by many hobbyists to protect and organize their collections of postage stamps. Such albums are often made using removable plastic pages held inside in a ringed binder or other similar holder. Picture books are books for children with pictures on every page and less text (or even no text).

Hymnals are books with collections of musical hymns that can typically be found in churches. Prayerbooks or missals are books that contain written prayers and are commonly carried by monks, nuns, and other devoted followers or clergy. Lap books are a learning tool created by students.

Decodable readers and leveling

A leveled book collection is a set of books organized in levels of difficulty from the easy books appropriate for an emergent reader to longer more complex books adequate for advanced readers. Decodable readers or books are a specialized type of leveled books that use decodable text only including controlled lists of words, sentences and stories consistent with the letters and phonics that have been taught to the emergent reader. New sounds and letters are added to higher level decodable books, as the level of instruction progresses, allowing for higher levels of accuracy, comprehension and fluency.

By physical format

Hardcover books have a stiff binding. Paperback books have cheaper, flexible covers which tend to be less durable. An alternative to paperback is the glossy cover, otherwise known as a dust cover, found on magazines, and comic books. Spiral-bound books are bound by spirals made of metal or plastic. Examples of spiral-bound books include teachers’ manuals and puzzle books (crosswords, sudoku).

Publishing is a process for producing pre-printed books, magazines, and newspapers for the reader/user to buy.

Publishers may produce low-cost, pre-publication copies 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.

Dummy books

Dummy books (or faux books) are books that are designed to imitate a real book by appearance to deceive people, some books may be whole with empty pages, others may be hollow or in other cases, there may be a whole panel carved with spines which are then painted to look like books, titles of some books may also be fictitious.

There are many reasons to have dummy books on display such as; to allude visitors of the vast wealth of information in their possession and to inflate the owner’s appearance of wealth, to conceal something,^[41] for shop displays or for decorative purposes.

In early 19th century at Gwrych Castle, North Wales, Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh was known for his vast collection of books at his library, however, at the later part of that same century, the public became aware that parts of his library was a fabrication, dummy books were built and then locked behind glass doors to stop people from trying to access them, from this a proverb was born, «Like Hesky’s library, all outside».^[42][43]

Libraries

Private or personal libraries made up of non-fiction and fiction books, (as opposed to the state or institutional records kept in archives) first appeared in classical Greece. In the ancient world, the maintaining of a library was usually (but not exclusively) the privilege of a wealthy individual. These libraries could have been either private or public, i.e. for people who were interested in using them. The difference from a modern public library lies in that they were usually not funded from public sources. It is estimated that in the city of Rome at the end of the 3rd century there were around 30 public libraries. Public libraries also existed in other cities of the ancient Mediterranean region (for example, Library of Alexandria).^[44] Later, in the Middle Ages, monasteries and universities also had libraries that could be accessible to the general public. Typically not the whole collection was available to the public; the books could not be borrowed and often were chained to reading stands to prevent theft.

The beginning of the modern public library begins around 15th century when individuals started to donate books to towns.^[45] The growth of a public library system in the United States started in the late 19th century and was much helped by donations from Andrew Carnegie. This reflected classes in a society: the poor or the middle class had to access most books through a public library or by other means, while the rich could afford to have a private library built in their homes. In the United States the Boston Public Library 1852 Report of the Trustees established the justification for the public library as a tax-supported institution intended to extend educational opportunity and provide for general culture.^[46]

The advent of paperback books in the 20th century led to an explosion of popular publishing. Paperback books made owning books affordable for many people. Paperback books often included works from genres that had previously been published mostly in pulp magazines. As a result of the low cost of such books and the spread of bookstores filled with them (in addition to the creation of a smaller market of extremely cheap used paperbacks), owning a private library ceased to be a status symbol for the rich.

The development of libraries has prompted innovations to help store and organize books on shelves. In library and booksellers’ catalogues, it is common to include an abbreviation such as «Crown 8vo» to indicate the paper size from which the book is made. When rows of books are lined on a book holder, bookends are sometimes needed to keep them from slanting.

Identification and classification

During the 20th century, librarians were concerned about keeping track of the many books being added yearly to the Gutenberg Galaxy. Through a global society called the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), they devised a series of tools including the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD). Each book is specified by an International Standard Book Number, or ISBN, which is unique to every edition of every book produced by participating publishers, worldwide. It is managed by the ISBN Society. An ISBN has four parts: the first part is the country code, the second the publisher code, and the third the title code. The last part is a check digit, and can take values from 0–9 and X (10). The EAN Barcodes numbers for books are derived from the ISBN by prefixing 978, for Bookland, and calculating a new check digit.

Commercial publishers in industrialized countries generally assign ISBNs to their books, so buyers may presume that the ISBN is part of a total international system, with no exceptions. However, many government publishers, in industrial as well as developing countries, do not participate fully in the ISBN system, and publish books which do not have ISBNs. A large or public collection requires a catalogue. Codes called «call numbers» relate the books to the catalogue, and determine their locations on the shelves. Call numbers are based on a Library classification system. The call number is placed on the spine of the book, normally a short distance before the bottom, and inside. Institutional or national standards, such as ANSI/NISO Z39.41 – 1997, establish the correct way to place information (such as the title, or the name of the author) on book spines, and on «shelvable» book-like objects, such as containers for DVDs, video tapes and software.

One of the earliest and most widely known systems of cataloguing books is the Dewey Decimal System. Another widely known system is the Library of Congress Classification system. Both systems are biased towards subjects which were well represented in US libraries when they were developed, and hence have problems handling new subjects, such as computing, or subjects relating to other cultures.^[47] Information about books and authors can be stored in databases like online general-interest book databases. Metadata, which means «data about data» is information about a book. Metadata about a book may include its title, ISBN or other classification number (see above), the names of contributors (author, editor, illustrator) and publisher, its date and size, the language of the text, its subject matter, etc.

Classification systems

• Bliss bibliographic classification (BC)
• Chinese Library Classification (CLC)
• Colon Classification
• Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)
• Harvard-Yenching Classification
• Library of Congress Classification (LCC)
• New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries
• Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)

Uses

Aside from the primary purpose of reading them, books are also used for other ends:

• A book can be an artistic artifact, a piece of art; this is sometimes known as an artists’ book.
• A book may be evaluated by a reader or professional writer to create a book review.
• A book may be read by a group of people to use as a spark for social or academic discussion, as in a book club.
• A book may be studied by students as the subject of a writing and analysis exercise in the form of a book report.
• Books are sometimes used for their exterior appearance to decorate a room, such as a study.

Marketing

Once the book is published, it is put on the market by distributors and bookstores. Meanwhile, its promotion comes from various media reports. Book marketing is governed by the law in many states.

Secondary spread

In recent years, the book had a second life in the form of reading aloud. This is called public readings of published works, with the assistance of professional readers (often known actors) and in close collaboration with writers, publishers, booksellers, librarians, leaders of the literary world and artists.

Many individual or collective practices exist to increase the number of readers of a book. Among them:

• abandonment of books in public places, coupled or not with the use of the Internet, known as the bookcrossing;
• provision of free books in third places, like bars or cafes;
• itinerant or temporary libraries;
• free public libraries in the area.

Industry evolution

This form of the book chain has hardly changed since the eighteenth century, and has not always been this way. Thus, the author has asserted gradually with time, and the copyright dates only from the nineteenth century. For many centuries, especially before the invention of printing, each freely copied out books that passed through his hands, adding if desired his own comments. Similarly, bookseller and publisher jobs have emerged with the invention of printing, which made the book an industrial product, requiring structures of production and marketing.

The invention of the Internet, e-readers, tablets, and projects like Wikipedia and Gutenberg, are likely to change the book industry for years to come.

Paper and conservation

Paper was first made in China as early as 200 BC, and reached Europe through Muslim territories. At first made of rags, the Industrial Revolution changed paper-making practices, allowing for paper to be made out of wood pulp. Papermaking in Europe began in the 11th century, although vellum was also common there as page material up until the beginning of the 16th century, vellum being the more expensive and durable option. Printers or publishers would often issue the same publication on both materials, to cater to more than one market.

Paper made from wood pulp became popular in the early 20th century, because it was cheaper than linen or abaca cloth-based papers. Pulp-based paper made books less expensive to the general public. This paved the way for huge leaps in the rate of literacy in industrialised nations, and enabled the spread of information during the Second Industrial Revolution.

Pulp paper, however, contains acid which eventually destroys the paper from within. Earlier techniques for making paper used limestone rollers, which neutralized the acid in the pulp. Books printed between 1850 and 1950 are primarily at risk; more recent books are often printed on acid-free or alkaline paper. Libraries today have to consider mass deacidification of their older collections in order to prevent decay.

Stability of the climate is critical to the long-term preservation of paper and book material.^[48] Good air circulation is important to keep fluctuation in climate stable. The HVAC system should be up to date and functioning efficiently. Light is detrimental to collections. Therefore, care should be given to the collections by implementing light control. General housekeeping issues can be addressed, including pest control. In addition to these helpful solutions, a library must also make an effort to be prepared if a disaster occurs, one that they cannot control. Time and effort should be given to create a concise and effective disaster plan to counteract any damage incurred through «acts of God», therefore an emergency management plan should be in place.

See also

Citations

Bibliography

• «Book», in International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science («IEILS»), Editors: John Feather, Paul Sturges, 2003, Routledge, ISBN 978-1134513215
• Avrin, Leila (2010). Scribes, Script, and Books : The Book Arts from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Chicago: American Library Association. ISBN 978-0-8389-1038-2. OCLC 489670041.

Further reading

• Tim Parks (August 2017), «The Books We Don’t Understand», The New York Review of Books

External links

• Information on Old Books, Smithsonian Libraries
• «Manuscripts, Books, and Maps: The Printing Press and a Changing World»

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Be kind and considerate with your criticism… It’s just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.

Malcolm Cowley

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD BOOK

Old English bōc; related to Old Norse bōk, Old High German buoh book, Gothic bōka letter.

PRONUNCIATION OF BOOK

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF BOOK

Book is a verb and can also act as a noun.

WHAT DOES BOOK MEAN IN ENGLISH?

Definition of book in the English dictionary

The first definition of book in the dictionary is a written work or composition, such as a novel, technical manual, or dictionary. Other definition of book is a number of blank or ruled sheets of paper bound together, used to record lessons, keep accounts, etc. Book is also a record of the transactions of a business or society.

CONJUGATION OF THE VERB TO BOOK

PRESENT

PAST

FUTURE

CONDITIONAL

IMPERATIVE

NONFINITE VERB FORMS

SYNONYMS OF «BOOK»

The following words have a similar or identical meaning as «book» and belong to the same grammatical category.

TRANSLATION OF BOOK

Find out the translation of book to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «BOOK»

The term «book» is very widely used and occupies the 755 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.

Principal search tendencies and common uses of book

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «BOOK» OVER TIME

10 QUOTES WITH «BOOK»

Famous quotes and sentences with the word book.

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «BOOK»

Discover the use of book in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to book and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «BOOK»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term book is used in the context of the following news items.

REFERENCE

« EDUCALINGO. Book [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/book>. Apr 2023 ».

Oct 2, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in May 2013]

As explored in my earlier posts (see also here, here, and here), the spatial distribution of words for a given meaning can reveal interesting patterns of both language spread and language contact. While both factors are always at play, language contact is more evident in regard to words for cultural innovations, such as ‘tea’ or ‘computer’. Another interesting case is the geography of words for ‘book’, which many languages borrowed along with the general concept of ‘book’ and more often than not with one particularly important religious text.

As can be seen from the map on the left, several roots for ‘book’ are particularly common in Eurasia and Africa, including those related to the Latin liber shown in red; to the Proto-Germanic *bōks shown in blue; to the Arabic kitāb shown in green; to the Proto-Slavic *kъniga shown in purple; and to the Sanskrit pustaka shown in pink. Some other words, whose etymology will not be considered here in detail, are shown in black.

Let’s start with the Latin root for ‘book’, liber. Several possibilities have been explored for its uncertain etymology. One relates it to the Proto-Indo-European *hlewd^h– ‘people’, whose cognates include the Ancient Greek eleutheros, German Leute, Old English lēod, Lithuanian liaudis, Russian ljudi ‘people’. Another etymology derives this word as a cognate of Old Church Slavonic lubŭ ‘bark of a tree’ and Lithuanian lùpti ‘to peel, to shell’. As one would expect, its descendants are attested in Romance languages: French livre, Italian libero, Spanish libre, Portuguese livro, Occitan liure, Catalan llibre, Galician libro, Sicilian libbru. Interestingly, Romanian uses carte, which is related to another Latin root, which gives us the English card and charter (however, Romanian also retained the Latin root liber in a different meaning). But Romance languages are not the only ones with the reflexes of this Latin root. Celtic languages generally have words for ‘book’’ that descend from the Latin liber: Welsh has llyfr, Irish and Scottish Gaelic both have leabhar, Breton has levr. These words were transmitted from Latin to the Celtic languages when the Celts were Christianized. This is the first of many examples of the word ‘book’ spreading with religion, more of which we shall see below. Two languages outside the Romance and Celtic families have words that reflect the Latin liber: Albanian and Ilocano. In the case of Ilocano, the main language of northern Luzon in the Philippines, the word libro ‘book’ was borrowed from Spanish. Generally, Ilocano features numerous Spanish loanwords. Other languages of the Philippines such as Tagalog and Cebuano, however, have non-borrowed words for ‘book’, aklat and basahon, respectively.

Unlike the Latin root for ‘onion’, the root liber did not spread into other Indo-European branches such as Germanic or Slavic, nor are Germanic and Slavic roots for ‘book’ related. In Slavic languages, the words for ‘book’ are all very similar: East Slavic languages have kniga (Russian), knyha (Ukrainian), and kniha (Belarusian); South Slavic languages have kniga (Bulgarian and Macedonian) and knjiga (Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian; and West Slavic languages feature such forms as księga, książka (Polish), kniha (Czech and Slovak), knigła (Lower Sorbian), and knéga, knéżka (Kashubian). All these forms derive from the reconstructed Proto-Slavic form *kъniga. Its etymology is rather controversial, with at least three theories proposed about its origin. One theory derives it from Old High German kenning ‘symbol, sign’ or from other Germanic source (cf. Gothic kunnan ‘to know’ and Old Norse kunna ‘to know’). Another hypothesis relates the Proto-Slavic word to the Akkadian kunukku ‘seal-cylinder’ or kanikku ‘sealed object: document, sack bulla, etc.’, as well as to Old Armenian knik’ ‘seal’. A third theory links the Proto-Slavic form to Chinese words (e.g. Old Chinese küen ‘scroll’, Mandarin juǎn, possibly via Turkic küiniŋ). This theory is buttressed by the fact that paper was invented in China ca. the 1st century CE. One way or another, Slavic languages share the root for ‘book’, and one of them in particular—Russian—also “donated” this root to many other languages of Eurasia, as we shall see below.

Germanic languages generally have words that descend from the Proto-Germanic *bōks ‘book’, which in turn derives from a Proto-Indo-European word reconstructed as *b^heh₂g- (Beekes 1995) to mean ‘beech’. That reconstructed meaning is rather problematic, however, as some of the reflexes of this root in Indo-European languages refer to other tree species: for example, the Greek reflex of the PIE root *b^heh₂g-, phēgós, also means ‘oak’ (Beekes 1995: 48), while the Russian cognate buzina refers to ‘elder tree, Sambucus’. As we can see, in Germanic this root acquired a different meaning entirely. Modern Germanic languages whose word for book derives from this root include English book, as well as West Frisian boek, Dutch and Afrikaans boek, Limburgish book, German Buch, Yiddish bukh, Allemanic buech, Danish bog, Norwegian and Swedish bok, and Icelandic bók. But just as the Latin root liber has spread outside the Romance family, so did the root bok-/buk-. For example, it has penetrated some Austronesian languages such as Bahasa Malay, Bahasa Indonesian, Balinese, Sundanese, and Javanese, in all of which it is buku (though the word probably was borrowed from English into Bahasa Malay, and from Dutch into the other languages mentioned above). Similarly, another Austronesian language, Malagasy, has boky, probably derived from English. English is likewise the source of the word buk in Tok Pisin, a nativizing pidgin of Papua New Guinea. Also from English are such forms as the Lingala búku, Somali buug, and Shona bhuku. This Germanic root was spread into these various non-European languages by colonialism rather than religion, as several of the areas where buk-languages are spoken are predominantly Muslim. Intriguingly, in the Hausa language of northern Nigeria, the same root yields boko, which literally means ‘alphabet’ but which has come to stand in for ‘Western education’, as can be seen in the name of the militant Islamist group, Boko Haram (“Western Education Is Forbidden”).

Other languages in Africa have either native words for ‘book’ (e.g. Bambara gafɛ and Yoruba ìwé), or a loanword from another language such as Arabic, which donated its word for ‘book’ along with the spread of Islam. The Arabic word for ‘book’ is kitāb; as with other Semitic languages, Arabic has non-concatenative (i.e. root-and-pattern) morphology so that lexical roots typically consist of three consonants, while the vowels indicate mostly grammatical information. In the case of kitāb, the root, whose general meaning concerns writing, is K-T-B. To form the plural of ‘book’, one changes the vowels: kutub means ‘books’. Other Arabic words formed from the same root include kitaba ‘writing’, kātib ‘writer’, maktab ‘desk’, as well as verbal forms kataba ‘he wrote’, kutiba ‘it was written’, kattaba ‘he caused to write’, and many others. The same root is found in Maltese, another Semitic language, whose word for ‘book’ is ktieb. Interestingly, Hebrew has the same root, as in the verbal forms katav ‘he wrote’, hixtiv ‘he dictated’ (i.e. caused to write), hitkatavnu ‘we exchanged letters’ (i.e. wrote to each other), nixtav ‘it is written’, and many others, as well as in nouns such as mixtav ‘letter (to be sent)’, katav ‘writer’, ktiva ‘writing’, and the like. However, a different root, S-P-R, (which means ‘to count’) is the base for the Hebrew word for ‘book’: sefer.

African languages that have borrowed the Arabic word kitāb, which typically belonging to the Bantu family, have reanalyzed the word as consisting not of a tri-consonantal root K-T-B and vowels, but of the prefix denoting noun class and a root. For example, the Swahili word for ‘book’ is kitabu, an Arabic loanword which has been reanalyzed as containing the noun class prefix ki- and the root tabu. Noun class systems are found in Bantu languages, but also in Dyirbal and Nunggubuyu, both Aboriginal Australian languages; Ingush, a Northeast Caucasian language; Ju|’hoan, a Khoisan language; and Yimas, a Papuan language. Such systems are not unlike grammatical gender systems in more familiar languages such as Spanish, German, or Russian. Like gender systems, noun class systems divide nouns into groups that usually have some semantic coherence. However, instead of relying on categories pertaining to the biological sex of the individual, other semantically motivated categories come into play in noun class systems, including shapes, sizes, materials, origin (natural vs. man-made objects), animacy (humans and animals vs. other objects), abstractness etc. Also unlike grammatical genders, noun classes are usually numbered rather than named. In Swahili, noun class 7 denotes man-made objects (among other things, such as languages and diminutives). To make a noun plural, a noun class prefix is switched to another: for instance, ki- is replaced by vi-. The Swahili word for ‘knife’, kisu, thus becomes visu in its plural form. Loanwords are pluralized in the same way: hence, the plural of kitabu is vitabu. The story of the Kinyarwanda word for ‘book’, igitabo, is similar.

The Arabic word kitāb penetrated languages of other families as well, most notably Turkic and the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. But not all languages in those families have a kitāb-derived word for ‘book’. Among Turkic languages, one finds reflexes of the Arabic kitāb in Turkish kitap, Azeri kitab, Uzbek kitob, Kazakh kitap, Tatar kitap, and Bashkort kitap. Yet other Turkic languages—for example, Chuvash and Sakha—have words related to the Russian word kniga: kĕneke and kinige, respectively. (It is probably not coincidental that the Chuvash and Sakha people, unlike most other Turkic-speaking peoples, did not convert to Islam.) The Indo-Iranian languages also vary on this issue: some have a word based on the Arabic kitāb, while others do not. Sometimes, even closely related languages have a different word for ‘book’, as is the case in Zazaki, which has kıtabi, and Kurdish, which has pirtûk. Tajik is another Iranian language with an Arabic-derived loanword for ‘book’, kitob. Indo-Aryan languages too split into those that have an Arabic loanword (e.g. Hindi kitāba) and those that do not (e.g. Bengali ba’i).

Another common root among languages of India, whether Indo-Aryan or Dravidian, is linked to the Sanskrit word pustikā. Its etymology is not entirely certain, but some scholars believe it to be borrowed from some Middle Iranian language. It is comparable to the Sogdian pwst’k ‘book, document, sutra’, Parthian pwstg ‘book, parchment’, and Persian pust ‘skin, hide’. Reflexes of this root are found in such Indo-Aryan languages as Assamese puthi, Bengali pustôk, Bhojpuri pōthī, Gujarati pustak, Kashmiri pūthi, Kumaoni pothī, Maithili pothā, pothī, Marathi pustak, Nepali pothi, Oriya pothā, pothi, puthi, Pali potthaka, Punjabi pustak, Sindhi pothu, pothī, Singhalese pota, and Urdu pustak. Sanskrit-derived forms are found also in several Dravidian languages, where it is an Indo-Aryan loanword. Compare, for instance, Malayalam pustakam, Tamil puttagam, Telugu pustakam, and Kannada pustaka. Another language with a related form is Malay, where pustaka coexists with the abovementioned buku.

One final family to be considered here is Finno-Ugric languages. Languages in this family have very different roots for ‘book’: compare the Hungarian könyv, Komi nebög, Estonian raamat, Finnish kirja, and Mari knaga. Where do these words come from? The Mari word—like its counterpart in the neighboring Turkic language Chuvash—comes from Russian. The Estonian word raamat (and its cognate in Latvian, grāmata) also derives from Old Russian gramota meaning ‘document, writing’, which derives in turn from Ancient Greek grámmata ‘letters, writing’, which also gives us grammar and— perhaps surprisingly—glamour. In Finnish, the same root gave rise to raamattu meaning ‘Bible’—once again a connection between ‘a book’ and the Book, the Holy Scriptures, is undeniable. The Finnish word kirja (and its Veps cognate kirj) originally meant ‘carved mark/decoration’; Estonian retains the root in kiri ‘letter (to be sent)’. I am not aware of the etymology of the Komi nebög or the Hungarian könyv.

Sources:

Beekes, Robert S. P. (1995) Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. An Introduction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.