Opis i katalogowanie zabytkowych opraw książkowych - przegląd dotychczasowych metod
A description and catalogue of historic book covers - an overview of the methods to date

Summary/Abstract: The work presents the problem of describing and catalogising book covers. Libraries gathering in their stores precious collections reveal only bibliographic data, excluding information on covers. The covers alone tend to be the objects of studies because of uniqueness and artistic values of covers. One of the reasons of such negligence is the lack of guidelines according to which it would be possible to make appropriate cover descriptions. In the first part of the article the analysis of the already used description methods was made, on the basis of the cover catalogues printed in Poland. Most of the onus fell on the catalogue of the exhibition Oprawy polskie in which the covers of manuscripts, old prints and prints from the 19th and 20th centuries were thoroughly described. The considerations took into account the electronic database of the British Library covers. The article also compares the elements of descriptions accepted in particular catalogues. Next, the description proposal shaped in the course of research work with the guidelines of the authorities in this field was presented. Finally, the scheme division into two parts: photography and cover description was accepted. 1. Year, time of cover design; 2. Place of cover design, 3. Bookbinder, 4. Bookbinding typology, 5.Cover material, colour, 6. Decorative technique, 7. Description of decorative composition. 8. Remaining cover elements, 9. Size in cm. 10. Cover condition, 11. Content of volume, bibliographic description, 12. Signature, 13. Cover history.

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