Consider... the Book Form

Scroll:

The scroll is considered to be the first book form. Scrolls are made from 2 layers of papyrus pith (the central cylinder of the stem) which are laid at right angles to each other then pounded together. The sugar in the sap of the plant then binds them. Individual sheets were overlapped and pasted together using a flour and water paste to form a long roll or Charta. Parchment, made from animal skin, was used as an alternative to papyrus.

Developed by the Egyptians, papyrus was used as the main writing material in the ancient Greco-Roman world. It was exported to other parts of the world, but the dry environments in Egypt and parts of Mesopotamia (part of Iraq) were most favourable for its preservation.

Papyri were used as widely as contemporary texts and were for public and private use. Texts have been found on diverse topics such as religion, taxation, administration, marriage contracts, literature and horoscopes.

The main reasons papyrus remained the main writing substrate was because it was reasonably cheap and easy to produce. Although parchment was used, it was difficult and more expensive to produce and so didn’t take over from papyrus until the wider adoption of the codex form.

“The roll was stored upright in a book-box or capsa, horizontally on a shelf or in a pigeonhole. If particularly valuable, it could be placed in a chest or wrapped in a protective sleeve of parchment and tied with thongs. An author's work very often would require several rolls, which would be kept in the same book-box. It was these physical limitations--the length of the papyrus roll and the number of rolls that could be stored together--that tended to define the divisions of literature.”http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/scroll/scrollcodex.html

“…constantly being unrolled and rolled back up again caused abrasion and, even though writing only on one side of the page reduced the problem of wear, it was inefficient and made the roll that much more cumbersome to store. Author and title were indicated at the end of the text (colophon) and so were less vulnerable to damage when the roll was rewound, but this made it more inconvenient to identify the contents (there was a tendency, too, for the titulus to fall off). Since the individual sheets of the roll were seamlessly joined, lines and columns were not uniform but varied in length and size. Nor were they marked, which made citation difficult and often inaccurate.” http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/scroll/scrollcodex.html

References:

http://www.csu.edu.au/faculty/arts/humss/art317/form/briefhist.htm

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/world.html

http://www.wordwebonline.com/search.pl?w=parchment

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/rule.html

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/scroll/scrollcodex.html

http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?ArticleId=248

http://members.tripod.com/~papyri/vellum/vellum.html

Codex (codices):

The codex is a book in modern format. It comprises separate sheets of writing material that are stitched together within a cover. The term is most commonly used for hand-written books (manuscripts).

There are several theories as to why the codex took over from the scroll. One is that the wooden tablet (a shallow recess was carved into its surface and filled with coloured wax) or tabula cevata, which was often fastened into leaves and used by the Greeks and Romans for everyday correspondence, students’ lessons and the like, led to the development of the codex form. In fact, it was its resemblance to a block of wood that the tablet came to be called a codex, which means block of wood in Latin. Another is that the development came from folding scrolls into an accordion format which was easier to store and handle.

It is thought that despite the physical benefits of the codex over the scroll it was when the Christian church adopted the codex form to differentiate its writings from Judaic writings, which could only be copied in the format of the scroll, and also from pagan literature, which was also associated with the roll form, that it became the predominant book form. Other draw cards for the Christian church were that longer religious texts could be contained within a single volume and be referred to more easily, and (possibly) that the codex served to indicate to Christian readers that a particular copy had a sound origin before publishers' imprints were used.

Other advantages of the codex include:

1. its ability to be opened flat at any page making reading easier;
2. pages could be written of recto and verso (right and left hand pages respectively);
3. it was more compact and portable (replacing the wooden table ‘notebook’) and could be protected by a leather or wooden cover;
4. text could be accessed at any point without first having to scroll through preceding text;
5. the restrictions of size brought about by the papyrus rolls’ manufacturing process were removed;
6. and the ability of the codex to accept a wide variety of mediums and techniques

By the fourth century AD the codex replaced the scroll as the predominant form of book.

References:

http://www.wordwebonline.com/search.pl?w=codex

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/scroll/scrollcodex.html

http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb/chbn2002_4.htm

http://members.tripod.com/~papyri/vellum/vellum.html

http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?ArticleId=248

Readings Topic 1: The Book Form

The Whatness of Bookness

Philip Smith’s definition of Bookness: http://www.philobiblon.com/bookness.shtml accessed Tuesday, 10 March 2009 8:54:30 PM

“The qualities which have to do with a book. In its simplest meaning the term covers the packaging of multiple planes held together in fixed or variable sequence by some kind of hinging mechanism, support, or container, associated with a visual/verbal content called a text. The term should not strictly speaking include pre-codex carriers of text such as the scroll or the clay tablet, in fact nothing on a single leaf or planar surface such as a TV screen, poster or hand-bill.”

“A blank book is still a book, but a blank dodecahedron or unmarked spiral of paper is not a book, it is a dodecahedron etc”

“A text can be inscribed on anything but this does not make it a book, or have the quality of bookness, even as a scroll retains its scrollness without any text on it.”

I disagree with Smith’s definition regarding the bookness of scrolls. While scrolls could vary in length, they had to be unrolled with one hand and rolled with the other, forming blocks of content that were viewed before the next rolling revealed the next section of text and covered the previous; showing ‘pages’ of text with each rolling – the same function as a spine-bound book, but without ‘bookness’. They were made with the intention of transmitting information. Even before the scroll has any content on it, its intention is the same as that of a codex. If a hinged document (one plane that has been folded) can be regarded as having bookness, then so can a rolled one. Same with clay tablets; their intention is the same whether or not there is text on it, just as a blank codex is still a book, because of its bookness and intended purpose.

Supported by Edward Hutchins http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/bookarts/1996/10/msg00039.html

Smith’s article, written in 1996, can only have been created with an educated glimpse into what is available electronically or digitally 13 years on. It is the increase in the availability and acceptability of books accessed by the “planar surfaces” of computers that has occurred since then that make Smith’s definition at best incomplete and at worst outdated and incorrect.

What is a Book?

http://www.artistbooks.com/editions/wiab.htmlaccessed 15/03/2009 6:27 PM

“When I defined books for myself, I chose not to look at what a book is, what it is made out of, or what it looks like. Instead, I chose to consider how a book is used and what purpose it serves. For me, a book is "a structure for storing and sharing information." ”

“Defining Books in an Electronic Age”. Adapted from postings by Edward Hutchins to the Book Arts List, April 8, 1995 and October 5, 1996

This definition of ‘book’ supports my own definition. Hutchins goes on to say that although many people have tried to arrive at a definition on which everyone can agree it’s not possible. What is possible is for people to find a common ground when discussing books, by using Philip Smith’s “bookness” framework. Hutchins interpretation of bookness; “In other words, instead of saying, "a "book" IS this AND this AND this AND this," maybe we should be saying, "bookness" CONSISTS of this OR this OR this OR this."” allows non-codex or digital ‘books’ to be included when they cannot be using Smith’s definition.

Is it a book?

http://www.philobiblon.com/isitabook/history/index.html accessed 15/03/2009 4:41 PM

“Once the printing press became widely used in the West, and books in the western codex format were produced in large numbers, it became difficult to think of the book in any other fashion. Nearly everyone now expects that a book must have a beginning, middle and end between the two covers. Texts are written in this format, and books continue to be physically constructed to support it.”

This quote from http://www.philobiblon.com/isitabook/history/index.html highlights the difficulty with defining ‘book’. We are so conditioned by what we have been taught is a book, as per Smith’s “packaging of multiple planes held together in fixed or variable sequence by some kind of hinging mechanism, support, or container, associated with a visual/verbal content called a text”, that the things that still serve the same purpose as a conventional codex ie to store and/or communicate information are see and “queer”. Originally posted by Edward Hutchins to the Book Arts List, April 11, 1995 http://www.artistbooks.com/editions/wiab.html

Ironic: Medieval European “manuscripts were sometimes constructed using a tree structure to show the contents of a book in a less strictly hierarchical way than in a table of contents. A similar tree structure is now a common way to show files on a web-site map.”

http://www.philobiblon.com/isitabook/history/index.html

"Book"....

My initial definition of 'book' is:

A book is a device used to store and communicate information, written, illustrated or otherwise, that is available to be consumed by the masses.

The following is what Sue asked us to consider when evaluating our first definition of 'book':

1. What a book is made of

• Paper has a relatively short history as a means of communicating information
• Other materials in different cultures and at different times include clay, stone, silk, leather, parchment, leaves and bamboo

2. What a book looks like - its physical form

• Does a book have to be made of separate pages?
• Do pages have to be bound/joined together in some way?
• Does this binding have to be permanent?
• If the binding is removed is what remains still a book?
• How big or small can a book be?
• Is a scroll a book?
• Does a book have to have a physical form?
• Is an 'electronic book' a book?
• What about a talking book?

3. What the essential components of a book are

• Does a book have to have cover and pages?
• Does a book involve the concept of sequence?

4. What the book contains

• Does a book have to carry, or have the potential to carry, information?

5. How the book is used

• Is a book that is bound up so you cannot read its content still a book?

6. Does a book have to have longevity?

• Can magazines or newspapers be classified as books?

In my definition of 'book' I have purposely not mentioned some of these considerations such as “What as book is made of” and “What a book looks like”. For example, I consider that a digital or virtual book is still a book even though it lacks what Philip Smith considers to be 'bookness' (http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/bookarts/1996/09/msg00153.html).

At the other end of the physical spectrum we're told in A Brief History of the Book (lecture notes: http://www.csu.edu.au/faculty/arts/humss/art317/form/briefhist.htm) that multiple wood blocks or tablets that were filled with wax and written on with a stylus "could be joined by lacing to make a more substantial volume, with up to ten tablets sometimes being combined". Smith's 'bookness' has as part of his definition "... the term covers the packaging of multiple planes held together in fixed or variable sequence by some kind of hinging mechanism, support, or container, associated with a visual/verbal content called a text". He then goes on to say that "pre-codex carriers of text such as the scroll or the clay tablet" should not be included. I disagree. Examples such as these indicate to me that the materials from which a book is made cannot impact on the definition of 'book'.

Sequence is a factor I didn’t considering when forming my definition. A picture book, as read by a librarian to a young child, will most likely be read in a fixed and linear sequence. Take the librarian out of the situation and sequence can also be removed. Young children may not begin at the front of the book and they may not proceed sequentially; a page at a time. That doesn't mean that the book they are 'reading' is any less a book. Board books for very young children are one kind of book whose pages have no sequence; for example a book that whose pages comprise a picture of an animal with the animals name underneath. What I'm referring to is not nonlinear narratives, but books whose meaning would not change if the pages of the books were rearranged. On reflection, I don’t think that sequence can be part of the definition of ‘book’.

When considering point 5 – “How the book is used”, and specifically “Is a book that is bound up so you cannot read its content still a book?” my definition needs to be amended. I now feel that information does not necessarily have to be “available to be consumed by the masses”. Anne Frank wrote a diary that was used to store information and had Smith’s ‘bookness’, but it was not intended to be consumed by anyone other than herself. Likewise, a book that is bound in such a way as to make its content unavailable for reading is still a book; it has the same qualities as Anne Frank’s diary.

Emily-Jane Dawson talks about the format of the book and mentions the un-openable book: (http://www.philobiblon.com/isitabook/bookarts/index.html)

“There have been some more dramatic, physical expriments (sic) with the book format (the results of which might not be defined as books by the average reader/observer): these are typically books which are textual or book-like but cannot or were not meant to be easily read - they might be said to be more sculptural than booklike (sic). Some examples of possibilites (sic) in this area are: books which are sewn, taped, stapled, or nailed shut, or which have other structural qualities that keep then from being opened; books which have their pages entirely disfigured so that they cannot be read; books which have words, lines, or whole sections of text covered or blacked out so that new stories are created from the old text; books with their pages torn out; books which have been variously burned, mutilated, or dampened; and books with the pages folded or added to, to create patterns.”

Important to me in this paragraph is the reference to what the definition of book is to “the average reader/observe”.

In regards to the point concerning longevity and if this impacts on whether or not magazines or newspapers can be defined as books, I have kept certain magazines for longer than I have kept hardcover novels. I still think of them as ‘magazine’, but maybe this is a term of convenience, identifying a sub-category of books in the same way that a book of maps is called an ‘atlas’, or a bound graphic novel is still to many a ‘comic’. The newspapers kept by libraries are valuable historical documents, providing social, political, economic and cultural references. Magazines that have been kept are similarly valuable. Both certainly meet James’ criteria of bookness. Many books that are perfect bound have a far shorter life as a usable book than those that are stitched or hand-bound, but they are no less books for their shorter life.

I considered the function of ‘book’ to be the critical factor when formulating my definition.

My amended version reads:

A book is a device used to store and communicate information, written, illustrated or otherwise.