Questions for Booksellers/Librarians

[Gunga Din]

Hello. Can anyone help explain the following:

 

1. A number of my books on the Great War from the 1920s -1930s are ex-library copies. Some random examples

 

"History of the King's Own Scottish Borderes in the Great War" Edinburgh Public Libraries

"The Fifty-Second (Lowand) Division 1914-1918" Carnegie Public Library Ayr. Also has an Imperial War Museum stamp.

 

Why would these libraries get rid of these books? Would they be replaced with other copies or do these simply reflect lost interest or reflect the fact that some libraries may have books donated to them and these are then surplus to requirements.I have never really understood this turnover in library books,particularly from military libraries such as the Imperial War Museum.

 

2. Uncut Pages.What is the technical term for books where the pages have not been properly cut? I have the Historical Records of the Cameron Highlanders Vol IV (covers the New Army Battalions). the inner leaves reveal it was originally a present from a 'MacLeod of Caboll, then presented 'by the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders to the Boys Infantry Battalion, and later part of the Army Historical Society library 'on permanent loan from the Army Library Service"...so it passed through at least four owners. Around half the pages have never been opened as they are folded over and not cut.....carefully slicing the pages apart reveals text in pristine condition and has never seen the light of day. A nice 'clean' copy. The bookseller never mentioned this aspect, which is a further oddity.

 

What is the technical term for books in this condition?. I have a number of books that were in this condition, most having come from libraries suggesting no-one actually read them in their entirety 

 

GD

Edited 30 October , 2018 by Gunga Din

[barkalotloudly]

Libraries.!!!.. do not get me started some of the worst custodians of books ever! but great if you area collector, as they proceed to dispose of books willy nilly regardless of there value /rarity etc {an original "The war the infantry knew" for 10.00 ex Norwich city library ! I guess as not everybody has our interest and space has to be made for newer items but there is no thought it would appear in those items disposed

Also a large number of older libraries have been closed and their stock has to go somewhere. Over the last few year  i have purchased a considerable number of books Ex Imperial war museum  i do hope they have duplicates!

I think this is best summed up  when several years ago i asked about the "official history of the great war" at  Norwich and was told "we had a set but disposed of it some time ago" 

   

[Black Maria]

On the topic of uncut pages , it has always intrigued me how a book with uncut pages can go a hundred years without anyone reading it.

I have had a few like this , apparently it is suppose to be more desirable to collectors to have uncut pages and worth more if it is a rare

book . I have always cut mine , including a signed limited edition of 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer' . I think it's a bit daft to leave them

uncut because a book is for reading after all. I expect the book dealer didn't mention it because they never checked the pages , after

purchasing books with pages and illustrations missing I always check my second hand books when they arrive now. I purchased two

withdrawn rare Great War x-lib books recently that have never been reprinted or digitalised ( one looks like it's never been read) , it

seems a strange thing for a library to deprive people the opportunity of reading them in the future.

[Gardenerbill]

Probably to make room for this:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-Strictly-Dancing-Annual-Annuals/dp/1785942964/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540910760&sr=1-1&keywords=strictly+come+dancing+annual+2019

[Black Maria]

Probably one book that deserves to remain unopened .

[Dust Jacket Collector]

I think some librarians regard books as a necessary evil to be disposed off as quickly as possibly. A dealer friend of mine was invited to the reserve stock room of a large library on the South Coast and told to take whatever he wanted. They weren’t even much concerned with being recompensed. And, yes, the Official Histories were part of them.

[seaJane]

Not all librarians. Many of us are shoe-horned into larger organisations (the Civil Service in my case) that have by no means the same attitude to the retention and dissemination of information, and/or who regard librarians in much the same way as many local councils appear to, as mere book-dusters and date-stampers. Real, qualified librarians are all too frequently driven to demoralisation and early retirement, which leaves the parent organisation with a free hand to perpetrate its idiocies.

[Gunga Din]

Thank you all for your responses. I hadn't quite understood the sheer number of library closures in the past few decades.

http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/useful/statistics

 

That said, I still don't quite understand why existing libraries such as the IWM library disposes of books, unless of course they have duplicate copies. I did a count last night of my books that had once been in the IWM library and stopped at 20. Is it possible that as other libraries close, their naval and military books filter through to the IWM, providing them the opportunity to keep a cleaner copy and dispose of an old less pristine copy? Seems like a possible scenario. 

 

I suspect that properly trained librarians are fighting a rear-guard action against closures and the competition from the internet. The number of books that have been digitised and are now online via archive.org and Hathitrust seems to be growing exponentially. 

 

I am still quite  keen on knowing what the technical term for uncut pages is. The book world seems to be full of arcane terms.

 

GD

[DavidOwen]

Morning GD

 

Doesn't look as though there is one as these sites simply refer to "not having been trimmed" or similar phrases. Still looking though...

http://redeye.co.nz/gla-e.htm

http://www.philobiblon.com/gbwarticle/bindterm.htm

http://ahls.us/term.html

 

Regards

 

David

[Dave G]

The term is I believe simply "uncut". "Untrimmed" refers to the edges of the pages of the text block, usually the fore edge. 

 

Dave

[MartH]

I fear libraries are something that will disappear in the next 20 years.

 

Like others on this forum I have many rare books bought at bargain prices that where formerly at the IWM or the Foreign Office library or other major establishments, I think the old term familiarity breeds contempt is so true for most modern librarians. I would be so upset if they scanned the books before disposing of them, especially the super rare ones, but they don't get books.

 

[seaJane]

My colleague in another library prefers "unopened" to "uncut" as it lessens the scope for confusion with "untrimmed". I've quite often found evidence that a book's first reader only got halfway through a book.

[Len Trim]

Like our culture in general libraries have plummeted down to the level of the great unwashed. Perhaps nowadays 'the greatly tattooed' would be a more accurate term. Libraries are now more of an infotainment centre with computers and cafes taking up space once dedicated to books.

I have more books on the world wars, and a number of other subjects, than my local library which was once a real treasure trove of knowledge and research.

Fortunately most books turn up on Amazon and eBay eventually and often at very good prices but my wife does occasionally complain at the overspill onto the floor even with eight bookcases!

Len

[Gunga Din]

Thanks. I am leaning towards 'untrimmed'. ....'unopened' might suggest the whole book has not been opened. 

 

Next question if you don't mind.... what is the technical word at the end of a page that equates to the first word of the following page? I think it was a technique used by printers to keep track of sequential pagination..... 

 

GD

[Gibbo]

About 2008, when researching my PhD, I read the National Library of Scotland's copy of The Navies of Today and Tomorrow: A Study of the Naval Crisis from Within by Bernard Acworth (1930) and skimmed its copy of his Back to the Coal Standard: The Future of Transport and Power (1932). One of them, I forget which, had a number of pages uncut. The NLS still owns both.

[seaJane]

4 hours ago, Gunga Din said:

Thanks. I am leaning towards 'untrimmed'. ....'unopened' might suggest the whole book has not been opened. 

 

Next question if you don't mind.... what is the technical word at the end of a page that equates to the first word of the following page? I think it was a technique used by printers to keep track of sequential pagination..... 

 

GD

It was, especially in the days when type was hand set on one large sheet that then had to be printed on the other side and folded into eight (or 16, or 32) pages. It's called a catch-word (with or without hyphen as you like).

[Guest]

 Right-here goes.

 

     Books are printed with a number of pages on the same sheet of paper-  folio (which means "leaf" anyway) being the standard size- broadsheet newspaper size for short. Depending on how many times the paper is folded, that gives us our modern paper sizes- A1 is folio, A2 half that, A3-half A2, etc.

   When sheets are bound up from the folded sections, then it will leave 2 edges folded over-the top and the fore-edge (front side). The technical term for this is "uncut",  Many books also have pages that are separate but which are uneven around the edges-because this is the edge of the piece of paper used-this is technically "untrimmed"

   A book that has had some of it's pages "cut" is described in cataloguing terms (No prizes here) as "partly cut-or,alternatively, partly uncut.

Uncut pages and untrimmed edges are very characteristic of hand-printing up the beginnings of steam presses, roughly in the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century. The mechanisation of printing machinery also gave us hydraulic guillotines, which make it usual now for all books to be "cut" or "trimmed". The tradition of uncut pages continued usually to denote that the book was of better quality, that more care had been taken on it's production and that it was, to use the dreadful modern phrase of  twee markets- "artisanal".

   By the way, the correct way to cut a book is with a sharp, flat knife (NOT-with a serrated edge)- and always cutting away from the page- this makes the edges clean. Do not use a sawing motion or the edges will become ragged, which has spoilt many a good book 

 

2)  "Ex-lib".

           The public library system in the UK is traditionally the "product of a penny rate", after a pressure-group campaign in the 1840s (mostly). Libraries became the norm after c.1850, a major boost to the spread of literacy and education. But the function of libraries has changed- they are no longer primarily educational but recreational- and the process that most "reference library" information is now online and up-to-date has led to a serious decline in the public library system. Institutional libraries (other than local authority ones ) are also under pressure and many now go for "steady state"- that is to keep the library roughly the same size and get rid of books at the same rate as new acquisitions. Also, with the growth of all forms of electronic entertainment-from BBC Radio, TV through to Netflix and streaming, the printed word has been up against competition.

   Many libraries have got rid of backstocks-on the basis of cost but also the lack of use. The modern start to this slaughter of library stocks started in the early 1960s -with the reform movement of local government that gave us our current local council system. Many small boroughs merged and there was massive duplication in the new system. There were 2 outcomes to this- the Labour Government under Harold Wilson set up a new "British Library"-  and set up a duplicate British Museum Library, based at Boston Spa in Yorkshire that would acquire a duplicate set of modern published books and journals,particularly "grey matter" (Conference proceedinsg,etc,which were only semi-published-that is,outside of commercial publishers). In addition, BL took in huge quantities of books from other libraries by gift or transfer. As well as this, the Labour government made significant sums of money available to re-bind and catalogue older backstocks of libraies- which could then be made available across local authority boundaries by  the system of "Inter-Library Loans". Most of BL stuff from Boston Spa is available through inter-library loan.

   Donations and transfers to Boston Spa hit a problem after decades of growth-  hundreds of reference libraries bought the same book-so BL was inundated with duplicates, which they sold off quietly through a system called "Booknet" , based at Boston Spa, which closed down in 2001- 2002. In theory, BL listed books,circulated the lists and other libraries picked them up. Only the unwanted residue was supposed to be sold off at the BL end. But it was a systm open to abuse and many very good books were not offered to other libraries  but quickly and quietly sold off out the back door of BL in Yorkshire.

 

     Should libraries get rid of books?   Depends.  Good books of enduring value should,in my humble opinion, always be offered to other collecting libraries first and foremost. The debate over what IWM has done can fall either way. Where I think IWM was at fault is that it put almost no effort at all into offering books to other institutions. Of all the IWM stuff disposed off,the majority has been sold or skipped-only a few hundred items have ended up with any other institution-as far as I am aware (from an FOI request I did-which I posted on GWF) only CWGC benefited from any direct transfer of IWM stuff. Any other library which would have wanted materials could go whistle. It's the potential loss of items that are not well-represented or which could have found a home with another library that rankles with me.

 

      There are a number of companies around that advertise to sell library backstocks-though quite how much the libraries get is a matter of heated debate- Companies included "Better World Books" in both US and UK (for profit-and lots of it-despite their protestations of helping literacy-their annual reports in the UK are interesting for how little they actually donate) , Anybook in Lincoln ( does mostly universities and colleges-condition can be very,very "variable"), Revival Books in Lancashire (which does mostly local authority libraries-most notable a big tranche of stuff from Manchester Reference,one of the strongest of the old-time libaries)-which appears to have the same owners as "WeBuyBooks"

 

   One thing I do deplore-and that is that, in rough and ready terms, for every "ex-lib" book that comes on the market, another has gone quietly into the skip, landfill or the furnace. Many libraries are so curmudgeonly they prefer to see their backstocks destroyed, or sell them off so surreptitiously that the loal populace never get to know (which was the case with 2 of the larger South Coast libraries,one of which is mentioned in passing above)

There was a good rant  published years ago by a "journalist" called W.J.West about the destruction of public libraries, published by Duckworth and easily available (Bill West was bonkers-his main published work was on the supposed Communist Part coup of 1942 to ovethrow Churchill-Not heard of that?  Well, Bill was convinced it was all down to cover-up and conspiracy)

 

 

 

 

 

[Gunga Din]

GUEST - many thanks for this very detailed response. I have learned a lot. Thank you.  Your comment that public libraries have shifted from being educational to recreational makes an interesting point. Some museums appear to be going this way too. 

 

GD

 

 

 

[Martin Bennitt]

When I first came to Paris in 1979 I used the British Council library, which had a decent stock of books before it turned over to what it called a multi-media centre. The only medium missing was the books. I was posted to Cyprus in 1999, to find a couple of years on the British Council library in Nicosia going the the same way. I now frequent the American Library in Paris, the only English-language facility of its type in the city, and work there as a volunteer one afternoon a week. The library, founded to supply US troops in France with books, is coming up to its centenary and I think some of the stock dates back to then.  Membership is by subscription and not cheap but it fulfils a social need locally. It hosts talks and children's activities and has study space for students. I suppose it is a niche market and not to be compared with your municipal public library, but despite a major revamp recently it has space problems which can only be resolved by getting rid of books, usually novels that have not been checked out for a bit. There is fairly constant weeding to make room for new acquisitions. Many are shipped off to Better World Books. The Great War section is pretty good, from 1st editions of contemporary memoirs to the latest works marking the centenary of the war. As long as people are prepared to donate to the library (it has some wealthy patrons) or pay to read proper books (though a selection is available on line) it will carry on.

 

Cheers Martin B

 

[keithfazzani]

Possibly going a little off topic but I would like to draw attention to this https://www.kent.ac.uk/library/specialcollections/other/queens-own-buffs/index.html

 

Over the past few years, The Queen's Own Buffs Association of which I have the honour of being chaplain, has collected together all the publications it can from various places associated with the Queens Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) and the Buffs (East Kent Regiment) and presented them to the University of Kent Special Collections and Archive collection. It also funded the cataloguing of the collection and the digitization of many of the journals.  

 

This new collection was officially "opened" this Monday with a lecture by Professor Mark Connolly and a new exhibition in the Special Collections and Archives section of the Templeman library https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/templeman-exhibitions/2018/09/25/kent-its-regiments-and-the-first-world-war/

 

This exhibition runs until the beginning of January. 

 

On an interesting historical note (not WW1!) the opening ceremony was attended amongst others by the Lord Lieutenant of Kent; Viscount De L'Isle. The Viscount is a Sidney and a direct descendant of Colonel Robert Sidney the first colonel of The Holland Regiment (later The Buffs) in 1665. 

[Guest]

From personal knowledge, I think the choice of the University of Kent is a good one.  The Kent Public Library system-and more particularly, the numbers of books it has got rid of,let alone "how" and to whom is a matter that would leave many a face bright red. Nuff Said.

On 01/11/2018 at 09:36, Gunga Din said:

GUEST - many thanks for this very detailed response. I have learned a lot. Thank you.  Your comment that public libraries have shifted from being educational to recreational makes an interesting point. Some museums appear to be going this way too. 

 

GD

 

 

 

 

    Pleasure.  I was a little dismayed that neither NAM,KCL nor Wolverhampton, in the first instance, appear to have been allowed to choose books that IWM wanted to  get rid of. I am aware that KCL turned the library down as a whole (too scruffy) but there were many other libraries that could have been strengthened by some transfers of materials. But there again, the money raised by selling the stuff at auctions may have just about paid for a PR trainee for a year..........  Also Nuff Said.

[David Filsell]

The comment about the Great IWM Flog Off caught my eye. It's arrogance and infantilisation of displays has long been a matter of annoyance. Its stupidity in flogging books - rather than creating a reserve collection for recall in the event of a fire at the madhouse - still seems to remarkably stupid

Edited 2 November , 2018 by David Filsell

[Steven Broomfield]

On 30/10/2018 at 10:15, Gunga Din said:

Hello. Can anyone help explain the following:

 

 

Why would these libraries get rid of these books? 

 

 

What is the technical term for books in this condition?. I have a number of books that were in this condition, most having come from libraries suggesting no-one actually read them in their entirety 

 

GD

Does the comment at the end not go some way to answering your question? As libraries have increasing numbers of books - proper books, not just TV knock-offs - for which to find space, the fact that a volume has not been looked at in over 80 years may well make a librarian consider it surplus, particularly as so many are now available in digital form.

 

I have sympathy with libraries releasing stock for collectors and bibliophiles. Surely it's better on your shelf, being cherished and cared-for, rather than sitting, untouched, in a store-room somewhere?

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Steven Broomfield said:

Does the comment at the end not go some way to answering your question? As libraries have increasing numbers of books - proper books, not just TV knock-offs - for which to find space, the fact that a volume has not been looked at in over 80 years may well make a librarian consider it surplus, particularly as so many are now available in digital form.

 

I have sympathy with libraries releasing stock for collectors and bibliophiles. Surely it's better on your shelf, being cherished and cared-for, rather than sitting, untouched, in a store-room somewhere?

 

   Exactly so- A book equivalent of the old Bishop Berkeley conundrum in philosophy- does a tree falling over in the forest make any sound if there is no-one there to listen?  Likewise, does a book exist if no-one reads it?  Yes, free it up if it is not used somewhere along the line-   but  there is a difference with scarcer materials that could benefit another library if sensibly transferred. That is why I wrote the stuff about the old Booknet system. Similarly, the local collecting schemes have also broken down since the actions of Mrs Handbag in the 1980s.  -where groups of local libraries bought extra materials in specific areas (usually a chunk of the Dewey classification)-but also took in cast-offs in those subjects from other libraries. As an instance- Westmisnter City had "military" and there are a good few "regimentals" out there "ex-lib" when Westminster junked it collection of them, held at the former Borough of Marlylebone Library, near Baker Street Station.

    In regard to IWM and books- well, it seems to me to be contradictory to open an IWM North-to spread the goodies from reserve collections around- and not have thought of doing the same with duplicate/surplus books

[Gunga Din]

1 hour ago, Steven Broomfield said:

Does the comment at the end not go some way to answering your question? As libraries have increasing numbers of books - proper books, not just TV knock-offs - for which to find space, the fact that a volume has not been looked at in over 80 years may well make a librarian consider it surplus, particularly as so many are now available in digital form.

 

I have sympathy with libraries releasing stock for collectors and bibliophiles. Surely it's better on your shelf, being cherished and cared-for, rather than sitting, untouched, in a store-room somewhere?

 

My main thrust was really to understand why public libraries disposes of so many books. There is no assumed criticism of this process as I don't have knowledge; I am merely trying to understand why a significant part of my meagre library used to be owned by a number of public libraries and the IWM in particular. My error for not making that clear. Library closures clearly explain a lot of this.

 

As mentioned earlier in the thread, I can only assume IWM is a beneficiary of the military collections cascading down from public libraries that have closed; the duplicate copies that they inherit through this process means they can dispose of older more worn copies from their existing collection. It is difficult to believe that the IWM would dispose of books if there is no replacement given its historical funding. Interestingly the IWM online catalogue shows that it does have the History of the 52nd Lowland Division meaning they have certainly backed-up the one I have with the IWM stamp. 

 

Uncut books with Library stamps may well prove some books were rarely used or read in their entirety, however their value can not be measured only by frequency of use. Their value might not be realised for a long time; History books and the knowledge contained therein are time capsules. Future generations may have renewed interest in some unknown future date. I don't believe that history should be treated as a disposable commodity. I suspect that demand for out-of-print Great War period histories has increased these past few years. Clearly cost of maintaining and storing rarely used books is an issue. At some stage the cost of digitising will be less than the cost of maintaining and storing books for years.

 

Back to the IWM; they clearly have a number of funding requirements competing for their limited funds. I couldn't help notice that their introductory video "we are all witnesses to war" requires English subtitles. Without them I would have been at a loss to know what the message was.The IWM still sees some value in the written word, even in their videos.

 

I am in the IWM Library for some of next week on a Sikh mission, so I shall ask the librarian if there is a disposal policy. One has to book a whole week in advance, which suggests at least some people are using the library.... 

 

GD

 

 

 

Edited 2 November , 2018 by Gunga Din