Attack of the Collational Formula

Description When librarians and booksellers describe books, they often include a collational formula. What do these formulas mean? How do they work? Collational formulas are designed to describe the book as it was produced by the printer, before covers or anything else was added. Knowing how to read them can unlock a new aspect of the book for you: how much paper was used? How was it folded? How was the book put together? Bibliographers use this information to identify editions and sometimes how the book was used as well. In this video series, we will walk you through how to read these descriptions so that the next time you find one, you can use the information it contains. Each video covers a different part of a collational formula, moving through it in sequence from start to finish.

Each of the videos for the five part series can be accessed from the YouTube channel navigation on the right-hand side of the screen.
 

AudiencesGraduates, Professionals, Scholars, Undergraduates

Access TermsRare books, Cataloging of rare books, Bookbinding

TagsCollations, Collation Formulas, rare book cataloging, Cataloging