Dialog, UA Faculty and Staff News

Libraries' Research Funding Will Lead to Innovative Database

Following the Flag by Charles Carleton Coffin. This is an example of the "poster style" and was published in 1892. Courtesy of the Rare Books Collection, Hoole Library.

Book cover - The Ladies of the White House

The Ladies of the White House, published in 1881 by Bradley and Company. The red cloth cover with gold and black stamping is an example of the "Eastlake style." It is part of the Hoole Rare Books Collection.

Shadowings by Lafcadio Hearn, published in 1900 by Little, Brown and Company. The book cover features gold and colored cloth with Lilies. Courtesy of the Lafcadio Hearn Collection at the Hoole Library

By Elizabeth M. Smith

We have all heard the adage about judging a book by its cover and that is exactly what the University Libraries will be doing during the next three years with federal funding from the Washington-based Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

The University of Alabama, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will create an extensive online collection of American book covers through the project, "Digital Trade Bindings Online (DTBOnline): The Art and Craft of Decorative Trade Bindings, 1815-1930."

The $226,653 grant funding this project is one of 14 National Leadership Grants that IMLS awarded in 2003 for preserving or digitizing collections of national value. IMLS is a federal grantmaking agency located in Washington, D.C., that fosters leadership, innovation and a lifetime of learning by supporting museums and libraries.

"This grant is exciting because no other digital collection of trade bindings exists," said Dr. Louis Pitschmann, dean of University Libraries and co-principal investigator for the project. "The collection will also serve as an authoritative online reference work for any library in cataloging its 19th century materials."

The invention of moveable type marked the beginning of publishing books for the general public. Since the early 1800s much has changed in book publishing, and the Internet has once again sparked a renaissance in the written word and book covers. Book artists, readers and collectors are interested in the artistry of book covers, known as trade bindings or book bindings in the scholarly world, produced by publishing houses between 1815 and 1930.

According to Pitschmann, "It's directly because of the availability of so much information online and access to scholarly information through the Internet that there has been a renaissance in books. More books are being published and sold today, both popular and scholarly, than ever before."

Decorative trade bindings cover many of the books that people have in their homes today, but their owners may be unaware of the cultural and historical significance of these bindings. "At its most basic, what we're doing with this project is actually judging books by their covers," Pitschmann said. "We're looking at what the cover represents about the aesthetic values of artists and consumers and how the cover reflects historical events and art movements in an era before paper dust jackets."

Digital Trade Bindings Online will expand awareness of the book as artifact and of the role trade bindings play in providing a window into historical, cultural and industrial periods. The project will allow collectors, the general public, binders, book art designers, students, and scholars studying art history, print culture, the history of printing, or the book arts to view in one virtual location a collection of up to 5,000 publishers' trade bindings produced between 1815 and 1930.

In addition to providing access to up to four images for each binding, the project will create a searchable database accessible by design feature, publisher, bindery, designer, author, title and country of origin. The project also will provide users with an illustrated glossary of trade binding terminology as well as a bibliography and webliography of research and exhibits relating to the study of trade bindings.

The book covers that will be presented in this collection have such strong design elements that they can be dated to the decade with greater that 90 percent accuracy. "One of the things we will be able to do with this project is put together a very comprehensive collection of each decade," Pitschmann said. "We want to look at how different themes are portrayed in book covers. Sometimes different editions of the same titles have differently-themed covers."

Some of the themes, issues and attitudes that are explored in these book covers include women and children, historical events, the exploration of the Western frontier, the Civil War, and the depiction of early automobiles and airplanes. During these years women started working at publishing houses as artists and designers and for the first time also worked creatively on teams with men.

"This is the first time in quite a number of years that the Libraries has received direct federal funding for a research project," said Karen Croneis, associate dean for information and digital services, and co-principal investigator for this project.

Jessica Lacher-Feldman, public and outreach services coordinator for the W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library, will serve as project manager. "This project will allow us an opportunity to showcase some of our very interesting collections and develop a project that can serve as model for other libraries," she said. "There is also a great opportunity for students in several areas to work with the University Libraries to gain practical experience and lend their own expertise to the project."

Steve Miller, associate professor in the School of Library and Information Studies, and coordinator of UA's book arts program, will serve on the advisory board for the project.

"Our students will have the opportunity to work on a federal grant and to do work that's helping to create the archive," he said. "The project will directly support ongoing work in the book arts program. The creation of this archive will increase the history of book binding internationally and will have a strong impact on the study of books and their bindings.

"This is a visionary project," Miller continued. "That Dean Pitschmann would think of filling this piece of history in such a creative way and leading the Library System and UA to do this says a lot about him as a scholar."