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Two weeks ago I asked Twitter if anyone had favourite obscure and/or delightful library or archival words. Here are some of the best replies:
Tête-bêche: From philately, meaning printed upside down or sideways relative to another. (
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Respect des fonds: A principle in archival theory that proposes to group collections of archival records according to their fonds — that is to say, according to the administration, organization, individual, or entity by which they were created or from which they were received. (
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Realia: Objects and material from everyday life. (
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Incunabula: Early printed books, especially ones printed before 1501. (
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Wimmelbilderbuch: A kind of large-format picture book, characterized by full-spread drawings depicting scenes richly detailed with numerous humans, animals, and objects. (
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Grimoire: A textbook of magic. (
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Sammelband: A book comprising a number of separately printed or manuscript works that are subsequently bound together (
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Volvelle: a type of slide chart, a paper construction with rotating parts (
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Verso / Recto: Refering to the text written on the “front” and “back” sides of a leaf of paper in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. (@glitters_not)
Caoutchouc bindings: A particular (and probably first) form of adhesive binding, invented by William Hancock, and patented in 1836, in which the single sheets were secured with a rubber solution obtained from the latex of certain tropical plants, especially of the genera Hevea and Ficus. (@CourtneyEJacobs)
Bitrot: A deterioration of software performance over time or its diminishing responsiveness because of the changing environment in which it resides. (
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Fixity: The state of being unchanging or permanent (
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Xylotheque: A wood library — a special form of herbarium that consists of a collection of authenticated wood specimens. (
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Sticky-shed Syndrome: A condition created by the deterioration of the binders in a magnetic tape (
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Temoin: “A little bit of paper left on the edge of the page by the binder to show they didn’t over-crop when binding” (@book_historia)
Archivy: The discipline of archives. (
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Inherent Vice: The tendency in physical objects to deteriorate because of the fundamental instability of the components of which they are made (
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Festschrift: A collection of writings published in honor of a scholar. (
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Sine loco / Sine nomine: Without a place or name, in the case where the place of publication or the author is unknown. (
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☞ Manicule: The ‘little hand’ — a punctuation mark created by or for readers to assist in marking noteworthy passages. (@HannahJane85)
Frisket-bite: A missing part of printed matter, caused by the frisket moving, stretching, or otherwise intervening between inked type and the paper. (
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Blind tooling: A method of decorating a book in which impressions are made in the covering material (@livyaugusta)
Catchword: A word placed at the foot of a handwritten or printed page that is meant to be bound along with other pages in a book. The word anticipates the first word of the following page. (@mia_clarkson)
Gloss: a brief marginal notation of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. (@SarDSta)
Hapax legomenon: A term of which only one instance of use is recorded. (@MaxCMarmor)
Deaccession: To officially remove an item from the listed holdings of a library, museum, or art gallery, typically in order to sell it to raise funds. (
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Palimpsest: A manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain. (
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Octavo: A size of book page that results from the folding of each printed sheet into eight leaves (sixteen pages). (
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What are your favourite archival or library words that we may have missed?