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I Hope you enjoy shopping at the Racing Ahead store and that you find what you are looking for. From time to time, new additions will be made to departments so please do come back and look again.
BooksBooks are a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. Single sheets within books are called leafs, and each side of a leaf is called a page. Books produced in electronic format are known as e-books .Books may also refer to literature work, or a main division of such a work. In library and information science, books are called monographs, to distinguish them from serial periodicals such as magazines, journals or newspapers. The body of all written works including books is literature. In novels, books may be divided into several large sections, also called book (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, etc). A lover of books is usually referred to as a bibliophile, a bibliophilist, or a philobiblist, or, more informally, a bookworm. A store where books are bought and sold is a bookstore or bookshop. Books can also be borrowed from libraries or obtained for reading through the practice of BookCrossing.
Etymology of BooksThe word books comes from Old English "boc" cognate to beech. Similarly, in Slavic languages (e.g. Russian and Bulgarian (bukva)—"letter") is cognate to "beech". It is thus conjectured that the earliest Indo-European writings may have been carved on beech wood. Blook, a recent neologism, is either an object manufactured to imitate bound books , such as on-line books published via a blog, or printed books that contain or are based on content from a blog.
Sizes of BooksThe size of modern books is based on the printing area of a common flatbed press. The pages of type were arranged and clamped in a frame, so that when printed on a sheet of paper the full size of the press, the pages would be right side up and in order when the sheet was folded, and the folded edges trimmed. The most common size of books are:
Sizes of books smaller than 16mo are:
Sizes of books larger than quarto are:
The largest extant medieval manuscript in the world is Codex Gigas 92 × 50 × 22 cm. The world's largest book made of stone is in Kuthodaw Pagoda (Myanmar).
Types of booksTypes of books according to their contentsA common separation by content are fiction and non-fictional books. By no means are books limited to this classification, but it is a separation that can be found in most collections, libraries, and bookstores. Fiction Books Many of the books published today are fictitious stories. They are in-part or completely untrue or fantasy. Historically, paper production was expensive; too expensive to be used for entertainment. An increase in global literacy and print technology led to the increased publication of books for the purpose of entertainment, and allegorical social commentary. Most fiction is additionally categorized by genre. Novels are the most common form of fictional books . Novels are stories that typical feature a plot, setting, themes and characters. Stories and narrative are not restricted to any topic; Novels can be whimsical, serious or controversial. Novels have had a tremendous impact on entertainment and publishing markets. Comic books or graphic novels are books in which the story is told or illustrated with pictures. Non-Fiction Books In a libraries, general types of non-fiction books which provide information as opposed to telling a story, essay, commentary, or otherwise supporting a point of view, are often referred to as reference books . Very general reference books , usually of one-volume, with lists of data and information on many topics are called an almanacs. Encyclopedias are books or sets of books designed to have more in-depth articles on many topics. Books listing words, their etymology, meanings, etc. are called dictionaries. Books which are a collection of maps are atlass'. More specific reference books with tables or lists of data and information about a certain topic, often intended for professional use, are often called handbooks. Books which try to list references and abstracts in a certain broad area may be called index, such as Engineering Index, or abstracts such as Chemical Abstracts, Biological Abstracts, etc. Books with technical information on how to do something or how to use some equipment are called instruction manuals. Other popular how-to books include cook books and home improvement books . Students typically store and carry text books and school books for study purposes. Elementary school pupils often use work books which are published with spaces or blanks to be filled by them for study or homework. In higher education, is it common for a student to take an exam requiring a blue books . There is a large set of books that are made only to write private ideas, notes, and accounts. These type of books are rarely published and typically are destroyed or remain private. Note books are blank books to be written in by the user. Students and writers commonly use them for taking notes. Scientists and other researchers use lab note books to record their work. They often feature spiral coil bindings at the edge so that pages may easily be torn out. Address books , phone books , and calendar / appointment books are commonly used on a daily basis for recording appointments, meetings and personal contact information. Books for recording periodic entries by the user, such as daily information about a journey, are called log books or simply logs. Similar books for writing daily the owner's private personal events, information, and ideas are called a diaries or personal journals. Businesses use accounting books such as journals and ledgers to record financial data in a practice called bookkeeping.
Other BooksSome examples of books not commonly found under this system include:Albums are books for holding collections of memorabilia, pictures or photographs. They are often made so that the pages are removable. Stamp albums hold collections of stamps. Hymnals are books with collections of musical hymns, typically found in churches. Prayerbooks or missals are books containing written prayers. Commonly carried by monks, nuns, and other devoted followers or clergy.
Types of books according to their binding or coverHardcover booksHardcover books have a stiff binding. Paperback books have cheaper, flexible covers which tend to be less durable. An alternative to paperback is the glossy cover, otherwise known as a dust cover, found on magazines, and comic books. Spiral bound books are bound by spirals often made of metal. Examples of spiral bound books include: teachers manuals, and puzzle books (crosswords, sudoku). Publishing is a process for producing books , magazines, newspapers, etc. pre-printed for the reader / user to buy, usually in large numbers by a publishing company. Such books can be categorized as fiction (made-up stories) or non-fiction (information written as fact). A book-length fiction story is called a novel. Publishers may produce low-cost, pre-publication copies known as galleys or 'bound proofs' for promotional purposes, such as generating reviews in advance of publication. Galleys are usually made as cheaply as possible, since they are not intended for sale.
Binding Books - BookbindingThe process of physically assembling books from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper is bookbinding.
Manufacturing Books in the Modern WorldThe methods used for the printing and binding of books continued fundamentally unchanged from the 15th century into the early years of the 20th century. While there was of course more mechanization, Gutenberg would have had no difficulty in understanding what was going on if he had visited a printer of books in 1900.Gutenberg’s “invention” was the use of movable metal types, assembled into words, lines, and pages and then printed by letterpress. In letterpress printing ink is spread onto the tops of raised metal type, and is transferred onto a sheet of paper which is pressed against the type. Sheet-fed letterpress printing is still available but tends to be used for collector’s books and is now more of an art form than a commercial technique. Today most books are printed by offset lithography in which an image of the material to be printed is photographically or digitally transferred to a flexible metal plate where it is developed to exploit the antipathy between grease (the ink) and water. When the plate is mounted on the press, water is spread over it. The developed areas of the plate repel water thus allowing the ink to adhere to only those parts of the plate which are to print. The ink is then offset onto a rubbery blanket (to avoid all that water soaking the paper) and then finally to the paper. When books are printed the pages are laid out on the plate so that after the printed sheets are folded the pages will be in the correct sequence. Books tend to be manufactured nowadays in a few standard sizes. The sizes of books are usually specified as “trim size”: the size of the page after the sheet has been folded and trimmed. Trimming involves cutting approximately 1/8” off top, bottom and fore-edge (the edge opposite to the spine) as part of the binding process in order to remove the folds so that the pages can be opened. The standard sizes result from sheet sizes (therefore machine sizes) which became popular 200 or 300 years ago, and have come to dominate the industry. The basic standard commercial sizes of books in America, always expressed as width x height in USA; some examples are: 4-1/4” x 7” (rack size paperback) 5-1/8” x 7-5/8” (digest size paperback) 5-1/2” x 8-1/4” 5-1/2” x 8-1/2” 6-1/8” x 9-1/4” 7” x 10” 8-1/2” x 11”. These “standard” trim sizes will often vary slightly depending on the particular printing presses used, and on the imprecision of the trimming operation. Of course other trim sizes are available, and some publishers of books favor sizes not listed here which they might nominate as “standard” as well, such as 6” x 9”, 8” x 10”. In Britain the equivalent standard sizes differ slightly, as well as now being expressed in millimeters, and with height preceding width. Thus the UK equivalent of 6-1/8” x 9-1/4” is 234 x 156mm. British conventions in this regard prevail throughout the English speaking world, except for USA. The European manufacturer of books work to a completely different set of standards. Some books , particularly those with shorter runs (i.e. of which fewer copies are to be made) will be printed on sheet-fed offset presses, but most books are now printed on web presses, which are fed by a continuous roll of paper, and can consequently print more copies in a shorter time. On a sheet-fed press a stack of sheets of paper stands at one end of the press, and each sheet passes through the press individually. The paper will be printed on both sides and delivered, flat, as a stack of paper at the other end of the press. These sheets then have to be folded on another machine which uses bars, rollers and cutters to fold the sheet up into one or more signatures. A signature is a section of a book, usually of 32 pages, but sometimes 16, 48 or even 64 pages. After the signatures are all folded they are gathered: placed in sequence in bins over a circulating belt onto which one signature from each bin is dropped. Thus as the line circulates completed “ books ” are collected together as a stack, next to another, and another. A web press carries out the folding itself, delivering bundles of signatures ready to go into the gathering line. Notice that when the books are being printed it is being printed one (or two) signatures at a time, not completed books at a time. Thus if there are to be 10,000 copies printed, the press will run 10,000 of the first form (the pages imaged onto the first plate and its back-up plate, representing one or two signatures), then 10,000 of the next form, and so on till all the signatures have been printed. Actually, because there is a known average spoilage rate in each of the steps in a books progress through the manufacturing system, if 10,000 books are to be made, the printer will print between 10,500 and 11,000 copies so that subsequent spoilage will still allow the delivery of the ordered quantity of books . Sources of spoilage tend to be mainly make-readies. A make-ready is the preparatory work carried out by the pressmen to get the printing press up to the required quality of impression. Included in make-ready is the time taken to mount the plate onto the machine, clean up any mess from the previous job, and get the press up to speed. The main part of making-ready is however getting the ink / water balance right, and ensuring that the inking is even across the whole width of the paper. This is done by running paper through the press and printing waste pages while adjusting the press to improve quality. Desitometers are used to ensure even inking and consistency from one form to another. As soon as the pressman decides that the printing is correct, all the make-ready sheets will be discarded, and the press will start making books . Similar make readies take place in the folding and binding areas, each involving spoilage of paper. After the signatures are folded and gathered, they move into the bindery. In the middle of the last century there were still many trade binders – stand-alone binding companies which did no printing, specializing in binding alone. At that time, largely because of the dominance of letterpress printing, the pattern of the industry was for typesetting and printing to take place in one location, and binding in a different factory. When type was all metal, a typical books worth of type would be bulky, fragile and heavy. The less it was moved in this condition the better: so it was almost invariable that printing of books would be carried out in the same location as the typesetting. Printed sheets on the other hand could easily be moved. Now, because of the increasing computerization of the process of preparing books for the printer, the typesetting part of the job has flowed upstream, where it is done either by separately contracting companies working for the publisher, by the publishers themselves, or even by the authors. Mergers in the manufacturing of books industry mean that it is now unusual to find a bindery which is not also involved in the printing of books (and vice versa). If the books are hardback its path through the bindery will involve more points of activity than if the books were paperback. A paperback binding line (a number of pieces of machinery linked by conveyor belts) involves few steps. The gathered signatures, book blocks, will be fed into the line where they will one by one be gripped by plates converging from each side of the If the books , turned spine up and advanced towards a gluing station. En route the spine of the book block will be ground off leaving a roughened edge to the tightly gripped collection of pages. The grinding leaves fibers which will grip onto the glue which is then spread onto the spine of the If the books . Covers then meet up with the book blocks, and one cover is dropped onto the glued spine of each book block, and is pressed against the spine by rollers. The If the books are then carried forward to the trimming station, where a three-knife trimmer will simultaneously cut the top and bottom and the fore-edge of the paperback to leave clear square edges. The If the books are then packed into cartons, or packed on skids, and shipped. Binding hardback books is more complicated. Look at hardback books and you will see the covers overlaps the pages by about 1/8” all round. These overlaps are called squares. The blank piece of paper inside the cover is called the endpaper, or endsheet: it is of somewhat stronger paper than the rest of books as it is the endpapers that hold the book into the case. The endpapers will be tipped to the first and last signatures before the separate signatures are placed into the bins on the gathering line. Tipping involves spreading some glue along the spine edge of the folded endpaper and pressing the endpaper against the signature. The gathered signatures are then glued along the spine, and the book block is trimmed, like paperback books , but will continue after this to the rounder and backer. The books block together with its endpapers will be gripped from the sides and passed under a roller with presses them from side to side, smashing the books spine down and out around the sides so that entire books takes on a rounded cross section: convex on the spine, concave at the fore-edge, with “ears” projecting on either side of the spine. Then the spine is glued again, a paper liner is stuck to it and headbands and footbands are applied. Next a crash lining (an open weave cloth somewhat like a stronger cheesecloth) is usually applied, overlapping the sides of the spine by an inch or more. Finally the inside of the case, which has been constructed and foil-stamped off-line on a separate machine, is glued on either side (but not on the spine area) and placed over the books block. This entire sandwich is now gripped from the outside and pressed together to form a solid bond between the endpapers and the inside of the case. The crash lining, which is glued to the spine of the pages, but not the spine of the case, is held between the endpapers and the case sides, and in fact provides most of the strength holding the books block into the case. The books will then be jacketed (most often by hand, allowing this stage to be an inspection stage also) before being packed ready for shipment. The sequence of events can vary slightly, and usually the entire sequence does not occur in one continuous pass through a binding line. What has been described above is unsewn binding, now increasingly common. The signatures of books can also be held together by Smyth sewing. Needles pass through the spine fold of each signature in succession, from the outside to the center of the fold, sewing the pages of the signature together and each signature to its neighbors. McCain sewing, often used in school books binding, involves drilling holes through the entire book and sewing through all the pages from front to back near the spine edge. Both of these methods mean that the folds in the spine of books will not be ground off in the binding line. This is true of another technique, notch binding, where gashes about an inch long are made at intervals through the fold in the spine of each signature, parallel to the spine direction. In the binding line glue is forced into these “notches” right to the center of the signature, so that every pair of pages in the signature is bonded to every other one, just as in the Smyth sewn book. The rest of the binding process is similar in all instances. Sewn and notch bound books can be bound as either hardback books or paperback books . Making cases happens off-line and prior to the books arrival at the binding line. In the most basic case making, two pieces of cardboard are placed onto a glued piece of cloth with a space between them into which is glued a thinner board cut to the width of the spine of books . The overlapping edges of the cloth (about 5/8” all round) are folded over the boards, and pressed down to adhere. After case making the stack of cases will go to the foil stamping area. Metal dies, photoengraved elsewhere, are mounted in the stamping machine and rolls of foil are positioned to pass between the dies and the case to be stamped. Heat and pressure cause the foil to detach from its backing and adhere to the case. Foils come in various shades of gold and silver and in a variety pigment colors, and by careful setup quite elaborate effects can be achieved by using different rolls of foil on the books . Cases can also be made from paper which has been printed separately and then protected with clear film lamination. A three-piece case is made similarly but has a different material on the spine and overlapping onto the sides: so it starts out as three pieces of material, one each of a cheaper material for the sides and the different, stronger material for the spine. Recent developments in manufacture of books include the development of digital printing. Pages of books are printed in much the same way as an office copier works, using toner rather than ink. The books are printed in one pass, not as separate signatures. Digital printing has permitted the manufacture of much smaller quantities than offset, in part because of the absence of make readies and of spoilage. One might think of a web press as printing quantities over 2000, quantities from 250 to 2000 being printed on sheet-fed presses, and digital presses doing quantities below 250. These numbers are of course only approximate and will vary from supplier to supplier, and from book to book depending on its characteristics. Digital printing has opened up the possibility of print-on-demand, where no books are printed until after an order is received from a customer. That books can be economically printed in an edition of one copy is truly a development that would surprise Mr. Gutenberg. Transition of Books to digital format The term e - books is a contraction of " electronic "; it refers to a digital version of conventional . E - books are usually made available through the internet, but also on CD-ROM and other forms. E - books are read by means of a physical book display device known as a e - books readers, such as the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle. These devices attempt to mimic the experience of reading printed books . Throughout the 20th century, libraries have faced an ever-increasing rate of publishing, sometimes called an information explosion. The advent of electronic publishing and the Internet means that much new information is not printed in paper books , but is made available online through a digital library, on CD-ROM, or in the form of e - books . On-line books are e - books that are available online through the internet. Though many books are produced digitally, most digital versions are not available to the public, and it is assumed there is no decline in the rate of paper publishing. There is an effort, however, to convert books that are in the public domain into a digital medium for unlimited redistribution and infinite availability. This effort is spearheaded by Project Gutenberg combined with Distributed Proofreaders. There have also been new developments in the process of publishing books . Technologies such as print on demand, which make it possible to print as few as one book at a time, have made self-publishing much easier and more affordable. On-demand publishing has allowed publishers of books , by avoiding the high costs of warehousing, to keep low-selling books in print rather than declaring them out of print.
Collections of booksPrivate or personal libraries of books made up of non-fiction and fiction books , (as opposed to the state or institutional records kept in archives) first appeared in classical Greece. In ancient world the maintaining of libraries of books was usually the privilege of a wealthy individual. These libraries of books could have been either private or public, i.e. for individuals that were interested in using them. The difference from modern public libraries of books lies in the fact that they were usually not funded from public sources. It is estimated that in the city of Rome at the end of the third century there were around 30 public libraries of books , public libraries of books also existed in other cities of the ancient Mediterranean region. Later, in the Middle Ages, monasteries and universities had also libraries of books that could be accessible to general public. Typically not the whole collection was available to public, the books could not be borrowed and often were chained to reading stands to prevent theft.The beginning of modern public libraries of books started around 15th century when individuals started to donate books to towns. The growth of a public library system in the United States started in the late 19th century and was much helped by donations from Andrew Carnegie. This reflected classes in a society: The poor or the middle class had to access most books through a public library or by other means while the rich could afford to have private libraries of books built in their homes. The advent of paperback books in the 20th century led to an explosion of popular publishing. Paperback books made owning books affordable for many people. Paperback books often included works from genres that had previously been published mostly in pulp magazines. As a result of the low cost of such books and the spread of books stores filled with them (in addition to the creation of a smaller market of extremely cheap used paperback books) owning a private libraryof books ceased to be a status symbol for the rich. In libraries of books and booksellers' catalogues, it is common to include an abbreviation such as "Crown 8vo" to indicate the paper size from which the book is made. When rows of books are lined on a bookshelf, bookends are sometimes needed to keep them from slanting.
Identification and classification of BooksDuring the 20th century, librarians of books were concerned about keeping track of the many books being added yearly to the Gutenberg Galaxy. Through a global society called the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), they devised a series of tools including the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD).All books are specified by an International Standard Book Number, or ISBN, which is unique to every edition of all books produced by participating publishers, world wide. It is managed by the ISBN Society. An ISBN has four parts: the first part is the country code, the second the publisher code, and the third the title code. The last part is a check digit, and can take values from 0–9 and X (10). The EAN Barcodes numbers for books are derived from the ISBN by prefixing 978, for Bookland, and calculating a new check digit. Commercial publishers in industrialized countries generally assign ISBNs to their books , so buyers may presume that the ISBN is part of a total international system, with no exceptions. However many government publishers, in industrial as well as developing countries, do not participate fully in the ISBN system, and publish books which do not have ISBNs. A large or public collection of books require a catalogue. Codes called "call numbers" relate the books to the catalogue, and determine their locations on the shelves. Call numbers are based on a Library classification system. The call number is placed on the spine of all books, normally a short distance before the bottom, and inside. Institutional or national standards, such as ANSI/NISO Z39.41 - 1997, establish the correct way to place information (such as the title, or the name of the author) on spines of books , and on "shelvable" objects like books, such as containers for DVDs, video tapes and software. One of the earliest and most widely known systems of cataloguing books was the Dewey Decimal System. This system has fallen out of use in some places, mainly because of a Eurocentric bias and other difficulties applying the system to modern libraries. However, it is still used by most public libraries of books in America. It is assumed: The Library of Congress Classification system is more popular in university libraries of books . Information about books and authors can be stored in databases like online general-interest databases.
Uses for booksAside from the primary purpose of reading them, books are also used for other ends:
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