Did you ever wonder what all those numbers and brackets meant in a description of the number of pages in a book? Well there are rules for writing down the number of pages in a book. Properly the subject should be termed pagination and is just a subset of collation although in modern books the two can be the same. Collation, in the bibliographers sense, is "the process of comparing the book in hand with another, or to a cannon by which its completeness can be established", see ABC For Book Collectors by John Carter.

First let's go through a few examples of pagination which might make it easier to envision my long-winded explanation of pagination:

[25] p.	Count reveals 25 pages (printing on both sides)
33, [31] leaves	First 33 leaves are numbered; the last 31 unnumbered
[iv], ii-ix, [4], 2-155,[3]	4 unnumbered pages followed by 8 Roman numbered pages marked ii through ix followed by 4 unnumbered page followed by 154 Arabic numbered pages marked 2 through 155 followed by 3 unnumbered pages.

Oh, and one other thing needs to be added. That is each example should also have as part of the explanation "Starting with the first page with printing on it and ending with the last page with printing on it."

Now to the description. From what I understand, the way to paginate is to start with the first printed page. Generally this is something like the title page and is unnumbered. Now find the first numbered page. This gives us the start of the pagination. If the number is a Roman number, use Roman numbers to start and if it is an Arabic number use Arabic numbers. Put the number of unnumbered pages in brackets. For example suppose the first page is the title page and there are four unnumbered pages and then a page numbered ii. You would put down [iv] to start your pagination.

The next thing put down for the pagination generally depends on whether the page number above was Roman or Arabic. If it were Arabic, i.e. the page was numbered 2 (and you initially put down [4] to start), then you could skip this part where we assume it was a Roman number. Now look for the last page numbered in the Roman numbers. This gives the next part to write down and is simply the initial Roman number, a dash, and the final Roman number. Continuing our example, suppose the last Roman number was ix. You would then put down ", ii-ix" [without the quotes]. That is we would now have [iv], ii-ix.

The next item will again be a number in brackets if there are any unnumbered pages but this time in Arabic numbers followed by the Arabic number of the first Arabic numbered page, a dash and the Arabic Number of the last Arabic numbered page. Continuing our example, suppose there were two unnumbered pages following the last Roman number, then a page numbered 3, then 157 Arabic number pages. Our pagination would look like [iv], ii-ix. [2], 3-159 at this point. If that were the end of the printed text we would be finished (unless there were unnumbered plates inserted or something else one generally doesn't run across). However, if there were more unnumbered pages with text, you would end with the Arabic number of unnumbered pages with text in brackets.

I think that's about as much as I can stand right now. For some more information on pagination see the BookThink article Basic Cataloguing. Oh, and for a few examples and other points on identification of early works see the article on Bibliography of American Literature, also on BookThink.

>> 'til next time - DW <<

I'm a fan of the cooking shows on TV. My favorite is probably Good Eats with host Alton Brown followed by Iron Chef [now Iron Chef America]. I started quite a while back when Julia Child and Graham Kerr [The Galloping Gourmet] started me on cooking shows back in the 60's. I think I even saw some of the Yan Can Cook shows in the early 80's.

Magazines on gourmet cooking were also of interest and one of them was Gourmet the Magazine of Good Living. Gourmet just quite publication in November of last year but had a great run. As Beth Machlan says in her lament Gourmet: The Magazine of Good Living Is Dead, "Gourmet never talked down to me.". I felt as she does that "it felt like a kitchen I knew my way around in, while Bon Appetit always felt like a restaurant I couldn’t afford or just plain didn’t like."

If you would like to buy some copies you might look at our copies for sale. You can get reduced shipping with a purchase of multiple copies. Buy five and get not only the repeat customer 10% off on the additional four copies but, while the supply lasts, get another free if you mention the blog. Right now we have 37 copies:

1960, Volume XX
Sep (9), Oct (10)

1961, Volume XXI
Feb (2), Mar (3), Apr (4), May (5), Jun (6), Nov (11)

1962, Volume XXII
Mar (3), May (5), Jul (7), Sep (9), Oct (10), Dec (12)

1963, Volume XXIII
Jan (1), Mar (3), Apr (4), May (5), Jun (6), Jul (7), Aug (8), Sep (9)

1964, Volume XXIV
Jul (7), Aug (8), Sep (9), Oct (10), Nov (11)

1965, Volume XXV
Feb (2), May (5), Jun (6)

1966, Volume XXVI
May (5), Jul (7), Aug (8), Sep (9), Oct (10), Nov (11), Dec (12)


>> 'til next time - DW <<

I'm a smoker - well actually I was a smoker. I quit on Jan 29, 200? according to my wife, anyway some six years or so ago. When I smoked, and even now I run into a lot of prejudice about cigarette smoking. As a specific example, suppose I could show you that 8 out of 10 people admitted to a hospital from emergency with breathing problems were smokers. Isn't the almost obvious conclusion that smokers have hospital admittable breathing problems 4 times more than non-smokers? Well it would if all the symptoms were essentially the same AND the doctors didn't know if the patients were smokers or not.

I can remember one particular time a friend of mine who had come into emergency with difficulty breathing was admitted to the hospital. In talking to the doctor, the doctor said something like, "Oh, I didn't know he didn't smoke. If I had known that, I wouldn't have admitted him." Look at how that statement could greatly affect the above statistics. For this particular doctor, the only way a non smoker with those same symptoms would be admitted would be by mistake. If a mistake was made twice in ten times, then the statistics would say 80% of the people admitted were smokers BUT not because of their breathing problems. It was because they were smokers. So wouldn't the proper conclusion to come to in this case be that doctors were prejudiced against smokers and cost them more money because of that prejudice.

So, the next time you hear some statistics, think about what they really mean and also about what is not being said about the 'facts' behind the statements^*.

Since one of the things I'm hoping will happen with my postings here is that you will be curious enough to visit White Unicorn Books and maybe buy some books, I had better make this at least somewhat book related. An interesting read is Virtually Safe Cigarettes: Reviving an Opportunity Once Tragically Rejected which presents an additional method for saving lives

Cigarette smoking is risky. Yet, offical epidemiologic evidence indicates that less risky cigarettes would save lives and are desirable, during the 1970s the National Cancer Institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the U. S. Department of Agriculture and the cigarette industry cooperated in a program to develop less hazardous cigarettes. But, the Program was shut down in the late 1970s, by intervening abolitionist aiming at a smoke-free America by the year 2000.

If your are interested in the book, we may still have a copy left, see Virtually Safe Cigarettes. Mention the blog and get 10% off if we still have the book.


>> 'til next time - DW <<

*BTW: the 'proper' conclusion is not 'that doctors were prejudiced' but that 'that doctor was prejudiced'. Hope you caught that.

Something to share. We got the announcement several days ago [actually the Feb 2nd I believe] that Fine Books & Collections is returning to print. The News release went something like:

Magazine to be Published Quarterly


February 1, 2010, Durham, NC. Fine Books & Collections magazine, which targets collectors of rare and collectible books, will return to a regular print schedule in April 2010.



The magazine had suspended its bi-monthly publication schedule in November 2008, but published an edition in Fall 2009. Based on very positive results, the publishers will return the magazine to print on a quarterly basis. The annual subscription price will be $25.
...

You can subscribe to the Fine Books & Collections free e-letter. I've found it well worth the reading and it is one of the several e-letters I get which I enjoy very much.

For other e-letters, you might consider AE Monthly from Americana Exchange, SFcrowsnest.com a monthly magazine of SF&F.



>> 'til next time - DW <<

Just took a friend [call her Zoe] to the doctor yesterday and ran into a situation I hadn't run into before [actually I almost ran into something like it some 50 years ago, but it was the dental assistant speaking and not the doctor]. My friend Zoe has Alzheimer's/Dementia and she (the doctor) thought Zoe should be sent to a "Memory Care Unit" where she could receive supervision 24 hours a day. My wife and I believe that she does not need to go to a 24 hours supervised care unit at this time. As a short amount of background, my wife and I have gone through the care of my wife's father who had Alzheimer's/Dementia and we finally had to have him go to the excellent facility at Grace Presbyterian Village where he spent the last years of his life. So we are not totally unknowledgeable about what can happen with a person with dementia. We have also provided care for another family member with dementia. The doctor however, indicated that our knowledge and experience meant nothing and that we should follow her instructions without any input on what we felt was the proper course to follow.

My friend is now on a medication prescribed by this doctor and it appears to be helping the total situation. Well, I should say was prescribed. Because, you see, when I made it clear that we were not going to take Zoe from her home across the driveway from us and put her in a 24 hour supervised care unit, the doctor refused to treat or prescribe anything for Zoe. I don't know about you, but I think this falls in the category of "Well I recommend you cut off you healthy leg but since you won't, the medication which is keeping you living will no longer be available through me". Of course, that would be at one extreme end of the category and the doctors refusal to continue to prescribe the medication making Zoe's life a little better is at the other extreme, but nevertheless it fits in the same category.

Well, if you got this far, thanks for 'listening' to my rant. And, if you want to know the name of this neurologist with a specialization in dementia in the Dallas, TX area, leave your email in a comment with a statement that you would like the name.

Oh, and finally, to keep this book related, you might check out some of the books by Thomas Szasz [Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York] including The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement which has an avowed purpose to show "that the belief in mental illness and the social actions to which it leads have the same moral implications and political consequences as had the belief in witchcraft and the social actions to which it led."

>> 'til next time - DW <<

I guess I might as well say something about the Macmillan/Amazon squabble. First Macmillian gives Amazon deep discounts making it hard for independents to compete on certain titles^*. After running like this a couple of years, they start to get squeezed [one of those 'we hang separately' type of deals] and start crying. I really don't feel sorry for Macmillan and their stance that e-books should be selling for $12.99 to $14.99.

Does this mean I think Amazon is right? Not by any means. Amazon is now the 800 pound gorilla in the book selling world and they are using their muscle to do what they want. I would have though that if a B&M chain had started selling something at about $10 and paying about $11 for it over a protracted period of time that some government agency would have considered that predatory pricing.

What about the price of an e-book? If you're interested you might look at Kindle book cost Analysis for a nice presentation on the cost of producing e-books. I think most of you will be surprised to find that just maybe Macmillan is (partially) right.

^*Just in case anyone is interested, let's look at an example. The steep discounts given Amazon vary but take the hardcover A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present which lists for $35.95 (a Harper Collins title). Amazon is selling this for $21.06, a 41.4% discount which is cheaper than I can by it from the publisher. BTW: This has been going on for a long time and way before the internet was a reality. When we had a B&M back in the 70's, I remember one year that FedCo sold most of the new calendars for a cheaper price than we could get them since we could only get a short discount.

Until next time - DW