Adams and Barker 1993

From http://whitneyannetrettien.com/whiki/index.php?title=Adams_and_Barker_1993

Note from D.O.: The page numbers have been adjusted to match our Reader‘s pagination.

Adams, Thomas R. and Nicolas Barker. “A New Model for the Study of the Book.” The Book History Reader. 47-65.

The term “book” doesn’t include broadsides, ephemera, etc.; Adams and Baker propose “bibliographical document” (51) — Its limit is not the object itself but whether “the agent’s intention involves the process of duplication” (51)

new model:

  • still a circle of connected elements influenced by elements in the center
  • but elements inverted
  • indirect forces outside, exerting pressure
  • five events in the life of a book: publishing, manufacturing, distribution, reception, survival

publishing:

  • four parties: author, patron/financier, manufacturer, distributor
  • four headings: creation, communication, profit, preservation
  • “The decision to publish, not the creation of a text, is, then, the first step in the creation of a book.” (54); often influenced heavily by factors not intrinsic to the text

manufacturing:

  • how to include the printing press in a more general history of technology? (54)
  • manufacture of illustrations, graphics? (54)
  • manufacture of paper, ink? (55)
  • physical look and feel of the book carries evidence of provenance; “deserves more attention as an aspect of the impact of printing” (55)
  • binding: structure and appearance (55); progressive decline in durability of both
  • “Throughout the whole manufacturing process the historian must take into account the essential ingredient that made it all happen, labour, particularly the place and function of labour in a new technology.” (55)

distribution:

  • begins the book’s “dynamic phase” (56)
  • four elements: initial impetus, consequent moving of books, destination (intentional, unintentional), momentum
  • immediately after publishing, but also secondhand markets and how books survived to today
  • various reasons to desire to own a book

reception:

  • initially “passive” and “mute” (58)
  • evidence: direct documentation (published and private responses), popularity (reprintings, sales), influence, use (58)
  • book authors and manufacturers can’t control its use (59)
  • literacy rates; what is reading? (60)

survival:

  • three stages:
    • creation and initial reception (determined by physical form, size, subsequent popularity);
    • comes to rest without any use (in danger of disappearing);
    • book becomes desirable as an object (for text or in its own right)

“What we offer is a map.” (62)