Jasna Zwimpfer writes about the cataloging of the books in a special collection at the University of Glasgow Library in their article “William Hunter’s Library: the Shapes of Books”

“We consulted some of Hunter’s books in Special Collections to answer queries which emerged during our work. In the search room, we came into direct contact with all kinds of shapes and sizes of books, and it was exciting to discover the variety of formats contained within Hunter’s collection. Although the library’s online catalogue provides a short physical description of each book, the actual appearance would always be a surprise. In this blog post, we will be looking at the variety of formats of Hunter’s printed books, and uncover the technical terms, which are commonly used to describe the books’ formats. “

Visit the full post and learn more about quarto, octavo and other book size terminology.

Visit the Biblio Book Glossary for other rare book vocabulary