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The East European History and Slavonic Studies Library of the Vienna University Library owns approximately 1.500 volumes of rare specialty books. These originate from two private collectors' libraries, which were bought by the seminar for Eastern European History at the beginning, of the 20th century: the library of Vasilji Alekseevic Bil'basov and the library of the polish noble family Jodko. One main focus of this work which developed from a project of the postgraduate university course Library and Information Studies 2010/11, was to review the bibliographic records for all these volumes, to identify missing records and to enrich the existing records with additional data. By way of local holdings, information on noteworthy features, e.g. binding design, indicators of provenance, special characteristics like illustrations, printer's devices, marginal notes, old shelf marks, handwritten ownership marks and property stamps was included in the Austrian library union cataloguing system Aleph 500 and was thereby made visible for library users. Additionally, every project team member chose five rarities to describe in closer detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1998 the author published a blueprint for his research in the ornamentation of early modern books in Quaerendo, then under the supervision of Ton van Uchelen. In 2007 this research resulted in a thesis on the subject called De beer is los (Foxes on the Loose). In this special edition of Quaerendo a new blueprint is presented. This time it is for research on layout. Inspired by the writings of his promotor, Professor Janssen and in close cooperation with his Belgian colleague Goran Proot, the author proposes to develop a computer-assisted model for layout that can be used to examine the interaction between ideas and the pages on which these are presented. The Idea of a book is derived from the famous Dutch typographer Huib van Krimpen (1917-2002). Early modern books will be compared to this 'ideal book' to find out if and how we can define progress in book design, and the circumstances that influenced it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of gold leaf as a bookbinding decoration. This bookbinding decoration, which is also called the surface gilding, is said to be evident in art deco bindings in France during the 1920s and 1930s and has been commonly used by design binders in the modern times. Also explored is the author's experience of developing several techniques for surface gilding on large surfaces, as well as some illustrations for gilding loose sheets or plaquettes of leather on the bound book.

The article offers information on the book making class attended by several high school students in the U.S. It states that after the completion of the projects, the participating students were questioned about their experiences and their thought about their tasks. The observations and interviews with the students who completed the two projects during the session were analyzed using Core Thinking Skills. In addition, the Core Thinking Skills model furnished a framework for understanding the participants' raw and concrete portrayals of the thought they experienced.