A paper on Visualization of French Book Covers from the Liberation Collection (1944-1946) at Cambridge University Library

A few years ago, Cambridge University Library funded a temporary position to finish most of the cataloguing of the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation collection, which is now considered complete and contains more than 3,200 titles, mostly French, published between the summer of 1944 and the end of 1946. At the time, we also pioneered an additional technical feature which was to add thumbnails of the book covers (and links to the full-size images) in the library catalogue. We are delighted that the final phase of this project was recently completed, with the support of Charles Chadwyck-Healey, the work of photographer Fanny Bara, and the help of our colleague Tristram Scott in Digital Services. You can see the results with keywords search in the catalogue. The thumbnail of the cover picture allows readers and researchers to have a glimpse of the physical aspect of the books, ahead of a potential visit to the library, or in order to carry out bibliographic checks. It also sheds light on the iconographic interest of the Liberation collection, which contains many illustrated books and many illustrated covers (some of them feature in the Liberation collection Flickr album).

“Sous la botte” (2): the German boot in the illustrated book covers of the Liberation collection (1944-46)

In 2019, I started working on a project aimed at providing access through Cambridge University Library catalogue (iDiscover) to digitised images of book covers of the Chadwyck-Healey collection (about 3000 books in French about the Second World War, the Occupation and the Liberation, published between 1944 and 1946), with photographer Fanny Bara. We were struck by the number of titles and cover illustrations featuring the German boot (see my previous blog post on the use of the expression “sous la botte” in the literature of the Liberation). More than half of the Liberation collection books whose title refers to the German boot feature illustrated covers including an actual depiction of a boot (five covers) or German soldiers in uniform (six covers, three of which are photographic). Only the comic book Biroulet sous la botte by Raymond Sempé, (Liberation.a.37) features a strictly black and white cover illustration: while a stern looking German soldier goose steps, Biroulet, depicted as a mischievous peasant child, wearing clogs and beret, and holding a simple wooden stick, cocks a snook at him.

Judging books of the Liberation of France by their cover: a new feature of Cambridge University Library catalogue

Book covers, originally designed to protect the pages of a book, now serve a commercial purpose: they attract the gaze, aiming at inducing the purchase and reading of a book. Their design and appearance are determined by national or sectorial rules and traditions: academic versus popular publishing, paperbacks versus hardbacks. In this blog, I will explore some of the characteristics of current French book covers’ design, the growing importance of book covers images in social media and digital collections, and a specific project designed at Cambridge University Library: adding pictures of book covers to catalogue records of the Liberation collection, 1944-46.

Still discovering iDiscover?

MusiCB3 Blog

The Farewell to Voyager post a few weeks ago prompted some further comments about iDiscover. So here’s a quick follow-up post about iDiscover, which, in the best Darwinian tradition, is constantly evolving.

View original post 555 more words

Out of the parcel and into the catalogue : records for newly unpacked books

The University Library has traditionally suppressed titles from the public catalogue until books have been fully catalogued.  This practice was altered some time ago for new Legal Deposit material.  From this week, records will also appear for newly received English and European-language bought material.  This post explains what readers will see and how they can access these books.

Records for such material will appear in iDiscover and Newton with the legend “Uncatalogued item: Enquire in Reading Room; Received [DD/MM/YYYY]”.  “Uncatalogued” here means that what is on display is essentially an order-level record which has not yet been upgraded or approved by one of our trained cataloguers.  Here are sample screenshots for a new Italian arrival (click on each image to expand):