arm

Bindings

RareMat, 2018.03.16

Table of Contents

Introduction

“Coverings of a book which hold the sheets together to provide protection, and collectively all the parts of books applied in the process of attaching the leaves and covering them.” –AAT

Prior to the machine-press era (mid-1800s), the majority of bindings were bespoke, often commissioned by the owner of a book and executed by a binder. As book production was modernized, publishers began to produce bindings to be sold with their books. In this case, binding can be an instance-level attribute.

An item can have its original binding replaced over time by an owner or for preservation/conservation purposes. It is also not uncommon for a library to discard an original binding and rebind in a standard library binding. Conversely, though less well known, a single binding may be attached to different items over time, for a variety of reasons; see > - Many-to-Many Item-to-Binding Relationships.

Bindings are of interest to researchers for many reasons. Bindings can help date a book based on styles and materials used, as well as information printed on bindings that is not included in the text block, such as a later imprint date on a binding than on a title page. Bindings are of aesthetic interest, and can be designed by artists and notable binders. Bindings can also carry important provenance information, such as a coat of arms of the owner.

Note that the English word “binding” is ambiguous between binding as a process or activity and binding as a thing; here we use the term in the latter sense, while the class BinderActivity defined below refers to the former.

Sample Data

“Pictorial cloth binding with gold, brown, and green stamping on brown calico-textured cloth, designed by Margaret Armstrong; signed: M.A.”

“British Library copy: late 17th-century English binding; red goatskin, gold-tooled, over paper boards; gold-tooled spine with five raised bands; gilt edges; gold roll on edges of boards; marbled endpapers”

Bindings in BIBFRAME

By intent, BIBFRAME does not provide deep modeling of resource components or physical description; these areas are left to domain extensions. There is consequently no modeling of bindings in BIBFRAME.

Overview of the RareMat Binding Model

Most of the proposed Binding model relies on terms from other ontologies: BIBFRAME, DCMI Terms, other Raremat/ArtFrame models, and controlled vocabularies for types and parts of bindings. The terms specific to this model are the Binding class itself and the class hierarchy in which it is positioned, and Binding-related Activity classes.

Bindings can be attached to both Instances (as issued) and Items. Bindings can also be Works in their own right. Bindings that are also Works do not need any specific modeling other than that provided by general Work models.

The Binding class is defined within a class hierarchy of enclosures. The superclass, Enclosure, has subclasses Binding, DustJacket, SlipCase, WrapAroundBand, and Wrapper; others could be defined later as the need arises. It has been noted that Bindings, unlike the other subtypes, are not ordinarily removable (that is, only in the process of conservation or other institutional activity, rather than by ordinary users), but, though we do allow for removal of a binding from one item and subsequent attachment to another (see Many-to-Many Item-to-Binding relationships), we have as yet seen no need to make a formal distinction between removable and non-removable enclosures within the ontology (see Areas for Future Research).

We also define here three additional classes representing parts of bibliographic resources, Mount and two subclasses, Frame and Pedestal. No specific modeling is provided for these types at this time, and we expect them to generally profile with bindings. Related Raremat/ArtFrame Models

The Binding model connects to other Raremat/ArtFrame models, as shown by the diagram below:

Activities in the Binding Model

The bibliotek-o Activity model is now incorporated directly into Raremat/ArtFrame. Raremat/ArtFrame defines the Activity superclass and related predicates hasActivity and isActivityOf. Each specific Raremat/ArtFrame model will define required Activity subclasses.

Original bibliotek-o Activity subclasses involved in the Binding model are at minimum:

bibliotek-o Activity types that also may be of use in the Binding model are:

New Activity types not included in bibliotek-o could also be defined, such as GilderActivity.

bibliotek-o defined a BindingDesignerActivity, which will not be carried forward into the Binding model. It is replaced by DesignerActivity linked directly to a Binding resource, rather than to an Item or Instance, and thus an activity explicitly referencing a binding is no longer needed.

Style/Period/Technique/Instrument

Style/period/technique/instrument are areas that relate to bindings but are not binding-specific. See the Style and Period recommendation.

Diagram: Basic Binding Model

basic binding diagram

Many-to-Many Item-to-Binding Relationships

An item can have its original binding replaced over time by an owner or for preservation/conservation purposes.

many-to-many item-to-binding diagram

The converse is also true, under a variety of circumstances. Treasure bindings, made from jewels and precious metals, such as the binding of the Lindau Gospels, could be removed from the original item, sold, and transferred to another book. This may occur with less valuable bindings as well, such as a copy of Reineke Fuchs rebound in a publisher’s binding from The Works of Daniel Webster. There are also instances of a binding being reapplied to a contraband or censored text in order to conceal the contents. The term remboîtage has been established for the practice of transferring into a superior binding a text more interesting or valuable than the one for which it was made.

item-to-binding inverse diagram

The relationship between an item and a binding is therefore potentially time-delimited, but our current models do not provide a way to attach dates to the relationship. A context node would be required to represent the relationship with dates and other information attached; this is a significant complication of the model and we leave it for future research to determine whether there are valid use cases for this level of complexity.

The BinderActivity resource, representing the act of attaching a binding to an item, can be dated, since it constitutes an Activity node to which a date (and other information) can be attached.

BinderActivity The BinderActivity, defined as “The activity of attaching a Binding a resource,” is an interesting case because it relates to both a Binding and an Instance/Item. Since a Binding can attach to more than one Item during its lifespan, and an Item can have multiple Bindings during its lifespan (see Many-to-Many Item-to-Binding Relationships), the activity must connect to both in order to accurately represent the relationships.

binder activity diagram

Term Specifications

Classes

ex:Enclosure

ex:Binding

ex:DustJacket

ex:Frame

ex:Mount

ex:Pedestal

ex:SlipCase

ex:WrapAroundBand

ex:Wrapper

ex:TextBlock

ex:BinderActivity

ex:CreatorActivity

ex:DesignerActivity

ex:EngraverActivity

ex:MarblerActivity

ex:DescriptiveNote

Properties

bf:agent (object property)

ex:agentOf (object property)

bf:date (datatype property)

bf:note (object property)

cidoc-crm:P2_has_type (property)

cidoc-crm:P2i_has_type (property)

dcterms:hasPart (property)

dcterms:isPartOf (property)

ex:hasMaterial (object property)

ex:isMaterialOf (object property)

ex:hasActivity (object property)

ex:isActivityOf (object property)

Vocabularies/Taxonomies

The following vocabularies will be used in modeling Enclosure and Binding types and components. The implementation of these vocabularies is illustrated in the Binding Diagram and Sample RDF.

Sample RDF

Basic Binding Model

:item a bf:Item ;
    dcterms:hasPart :binding .

:binding a ex:Binding ;
    ex:hasActivity :designer_activity ;
    cidoc-crm:P2_has_type <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300211457> ;
    ex:hasMaterial :material ;
    dcterms:hasPart <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300202819> ;
    bf:note :note . 

:designer_activity a ex:DesignerActivity ;
    bf:date “Late 17th-century”^^edtf:EDTF ;
    bf:agent <http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n84226647> ;
    ex:atLocation <http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/countries/enk> .

:note a ex:DescriptiveNote ;
    rdf:value ““Pictorial, with gold, brown, and green stamping” .

Many-to-Many Item-to-Binding Relationships

Item with multiple bindings

:item a bf:Item ;
    dcterms:hasPart :binding1 , :binding2 .

:binding1 a ex:Binding ;
    ex:hasActivity :designer_activity1 ;
    cidoc-crm:P2_has_type <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300211457> ;
    ex:hasMaterial :material ;
    bf:note :note1 . 

:designer_activity a ex:DesignerActivity ;
    bf:date “1500”^^edtf:EDTF ;
    bf:agent :agent1 ;
    ex:atLocation <http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/countries/enk> .

:note1 a ex:DescriptiveNote ;
    rdf:value “Original binding. Pictorial, with gold, brown, and green stamping.” .


:binding2 a ex:Binding ;
    ex:hasActivity :designer_activity2 ;
    cidoc-crm:P2_has_type <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300211457> ;
    ex:hasMaterial :material2 ;
    dcterms:hasPart <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300202819> ;
    bf:note :note2 . 

:designer_activity2 a ex:DesignerActivity ;
    bf:date “1525”^^edtf:EDTF ;
    bf:agent :agent2 ;
    ex:atLocation <http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/countries/gw> .

:note2 a ex:DescriptiveNote ;
    rdf:value “Gold-tooled, over paper boards; gold-tooled spine with five raised bands; gilt edges; gold roll on edges of boards; marbled endpapers.” .

Binding attached to multiple items

:item1 a bf:Item ;
    dcterms:hasPart :binding .

:item2 a bf:Item ;
    dcterms:hasPart :binding .

BinderActivity

:item a bf:Item ;
    dcterms:hasPart :binding ;
    ex:hasActivity :binder_activity .

:binding a ex:Binding ;
    ex:hasActivity :binder_activity .

:binder_activity a ex:BinderActivity ;
    ex:isActivityOf :item , :binding ;
    bf:agent :agent ;
    bf:date “1994-01-03”^^edtf:EDTF .

Areas for Future Research