FootNotes: For the Next Generation of Online Book Listings
- by Bruce E. McKinney
What does this FootNote look like? Here’s a sample for the book History of the War between the United States and the Sac and Fox Nations.
By Bruce McKinney
The world of books, once the staid backwater of the information age, is moving along at a quick pace these days, thank you. Books, until recently the solid and predictable bricks of the increasingly elaborate intellectual construction we call education, are showing themselves to be as able to be redefined by changing electronic capabilities as just about everyone from Gutenberg to God would want, and to adapt very well. Can we tell you where we’ll be in fifty years? No, but neither can you, and the world of books is headed off on a trip that will make Alice’s jaunt down the rabbit hole look positively tame. If you are looking for a new frontier, look no further. Books, or at least what’s in them, are going to be on the cutting edge for sometime to come. It seems like every five hundred years or so, ready or not, books redefine things all over again.
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This month AE takes another step in the evolution/revolution of the printed word. The challenge is the integration of book history into the listings of books for sale.
Why not? It’s not only possible. It’s actually easy and makes books and ephemera 3-D, adding auction, dealer and bibliographical records to books offered for sale. The fact is that online book listings today are barely different from the dealer catalogue descriptions. For about ten years now, since book listings on the net began to take hold, they have simply mimicked traditional presentations. That can change and now will.
Enter FootNotes - software that combines the online book listing with the history of the title. It works this way. Any seller who is a Matchmaker member, $17.50 a month, can create up to 500 files of up to 50 footnotes each that can be attached to selling listings with a single AE FootNotes file link. This link opens a pop-up window on the seller’s site that contains bibliographical and sales history. It says “I’ll empower you. I think the book is worth X and if you agree buy it.” In time most, if not all books will be explained this way. New books will have links to price comparisons and reviews and old books will have links to articles, bibliographies and priced records. The days of “I say it is worth this much” will be replaced by “the market says it is worth this much.” And as this happens the world of old and rare books will enter a new and much better chapter. Sales and values will increase. The value of rare books, restrained by lack of easily accessible market information, will increase as buyers, able to understand the book market clearly, will be attracted by transparency. Simply stated: ignorance impairs and knowledge empowers.
Here is how FootNotes works. First find the title you would like to footnote in the AE Database. Select those records from the database you would like included in your FootNote. Once finished, you can review your new FootNote page. If you are satisfied, simply copy the link (url) that appears on that page and paste it as a link with the book’s description on your site. That’s all. When a visitor to your site, reading your description, clicks this link, a window pops up on their screen containing all of the listings, plus any other information you add to your FootNote file.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.