Rare Book Monthly

Articles - June - 2009 Issue

The Wiki Control Panel Revised

Images & footnotes in one step

Images & footnotes in one step


By Bruce McKinney

Listen carefully and you can hear the next generation of shoes dropping. Material everyday is being organized and digitized by subject and collection for the web and scholars, collectors, librarians and dealers are beginning to access this next generation of complex, related and threaded information via single searches. It's happening on library sites and its happening on AE. The difference is that libraries are cataloging their collections. On AE we are creating borderless bibliographies that both provide the positive presentation that libraries are building but also match AE's Wikis to material posted at auction and in Books for Sale. Rather than endlessly search the research simply looks at the changes posted everyday. In a few years this new structure of information will replace traditional book listing sites.

Libraries and institutions are digitizing their collections and associations, collectors and dealers are beginning as well to organize their material as collections, fields, focuses and inventories - in effect, bibliographies by whatever name you call them, that will become magnets to attract related and relating material from across the globe into single search results. The future comes into view.

Wiki Bibliographies, AE's concept for how this can work, were introduced on the Americana Exchange in October, 2008. This month we introduce a substantial simplification of the Wiki Control Panel to speed the process of creating entries.

On the Wiki Control Panel an L now identifies those Wikis that are live. Increasingly Wiki Bibliographers will manage more than one Wiki. Some will be public and others under development. Those with the L are live.

Under Operations -

Add Items. Selecting this link brings up a list of each Wiki Bibliographer's Wikis. One or more Wikis can be simultaneously selected if an entry is intended to be added to multiple Wikis.

The Add an Item Screen now includes a 'footnote' field. Up to 75 records from the AED can be organized to document bibliographic details, rarity and history. With this link such records are attached to the Wiki entry.

Up to four images can now be attached to each Wiki entry as the initial entry is being created. For each image uploaded a thumbnail appears in the entry module. Images can of course be added later. The goal of this change is to permit a complete record with footnotes and images to be created in a single entry.

Altogether, a listing and its description, author, date and place printed can be organized with footnotes, a link to the full readable text if it is available in Google Books or Open Library, and up to four images.

Edit/Postpone/Delete Approved Items. It turns out Wiki Bibliographers aren't perfect. If an item in an existing Wiki needs to be suspended or deleted both options are provided here.

Rare Book Monthly

  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    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.
  • 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.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!

Article Search

Archived Articles