The Book Collector recently launched a new, improved digital archive with Exact Editions. Here our subscribers can continue to search and browse through our entire back catalogue of issues, including The Book Handbook, from 1947 – 1952.
Our own archive will still be available to all our subscribers at www.thebookcollector.co.uk/archive and below we explain how each archive may be of interest to you.
The Book Collector Archive
Our own digital archive is compiled of scanned books saved as individual PDFs and indexed manually using a variety of categories and keywords.
You can search through the entire archived text for keywords (Full Text Search), or within eleven sub-categories such as Articles, Book Reviews, Sales Reports or Obituaries. Under Articles, for example, you can search for a keyword, or by the Author’s name.
Search results are presented in a grid which confirms the Issue referenced, and a number representing how many times the search word/phrase appears within. You can then open the relevant PDF issue, and by using CTL+F, browse through it to find what you are after. Here’s an example of what you find in Articles under ‘Nixon’.
This system is excellent if you know what you know what you’re searching for. Look up ‘Jane Austen’ in Articles, for instance, and you’ll find a list of eleven articles published between 1966 and 2003. Look her up in Full Text Search and it’ll tell you she’s been mentioned 155 times between 1947 and today and how frequently her name appears in each download. But it’s slow and it’s clunky.
Exact Editions has precisely the same archive but is in most ways far superior, basically because of its sophisticated software.
The Exact Editions Archive
The reader’s experience is seamless. The pages are crisp and clear with no colour distortion, even in our oldest issues. They can be viewed as single or double-page spreads depending on your preference.
The search mechanism is a key strength of this system and, although you cannot divide your search into sub-categories as with The Book Collector archive, you will still be able to find any mention of any word anywhere in the archive. You can also use Boolean Operators to help advance your search and narrow down the results. More Info.
Search results are presented with images of the relevant issue cover and an image of the page on which the search word(s) appear, plus a paragraph of sample text from the relevant section, so you can easily select which reference is most suitable. Search results can be sorted by Oldest, Newest or Best.
When browsing through an issue, you can skip easily back to the Contents page at the press of a button (bottom left). And any page references in the text are hyperlinked so you can simply click them to jump to that page. The same goes for contact details (email addresses and phone numbers) throughout the main text and in the advertisements.
You can also ‘zoom out’ at any point to view the entire issue as a grid of double pages. This is helpful for skipping directly to sections and illustrations without visiting the contents page.
Below the main pages of text, you will find all the content reproduced as ‘plain text’ at the bottom of the page (simply scroll down to view). This allows for easy cutting and pasting for quotes and research notes. The plain text can also be used for easy translation into audio, braille notation, or indeed, other languages.
Another feature of the Exact Editions archive is the ‘mapper’. This is presented as a little map icon at the bottom right of each page. When you click it you are whisked to a new page on which a dancing mind map of dots and lines begins to appear. This web helps pinpoint different concepts referred to on the page you had been reading, and suggests other articles, texts and publications where you might find more information on the topic. This is an ingenious resource for researchers and, we dare say, rather a lot of fun.
Users on the move can download the Exactly App for their mobile device, and have access to the same excellent search and reader experiences on the go.
Institutions
For institutional subscribers to The Book Collector, the benefits of our new partnership with Exact Editions are even greater.
Exact Editions offers IP authenticated access, meaning your users do not need to worry about entering passwords or account details each time they wish to view an issue.
They also offer user statistics and MARC reporting as part of their subscription package, meaning you can track usage and retrieve date for analysis.
Subscribers
All our existing subscribers will have received an email explaining how they can sign up to Exact Editions to access the new archive at no cost. You can also find this information by signing into The Book Collector website and checking in your ‘My Account’ section in the top right of the screen.
New print subscribers to The Book Collector will automatically get free access to our digital archive with Exact Editions. You will receive confirmation of how to set up your account in the welcome email once you’ve subscribed here
We can now also offer Online Only Subscriptions, for those looking to save on shelf space. This gives you access to both The Book Collector archive and Exact Editions, but does not include a print copy. There is a 50% discount available for current students looking for online only subscriptions.
Institutions can now subscribe to The Book Collector directly with Exact Editions, in order to benefit from their superior technological offerings.
We hope you enjoy re-discovering The Book Collector on this exciting new platform.
Do let us know what you think of it. We look forward to receiving your feedback.
Happy reading!