For use in schools and libraries only

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

What does that mean? It's only available for sale to schools and libraries? So it's not available in bookstores?

"For use in schools and libraries only. Fourteen-year-old Deanne decides to spend her summer vacation helping in the oncology ward of the hospital and risks having her heart broken when she befriends a young man dying of cancer."

The book is If I Should Die Before I Wake.

[bookel]

I think it usually means the particular edition that is mentioned on. I haven't looked for this book, but if you check worldcat.org it should show the different editions and their ISBNs if they have them.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Hmm.

[Feliks]

Humm. I see the insidious tentacles of the Ingram Publishing Group in this. When will these fiends be stopped!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

I mean I guess that makes sense. Certain editions manufactured, maybe by textbook companies or subsidiaries thereof, for sale only to institutions. It just seems weird stuck there in some journal review. Why even bother to mention it?

[Feliks]

Moriarty, ahh..you devil...

[bookel]

No need in a review agreed. It's seen a lot on specific editions. Aren't they usually school and library binding editions that are marketed as such? As in not sold in that edition in bookstores. But you can come across them secondhand. Or turtleback? Though libraries get whatever edition they want really. Including paperbacks.

An example off the top of my head is often some marketed through Scholastic are specific to schools/school libraries only, such as one edition through the book club, of Tangerine by Edward Bloor, saw that mentioned online.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Yes, turtleback editions occurred to me. In my public library's online catalog these are almost always referred to as paperbacks, but they are in fact turtlebacks.

[Feliks]

Is a turtleback like a pickleback?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No. This is a turtleback:

[Feliks]

I don't get it. What am I seeing?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The image won't show up for you if your URL is https rather than http.

[Feliks]

I see it I just don't grasp the meaning

[bookel]

Explain in words... I've heard of turtleback but seeing a picture doesn't help. And what is pickleback?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The old-fashioned way was they would insert a thick piece of cardboard inside the front and back covers of a paperback to make it sturdier, then they laminate it. So e.g. a paperback you can easily rip off the cover, a turtleback you'd have to try a lot harder. The newer way of doing it is just to manufacture the entire binding in one piece, so you're not beginning with a paperback and adapting it for library use, you're buying the ready-made turtleback from the manufacturer. It's still thick laminated cardboard.

Whereas a hardcover is usually cardboard covered in cloth, with a dustjacket.

[Andria]

In other words, it's the same size as a paperback, but with a hard and shiny cover. I personally can not stand them.

Sometimes "library binding" refers to a hardback with reinforced binding, as well.

[Feliks]

a pickleback is a shot of Jameson followed immediately by a shot of actual cold, dill, pickle-juice right from a jar of dill pickles! huzzah!

its the damndest thing but the brine of the pickle juice invades the taste buds on your tongue which are on fire and immediately cools them down so that just one second later you cant even remember having had the whiskey shot. Thus, you are ready for your next one! Its a fabulous drink invention.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Andria wrote: "In other words, it's the same size as a paperback, but with a hard and shiny cover. I personally can not stand them. "

I can't stand the new ones, like the Stephen King pictured. The old ones aren't bad at all. I recently got this from the library, a 1961 paperback edition that had been reinforced...

[Feliks]

Aha! We are kindred spirits...

[Beverly]

So, basically, a turtleback is a paperback with a hard shell.