<b>Martin Hopkinson.</b> <i>Ex Libris: The Art of Bookplates</i>. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2011. 111p. $15.00 (ISBN 9780300171631). LC2011-0519.

awareness, and lack of seamless access. The chapter concludes with a brief section on the future of e-books in academic libraries. A well-written and timely book on the topic, E-books in Academic Libraries is a good overview on the subject and is recommended for those in libraries without large e-book collections or those wanting to know more on the topic.—Nicole Mitch-ell, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Ex Libris: The Art of Bookplates is a confec-tion—attractive and fascinating at first glance, but seemingly limited in scope and usefulness. Martin Hopkinson, former Curator of Prints at the Hunterian Art Gallery (University of Glasgow), offers here " a personal selection from the substantial collection of bookplates held by the British Museum. " It is described on the cover flap as a " treasury of ex libris art and lore, " but it is essentially one man's informed and practiced lens focused on the art and design of the bookplate from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It is a small, short book: 100 illustrations on 111 pages. The text consists of a five-page Introduction, a caption for each image (ranging from 20 to 100 words), and a one-page section on further reading. For all that, the writing is both tight and graceful, and the author manages to teach us a great deal with very few words. It would be a mistake to leave this work out of a collection of books about books, or even a collection of art and design. Bookplates (or ex libris, Latin for " from the books of ") derive from the medieval practice of including coats of arms (or sometimes portraits) at the front of prayer books to indicate ownership. Most bookplates were armorial in nature until the mid-eighteenth century, when other imagery (of books or landscapes) crept in. By the mid-nineteenth century, the pictorial bookplate was the fashion—using emblematic and symbolic images, as well as employing visual puns. One example of visual punning is the bookplate for John Cargill Brough (c. 1870), featuring a jay-bird flying above a stormy sea (that is, J.C. Brough = jay sea be rough). OrientalA. with second-class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois. As a nonprofit organization authorized to mail at special rates (DMM Section 424.12 only), the purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes have not changed during the preceding twelve months. …