Publishers' Bindings Database
The Publishers' Bindings Database (VerlagsEinbandDatenbank, VED) is a model, sketch, or proposition for a publishers' bindings database covering the German-language territory, i. e., a database listing the book covers which were produced by machine or by industrial processes between 1850 and around 1930.
The VED was set up as a retirement project at Freie Universität Berlin University Library by Doris Fouquet-Plümacher; it has been online since 2008. The final version (May 2013) covers 700 publishers' bindings corresponding to 935 books, predominantly from the University Library's holdings; the Kleist editions, however, that are documented in the database belong mainly to Kleist-Museum at Frankfurt on the Oder.
As concerns the VED's structure, bindings and books are stored in separate datasets and arranged in record sets for perspicuity. Every binding record contains a picture of the cover and one of the endpaper (not, however, if it is monochrome). Every binding record has at least one book record linked to it and – in cases where the same binding was used for more than one edition – more than one book record. Search parameters are publisher, author, title, bookbindery, artist, style, motif, material, etc.