Descriptive and Visual Dictionary of Objects

Mima Kapches is head of the Department of Anthropology at the Royal
Ontario Museum.

This reference book is a compilation of terminology that is employed to
describe structures, furniture, and personal artifacts. Such a text is
absolutely essential for any museum curator or collections manager who
must describe these artifacts on a regular basis. Historians of material
culture may also find the book useful.

The objects described include both the mundane (boots, hip boots,
military boots, police boots, riding boots, Wellington boots, clogs,
creepers or campons, gaiters, moccasins) and the unusual (e.g.,
Cantebury, “[a] square or rectangular, low, ornamented, and
open-topped music rack with slatted partitions ... [u]sed to hold sheet
music, music books, and loose papers”). Some of the objects are
accompanied by precise drawings. The accompanying text ranges from the
detailed to the nonexistent (creepers or campons, for example).

Although the terminology presented is by no means exhaustive, the
readership identified above will find this book a valuable resource.