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JPG File-Naming System

> In order to keep all my coverscans of A.E. van Vogt books straight, over the last couple of years I've gradually developed a rigid system for naming the JPG files. The very nature of such an undertaking necessitates that you learn by trial and error, and the need for such a system is most keenly felt when it doesn't yet exist. But I believe I've now reached the point where I've created a consistent framework, and the recent move to Earthlink has given me opportunity to implement it universally.
> If you've unsuspectingly stumbled upon this page, and are only interested in looking at the pretty pictures, just click the link above and forget about this page! I've posted this explanation only for those who are curious about the system I use. But in all honesty you don't need to understand it, since on the Covers Mainpage it clearly states full information about each picture linked to (including cover artist).
> —————————
> The typical JPG file name looks something like this:
> Ptath92-01C&G.jpg
> This may look like a tangled bit of nonsense at first, but it follows a predetermined pattern. It would perhaps be simpler if you could view each individual chunk:
> Ptath 92 - 01 C&G .jpg

> > 1. — The first part, Ptath is the abbreviated title of the book, and here indicates a printing of his novel The Book of Ptath. I always use the actual title on the cover, and not what the book may have been originally called. For instance, this particular novel was published multiple times as Two Hundred Million A.D., and all coverscans of editions printed under that title have the abbreviated name TwoHund.

> > > Anthology, non-fiction, and magazine title abbreviations are in ALLCAPS, to make the various categories easier to differentiate (mainly for my own sake). For instance, you have PULSAR78Peng.jpg, which indicates the item is an anthology; REFLECT75-02Fict.jpg to indicate a non-fiction title (either by Van and by others); and SHADOW50-01SS.jpg to show an item published in a magazine — here it's his novel The Shadow Men as published in the January 1950 issue of Startling Stories. Items in magazines that were individual installments have the addition of "1st," "2nd,", "3rd," etc., to show which installment was contained in the issue. For example, WORLD2nd45-09ASF.jpg describes the second installment of The World of A as published in the September 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. This also applies to individual books in a series of volumes, such as BestUK1st79-03Sphere.jpg for The Best of A.E. van Vogt, Volume I put out in March 1979 by Sphere.

> > 2. — The second part, 92, is the last two digits of the publication year. Therefore, this indicates it was printed in 1992. When you see really low digits, such as 00 or 03, this refers to dates after 2000. This should cause no confusion about what century a printing took place, since he had no books published prior to 1946, and 2046 is quite a long way away!
> > 3. — The third part, -, is a dash that simply helps to visually separate the year from the fourth element:
> > 4. — The fourth part, 01, is the month number of publication, here indicating the first month, January. Those who ever write checks or use credit cards — undoubtedly the vast majority of you — should be quite familiar with this, though I myself still have to count the months on my fingers if it's anything except 01 (January), 09 (September, my birth month), or 12 (December). I use numbers instead of "Jan," "Feb," "Mar" (and so on) because it's just consistent to have all the time-related information represented in the same fashion. When the month of publication isn't known, no month number is given. In such cases, I also leave out the dash separator.
> > 5. — The fifth part, C&G, is the abbreviated publisher name, here indicating Carroll & Graf. Some publishers' names are short enough that it doesn't have to be abbreviated, such as Ace or DAW. Others, like Berkley, are reduced to Berk. I'm also very conscientious of imprints — like Berkley Medallion or Ace Double — and tack on those designations, like BerkM and AceD.

> > > You'll sometimes see things added after the publsher name, such as -Cn, -N, or -R. These give additional information about the scan. -Cn means it is a Canadian printing, -N indicates a scan of the book's interior (usually an autographed title page), and -R is used to indicate a scan of the book's rear cover. Canada is the only nationality I make a distinction for, since many American publishers' second printings were done in Canada. This situation never arises, obviously, with publishers in Great Britain, such as Sphere, NEL, and Panther.

> > 6. — The sixth and final part, .jpg, is there to tell the server and your computer how to view the file. I use JPGs because they provide reasonably high picture quality along with a small file size, a very important combination on the internet, where connections can be slow.

> Once you put all these elements together, you get the basic publishing information you need about a book, and it can be seen that the above example is the January 1992 Garroll & Graf edition of The Book of Ptath.

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