Blue book

This article is about the pricing book genre, for the magazine see Blue Book (magazine)

Blue book or bluebook is a term often referring to an almanac or other compilation of statistics and information. The term dates back to the 15th century, when large blue velvet-covered books were used for record-keeping by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.^[1]

The term has a variety of other meanings:

Academia and education

• The Yale College Programs of Study, referred to as the Blue Book^[2]
• Blue book exam, a type of test involving writing an essay, typically into a pamphlet – traditionally blue colored – called a "blue book"
• The Blue Book, A set of compiled notes taken during lecturers given by Ludwig Wittgenstein while at Cambridge

Construction

Chicago Construction Blue Book from 2003

• The Blue Book Building and Construction Network, a yellow pages-like source of company information in commercial construction since 1913, which contains information on architects, contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, vendors, and other companies relevant to the commercial bidding process^[3]

Computing and technology

• Blue Book (CD standard), the name of one format from the Rainbow Book standards for compact discs, defining the Enhanced CD standard
• Blue Book (FCC), a set of telecommunications recommendations issued by the International Telecommunication Union Standardisation Sector in 1988
• A common name of the book Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation, and any virtual machine implementation based on Smalltalk
• Blue Book protocol, the file transfer protocol of the Coloured Book protocols
• The Java Virtual Machine specification
• Blue Books, spacecraft data and telemetry recommendations made by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems
• Ingo Wegener's "Blue Book", an influential textbook in circuit complexity formally titled The Complexity of Boolean Functions (1987)^[4]

Government and finance

• In the Traineeship scheme of the European Commission, internship candidates who pass a preselection are added to a Blue Book, from which the final successful candidates are chosen
• The publications of the European Central Bank describing the main payment and securities settlement systems in the EU Member States.

United Kingdom

• Blue Book (Office for National Statistics), published annually by the Office for National Statistics; contains the estimates of the domestic and national product, income and expenditure for the United Kingdom
• Any official report in the UK of Parliament or the Privy Council, which in the 19th and early 20th centuries were standardly issued in a dark blue paper cover^[5]
• "Treachery of the Blue Books", the name given in Wales to the 1847 parliamentary report on the state of education in the country
• A weekly digest of signals intelligence reports by the British intelligence agency GCHQ^[6]
• "The Blue Book", genocide scholars' nickname for The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916^[7]

• The Blue Book, Political Truth or Historical Fact, a 2009 documentary film about this report

United States

• Blue Book (FCC), a nickname for a report on Public Service Responsibility of Broadcast Licensees issued on March 7, 1946 by the Federal Communications Commission of the United States
• Blue Book (United States Marine Corps), a bulletin listing the lineal precedence and seniority of Marine Corps officers
• Project Blue Book, a U.S. Air Force study on UFOs
• Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, a Revolutionary War drill manual written by Baron von Steuben for the Continental Army, colloquially referred to as the Blue Book
• Various almanacs from U.S. state governments:
  • Official Manual State of Missouri ("Missouri Blue Book")
  • Oregon Blue Book
  • Tennessee Blue Book
  • Wisconsin Blue Book
• The Blue Book of the John Birch Society, a transcript of the founding meeting of the John Birch Society
• Blue Book, a semi-annual print publication and real-time online directory published since 1901 by Blue Book Services, Inc., a credit and marketing information agency based in Carol Stream, IL that serves the wholesale produce industry and the wholesale lumber and forest products industry.^[8]

Jewellery

• Blue Book, the Tiffany & Co. catalog first published in 1845
• The CIBJO World Jewellery Confederation Blue Book, a three-part publication outlining terminology, classification and ethical guidelines for coloured gemstones, diamonds and pearls

Legal

• The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States

Literature

• The included Blue Book notes in the 1958 first published book of Ludwig Wittgenstein's collective academic works Preliminary Studies for the "Philosophical Investigations"

Media

• Blue Book (magazine), published from 1905 to 1975
• Healthcare Blue Book, a website with U.S. healthcare prices
• Little Blue Books, a series of 20th century paperback pocket books by the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company
• Power Media Bluebook With Talk Show Guest Directory and Power Media Bluebook, annual publications written by Mitchell P. Davis and published by Broadcast Interview Source^[9]

Science

• A publication of the United Nations Environment Programme listing endangered species
• Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry, a compilation of IUPAC recommendations

Sports

• Blue Book (racing), a publication of The Jockey Club

Transportation

• Aircraft Bluebook, a digest that covers the price and condition of used general aviation aircraft in the U.S; the Aircraft Bluebook Rating Scale (or "Bluebook scale") is used in the aviation industry to rate the condition of used aircraft.
• Automobile Blue Book
• Big Blue Book, also known as The Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair
• Kelley Blue Book, an automotive appraisal guide from the company of the same name; it is the United States' largest automotive vehicle valuation company

Other publications

• One of the Blue and Brown Books, sets of notes taken during lectures conducted by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein between 1933 and 1935
• MacRae's Blue Book, an industrial directory published since 1893, is produced by Owen Media Partners^[10]

See also

• Grey literature
• Persuasive writing
• Blue booking, a term from role-playing games for events which happen away from the game itself
• Green Book (disambiguation)
• Redbook
• Redbooks (disambiguation)

References

External links

• State Blue Books. American Library Association's Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT)