The non-illustrated bookplates have been previously organized between male and female book-owners. Some of the ladies' mounted plates include a handwriting sample. While the men's bookplates are often of a more stately and familiar design, employing armorial patterns rooted in Western Europe, the ladies' bookplates tend to be of a more expressive and original nature, unconstrained by tradition. Topless sirens call to distant ships on the ladies' bookplates, where the men's show shields, lions' heads and foliage. Also, this collection includes the joint bookplates of married couples, which have been filed according to the wife rather than the husband.