The image question

A thought-provoking exhibit at the Boston Public Library has been extended to Jan. 31. You have to wend your way up into the Rare Books Dept. between 9 and 5 Monday through Friday, but it's worth the effort...

With his collection of 2,000 books, Karl Baden upends the adage "Don't judge a book by its cover." Baden, a photographer and professor at Boston College, collects books for the iconic images the covers evoke. He wonders: Was the book designer aware that a similar image already existed? Did the designer subconsciously absorb it? Or is there no connection whatsoever?

Baden mulls these issues in the exhibit he curated at the Boston Public Library, "Covering Photography: Imitation, Influence . . . and Coincidence."

The cover of John McEnroe's autobiography, "You Cannot Be Serious," looks like a restaging of Dennis Stock's portrait of James Dean. Baden wonders: Is that what the former tennis star and enfant terrible intended?

Is the little girl's dress on the cover of "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" inspired by a similarly haunting photograph in Adam Fuss's "My Ghost" series? Is the image a coincidence or one that lives somewhere in a collective unconscious?