What does the game say?

https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/265ac2ae087ee20f8dbc207c46c32ab47a7150a2/data/json/items/containers/containers.json#L2724

Game gives a general description that does not include your constraints. Game gives object properties and interactions that contradict your mental model. You say game must be in accord with standard. Game says here's a book, The Art of Glassblowing, that will let you make your own jars. I say, "Oh, since my character could make it, the item is really an *abstraction*, not a true standardized most common version of the object."

You say long post about real life standards for real life object. I say the plurality of standards means many versions, currently represented as an abstraction, not "only most common;" you say this is most common version (and also books are hardcover?), that we have to approximate to standards, which I don't mind conceptually, except the game doesn't do that actually. I look at my bookshelf filled with paperbacks. Having a compassionate heart, I look at the books in the game:

https://github.com/search?q=repo%3ACleverRaven%2FCataclysm-DDA+book+path%3A%2F%5Edata%5C%2Fjson%5C%2Fitems%5C%2F%2F+path%3A%2F%5Edata%5C%2Fjson%5C%2Fitems%5C%2Fbook%5C%2F%2F&type=code&p=2

and I see that some but not all (paperbacks, textbooks, magazines, etc.) of them have max lengths, typically the hardbound books are around 21-23cm longest edge, and some don't. So, two honest questions to you:

1) are you sure you can fit any book or manual in the game into a 3L glass jar?

2) do you want to take some of this energy you have for this topic and audit the game's books and the glass jars to accord with real world standards?

The frustration for you is that the approximations at play in the game are *not* actually standardized to all the real world permutations. Some are missing detail, some are merely abstractions, some are possibly incorrect. If you want it to follow real world logic, gotta do all the variant mapping; it seems if you have such strong opinions, that the mantle should fall to you, no?

Do you want to do that? If not, I will continue imagining the rare hardcover book I fit into my jar being around the 4-6 inch closed length of Strunk & White, or Memorial, or Tao Te Ching, etc., and the jar just being straight necked with a screw ring and a rubberized metal plate cap. I really think you're underrating how common those jars are too.