[DCRM-L] [EXT] :["EXLIBRIS-L"] Help with a signature statement

Thu Jul 27 14:29:15 MDT 2023

Hi Allison,

I hope that you receive an answer to this important question from someone more expert in these matters than myself, but following the dictum that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread," here I go.

But before I do, I think my suggestion would be not to express this via a collational formula at all and instead have a pagination statement that distinguishes-as the Huntington Library has done for its copy (see OCLC 228764481)-between pages (meaning printed pages) and pages of plates (meaning engravings).

As a general principle, the collational formula only records the material that passed through the printing press (Bowers pp. 198-201). Of course even as he was writing Principles of Bibliographic Description Bowers recognized that there was real difference of opinion on this point. Nevertheless, he-and those who follow his principles-took the very conservative position that the formula should exclude anything that did not pass through the printing press since the formula is intended to be an "analysis of the printing of the book" (p. 198; his emphasis).

But then what do you do in the case of something like the 1770 edition of Billings' New England Psalm Singer? If one strictly applied Bowers' principles, the collational formula would exclude something like 80-90% of the book since none of the leaves following page 22 (containing the "New-England Hymn, by the Rev. Dr. Byles") appear to have gone through the press.

On the other hand, looking at the book itself-I took a look at our copies and was quickly as frustrated as I am sure you were by what I saw--you can understand why one might want to forgo a collational formula in favor of some other kind of description of the book: the first printed signature one encounters is B, which immediately follows an unsigned gathering that is A4. But B1 is the only signed letterpress gathering in the entire book. And the gatherings of engraved material frustratingly repeat signatures used or implied in the letterpress material (e.g. the page containing the tunes "Scituate" and "Liberty" are *also* signed B!) Clearly these pages were prepared by someone who had nothing to do with the setting of the letterpress material. That is supported by the fact the 108 pages of music following page 22 begin the pagination afresh with page 1.

If the goal of the collational formula is an analysis of what went through the letterpress, then I think Bowers is right and we have to exclude all of this and content ourselves with some other way of describing the book. The path taken by the Huntington and others (again see OCLC 228764481) seems the safest and sanity-preserving approach.

Cheers,

Eric

Eric Johnson-DeBaufre, PhD, MLIS
Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian, Watkinson Library
Trinity College
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106
860-297-4219

From: exlibris-l-request at list.indiana.edu <exlibris-l-request at list.indiana.edu> On Behalf Of Rich, Allison
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2023 12:33 PM
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Subject: [EXT] :["EXLIBRIS-L"] Help with a signature statement

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Hi All:

I am cataloguing: The New-England psalm-singer: or, American chorister / by William Billings, Boston: Edes and Gill, 1770.
The prelims, pages 10, [1], 8, [1], 9-22, are a mix of letterpress and engraved leaves by Paul Revere.

Pages 1-10, 1st count, are letterpress and are signed A1-4 with B1 being pasted on to A4
Pages [1], 1-8, and [1] are fully engraved and unsigned; page [1], 2nd count, is a blank recto, and pages 8, and [1], 2nd and 3rd counts, pasted on to page 7, with page [1], 3rd count, a blank verso. This is gathering [C]
Pages 9-22 are letterpress and unsigned; there are 7 leaves with the [D]3 pasted on to [D]2.

How do I express this, I am mostly having trouble with gatherings [C] and [D].
I have not seen anything like this before and I am stumped.
I also sent this message to DCRM.

Thank you all for your kind help,
Allison

--
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"Outside of a dog,
a book is probably man's best friend,
and inside of a dog,
it's too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx"

Allison Rich
Head of Cataloguing and Technical Services
ESTC and NACO Coordinator
John Carter Brown Library
Providence, Rhode Island
Allison_Rich at brown.edu<mailto:Allison_Rich at brown.edu>
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