[DCRM-L] Signature practice with odd leaf number

[Noble, Richard]

A couple of remarks:
 
- It ought (per "What would Bowers do?") to be 2pi. The superscript index figure is reserved to designate a duplicate series.
 
- If you cannot ascertain the actual structure of a group of leaves, you shouldn't guess at a formula. There's nothing wrong with honestly writing "pi(5 leaves)" or "17(5 leaves)", with a brief account of what you don't know (for a perfectly good reason in this case).
 
- Is this an American book? Of what period? It may be that the signatures have nothing to do with the actual printing of the book. Of course, if your note is simply headed "Signatures" (rather than "Collation"), you're only transcribing a set of printed marks--all the more reason to be very "conservative" as to what they may or may not represent. Such notes are very useful for matching with ostensibly identical copies.


RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOKS CATALOGER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 : RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU 


________________________________

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Kate Moriarty
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 10:57 AM
To: DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Signature practice with odd leaf number


Hi Ken,

This sounds as good as you can get it without access to the sewing. A couple of suggestions I'd make are give the second pi designation as a superscript "2" and bracket the "1" of the first signed signature since it's inferred, to read:



pi4 2pi1 [1]-168 
174 chi1 184


In case the superscripts don't make it through email: pi[superscript 4] [superscript 2]pi1 [1]-16[superscript 8] 17[superscript 4] chi1 18[superscript 4]

-Kate


On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Ken Rockwell <ken.rockwell at utah.edu> wrote:


	Well, here I go displaying my inexperience...  It'll take some time to get all the variants in signature statements down, so thought I'd try a little public embarrassment and throw out this "odd" one:
	
	I have a book with 5 preliminary leaves (roman numeral x on last), an unsigned gathering of 8, then the signatures kick in with numeral 2 through 16 in eights; gathering 17 has 5 leaves, and gathering 18 (with heading "Supplement") has 4.  [Book is a 2nd edition, so the supplement may have been added with this edition.]  The binding is too tight to find the sewing, so I can't tell which leaf in either groups of 5 is the extra.
	 Here's my stab at a signature statement:      pi4 2pi1 1-16⁸ 17⁴ chi1 18⁴
	
	Did I handle the odd leaves correctly?
	
	--Ken Rockwell
	




-- 
Kate S. Moriarty, MSW, MLS
Rare Book Catalog Librarian
Pius XII Memorial Library
Saint Louis University
3650 Lindell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108
(314) 977-3098
moriarks at slu.edu

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