[DCRM-L] signatures with *

[John Lancaster]

I think an asterisk is by definition positioned above the middle of the
line, aligned (more or less) with the upper half of ascenders - the OCLC
version is just a little smaller and higher than many.  Unicode has a
"low asterisk" character (U+204E), which would seem ideal for the
collational formula, but it's available in very few fonts.  The
Wikipedia article on asterisk has a chart with a couple of dozen
variants of asterisk found in Unicode.

 

We could have fun with the definition of "superscript" (does it describe
any character that lives high on the line, or does it describe a
character that has been reduced in size and positioned higher than
normal?).  The OED defines the noun in terms of the adjective: "A
superscript character"; and then defines the adjective as: "Written
above a letter, or above the line of writing."  (Seems to imply
manuscript.)  Wikipedia has an interesting article on
superscripts/subscripts, focusing on typographic design.

 

But as Deborah says, we have only one choice in the character set
available to us; otherwise, we have to spell it out, and there are
enough cumbersome work-arounds in signature collations in OCLC records
as it is ([superscript pi], e.g.).

 

Of no relevance whatsoever to this particular discussion, Richard Wilbur
has quite a good poem on the asterisk, which happens to be one of the
pages accessible in the Google Books preview version of his Collected
Poems 1943-2004; see

http://books.google.com/books?id=0JiVqqFx_X8C&pg=PA386&lpg=PA386&dq=aste
risk+%22richard+wilbur%22+%22games+one%22&source=bl&ots=fy60Ge0PdV&sig=3
JCQGwgnIfwx3ww0MMgMBBnggj8&hl=en&ei=k9DXSsQ5jqWUB762lKEB&sa=X&oi=book_re
sult&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false  (or Google
the combination <asterisk "richard wilbur" "games one">)

 

--

John Lancaster (jlancaster at amherst.edu)

P.O. Box 775

Williamsburg, MA 01096-0775

413-268-7679

________________________________

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of Deborah J. Leslie
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 5:59 PM
To: DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] signatures with *

 

Hello Charles,

 

About the supersriptness of the asterisk, I think that a superscript
asterisk is what is in the character set; we don't have an option to
make a baseline asterisk. So, technically it IS a superscript.

 

I also use the * in signature statements as I think most (all?) of us
do, but it does sometimes make parsing the signature statement confusing
and difficult. What would be the alternative? Using "[asterisk]"?

 

From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On
Behalf Of Kate Moriarty
Sent: Thursday, 15 October, 2009 17:39
To: DCRM Revision Group List
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] signatures with *

 

Charles,

I've always gone ahead and used the * character even though it looks
like a superscript (though from Mike's response it sounds like it may
not be) and looks a bit odd preceding a superscript number. I've
interpreted DCRM(B) 7B9.2 as allowing the use of the character since the
character it exists, but that may be because I've gotten used to
automatically reading asterisks in signature statements as baseline
characters, not superscripts. 

-Kate

On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Mike Garabedian
<m.garabedian at gmail.com> wrote:

This certainly isn't DCRM SOP, but I just tried an experiment in
MS-Word, typing two asterisks, then formatting the second one as
superscript. What obtained was a smaller asterisk oriented slightly
closer to the ascender line.

My point is that even though * is above x-height, technically it's not
superscript,right? 

 

On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Charles F Tremper <cftrempe at syr.edu>
wrote:

Having recently encountered several books with gatherings marked with *
, I am unsure of the preferred way to represent this.

While the character is available, it displays as a superscript.  Is that
acceptable, or is a descriptive term in brackets the way to go?

 

Thanks 

 

Charles F. Tremper

Catalogue Librarian

Special Collections Research Center

Syracuse University Library

(315) 443-9775

 

 

 

 




-- 
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 (tel)  |  (314) 977-3108 (fax)  |  moriarks at slu.edu  |
http://libraries.slu.edu/

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