[DCRM-L] FW: RDA label "Early Printed Resources" -- revision proposal

[Noble, Richard]

The specification "early printed resources" is an historical legacy,
unrelated to the fundamental principles of bibliographical description,
which have to do with accurately recording evidence that printed materials
present in their structures and details of manufacture, the latter
including more exact description and, where appropriate, transcription of
the marks that the printing surfaces left on the paper.

This evidence is especially applicable to the correct identification and
comparison of manifestations, especially as regards details that support
identification of distinct manifestations, which may involve an explicit
accounting for variances among items that do not distinguish any group of
them as constituting a different manifestation. (In classic bibliographical
terms "issue" is largely equivalent to "manifestation"; in abstract terms,
it involves establishment of criteria by which to establishment the
membership of any one copy in a set that conforms to a certain level of
description rather unfortunately known as an "ideal copy" description.)

"Special collections cataloging" is an appropriate way to characterize and
distinguish our work from "regular" cataloging, given the curatorial
perspective by which special collections are assembled and interpreted. The
default cataloging approach to general collections materials involves
matching items to citations, making use of  physical details only to the
extent necessary to ensure the likelihood that a cited source corresponds
to a document in hand. This is a key aspect of ordinary scholarly
communication, for which "regular" cataloging generally suffices, as it
does for the general run of ILL transactions. The whole business of copy
cataloging is based on the establishment of equivalence, on the search for
things that are the same as each other.

The special collections perspective is quite different. The membership of a
copy in the set of copies that belong to the same manifestation is always
in question. We look for differences--and that is the fundamental
bibliographical mindset, the basis of bibliographical description, which is
reflected in the descriptive cataloging of special collections materials.
It must be emphasized that this has *nothing whatever* to do with the era
in which printing took place.

Yes, bibliographical method was originally an element of the historiography
of early books, especially incunabula, and in the case of English books, in
the textual study of 16th and 17th century vernacular literature. And yes,
the kind of evidence that is accounted for by way of  bibliographical
analysis and description is less elusive in "hand-press" books, given the
machine-based uniformity that is more and more characteristic of the paper,
type, binding, etc. of later books. Nevertheless, the application of
bibliographical methods in establishing evidential criteria for identifying
entities (bibliography) and evidence-based matching of items to entities
(cataloging) is valid across the whole chronology of printing, and
important to the curation of collections of books of any period .

Examples:

http://josiah.brown.edu/record=b4761238

http://josiah.brown.edu/record=b5395722

I am grateful to Lori Dekydtspotter for the work she has done in isolating
the few references to "early printed  resources", which are inadequate to
full appreciation and treatment of such resources as the evidence for their
own history.

This is all very much off the top of my head, a lot of undeveloped hints
and Advanced Des Bib lecture themes, but I'd be glad to cooperate in
articulating it more clearly.

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>
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