[DCRM-L] Alternative to "xylographic"

[Erin Blake]

Good question. I'm surprised to discover that I'm coming down on the side of keeping "xylographic" (normally, I'm a big fan of the vernacular). Reasons for keeping "xylographic":

*         It covers both "woodcut" [plank-side technique] and "wood engraving" [end-grain technique]; the terms are easily confused, but meaningful to specialists; we don't want to have the same problem with wood cuts that we do with "metal cuts" in ESTC (where what are called "metal cuts" are almost always actually engravings, i.e. intaglio prints; metal cuts are a very rare form of illustration, printed in relief from metal plates)

*         The term "xylography" is widely used in the literature (enough so that on Friday, I overheard a professor making sure that his dissertation seminar students understood it)

*          It is understood by specialists to mean "graphic" in the sense "of or relating to the written or printed word" as opposed to "pictorial" (not just when talking about title pages, but when talking about woodcuts: there are times when it's important to distinguish which words in a picture are cut from the block and which are set from type, since only the latter can easily be changed; it's a big deal in the history of book illustration)

*         It's an important distinction that would be lost in keyword searching and datamining (it's fine to read "title printed from wood block" if you're looking for more information about a known book, but if you're studying printing history, you'll want to be able to search "xylograph*"

*         It's easily understood from the dictionary definition if someone doesn't know what it means.

Thanks for bringing it up!

Erin.

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Erin C. Blake, Ph.D.  |  Interim Head of Collection Information Services and Cataloging; Curator of Art & Special Collections  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |  201 E. Capitol St. SE  |  Washington, DC 20003-1004  |  office tel. +1 (202) 675-0323  |  fax:  +1 (202) 675-0328  |  eblake at folger.edu  |  www.folger.edu |  collation.folger.edu








From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Noble, Richard
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 4:06 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Alternative to "xylographic"

I suppose the attraction of "xylographic" is that it corresponds semantically to "typographic". But we have "woodcut".

How to phrase it? "First word is a woodcut", "First word is woodcut", "First word is printed from a woodcut block"? I ask, because in ordinary discourse there's a strong pictorial connotation to "woodcut", where the technical term "xylographic" simply means "printed from wood", with the understanding that it's from a block,  not wood type.

Anyway, "woodcut"--or "wood engraving", if we're describing such a thing--does seem like the best candidate.

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

On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 3:49 PM, Deborah J. Leslie <DJLeslie at folger.edu<mailto:DJLeslie at folger.edu>> wrote:
In an effort to drop obscure vocabulary in catalog records, I'm casting about for another way to word a note on the fact that a word or block of text is printed from a wood block instead of metal type. The ESTC uses it extensively: e.g., http://estc.bl.uk/S120001

Any suggestions?


Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S. | Folger Shakespeare Library | 201 East Capitol St., S.E. | Washington, D.C. 20003 | djleslie at folger.edu<mailto:djleslie at folger.edu> | 202.675-0369<tel:202.675-0369> | http://www.folger.edu<http://www.folger.edu/>


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