[DCRM-L] Alternative to "xylographic"

[William Hale]

Quite. I'm all for discarding obfuscatory jargon, but there seems no 
reason to reject a term which is widely used and understood by our 
users, and for which there is no obvious substitute.

--

William Hale.

Rare Books Department,
Cambridge University Library,
West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR,
England.

Telephone: (+44) (0)1223 333122
Email: William.Hale at lib.cam.ac.uk

On 18/12/2013 01:40, Erin Blake wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> 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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