[DCRM-L] Alternating leaf counts in 12mo book

[JOHN LANCASTER]

The logic may hold for 12mo - but for many incunabula (and early 16th-century books), folios (and some quartos) are gathered in alternating units that often do start with the smaller number, and are sensibly recorded as ^8/10 or ^6/8/8, pace Bowers.  (There are several cases where Bod-Inc and GW collations appear to differ, but actually just start the compressed groups with a different quire.)

Does Bowers actually discuss the order of numbers?  He certainly gives examples of the usage, explaining it in one place (with acknowledgment to Pollard), but I don’t quickly find anywhere that he says the numbers should always be given with the higher number first.

And though it might be logical for this collation, what about A⁴ B⁸ C⁴ D⁸ E⁶ (or similar sequences)?

As Tanselle has pointed out in the discussion of odd superscripts (e.g., for 18mo in nines), the collation is not about the logic of the printer, but about the structure of the book itself.  And A-F^4/8 describes the structure more compactly than A^4 B-E^8/4  F^8.

John Lancaster


> On Sep 16, 2019, at 9:52 AM, Noble, Richard <richard_noble at brown.edu> wrote:
> 
> The convention (per Bowers) is to use only 8/4, not 4/8. So if it's as in the first example, it's A^4 B-E^8/4  F^8. Much clearer about the facts of this case, given that A and F would almost certainly have been printed together as the A/F sheet, in the same manner as B/C and D/E. It seems arbitrary, but there's a logic to it that makes it easier to reverse engineer books in this format if one always thinks, in the first instance, of folded and sewn 12mo 8/4 sheets as the object of the description, since a basic question for which the formula can provide a guide to further analysis, is "What type was on the bed of the press at the same time?"
> 
> 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 Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 5:08 PM Matthew C. Haugen <matthew.haugen at columbia.edu <mailto:matthew.haugen at columbia.edu>> wrote:
> Hi Christine, 
> 
> I found the following at: https://manual.stcv.be/p/Collation_Formula 
>  <https://manual.stcv.be/p/Collation_Formula>
> Gatherings with regularly alternating numbers of folios can be amalgamated into a series formula, where the two numbers are given in superscript and separated by a forward slash. If there is an odd number of gatherings, the final gathering, regular or not, is mentioned separately. The first number in superscript always corresponds to the number of folios from the first gathering of the series, the second number always corresponds to the number of leaves from the last gathering of the series.
>  
> Examples
> A4 B8 C4 D8 E4 F8 becomes A-F4/8
> A8 B4 C8 D4 E8 F4 G8 becomes A-F8/4 G8
> I hope that helps!
> 
> Matt
> 
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 4:29 PM Christine Bone <Christine.Bone at umanitoba.ca <mailto:Christine.Bone at umanitoba.ca>> wrote:
> Hello DCRM-L.
> 
>  
> 
> I have a 12mo book where the leaf counts alternate from one gathering to the next: A⁸B⁴C⁸D⁴ and so on.
> 
> Is there a shorthand to reflect this, or do I need to list them all individually?
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Christine Bone | Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian | University of Manitoba Libraries | 204.474.7853 | christine.bone at umanitoba.ca <mailto:christine.bone at umanitoba.ca>
>  
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Matthew C. Haugen
> Rare Book Cataloger | Columbia University Libraries
> matthew.haugen at columbia.edu <mailto:matthew.haugen at columbia.edu> | 212-851-2451 | he/him/his

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