----- Forwarded message from Murray McGillivray <mmcgilli@UCALGARY.CA> -----

From: Murray McGillivray <mmcgilli@UCALGARY.CA>
To: TEI-PB@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: TEI-PB P5 gap analysis 5: P5 10.3
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 13:07:09 -0600


Here are some observations on the phrase-level elements introduced in 10.3:

<origDate> and <origPlace> look vaguely useful, but again one suspects 
that the fuller resources of <biblStruct> might be more appropriate to 
printed books.

<material> is as applicable to printed books as to manuscripts.

<watermark> will be more often applicable to printed books than to 
medieval manuscripts, so much so that the resources it now offers may be 
taxed. For example, a bibliographer may wish to record each visible 
watermark in a book, its orientation and location on the printed page 
(as clues to gathering construction etc.), its similarity to or identity 
with figures in standard reference works like Briquet, and may also wish 
to supply a photograph showing location, orientation, and what the thing 
looks like. From some of these points of view, the ability to associate 
a watermark with a page and also with a gathering and with the 
location-on-page mechanisms provided in <surface> <zone> and @facs would 
be good.

<stamp> is less likely to require elaboration beyond what is supplied 
for manuscript description.

<dimensions> and <height> <width> and <depth> are perfectly transferable 
to printed books

<locus> should be transferable also

<signatures> is for descriptive prose about the system of signatures; 
this is good, but it might also be valuable to have each individual 
signature transcribed and tagged in the context of a page object and/or 
gathering object. I think there was a sketch of some such system in our 
earlier draft.

<catchwords> is also supposed to contain descriptive prose: "describes 
the system used to ensure correct ordering of the quires making up a 
codex or incunable, typically by means of annotations at the foot of the 
page."

This is valuable as far as it goes, although it is worth noting that the 
catchword is a particular (even peculiar) entity within a manuscript or 
printed book, part of the text because it results from an intentional 
double-writing of a short portion of text, part of the "forme work" 
because it is outside of the text block. How it reads may be important 
from a number of different points of view: it may reveal scribal or 
compositorial practices (through, for example, alternate spellings); it 
may be the only witness to the text if the following page is lost or 
damaged; it may reveal other details of book production, such as 
sequence of tasks in the shop or assignment of gatherings to particular 
compositors or scribes. So from a few points of view it would be useful 
to have a tag to use with catchwords in transcription, not just in 
book-scale description.

(Oddly, the first example of the use of <catchword> applies the tag to 
signatures rather than to catchwords--anyone still collecting P5 bloopers?)

<secFol> is of little or no use in connection with printed books as far 
as I am aware.

<heraldry> could I think be useful, principally in connection with 
bindings and bookplates.


All for now.

Murray


----- End of forwarded message from Murray McGillivray <mmcgilli@UCALGARY.CA> --
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