Aaron T. Pratt

A close-up image of a handwritten note in a sixteenth-century book. The note reads: 'Spenser repor / teth otherwise / [o]f this Knight / [D]ialogue of Ire- / [la]nd / [p]. 76.

a tiny bit of good news is that we have secured funding to digitize john milton's copy of holinshed's CHRONICLES (1587).

the images will form part of MILTON'S LIBRARY, an open-access site featuring the 10 books positively identified as milton's w/ transcriptions/translations of his marginal notes.

Oh fun. So analogous to what's happening at the front.

Oh wait—looked at your pagination statement. Looks like it's just 1 leaf and not an 11-leaf monstrosity.

Oh, incidentally—I'd avoid superscripted 1s. For those single-leaf deals, just so a regular ole "1". Tell me about that final gathering? 11 leaves? What is the actual structure of it? Where does the non-conjugate leaf fall?

OK, so I'd probably do Aaaaa1 "5A"-"5E"². (You could even do 5A1 "5A"-"5E"².) I don't employ quotation marks in collation statements lightly, but this is an instance where conventional shorthand creates ambiguity about what's on the sheets.

Sorry, I'm seeing your other reply now. Actually "5A". And everything from leaf forward has "5" prefixed rather than five actual letters?

Or, wait: is it that you have one system, where alphabets double by adding minuscules, and another, where alphabets are all caps? Aaaaa vs. AAAAA? If that, I'd avoid doing any xA and just expand 'em.

If there are two leaves signed "Aaaaa," I'd go this route: ᵡ5A1 5A-5E². An alternative would be to do 5A1 ²5A-5E², but since you're just looking at a single leaf, it'd be a little odd to have it count as a whole alphabet.

Actually, the $1(+[pi]2) bit could just be $2 depending on whether you think the main signing count should reflect structural modifications—or something else entirely, of course, depending on how the rest of the book shakes out.

Or if you’re not a Tansellean stickler like I generally am:

π²(π1 + a²) [$1(+π2); π2 = ‘b’]

That slash notation is unfamiliar to me.

A situation like this one is why collation formulas should be coupled w/ signature statements: you can deal w/ structure & odd signing separately. I’d do:

π²(π1 + 1.2) [$1(+π2); π(1) = ‘a’; π2 = ‘b’]

(if a2 is signed, then add “π(2) = ‘b2’)

Such a cool book. I got a bit overzealous at an auction a few years ago after losing the lot I really wanted and ended up with a 1613. Glad I did!

Biblia latina (Mainz: Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust, between 1454 and 1456). 603 verso and 604 recto Today, we expect the text in most books to be black. To navigate pages, we rely on variations in typography and layout: display fonts, centered text, indents, and other creative uses of white space. These design elements signal chapter, paragraph, and other content divisions. When Gutenberg and his team were developing their new printing technology, though, color often did this work. Aware of readers’ expectations, they developed a two-pass process for including red text alongside black but quickly judged it too time-consuming. After only five pages with red print, they began leaving blank spaces for customers to fill in later, by hand. For initial capitals, chapter numbers, and running headers, the scribes who helped turn Gutenberg’s black-and-white sheets of print into readable pages needed to be reasonably familiar with the Bible and fluent in Latin. In the leftmost column, for instance, the scribe had to know that “dmone” calls for an “A” in front. Admone illos. Admonish them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, mistakes with initials were not uncommon. Here, the red “P” beginning “Philemoni” appears on top of a blue “T.” A scribe had originally written the letter that begins “Thytum” in the preface to Titus, which is on the previous page. Gutenberg’s team did try, at least, to eliminate guesswork when it came to the longer text marking transitions between books and prefaces: they printed all of it in an eight-page guide that survives today in only two copies. If followed, each space would be perfectly filled. The Carthusians who first owned the Ransom Center’s Bible, though, frequently misjudged what to write, suggesting that they didn’t have the guide at hand. Here are the four pieces of transitional text that should appear in this opening: [image showing the lines as they appear in the guide].

Here's the label:

Pages 603v and 604r in the Ransom Center's Gutenberg Bible. They contain the end of Titus, all of Philemon, and the beginning of Hebrews.

Here are the two pages on display from our cover-to-cover digital facsimile:

603v: hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...

604r: hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...

The Harry Ransom Center’s copy of the Gutenberg Bible open to the end of Titus through the beginning of Hebrews on a plexiglass cradle behind glass with a printed label in front.

New Gutenberg Bible opening @ransomcenter.bsky.social. Partytime excellent.

A lock of hair may have just changed what we know about life in the Incan Empire Inca society kept records by encoding information into knotted cords called khipu. A new analysis of hair woven into these cords suggests this record-keeping was practiced by commoners as well as elites.

Inca society kept records by encoding information into knotted cords called khipu. A new analysis of hair woven into these cords suggests this record-keeping was practiced by commoners as well as elites.

Diagram of a sheet of a long 24mo in 8s with a cut and gathered version of the same.

Can’t escape DesBib:

Yeah, I think the best approach would be to do what we do when there are too many authors: throw in an "etc" (as opposed to an "et al.," since places aren't people) unless a full list is needed to disambiguate very similar bibliographic entities.

Ugh.

Does the Zotero implementation at least have a rule to apply places to < 1900 pubs?

Two Much by Donald Westlake. Title is in pink fuzzy textured lettering. Two blonde white women are wearing bikinis made of the same pink fuzzy textured lettering and a white man in a suit lounges on the ground beneath them.

Close up of the textured bikinis

Close up of the fuzzy letters

As far as I know (and please correct me if I’m wrong!) the only pulp paperback to have been printed with fuzzy textured elements on the cover. #DailyPaperback

Here’s what appears to be a nail/brad head in the @ransomcenter.bsky.social’s lone Catholicon leaf, from the Galliziani impression (or, if you insist, issue):

Essential viewing.

Format woes action shot (eventually figured it out):

On my way back to Austin and @ransomcenter.bsky.social after running a seminar on descriptive bibliography @calrbs.bsky.social.

Books were collated. Formats were determined—and in some cases deemed undeterminable.

Join me next year!

Absolutely. Had seen it was happening but just realized I’ll be in LA during the run.

No 18mo—this one concerns more of a debate about how to define format—but I do have some examples of very stupid formats for us to think through!

A hand gripping a stack of stab-stitched pamphlets on the surface of a table. The title page that’s visible identifies them as syllabuses for the 2025 Descriptive Bibliography course at California Rare Book School.

The print-run of my 2025 @calrbs.bsky.social Descriptive Bibliography syllabus is done, with all copies stab-stitched and ready to go.

The variants are even crazier than they were last year. How many issues of the edition are there? Variants? What’s an ideal copy? What the hell is the format?

Well that’s a book to keep an eye out for at auction.

An early hebrew books panel would be cool. Would just need to find two more people! (And a chair, though I could probably help with that)