Re: Can o' worms

[everett <everett@CHS.ORG>]

The only problem with the phrase "Printing sequence numbers" is that this
item is not always numbers.  It may, in fact, have no numbers in it; it may
consist of only letters, as Harper's code did for decades; e.g., "B-Y", and
that's it.  (That's a genuine example.)  Or it may consist of both letters
and numbers, as some more modern ones do.  I would only suggest that any
term adopted by Bibliographic Standards be artfully contrived so as to be
fairly neutral about the anticipated content but descriptive enough to
suggest what is being described.  That would at least give a bibliographic
standard even if it did not settle the bibliographical discussion.  And if
the "thing" is entered in the record, it should be given in its entirety;
any truncation or editing defeats the purpose of including it.

I would be personally and professionally thrilled if this information were
included in cataloguing records.  There's nothing worse than looking at
copy after copy of a book when one *knows* what the statement is supposed to
say but can't find the proper copy because the cataloguing records don't
include that information.
***********************************************************************
                      Everett C. Wilkie, Jr.
                Head Librarian and Crofut Curator
                   of Rare Books & Manuscripts
                The Connecticut Historical Society
                       1 Elizabeth Street
                     Hartford, CT 06105 USA
Email: everett@chs.org     Phone: 203-236-5621     Fax: 203-236-2664
        "Computers are useless; they can only give you answers."
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