Re: Manuscript serial (Heinrich Kuhn) ERCELAA@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu 10 Jul 1997 12:56 UTC
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 09:39:36 GMT+2 From: "Heinrich C. Kuhn" <hck@IPP.MPG.DE> Subject: Re: Manuscript serial (Robert Bremer) Concerning Robert Bremer's message: I've almost no knowledge of AACR2 (living in a world of RAK-WB [:-/]), but I'd like to ask a question in this context nevertheless - just out of curiosity: Robert Bremer wrote: > The English language definition of > publication is in part an item which has been published. > Manuscripts are not published, I've some problems with terminology. "Manuscripts are not published": o.k.. But in my understanding of the terms printed volumes are not published either. It's texts that are published. Some of them in printed form, some of them in electronic form, some of them in manus- cript form, some of them as monographs, some of them as serials. If manuscript form is used to really *spawn* a text I'd say the text is *published* in manuscript form: some 2000 copies made on behalf of an ancient Roman writer of one of his works: that's publication by manuscript; spreading a papal bulla in lots of manuscript copies over most of Europe and part of Asia: thats publication by manuscript in my eyes; manuscript form doesn't necessarily mean "not published". When Durandus a Sancto Portiano (early 14th cent.) protested, that his own one and only copy of one of his works, which he still considered to be a work in progress, had been temporarily snatched from him in order to spread lots of copies made from that text, he complained about the *publication* of a text he did not (yet) think fit for publication. I'll spare you other examples: the ones above should suffice to illustrate *why* I think there can be something like "publication in manuscript form". And there probably can be something like the publication of a manuscript serial as well. I remember having read about some group of authors (18th cent. Europe as far as I can remember) who did regularily send out reports in manuscript form to some 50 recipients, and who used the manuscript form in order to circumvent laws about censorship, as these laws aplied to printed material only ... . I agree: a serial has to be *published*. And very few manuscript texts bearing consecutive numbers and/or datestamps will have been published. But some of them might have ... . Perhaps the views expressed above are a mere epiphenomenon of my not being a native speaker of English. But to some extend I doubt it ... . Regards Heinrich C. Kuhn +--------------------------------------------------------- ! Dr. Heinrich C. Kuhn (coordinator libraries &c.) ! Max-Planck-Gesellschaft / Generalverwaltung VIIIb3 ! Postfach 10 10 62 / D-80084 Muenchen ! T: +49-89-2108 1563 / F: +49-89-2108 1565 ! eMail: hck@ipp-garching.mpg.de, kuhn@mpg-gv.mpg.de