Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Thank you, I will take a look at these articles. I am skeptical that we
can do the same for fifteeners, for which we have very scattered
survival counts, ranging from 1,200+ Nuremberg Chronicles (way off the
charts) to a majority of works surviving in a mere handful, with
thousands of works that exist in a single copy or fragment. Yes,
surprisingly, the "unique copy" is the the most common survival figure
for 15th-C. editions. So many accidents of survival occur, ranging from
stashes of unused indulgences recently found in Spain, to "survivals" of
destroyed books evidenced in binder's waste. From this limited, highly
dispersed, and perhaps not representative data I believe it will be
difficult to graph a reliable curve for survival rates on beyond "zero."
My 300 documented edition sizes contain 30 lost editions, but I do not
therefore assume that 10% of all editions have been lost -- it's
complicated by the variety of genres and functions represented, regional
and church history, literary reception, changing tastes, and accidents
of all kinds.
Again, thank you for the citations.
Eric White
Bridwell Library
-----Original Message-----
From: Rare book and manuscripts [mailto:EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU]
On Behalf Of Proot Goran
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:10 AM
To: EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: RE: [EXLIBRIS-L] Printed in the millions?
Dear colleagues,
Under circumstances, the number of lost editions can be estimated, see
EGGHE, Leo & Goran PROOT, "The estimation of the number of lost
multi-copy documents: a new type of informetrics theory", in Journal of
Informetrics 1 (2007), nr. 4, p. 257-268 [doi:
10.1016/j.joi.2007.02.003].
and also
PROOT, Goran, & Leo EGGHE, "The estimation of editions on the basis of
survivals: Printed programmes of Jesuit theatre plays in the Provincia
Flandro-Belgica (before 1773). With a note on the 'bookhistorical law'",
in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 102 (2008), nr.
3 (forthcoming).
Yours
Goran
Goran Proot
Universiteit Antwerpen
Bibliotheek Stadscampus
Leeszaal Preciosa, lokaal A104 (enkel op afspraak)
Prinsstraat 13
B-2000 Antwerpen
Telefoon: 03-220.48.15
E-mail: goran.proot@ua.ac.be
WWW: http://www.stcv.be
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Rare book and manuscripts namens White, Eric
Verzonden: do 13-3-2008 15:01
Aan: EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Onderwerp: Re: [EXLIBRIS-L] Printed in the millions?
ExLibrians may remember a similar question about the earliest print runs
a few years ago. I've been collecting 15th-century edition sizes ever
since, with a census now numbering over 300 documented editions.
Several of them were very small, as in 100 or fewer copies. But these
were usually ephemera commissioned for specific local events, not
editions of literary merit produced at the printer's own risk. When
print culture pundits estimate total press production for the incunable
period by multiplying an average of 500 copies times 28,000 different
editions (or something like that), resulting in umpteen million books,
don't believe it. We don't know how many editions have been lost, and
there is really no reliable "average" print run, since our data does not
represent the literary genres evenly. If anything, press runs even for
Church-funded liturgical editions tended to be lower across the board,
200 to sometimes 600 copies. Occasionally an Italian printer toward the
end of the century would print 2000+ copies of a law book, but that is
for an unusually successful printer who left lots of documentation. My
sample of 300+ editions in less than 1% of what went on. Indulgences
(tens of thousands of sheets, but not that much composition and press
work, really) are a different story.
My point is, "dozens" is a little misleading. We should characterize
the fifteenth-century edition size as a few hundred, but even that scale
of production was fraught with risks.
Eric White
Bridwell Library
-----Original Message-----
From: Rare book and manuscripts [mailto:EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU]
On Behalf Of Gary Phillips
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 3:19 AM
To: EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: Re: [EXLIBRIS-L] Printed in the millions?
They do exist.
The first US/UK paperback print run of the movie tie in of the Da Vinci
Code
was 7 million (source Bertelsmann web site)
The first hardback print run of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was
12
million; that for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was 10.8
million
(source USA Today)
Guinness Book of World Records has an annual print run in the millions
e.g
2.7 million for the 2000 edition (source BBC)
What about Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (Little Red Book)?
What 18th century book was printed by the dozens? The cost was in type
setting not paper or storage of unbound sheets.
Gary
-----Original Message-----
From: White, Eric [mailto:EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU] On Behalf Of
White, Eric
Sent: 12 March 2008 04:28
To: EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: RE: [EXLIBRIS-L] Printed in the millions?
US Income Tax Instruction booklet? The Starr Report? 9/11 Report?
none?
EW
-----Original Message-----
From: Rare book and manuscripts on behalf of Ellen Middlebrook Herron
Sent: Tue 3/11/2008 10:56 PM
To: EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: Re: [EXLIBRIS-L] Printed in the millions?
perhaps the bible - or maybe the latest john grisham book... certainly
never any publication i've been involved in!
> "Most recently, these rare books and thousands like them were being
stored
> in
> the library stacks alongside modern volumes that are printed by the
> millions
> instead of by the dozens."
>
> What books are printed in the millions?
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Everett Wilkie" <ewilkie@IX.NETCOM.COM>
> To: <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 7:41 PM
> Subject: [EXLIBRIS-L] Description of new PA state library rare book
wing
>
>
>> This appeared in the Post Gazette. One interesting aspect of the new
>> library is that they seemed to have banned traditional writing
>> instruments
>> entirely from the reading room. --ECW
>>
>> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08069/863695-85.stm#
>>
>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> State library's new wing slows aging of old documents
>> Sunday, March 09, 2008
>> By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
>>
>> Brady C. Bower for the Post-Gazette
>>
>> HARRISBURG -- Paper booties, cotton smocks and blue latex gloves are
de
>> rigeur in the austere and darkened corridors, where hidden cameras,
>> key-card
>> readers and fingerprint scanners track every movement.
>>
>> A filtration system removes harmful gases from the air. Sensors
detect
>> chemical changes as subtle as new colognes worn by the small cadre of
>> personnel authorized to enter the innermost sanctum.
>>
>> This isn't a scene from "The Matrix." There are no secrets being
guarded
>> here, rather documents that the curators want you to see.
>>
>> This is the new $7.2 million Rare Collections wing of the
Pennsylvania
>> State
>> Library.
>>
>> After two years of design and two years of construction, the wing now
is
>> being filled with 12,000 of the state's oldest and most valuable
>> holdings,
>> including Ben Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanacs" and a well-worn
copy
>> of
>> the Magna Carta that the founding fathers referred to during the
>> Continental
>> Congress as they drafted the U.S. Constitution.
>>
>> In six months, the wing will be ready for scholars and researchers
who
>> come
>> from all corners of the state and, recently, as far as Japan to view
the
>> state's collection of historical documents.
>>
>> The documents will be available to the public, too.
>>
>> "Our purpose is to make documents available to serious researchers
and
>> students, but we had a limited capacity to make them available to the
>> public. Now, because we can protect them, we can make them known,"
said
>> Caryn Carr, director of the Pennsylvania State Library. "Now we can
make
>> them available to greater numbers."
>>
>> There is a 1739 ceremonial Bible that the Pennsylvania General
Assembly
>> used
>> in its earliest days. There is a 1795 map of Harrisburg hand-drawn on
>> animal
>> skin. There a copy of the 1752 newspaper in which Benjamin Franklin
>> first
>> described his kite-and-key experiment that resulted in the discovery
of
>> electricity.
>>
>> The collection also includes agricultural pamphlets, musical scores,
>> ornithology books and religious texts, including the German Saur
Bible,
>> the
>> first non-English-language Bible printed in the colonies.
>>
>> For the oldest volumes, the relocation to the collections wing will
be
>> their
>> 12th move since in 1777.
>>
>> Thought to be a target of British soldiers in the Revolutionary War,
425
>> volumes were taken at night from Philadelphia to a hay barn in Easton
>> for
>> safekeeping, said Mary Clare Zales, the state Department of
Education's
>> deputy director for libraries. All but two of those volumes survived
>> war,
>> fire, flood and neglect, she said.
>>
>> Most recently, these rare books and thousands like them were being
>> stored
>> in
>> the library stacks alongside modern volumes that are printed by the
>> millions
>> instead of by the dozens. Centuries-old documents were stored on
metal
>> shelves in a room with peeling paint, dusty curtains and florescent
>> lights
>> known to cause paper to disintegrate.
>>
>> "They are in a much better environment now, much better," Ms. Carr
said.
>>
>> Thousands of books, pamphlets, maps and newspapers have been moved to
>> the
>> new environmentally controlled area already, and library employees
are
>> transporting the rest one bookcart at a time from the library stacks
to
>> the
>> renovated 18,000-square-foot wing that used to house card catalogs,
>> meeting
>> rooms and administrative offices.
>>
>> The area includes an elegant reading room with Venetian plaster
walls,
>> stained-glass depictions of Franklin and granite floors and tabletops
>> that
>> reflect and amplify light, which is kept at low levels to better
>> preserve
>> documents. The room is framed on three sides by Pennsylvania black
>> cherry
>> wood, which came from trees hand picked by project architect
Cornelius
>> Rosnov, of the state Department of General Services. The fourth side
>> comprises plaster tryptychs depicting figures from Greek mythology.
>>
>> No pens or pencils are allowed here, lest graphite dust and stray ink
>> mar
>> its treasures. Instead, patrons can use laptop computers to take
notes.
>> The
>> reading room is the only elaborately decorated part of the wing. It
was
>> designed with people in mind, while the rest of the vault is aimed
not
>> at
>> creature comforts, but at book preservation. Translation: It is dim
and
>> cool.
>>
>> Out of that darkness will come new light shed on the state's past as
the
>> library provides greater access to the treasures of William Penn's
time.
>>
>> "This is really going to help us elevate the discourse about that
time
>> period," Ms. Zales said.
>>
>> The high-tech environment is the only one of its kind in
Pennsylvania,
>> and
>> already is becoming a model for other states. It was designed by a
team
>> of
>> architects, engineers, chemists, physicists, historians, librarians
and
>> paper-preservation specialists.
>>
>> "We are showing that we can produce an appropriate environment to
>> preserve
>> books despite the climate inside," Mr. Rusnov said. "It is a model
>> project
>> that other libraries could learn from."
>>
>> Paper and other artifacts cannot be stopped from deteriorating, but
Mr.
>> Rusnov believes he has created the perfect environment to slow the
>> process.
>>
>> "These things are going to continue to deteriorate naturally. They
are
>> going
>> to rot," he said. "We can't stop the process, but we can extend the
life
>> of
>> these materials until technology catches up and can extend it again."
>>
>