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

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