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highlyeccentricSo I set out to create a manuscript description, happy in the knowledge that no easy-to-use description of Cotton Nero A.i has already been made.
What I want in a MS description:
* items clearly laid out, with modern English descriptions where appropriate
* first lines of homilies in Old English
* texts identified by their common title as well as their MS title
* clear quire divisions within the list
* references to editions
* the ability to scan the description either quire-by-quire OR by content type
Which means a table. Vertical axis numbering items and listing foliation. Horizontal axis listing content type (Insitiutes, laws, homilies, other). So one can scan down the 'homily' column if one so desires, or one can isolate the fifth quire, or whatever. FABULOUS.
BLOODY DIFFICULT TO CREATE IN MS WORD.
An exel table would be fine. Lovely. But difficult to print out and bind into a thesis.
So we have lots of individual one-page tables, which have to be prevented from binding themselves together and aligning cell widths (the Homilies column, for example, having been squashed up when there are no homilies on the page, so as to make space for Institutes).
And then I discover that you can't footnote a table.
This, people, explains why no one has made a user-friendly Manuscript Description of Cotton Nero A.i.
But I will not be defeated! When I am done, the Reader will be able to flick through my table with ease!
Sigh. The Reader will be me, and whatever unfortunate souls mark the thing. Oh, the futility.
What I want in a MS description:
* items clearly laid out, with modern English descriptions where appropriate
* first lines of homilies in Old English
* texts identified by their common title as well as their MS title
* clear quire divisions within the list
* references to editions
* the ability to scan the description either quire-by-quire OR by content type
Which means a table. Vertical axis numbering items and listing foliation. Horizontal axis listing content type (Insitiutes, laws, homilies, other). So one can scan down the 'homily' column if one so desires, or one can isolate the fifth quire, or whatever. FABULOUS.
BLOODY DIFFICULT TO CREATE IN MS WORD.
An exel table would be fine. Lovely. But difficult to print out and bind into a thesis.
So we have lots of individual one-page tables, which have to be prevented from binding themselves together and aligning cell widths (the Homilies column, for example, having been squashed up when there are no homilies on the page, so as to make space for Institutes).
And then I discover that you can't footnote a table.
This, people, explains why no one has made a user-friendly Manuscript Description of Cotton Nero A.i.
But I will not be defeated! When I am done, the Reader will be able to flick through my table with ease!
Sigh. The Reader will be me, and whatever unfortunate souls mark the thing. Oh, the futility.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 02:31 pm (UTC)An online edtion of the Institutes of Polity, that'd be nice. One where you could enter in which chapters and/or manuscripts you wanted, and get them up online or in printable format. The only edition out there tries to do up to five // texts at once, and just succeeds in confusing people. If you could enter in what you want and get it back from the website, that would be fabulous!
If only I were a computery sort of nerd.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 11:04 pm (UTC)Seriously, computer nerds strike me as the best husband material. Certainly, half of the other young(ish) female Anglo-Saxonists around here seem to think so. Awesome has a software engineer, who conveniently bails her out of computer problems and streamlines her powerpoint presentations. Classmate X, of last year, has a helpdesky-type-man, who acts similarly.
So I need to find me a computer nerd. And prevent the Wife from marrying me off to a carpenter.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 02:42 am (UTC)Granted she does get un-depressed, mostly, by the end of the book, but still.
(feel free to lambast me for being online when I should be working on my document analysis thing)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 03:13 am (UTC)Francesca's dad was pretty cool though, apart from the whole "depression? My wife? Nuh-uh!" thing.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 03:51 am (UTC)or bring your laptop down and join us at my Thesis Table.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 04:25 am (UTC)If not, why wasn't it?
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 08:34 am (UTC)Actually I just couldn't think of any other examples.
If you want to think of it as an honour-defending thing, feel free, though.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 03:54 am (UTC)Don't worry, I got me an unemployed writer, so I'm not all about the moneys. Usually =D
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 04:24 am (UTC)