(7)
Although concluding on such a negative note seems poor rhetorical
strategy, it nonetheless is indicative of the psychological experience that
sometimes results from a futile search for a sharing printer. The
commitment to printer research assumes a willingness to endure such
frustration. The discovery of sharing, however, is important in itself and is
a source of satisfaction. In fact, shared printing is the only area where new
discoveries in relatively large numbers are within easy reach, given the high
probability that we have found all the extant manuscripts of plays by
important Elizabethan/ Jacobean authors. Beyond that, an enormous amount
of work remains to be done by employing font analysis to verify the
tentative assignments in new STC that are based upon
ornamental stock. A practical problem exists in regard to the recording and
dissemination of the new information that will be generated by
typographical analysis. Detailed evidence that affects our understanding of
the transmission of early texts should find its way into print as a matter of
course. However, the overwhelming majority of early books probably do
not merit such treatment although typographical information about them can
be extremely valuable in the context of printer identification. Publication of
such information in printed format is obviously out of the question: the
Short Title Catalogue with its abbreviated descriptions
exemplifies the practical limits both in terms of economics and dedication
(bibliographers cannot help feeling a sense of gratitude to Katharine V.
Pantzer every time the revised STC is consulted). The
creation
of on-line computer databases, however, offers the exciting prospect of
instant (or nearly so) dissemination of current bibliographical information
that can be expanded and updated as the need arises. The proposal by
Henry L. Snyder (University of California, Riverside), Director of the
Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue for North
America, to include the STC in the on-going project of
converting the ESTC to an electronic database has, in fact,
been
underway for some time.[49] Although
the abbreviated entries of the revised STC serve as the basic
records for the database, Snyder envisions expanding them "so that they
would be comparable to
ESTC records in fullness, content,
and
format." The possibility of adding to the database once it is completed
should provide additional motivation for bibliographers to record routinely
the kinds of evidence that are pertinent to shared printing and printer
identification.
