Area 2 justification


Definitions of "edition"

 

OED: An impression or issue in print of a book, pamphlet, etc.; the whole number of copies printed from the same set of types and issued at the same time.

 

DCRM(B): All copies resulting from a single job of typographical composition.

 

DCRM(G): State “…an impression or set of identical impressions printed from the same unchanged printing plate, block, or stone (the matrix).”

 

SAA Pearce-Moses glossary: All copies of a work that are produced at the same time using the same process, with the result that each copy is essentially identical.

 

The concept of an “edition” is not applicable to manuscripts because manuscripts are unique items. Multiple manuscript copies of the same text are not produced at the same time from the same matrix.

 

A manuscript copy of an identified edition of a printed work is not an edition of that work because it is a unique object produced by a different process at a different time.

 

At the time of publication of these standards there is no equivalent field in ISAD(G) for “edition”; the ISAD(G) “edition” tag is for the edition of the finding aid, not the edition of the item being described.