Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: SAS on November 24, 2008, 10:39:05 PM
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Dear Readers,
I haven't posted in quite some time. For the past several months (!) I have been engaged in indexing all 84 issues of Glass Collectors Digest (1987-2001). Fun & Games!!!! I am at the point where I have created an Authority File, have gone through and indexed all issues and am merrily typing it up. At some point next year, the completed index will be available through the West Virginia Museum of American Glass. (No, I am not receiving anything for doing this; I do it because I can and I am sick and tired of trying to find things in all those issues!) There truly is a lot of information in all those issues and it needs to be made available.
As some of you may know, I am a retired librarian and have indexed many things; I truly love to do indexing. But, at this point, I am curious to know if there is any published thesaurus for indexing glass books and periodicals. Most scientific, legal, and medical journals do have specific thesauri to assist with such an indexing endeavor. Ivo's Glass A to Z has been most helpful....thank you, Ivo! I have also consulted many other glass dictionaries and glossaries.
But, I would really like to know if there is a specific thesaurus for indexing the field of glass collecting.
Thank you very much!
Shirley Smith
Charleston, WV, USA
author, Glass Hen on Nest Covered Dishes, Collector Books, 2007
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I guess that Duncan's would be invaluable resource in your endeavours. There are various encyclopaedias published and some on-line but not a specific thesaurus that I am aware of.
I have started an on-line bibliography that is free access as part of my Glass Study project. It can include index data too. Currently it contains some reviews, some keywords and some tables of contents.
Within the Study for members only I also include indexes of in copyright works as well as digitisations with restored images of out of copyright works and those that I can obtain licenses for. My indexes are basically digitisations with all unnecessary words remove and descriptions images that retain the pagination. Which is only useful via search tool to locate page references rather than a structured index. This structure also allows annotations to be made highlighting errors and misprints etc. The Study is also intended to support multilingual corroborative glass research projects that are either private or available to members as the project owners desire. Still in the early days of development.
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That sounds like a challenging, laborious, and rewarding job! Good for you for taking on the task.
The semantics of glassmaking is another challenge, as I'm sure you realize. I don't know of any glass thesaurus either, and the two dictionaries I have don't give much in the way of alternate meanings. Are there particular words you were wondering about? You weren't going to look up every one...or were you? Sounds like quite a project; I'm kind of interested in glass terminology.
...Just saw Franks' post. What's Duncan's?
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I agree that the information contained in all those issues is very valuable and sometimes unavailable anywhere else.
Can I assume this index will be more comprehensive than the ones that were available from the original publisher (The Glass Press / Richardson Printing Corp)?
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Dear Readers,
Thank you so much for your replies. I truly appreciate it because I have no one else to "beat my head against" when it comes to the technicalities of researching glass and documenting glass.
Yes, my index will be much more specific and exhaustive than the few indexes that the publisher did. They were not very helpful at all. I am determined to index every pattern, every person, every company, every reprint of original catalog pages and every advertisement. Yes, advertisements! Although indexing advertisements is not something that is ever done following the many and intricate rules for creating an index, I feel that the advertisements that contain both color pictures and attributions for them should be indexed. It is hard enough to attribute a piece of glass as it is; any clue helps!
My index is already over a hundred pages. Although I am very much aware of the standards for creating an index, I have made modifications to enable it to be as user-friendly as possible. I believe that "user-friendly" is the key here....not following sometimes arcane rules that the average person doesn't know about. For example, both American and British rules for indexing standards rule that all subject heading are in all lower case letters except for proper names. I do not agree. There is something about not using capitalization that makes something hard to read. And, there are other typographical things that I am doing to facilitate reading that is not recommended by the powers that be. Did you know that it is incorrect to capitalize every word in a title except the first word? And, if that first word is an article (part of speech), one does not alphabetize by it even though it is included?
But I digress...... As you can tell, I dearly love the intricacies of dealing with research! I guarantee that my index will be useful.
Glen Thistlewood's articles on various themes in carnival glass are most useful. The few articles by William Heacock are also useful. I think that the articles on marbles are outstanding even though I don't know diddly-squat about marbles.
My index will contain a lot of SEE and SEE ALSO references because the terminology of glass collecting seems to have no standard. For example, which is the proper subject heading: slag glass, marble glass, or mosaic glass? What is the most widely accepted form of a company name? L.G. Wright? or just Wright? Henry Greener or just Greener? SEE ALSO references are in order here!!! Are drinking glasses put under Barware or Tableware or do they have their own specific subject heading. If so, does one tie that to goblets, tankards, etc. See what I mean?
At any rate, I am having a merry time creating something that I sincerely believe will be helpful to present and future collectors. Any advice or suggestions you all might want to offer would be sincerely appreciated.
Shirley in Charleston, WV
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You will find that there is a lot of difference in terminology with a lot of discussions on specific terms scattered throughout this board. The terms vary not only from country to country but even from one glassworks to another - often with the same term having completely different meanings.
Company names vary through time, as well as in the different countries they trade in, and the names used by collectors do too. Oh, and that is before you take it account commonly used names, the names of the glassworks and of course errors in earlier attributions and misprints - all of which are rife.
Good luck ^-^
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Hee Hee, encouraging, isn't he? ;D ;)
slag glass, marble glass, or mosaic glass?
...or end of day glass?
Frank's thoughts were mine exactly. But you do the best you can, eh? You might search the board for words like "terminology" or "semantic" to find threads about words people have discussed here. Do you have anyone to help edit it, people to give you ideas? The best way I can think of to find synonyms, alternative meanings, etc. would be to show it to people from a wide range of fields and homelands. Or maybe bits and pieces, if it's 100 pages long. :) The only other thing I can think of would be to look at glass books with really good indices, which I'm sure you've thought of (one I would recommend is Wilson's American Glass 1760-1930).
I imagine you'd have to have a wide range of glass knowledge to do something like that, and I bet you learn a lot as well! You've made me curious about your project. If there's anything I can do to help, say the word. ;D
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For example, both American and British rules for indexing standards rule that all subject heading are in all lower case letters except for proper names. I do not agree. There is something about not using capitalization that makes something hard to read. And, there are other typographical things that I am doing to facilitate reading that is not recommended by the powers that be. Did you know that it is incorrect to capitalize every word in a title except the first word? And, if that first word is an article (part of speech), one does not alphabetize by it even though it is included?
As a professional editor I have to disagree with some of your thoughts. By capitalising every subject heading you are adding to the confusion about whether something is a proper noun or a trademark or merely a descriptor (and believe me the world of words and print is rife with that sort of confusion). Take carnival glass, for example, it's neither a trade name nor a proper noun, simply a descriptor that has become common parlance. A comprehensive subject index of the type you are creating (something I have experience of as part of a team writing and indexing an abstracts journal, and I applaud you for doing so) is in some ways akin to a dictionary, which sticks rigorously to the capitalisation rules to aid clarification. It is also not incorrect (at least in publishing) to capitalise every word except the first one in a title. It is incorrect to capitalise every word willy nilly. There are rules for "title case" and choosing to use it is a matter of style.
And if you alphabetised titles by including the first article (a, an and the are three examples), a and t would be extremely long, unwieldy and difficult to use. And it would also be difficult to apply because once you have sorted all the "thes", for example, you then have to alphabetise on the letters of the next word anyway.
One thing you do have to do is decide which are the important subjects in your index, what are the words people are going to look up. I have a cookery book that does not have crumble (it's a sort of pie topping, don't know if it's a US term and don't have time to look) in the index, nor is it under apple, crumble or rhubarb, crumble (the most common variants). It's under fruit, crumble. Not where I, as a cook, would expect it to be. Cross referencing is great though.
Good luck! :fwr:
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Apple Crumble (UK) = Apple Brown Betty (US)
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I'm not a wordsmith, but I do look forward to seeing and using your index. My collection of GCD is in two boxes on a shelf. I know they would get much more use with a comprehensive way to find what I'm looking for. Good luck!
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No Frank, Apple Brown Betty uses breadcrumbs, sugar and butter, not flour, sugar and butter as does crumble. Oops, cafe time; I'll have mine with ice cream please.
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Maybe in another state ;)
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Dear Readers,
Thank you very much for your comments and advice. I am especially appreciative of the comments made by Frank, Christine, and Kristi. Part of my trouble with getting the index "right" is that I got my masters degree in library science in 1972.........a LOT has changed since then!!! I have done abstracting for the US Dept. of Education ERIC database. It has a huge thesaurus of terms that certainly facilitates things. I also know that there is a specific thesaurus for cookbook indexing. Haven't seen it, but know that it exists...somewhere.
My mine objective in doing the index is to make the information available. I seem to be getting bogged down in presenting it the "right" way. I shall yield to common practice and not capitalize headings. But, for the sake of easier reading, I will put them in bold. Since I am 70 years old, reading has become a problem for me and I just assume that others might have that problem also. And, when all is said and done, if the index is user-friendly and exhaustive, that is really all that matters.
I really don't know what to do about glass terms which seem to have several synonyms. All I can do is to look at several books on glass (I have about 300) and pick the one that most authors seem to prefer and then cross-reference it. About the closest thing to a thesaurus that I can find is Shotwell's Glass A to Z. Ivo's Glass fact file a-z is also very helpful but I have to resort to a magnifying glass to read it. Both refer to both "slag" and "marbled" glass with Shotwell seeming to differentiate the two so that they are not synonymous. From his definition, I assume that true slag glass is not made any more.
Thank you again for your suggestions. If you have any more thoughts on how this index would be helpful to you, please don't hesitate to post. I can also be reached at smithsa@verizon.net (http://smithsa@verizon.net).
Shirley in Charleston, WV
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I'm not sure there is anyone on here who doesn't need a magnifying glass for Ivo's book!
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Me, I got a copy on A4 sheets pre publication ;D
Bold is a good idea. If you are intending to print a 11 or 12pt face would be good. But on the web it doesn't matter as browsers can easily bump the size up.
Re slag glass see http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,17722.0.html
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I was just reading about slag in Shotwell after seeing the thread Frank mentioned. I see my "end of day" addition is one of those common mistakes people make, not a true synonym. That's another question - how to handle those mistakes that are so commonplace that they become part of glass terminology? Where does one draw the line?
According to Shotwell, "marble" was what Ruth Webb Lee called slag glass, and two of the American companies who made it, Northwood and Challinor, called it Mosaic.
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For "thesaurus type" references
In addition to Shotwell's Glass A to Z (which I have not seen) and Ivo's Glass fact file a-z (which I regularly read without a magnifying glass - just for the exercise ;D), you might also consider Harold Newman's An Illustrated Dictionary of Glass
Kristi suggested (and has now revised, while I was typing) "...or end of day glass?" as an alternative to "slag glass, marble glass or mosaic glass". I don't think "end of day" should be tied in with any of the others as they are / were, in their proper context, specific types of glass, whereas "end of day" was / is a generic term (often used incorrectly) for all sorts of things supposedly made with "left over" glass. There are some fairly strong views about this somewhere in the board!
I think using bold for headings is a wonderful thing. It makes it so much easier to locate entries. This is particulalry relevant where a small indent is used for sub-sets and there are many sub-set entries.
As for which form of company name is correct, such as for L. G. Wright, Henry Greener etc., I would ignore views of "correctness" and go for the standard of:
Greener, Henry
Wright, L. G.
etc.
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I agree with Kev on the last point, forgot to say that before
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Dear Readers,
I would like to know if it is possible for me to attach my preliminary authority (subject) file for the indexing that I am doing for Glass Collectors Digest? It is a Word (.doc) document that is 47KB.
I think that it would be interesting to see if you all might have comments as to what I have left out, how I have used cross references, etc.
I would also like comments as to whether to capitalize the names of specific patterns, the names of periods or eras such as Brilliant Period for cut glass, and the names of specific types of glass such as Amberina, Peachblow, etc.
Also, I find that some items, like rose bowls, need their own entry because there is a lot of information on them. Other items, like butter dish, I have cross-referenced to covered dish because there isn't a lot of information on it. This is entirely subjective. If I were doing indexing of a book or periodical that had a lot of discussion or articles on butter dishes, I would probably give them their own entry.
Believe me, I have looked at a lot of indexes in the glass books that I have and they all seem to "do their own thing." All capitalize all headings...and mostly everything else!
Another thing that I have done to facilitate my indexing is to assign a number from 1 to 84 for each issue rather than write out the citations a million times. I have a key to the complete citation for each numbered issue. Should I be lazy and include the key at the beginning of the index? Or should I use the Word Find and Replace function to put the complete citation for each entry. This will, of course, about double the size of the index.
Right now, my entries look like this:
masonic flasks (9) 50-56 This means that the article on this topic is on pages 50-56 in issue #9. One would have to refer to the key for the issue citation.
Would you prefer that the entry read: masonic flasks Vol.II, no.3 Oct/Nov 1988: 50-56 ????
If you all do not want to bother with this, it is fine, but I just thought that I would ask. I really do appreciate your taking the time to comment and offer suggestions.
Shirley in Charleston, WV
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I don't know whether it's possible to attach Word documents, but I'm thinking that if you want open discussion about your work it might be less confusing if it were viewed a bit at a time. That would focus discussion more, rather than trying to sort everything out at once.
I would also like comments as to whether to capitalize the names of specific patterns, the names of periods or eras such as Brilliant Period for cut glass, and the names of specific types of glass such as Amberina, Peachblow, etc.
I don't know if it's the best, but the easiest way to solve these sort of quandaries would be to choose a reference you like and trust and follow their precedent except where there are compelling arguments not to. Assuming they've done their job well, you don't have to work through the reasoning yourself, and can also hope that there's pretty good consistency.
Another thing that I have done to facilitate my indexing is to assign a number from 1 to 84 for each issue rather than write out the citations a million times. I have a key to the complete citation for each numbered issue. Should I be lazy and include the key at the beginning of the index? Or should I use the Word Find and Replace function to put the complete citation for each entry. This will, of course, about double the size of the index.just shrink the font! ;~)
Right now, my entries look like this:
masonic flasks (9) 50-56 This means that the article on this topic is on pages 50-56 in issue #9. One would have to refer to the key for the issue citation.
Are the entries all underlined?
I don't know, my tendency would be to go with the traditional, where the info is given right there. Otherwise you'd have an index for an index! See what the others say...
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Another thing that I have done to facilitate my indexing is to assign a number from 1 to 84 for each issue rather than write out the citations a million times. I have a key to the complete citation for each numbered issue. Should I be lazy and include the key at the beginning of the index? Or should I use the Word Find and Replace function to put the complete citation for each entry. This will, of course, about double the size of the index.
Right now, my entries look like this:
masonic flasks (9) 50-56 This means that the article on this topic is on pages 50-56 in issue #9. One would have to refer to the key for the issue citation.
Would you prefer that the entry read: masonic flasks Vol.II, no.3 Oct/Nov 1988: 50-56 ????
If you all do not want to bother with this, it is fine, but I just thought that I would ask. I really do appreciate your taking the time to comment and offer suggestions.
Shirley in Charleston, WV
As a relative newbie to glass, and knowing nothing about indexing, all I know is that if I were using this index I would much prefer to have the full reference as in the second example, as I would find it difficult to have to decode references.
Just to complicate other matters being discussed, I have often heard slag glass being called Malachite glass too :)
Janet
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Incorrect uses would need inclusion in a thesaurus, appropriately annotated of course.