collation-viz

This project is for XSL transforms for visualization of quire structure from a parsed collation formula.

In the first iteration, this project will handle the style of collation formula used in Walters Art Museum TEI manuscript descriptions found at:

• http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/01_ACCESS_WALTERS_MANUSCRIPTS.html

XML quire structure

This XSLT rewrites a WAM-style formula in an XML quire structure. The XML has the following format:

<quires>
    <quire n="1" positions="8"/>
    <quire n="2" positions="8">
        <less>1</less>
        <less>2</less>
    </quire>
    <!--...-->
</quires>

Each quire element has a quire number, @n, a number of reguar quire @positions and zero or more subtractive less elements that give the positions of missing leaf positions in the quire. This method of describing a quire follows the model of the Walters-style collation formula discussed in the next section.

Walters collation formulas

Walters-style collation formulas have a form like this:

i, 1(8,-1,2), 2(6), 3(10,-1,9), 4(10,-4,8), 5(6,-1,5), 6(6), 7-11(8), 
   12(8,-8), 13(8), 14(6), 15(8,-8), 16(12,-5,9,12), 17(10,-6,8,10), 
   18(10,-6,8,10) 19(8,-7), 20-21(8), i

Here the leading and trailing i indicate a count of flyleaves. Before each parenthetical unit - e.g., 1(8,-1,2) - is a single quire number (e.g., 1, 2, 3) or a range of quire numbers (e.g., 7-11, 20-21). Within each parenthetical set - e.g., (8,-1,2) - the first number indicates the number of leaf positions in a theoretical regular quire structure that would apply if this quire were regular: 8 leaves for a regular quire of four bifolia or 6 leaves for a quire of three bifolia, and so on. The position number is then followed by a series of subtracted positions that explain how the regular quire structure should be altered to derive the structure of the quire in its current form.

The general form of the formula is:

QUIRE_NO[-QUIRE_NO](LEAF_COUNT[,-POSITION[,POSITION,..]])

For example, 1(8,-1,2) describes a quire of 6 extant leaves. The quire has two bifolia followed by two singletons. The two bifolia are positions 3+6, 4+5, followed by singletons at positions 7, 8. The positions needed to complete the structure are the missing positions 1* and 2* (here marked with a * to indicate their absence).

   _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 1* 
  |  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2*
  | |  ___________ 3
  | | |  _________ 4
  | | | |
  | | | |
  | | | |_________ 5
  | | |___________ 6
  | |_____________ 7
  |_______________ 8

NB The numbers here indicate theoretical leaf positions, not folio numbers.

NB Also, these formulas do not describe how the quire came to be, but rather simply describe the quire structure using a subtractive formula. Nothing should be inferred about the history of the quire from this formula. In the example above, the quire may have been a quire of 4 bifolia to which the last two singletons were later added; the formula is not concerned with this.

WAM to XML quire XSLT

The file xsl/wamtei_parse_collation.xsl takes as input a Walters TEI file (see the data diretory for examples), and outputs quire XML as shown above.