Issue 1516: numbering

New issue submitted

Assigned changed to »tone2tone« (previously »None«)
Disposition changed to »Needs help« (previously »New«)

HI Bruce, we do not have a copy for this publication. Do you? The way this publication has been collected for our database, the numbers shown indicate that those are the page numbers of the dances at the time the data was collected. The page numbers have been given priority by the original editor, even if the dances are numbered from 1 to x. I cannot do much about it unless you can tell or show me what is odd with the numbering and how I would have to change page numbers of the 2014 edition accordingly. Can you help with more detailed information?

The e-cribs team have a private set of scans and as far as I can see its a collection of several books and leaflets. Some of the books had numbered dances (eg the Scotia Suite) but others are unnumbered. So identifying by page number seems the only reasonable option here. A few randomly checked page numbers correspond between our scans and the database number. I think we should leave things as they are.

Disposition changed to »Fixed« (previously »Needs help«)

Hi Bruce, thank you so much for your reply and all the listed hazzles that really go along with the multitude of rearranged collections and leaflets. You attached the ToC with it, and as you can see, the entry numbers in the database are totally in line with the given page numbers. When entering a publication into SCDDB, we have the opportunity to select the “sort” of numbering for this publication. The original editor chose to go for page numbers, which is the best option for this publication, as the dance numbers occur multiple times. The question therefor isn’t what dance numbers are given in where, but how to deal with THIS specific publication. As the page numbers are the only valid unique ID in this publication, I will leave it as is; I will add a comment to the notes though that the IDs given reflect the page numbers (which we have quite some publications who are asorted according to their page number). Thanks again, and as well for your kind words - same back to you from our end, as the database can only improve from such input, whether we finally go along with it or sometimes not. Best regards, Viktor

The Leaflets A5 book appeared during my tenure on the Membership Services committee. It covers several decades of RSCDS publishing history and during its preparation we have tried to stick to the original documents as far as possible, not all of which include usable numbers in the first place. As far as the database is concerned “page numbering” is the only option that makes sense here.

The decision to support either “dance numbering” or “page numbering” for publications in the database goes back to Alan Paterson’s original data model, and it is not entirely out of the question that in the future we will simply support both at the same time. This means that entries in the dance-to-publication map will be able to contain both a dance number (if known; and ideally as a string, rather than a number, so odd numbering schemes can be accommodated) and a page number (if applicable) simultaneously. There might even be a need for a separate third integer “sort order” to be used in cases where there are no dance or page numbers or an ordering by dance number leads to weird results (ideally we would like to have the dances appear in the list in the same order as in the book, regardless of numbering).

Also note that with the A5 editions of RSCDS books, we have tried to avoid, as far as possible, having two-page dance descriptions start on a right-hand page and continue on the following left-hand page. This is why some of the books contain random-seeming illustrations, which serve as padding to ensure that a subsequent two-page dance description falls on a double-page spread.