McKenzie 2002

McKenzie, D. F. "Printers of the Mind: Some Notes on Bibliographical Theories and Printing-House Practices." Making Meaning: "Printer's of the Mind and Other Essays. Ed. Peter D. McDonald and Michael F. Suarez, S.J. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.

shouldn't impose our post-industrial assumptions about "careers" and "labor" standards

for example, performance contracts: meant journeyman could not be counted on as regular labor (perhaps a reason printers were taking on more apprentices), and workman wouldn't work harder than they were contracted to do (22-3); this "normality of non-uniformity" has uncomfortable consequences for bibliographic methodology (23)

we generally assume at least one compositor and one press-crew worked fairly consistently on any printed book; however, numbers show that the Cambridge and Bowyer presses followed the principle of concurrent production;

• individually, books took longer to print
• smaller earlier presses seemed to use concurrent printing as much as larger 18c houses