Report of the Special Committee on Publications Using a Largely Mechanical Method of Selection of Types (Art. 10.5(b)) (especially under the American Code)

The Special Committee on Publications Using a Largely Mechanical Method of Selection of Types (Art. 10.5(b)) (especially under the American Code) was established at the XVIII International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Melbourne in 2011, with the mandate to develop a list of works that are deemed to have followed the American Code and any similar cases in which the method of type selection is “considered to be largely mechanical”. This Report reviews the origins of, and problems associated with, the provision that permits a designation of type using a largely mechanical method to be superseded. The Committee concluded that use of the American Code and its predecessors was so widespread in the first two decades of the 20th century that no comprehensive list of works following these Codes could be generated. Instead it proposed that six criteria be adopted that will permit determination of works that can be taken to have used a largely mechanical method of type selection. Two of these are general and should apply until the American Code was completely abandoned around 1935: (1) inclusion of any statement to that effect; (2) adoption of a provision of the American Code contrary to the provisions of the International Rules. The other four seek to identify those persons who can be considered to have followed a largely mechanical method; although many followers of the American Code persisted in its use throughout the 1920s, not all did, and these criteria are limited to publications prior to 1921, when the Type-basis Code was published; hence all publications by the following categories of person: (3) signatories of the 1904 “Philadelphia Code” (all also signatories of the American Code); (4) persons who had publicly declared that they followed the American Code; (5) employees and associates of the New York Botanical Garden; and (6) employees of the U.S. federal government. This Report provides the supporting documentation for the proposals that are also published in this issue.