How to Catalogue a Library Part 13

In the alphabetization of a catalogue the prefixes in personal names, even when printed separately, are to be treated as if they were joined; thus:--

De Montfort. De Quincey.

Demophilus. Des Barres.

De Morgan. Du Chaillu.

Demosthenes.

In the case of compound words a different plan, however, is to be adopted. Each word is to be treated as separate, and arranged accordingly. The Index Society rule is as follows: "4. Headings consisting of two or more distinct words are not to be treated as integral portions of one word; thus the arrangement should be:--

Grave, John } { Grave at Kherson Grave at Kherson } { Grave, John Grave of Hope } not { Gravelot Grave Thoughts } { Grave of Hope Gravelot } { Gravesend Gravesend } { Grave Thoughts"

Mr. Cutter enters very fully into this point of arrangement in his rules.

It is a very frequent mistake to overlook the fact that the Christian name placed after a surname is merely there for the sake of convenience, and to make it take its place with the words that follow in their natural position. For instance, in the above examples John Grave stands at the head, because Grave is the only portion that can be considered in the alphabet. If, however, there was a Charles or a Henry Grave, they would take their position above John Grave, because their Christian names are all in the same category.

The order in which the entries under an author's name should be arranged is dealt with in the British Museum rules LXIX. to LXXVII., but it is not necessary to quote all these in this place.

The Library a.s.sociation rules put the matter very succinctly:--

"38. The works of an author are to be arranged in the following order:--

"_a._ Collected works.

"_b._ Partial collections.

"_c._ Individual works in alphabetical order of t.i.tles, under the first word not an article or a preposition having the meaning of 'concerning.'

"Translations are to follow the originals in alphabetical order of languages."

The Cambridge Rule is as follows:--

"38. The works of an author to be entered in the following order:--

"(1) Collected works in the original language.

"(2) Translations of collected works.

"(3) Collections of two or more works.

"(4) Separate works.

"(5) Entire portions of a separate work to follow that work.

"(6) Selections or collected fragments."

This question of arrangement is distinctly one which may be modified according to the special needs of a particular library. It only becomes a question of importance in a very large library, because in a small library the number of entries under one author are not often very numerous. I should take exception to the arrangement of separate works in alphabetical order, because in the case of t.i.tles other than those of plays, poems, novels, etc. (which have arbitrary t.i.tles), there is little that is suitable for such arrangement, and it is practically no order at all. I should prefer the chronological order as the most useful for reference. In the case of those authors whose works are voluminous, some system of cla.s.sification of the separate works is needed. Thus Milton's prose works should be arranged separately from his poems.

It is also a question whether translations should not be kept together at the end. Abstracts of the contents of collected editions of an author's works greatly add to the convenience of a catalogue. It is almost a necessity in a lending library, as by this means you can send for the particular volume you require. The adoption of the plan at the British Museum would save a reader from sending for a whole set of books when he only wants one volume. Mr. Parry, in his evidence before the Commission, alludes to this point. He said: "I remember there was one rule as to collected works, that each separate work in the collection was to be expressed upon the t.i.tle that we wrote, and afterwards printed separately under the collected heading in the catalogue; that was abandoned, I remember, and I certainly thought it was an important abandonment: it was the abandonment, as it seemed to me, of a useful principle; but it was abandoned, I believe, for the purpose of expediting the catalogue; and in all respects we endeavoured as much as possible to shorten our labour consistently with accuracy" (p. 467).

Mr. Cutter deals with this point in his rule 197: "Arrange _contents_ either in the order of the volumes or alphabetically by the t.i.tles of the articles." After giving an example, he adds: "It is evident how much more compendious the second method is. But there is no reason why an alphabetical 'contents' should not be run into a single paragraph.

"The t.i.tles of novels and plays contained in any collection ought to be entered in the main alphabet; it is difficult then to see the advantage of an alphabetical arrangement of the same t.i.tles under the collection.

Many other collections are composed of works for which alphabetical order is no gain, because the words of their t.i.tles are not mnemonic words, and it is not worth while to take the trouble of arranging them; but there are others composed of both cla.s.ses in which such order may be convenient."

We have been considering the arrangement of the t.i.tles of ordinary books, but here it will be necessary to go back somewhat, and ask what we have to catalogue. We may have printed books, newspapers, ma.n.u.scripts (including autographs), prints and drawings, and maps.

Newspapers may be included with printed books, but the rest must, without doubt, be kept distinct. When these different cla.s.ses are small, they can with advantage be catalogued separately at the end of the general catalogue; but when any or all of them are large, they must be treated as distinct subjects, and catalogued according to special rules which cannot be given here.

What is a printed book? Some have made a distinction between tracts (or pamphlets) and books; but any definition of the former, intended to distinguish them from the latter, which has been attempted has always failed to satisfy the bibliographer. It is only necessary to imagine the confusion that would be caused in the library of the British Museum if the t.i.tles were thus sorted to see the futility of any such distinction.

The only excuse for a separate catalogue of pamphlets is in the case of those libraries which possess a large number of ephemeral pamphlets, bound up in a long series, and kept distinct. Here, as the pamphlets are only occasionally required, it may be found unadvisable to fill the general catalogue with uninteresting entries. It may be supposed that the last remark, as recognizing the existence of a pamphlet, is contradictory to that which goes before, but it is not really so. There is no doubt of the existence of a something which is undoubtedly a pamphlet, but there is no rule by which some other small book can be distinguished as a pamphlet or not. The special characteristic of a pamphlet does not entirely consist in the number of pages, for books in which the most momentous discoveries have been announced have been made up of few leaves, and it does not entirely consist in the importance or otherwise of the subject.

There is one cla.s.s of pamphlets which gives the cataloguer much trouble, viz., Extracts from Journals and Transactions. If these are catalogued without any indication that they are excerpts, readers of the catalogue are misled into the belief in the existence of separate books which were never issued. At the same time the catalogue is unnecessarily enlarged if the full particulars as to the t.i.tle of the journal from which the pamphlet has been extracted are given. If there are many of these t.i.tles it will be well to adopt some sign, such as a dagger, at the beginning of the t.i.tle to indicate the character of the pamphlet.

When we have decided to arrange in one general alphabet the t.i.tles of ordinary books, both those whose authors are known and those which are anonymous, we are still left with a large number of books which are different in character from ordinary books. We then have to decide how to deal with journals and transactions, ephemerides, observations, reports, etc. These cla.s.ses of works are generally kept distinct, but are included in the general alphabet as academies or transactions, periodical publications or journals. In the case of comparatively small private libraries, there is no need for the separation at all, as these seldom contain many journals or transactions; but if it be advisable to make the distinction, I think the balance of advantage is on the side of keeping the cla.s.s outside the alphabet, chiefly for the reason that inner alphabets are confusing and disadvantageous.

There are two main reasons in favour of the separation of serials, periodicals, or whatever other name we may give the cla.s.s. The theoretical reason is, that they are not like other books, and that the rules for one will not apply to the other. It is agreed, on all hands, that MSS. should be separated from printed books, and yet a MS. is often more like a printed book than a journal is like a distinct treatise. I mean that in the one case the difference is merely one of production,--print or writing,--and in the other it is a structural difference of the mode of composition.

The practical reason is, that you eliminate the chief disturbing elements of a catalogue. The catalogue of ordinary books, if well made in the first instance, requires little alteration, and needs only additions; but the catalogue of serials, by the very nature of its contents, wants continued change.

Some librarians who have followed the British Museum rules continue the terms adopted there of _Academies_ and _Periodical Publications_; but I think the headings _Transactions_ and _Journals_ are in every way preferable. The word _Academy_ is entirely foreign to our habits, and most of those academies which exist here are inst.i.tutions quite distinct from societies which publish transactions. Almost the only exception to this rule is the Royal Irish Academy. Even abroad, societies are more numerous than academies.[32] With respect to the heading _Periodical Publications_, it may be said that transactions would logically come as properly under it as journals and magazines, because all are published periodically.

This subject of the arrangement of periodicals has not been treated of so exhaustively as it deserves. Mr. J. B. Bailey communicated a paper on "Some Points to be Considered in Preparing Catalogues of Transactions and Periodicals" to the Library a.s.sociation of the United Kingdom in February 1880,[33] in which he affirms that so little agreement is there among cataloguers, that the three most recent catalogues of scientific transactions and periodicals then published were arranged on different plans. The three catalogues referred to were (1) _Catalogue of Scientific Serials_, 1633-1876, by S. H. Scudder, Cambridge, U.S., 1879; (2) _Catalogue of the Library of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society_, London, 1879; (3) _Catalogue of the Library of the Museum of Practical Geology and Geological Survey_, London, 1878.

At the Cambridge Meeting of the Library a.s.sociation, 1882, I communicated a paper ent.i.tled "Thoughts on the Cataloguing of Journals and Transactions." In this paper I discussed some of the open questions respecting their arrangement, and these points I may recapitulate here.

Mr. Bailey is in favour of Mr. Scudder's union of journals and transactions in one catalogue, but he is not so satisfied that the plan of arranging these under the names of the places of publication adopted by that bibliographer is the best.

The two chief questions which arise, after we have settled the point that these serials shall be kept distinct from the general alphabet, are these:--

(1) Shall journals and transactions be treated as one and the same cla.s.s, or shall they be arranged in separate alphabets?

(2) If journals and transactions are kept distinct, how shall they be arranged?

I.

Mr. Scudder, as already mentioned, treats journals and transactions as one and the same cla.s.s, and arranges both together, according to a combined geographical and alphabetical system. This is, I think, an inconvenient arrangement for a catalogue, for the following reason: Transactions are nearly always known by the names of the places where they are issued, but journals are not known by the name of the place of publication. For instance, suppose a reader comes to the librarian for the _Jahrbuch_ of the _Physikalischer Verein_, the librarian would naturally ask, Which one of these societies? and the reader might answer Frankfort; but if the _Canadian Journal_ were required it is probable that neither reader nor librarian would remember whether it were published at Toronto or at Montreal. The society of its very nature has a local habitation, while the journal has a name, but is not necessarily a.s.sociated with the place where it is published. It therefore follows that if the t.i.tles of the two kinds of periodicals are arranged on different systems, it will be better to keep them distinct than to unite them in one alphabet. In the British Museum Catalogue the two cla.s.ses are kept distinct, but both are arranged under the names of places, so that they might quite as well have been united in one alphabet. The reason for separation entirely depends, it seems to me, upon the difference of arrangement adopted for each.

II.

Mr. Cutter's rules on this question of arrangement may be considered best under the respective headings of Transactions and Journals.

_Transactions._

Mr. Cutter says (rule 40):--

"Societies are authors of their journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions, publications.... The chief practices in regard to societies have been to enter them (1.

British Museum) under a special heading--_Academies_--with a geographical arrangement; (2. Boston Public Library, printed catalogue) under the name of the place where they have their headquarters; (3. Harvard College Library and Boston Public Library, present system) under the name of the place, if it enters into the legal name of the society, otherwise under the first word of that name not an article; (4. Boston Athenaeum) English societies under the first word of the society's name not an article; foreign societies under the name of the place. Both 3. and 4. put under the place all purely local societies, those whose membership or objects are confined to the place. The first does not deserve a moment's consideration; such a heading is out of place in an author-catalogue, and the geographical arrangement only serves to complicate matters, and render it more difficult to find any particular academy. The second is utterly unsuited to American and English societies. The third practice is simple; but it is difficult to see the advantage of the exception which it makes to its general rule of entry under the society's name; the exception does not help the cataloguer, for it is just as hard to determine whether the place enters into the _legal_ name as to ascertain the name; it does not help the reader, for he has no means of knowing whether the place is part of the legal name or not. The fourth is simple and intelligible; it is usually easy for both cataloguer and reader to determine whether a society is English or foreign....

"Fifth Plan, Rule 1. Enter academies, a.s.sociations, inst.i.tutes, universities, libraries, galleries, museums, colleges, and all similar bodies, both English and foreign, according to their corporate name, neglecting an initial article when there is one.