=CATALOGING.=
=Definition.=—The catalog is a directory of the library. A library
without a catalog is described by Thomas Carlyle as “a Polyphemus
without any eye in its head, and you must front the difficulties,
whatever they may be, of making proper catalogs.” A good catalog must
be an accurate and easily used index of the resources of the library,
answering the questions of the readers in the simplest and most direct
way possible. Such questions fall into the following groups:
1. Has the library a certain book by a certain author?
2. What books by a certain author has the library?
3. Has the library a book with a certain title, the author’s name
being unknown?
4. What has the library on a given subject?
5. What volumes of a certain series are in the library?
6. Where on the shelves of the library is a certain book to be
found, if it is not in use by a reader?
To answer these questions certain “entries”, or records, are made in
the catalog, called the author, title, subject and series entries.
Question 6, which is asked in connection with all the other questions,
is answered by the call number, which appears on every entry.
The most general book of reference is the dictionary. Every one is more
or less familiar with its arrangement. This fact is the chief argument
for a dictionary arrangement in a card catalog where authors, subjects,
titles and cross references are arranged in one alphabet, as in a
dictionary. Each “entry,” or record, is made on a card having on its
first line the word, or words, under which the entry is made. This card
is placed in its alphabetical place in the catalog tray.
=Author Entry.=—Every book must have an author entry to answer
questions 1 and 2. By author we mean the person, body, government,
society or institution responsible for a work. The entry is usually
made under the author’s surname, followed by his forenames.
=Catalog Rules.=—Every good code of cataloging rules gives detailed
directions for the author entry, telling how to decide who is the
author and what form of his name to use. In order to gain the
uniformity necessary for the easy consultation of the catalog, the
cataloger must decide upon her rules and then follow them carefully. If
this is done, the author card will ordinarily present few difficulties.
The American Library Association rules (1908) are very full and offer
the advantage of general conformity to the Library of Congress entries.
The question as to fullness of author’s name may well be left to the
individual library. The small library will need to use the author’s
dates only to distinguish different authors of the same name. Many
descriptive phrases may also be omitted, e. g. “pres. of the U. S.” in
the heading, “Washington, George, pres. of the U. S.” and similar
headings. This will in no way interfere with the use of the Library of
Congress cards, in spite of their fuller entries, as the full and less
full may easily be placed in one alphabet.
All works of fiction, dramas and poems, and works of non-fiction having
striking titles must have an additional record, or “added entry”, under
the title, in order that the catalog may answer question 3. For this
entry, the title is written at the top of the card. The average reader
more frequently remembers the titles of books than the names of their
authors. Consequently the cataloger must not be too sparing in making
title entries.
=Subject Entries.=—Non-fiction must also have added entry under the
subject or subjects of the book. It is here that the cataloger finds
scope for all her knowledge, judgment and common sense. Above all, let
it not be said of her that she
“Affects all books of past and present ages,
But reads no further than their title-pages.”
She must examine the books carefully, studying the table of contents,
preface, analyses of chapters when given, marginal notes, and the
chapters themselves when necessary. No entry is to be made under any
subject unless the cataloger is sure that the book contains material
helpful to one looking up that subject. She must always try to put
herself in the reader’s place, and get his point of view.
The cataloger is extremely liable to worship rules and to forget the
limitations of the average reader. There is danger of taking too much
for granted. In this respect the cataloger is like a certain professor
who was given to quoting Arabic in his popular lectures. When some one,
remonstrated, he said, “Oh, everybody knows a little Arabic.”
The cataloger must bear in mind the fact that many users of the library
do not know how to look up book titles. President Eliot once confessed
to a body of librarians that although he might claim to be as
intelligent as the ordinary frequenter of a library, he did not know
enough to use a card catalog.
=Cutter’s Rules.=—Having decided what the subject or subjects of the
book may be, for it may have one or many, the question arises as to the
form of the subject headings to be used. C. A. Cutter, in his “Rules
for a dictionary catalog” (4th edition, =1904=) has laid down the
principles of the choice of subject headings. One of the most useful
tools of the cataloger is the American Library Association “List of
subject headings” (3d edition, 1911), the result of widespread
consultation and discussion on principles and practice. Here is
gathered the experience of many libraries, of all types, and the
cataloger would do well to follow this list unless experience has shown
her that in some cases her special library requires a variation. The
suggested cross references are a great help, but must be used with care
and judgment. The cross references are the sign posts in the wilderness
of the catalog, and they must point the way clearly and with truth. The
cataloger never knows at just what point the reader will strike the
catalog, but if the subject headings and cross references have been
judiciously chosen he is pretty sure to reach the desired goal.
=Analyticals.=—In a small library it is most essential to show not
only what books the library has on a given subject, but also what
chapters or essays may be hidden in unsuspected volumes. Entries for
such parts of books are called analytical entries. The subject heading
is chosen in the same manner as for an entire work on the subject, the
author, title, date, call number and paging of the volume containing
the chapter being given below the subject heading. In similar manner
author and title analytical entries may be made for short stories which
appear in collections. Author analytical entries are frequently needed
for collections of essays, etc.
=Form of Card.=—The form of the card is of minor importance, provided
it is clear and gives all of the important information. It is well to
make prominent the author’s name by indention. The title must omit
nothing which will aid the reader in his choice of a book. The name or
number of edition and the name of the editor or translator should be
included. Names of illustrators may be omitted unless they are of
sufficient importance to require an added entry card. In a public
library added entries under the names of popular illustrators like C.
D. Gibson, Joseph Pennell or Walter Crane, will often prove helpful.
=Imprint and Collation.=—Fullness of imprint and collation varies in
different libraries. The cataloger should not count on the library
always remaining very small, but should include enough details of
imprint and collation to assure her that the cards will be useful when
the library has grown. The A. L. A. rules give detailed instruction
for imprint and collation, while any of the papers written on
cataloging for the small library will point out the possibilities of
simplification.
=Contents Notes.=—The contents of the book should be given whenever it
will add important items to the reader’s knowledge of the book.
Descriptive and critical notes will often tell a reader positively
whether or not he wishes the book, when the title alone could not do
this.
Subject headings for historical fiction—and also for poetry and
drama—will be found most helpful. Thus Winston Churchill’s “Crisis”
can well have an entry under U. S. History—Civil War—Fiction, and
Dumas’ The Whites and the Blues, an entry under Napoleon I—Fiction.
=Printed Cards.=—The use of the Library of Congress cards will be
found a great labor saver. If, at the time of ordering the cards, a
temporary slip bearing call number, author, title, place and date of
publication, accession number and suggested subjects and analyticals be
written, a second examination of the book on the receipt of the cards
will be unnecessary, unless the cards disagree with the book in some of
the data noted. The Library of Congress, on application, will send
instructions for the ordering of cards. Although it is cheaper to order
cards by serial numbers, it will not pay the cataloger to spend much
time searching for this number as for 1/2c per title the Library of
Congress will do this work. The use of the printed cards, though it
will destroy the uniformity of appearance of the catalog, will in no
way detract from its usefulness or usableness.
=Essentials.=—The cataloger must constantly bear in mind that the
catalog is a machine for the use of the public. Any time spent in
making it serve the readers more easily and quickly is time well spent.
Any time spent in beautifying it simply for the glorification of the
cataloger is time wasted. Rules,—careful, detailed rules,—are needed
so that the machine may do its work without friction and that every
part may fit into its proper place, but any rules that hamper the user
of the machine, should be promptly struck from the code. The cataloger
is paid to make a time-saving machine, and this is her duty,—to make a
machine that will bring together the book and the man who wants it with
the least expenditure of effort on the part of the latter.
“If the trustees can afford it,” very rightly says Miss Esther
Crawford, “there is one substitute for a catalog, viz., a librarian who
knows intimately every book in the library; who has the memory for each
book and that fine, discriminating knowledge of the reader’s tastes and
abilities which will enable her always to fit the right book to the
right person; who will never be absent from the library during the ten
hours in which it is kept open every day in the year; who will never
die nor take a vacation,—marriage is out of the question.”[1]
=The Cataloger’s Training.=—“The modern library movement is young, and
it is therefore not surprising that the subject of library work in
general and of cataloging in particular is not fully understood,”
writes Miss Theresa Hitchler in the eighth annual report of the
Brooklyn Public Library. “The average man does not know and cannot
realize the demands of the work, and has no idea, seemingly, that any
training or special aptitude is necessary. By way of contrast to this
average man’s view might be recorded the plaint of a prominent
librarian at a recent library club meeting that so great a per cent of
the talent of the library profession had to be diverted to the
cataloging department, to the detriment of the circulating desk. The
moral to be pointed out is that the catalog must be good as a first
requisite to a library. In the words of the old comparison, the catalog
is the key to the otherwise hidden material buried in books. In a
library of any size, the best desk attendant in the world is almost
helpless, or at best constantly handicapped, without a convenient and
rational classification of the volumes of the collection and the
bibliographical aid of a catalogue. The born bibliographer is as rare
as the born teacher or poet. The cataloging expert must have the quick
mind, sound common sense, broad view and good judgment of the
book-reviewer joined with the slow and solid qualities of the
bibliographer. The former qualities are needed for rapid classification
of books in all the various fields of human knowledge, from abstruse to
practical, from grave to gay, and for placing them under subject
headings in the catalog useful and specific, to student, scholar and
every day reader alike, and are by far the more important and
indispensable. The latter qualities are needed for recording accurately
the data of the books so classed, in a bibliographical catalog of a
form useful to people of all grades of intelligence. It stands to
reason that to cope with these requirements, a solid educational
training that gives an intelligent outlook on the various fields of
knowledge must be joined to a natural aptitude for bibliographical
detail, and added to these a technical training in such work. The head
of such a department must possess these requirements in an ever greater
degree, with an executive ability and knowledge of human nature above
the ordinary, since the results, good or bad, depend directly on her
ability and on her management, successful or unsuccessful, of the
varied material entrusted to her guidance.”
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Footnote 1:
Cataloging; suggestions for the small public library, 1908.