Library cataloging rules might not sound very exciting, but they’re the only way you can find anything in a library. It’s not too much to claim that the history of library catalogs can be divided into periods before and after Anthony Panizzi (1797-1879). Modern library cataloging rules trace their origin to Panizzi’s 91 rules, published in 1841.
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In the late 1960s, the Library of Congress started work on two major achievements. The massive National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints eventually reached 754 volumes and took 130 feet of shelf space. Computerizing library cataloging soon rendered it obsolete. Henriette Avram, who never went to library school, led the team that devised MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloging). The primary purpose in developing MARC was to automate printing library catalog cards, but Avram and her team also intended it for libraries to be able to print their lists of new acquisitions. The Library of Congress supplied card sets for its entire holdings to any American library that ordered them. That saved libraries the expense of cataloging those materials themselves. Avram did not envision putting the entire library catalog online and making cards obsolete, but her work made it possible. In fact, MARC enabled the online public access catalog, which saves so much time and space. Patrons had to visit the library at times when it was open in order to use it. Now, anyone with internet service can use the catalog and interact with it without leaving home. Or use it anywhere in the library without leaving where they’re working. The MARC … Continue reading →
Shortly after I graduated from library school, I met with a library director who told me that librarianship had changed a lot since I was in library school. I pointed out that I had only graduated two weeks earlier. She repeated that librarianship had changed a lot since I was in library school. I doubt that it really changed much in two weeks, but it didn’t take long for me to begin to see big changes. Until the late 1800s, library catalogs were contained in books. Whenever the library acquired anything new, the cataloger had to make note of it in the margin of the book. After a while, the catalog became illegible and it was necessary to start a new one from scratch. Then someone invented the card catalog, probably the biggest change in cataloging since the invention of movable type more than three hundred years earlier. That was then After that, changes started to come thick and fast. For example: The Library of Congress began to sell sets of library cards to other libraries, the beginning of shared cataloging. That, in turn, required shared standards among libraries. Cataloging no longer depended on the erudition of individual catalogers. For … Continue reading →
You see their work, but when you go to the library you don’t see them. Or if you do, you can’t distinguish them from patrons like you unless you know them personally. Catalogers. I have been haunting libraries for as long as I can remember. Especially after I got to graduate school, I became very sophisticated in my ability to use the card catalog. (That should date me.) I was ABD (all but dissertation in completing a doctorate) when I got my first job working in a library. It was there that I learned to catalog. Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that someone actually sat down and wrote the information on those cards! Color my face red. My mother was a professional librarian, but never worked for pay after I was born. She did a lot of volunteer library work, though, and I well remember the amount of time she sat at the dining room table with a stack of books, a stack of blank library cards, and a typewriter. She didn’t merely type things on the cards. She had to write the description following a set of rules. The rules, the classification, and the subject … Continue reading →
Some online library catalogs, trying to imitate Google, show only a single search box, which works as a general keyword search. If you want to look up a title, you need to switch to “advanced search,” which is actually less frustrating to use. Google is a search engine, and the online library catalog is a database with multiple indexes. You need a screen that will let you choose which index to search. The better-designed catalogs offer a choice between “title” and “title keyword” search boxes. For “title,” type the beginning of the title, omitting the initial article if any. In English, articles are “the,” “a,” and “an.” If any of these are the first word, leave it out. Omit initial articles from all other languages, too. If the item you want has a long title, you do not need to type it all so long as you put in enough to get to distinctive words. For example, if you want to locate The trumpet & trombone in graphic arts, 1500-1800, you need go no farther than the “gr” in “graphic.” Simply searching “trumpet and trombone” will turn up more titles, but the one about graphic arts will still probably be … Continue reading →