STUDIES IN CATALOGUING

Reviews some recent studies made to arrive at a set ofnormative principles for cataloguing as a basis for evolv-ing an international catalogue code. Enumerates major con-tributions from India. Traces the historical developmentof catalogue codes. Examines difficulties in the choice andrendering of personal and corporate names for catalogueentries.

o INTRODUCTION

In the de veloprn ent of library technique s ,cataloguing has always occupied a p r orn inentplace. It was the earliest to evolve as a tech-nique. But in its dev eloprrre nt , it is stillcaught up in the rn e sh of century old traditions.However, a tt erript s are now being m ade to liftit out of its past and to give it a proper shape.Ranganathan's Heading and canons· publishedrecently is an i.rrrpor tarit contribution in thisdirection. It is also very t im eIy, as att empt sare being rnad e to evolve an international cat-alogue code. This pr obl ern will be discussedby the Ifla at its forthcoming conference atBrus sels in September 1955.

S. PAR T HAS A RAT H YInsdoc, New Delhi

01 Indian Contribution

It will be worthwhile to enurn e r a.te SOITleofthe contributions from India. They are mostlythe wor k of Ranganathan and his as sociate s.His contributions in the field of cataloguing hasbeen considerable and unique. He brought infresh air. He built up a new code - a clas si-fied catalogue code - on a scientific basis. Hederno n st r at ed how a classified catalogue codewas a TIlore evolved code. He formulated a setof basic principles and canons of cataloguing.He analysed ruthlessly the basis of existingcode s and spotlighted their shortcomings. Hegave a scientific explanation for the preferenceof surnames as. the leading element of personal-narne c ent r ie s in the case of Western narne s , Healso showed how the' su r narne ' concept was notuniversally applicable, particularly to Asiannames. He has, under a Unesco project, pre-pared a report on the rendering of Asianna.rrie s in a sociological matrix, eriurn e r at e sthe difficulties in arriving at a cut and dry solu-tion, and suggests a method of approaching theproblem at local, national and internationallevels. All these aspects have been touchedupon in his Headings and canons.

*Rongonothon (S.R.): Heading and canons --- comparative study of five catalogue codes. 1955. Demy 80• Pp, 300.Indio Rs. 10; Foreign 24 sh. S. Vishwanathan, Madras, and G. Blunt & Sons, London.

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1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The earliest lan drrra r k was the cataloguecode drafted by Panizzi of the British Mu s eurnin 1841. His 91 rules b ecarn e the basis ofInany of the rno de r n catalogue codes.

Cutter's Rules for a dictionary cataloguepublished in 1876 was another la.ndrna r k . Ithas influenced considerably in evolving SOInebasic principles for subject approach in cata-loguing. It also sets out the purpose of a cat-alogue, the functions it has to pe r fo r rn and theapproaches it has to rn ee t . It was the firstcode to recognise the concept of corporate au-thorship.

Instruktionen fur die alphabetischen Kat a ,loge der preussischen Bibliotheken (1899) wasdeveloped in Ge r m ariy by a corrrrn it t e e for theuse of the Ge r m an union catalogue. This codedoes not recognise the concept of corporateauthorship. It r e cornrn end s only title entriesfor publications of corporate bodie s. This is arn ajo r difference between the Ge r m an andAng lo c Arne r ic an practices. However, there isnow a tendency aInong the Ge r rrran libraries toaccept corporate authorship. This increasesthe chances for arriving at an agreed code atthe inte rnational level.

The Ang lo c Am.e r ican code for author andtitle entries published in 1908 was the first at-t ernpt at international co-operation in the fieldof cataloguing. It was also the product of corn-rn itt ee work. It was drafted by a corrrrn it t e eset up by the Am e r ic an Library Associationand j c irit lv considered by the British LibraryAssociation. Catalog rules, author and titleentries was issued as a joint publication byth em . Barring seven instances, there wascorrrpl e t e ag r eern ent between the British andArne r ic an practices. This was quite anachiev ern ent . Recently a revised and enlargededition has been brought out as A. L. A. cata-loging rules for author and title entries (1949).This was published independently by the Arn e r i;can Library Association. Unfortunately, dueto war conditions, it was not pos sible for theBritish Library Association to co-operate inthe preparation of this edition.

The Vatican code NorIne per i1 catalogodegli staInpati (1931) was another instance ofinternational co-operation. Due to the mun i,ficence of the Carnegie Eridowrn ent , a t earn ofArne r ic an librarians were sent for organising

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the catalogue of the Vatican Library. The codewas COInpiled by rhern in collaboration with theItalian librarians specially trained in the UnitedStates for this purpose. It was largely influ-enced by the Ang lo c Arrre r ic an code and reflect-ed particularly the Arn e r ic an practices in cat-aloguing.

Ranganathan's Classified catalogue code waspublished in 1934. It is a unique contributionf r orn India. It was the first c orrrpl et e publishedcode for a classified catalogue. It recognisedthe subject-approach as the dominant approachthat has to be rn e t by a catalogue. It is devel-oped on a functional basis. With this code asthe basis, rror rn at iv s, principles and canons ofcataloguing were derived by Ranganathan in hisTheory of library catalogue (1938).

2 STRUCTURE

Structurally, all these catalogue codes aredorn irrat ed by early traditions. In its pre-codestages catalogue was developed by book-tradefor the preparation of their book-lists. Manyof the practices developed by th ern have uncon-sciously crept into catalogue codes. Thesepractices have be corn e so natural that they areaccepted as es sential without exarn ini ng theirappropriateness in a library catalogue. Only ar e c exarn inat ion of the purpose of a library cat-alogue on a functional basis and with the help ofno r rnat iv e principles can lift the catalogue f r ornthe hold of tradition.

21 Rigidity

A catalogue code has a rigid f r arn e vwo r k .It bec om e s encrusted. It is not flexible. It islike a statute. It dern ands irrrpl ic it following.Under such a stifling and r eg irn ent ed atrno s ,phere progress can only be very slow. Only aa r e c exarni nat ion of the purpose of a librarycatalogue on a functional basis and with thehelp of no r m at iv e principles can r errrov e therigidity.

3 COMPARATIVE STUDIES

As a first app r oxi mat ion to evolve an inter-national catalogue code, COInpar ati ve studie 5 of

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catalogue codes were undertaken.

31 Theory of Library Catalogue

In his Theory of library catalogue, Rariga ;nathan makes an analytical study of the catalogu-ing practices based on Cutter's rules, theAnglo-American code, etc. As a basis for thiss'tudy he developed a set of cataloguing princi-pl e s . They were derived from the working ofhis Classified catalogue code. They consistedof some general laws (like tee Law of Parsi-mony), Laws of Library Science (Every readerhis book, Every book its reader, Save thetime of the reader, etc), and canons of cata-loguing (Canon of Ascertainability, Canon ofPrepotence, Canon of Relevance, Canon of Con-text, Canon of Permanence, Canon of Currency,Canon of Consistence, etc). The Canon ofAscertainability 1S an important contribution.It requires that information for the heading ofall main and book index entries should be takenonly from the title-page and its overflow pages.This neatly gets over many of the difficultiesand inconsistencies found in other cataloguecodes. Their difficulties are mainly due tomaking the cataloguer go outside the title-pageand its overflow pages to choose his he ad irig inmany instances. In his corn pa r at iv e study,Ranganathan brings out many of the defects ofthe catalogue codes and suggests solutions forremoving them.

32 Hanson's Comparative Study

In his Comparative study of cataloguingrules (1939), Hanson takes the Anglo-AmericanCode of 1908 as the basis. He restricts hisstudy to the rules bearing upon headings or en-try words. He compares rule by rule, about18 catalogue codes. They are fairly repre-sentative of the p r a ct ic e s prevalent in Europeand America. Against each rule of the Anglo-American code, is shown how far the othercodes agree, whether there are any divergentpractices, or whether there are no provisionsin some of them for similar rules. The pri-mary object of this study was to find out anarea of general agreement with a view to ar-rive at an international catalogue code. Han-

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son points out that many of the divergent prac-tices "may be eliminated without too severe astrain on national pride and idiosyncracies,without undue expenditures, or a too violentbreach of long-established traditions".

33 Lubetzky

In his Cataloging rules and principles (1953)Lubetzkv critically examines A. L. A. catalog-ing rules for author and title entries (1949). Itis a study undertaken on behalf of the Board onCataloging Policy and Research of the A. L. A.Division of Cataloging and Classification. Thepurpose of his study was to "point out the weak-nes s of our cataloging code and to indicate howour rules could be improved - that is, to clearthe ground and lay the foundation for the re-vision of the rules, not to effect such revision'!He examines the appropriateness of some ofthe rules, points out their structural defectswhich give rise to many inconsistencies andlead to complexities and recommends their r e ;construction for revitalising the code. Athorough study is made of corporate authorship.A chapter is devoted to formulating basic objec-tives and principles for the design of a cat a ,Iogu e code. Lubetzky's Cataloging rules andprinciples is a most thought-provoking and il-luminating study.

34 British Study

Cataloguing principles and practice: An in-quiry (1954) published by the Library Associa-tion, London, is a collection of lectures deliv-ered at the London School of Libra r ian sh ip inMarch 1953. It surveys the present develop-ment of cataloguing in relation to various typesof libraries. Two papers are devoted to acritical evaluation of the British MusCUIn Rulesfor compiling the catalogue of pr in ted books.H. A. Sharp's paper on current research in cat-aloguing reviews recent development, hrgh ,lights Lubetzky's study, and r ef e r s to the "orig-inal and provocative contributions to moderncataloguing research that have been made byDr. S. R. Ranganathan in his several books onthe subject". A. J. Well's paper describes thecataloguing practice of the British nationalbibliography. It also demonstrates the use of

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Ranganathan's 'chain procedure' for subject in-dexing adopted by the British National Biblio-graphy.

35 Heading and Canons

In his Heading and canons (1955) Ranganath-an makes a comparative study of the followingfive catalogue codes:

1. A. L. A. cataloging rules for author andtitle entries.

2. Classified catalogue code3. Prussian instructions4. Rules for a dictionary catalogue5. Vatican rules for the catalogue of printed

books.The comparison is preceded by a chapter on ter-minology in order to avoid' the creeping in offallacy or fault or indefiniteness in the progressof thought in the rest of the book'. There is alsoa chapter on normative principles - generallaws, Five Laws of Library Science, and can-ons of cataloguing. They are used as a basisfor the comparative study. Many of the faultsin the codes are brought out. The codes fol-low different practices in the choice and ren-dering of headings. The differences aremainly due to making cataloguers go out insearch of information beyond the title-pageand its overflow pages. The Classified cat-alogue code strictly adheres toCarion of .Ascertainability and avoids many of the corrip.li;cations. In order to have conformity it willbe helpful if an international standard is de-veloped for the lay-out and contents of thetitle-page and its overflow pages. A draftstandard practice for author-statement forboth personal and corporate authors is given.There is also a section on lay-out for interna-tional, national, regional, local and bibliophil-ic catalogue codes.

Heading and canons gives a critical analy-sis of the present position in cataloguing andoffers a basis for international co-operation.

4 HEADING

Heading is the most important part of an en-try in a library catalogue. The divergent prac-tices prescribed by catalogue codes and thecomplications arise in this region. The treat-

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ment of Heading occupies the major part ofcatalogue codes. The basis for any agreementwill have to depend upon uniform practice inthis region.

Heading may be occupied by anyone ·of thefollowing elements:

1 Personal Name2 Corporate Name3 Title4 Subject

These give rise to Personal Name Entries,Corporate Name Entries, Title Entries and Sub-ject Entries.

41 Personal Name Entry

The Personal Name Entry may consist ofthe narne of an author or its substitute, namesof two or more authors, or name of collabor-ator, or names of two or more collaborators.

Almost all catalogue codes agree to choosethe name of a personal author as an entry ele-ment. In the case of rr.o r e than one author theprescription as to the number of names to begiven in the Heading varies from code to code.However, it is possible to obtain a uniformpractice here. Since the information is avail-able in the title page, C anon of Ascertainabilitycan be satisfied by all the codes.

But when we corr.e to t r eat rr.e nt of pseudo-nyms or change of names, we enter a region ofconflict. For pseudonyms, sorn e of the codesprescribe entry under the real name even thoughit may not appear in the title-page. For changeof narr.e s , some codes prescribe the entry underthe earliest name. For this information a cat-aloguer is made to go outside the title page andits over flow pages. This is violating the Canonof Ascertainability. This introduce s many com-plications, increases the number of specialrules, reduces speed of cataloguing and irri-tates the users of a catalogue when they aremade to go from one entry to another. Theonly solution is to enter the work under thename given in the title-page. Only this namewill be used by the user for getting his book.

Again, with regard to the amount of infor-mation to be given about an author in a Headingthe practices are different. Many co.des pre-scribe the use of expanded name for the heading,even though it may not be available in the titlepage. Some even go to the extent of given date

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of birth, date of death in the case of deceasedauthors. and even their profession. This isdone perhaps in an anxiety to avoid introducinghornonym s at some future date. For this in-formation also a cataloguer is made to go be-yond the title-page and its over-flow pages.

While examining the rules for personal au-thors in the A. L. A. cataloging rules for authorand title entries (1949) Lubetzky points out"how the multiplicity of our rules could be re-duced, their complexities diminished and someof the avoidable difficulties restricted in effect.It (the analysis) reveals many parallel and du-plicate rules which will scarcely help the cata-loger, and unnecessary or avoidable complica-tions which will hardly contribute to uniformityin cataloging". His remarks are equally appli-cable to all codes that do not follow the Canonof Ascertainability.

42 Corporate Name Entry

The concept of corporate authorship wasfirst recognised by Cutter and enunciated inhis Rules for a dictionary catalog:

"Bodies of men are to be considered as au-thors of works published in their names or bytheir authority". Ranganathan gives in his def-inition for corporate authorship also a criteriafor deciding who is the author. According tohimlla work is said to be of corporate author-ship if the responsibility for its contents restsessentially on a corporate body; if the titlepage of a work mentions the personal name ofan official of a corporate body in the place inwhich the author's name is usually mentioned,it is deemed to be of personal authorship if itsprimary function is the extension of the bound-ary of knowledge, and of corporate authorshipif it is limited by administrative purpose, func-tion and outlook of the corporate body".

The prescriptions in the codes for corporateauthor entries are very complicated. The mainreason for this complication is due to the neces-sity for a cataloguer to reconstruct the name ofa corporate body for heading. The corpor-ate name is not given in the title page in a formthat can be readily used as a heading.

Another reason for the complications isthat the codes prescribe different ways of con-structing headings for different types of corpor-ate bodies. Unnecessary distinctions are made

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between the various types leading to cont r ad ic,tory results. Cutter differentiates betweenSocieties and Institutions and prescribes dif-ferent treatment for them. This gives rise toconfusion. In his Theory of library catalogue(1938), Ranganathan shows that this distinctionis unnecessary. Lubetzky agrees with Ranga-nathan and points out this distinction betweensocieties and institutions as "irrational andimpractical" .

Since a corporate body is likely to have acontinuous existence, the chances for changein their names are greater. Cases of arrral ,gamation, or breaking up into smaller units,variations in the order of parts of names, etcadd further to the complexity. For example, areport of the Ministry of Education of theGovernment of India would get as its heading

INDIA. EDUCATION (Ministry of - ).Formerly this Ministry formed part of theMinistry of Health, Lands and Education. Areport on educational activities issued by thisMinistry would get the heading.

INDIA. HEALTH, LANDS and EDUCATION(Ministry of - ).This makes it rather difficult to show at oneplace the works of a corporate body.

Another factor for confusion is the tendencyof corporate bodies to have a hierarchy of de-pendent bodies. Some of them have descriptivenames, and others distinctive names. Theproblem is whether the heirarchy should bemaintained in the heading or some of the stagescould be skipped. For example, the Depart-ment of Scientific and Industrial Research,Great Britain, has a Building Research Boardand under it a Building Research Station. Herethe names are descriptive and their individual-isation becomes a problem.

Perhaps it is due to the complexities ofcorporate authorship that the German codes re-commend only title entries for their works.

The concept of corporate authorship iseasy to recognise but difficult to implement.We have been able to divide but not rule. Han-son's remarks on this pr ob lerr, quoted byLubetzky is very apt in this connection:

" Why must we go on spending years andyears of time and hundreds of thousands of dol-lars in deciding whether we are dealing with asociety or an institution; whether an institutionis to be entered under its own name, the nameof the country or municipality which supports

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STUDIES IN CATALOGUING

it. the place of location, or as a subhead undersorne larger or rr.o r e co m pr ehe n s iv e institutionof which it Io r rn s a part or with which it is insome way affiliated? Why bother our headsabout such a trifling matter as whether Mr.Childs did a given piece of bibliographic workon his own time and at his own expense and ac-cordingly to be entered under his name; or onGovernment time and at Governrnent expense.and therefore to be entered under the institutionwhich pays hin . a salary? .. Why should cata-logers spend hours upon hours of their officialand even unofficial time in efforts, often vain,to differentiate between Governn ent-owned orprivately owned institutions; ., whether anobservatory, a library, or museum is to standon its own and be entered under its name, or,because of s orr.e Gov e r nrr.e nt support or af f l ia-tion, under a country, city, or another institu-tion. And then consider ... the ri ra ny corr.p l ica ,tions and difficult decisions arising fromchanges in na rr.e s , new affiliations, and therr.any changing conditions which affect the sta-tus and generally also the name of a society,an institution, or a Government department."

43 Title Entry

In the case of title heading also the practisesvary. Generally for anonymous works, title isused as heading as a last resort. Even in suchcases rr.any codes would prefer to use authorwhen known. This involves searching for theinformation outside the book. The Vatican coderestricts the use of title heading still further.It r e coro m end s title entry for a no nvrr.o us worksonly when their" authors remain unknown aftera full and careful search".

Even in the rendering of title heading thereare differences. Sorr.e codes follow the Anglo-American code in entering title" under the firstword not an article". SOITle recommend catch-word entry. In German practice 'entry is underthe first governing noun in the nominative'. Forthe title "Was ist des deutschen Vaterland?" theentry word is 'Vaterland'. This introduces un-necessary corr.p l icat ion s .

According to Ge r rr.a n practice, title is usedas heading for all works of corporate bodies,The c orr.pl ex it ie s of corporate authorship areavoided, but only to make title entries more corr;·plicated.

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There is general agreement for treating pe-riodicals as a no ny rnou s works and entering themunder their titles, Only in the case of change oftitles, the practice differ,

44 Subject Entry

Cutter's Rules for diction:try cataloguewas perhaps the earliest code to give specificrules for construction of subject entries. Butit does not base the derivation of subject en-tries on any scherre of classification. It givesrise to ri.anv inconsistencies, As mentioned inHeading and canons, it raises nu rr.b e r of issuesfor a cataloguer. He has to choose between

1 General vs Specific2 Person vs Country3 Event vs Country4 SUbject vs Country.

Difficulties also arise due to language, syno-nv m s , ho rn onv rr. s , corr.pound subject names,form entry etc. These are discussed in detailin Ranganathan's Theory of libra ry catalogue.He attributes the difficulties of Cutter to theabsence of a detailed s c herr.e of library classi-fication to individualise subject of narrow ex-tension.

Ranganathan's Classified catalogue codegets over these difficulties in an elegant way.The subject entries are derived from the classnumber of a work. They are thus related to ascheme of classification. Now a cataloguer hasa basis for deriving the subject entries. Hehas not to depend upon his flair for every entry,The method of deriving subject entries on thebasis of a scheme of classification is called"Chain Procedure". It rne cha ni s e s the methodof deriving subject entries. Chain Procedureis described in detail in Ranganathan's Classi-fied catalogue code, It is a unique contributionfrom India, It has been developed in relation toColon Classification. It can be equally appliedin relation to other s che rr.e s of classification.However, the greater the individualis ing cap-acity, expressiveness, versatility of a schemeof classification, the more efficient be co rr.e sthe Chain Procedure. The British nationalbibliography uses Chain Procedure for derivingits subject entries based on Decimal Classifica-tion. This is demonstrated by A. J, Wells inhis paper" New dev elo prr.e nt s in cataloguing inthe British national bibliography" published in

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Cataloguing principles and practice (1954). Ini1.noi:he~-pap-er-" O~r-debt t~ I~dia;;' published inLibrary S._<:=.i~_I2£.~J!~)ndia(1953), he writes:

"I have decided to introduce three techniquesinto the BNB ... detailed featuring, chain index-ing and the irnposition of the facet formula onthe DC schedules. It was soon realised that thechain procedure is not helpful unless the ClassNumber is co-extensive with the subject of abook. DC notation fails in this respect. BNBdeveloped its 11 (1)" symbol and its system ofverbal extention of class rrurr.be r to rna ke thelatter fit for use in chain procedure". Thislarge scale application of Chain Procedure hasgiven good results and has evoked considerable

interest in this method.

5 CONCLUSION

The recent studies have attempted to ana-lyse the present position in cataloguing andarrive at some general agreement as a basisfor international co-operation. They willprove very helpful when the International Fe-deration of Library Associations takes up thissubject for study at the forthcoming Third Inter-national Library Congress at Brussels in Sep-t ernbe r 1955. India's contribution in this con-nection is considerable and will surely influencethe decisions taken at the Congress.

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