Put the convention of a county or other named district under the name of the district, with a reference from the town in which it is held, when it is named in the title-page.
53. Enter ecclesiastical councils, both general and special, under the name of the place of meeting. (The Vatican Council under Vatican, not Rome.) Refer from the name of the ecclesiastical body.
54. Enter reports of committees under the name of the body to which they belong; but reports of “a committee of citizens,” etc., not belonging to any named body should be put under the name of the writer, if known, if not, of the chairman, or if that is not given, of the first signer, or if not signed, under the name of the place.
55. Put the anonymous publications of any class (not organized) of citizens of a place under the place.
Ex. “Application to Parliament by the merchants of London” should go under
London. Merchants.
56. Societies are authors of their journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions, publications. (On publishing-societies, see B. Substitutes, § [59], e.)
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 Bost. Pub. Lib., 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 Athenæum) 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 1st 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. [27] The 2d is utterly unsuited to American and English societies. The 3d 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 it is 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 4th is simple and intelligible; it is usually easy for both cataloguer and reader to determine whether a society is English or foreign. I shall mention two other possible plans, well aware that there are strong objections to both.
5TH PLAN. Rule 1. Enter academies, [28] associations, institutes, universities, societies, libraries, galleries, museums, colleges, and all similar bodies, and churches that {31} have an individual name, both English and foreign, according to their corporate name, neglecting an initial article when there is one.
Exception 1. Enter the universities and the royal academies of Berlin, Göttingen, Leipzig, Lisbon, Madrid, Munich, St. Petersburg, Vienna, etc., and the “Institut” of Paris, under those cities. An exception is an evil. This one is adopted because the universities and academies are almost universally known by the names of the cities, and are hardly ever referred to by the name Königliche, Real, etc.
Exception 2. Enter London guilds under the name of the trade; e. g., “Stationers’ Company,” not “Master and Keepers or Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery and Art of Stationers of the City of London,” which is the corporate title. This exception is adopted because (1) it gives a heading easier to find, and (2) it would be difficult in many cases to ascertain the real names of the London companies.