Stationery. The Author-Entry. Full Names. Imprint and Collation. Order of Information Tabulated. Subject-Entry. Headings. Class-Entry.
To study systematically the various codes of cataloguing rules is of great value to the beginner in the work of cataloguing a library, though the apparent variations and contradictions in the codes are at first somewhat confusing. Their practical application to work in hand serves better to prove the usefulness and necessity of adopting some code or a modification of it before much progress is made. Once a choice is made, it is better to adhere to it uniformly throughout.
The purpose of the catalogue has a bearing upon the nature of the stationery required. A catalogue cannot be written into a book like an inventory; each item—even books by the same author or upon the same subject—must be upon a separate paper slip or card cut uniformly to any size fixed upon. Paper slips serve quite well for manuscript, or "copy" as it is termed, for the printer, but tough cards of good quality are needed for a catalogue on cards to be handled by many persons. It is a good plan in any case first to prepare the catalogue upon slips or cards for office use; then, when checked and revised, to copy from these for public use, either upon the good quality cards as suggested, or into the book-form of catalogues with separate leaves, known as "sheaf-catalogues." This last-named form is preferable for public use, and takes up less room. Any size of slips or cards may be adopted provided they are exactly cut to a fixed size, 5 inches by 3 inches being convenient; or the size usually provided with the index filing outfits, now so generally in commercial use, which were first used in the cataloguing of libraries, and then applied to other purposes. If the slips or cards are for handwriting, they should be ruled "feint" across, and whether so written or typed, are better with red lines marking margins of about half an inch at each side. If written by hand, the writing should be round, clear, of fair size, and above all, free from flourishes, whether written for public use or for the printer.
Two of the first questions a catalogue will be expected to answer are
Have you a particular book by a given author?
What books have you by a named author?
These two questions are not precisely identical, though they are both answered by the same form of catalogue entry, namely, that under the surname of the writer of the book, known as the "author-entry." This, or some substitute therefor, is invariably regarded as the main, or principal, entry. Though the placing or position of such an entry is not the same in both the dictionary and classified forms of catalogue, one falling under the author's name according to its place in the alphabet, and the other into its position in a class, the form of the entry itself is the same in both. The particulars for this entry must always be taken from the full title-page of the book, never from the binding or from the preliminary or half-title, though at times this half or "bastard-title" will furnish the name of the series or some other detail not given elsewhere but wanted for full-entry.
The title-page of the first book we deal with reads:—
IN PORTUGAL
BY AUBREY F. G. BELL