CHAPTER II.
Short History of Modern Cataloguing.
The British Museum Rules. Jewett's Rules. Crestadoro's Catalogues. Huggins' Liverpool Catalogue. Cutter's Rules. The Anglo-American Code. Dziatzko's Instruction. Dewey's Classification. The British Museum and other Catalogues.
Before proceeding to consider the practical side of the subject, we may take a brief glance at the history of modern cataloguing of public libraries in this country. The earlier catalogues were limited either to author-entries or were classified according to the whims of the compiler, sometimes according to the rooms or shelves in which the books were placed.
The subject of cataloguing received the most serious attention in the year 1850, and, roundly, we may date its history from then. "The Rules for the Compilation of the Catalogue of Printed Books in the Library of the British Museum" had been adopted in 1839, and were printed in 1841. In a great measure they may be regarded as the basis of all cataloguing rules since that time, at any rate for author-entry or its equivalent. In 1850 a Royal Commission on the management of the British Museum had sat and issued its report, and rate-supported public libraries were coming into existence. There had been much discussion on the need for an adequate and promptly-produced catalogue of the books in the Museum, and many views upon the subject were set forth, especially by literary experts. Their criticism was in the main directed against the existing rules known as Panizzi's. Anthony Panizzi, then Principal Librarian, with others of the Museum staff, including Thomas Watts, Winter Jones, and Edward Edwards, had each separately prepared a set of rules according to his own ideas for the compilation of the projected catalogue, and these were afterwards discussed by the compilers collectively, and differences of opinion decided by vote.
The Secretary of this Royal Commission was J. Payne Collier, and he was one of the opposers of Panizzi's rules, especially taking exception to the fulness of entry because of the delay it entailed. To show practically how he would catalogue he tried his hand on twenty-five books in his own library and submitted the results. Mr. Winter Jones reported upon it, and said it contained almost every possible error which can be committed in cataloguing books. Payne Collier's attempt and his justification of it appear in the first part of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1850, where it will be seen that a German edition of Shakespeare is entered under the editor alone, and a play of Aristophanes is also so treated, besides other mistakes of a very amateurish nature.
In this same year (1850) attention was being directed in America to library cataloguing. The Smithsonian Institution sent out a circular to the effect that, being desirous of facilitating research in literature and science, and of thus aiding in the increase and diffusion of knowledge, it had resolved to form a general catalogue of the various libraries in the United States. The librarian of the institution, Prof. Charles C. Jewett, had prepared plans for the accomplishment of this object. The first part related to the stereotyping of catalogues by separate titles in a uniform style. This stereotyping was proposed to save time, labour, and expense in the preparation of new editions of such a general catalogue. Only as many copies as were needed for present use were to be struck off, and then new editions were to be printed from time to time with later additions also in stereotype. This idea, though it crops up from time to time, has now no novelty about it, though recent inventions in type-setting machines have certainly given cause for its reconsideration. No plan of this kind, particularly if it were to be co-operative among the libraries, could be of the least value unless there were uniformity of compilation according to fixed rules, and so the second part consists of a set of general rules to be recommended for adoption by the different libraries of the United States in the preparation of their catalogues. Jewett's code was based upon Panizzi's "Rules for the British Museum," with modifications and additions to suit them to general use, and more especially in connection with his proposed co-operative catalogue. Upon this point he says, "The rules for cataloguing must be stringent, and should meet as far as possible all difficulties of detail. Nothing, so far as can be avoided, should be left to the individual taste or judgment of the cataloguer. He should be a man of sufficient learning, accuracy, and fidelity, to apply the rules." In order to emphasise further the need for uniformity, he proceeds to say that "if the one adopted were that of the worst of our catalogues, if it were strictly followed in all alike, their uniformity would render catalogues thus made far more useful than the present chaos of irregularities." From his point of view of a national catalogue, he was perfectly right, though for general cataloguing the argument is not convincing. Probably there is room for a greater degree of uniformity in the catalogues of public libraries than exists at present, and a better understanding upon this point might be of some advantage to readers and workers generally. The fact that catalogue rules of a standard kind exist does not seem to have exercised any great influence in this respect.
The full title of Jewett's work is "On the Construction of Catalogues of Libraries and their Publication by means of separate Stereotyped Titles, with Rules and Examples, by Chas. C. Jewett, Librarian of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington." The first edition was issued in 1852, and another in the following year. The number of rules is thirty-nine, and they are furnished with a series of examples and a specimen subject-index. This may be regarded as the first code of rules which contains subject-entries as well as author-entries.
In 1856, some two years before Jewett put his rules into practice in a catalogue of the Boston Public Library, Mr. A. Crestadoro published a pamphlet on "The Art of Making Catalogues of Libraries." The system he recommended was to compile the catalogue with the titles of the books given fully, leading off with the author's names, but arranged in no particular order. These entries were to be consecutively numbered. To this list of books there was to be an index of authors and subjects in a brief form with the number referring to the entry in the main catalogue. The subject-words were to be taken from the titles of the books themselves and accordingly books with synonymous titles were entered under those titles with such cross-references as were needed. This method was put into force by Crestadoro when librarian of the Manchester Public Library, and the catalogue still remains in use for the older books in the Reference Library there. The first volume was published in 1864, the entries being numbered from 1 to 26,534, though they are arranged more or less alphabetically under authors' names, or the principal subject-words if anonymous. To this volume is attached a brief subject-matter index. Two later volumes were published in 1879, and in these the books are apparently entered very much as they were received into the Library. A separate volume, however, serves as an index, both of authors and subjects, to all three volumes, and this volume is still the real finding catalogue, the volumes with the full particulars being little used in comparison.
This index-form of brief entries of authors and subjects in one alphabet was utilised for catalogues of lending libraries in Manchester; the following example of later date being taken from one of these:—
Glacial Period, Man and the. By Wright
Glaciers of the Alps: a Lecture. By Molloy
Gladiators. By Melville
Gladman (F. J.) School Method
Gladstone (Catherine) Life of. By Pratt
Gladstone (J. H.) Michael Faraday.
Gladstone (W. E.) Biography of. By Russell
— Biography of. By Smith
— Character of.
— England under. By McCarthy
— Essay on. By Brown
— Gladstone's House of Commons. By O'Connor
— Gleanings of Past Years
— Government. By Kent
— Homer
— Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture