Library catalog

“ The moral to be pointed out is that the catalog must be good as a first requisite to a library. In the words of the old comparison, the catalog is the key to the otherwise hidden material buried in books. In a library of any size, the best desk attendant in the world is almost helpless, or at best constantly handicapped, without a convenient and rational classification of the volumes of the collection and the bibliographical aid of a catalogue. The born bibliographer is as rare as the born teacher or poet. ”

“ Hopkins refers to was regarding the revision of the "A. L. A. catalog" of the 5000 best books. We feel the need in small libraries, and I think the need is felt where libraries are trying to organize, for a revision of that catalog. We all use that in small libraries when making out lists of standard works. There are many of them out of print. If we could have a revision of that catalog on printed cards it seems to me it would be a great help in the work of library extension as well as to smaller libraries which have little cataloging force—where the librarian has to be cataloger. ”

“ A catalog can never be made to take the place of a reference librarian, or of an intelligent use of the important annual and other subject indexes to the literature of a subject, such as Psychological Index, the various Jahresberichte, etc. Moreover, every reference or department librarian naturally does more or less in the way of keeping up card indexes or bibliographies, which are frequently revised and the old material discarded as new and better material takes its place. ”

“ Lists in which the titles of the books come first are better liked by the general public than are author-lists. People commonly know books by name, not by author.
Don't make the mistake of spending much money, at the library's beginning, for a printed catalog. A printed catalog, as stated in chapter 25, is not a necessity. It is useful, particularly for home use, to tell whether the library owns certain books; but with a good card catalog, newspaper lists, special lists, and the like, it is not a necessity. ”

“ A catalog is a labor-saving device in library work. From it both reader and attendant can ascertain whether the library has a certain book. By consulting the catalog for the class-number, the book may be looked for in its proper place, thus often saving hunting through the shelves in several classes.
A printed list or catalog of the library is one of the first things that will be asked for by the public. It is useful especially for those who cannot well visit the library. But it is very expensive; it is out of date as soon as issued; it cannot often be sold ”

“ When books come to the catalog department singly and at odd times the labor of verifying author entries and subject headings is the same as for new titles, and the making of cards becomes a mechanical process only when they are to be made in large quantities. Every branch added to the library system increases the work of the cataloging department, a fact often lost sight of by the chief administrators of a library. ”

“ It is easy to see that with printed cards and expert service, catalog cards can be fuller in information, can be critically annotated, perhaps, can be made more often for analyticals, subject and author, and that the use of the catalog by the library assistant can be much more constant and more discriminating. ”

“ There is danger that not enough cataloging research work will be done when the cataloging is done in the department library, because many of the important catalog and bibliographical aids are not accessible outside the catalog department—for example, the depository or union catalog of printed cards. ”

“ I. BOOKS
*American catalog of books in print from 1876-1896, 5v. with annual supplement. The Publishers' weekly, N. Y. Several of the volumes are out of print. All are expensive. They are not needed by the very small library. The recent years of the annual volumes are essential.
Card catalog rules; accessions-book rules; shelf-list rules; Library Bureau, 1899, $1.25. These are called the Library school rules.
Catalog of A. L. A. library; 5000v. for a popular library, selected by the American Library Association, and shown at the World's Columbian exhibition, Washington, 1893. ”

“ Author card. (Reduced; actual size, 71⁄2 x 121⁄2 cm.)
Preserve this catalog with great care. It is the key to the records in shelf-list and accession book. In a small library the public may very properly use it. As soon as possible, if your library is to be quite large and much used, prepare for public use a duplicate of it, omitting all those entries in the original which are of use only to the librarian.
The average reader more often remembers the titles of books than their authors. ”

“ It has brought to notice many notable contributions to library literature, such as the Author table, by C. A. Cutter, of the Boston athenæum; Decimal classification and relative index and Library notes, by Melvil Dewey; Library journal; Library school rules; Perkins' manual; Linderfelt's rules; Sargent's Reading for the young; Lists of books for different clubs; Subject headings of A. L. A., etc. The Library Bureau catalog itself is one of the best library aids ever published. These catalogs have always been sent free to library workers. ”

“ It is pointed out that the reading of fiction in British municipal libraries is much less than commonly believed, being only 24 percent, even after due allowance is made for the reading of fiction in current magazines. Attention is called to the gradual disappearance of the unclassified municipal library, although in 1910 there were over 340 not closely classified, but only arranged in broad numerical or alphabetical divisions. The replacement of printed catalogs in book form by card catalogs and other forms, like the sheaf catalog, easily kept up to date, is noted as growing in favor. ”

“ A manila catalog card tells us that the material may be found outside of the city, whereas by stamping the name of the library in the place of the call number on a white card, we indicate that the material is in town. Subject entries only are made for material of this sort.
There are many indexes already in existence which will supplement the catalog and call to the attention of the worker available material. One of the most valuable sources of all is found in the experts of the neighborhood. The librarian is too prone to think that all the most useful knowledge is in books or printed form. ”

“ More accomplished reference librarians must be had to meet the needs of clients in a great institution with a large number of graduate students. Catalogers of special qualifications must be provided to handle the books in oriental and other languages not commonly encountered in the ordinary college library. In the work of a large cataloging department there is more opportunity for lack of uniformity to creep in, and the need of accuracy in an enormous catalog is more vital than in a small one. ”

“ Part of the plan is to keep the printed catalogs of the small library up to date and to scatter copies of them widely throughout the city by selling them at a nominal price. It is always expensive to prepare and print a good catalog; it is very expensive to issue new editions frequently. Still, if a popular library is to do its work well it must introduce its constituents to its books by means of frequent revised editions of a good, printed catalog. ”

“ For example, one can save considerable time in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress by recording call numbers in advance from the Library of Congress Online Catalog (E260) ; many libraries sponsor journals that print articles on their holdings and news of acquisitions; and most allow public access over the Internet to their electronic catalogs. Most library Web sites and commercial Web search engines provide links to library OPACs (online public-access catalogs) worldwide. ”

“ If a dictionary catalog is made it will prove to be most helpful to the serious students. For the average reader, the person who wishes to get a recent book, the latest novel, etc., prepare lists of additions from month to month, post them up in some convenient place in the library, and put them in a binder to be left on desk or table in the delivery room. ”

“ Now too much care cannot be taken, that they may be strictly agreable to the standing Rules of Justice & Equity, that they may not prove a grievance in stead of an advantage to the Subject; If the Rule be crooked, how shall our manners be Regular?... [13]
The Library of Congress copy, in a 19th-century morocco binding, contains no evidence of provenance, but it was undoubtedly in the Library's possession by 1878, for the title is listed in the Library catalog published that year. Another copy sold at auction in 1920 for $1,775, which was the largest amount ever paid for a Connecticut imprint. ”

“ A number of libraries throughout the United States maintain copies of the
Catalog, and this may provide a good starting point if you wish to make a
search yourself. There are some cases, however, in which a search of the
Catalog alone will not be sufficient to provide the needed information.
For example:
+ Because the Catalog does not include entries for assignments or other recorded documents, it cannot be used for searches involving the ownership of rights. ”

“ For example, OCLC has become one of the largest computer network organizations in the world by creating a cooperative cataloging network of more than 6,000 libraries worldwide. On-line public access catalogs now serve millions of users on more than 50,000 dedicated terminals in the United States alone. The University of California MELVYL on-line catalog system has now expanded into an index database reference service and supports more than six million searches a year. And, libraries have become the largest group of customers of CD-ROM publishing technology ”

“ Those who put such questions, or offer such congratulations, are naturally astonished when told that the library affords enough work to employ all my own time, as well as that of twenty assistants; and astonishment is apt to rise to bewilderment when it is added that seventeen of these assistants are occupied chiefly with "cataloguing;" for, generally, I find, a library catalogue is assumed to be a thing that is somehow "made" at a single stroke, as Aladdin's palace was built, at intervals of ten or a dozen years, or whenever a "new catalogue" is thought to be needed. ”

“ The value of a good catalogue does not depend upon its extent or size any more than does that of a good book, but rather upon the exactness of the method by which the information given is digested and concentrated. There are library catalogues so elaborately compiled and imposing in appearance that they might be, and often are, considered to be most excellent productions, whereas those who use them find them little more than a medley of book-titles—pedantic without being learned. ”

“ The extent to which the work of dissecting and "indexing" the contents of books of a miscellaneous nature is to be carried out in a library catalogue depends largely on the nature and purpose of the library, though a limit must be set to it in any case. It would be unusual to index the proceedings or transactions of a society, or the contents of reviews, or other periodical publications, however valuable they might be. ”

“ For example, all the texts are marked up in SGML, which will be made compatible with the guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) when they are issued.
Drawings are postscript files, not meeting international standards, but at least designed to go across platforms. Images, or rather the real archival forms, consist of the best available slides, which are being digitized. Much of the catalog material exists in database form—a form that the average user could use, manipulate, and display on a personal computer, but only at great cost. ”

“ This appointment was made in the days when it was the common fashion to regard the work of compiling a library catalogue as within the capacity of any intelligent person; whereas there are, in fact, many rules to be observed, and much practical experience is necessary if the p. 50thousand and one pitfalls which beset the path of the cataloguer are to be avoided. The catalogue [50a] was on much more ambitious lines than its predecessors, and the compiler claimed to “have carefully copied the title pages, retaining their abbreviations, antique spelling, inaccuracies, or other peculiarities.” ”

“ Catalogue of the Library of the Parliament of Queensland, 17. Official publications, 105. Order of sub-entries, rules for a small library, 244. Oriental names, treatment of, 95. —— Rules for a small library, 236. Oxford libraries, Langbaine's projected catalogue of, 6. Panizzi (Sir Anthony) , his code of rules, 25. —— Objection to print, 49. —— On a complete index of a library catalogue, 191. —— Views as to the cataloguing of anonymous works, 134. —— —— convert the Commissioners, 135. [264] Parry (John H.) , one of Committee for British Museum Rules, 26. —— in favour of print, 49. ”

“ A most commendable feature of modern cataloguing is the explanatory notes and other annotations appended to catalogue entries. These are for the most part to be found in the lists of additions to libraries published monthly, quarterly, or annually; such publications lending themselves readily to this descriptive form of cataloguing. The classified catalogue has also the advantage over the dictionary form for this purpose, because, rarely having more than a single entry for each book, the question as to where the note is to go does not arise. ”