Transcript Evolution of cataloging norms from ancient Mesopotamia to RDA

Evolution of cataloging
norms from ancient
Mesopotamia to RDA
Presented by Harold Thiele
At the ALCTS – CaMMS Cataloging
Norms Interest Group, ALA MidWinter meeting, Seattle, 1/26/2013
Mesopotamia
Sumer >>> Assyria
The earliest evidence of a written language is
attributed to the Mesopotamia civilization of
Sumer, located in Southern Iraq.
3500 BC proto-cuneiform was in use.
Documents were being produced by inscribing
text into clay and wood tablets.
By 2600 BC cuneiform syllabic script was in use.
Libraries / archives were being formed.
Cataloguing practices were being developed.
Mesopotamia
Sumer > Akkadia
What Problems did the
‘Scribe/Librarians’ have to solve?
How to identify the work at hand.
Clay & wooden tablets
No titles, authors, publishers, etc.
How to organize the works.
Catalogs
Shelf listing
What did the ‘scribe/librarians’ do?
Analysis of the earliest tablets and catalogs
give us some impression of the approaches
these early scribe/librarians took to get
control of the materials they were
responsible for.
Developed classed / subject classification
Developed the colophon
Compiled lists of works from the colophons and
developed catalogs
Colophons
The scribe/librarians began to add a ‘tag’ to
the tablet/s that provided information about
the tablet – a colophon.
They began creating these tags using selected
keywords from the first two lines of text
(Dalby, 1986).
The practice of using keywords to identify
text was abandoned relatively quickly.
Keyword colophons and catalogs appear only
in the earliest deposits.
Incipits
 The scribe/librarians continued to innovate,
looking for better ways to identify their texts.
 Early on the scribe/librarians began to identify
the texts by the first few words of the opening
line of the text – the incipit.
In time, they began skipping formulaic opening
words.
 The use of the incipit was a way to identify a
physical tablet rather than an abstraction of a
literary work.
Incipits - 2
The use of the incipits proved to be very
successful and has been used from its
introduction in Sumer through today.
Incipits are still used to identify untitled
poems, songs, prayers, hymns, Papal Bulls,
and so forth.
Word processors use incipits to identify
documents.
Incipits are part of standard music notation.
Descriptive Phrase
While the incipit proved to be useful in
identifying literary works, it was less useful
for a wide range of other materials
(accounting, scientific, technical, medical,
cooking, contracts, and so forth).
To handle these materials, the scribe /
librarian would create a descriptive phrase
that identified the contents of the text.
Development of the Title
The use of the incipit or descriptive
phrase to identify texts caused them to
became the de facto title of the text.
Emphasis was place on developing an
excellent opening line that would make
a good incipit.
It is only in the modern era that the
creation of a title for a text has
replaced the use of the incipit.
Colophons 2
Colophons developed rapidly to
include sequence, title,
responsibility (scribe), and
additional info.
Percentage of tablets with
colophons increases with time.
Colophons used to generate
catalogues.
Catalogues
Shortly after the development of the
colophon, the scribe/librarians developed the
idea of aggregating the ‘title’ information
into lists or catalogs.
The catalogs developed over time to include
the title, extent, and other information.
The catalogs rapidly became subject related
catalogs.
Development of the Main Entry
The consequence of the development of
the catalog was the development of the
main entry.
The catalog listed the complete entry of
the item giving the title, extent, form,
and often included its location – a title
main entry.
Title Main Entry
The Title Main Entry was developed in Sumer
and remained the preferred catalog entry in
Mesopotamia and many other areas of the
world, especially the Orient.
During the antiquity period throughout
Mesopotamia and the rest of the literary
world authors were rarely acknowledged.
There is only one known author from this
period.
Enheduanna
(2285-2250 BCE)
 First named author in all of world
literature
 'The Sumerian Temple Hymns' ; Nin-mesara, "The Exaltation of Inanna“ ; In-nin
sa-gur-ra (incomplete) ; In-nin me-husa, "Inanna and Ebih ; Hymn to Nanna.
 Akkadian princess, daughter of King
Sargon of Akkad, High Priestess of the
Moon god Nanna in the Sumerian citystate of Ur
 Copies of her work were maintained for
millennia after her death in temples in
Nippur, Ur, and Lagash.
Classed / Subject Cataloging
 Examination of the Sumerian and Akkadian
catalogs reveals that the Mesopotamians
organized their libraries into subject holdings
areas. Most catalogs represent the texts in a
single holdings area.
 von Dassow (2005) re-examination of Woolley’s
1930/40’s excavation at Alalah findspots records
revealed a larger role of libraries in general and
the presence of specialized library holdings and
unrecognized personal and family libraries
within the ruling households.
Relationships
von Dassow found that the Mesopotamian
library was a distributed library with holdings
scattered throughout the building or
compound. Catalogs found within a holdings
area were related to those holdings.
Author Main Entry
The development of the author main entry
would have to wait two millennia for the
Greeks.
The concept of the added entry would have
to wait for almost four millennia for Thomas
Hyde and the 1674 Catalog of the Bodleian
Library.
Greece – Rise of the Author
The next major development in main
entry occurred in the Hellenistic world.
During the 6th Century BC, many works
originally designed for oral recitation by
trained bards were written down to
stabilize the text.
5th Century BC copies of literary works
of known authors become common
Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, etc.
Establishment of Authoritative Versions
Because of growing scandals involving
misrepresentations, in the mid 4th
Century BC, Athens requires that an
authoritative version of each play be
kept on file.
Actors required to follow this text
Beginning of idea of copyright
There is a growing recognition of
‘author’ as an important bibliographic
value.
Library of Alexandria
c. 295 BC 48 BC? ~ 2nd C AD? ~ 391 AD? ~ 642 AD? ~ ?
 The Library of Alexandria is given credit for the
development of the author main entry.
 Major increase in collection size and range ~
growth estimates ca. 30,000 to 700,000 papyrus
scrolls covering all subject areas.
Title estimates range from 20,000 to over
1,000,000
 Within subject holdings area, the scrolls were
arranged alphabetically by author.
 Index rolls were associated with each bin that
lists the contents of the bins.
Callimachus
310/305–240 BC
 Librarian at the Library of Alexandria credited
with producing the complete and
chronologically arranged catalogue of the
Library of Alexandria.
 Called the Pinakes, its formal title was Tables of
Persons Eminent in Every Branch of Learning
together with a List of Their Writings.
It was a classed catalogue
120 volumes long
Each Table represented a subject/literature area
Alphabetically arranged by author (1st letter)
Pinakes
Callimachus' system divided works into six
genres and five sections of prose.
Law, history, medicine, mathematics, natural
science, and miscellanies.
Rhetoric, epic, tragedy, comedy, and lyric poetry.
Within each category the contents were
alphabetized by author.
Systematic Presentation
 Biographical sketch of the author -- provided
the author's name, birthplace, his father's name,
any teachers he trained under, and his
educational background.
 List of the author's publications in alphabetical
order
Started with a title.
First line of the work,
Summary of its contents,
Information about the origin of the roll.
Pinakes 2
 Pinakes were not unusual in Hellenistic libraries.
 Classed catalog.
 Initial arrangement was by subject area.
 Systematic presentation.
 Author Main Entry
 Alphabetical listing (1st letter)
 Biographical details (authority record)
 Title 2nd Entry
 Alphabetical, chronological, or classed listing
 Bibliographic details (authority record)
 The Pinakes became a model to use all over the Mediterranean.
 Influence can be traced to medieval times.
 10th C. Arabic counterpart Ibn al-Nadim's Al-Fihrist ("Index").
 Variations on this system were used in libraries until the late 1800s.
Rome to the 17th Century
Very little development of library catalogs
during this period.
Generally it was a period of regression.
The few lists that might pass for a catalog were
poorly executed inventory lists.
No consistency in how the entries were formed.
The grand collections of the Hellenistic period
were gone.
Thomas Hyde
 Bodleian catalogs of 1674 and 1738
 Presented a formal set of codes for entry,
preference for author main entry.
 Tries to bring together the works of an author
references
from variant forms of an author’s name
also from variant ways of entering a work.
 Marks the beginnings of added entries to a main
entry.
 Catalogs are no longer single entry listings.
From Hyde to AACR2
Growing formalization of cataloging codes
that focused on main entry (preferred
author), with added entries.
The flexibility of the card catalog enabled the
use of a limited number of added entries.
The development of the computer and
networking added pressure to revisit the
main and added entry concepts
RDA
Main entry and added entry terminology no
longer used.
Authorized access points and variant access
points used.
Strong stated preference for creator – title
format for access points.
Use of a wider variety of access points
strongly encouraged to take advantage of
computer data manipulation strong points.