Cataloging (library science)


In library and information science, cataloging or cataloguing is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as author's names, titles, and subject terms that describe resources, typically through the creation of bibliographic records. The records serve as surrogates for the stored information resources. Since the 1970s these metadata are in machine-readable form and are indexed by information retrieval tools, such as bibliographic databases or search engines. While typically the cataloging process results in the production of library catalogs, it also produces other types of discovery tools for documents and collections.
Bibliographic control provides the philosophical basis of cataloging, defining the rules that sufficiently describe information resources, and enable users to find and select the most appropriate resource. A cataloger is an individual responsible for the processes of description, subject analysis, classification, and authority control of library materials. Catalogers serve as the "foundation of all library service, as they are the ones who organize information in such a way as to make it easily accessible".

Cataloging different kinds of materials

Cataloging is a process made in different kinds of institutions and about different kinds of materials, such as books, pictures, museum objects etc. The literature of library and information science is dominated by library cataloging, but it is important to consider other forms of cataloging. For example, there are special systems for cataloging museum objects that have been developed, e.g., Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging. Also, some formats have been developed in some opposition to library cataloging formats, for example, the common communication format for bibliographical databases. About cataloging different kinds of cultural objects, see O'Keefe and Oldal.

Six functions of bibliographic control

Ronald Hagler identified six functions of bibliographic control.
  • "Identifying the existence of all types of information resources as they are made available." The existence and identity of an information resource must be known before it can be found.
  • "Identifying the works contained within those information resources or as parts of them." Depending on the level of granularity required, multiple works may be contained in a single package, or one work may span multiple packages. For example, is a single photo considered an information resource? Or can a collection of photos be considered an information resource?
  • "Systematically pulling together these information resources into collections in libraries, archives, museums, and Internet communication files, and other such depositories." Essentially, acquiring these items into collections so that they can be of use to the user.
  • "Producing lists of these information resources prepared according to standard rules for citation." Examples of such retrieval aids include library catalogs, indexes, archival finding aids, etc.
  • "Providing name, title, subject, and other useful access to these information resources." Ideally, there should be many ways to find an item so there should be multiple access points. There must be enough metadata in the surrogate record so users can successfully find the information resource they are looking for. These access points should be consistent, which can be achieved through authority control.
  • "Providing the means of locating each information resource or a copy of it." In libraries, the online public access catalog can give the user location information and indicate whether the item is available.

    History of bibliographic control

While the organization of information has been going on since antiquity, bibliographic control as we know it today is a more recent invention. Ancient civilizations recorded lists of books onto tablets and libraries in the Middle Ages kept records of their holdings. With the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, multiple copies of a single book could be produced quickly. Johann Tritheim, a German librarian, was the first to create a bibliography in chronological order with an alphabetical author index. Conrad Gessner followed in his footsteps in the next century as he published an author bibliography and subject index. He added to his bibliography an alphabetical list of authors with inverted names, which was a new practice. He also included references to variant spellings of author's names, a precursor to authority control. Andrew Maunsell further revolutionized bibliographic control by suggesting that a book should be findable based on the author's last name, the subject of the book, and the translator. In the 17th century Sir Thomas Bodley was interested in a catalog arranged alphabetically by author's last name as well as subject entries. Sir Robert Cotton's library catalogued books with busts of famous Romans. The busts were organized by their name, i.e. N for Nero, and then came the shelf with its assigned letter, and then the roman numeral of the title's number. For example, the cataloging for The Lindisfarne Gospels reads Nero D IV. Cotton's cataloging method is still in use for his collection in the British Library. In 1697, Frederic Rostgaard called for subject arrangement that was subdivided by both chronology and by size, as well as an index of subjects and authors by last name and for word order in titles to be preserved based on the title page.
After the French Revolution, France's government was the first to put out a national code containing instructions for cataloging library collections. At the British Museum Library Anthony Panizzi created his "Ninety-One Cataloging Rules", which essentially served as the basis for cataloging rules of the 19th and 20th centuries. Charles C. Jewett applied Panizzi's "91 Rules" at the Smithsonian Institution.

Types of cataloging

Descriptive cataloging

"Descriptive cataloging" is a well-established concept in the tradition of library cataloging in which a distinction is made between descriptive cataloging and subject cataloging, each applying a set of standards, different qualifications and often also different kinds of professionals. In the tradition of documentation and information science the concept document representation have mostly been used to cover both "descriptive" and "subject" representation. Descriptive cataloging has been defined as "the part of cataloging concerned with describing the physical details of a book, such as the form and choice of entries and the title page transcription."

Subject cataloging

Subject cataloging may take the form of classification or Indexing. subject cataloguing is the process of assigning terms that describe what a bibliographic item is about whereby Cataloguers perform subject analysis for items in their library, most commonly selecting terms from an authorized list of subject headings, otherwise known as a 'controlled vocabulary. Classification involves the assignment of a given document to a class in a classification system. Indexing is the assignment of characterizing labels to the documents represented in a record.
Classification typically uses a controlled vocabulary, while indexing may use a controlled vocabulary, free terms, or both.

History

Libraries have made use of catalogs in some form since ancient times. The very earliest evidence of categorization is from a collection of clay tablets marked in cuneiform script from Nippur, an ancient Sumerian city in present-day Iraq, wherein two lists of works of Sumerian literature of various myths, hymns, and laments are listed. As one tablet had 62 titles, and the other 68, with 43 titles common between them, and 25 new titles in the latter, they are thought to comprise a catalog of the same collection at different periods of time.
The library of Ashurbanipal in ancient Nineveh is the first library known to have a classification system on clay tablets. They had cuneiform marks on each side of the tablet. The Library of Alexandria is reported to have had at least a partial catalog consisting of a listing by Callimachus of the Greek literature called "Pinakes". There were originally 825 fragments of Callimachus' "Pinakes", but only 25 of them have survived. The Chinese Imperial Library of the Han dynasty of the 3rd century A.D. had a catalog listing nearly 30,000 items, each item similar in extent of its content to a Western scroll. The first catalogs in the Islamic world, around the 11th century, were lists of books donated to libraries by persons in the community. These lists were ordered by donor, not by bibliographic information, but they provided a record of the library's inventory.
Many early and medieval libraries in Europe were associated with religious institutions and orders, including the Papal library in Rome. The first Vatican Library catalog is from the late 14th century. These catalogs generally used a topical arrangement that reflected the topical arrangement of the books themselves. The Vatican Library published 'rules for the catalog of printed books' in 1939. These rules were then translated to English and published in the United States in 1949. Back in medieval times, the library of the Sorbonne in Paris had accumulated more than one thousand books, and in 1290 their catalog pioneered the use of the alphabet as an organizing tool.
It was the growth in libraries after the invention of moveable-type printing and the widespread availability of paper that created the necessity for a catalog that organized the library's materials so that they could be found through the catalog rather than "by walking around." By the 17th century libraries became seen as collections of universal knowledge. Two 17th-century authors, Gabriel Naudé, in France, and John Dury, in Scotland, both developed theories of systematic organization of libraries. The development of principles and rules that would guide the librarian in the creation of catalogs followed. The history of cataloging begins at this point.
In ancient times in the orient the title was used to identify the work. Since the renaissance the author has been the main source of identification.