Curiosities of the Catalogue

[Bill Bell]

Some time ago I was told a story (which may be apocryphal) about a
witty cataloguer in Australia who consigned A. Trollope's Autobiography
to the university's 'special collections' because it might not be
suitable for impressionable minds.

Today I came across another (unintentionally I think) witty entry in COPAC:

Title - God seen in all his works, etc.
Author - GOD
Series - (Books for little readers.)
Publisher - Thomas Nelson & Sons : [London & Edinburgh]
Year - 1850
HL - British Library

Has anybody else come across such amusing items? Not a very scholarly
question I'm afraid.

Bill Bell
--
Dr. Bill Bell
Centre for the History of the Book
& School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
18 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh
EH8 9LN
[phone]
http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb

[Jenny Lee]

Another Australian example is Shearers' Motel, a literary travel
memoir by Roger McDonald, which was assigned a Dewey
cataloguing-in-publication number in the 630s. In my local library,
it sits rather oddly between 'Raising Better Sheep' and 'Poultry
Farming for Profit'.

Jenny

[Patrick Buckridge]

Yet another Australian example is the novelist-historian Ross Fitzgerald's
1987 novel _All About Anthrax_, which he assures me was originally
mis-catalogued (somewhere) under 'Diseases of stock'. (This of course in
a pre-9/11 world).

Patrick Buckridge
Brisbane.

[James R. Kelly]

Bill,

As a practicing cataloger (or cataloguer as you may prefer), I very much
appreciated your droll tale.

Anent your bibliographic record for God Seen n All His Works as authored by
God, I must inform you (wearing my cataloger's hat and with tongue wedged
firmly in cheek) that the Library of Congress in all of its august majesty has
seen fit to deem "God" a subject heading and NOT a personal or corporate
author and thus incapable of authorship him-, her-, or itself. The subject
authority record:


LC Control Number: sh 85055517
HEADING: God
000 00517cz a2200229n 450
001 4706974
005 20060808002727.0
008 860211|| anannbabn |b ana
035 __ |a (DLC)sh 85055517
035 __ |a (DLC)53659
035 __ |a (DLC)6876236
035 __ |a (DLC)sp 85055517
035 __ |a (DLC)344421
906 __ |t 0629 |u te04 |v 0
010 __ |a sh 85055517
040 __ |a DLC |c DLC |d DLC
150 __ |a God
550 __ |a Metaphysics
550 __ |a Monotheism
550 __ |a Religion
550 __ |a Theism
953 __ |a xx00 |b ta27


The 150 field is the preferred form of the name and the 550 fields are "see
also" cross references. Or is that more than any sentient person really needs
to know?!

By the way, there were some apocryphal stories afoot back in the 1980's about
recordings from the pop star Madonna which when cataloged were connected by
see references to "Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint" as the "author". While likely
exaggerated, nonetheless it goes far to fill a cataloger's otherwise
introspective day!

Cheers,

Jim Kelly



James R. Kelly
Humanities Bibliographer
W.E.B. Du Bois Library
University of Massachusetts
154 Hicks Way
Amherst, MA 01003-9275

American Co-Editor
Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature
Department of English
Bartlett Hall
University of Massachusetts
130 Hicks Way
Amherst, MA 01003-9269

[phone]; [phone] (fax)
E-mail: ***@library.umass.edu

Adjunct faculty, Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information
Science; Visiting Fellow, Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies

[Barbara Hochman]

Dear All

This interesting thread gives me an opening for the following
question:

Some time ago I was looking for editions of Uncle Tom's Cabin at Columbia
U, rare books room, and I noticed that many of the editions that were
catalogued in collections of children's literature were not in fact
children's versions (though some were). When I asked about this I was told
that the cataloguing had to do with groups of books donated together as a
collection, rather than any assessment of whether a specific book was a
children's book, or not.

I would be interested in any comments on the cataloguing issue as well as
any input on the extent to which Uncle Tom's Cabin is regarded as a
children's book (in library catalogues, or out!).

Thanks!

Barbara

==============
Barbara Hochman
Chair
Department of Foreign Literatures
and Linguistics
Ben Gurion University
Beersheva 84105
ISRAEL

[shults_t]

Barbara Hochman raises the question of placement by cataloging rules versus
placement by local library policy.

At a time when smoking was being restricted but not banned on campuses and
there was also a drive to "build" Afro-American collections, every book that
had anything to do with Africans (by Frank Buck, Evelyn Waugh. .) was put in
the "Afro-American Library" at XXXXXX Library, which was also the library's
smoking room. Some found that a racist sort of thing to do, of course. . .

And those carefree days of U.S. GovDocs. Keeping them together as a
collection with SuDoc numbers is a pain to infrequent users, but the
collection integrated
into the LC's is a pain to veteran users, who find the World Bank materials,
for example, scattered all over the LC world, country by country.

More recently, I know someone who had trouble with a faculty member who
donated a number of items and didn't like where they were placed and
insisted that they be recataloged so as to be in a place where students
would find them more easily.

Patrons looking for Texana in our online catalog will find some items in
general circulation and some of the same titles in restricted-use
collections by donation parameters. The Dunagan Texana collection is in
locked glass cabinets but the books can be checked out. The Permian
Historical Society Archives monographs were donated to the Society. Special
Collections monographs were "retired" from circulation or were donated for
that archival designation. And the John Ben Shepperd personal library was
kept intact and archived. It features Texana, including some rarities, but
also his extensive collection of action paperback series (The Destroyer, The
Executioner, The Butcher et al) which no one ever asks to read in the
Archives!

Terrance G."Terry" Shults, Ph.D.
Head of Technical Services
Dunagan Library
University of Texas of the Permian Basin
4901 E. University
Odessa TX 79762
***@utpb.edu

[bill olbrich]

Once upon a time, when card catalogues ruled in libraries, smart-alecky students and library school students enjoyed adding literary "ghosts" to the collection. With a little effort and some ingenuity, official-looking records appeared with the culprit's self-satisfaction they would remain in the card drawers almost indefinitely. Alas, in these days of MARC and OCLC computer control, the original American imprint of Abdul Alhazred's _Necronomicon_ (Arkham University Press, 1920?) and the wonderful parody of the "Deteriorata" are almost impossible to locate. I'm sure my library colleagues on this list could add more examples of the arcane practice.

===>bill




"You can't know if 18-, 19-, or 20-year-olds ever believe what you're saying"
--Tyrone Willingham
Bill Olbrich 8723 Brigeport Ave St. Louis, MO 63144 [phone] <***@yahoo.com>

[Lorna Peterson]

When I worked at Wright State University (Dayton OH) in 1980-81, an art
student created catalog cards and added them to the three areas
(subject, title, author) of our card catalog. I came across them while
filing new cards. I pulled them, showed them to my boss and said that we
had to keep them and catalog them as an artist book. So we contacted the
student, she agreed, and the cards were put together in some way and
cataloged, classified, and placed in Special Collections. Wish I could
remember more details and I hope the cataloging records and material still
exist. lp

Lorna Peterson
University at Buffalo

Post by bill olbrich
Once upon a time, when card catalogues ruled in libraries, smart-alecky students and library school students enjoyed adding literary "ghosts" to the collection. With a little effort and some ingenuity, official-looking records appeared with the culprit's self-satisfaction they would remain in the card drawers almost indefinitely. Alas, in these days of MARC and OCLC computer control, the original American imprint of Abdul Alhazred's _Necronomicon_ (Arkham University Press, 1920?) and the wonderful parody of the "Deteriorata" are almost impossible to locate. I'm sure my library colleagues on this list could add more examples of the arcane practice.
===>bill
"You can't know if 18-, 19-, or 20-year-olds ever believe what you're saying"
--Tyrone Willingham

[Peter Hoare]

An ironic example of misunderstanding in a (former) library of an
institution concerned with librarianship, many years ago:

Svensk katalogregler / Andra Upplagen

is what is on the title-page, and it was duly catalogued under the author as
'Upplagen, Andra'. Later another similar book was added, and catalogued
under Andra's presumptive brother, 'Upplagan, Tredje'. Clearly this was a
typo, and someone altered the catalogue card to read 'Fredje', a much more
likely forename. It's a pity, really, that 'Andra / Tredje upplagan' means
'Second / Third edition' in Swedish'.

I'm also reminded of the enquiry on SHARP or some other list more recently
asking for the identification of an author called Tomus Alter (otherwise
'Second volume' in Latin).

Peter Hoare
________________________________________________________
Peter Hoare, 21 Oundle Drive, Wollaton Park, Nottingham NG8 1BN
Tel/fax [phone] E-mail ***@virgin.net
________________________________________________________

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Bell" <***@ED.AC.UK>
To: <SHARP-***@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 9:36 PM
Subject: Curiosities of the Catalogue

Some time ago I was told a story (which may be apocryphal) about a witty
cataloguer in Australia who consigned A. Trollope's Autobiography to the
university's 'special collections' because it might not be suitable for
impressionable minds.
Title - God seen in all his works, etc.
Author - GOD
Series - (Books for little readers.)
Publisher - Thomas Nelson & Sons : [London & Edinburgh]
Year - 1850
HL - British Library
Has anybody else come across such amusing items? Not a very scholarly
question I'm afraid.
Bill Bell
--
Dr. Bill Bell
Centre for the History of the Book
& School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
18 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh
EH8 9LN
[phone]
http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb

[Stuart James]

The last time we changed systems the catalogue conversion altered all
our formerly plural keywords to singular. No problem with that in
principle except that among the results the town of St Andrews became St
Andrew while Dumfries became Dumfry (as pointed out to me - gleefully -
before we had noticed the error by the regional librarian of Dumfries
and Galloway). A salutary lesson about blanket changes on computerised
systems. We had fun thinking of and seeking out to correct (manually of
course) other such results.

Stuart James
University Librarian
University of Paisley
Some time ago I was told a story (which may be apocryphal) about a
witty cataloguer in Australia who consigned A. Trollope's Autobiography

to the university's 'special collections' because it might not be
suitable for impressionable minds.

Today I came across another (unintentionally I think) witty entry in
COPAC:

Title - God seen in all his works, etc.
Author - GOD
Series - (Books for little readers.)
Publisher - Thomas Nelson & Sons : [London & Edinburgh]
Year - 1850
HL - British Library

Has anybody else come across such amusing items? Not a very scholarly

question I'm afraid.

Bill Bell
--
Dr. Bill Bell
Centre for the History of the Book
& School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
18 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh
EH8 9LN
[phone]
http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb

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[William M. Klimon]

Once upon a time, when card catalogues ruled in libraries, smart-alecky >students and library school students enjoyed adding literary "ghosts" to the >collection. With a little effort and some ingenuity, official-looking records >appeared with the culprit's self-satisfaction they would remain in the card >drawers almost indefinitely.

One of the classic examples is the work of the "great" Protestant theologian Franz Bibfeldt:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/28/bookend/bookend.html
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/9502/Feb95Bibfeldt.html

William M. Klimon
***@alumni.upenn.edu

[dfarren]

I see on another list the announcement of a FORTHCOMING Cultural History of
Reading; Volume One - The United States. Volume Two - The World.
Publisher: Greenwood. Due Date: Summer 2007. Editors: Sara Quay Ph.D. (the
United States) and Gabrielle Watling Ph.D. (World), which "is designed as a
reference for an undergraduate readership."

I wonder what AT PRESENT could be recommended as readings for an
undergraduate course on the history of reading, including theoretical
aspects (especially for 19th-C U.S., my specific interest).

I note that The Reading Experience Database 1450-1945 posts an excellent
list of "Selected publications on the history and practice of reading"
<http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/RED/index.html>, which however, as expected, is
weighted toward its mission, "to accumulate as much data as possible about
the reading experiences of British subjects."


Donald Farren
4009 Bradley Lane
Chevy Chase, MD 20815-5238
***@concentric.net
voice 301.951.9479
fax [phone]
mobile [phone]

[Jenny Lee]

Hi, Donald

A good starting point is Leah Price's survey article 'Reading: the
state of the discipline', in Book History, 2004.

Jenny Lee

[John A. Lane]

In UCLA's card catalogue ca. 1981 I noticed a card for a bible. A
librarian had stamped the card with one of the library's standard
rubber stamps that said, 'for other editions, see under author'.

Post by Bill Bell
Has anybody else come across such amusing items?
Bill Bell

[Bill Bell]

John Lane's last message reminds me that in the Library of a
conservative baptist college in Lynchburg, Virginia, there was a copy
of the King James Bible which bore the college's standard book plate
which said something like 'While this book represents something of the
wealth of knowledge in the world today, Liberty University does not
necessarily endorse its contents'. It was put there by a student
employee who did, in fact, see the irony of it.

Thank you all for the generous (not to say witty) examples that have
been provided of cataloguing curiosities.

Bill
--
Dr. Bill Bell
Centre for the History of the Book
& School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
18 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh
EH8 9LN
[phone]
http://www.arts.ed.ac.uk/chb

[Priscilla Coit Murphy]

A suburban Chicago public library kept two books on "The Big Bang" in the
adults-only section, and my 11-year-old son was not allowed to check them
out on his own card. No one could explain the restriction to me.

Priscilla Coit Murphy
Chapel Hill NC