LC Classification Tables

Just as fair warning: this blog entry is probably only interesting to catalogers. And maybe not even every one of them, but I really need to process my emotions about the Library of Congress Classification today.

I’m sure that all catalogers have had this happen to them: you’re assigning a call number using the Library of Congress classification, no big deal, flipping through (or scrolling through) the call numbers, you come to what you want and then BAM! “see Table XYZ.”

That’s usually when I say under my breath “Please shoot me now.”

I am not a fan of the tables in the LC classification.

Now, it’s not that the tables are hard, per se, when you get the hang of them. It’s that they are all different, and they are used in strange ways, and when you’re cataloging a lot of different kinds of materials, you don’t use the same tables over and over again. Therefore you don’t ever gain a lot of facility with any of the tables, and they are always slightly terrifying.

If you are not a person who is familiar with the tables, but have still read this far:  there are lots of tables. There are tables for assigning cutter numbers to a translation, tables for fiction, tables for art, and even internal tables for every schedule, interspersed throughout the scheme. They are little matrices for making a complex call number even more complex and unique.

I’m not against the tables; they actually serve a very important function which is to make space within the classification scheme for all the various materials that might be cataloged and classified using it. But they’re really confusing and they make me feel stupid every time I have to dive into one. I don’t know if there is a solution to the problem of the tables, and I don’t know that I would want to be the one to fix it, anyway.  But I really wish that learning the tables didn’t require 20 minutes of internet searching and re-learning every time I need to use one, either.

Motivation

I have two quotes printed out and hanging at my desk:

"When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." --R. Buckminster Fuller

"God is in the details." --Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

I look at them every time I am exasperated, or bored, or feeling antsy. Cataloging is actually really taxing: it can be pedantic and uninspiring, which can lead to errors born of boredom or apathy. Even when we're working on something that should be "sooo interesting!" we can lose perspective. A fellow cataloger commented the other day (after spending way too long working with incunabula): “This week is dedicated to my appreciation of the invention of the goddamn title page.” Even the most rare and interesting works get tedious after awhile. 

So I keep these words in front of me all the time. The details are important; beauty and simplicity in our solutions is important. The basic tenets of cataloging.

Library Science, Italian Style

This is actually pretty old news, but I thought it was fascinating when I saw someone comment on ACAT this morning about how the whole Girolamini Library fiasco made him “glad to see the value of our work recognized”. I don’t exactly see it that way. All respect to other librarians, but this has nothing to do with recognizing the value of our work, when the actual librarians who were working in that library totally ignored their duties. There's a great clearinghouse of the articles on the scandal here, if you don't know what I'm talking about at all.

From the articles, it seems like De Caro (the man who sold/stole thousands of rare books from his own library) was somehow….alone? at this very rich and important library of which he was the director? Apparently the curator was also involved in the allegations, but who was really running the library, day to day? From what I could find, the library is actually part of a church and convent complex. I’m really confused about the organization of the library, where it gets funding, and how many people work there (it’s a pretty big library to have one guy and maybe a curator). But I cannot find ANYTHING on the library other than that the library is part of a convent, there was a director, he was corrupt, and he was appointed by the Italian government. Where does the Church fit into this? Do they fit in at all? Were there no other people working in this library?

Addendum to this, after a conversation with a friend who has lived in Italy: Naples, where this library is located, is a particular hotbed of corrupt activity. The government, which apparently is in charge of this library, is pretty much assumed to be corrupt. Also, the library has been closed for some time, leading both I and my friend to posit that it was closed for the purpose of looting it and selling off the rare materials contained therein. Naples!!

Addendum to the addendum!
From the Italian-speaking/reading friend:
 "In the 1960s the church was looted by a couple of priests who went to jail for 4 years each for selling off the treasury. The library was renovated in the 1970s and was just about to become the new home of a department of the university when an earthquake struck c. 1980/1981. It seems to have been closed, or open "by appointment only" ever since. In which case there may well have been only 2-3 employees at any given time (in my experience of such situations). However, appointments and information, etc., could still be reliably obtained until the recent scandal. It would appear that De Caro initially denounced some of the thefts when questions were first raised about his qualifications in an attempt to implicate them in the forty-year-old scandal rather than to open an investigation into recent losses."

The Power of Tradition

I recently was handed “Notes used on catalog cards”, compiled by Olive Swain, from 1963, when I was having trouble remembering how to word a certain turn of phrase related to a translation. This is a fantastic little book, a second edition to an earlier compilation that I don’t have at hand. It gives examples of all the notes that you might want to use in cataloging a book (not scores or sound recordings), in an attempt to provide “good examples of notes for use on catalog cards.” Ms. Swain said that it would “help catalogers phrase quickly and keep relative consistency in expression.”

There are several chapters, from Abridgements and Abstracts to Works Superseding and Replacing Others. There’s even a chapter that remains a mystery to me called “Habilitationsschriften,” “Rektoratsreden”, etc.—and I’m almost afraid to go look at what the “et cetera” is going to be.

Swain, who was the head of cataloging at the California State Library when she began working on this second edition, made very thorough work of researching the different types of notes, using the Library of Congress copy that they had at hand, as well as the National Union Catalog, and the “Rules for Descriptive Cataloging in the Library of Congress” (precursor to AACR).

So, what I like about this little volume is that I still use it today when my mind goes blank on how a note should read (even if I never realized I was using it). Because even though there are no “set” rules on how you note translations in the 546 or editions in the 250 or bibliographies in the 504, there are definitely turns of phrase which are more acceptable than others. This little book, compiled 50 years ago, was probably the definer of those guidelines that I still use today. And it’s funny, isn’t it? That there are no rules as to phrasing, yet any cataloger can tell you that “Latin and French side-by-side” is wrong, and “Parallel texts in Latin and French” is correct, even though they do say the same thing, and even though probably very few catalogers actually consult Olive Swain’s “Notes used on catalog cards” anymore. It’s become tradition, something that is passed down from cataloger to cataloger by the acknowledgement of the need for consistency.

What a profession we inhabit.