The Legacy of the Library Catalogue for the Present

Abstract

The specter of impending change in library catalogues is strong but not very clear. In an attempt to help the clarification process, the first part of the present report discusses historical themes from the modern library catalogue legacy that has developed since the mid-nineteenth century—the origins and subsequent dominance of the dictionary catalogue for more than a century, considerations of library catalogue users and use over the same period, developments apart from the library catalogue during the twentieth century that have affected it, and aspects of the idea of the objects of a catalogue. In a second part, the general environment for the most recent period of library catalogue development is described, after which aspects of the historical legacy are used as a basis for raising questions relevant to impending library catalogue change.

Positioning Libraries for a New Bibliographic Universe

“…88 He traces evolution of the environment for the twenty-first century catalog to explore how change in the catalog may guide the development of present and future library catalogs.…”

FRBR, Information, and Intertextuality

“…Histories of cataloging exist elsewhere (for example, Chandel & Prasad, 2013;Denton, 2007;Miksa, 2012;Svenonius, 2000), and most emphasize the contribution of Antonio Panizzi, author of 91 Rules for the Compilation of the Catalogue (1841), which, among other things, provided rules for author names and titles and anonymous works (Denton, 2007, p. 39). Discussion about the meaning of work began relatively early in the history of librarianship.…”