CATALOGUING AND CLASSIFICATION IN BRITISH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES: A SURVEY OF PRACTICES AND PROCEDURES
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026433 |
| Pages | 224-246 |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| Author | JOAN FRIEDMAN,ALAN JEFFREYS |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
CATALOGUING AND CLASSIFICATION
IN BRITISH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES: A SURVEY
OF PRACTICES AND PROCEDURES
JOAN
FRIEDMAN
Postgraduate School
of
Librarianship,
Sheffield
ALAN JEFFREYS
University
of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
A survey was made by questionnaire of cataloguing and classification in
fifty-one university libraries. The returned questionnaires revealed many,
differences in the classification systems, cataloguing codes, and filing rules
used,
as
well as in the kind and amount of detail in
a
catalogue entry. There
were wide variations in the estimates by libraries of the annual output of a
hypothetical 'average' cataloguer. There was little uniformity in the
statistical data collected by libraries of the work of their cataloguing de-
partments. Little use was made of existing centralized cataloguing services
and reasons for this are suggested. More study of user's catalogue needs is
necessary.
The problems of standardization must be resolved if mechanized
techniques
are
to be fully exploited.
'When Dr. Johnson was with me at Oxford, in 1755, he gave to the Bod-
leian Library a thin quarto of twenty-one pages. . . He was very anxious
about placing this book in the Bodleian: and, for fear of any omission or
mistake, he entered, in the great Catalogue, the title-page of it with his
own hand.'
BOSWELL:
The
Life of Dr. Johnson.
Everyman edition, vol.
1,
p. 164n.
INTRODUCTION
THE 'difficulties and discussions' occasioned by cataloguing, to which
Cutter referred in his Preface of
1904,
so far from being of no further inter-
est are now, in 1967, of more import than ever. A valuable contribution to
these problems was made in 1954 by a series of lectures on cataloguing.
These were published under the editorship of Mary Piggott.1 In the last few
years,
with the increase in the size and number of university and college
libraries, the demands upon these libraries have intensified. The quantity
and complexity of materials to be acquired and processed, the difficulties
created by language or subject, the interpretation of cataloguing rules, the
application of obsolescent classification schemes, the physical size of cata-
logues which may prohibit their use—all these are problems with which
every librarian and cataloguer must
be
familiar. In
the
belief that the answers
to certain questions will help to clarify these problems, the Postgraduate
School of Librarianship of the University of Sheffield, under the auspices
224
September 1967 CATALOGUING AND CLASSIFICATION
of SCONUL, has undertaken
a
survey of cataloguing and classification and
associated processes in British university libraries. The survey was con-
cerned with printed material only: all consideration of archives and manu-
scripts was excluded. The questions with which the survey is particularly
concerned are:
1.
What procedures are involved in cataloguing and classification?
2.
Need all this work be done by library
staff,
or could some of it be ac-
counted for by the use of a centralized cataloguing service?
3.
Who is doing the work; what are the qualifications of the cataloguers;
are they engaged on tasks in addition to cataloguing?
4.
What proportion of library time and money is being spent on cata-
loguing?
5.
Is there any degree of uniformity in the cataloguing practices of univer-
sity libraries which could be the basis of participation in a shared cata-
loguing scheme?
6. How, and to what extent, are the resultant catalogues being used? Does
the present use satisfy demands and justify expenditure?
It goes without saying that all these points have to be considered in relation
to mechanization, since bibliographical data can now be recorded in
machine-readable form. Agreement will have to be reached, not only on a
national level, on the rules of entry.
The procedure followed in making the survey was to ask a number of
libraries to complete a questionnaire on their cataloguing and classification
practices. The copyright deposit libraries were deliberately excluded (as
were all Oxford and Cambridge college libraries), since their special func-
tions and problems are not common to university libraries. For similar
reasons the National Central Library and the National Lending Library for
Science and Technology were not included. A number of smaller libraries
of autonomous or semi-autonomous parts of universities elsewhere were
also excluded. Colleges of advanced technology, now designated as, or
which have already become, universities, were included, but technical col-
leges were regarded as being in a separate category. The questionnaire was
initially submitted, as a pilot study, to the Universities of Leeds and South-
ampton, to whose Librarians we are indebted for their advice and com-
ments. And although the primary intention of the study was to make ac-
cessible a collection of factual information about current practices in cata-
loguing and classification, it was soon apparent that these could not be
considered in isolation from other work in the library on which cataloguers
might be engaged
as
part of their
duties.
The libraries were therefore asked
to fill in a Processing Survey Form for each member of staff concerned,
showing how much time was spent weekly on various tasks and, in each
case,
the qualifications, staff grade, and salary scale.
Thus,
from the information which is now available, it is hoped to pro-
duce a report in three stages: the first is a comparative survey of current
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