SOME ASPECTS OF DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUING IN INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
| Date | 01 April 1965 |
| Published date | 01 April 1965 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026381 |
| Pages | 291-295 |
| Author | MAGDA WHITROW |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
SOME ASPECTS OF DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUING
IN INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
MAGDA WHITROW
Editor,
Bibliography Project
of
the History
of
Science Society
(USA)
'In the code ... which most librarians in this country use there are
174 rules to be mastered ... [they] have been made because a problem
needed solving, not because librarians have any wish to create mysteries.'
BARBARA KYLE
INTRODUCTION
THE FIRST VOLUME of the Isis cumulative bibliography, based on the
critical bibliographies published annually in Isis, will be a kind of bio-
bibliography. It will contain all entries relating to men of science or to per-
sonalities of interest to the historian of science that have appeared in the
annual critical bibliographies, forming a personal name index. The names
will be in alphabetical order.
The difficulties involved in choosing the form of name have led me to
investigate the relevant problems of international bibliography. Although
Isis has for many years past been published in the United States, it
is
never-
theless an 'international review devoted to the history of science and its
cultural influences'. Most of the entries in the critical bibliographies are in
English, but many articles and reviews are in other major West-European
languages and we ought, therefore, to bear in mind considerations relevant
to international bibliography.
INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUING
It is only just over a hundred years ago that the first cataloguing code was
published in this country and it
is
not really surprising that efforts to estab-
lish standards of international practice are of very recent origin. As M.
Julien Cain recalled in his address to the International Conference on Cata-
loguing Principles in Paris in
1961,1
a sub-commission of the International
Federation of Library Associations for unifying rules for printed catalogues
was created in Madrid in 1935, but it was not until some time after the
Second World War that attention was again directed to the need for inter-
national agreement. Perhaps the most comprehensive examination of the
problems involved was made by Ranganathan in his comparative study of
five cataloguing codes.2 Throughout, Ranganathan has in mind the ideal of
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