How to Catalogue a Library. Wheatley Henry Benjamin
be affected by the haste with which they have been compiled, he ventures to hope they will be sufficiently intelligible to the trustees, and enable them, even in their present imperfect state, to judge of the principles that Mr. Panizzi should wish to see observed. He is fully aware that many cases may arise unprovided for, and that some of these rules and principles may be liable to objections, which may not perhaps appear in other plans, seemingly preferable; but he trusts that what seems objectionable may, on mature reflection, be found in fact less so. He cannot, at present, do more than entreat the trustees to take into their patient and minute consideration every single part, as well as the whole of the plan proposed, and then decide as they may think fit, bearing in mind that, although these rules may, if strictly followed, occasionally lead to what may appear absurd, the same objection, to a perhaps greater extent, may be urged against any other plan, and far greater evils result from a deviation from a principle than from its inflexible application."
The rules were sanctioned by the trustees July 13th, 1839, and printed in 1841. In the note prefixed to the volume of the catalogue then printed Panizzi wrote:—
"The application of the rules was left by the trustees to the discretion of the editor, subject to the condition that a catalogue of the printed books in the library up to the close of the year 1838 be completed within the year 1844."
Panizzi very properly disapproved of the publication piecemeal of the catalogue before it was completed, and eventually he obtained his own way, with the result that the printing was discontinued, and a manuscript catalogue was gradually built up. In the note just referred to he proceeds:—
"With a view to the fulfilment of this undertaking, it was deemed indispensable that a catalogue should be put to press as soon as any portion of the manuscript could be prepared; consequently the early volumes must present omissions and inaccuracies, which it is hoped will diminish in number as the work proceeds."
According to Mr. Fagan (Life of Sir A. Panizzi, vol. i., p. 259), the wasteful publication of the volume containing letter A was due to a blunder in the secretary's department. Apparently the order of the trustees was to have the catalogue ready for the press by December 1844, instead of which it was intimated to Panizzi that the catalogue was to be printed by that time.
Both Panizzi12 and Parry13 pointed out in their evidence before the Commission (1848-49) how wasteful a process it was to catalogue the library by letters instead of cataloguing every book on a shelf at one time. There cannot be two opinions among experienced bibliographers of the absurdity of making a catalogue in such a piecemeal manner, and yet this is a plan of proceeding which the inexperienced in cataloguing are frequently found to recommend. Mr. Parry said: "Not only the printing of letter A first do I look upon to be an entire waste, both of time and money—a waste just as much as if the time were thrown away, and just as if the money had been actually thrown away—but the plan of taking those titles from this large body of titles and sending for the books is a serious waste of time.... In my opinion, volume A, the volume that is now printed, must be cancelled, if ever the whole catalogue is printed. The reason of that would be, that an immense mass of titles, in the further cataloguing of the succeeding portions of the alphabet, would arise to be catalogued under the letter A, which nobody would have anticipated until the whole library was catalogued." The Commission coincided with Mr. Panizzi's view, and incorporated their opinion on this point in the report. The consequence was that Panizzi was allowed to proceed on his own plan, with the result that, in the first place, a large number of volumes of manuscript titles supplementary to the old general catalogue were produced, and subsequently an entirely new catalogue, superseding the old one.
The history of the catalogues of the British Museum Library is a curious and interesting one. A catalogue prepared by Dr. Maty, the Rev. S. Harper, and the Rev. S. Ayscough was published in 1787 (2 vols., folio). This was soon superseded; and in 1806 Sir Henry Ellis and the Rev. H. H. Baber (then Keeper and Assistant Keeper respectively of the Printed Books), carrying out the instructions of the trustees, commenced the compilation of a new catalogue, which was published in 1813-19 (7 vols. in 8 parts, 8vo). Ellis was answerable for the letters A to F, with P, Q, and R; and Baber for the remainder of the alphabet.
Now that we have an excellent catalogue of the library, which we owe to the exertions of Panizzi, we are too apt to forget the services of Ellis and Baber as compilers of the very valuable old catalogue. Panizzi took delight in finding faults in this catalogue, and one of the blunders which he pointed out was the entry of a French translation of one of Jeremy Bentham's works, in which the author's name, having been translated in the title-page of the book into French, was transferred in the same form—"Bentham (Jéréme)"—into the catalogue.14 Doubtless there are many bibliographical mistakes; but it is an excellent practical catalogue, and does the greatest credit to the compilers. Even now, although the print is almost lost in the mass of manuscript, and the volumes are nearly worn out, the copy in the Reading Room may still be used with advantage when a book cannot be found in the more elaborate new catalogue.
In 1847 the Royal Commission, already alluded to, was appointed to inquire into the constitution and government of the British Museum, and the report of the Commission, with minutes of evidence, was published in 1850. This report appeared in a large folio volume of eight hundred and twenty-three pages, which is still full of interest from a bibliographical point of view.
The Commissioners considered arrangements connected with the management which have since been changed, and therefore are of little interest now; but the evidence chiefly related to the new rules for the catalogue, and resolved itself into an arraignment of Mr. Panizzi's plans, with Panizzi's reply to the arraignment at the end of the evidence. The report shows how unsatisfactory were the relations between the officers of departments, and how strong was the antagonism to Panizzi's rules and arrangements among literary men.
Many authors whom one would have expected to know something of the art of cataloguing showed the most amazing ignorance, and a love for careless work that makes us extremely glad that their cause was defeated. Some witnesses exhibited a dislike to the rules merely because they were rules. Mr. J. G. Cochrane, then Librarian of the London Library, in answer to the question, "Have you read the ninety-one rules?" said, "I read some of them, and it appeared to me that they were more calculated to perplex and to mystify than to answer any useful purpose;" and again, when asked, "Do you object to rules in any compilation of catalogues?" he said, "Yes, very much" (p. 460). Further on in his evidence he said, "I think that in bibliography, as well as in geography, it is always advisable to keep as much to uniformity of system as possible" (p. 464). But he did not make it clear how uniformity was to be obtained without rules.
The greatest grievance which "readers" seem to have had is one which we can scarcely realize at the present day. Mr. Panizzi ruled that whoever wanted a book should look it out in the catalogue, and copy the title on a slip with the press-mark before he could receive it. Mr. Carlyle refused to look out in the catalogue for a pamphlet which he knew to be in a particular collection. His account of the matter is as follows:—
"I had occasion at one time to consult a good many of the pamphlets respecting the Civil War period of the history of England. I supposed those pamphlets to be standing in their own room, on shelves contiguous to each other. I marked on the paper, 'King's Pamphlets,' such and such a number, giving a description undeniably pointing to the volume; and the servant to whom I gave this paper at first said that he could not serve me with the volume, and that I must find it out in the catalogue and state the press-mark, and all the other formalities. Being a little provoked with that state of things, I declared that I would not seek for the book in that form; that I could get no good out of these Pamphlets, on such terms; that I must give them up rather, and go my ways, and try to make the grievance known in some proper quarter" (p. 280).
Dr. J. E. Gray expressed the opinion that the feeling against this rule respecting the press-mark was very general (p. 491). It is necessary to bear in mind that "the old system was, that you merely wrote the title of the book you wanted without the necessity of looking for it in the catalogue. If you wanted a particular edition of it, then you looked in the catalogue for the particular title or date, and the book was brought to you
See Questions 4207, 4212, pp. 254-55.
See Question 7223, p. 469.
Fagan's