Henry Wheatley - How to Catalogue a Library

In 1856 a sale catalogue of a further portion of Mr. Cooper's library was issued. 10 10 " Catalogue of a Further Portion of the Library of Charles Purton Cooper, Esq., Q.C. … This further portion, deposited with Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson in the summer of 1852, will, by Mr. Cooper's direction, be sold by them by auction in the spring of the ensuing year. December 1856." It consisted of a hundred and fifty-one pages, only thirty-four of which are occupied by the list of books for sale by auction. The rest of the pages are filled with lists of books to be disposed of at some future time in some other manner, but there are not notes of the same amusing character as in the former catalogue.

To Sir Anthony Panizzi we owe rules for the making of catalogues: perhaps it would be more proper to say the codification of rules, for sound rules must have been in the mind of the compilers of good catalogues before his time. When one person makes a catalogue, he usually acts upon principles which are known to himself, although he may not have committed them to writing. When several assistants are employed to make a catalogue, it is positively necessary that the compiler in chief, who will be responsible for the whole work, should give directions to his assistants, so that they may all work on the same plan.

The famous code of ninety-one rules which was given to the world in 1841 ( Catalogue of Printed Books in the British Museum , vol. i., Letter A) had for its foundation a small number of rules originally devised by Mr. Baber 11 11 Report of the Commissioners on the Constitution and Government of the British Museum , 1850, p. 16. (the predecessor of Mr. Panizzi as Keeper of the Printed Books).

Mr. Panizzi was appointed Assistant Librarian in the British Museum in April 1831, and in 1837 he succeeded Mr. Baber as Keeper. As a new general catalogue was now required, a committee was formed to frame rules for its compilation. This committee consisted of Panizzi, Thomas Watts, J. Winter Jones, Edward Edwards, and John H. Parry (afterwards Serjeant Parry). The plan adopted was for each of these gentlemen separately to prepare rules for the purpose, according to his own views. These were afterwards discussed collectively, and when any difference arose, it was settled by vote. When these rules were complete, they were presented to the trustees by Panizzi on March 18th, 1839, with the following memorandum:—

"Mr. Panizzi has the honour to lay before the trustees the rules, which, under all circumstances, he proposes as advisable to be followed in the compilation of the Alphabetical Catalogue, accompanied by a number of illustrations. Although he is well aware that such rules must necessarily 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 Panizzi 12 12 See Questions 4207, 4212, pp. 254-55. and Parry 13 13 See Question 7223, p. 469. 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 14 Fagan's Life of Sir A. Panizzi , vol. i., pp. 143-44. Mr. Fagan writes "Jérôme," but it is really Jéréme in the catalogue. 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.