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Brian S. Whitmer LI804xs Fall 2017 Essay 1 - Final

An Archival Perspective on the Library Catalog

• One of the (mostly) unchallenged practices in library cataloging is the belief that the catalog must reflect the most current usage and so must constantly be updated. But what if in this drive to make the catalog “current” something valuable is being lost? Haykin argues that because catalogers are very aware the “semantic change” in their subject areas, they are constantly substituting “the lastest heading for the one which is obsolescent or obsolete” and “references must be made from the current term known to most readers to the older one in the catalog. The result of such a procedure, obviously, is that readers do not have direct access to the heading they are most likely to look for” (Haykin, 1951, p. 8).

• Something has been lost. The catalog loses its historical character and favors one group of users at the expense of others. “Hence, one achieves the paradox that the only stability is in instability and the only permanence in classification is reclassification” (Shera, 1973, p. 329). If, as Shera writes, “The internal structure of knowledge is the system of connections patterned in the process of thinking” (p. 330) then as a product of human design, the library catalog reflects the “internal structure of knowledge” of a given community – primarily catalogers - and they have a strategy based on currency rather than preservation.
• But what if we heeded the words of Wilson: “But from the point of view of the user, not the system designer, the desirable thing would be to allows the user to use whatever information he or she had to start with, in trying to locate particular items: to maximize accessibility” (Wilson, 1968, p. 11). I will argue that we might be better served by reimagining the cataloging paradigm from constant change to a practice of retaining previous “internal structures of knowledge” by adding an archival perspective to library cataloging practice. From an archival perspective, keeping the records of a collection (respect du fonds) intact is an ethical and professional goal of the archivist. Curiously, this principle did not take root in the library world. When a catalog record is reclassified or pulled from the collection, the network of knowledge is changed. A node is gone or given a new meaning. The network as a whole alters – and in the current paradigm – headings (and works) not favored are marginalized, occluded, and eventually lost from the network. For scholars trying to recreate the past, reconstituting that past structure is made more difficult by the loss of original catalog record information.
• Why not organize diachronically instead of synchronically with the help of technology? Instead of erasing and “improving” constantly, why not append new classification information into the existing records? Catalog records would become “layered” in a fashion analogous to the formation of archaeological strata with older representations of knowledge co-existing with the most current. This is possible as demonstrated through the use of this mechanism in wiki software implementations. This also has the benefit of allowing users to search a chronologically organized list of headings – making the collocation of older “structures of knowledge” more probable. This would be a boon to historical scholarship and allows the catalog itself to be a valuable object of study in its own right - treating catalog records as works in-and-of-themselves.
• Approaching the library catalog from the archival perspective highlights another issue with current practice. Libraries keep their catalogs up-to-date in an inventory sense, but doing so perpetuates a false narrative about the library collection. Currency produces a form of censorship through the back door with a subtle, constant rewriting of the library collection. Because the catalog only contains currently held inventory, books that have been deemed offensive, scientifically obsolete, or just lost favor can be decommissioned and traces of their one-time presence in the library eliminated. Only accession records could offer the true story of the collection. That embarrassing book never existed here. We are committed to fighting censorship – except our own. Who knew the catalog could be so subversive? The “truth” of the library is rewritten in the catalog. Let me turn again to Wilson:
• “How much of the full combinatory capacity of the computer, working on what part of the range of elements in the full description, are we to make use of? If that is a radical transformation of our old question about how many entries to make for a particular record, it is still the same question at heart: how to make the records accessible. I can think of no general principle that one could use to help decide that question except the Principle of Generosity: the more the merrier. Or, to put it more solemnly: maximize the chances of finding what one is looking for, given the information one starts with” (Wilson, 1968, p. 11).
• The Principle of Generosity can be extended even further by merging the archival instinct into the practice of cataloging. Let a document catalog record be treated as a work in its own right with multiple manifestations of itself expressed in older catalog configurations. Use authority control of catalog instances to let users decide which catalog instance best suits their needs. Make the catalog an archive of itself – existing simultaneously as different “layers” like the evolved and nested structure of life on Earth – earlier forms encapsulated in the later. This nested aspect of reality is what allows one to even begin to know the distant past or the path of historical development.
• Let’s design future library catalogs on the archival principle to create, apologies to Borges, “A Catalog of Babel” – having all possible catalogs within its boundaries.

  References Haykin, D. J. (1951). Subject headings: A practical guide. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. Shera, J. H. (1973). Changing concepts of classification: Philosophical and educational implications. In Knowing books and men; knowing computers, too (pp. 327-337). Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited. Wilson, P. (1983). The catalog as access mechanism: Background and concepts. Library Resources & Technical Services, 27(1), 4-17.