Letture MagistraLiin BiBLioteconoMia
La Lectio Magistralis in Biblioteconomia è promossa da Università degli studi di Firenze, Regione Toscana,
Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze,
Associazione italiana biblioteche, Biblioteche oggi, Jlis.it, Casalini Libri
La serie di Letture Magistrali in Biblioteconomia è curata da Mauro Guerrini
From “A Magnificent Mistake” to “A Lively Community of Interest”:
Anglo-American Cataloguing Codes and
the Evolution of Social Cataloguing
Lectio magistralis in Library Scienceby
Lynne C. Howarth, PhD
University of Toronto Toronto, Canada Florence, Italy Florence University March 23, 2011Howarth, Lynne Christine
From “A Magnificent Mistake” to “A Lively Community of Interest”: Anglo-American Cataloguing Codes and the Evolution of Social Cataloguing / by Lynne C. Howarth = Da “un magnifico errore” a “una comunità d’interazione dinamica” : i codici di catalogazione angloamericani e l’evoluzione della catalogazione sociale / di Lynne C. Howarth ; traduzione di Carlo Bianchini.
Fiesole (Firenze) : Casalini Libri, 2011.
48 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. – (Letture magistrali in biblioteconomia; 4) Lezione tenuta a Firenze, 23 marzo 2011. – Contiene bibl. e indirizzi internet. – Testo anche in italiano.
Lecture held in Florence, Italy, Mar. 23, 2011. – Contains bibliography and internet addresses. – Text in English and Italian.
Lecture Series: Magisterial Lessons in Library Science
The Department of Scienze dell’Antichità, Medioevo e Rinascimento e Linguistica, the Masters Program in Archival Studies, Library Science, and Codicology, and the Library Network of the University of Florence are pleased to present a series of lectures entitled Lezioni Magistrali in Biblioteconomia (Magisterial Lessons in Library Science), in collaboration with the Regione Toscana, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Italian Library Association (AIB), Biblioteche oggi, Jlis.it, and Casalini Libri.
The lectures are geared toward scholars engaged in the critical and methodological study of the theories and principles of library science and toward professionals involved in the experimentation, verification and application of scholarly hypotheses within the laboratory/library. The necessary and positive relationship between scholars and professionals creates a virtuous circle that favours the advancement of the discipline.
The Magisterial Lessons are also open to students in Library Science and for all those interested in the proposed topics.
Mauro guerrini
Professor in Library Science and Cataloguing
From “A Magnificent Mistake” to “A Lively Community of Interest”: Anglo-American Cataloguing Codes and
the Evolution of Social Cataloguing Lynne C. Howarth,1
In a large public library, daily frequented by a large number of readers, it is of the greatest importance to interfere as little as possible with their convenience; and nothing is calculated to interfere with it so much as the not finding a volume where it ought to be. - Sir Anthony Panizzi, 1850
Abstract
“Social cataloguing” – an activity that encourages users to tag, rate, review, and comment on library holdings, and that also incorporates user-supplied tagging into the catalogue record to support resource discovery – is generally viewed as a recent and unprecedented trend in bibliographic control. To the contrary, this paper asserts that engagement of users in describing and providing natural language terms for accessing a variety of digital objects, is part of a logical progression in the evolution of cataloguing codes and standards. Beginning from the mid-1800s, the paper traces the history of Anglo-American cataloguing rules, in particular, illustrating a continuing and progressive commitment to cooperation, internationalization, and the “convenience of the public” – a concept advocated, first by Anthony Panizzi (1841), and articulated in greater detail by Charles Cutter (1904). As current standards stress interoperability with metadata and schemas developed by other fields and disciplines, and as the need for structured data grows in response to realizing the Semantic Web, a partnership of professional cataloguers and “social cataloguers”, each equipped to make a unique contribution to bringing previously inaccessible local knowledge to the Web, would seem a positive and progressive alliance. Keywords: social cataloguing; Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules; bibliographic codes and standards; tagging; linked data; cooperative cataloguing; Semantic Web; Web 2.0
1 PhD, Professor and Associate Dean, Research Faculty of Information, University of Toronto,
Introduction
On January 16, 2008, the Library of Congress posted 3,000 photographs on the popular photo sharing website, FlickrTM, and invited the public to view, describe,
and tag two sets of historic collections (Springer et al., 2008). Ten months after launching the pilot project with the message, “The Library of Congress is asking the public for help”, the project team reported on the overwhelmingly positive, yet sometimes unexpected outcomes from this innovative experiment with Web 2.0 communities, and social tagging (Springer et al., 2008, 2):
The pilot resulted in many positive yet unplanned outcomes: Flickr members’ willingness to expend high levels of effort on history detective work; the unprompted sourcing of new information through links to newspaper archives and highly specialized Web sites; the outpouring of appreciation for having started this project and the positive reception for old un-retouched photos; the desire of other institutions to launch similar efforts; the rapid speed of news about the project within the first few days of reaching the blogosphere; and the speed with which new tags and comments continue to be added following our weekly upload of new photos.
The success of the pilot project prompted FlickrTM to create a new initiative, The
Commons (http://www.flickr.com/commons/), with objectives (1) to increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and (2) to provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. To-date, forty-six cultural institutions, representing libraries, archives, and museums from around the world are contributing their collections of digital photographs, and offering FlickrTM members, “Your opportunity to contribute to describing the
world’s public photo collections.” This sounds remarkably like cataloguing! And if the public is being invited to describe the photographs in collections of the world’s leading cultural heritage institutions, what does this mean to the international bibliographic community, and to the future of descriptive cataloguing? What, if any, are the implications for the continuing development of codes and standards? How might a next generation of Web 2.0-enabled public access catalogues, such as BiblioCommons (http://www.bibliocommons.com/), or SOPAC, the social online public access catalog (http://thesocialopac.net/), that allow users to tag, rate, review, and comment on library holdings, and that also incorporate user-supplied tagging into the catalogue record to support resource discovery, change standardized approaches to cataloguing?
In a blog post in December, 2005, Ellyssa Kroski asserted that:
Today, users are adding metadata and using tags to organize their own digital collections, categorize the content of others and build bottom-up classification systems. The wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, and the collective intelligence are doing what heretofore only expert catalogers, information architects and website authors have done. They are categorizing and organizing the Internet and determining the user experience, and it’s working. No longer do the experts have the monopoly on this domain; in this new age users have been empowered to determine their own cataloging needs. Metadata is now in the realm of the Everyman.
While Kroski was speaking largely to social tagging as a means of grouping, categorizing, or “classifying” personal digital collections, I would like to draw particular attention to the last two sentences of the passage quoted, above. Her assertion is that determination of cataloguing “needs” is now in the hands of the individual, and no longer the sole domain of cataloguing “experts”, or those claiming to know what is best for “the user”.
Her almost triumphant claim ties into the threads that will weave throughout this paper. I will explore how the context and principles framing a succession of Anglo-American cataloguing codes, along with persistent commitments to cooperation, internationalization, and “the convenience of the public” (Cutter 1904, 6) have laid the foundations for contemporary “social cataloguing”, while creating opportunities for a new generation of cataloguers and metadata standards developers. I will argue that rule-makers are necessarily products of their own historical, social, and cultural milieux, with the codes they develop reflecting those influences. The scope of the analysis will be confined to the Anglo-American codes, while recognizing, as appropriate, influences exerted by international constituencies.
The Rise of Public Education and the Expansion of Libraries in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada
Within the Anglo-American context, progressive changes in libraries have largely paralleled developments in public education. As education systems evolved, moving from highly localized private or religious institutions accessible only to the wealthy, to a system of common schooling accessible to all citizens, the need for books and other recorded sources of information increased concomitantly. In England, the 1870 Elementary Education Act made provision for the elementary education of all children aged 5-13 and established school boards to oversee the development of a network of schools (Gillard 2011). Canada’s Constitution Act of 1867 empowered provincial legislatures, exclusively, to enact laws regarding education, while an earlier regulation, the Act for the Better Establishment and Maintenance of Common School in Upper Canada in 1846, served as a basis for a universal education system at the level of “normal” or elementary schools. Arguing that common schooling would help to prevent poverty and crime, and promote good citizenship, and led by the state of Massachusetts, which passed the first compulsory school attendance laws in 1852, public education was available to all American children by the end of the 19th century.
Paralleling the extension of common schooling in the Anglo-American context of the latter 19th century, was the growth in college and university libraries,
along with the emergence of fully accessible public libraries. The Parliament of the United Kingdom led the way. The Public Libraries Act of 1850 empowered local boroughs to establish free public libraries, thus setting the stage for national universal access to published works of the time. In 1876, Charles Ammi Cutter was hired by the United States Bureau of Education to help write a report about the state of libraries; his Rules for a Dictionary Catalog appeared as Part two of the report, Public Libraries in the United States of America: their History, Condition, and Management. Between 1883 and his death in 1919, American steel magnate and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie funded the building of a total of 3,000 public libraries in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and Fiji. The growth in educational materials for common schooling in tax-funded institutions, and for college and university libraries, along with the development of public library collections for vocational, educational, and recreational purposes, called for standardized approaches to recording and organizing books and other resources that were no longer localized to wealthy individuals, or to privately-supported institutions.
The Need for Standardized Approaches to Recording Collections: Early Iterations of Anglo-American Codes and Cooperative Cataloguing
With greater democratization of education and access to the world of knowledge, came a need to ensure free and open access to collections now within the public domain. Melvil Dewey (1877, 247) maintained that the purpose of libraries was to educate the masses by making accessible to them, at the least expense, the most important literature of the time. To do so would require that libraries cooperate in the development of “usable catalogues” based on a consistent and uniform approach to cataloguing. Thus, in 1876, the same year that Charles Cutter published his Rules for a Dictionary Catalog, the American Library Association was founded, and its Committee on Cooperative Indexing instructed by Dewey to devise a plan for cooperative cataloguing (Heisey 1976). The result was a draft of unofficial rules in January 31, 1877, which, following a series of controversies and intensive discussions, were published in the Library Journal as the ALA code of 1883. As Terry Heisey (1976) notes in his history of code development in the United States, the new ALA Rules were insufficiently detailed to serve as an American standard, simply joining Cutter’s rules, and those of the Library Association of the United Kingdom (LAUK), and the Bodleian Library as further guidelines to cataloguing practice.
Following a similar pattern, the Library Association of the United Kingdom, founded in 1877, and sharing with American colleagues a commitment to cooperative cataloguing, published two editions of Cataloging Rules of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, one in 1881, the second in 1883 (Blake 2002). In 1902, the renamed Library Association appointed a committee, the British Committee on Cataloguing Rules, to revise its cataloguing rules, subsequently urged by Dewey to work with the ALA Catalog Rules Committee to develop a common code. In September 1904, the LA formally accepted Dewey’s proposal, and two years later, J.C.M. Hanson, chair of the ALA Committee, met with British librarians to harmonize differences remaining between the draft LA and ALA codes under development. These discussions led to agreement on all but 8 of 174 rules, and, the publication in 1908 of English and American editions of Catalog Rules: Author and Title Entries. The code’s 174 rules covered description, as well as entry and headings for authors and titles.
As Blake (2002, 14) observes, the joint code was “very much in the Panizzi-Cutter mold”, incorporating Anglo-American cataloguing practices with a commitment to cooperative cataloguing, uniform and consistent application, and a regard for “the convenience of the public” (Cutter 1904, 6). The Preface to the 1908 rules notes that, while the code, “should be in accord with the system governing the compilation of catalog entries at the Library of Congress”, and “must be guided
chiefly by the requirements of larger libraries of a scholarly character, […] the question of how far the needs of smaller libraries of a popular character should also be considered came up for immediate consideration” (p. Viii). The Catalog
Rules Committee determined, “to omit suggestions intended for the guidance of popular libraries”, favouring, instead, the preparation of a “simplified edition, specially adapted to the needs of smaller libraries of a popular character” (p. Viii).
Nonetheless, the code did provide for “occasional alternatives and exceptions”, allowing for the discretion of individual libraries, and quoting, in full Cutter’s, “convenience of the public”2 as justification for the more permissive “occasional
use of the word ‘may’” (1908, ix).
In addition to (1) acknowledging “smaller libraries of a popular character” (1908, Viii), (2) allowing for individual library discretion by use of the word,
“may” in the code, and (3) reflecting the collaboration of American and British Library Associations, the 1908 code was unique in its openness to broader international cooperation beyond the Anglo-American realm. The Preface noted efforts in Germany, “towards a coordination of cataloging practice in Prussian university and government libraries” (1908, x), concluding that:
While there is little likelihood of agreement on the two fundamental points of difference between German and Anglo-American rules […] and while the Committee has not had any correspondence or direct relations with representatives of the German movement, we have felt that it was our duty, nevertheless, in this new revision of the A.L.A. Rules, to take due cognizance of the instructions promulgated by the Ministry of Public Worship of Prussia […] and in formulating our own decisions to bear in mind the possibility of future international agreement and cooperation. (p. x)
2 “The convenience of the public is always to be set before the ease of the cataloger. In most
cases they coincide. A plain rule without exceptions is not only easy for us to carry out, but easy for the public to understand and work by. But strict consistency in a rule and uniformity in its application sometimes lead to practices which clash with the public’s habitual way of looking at things. When these habits are general and deeply rooted it is unwise for the cataloger to ignore them, even if they demand a sacrifice of system and simplicity. […] That the committee [the advisory catalog committee of the American Library Association] has always understood the public’s views, estimated correctly its power of changing them, and drawn the line in the right place between a conservative regard for custom and a wish to lead the public towards a desirable simplicity and consistency is too much to assume; but I have at least always looked for the reasons on both sides.” Preface to Charles A. Cutter, Rules for a Dictionary Catalog, 4th ed., rewritten, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904, p. 6, and quoted in full in
Catalog Rules, Author and Title Entries, 1908. Compiled by committees of the American
Libra-ry Association and the (British) LibraLibra-ry Association. American ed. Chicago: American LibraLibra-ry Association, p. ix.
A Social Context for Standardization and Internationalization
While the latter half of the 19th century was a time of progressive social change
which included greater democratization of learning institutions, and of access to storehouses of information, it was also a time of paternalism, rationalism, and positivist authority. Knowledge was created by recognized, highly educated and qualified “experts” and conveyed from them to those needing to be educated. Paul Otlet’s assertion that, “Knowledge merely comprises all observed facts and of all the likely hypotheses that have been formulated to explain these facts and reduce them to laws.”(1893, 17), is characteristic of a period that emphasized the scientific method, and an objective view of the world. The end of the 19th century
was also a time when a series of universal classifications were developed; the perceived need for standardization became more pressing as information – and access to it – expanded beyond local or institutional boundaries (Bowker 1996). Again, Otlet’s paper, “Something about Bibliography”, summarizes the tenor of the period: “Individual monographs, research on matters of detail, contributions to more general studies are multiplying, it is true, out of all proportion. But it is necessary that all of these individual works be registered and classified, so that anyone can retrieve them immediately in order to use them and to push ahead, to know at every moment what has been done and what remains to be done” (1893, 13).
Cataloguing codes developed by Panizzi (1841), Jewett (1853), Cutter (1876; 1904), Dewey (Library School Rules, 1894), the American Library Association (1883; 1908), and the Library Association of the United Kingdom (1881; 1883; 1908), to name only a few, are representative of the drive to standardize approaches to registering growing public collections. The standards, like knowledge itself, were developed by recognized bibliographic experts who were assumed to understand the needs of those who lacked similar expertise, but required the universal standards to access library holdings. The 19th century
paternalism reflected in the codes was certainly tempered by acknowledgement of “the convenience of the public” (Cutter 1904, 6), although, in truth, neither “convenience” nor “the public” were ever defined or well understood. Standards makers argued for consistency and uniformity, “in a manner predictable to the reader” (Ranz 1964, 30). And while the intention was certainly sound, the logic of all standards remained the logic of their makers, and not that articulated by standards users equally engaged in the process of designing a tool responsive to their specific needs. As Stevenson (1980, 155) observed about AACR2, though equally applicable to all Anglo-American codes of the 19th and 20th centuries:
though we may be logical and consistent, our logic is not necessarily the logic of library users. We have constructed a code which can be used to
catalog anything, in any discipline or subject area, in any physical form, published at any time, anywhere in the word – such a code is needed to deal with the enormous world output of information sources. But our catalogs are used by individuals, each of whom lives in an informational environment which is miniscule compared to the one with which the code must deal.
In a 21st century context where the logic of the user has emerged in social
networking sites, and manifested in public engagement in social cataloguing, a discussion of standards rooted in 19th century rationalism and paternalism becomes important to understanding the major shift in social context that has occurred. We return to this later in the paper.
Paul Otlet, also shared with contemporaries a strong interest in, and commitment to internationalization and cooperative cataloguing. His paper, “Creation of a Universal Bibliographic Repertory” (1884), argued for, “A Universal Bibliographic Repertory [that] will do away with the need for individual catalogues which are of necessity incomplete. It will replace them by a single, always current catalogue, which will give readers information not only about the contents of the library they are working in, but about everything that is available beyond it in other libraries or commercially through the booktrade” (Otlet and Rayward 1990, 27). This theme of creating common, universal tools for facilitating access to global knowledge, so strong in the later 1800’s, waned during the first half of the 1900’s, only to emerge with renewed vigour – and enabled by emerging information technologies – during the latter part of the 20th century.
From the ‘Convenience of the Public’ to the ‘Crisis in Cataloguing’
Within the Anglo-American cataloguing community, cooperation on the development of international standards post-1908 was overshadowed, first by World War I, 1914-1918, and then by the Great Depression. During the1930’s, committees of the American Library Association, and the Library Association engaged in discussions to revise the joint 1908 code. Talks ceased in 1939 with the outbreak of World War II. Work continued in the United States, with the publication, in 1941, of a preliminary second edition of Catalog Rules, Author and Title Entries, the American edition of the 1908 code. Divided into Part I for entry and heading, and Part II for description, the 1941 code had almost doubled from 174 to 324 rules, reflecting a more legalistic, case-based, and prescribed approach to cataloguing. It also provided tangible evidence of an arbitrary perfectionism that had led to significant arrearages, and declining productivity at the Library of Congress, creating what Andrew Osborn (1941)
referred to as “The Crisis in Cataloging”. Whereas earlier codes had reflected Cutter’s principle, that, “The convenience of the public is always to be set before the ease of the cataloger,” the 1941 rules were roundly denounced for their complexity and detail.
In response, two separate codes were published in 1949. The American Library Association issued its second edition of the ALA Cataloging Rules for Author and Title, dealing solely with entry and heading, and adopted the Rules for Descriptive Cataloging in the Library of Congress incorporating descriptive cataloguing practices followed by the Library of Congress (LC). As many libraries in North America subscribed to the commercial printed card program first launched by LC in 1901, there was general acceptance of the split code approach, particularly as the LC Rules had been simplified based on general principles introduced by Seymour Lubetzky in 1946 in his “Principles of Descriptive Cataloging”. Reflecting the growing variety of so-called “non-book” formats being published in North America, the Rules for Descriptive Cataloging in the Library of Congress included rules for serials and media types included within LC collections.
The Global Village and Internationalization of Cataloguing Codes, 1960-2003
In the post World War II period, as telecommunications and a boom in civil aviation facilitated global connectedness, making the world a smaller place, efforts for international cooperation again flourished. Information production in both print and media formats proliferated, and in North America, a dramatic increase in the number of school-aged children again required enormous investment in public education. School libraries with well stocked collections, joined the ranks of public, college, and university libraries, themselves growing to meet the needs of an increasingly information-literate citizenry. The time was right for extending the vision of libraries, and of access to information well beyond national boundaries, as Sir Frank Francis (IFLA 1963, 17) observed:
One of the dreams which have long inspired librarians concerns the desirability of reaching agreement on a set of cataloguing rules which would enable catalogue entries to be universally understood and accepted and used together in our library catalogues and in our bibliographical work. What was once a dream is becoming in the modern world, with its growing stream of publications, its increasing libraries, its ever-larger number of institutions devoted to the dissemination of literature and documentation, a matter of urgent practical importance.
This emphasis on internationalization carried forward with great momentum towards the realization of two important milestones in tandem. The International Conference on Cataloguing Principles (ICCP) held in Paris in 1961, resulted in the articulation of twelve principles regarding the choice and form of headings in author/title catalogues. With the support of Unesco, and attended by representatives from fifty-three countries and twelve international organizations – including members from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia – the Paris Principles responded to the ICCP objective, “to facilitate the international communication of knowledge by achieving the widest possible uniformity in library catalogues and other means of bibliographical communication” (IFLA 1963, 13). As the introductory note to the meeting report suggests, the ICCP was remarkable, not only for the breadth of participant representation, but also for reaching decisions that spawned a number of new initiatives. “Its results have already influenced the revision of cataloguing rules in many countries and several of the projects suggested in its resolutions are in hand or about to be undertaken” (IFLA 1963, Vii).
The ICCP also introduced the possibility of using “electronic systems” to support the work of libraries, with one working paper advocating for the development of new rules, “to care (1) for works of automatic authorship and (2) for all works and records of personal, corporate and anonymous authorship susceptible to electronic and automatic treatment” (Gull 1963, 284). While no rules were developed, Gull’s paper foreshadowed dramatic technological advances that, in less than a decade, would impact dramatically on the recording and transmission of digital data through the communications format, Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC).
Likewise, the Paris Principles were instrumental to informing the work of the American, British, and Canadian rule revision committees, and the Library of Congress, as they collaborated on the development of a revised Anglo-American code. Published in 1967 in British and North American texts, respectively, the first edition of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR) contained three parts. Part I, Entry and Heading, was based on the Paris Principles, the 1949 ALA Rules, and a principle-based draft Code of Cataloging Rules; Author and Title Entry prepared by Seymour Lubetzky of the Library of Congress in 1960. Part II, Description, included revised rules from the 1949 Rules for Descriptive Cataloging in the Library of Congress. Part III, Non-book Materials, consisted of rules for description and entry of non-book materials. The latter reflected the proliferation of media formats that were being collected in an expanding base of school and public libraries. With the publication of AACR, the partnership in revision of Anglo-American codes among the American Library Association, the Library Association, the Library of Congress, and the Canadian Library
Association was cemented. Work continued apace on subsequent revisions and amendments to the 1967 code, particularly as non-book formats continued to proliferate.
The international collaboration that had culminated in the Paris Principles in 1961, carried forward to the International Meeting of Cataloguing Experts in Copenhagen in 1969. The meeting yielded a framework for descriptive cataloguing, along with a set of elements in a prescribed order with necessary punctuation. This International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) was applied, first to monographs (i.e., ISBD(M)), and subsequently to other media formats. The ISBD also became the model informing revisions to the 1967 Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, including chapters for monographs (6), AV and special instructional materials (12), and sound recordings (14). In 1974, the Anglo-American cataloguing community cemented its commitment to working collaboratively on rule revision by establishing the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR (JSC). Members included the American Library Association, the British Library, the Canadian Committee on Cataloguing – a formal committee of the Canadian Library Association – the Library Association, and the Library of Congress. The Australian Committee on Cataloguing became a full member in 1986. JSC’s mandate was to harmonize the separate North American and British texts into one, which culminated in 1978 in the publication of the second edition of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR2). Divided into two parts, the first, Part I Description, incorporated the ISBD framework, with chapter 1 devoted to general rules, and subsequent chapters dealing with different formats of resources. Part II, Entry and Heading, reflected the Paris Principles, thus positioning AACR2 as a cataloguing code well situated within the international standards context. The revision also reflected two major changes within the broader social context. First, AACR2 paid particular attention to developments in machine processing, and the growth of centralized and cooperative bibliographic utilities and networks. Second, the code responded to changing perceptions of women, adopting “a nonsexist policy” (Gorman 1980, 50), and replacing “all statement and rules which exclude women” (Gorman 1980, 49).
Ongoing amendments and additions to AACR2 continued over the next two decades, with publication of consolidated sets of revisions in 1988, 1998, and 2002, respectively. In 1997, the International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR, recommended a major structural review and rethinking of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, necessitated, in particular, by the proliferation of digital resources, the emergence and dynamic growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web, and the beginnings of alternate approaches to encoding and accessing digital information through metadata schemas and
applications, such as Dublin Core.
Opening the Tent: Models, Metadata, and the Semantic Web
Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) for electronic publishing (which became an ISO standard in 1988), along with its offspring, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and Extensible Markup Language (XML), provided the syntactic tools for describing the content, and enabling access to digital objects on the Web. Disciplines and domains wishing greater granularity for recording digital content developed metadata schemas, with elements and values specific to their needs. For example, ONIX supported point of sale and enhanced metadata for the book trade, while IEEE LOM provided rich tagging for electronic resources – learning objects – created for educational purposes, and the Visual Resources Association VRA Core described works of visual culture, along with the images documenting them. The interest in, and need for interoperability prompted domain silos to explore opportunities for data exchange. For the JSC and Anglo-American cataloguing community, this encouraged an opening of the tent to ensure interoperability of AACR with other metadata.
At its meeting in Chicago in April, 2005, the JSC responded to community feedback regarding a draft of a new edition (i.e., a 3rd edition) of AACR by announcing a major change in direction, and a new approach to revising the code. Between 2005 and its publication in June 2010, intensive work continued on the next iteration of rules with the new title, RDA: Resource Description and Access. Aligning structurally with the models, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), and Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD), RDA was developed, “as a new standard for resource description and access designed for the digital world”. The RDA Prospectus (2009) notes further that:
RDA will provide a comprehensive set of guidelines and instructions on resource description and access covering all types of content and media. The new standard is being developed for use primarily in libraries, but consultations are being undertaken with other communities (archives, museums, publishers, semantic web, etc.) in an effort to attain an effective level of alignment between RDA and the metadata standards used in those communities.
In the preceding quote we see, again, evidence of the common threads of internationalization and cooperation,3 but this time within a context that has
broadened to include “other communities”, and their metadata standards. Following a meeting in 2007 with representatives from RDA, the Dublin Core, IEEE LOM, and the W3C Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), the DCMI RDA Task Group was formed to develop RDA entities, relationships, and controlled terminologies compatible with Web architecture, and fully interoperable with Dublin Core and the Semantic Web.
Reference to the “semantic web” community brings into focus the current trend toward making available for aggregation linked data from multiple sources. As Dunsire and Willer (2010) explain:
The Semantic Web increases the granularity of metadata to a much higher level. Every attribute and relationship described in a catalogue record yields a triple, so the number of triples constituting a bibliographic record will range from tens to thousands. Professional maintenance of bibliographic metadata would therefore expect to gain improved efficiency by treating the triple as the “catalogue record” and so reduce duplication to a logical minimum. Online catalogues in a linked data environment can assemble bibliographic descriptions from instance triples taken from all available sources, so there is no need for the library community to create its own triple if there is already one available from the publishing community. The archive, library, and museum communities can focus on maintaining metadata unique to the needs of their members, such as provenance, availability, suitability, and context. Metadata of more general interest, such as label, format, associated places and events, will be accessible as linked data from other communities. (p. 11-12)
Consequently, the cataloguing process that will be supported by RDA will allow for harvesting existing metadata from various sources for populating a bibliographic record, relying on the cataloguer to making modifications based on local requirements.
3 While work on revising AACR has been ongoing, so, too, has the revision process for the family
of ISBDs. The ongoing commitment to internationalization and cooperation that has charac-terized ISBD amendments, and new ISBDs for emerging formats, such as electronic resources, has most recently culminated in the publication of the preliminary consolidated edition of the ISBD (2007) with another revision anticipated for 2011. Likewise, a series of five IFLA Meetings of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code (IME ICC), held between 2003 and 2007 for the purpose of replacing the Paris Principles of 1961, has resulted in the publication in February 2009, of the Statement of International Cataloguing Principles (ICP).
Conclusion: Towards Social Cataloguing and “A Lively Community of Interest”
As Dunsire and Willer observe (2010, 12), “There is increasing uptake of alternatives to the traditional cataloguing infrastructure in the form of open-source, social networking services for bibliographic information (for example, LibraryThing http://www.librarything.com/) which encourage users to add and amend metadata. These systems are more likely to take early advantage of linked data and Semantic Web developments.” This brings us back full circle to The Commons (FlickrTM), and Ellyssa Kroski’s “Hive mind” (2005).
The development of Anglo-American cataloguing codes, from the “magnificent mistake” of Panizzi’s 91 rules for the British Museum catalogue, to RDA: Resource Description and Access – a standard developed for the digital world (RDA Prospectus, 2009) – has followed a course focused on standardization, internationalization, and cooperation. Intent on making the world of knowledge accessible, and aided by the evolution of computers and information technologies over the past half century, cataloguing data have moved from the silos of individual collections, to the global displays of the Web, and of universal catalogues, such as OCLC’s WorldCat. With the semantic web opening the possibility of even greater sharing of linked data from multiple sources, the use of structured metadata does indeed move into Kroski’s “realm of the Everyman”.
Catalogue code development has resulted in the creation of huge storehouses of structured data which can now be accessed by anyone from anywhere. While “non-expert” individuals can supply their own natural vocabularies – their own personal metadata – to digital objects on a social networking site – tagging YouTube videos, or digital photos, or favourite websites, or personal collections of documents or books, etc. – they can also locate and harvest structured data from readily accessible sources of bibliographic information. The “convenience of the public” is now defined and determined by that “public” at the desktop, mobile phone, iPad, or other personal digital assistant (PDA) device. As Spiteri (2009, 53) explains:
Social cataloging sites provide us with an opportunity to examine how catalog records can go beyond the inventory based aims and objectives established by Cutter and act as interactive devices to not only inventory holdings, but to also exchange ideas, interests pertaining to items they have read, watched. In other words, we can examine fully interactive, user-generated, and moderated catalogs that encourage members to use the catalogs to not only inventory holdings, but to also exchange ideas, interests pertaining to items they have read, watched, or listened to.
community of interest where people can share their reading interests with one another” (Spiteri 2009, 52). While the “descriptive cataloguing” provided by users is not equivalent to that of trained professionals, it can serve – as the FlickrTM/Library of Congress pilot collaboration confirmed – to enhance the
bibliographic record, offering a unique partnership that engages “the public” with catalogues originally designed to serve that public’s need for information. The catalogue becomes, in a sense, better informed when user-supplied data joins that of the standards-based institutional record.
Far from detracting from the work of cataloguers, the move towards supporting social cataloguing through local library WebPACs, such as BiblioCommons, SOPAC, and LibraryThing for Libraries, opens a world of opportunity for cataloguers and standards-makers, alike. If the strength of the Semantic Web is structured data, and if structured data derives from universal standards developed and applied by bibliographic professionals (among others), there exists no end of creative engagement in a dynamic digital landscape where experts and laypersons, alike, require linked data to support access to a growing storehouse of personal and institutional resources. Likewise, those familiar with standards-based metadata will be in demand within communities whose “knowledge artefacts” have yet to be recorded and made accessible. Think, for example, of historical societies, or veterans’ associations, or small local museums, or indigenous communities which could benefit from digitizing their material culture and telling their stories to the world. A partnership of professional cataloguers and “social cataloguers”, each equipped to make a unique contribution to bringing previously inaccessible local knowledge to the Web, would seem a positive and progressive alliance.
In his address to the International Conference on Cataloguing Principles in 1961, Sir Frank Francis (IFLA 1963, 19) enthused that, “Librarians are among the most internationally minded professional people there are. They have no desire to suppress information they have at their disposal or to make personal capital out of any processes they use. All library knowledge is freely available throughout the world.” His comments, predating the emergence of information technologies and the Internet, seem even more relevant in today’s world of social networking, and social cataloguing. To the extent that Panizzi’s “magnificent mistake” and subsequent code development have provided the foundations for both universally-accessible catalogues and “lively communities of interest”, Sir Frank’s catalogue librarians have surely succeeded.
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Da “un magnifico errore” a “una comunità d’interazione dinamica”.
I codici di catalogazione angloamericani e
l’evoluzione della catalogazione sociale
Lectio Magistralis in Biblioteconomia di
Lynne C. Howarth
University of TorontoToronto, Canada
Firenze
Università degli studi di Firenze 23 marzo 2011
Lezioni magistrali in Biblioteconomia
Il Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, Medioevo e Rinascimento e Linguistica, il Master di secondo livello in archivistica, biblioteconomia e codicologia, e il Sistema bibliotecario di ateneo dell’Università di Firenze sono lieti di presentare la serie Lezioni Magistrali in Biblioteconomia, insieme alla Regione Toscana, alla Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze, all’Associazione italiana biblioteche, a “Biblioteche oggi”, “Jlis.it” e a Casalini Libri.
Le lezioni magistrali si rivolgono agli studiosi e ai professionisti, impegnati principalmente i primi nell’elaborazione critica e metodologica dei tratti connotativi della disciplina, i secondi nella sperimentazione e verifica sul campo del laboratorio-biblioteca. La necessaria relazione positiva fra studiosi e professionisti crea un circolo virtuoso che favorisce l’evolversi della disciplina. Le lezioni si rivolgono inoltre agli studenti di biblioteconomia e a quanti hanno interesse a investigare le tematiche proposte.
Mauro guerrini
Professore di Biblioteconomia e Catalogazione
Da “un magnifico errore” a “una comunità d’interazione dinamica”. I codici di catalogazione angloamericani e
l’evoluzione della catalogazione sociale Lynne C. Howarth4
In una grande biblioteca pubblica, frequentata ogni giorno da un ampio numero di utenti, è della massima importanza interferire il meno possibile con la convenienza dei lettori; si ritiene che nulla interferisca maggiormente che non trovare
un volume dove dovrebbe essere. - Sir Anthony Panizzi, 1850
Abstract
La catalogazione sociale – un’attività che incoraggia gli utenti a taggare, valutare, recensire e commentare le raccolte delle biblioteche, e che comprende anche il tagging degli utenti direttamente sulle registrazioni del catalogo per facilitare l’individuazione delle risorse – è considerata generalmente come una tendenza recente e senza precedenti del controllo bibliografico. Al contrario, questo saggio sostiene che il coinvolgimento degli utenti nella descrizione e nell’aggiunta di termini del linguaggio naturale rientra nel processo logico di sviluppo dei codici e degli standard di catalogazione. Il saggio ricostruisce la storia delle regole di catalogazione angloamericane a partire dalla metà dell’Ottocento, evidenziando in particolare un impegno continuo e crescente verso la cooperazione, l’internazionalizzazione e “il beneficio dell’utente” – un concetto proposto inizialmente da Antonio Panizzi (1841) e sviluppato più in dettaglio da Charles Cutter (1904).
Una collaborazione tra catalogatori professionisti e “catalogatori sociali”, ciascuno pronto a dare il proprio contributo per trasferire su web una conoscenza locale prima inaccessibile, sembra un’alleanza crescente e positiva, dal momento che gli attuali standard sottolineano l’interoperabilità con i metadati e gli schemi sviluppati in altri ambiti e discipline e che la richiesta di dati strutturati aumenta in relazione alla crescita del web semantico.
Parole chiave: catalogazione sociale; Regole di catalogazione angloamericane; codici e standard bibliografici; tagging; dati collegati; catalogazione cooperativa; web semantico; web 2.0.
4 PhD, Professor and Associate Dean, Research Faculty of Information, University of Toronto,
Introduzione
Il 16 gennaio 2008 la Library of Congress pubblicò 3.000 fotografie su FlickrTM,
un sito popolare di scambio di foto, e invitò il pubblico a visionare, descrivere e taggare due serie di raccolte storiche (Springer et al., 2008). Dieci mesi dopo avere lanciato il progetto pilota con il motto “La Library of Congress chiede aiuto agli utenti”, l’equipe del progetto descrisse nella propria relazione i risultati straordinariamente positivi, talvolta anche inattesi, di questo esperimento inedito con le comunità del web 2.0 e del social tagging (Springer et al., 2008, 2):
Il progetto ha dato molti risultati positivi e anche imprevisti: la disponibilità dei membri di Flickr a dedicare energie enormi al lavoro di ricerca storica; l’aggiunta autonoma di nuove informazioni con link agli archivi dei giornali e a siti web molto specializzati; la valanga di apprezzamenti per l’avvio del progetto e la ricezione positiva di vecchie foto non ritoccate; il desiderio che altre istituzioni lanciassero iniziative analoghe; la diffusione rapida di notizie sul progetto fin dai primi giorni dalla pubblicazione sulla blogosfera e la rapidità con la quale nuovi tag e commenti continuano a essere aggiunti dopo il caricamento settimanale di nuove foto.
Il successo del progetto pilota spinse FlickrTM a creare una nuova iniziativa,
The Commons (http://www.flickr.com/commons/), con il duplice scopo di: 1) aumentare l’accesso a raccolte fotografiche di enti pubblici e 2) mettere a disposizione del pubblico uno strumento per dare il proprio contributo di informazioni e conoscenze. Oggi, quarantasei istituzioni culturali, tra le quali biblioteche, archivi e musei di tutto il mondo, forniscono le loro collezioni di foto digitali e offrono ai membri di FlickrTM “l’opportunità di contribuire a descrivere le raccolte fotografiche
pubbliche di tutto il mondo”. Sembra che si tratti davvero di catalogazione!
E se il pubblico viene invitato a descrivere le fotografie delle collezioni delle principali istituzioni culturali del mondo, che senso ha tutto ciò per la comunità biblioteconomica internazionale e per il futuro della catalogazione descrittiva? Ci sono implicazioni, e quali, per lo sviluppo permanente di codici e standard? In che misura una nuova generazione di opac 2.0, come BiblioCommons (http://www.bibliocommons.com/), o SOPAC, il Social opac, (http://thesocialopac.net/), che consente agli utenti di taggare, valutare, recensire e commentare le raccolte delle biblioteche, e che inserisce i tag forniti dagli utenti nelle registrazioni del catalogo per migliorare l’individuazione delle risorse, può cambiare gli approcci standard alla catalogazione?
In un articolo del dicembre 2005, Ellyssa Kroski affermava che:
Oggi gli utenti aggiungono metadati e usano tag per organizzare le loro collezioni digitali, categorizzano i contenuti degli altri e costruiscono sistemi di classificazione dal basso. La saggezza della folla, la mente alveare e l’intelligenza collettiva stanno facendo ciò che fino a oggi hanno fatto solo catalogatori professionisti, architetti dell’informazione e creatori di siti web. Stanno categorizzando e organizzando internet e decidendo l’esperienza dell’utente, e ciò funziona. In questo settore non esiste più il monopolio degli esperti; in questa era nuova gli utenti hanno il potere di decidere le proprie necessità di catalogazione. I metadati oggi sono alla portata dell’uomo qualunque.
Anche se Kroski si riferiva prevalentemente al social tagging come strumento per raggruppare, categorizzare, o “classificare” le collezioni digitali personali, vorrei richiamare l’attenzione in particolare sulle ultime due frasi del brano citato. Afferma che l’individuazione delle necessità di catalogazione è ora nelle mani del singolo, e che è non più dominio esclusivo di “esperti” di catalogazione, o di chi crede di sapere cosa è meglio per “l’utente”.
Questa sua rivendicazione quasi trionfante individua i fili conduttori che intrecceremo in questa lezione. Esaminerò come il contesto e i principi che hanno fatto da cornice al susseguirsi dei codici di catalogazione angloamericani, insieme al continuo impegno verso la cooperazione, l’internazionalizzazione e il “beneficio dell’utente” (Cutter 1904, 6) siano stati la base per la “catalogazione sociale” odierna e al tempo stesso abbiano creato opportunità per una nuova generazione di catalogatori e di sviluppatori di standard per i metadati. Mostrerò come i creatori di regole siano necessariamente il risultato del loro milieu storico, sociale e culturale e che i codici che essi sviluppano riflettono queste influenze. L’ambito dell’analisi verrà limitato ai codici angloamericani, evidenziando però, quando è il caso, le influenze esercitate da organismi internazionali.
La nascita dell’istruzione pubblica e l’espansione delle biblioteche nel Regno Unito, negli Stati Uniti e in Canada
Nel contesto angloamericano, i cambiamenti progressivi all’interno delle biblioteche hanno corrisposto ampiamente agli sviluppi dell’istruzione pubblica. Mentre i sistemi di istruzione si evolvevano, spostandosi da istituzioni religiose o private fortemente locali e accessibili solo ai benestanti verso un sistema di scolarizzazione pubblico accessibile a tutti i cittadini, aumentava contemporaneamente il bisogno di libri e di altre fonti di informazione. In Inghilterra, l’Elementary Education Act del 1870 sancì l’obbligo dell’istruzione elementare per tutti i bambini tra i 5 e i 13 anni e istituì dei consigli scolastici per sovrintendere allo sviluppo di una rete scolastica (Gillard 2011). Nel 1867, il Constitution Act del Canada incaricò gli organi legislativi periferici, in via esclusiva, di emanare leggi relative all’istruzione, mentre la precedente normativa, l’Act for the Better Establishment and Maintenance of Common School in Upper Canada del 1846, aveva posto le basi per il sistema di istruzione universale a livello di scuole “normali” o elementari. Nella convinzione che la scolarizzazione generalizzata avrebbe ridotto povertà e criminalità, e formato buoni cittadini, e sulla scia dello stato del Massachusetts, che approvò la prima legge per l’obbligo scolastico, l’istruzione pubblica divenne un diritto per tutti i bambini americani alla fine del XIX secolo.
Contemporanea all’estensione dell’istruzione pubblica nel contesto angloamericano della fine del secolo XIX fu la crescita delle biblioteche universitarie e di college, oltre che la nascita di biblioteche pubbliche completamente accessibili. La strada fu aperta dal Parlamento del Regno Unito: nel 1850, il Public Libraries Act attribuì alle circoscrizioni locali il potere di costituire biblioteche pubbliche gratuite, ponendo le basi per l’accesso universale a livello nazionale alle opere contemporanee a stampa. Nel 1876, Charles Ammi Cutter fu assunto dall’United States Bureau of Education per collaborare alla stesura di una relazione sullo stato delle biblioteche; il suo Rules for a Dictionary Catalog apparve come la seconda parte del rapporto Public Libraries in the United States of America: their History, Condition, and Management.
Andrew Carnegie, il grande americano filantropo e magnate dell’acciaio, tra il 1883 e la sua morte nel 1919, sovvenzionò la costruzione di un totale di 3.000 biblioteche pubbliche negli Stati Uniti, in Canada, nel Regno Unito, in Irlanda, Australia, Nuova Zelanda, Indie occidentali e Isole Fiji.
L’aumento dei documenti per l’istruzione elementare nelle istituzioni a sovvenzione pubblica e nelle biblioteche universitarie e di college, nonché lo sviluppo delle raccolte delle biblioteche pubbliche a fini professionali, di istruzione e ricreativi, richiesero approcci standardizzati nella registrazione e
nell’organizzazione dei libri e delle altre risorse che non si trovavano più soltanto presso singoli benestanti o presso istituzioni a sovvenzione privata.
La necessità di approcci standardizzati nella registrazione delle raccolte: prime redazioni di codici angloamericani e di catalogazione cooperativa
La crescente democratizzazione nell’istruzione e nell’accesso al mondo della conoscenza rese necessario garantire l’accesso libero e aperto alle collezioni ormai di dominio pubblico. Melvil Dewey (1877, 247) affermò che lo scopo delle biblioteche era istruire le masse rendendo loro accessibile, con la minore spesa possibile, la più importante letteratura del tempo. La realizzazione di questo obiettivo implicava che le biblioteche collaborassero nell’elaborazione di “cataloghi efficaci” basati su un approccio coerente e uniforme alla catalogazione. Sicché nel 1876, lo stesso anno nel quale Charles Cutter pubblicava il suo Rules for a Dictionary Catalog, fu fondata l’American Library Association e il suo Committee on Cooperative Indexing fu incaricato da Dewey di definire un piano per la catalogazione cooperativa (Heisey 1976). Il risultato fu la bozza di regole provvisorie del 31 gennaio 1877 che, in seguito a una serie di controversie e di discussioni approfondite, fu pubblicato sul “Library journal” come il codice ALA del 1883. Come evidenzia Terry Heisey (1976) nella sua storia dello sviluppo dei codici negli Stati Uniti, le nuove regole dell’ALA non erano tanto dettagliate da diventare uno standard americano, perché riunivano semplicemente le regole di Cutter con quelle della Library Association of the United Kingdom (LAUK) inglese e con quelle della Bodleian Library come ulteriori indicazioni per la prassi catalografica.
La Library Association of the United Kingdom, fondata nel 1877, seguendo una soluzione analoga e condividendo con i colleghi americani l’impegno nella catalogazione cooperativa, pubblicò due edizioni delle Cataloging Rules of the Library Association of the United Kingdom: la prima nel 1881 e la seconda nel 1883 (Blake 2002). Nel 1902 la ribattezzata Library Association incaricò un comitato, il British Committee on Cataloguing Rules, della revisione delle proprie regole di catalogazione. In seguito, il comitato fu sollecitato da Dewey a lavorare con l’ALA Catalog Rules Committee per sviluppare un codice comune. Nel settembre 1904, la LA accettò formalmente la proposta di Dewey e, due anni dopo, J.C.M. Hanson, presidente dell’ALA Committee, si incontrò con i bibliotecari inglesi per appianare le differenze residue tra la bozza della LA e i codici dell’ALA in corso di stesura. Le discussioni portarono a un accordo quasi completo (tutte le 174 regole, tranne 8) e alla pubblicazione nel 1908 delle edizioni in inglese e in americano delle Catalog Rules: Author and Title
Entries. Le 174 regole del codice riguardavano la descrizione, la scelta e la forma dell’intestazione per autori e titoli.
Come osserva Blake (2002, 14), il codice congiunto fu “notevolmente ispirato a Panizzi-Cutter”, fondendo le pratiche catalografiche angloamericane con l’impegno verso la catalogazione cooperativa, con un’applicazione uniforme e coerente e con l’attenzione verso il “beneficio dell’utente” (Cutter 1904, 6). La Prefazione alle regole del 1908 nota che, mentre il codice “dovrebbe essere in accordo con il sistema che indirizza la compilazione delle schede del catalogo alla Library of Congress” e “deve essere guidato principalmente dai requisiti delle biblioteche più grandi di carattere accademico, […] il problema di quanto si dovessero tenere in considerazione anche le necessità delle biblioteche più piccole di carattere popolare divenne subito evidente” (p. Viii). Il Catalogue
Rules Committee stabilì “di omettere suggerimenti intesi a orientare le biblioteche di carattere popolare”, promuovendo invece la preparazione di una “edizione semplificata, particolarmente adatta alle esigenze di biblioteche più piccole di carattere popolare” (p. Viii). Nonostante ciò, il codice forniva
“alternative ed eccezioni occasionali”, ammettendo la discrezionalità di singole biblioteche e menzionando direttamente il “beneficio dell’utente”5 di Cutter,
come giustificazione per il più permissivo “uso occasionale della parola ‘può’” (1908, ix).
Oltre a 1) riconoscere “biblioteche più piccole di carattere popolare” (1908, Viii),
2) consentire la discrezionalità di singole biblioteche con l’uso della parola ‘può’ nel codice, e 3) rispecchiare la collaborazione tra l’associazione americana e quella inglese, il codice del 1908 fu unico nella sua apertura alla cooperazione internazionale al di fuori dell’ambito angloamericano. La Prefazione evidenziava gli sforzi compiuti in Germania “per un coordinamento delle pratiche di catalogazione nelle biblioteche delle università e governative della Prussia” (1908, x), concludendo che:
anche se c’è poca probabilità di un accordo sui due punti fondamentali di divergenza tra regole tedesche e angloamericane […] e anche se il Committee non ha avuto alcuna diretta corrispondenza o relazione con rappresentanti del movimento tedesco, abbiamo ritenuto nostro
5 “Il beneficio dell’utente deve sempre essere anteposto all’agio del catalogatore. Nella
mag-gioranza dei casi i due aspetti coincidono. Una regola semplice, priva di eccezioni, non solo è facile per noi da applicare, ma è facile per il pubblico da comprendere e da seguire. Tuttavia, la coerenza rigorosa di una regola e la sua applicazione costante a volte urtano con il modo abituale del pubblico di guardare alle cose. Quando tali abitudini sono diffuse e radicate, non è saggio che il catalogatore le ignori, anche se richiedono un sacrificio in termini di sistematicità e di semplicità. […] È troppo pretendere che la Commissione abbia sempre compreso i punti di vista del pubblico, valutato correttamente il suo potere di modificarli e tracciato al punto giusto la linea di demarcazione tra l’attenzione alla salvaguardia delle abitudini e il desiderio di
dovere, nonostante ciò, nel corso di questa nuova revisione delle regole ALA, prendere la necessaria coscienza delle istruzioni promulgate dal Ministro del pubblico culto della Prussia […] e, nel formulare le nostre decisioni, tenere presente la possibilità di futuri accordi e collaborazioni internazionali (p. x).
Un contesto sociale per la standardizzazione e l’internazionalizzazione
Se la seconda metà del XIX secolo fu un periodo di progressivo cambiamento sociale che consentì una maggiore democratizzazione delle istituzioni educative e di accesso ai depositi delle informazioni, fu anche il tempo del paternalismo, del razionalismo e del positivismo. La conoscenza era creata da “esperti” riconosciuti, estremamente colti e qualificati dai quali si irradiava verso chi doveva essere educato. L’affermazione di Paul Otlet che “la conoscenza è costituita esclusivamente di tutti i fatti osservati e di tutte le ipotesi plausibili che sono state formulate per spiegare quei fatti e ricondurli a leggi” (1893, 17), è caratteristica di un periodo che enfatizza il metodo scientifico e una visione oggettiva del mondo. La fine del XIX secolo fu anche un momento nel quale vennero sviluppate molte classificazioni universali; il sentito bisogno di standardizzazione divenne più pressante perché le informazioni – e l’accesso a esse – si diffondevano oltre i confini locali o istituzionali (Bowker 1996). Anche nel suo contributo “Something about Bibliography” Otlet sintetizza il clima del tempo: “Singole monografie, ricerche su argomenti specialistici, contributi a studi più generali stanno moltiplicandosi, in effetti, oltre ogni misura. È indispensabile che tutte queste opere siano registrate e classificate, in modo che ciascuno possa recuperarle immediatamente per usarle e progredire, per sapere in ogni istante che cosa è stato fatto e che cosa resta da fare” (1893, 13).
I codici di catalogazione elaborati da Panizzi (1841), Jewett (1853), Cutter (1876; 1904), Dewey (Library School Rules, 1894), dall’ALA (1883; 1908) e dalla Library Association of the United Kingdom (1881; 1883; 1908), per citarne solo alcuni, sono espressione della volontà di standardizzare l’approccio al controllo delle crescenti collezioni pubbliche. Gli standard, come la conoscenza, furono sviluppati da esperti bibliografi che si riteneva capissero le necessità di coloro che non avevano quelle conoscenze, ma necessitavano di standard universali
guidare l’utenza verso un’auspicabile semplicità e coerenza, ma perlomeno ho sempre cercato di tenere presente entrambe le posizioni”. Prefazione alla quarta edizione di Charles A. Cutter,
Rules for a Dictionary Catalog, 4th ed., rewritten, Washington, DC: Government Printing
Of-fice, 1904, p. 6. La citazione è tratta dalla traduzione italiana, in corso di stampa: Charles A. Cutter, Regole per un catalogo dizionario, traduzione di Maria Letizia Fabbrini, a cura di Carlo Ghilli e Mauro Guerrini, Firenze, Le Lettere.
