News from the Chair
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Series 4, no. 41 Spring 2018 ISSN 1744-3180 NEWS FROM THE CHAIR Welcome to the first Library & Information History Group newsletter of 2018, and my first editorial as the group’s new Chair; I’m sure many of you who know Renae will realise that I have some formidable shoes to fill, and I will do my very best to uphold the high standards she has set for the group. I would also like to thank her once again, on behalf of the committee, for her hard work and devotion as Chair, and hope that she will continue to be a strong presence within the group. Following my promotion, we also welcome to Reception at Maggs Bros to celebrate the 50th-anniversary of the committee Sophie Defrance as our new the Library and Information History Journal (photo credit: Publicity Officer, who will take charge of our Dorothy Clayon). For the report on this event, turn to page 18. social media presence and monthly updates. Jill Dye takes over as Conference Organiser, and will be in charge of organising our 2018 annual conference which this year is taking CONTENTS place at St. Bride’s in London on Saturday 7th July. Our thanks also go to Monica Blake, our FEATURE ARTICLE P. 2 outgoing Conference Organiser, for all her MESSAGE FROM RENAE SATTERLEY P. 4 hard work and dedication to the group. HISTORIC LIBRARIES IN FOCUS P. 5 Gregory Toth takes over as Events Organiser. NEWS P. 7 In this issue we have reports on last year’s LECTURES, SEMINARS AND EVENTS P. 9 50th anniversary celebrations for Library & CONFERENCES P. 13 Information History Journal by Dorothy AWARDS AND BURSARIES P. 16 Clayton, the recent Historic Libraries Forum EXHIBITIONS P. 16 Conference by Mhairi Rutherford, and our tour of the Royal College of Surgeons and REPORTS P. 17 Physicians in Glasgow by yours truly; not to PRINTED RESOURCES P. 22 mention two very interesting articles by Harry BACK MATTER P. 24 Carson and David Stumpp. Dan Gooding Chair LIHG Newsletter Series 4 no. 41 Spring 2018 FEATURE ARTICLE near the bottom (Fig. 1). To me the availability of the Wing CD-ROM FREE ONLINE AVAILABILITY OF THE WING CD-ROM, edition is notable news for two reasons. First, 1996 EDITION when the ESTC/NA office received the CD- Formerly a cataloguer for the English Short Title ROM, ESTC cataloguers almost immediately Catalogue, David Stumpp is pleased to announce used this edition to the exclusion of prior the availability of the 1996-edition of Wing CD- printed editions. This is not to say that we ROM on ESTC's web-matching site. ignored previous editions. We referred to them as necessary, but we preferred the CD- Before moving to the United Kingdom, I ROM, because it was the most current Wing worked from 1997 to 2008 as a cataloguer for reference. The second reason the Center for Bibliographical Studies and THE AVAILABILITY OF Research - a humanities research centre at the why I am so excited about WING CD-ROM IS NOTABLE University of California, Riverside and the NEWS FOR TWO REASONS home of the English Short Title Catalogue, this change is North America (ESTC/NA) office. As a former that the Wing CD- ESTC cataloguer, I have to a certain extent ROM utility in the STAR continued to be involved in the project and I interface, for its entire duration up until just am ever a proponent of its use and of recently, had an inherent problem of not contributions towards its growth. displaying all the internal fields that were available in the original Windows 95 interface, Hence, I am happy to announce the particularly the field that - when the somewhat-new availability of the 1996 CD- information was available - expanded a ROM edition of the Short-title catalogue of printer’s / publisher’s / bookseller’s initials into books printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, their full name. Wales, and British America, and of English books printed in other countries, 1641-1700 by In the late 90s, the ESTC - with permission Donald Goddard Wing via the ESTC STAR web- from the Modern Language Association (MLA) - matching interface. This is an account-based created basic records from the Wing CD-ROM web service provided to the world’s libraries by to be matched against the database. When an the ESTC/NA for the inclusion and item known to Wing was found lacking in the maintenance of their holdings in the ESTC. It is ESTC, a ‘placeholder’ record was left to fill the also currently the only means by which to gap until a proper report was received. Over search the last-published edition of the Wing time, as the office chipped away at its catalogue if your enormous backlog of Xeroxed bibliographic library does not reports sent from happen to be one of libraries worldwide, the few libraries most placeholder willing to have spent records were eventually thousands for the CD- upgraded to full ROM package while it Fig. 1 Links to Wing (CD-ROM, 1996) edition, a keyed version of antiquarian cataloguing Pollard and Redgrave, Short-Title Catalogue of English Books standards.1 There are was still available for 1475-1640, and the Library of Congress Authority file online. purchase. (Image courtesy of the English Short Title Catalogue, North yet a small number of America (ESTC/NA). those placeholders This feature has remaining in the actually been available in this way for many catalogue that will be resolved in time or that years now, but until recently it was not fully simply have no resolution by virtue of being functional. Some cataloguers who have made errors or because the original target of the use of their libraries’ web matching accounts entry was lost, destroyed, or erroneous, i.e. may already be familiar with it, because there ghosts. is a link on the main ESTC/STAR search page, 2 LIHG Newsletter Series 4 no. 41 Spring 2018 Quite lamentably, the 510 reference fields in if a library were to do so and is one of the many thousands of records were left citing many institutions which share their records previous editions of Wing. The result is that with WorldCat, the error could be while an ESTC record might cite a (2nd ed., compounded further, possibly causing 1994), a (2nd ed.), or even a (1972 ed.) of Wing, confusion between holdings and the alpha-numeric citation in the 510 should misperceptions in regard to what editions actually refer to an entry in the CD-ROM actually exist. edition, the record having been upgraded accordingly. Proper attention to this detail was As I mentioned earlier, the inclusion now of not overlooked as part of a formal policy fields previously unavailable in the STAR decision. It was one of those unfortunate loose interface is a great improvement. For example, ends that are all too common in a soft-money on any occasion in which you might have project. It simply was not high enough on the encountered a 500 note in an ESTC record priority ladder. stating that a book-trade member’s full name came from Wing, this is the very field from And why is this important? Because Wing which that information derived. This was a numbers have changed over the years. As the element of the CD-ROM I frequently referred breadth of the catalogue expanded through to as an ESTC cataloguer. Since part of our editions, new Wing numbers were created. As function as cataloguers is to verify the validity authorship was discovered or re-evaluated, for of information in the records we encounter for example, or as fragmentary materials were the benefit of the public, I heartily welcome its pieced together into properly associated return. wholes, contemporary Wing numbers were cancelled and their catalogue entries were either amended to fit the new information or absorbed into other entries (fig. 2). A Wing Fig. 3 Example of a CD-ROM Wing entry as seen via the ESTC/STAR web-matching interface that includes publication information not formerly included in previous editions of Wing. (Image courtesy of the English Short Title Catalogue, North America (ESTC/NA)) Fig.2 Example of a cancelled Wing entry from the Wing (CD- ROM, 1996) edition utility as seen via the ESTC/STAR web- The late Henry Snyder, for many years the matching interface. (Image courtesy of the English Short Title director of the ESTC/NA, once asserted to me Catalogue, North America (ESTC/NA)) that the ESTC in the present day was the most number from the original 1945 edition, for up-to-date version of Wing. While this is more example, will, in most cases, be consistent or less accurate, I have long maintained that through later editions, but this is not Wing-by-way-of-ESTC-records has not been a universally true. suitable stand-alone alternative to the CD- ROM, i.e. the last formal edition, or to any of More to the point, because Wing-era records its print predecessors, because the ESTC is in the ESTC are based on a template of the more akin to an edited history than to an Wing CD-ROM citations, to associate a current original source. Although it is true that many ESTC number with a previous, printed edition ESTC records for that time period were of Wing is potentially inaccurate. Additionally, created directly from entries taken from the 3 LIHG Newsletter Series 4 no. 41 Spring 2018 Wing CD-ROM, we changed details as we A FOND FAREWELL learned more about any item in question. We made unilateral decisions regarding Wing Our former chair Renae Satterley looks back on numbers and their viability (for example, Wing seven years of being part of the LIHG committee ghosts), and, more importantly, we were and is optimistic for the future of library and human and capable of error.2 information history research.