50th ~nniversary Feature- Yesterday's Heresy­ Today' s Orthodoxy: An Essay on the Changing Face of Descriptive Cataloging Michael Gorman This article analyses four descriptive cataloging orthodoxies of the past-corporate authorship, uniform personal headings, the main entry, and the dominance of the card catalog-and con­ tends that each has been overthrown, overtly or covertly. It contrasts the views of Cutter and Panizzi, mostly in the latter's favor, and alludes to the pronouncements of nineteenth and twentieth century luminaries and committees on the matters under discussion. The ways in which the MARC format has influenced descriptive cataloging, for good and ill, are also treated. The article closes with a plea for reason and the application of utilitarian principles. rthodoxy is my doxy; hetero­ others, have changed some of my opin­ doxy is another man's doxy," ions and have seen some other opinions said Bishop Warburton to Lord move from the fringes to embodiment in Sandwich. Descriptive catalog­ the very codes that regulate the largest ing, that pleasant backwater of human en­ and most influential body of descriptive deavor, is as subject to the kind of situa­ cataloging-that of the Anglo-American tional ethics that the eighteenth century tradition. divine had in mind as is any other area of I seek in this essay to describe some of human thought. The good bishop thought the changes that have occurred in descrip­ of opinions and dogmas in terms of the tive cataloging of the Anglo-American tra­ frailties of the flesh ("doxy: a loose dition in the last fifty years. The most re­ wench ... sometimes: MISTRESS," Web­ markable features of those changes are the ster's Third New International Dictionary), way in which seemingly impregnable bas­ which tells us a good deal about the Angli­ tions of orthodoxy have been revealed to can Church in the bad old days. I think it is be as transient as sand castles and the way as valid to think about orthodoxies and in which, on some occasions, the guard­ heresy in terms of chronology. In the last ians of the descriptive cataloging estab­ thirty years, we who are involved in de­ lishment (the national libraries, the library scriptive cataloging have seen heresies be­ associations, IFLA, and the rest) have come dogmas and wild speculations be­ proved to be as nimble as adagio dancers come received opinions. I, as have many in adapting to the accommodation of pre- Michael Connan is Dean of Library Services at California State University, Fresno, California 93740. This paper is a revised version of an essay which is part of a festschrift in honour of Peter Lewis, the recently retired Director-General of the Bibliographic Services Division of the British Library. The festschrift, Eating the Menus, edited by Ross Bourne, was published by the British Library in 1989. 626 Yesterday's Heresy 627 viously abhorrent ideas. was needed was a dose of common sense to challenge the central idiocy of corporate CORPORATE AUTHORSHIP authorship. Corporate authorship is as good a place Cometh the hour, cometh the man (or to begin as any. The saintly and ingenious woman). It was the great Seymour Lu­ Sir Anthony Panizzi (the fons et origo of the betzky who dealt the first hammer blow. It Anglo-American cataloging tradition) re­ was Eva Verona who finally demolished jected all but the smallest smidgeon of cor­ the whole thing. Lubetzky assailed the porate authorship in his ninety-one rules. corporate complex and tried to introduce It was Charles Ammi Cutter who began logic into the application of the idea of cor­ the whole farrago with his breezy observa­ porate authorship. The only problem was tion ''I think that the American practice of that the notion of a corporate body being regarding bodies of men as the authors of ''chiefly responsible for the intellectual or their own journals, proceedings, etc. artistic content'' of a work is, except in cer­ is preferable to the German practice of dis­ tain narrow and infrequent cases, inher­ persing these works throughout the al­ ently implausible. Even Lubetzky's pow­ phabet ... " (Note the two kinds of erful mind was incapable of pulling off the chauvinism so characteristic of the pe­ trick of rationalizing the absurd. riod.) He went on, in his Rules for Descrip­ tive Cataloging, to state that "bodies of men are to be considered to be the authors of works published in their name or by ''The notion of a corporate body be­ their authority.'' It is interesting to see ing 'chiefly responsible for the intel­ that the robust "bodies of men" (redolent lectual or artistic content' of a work of Kipling at his most strenuous) are not is, except in certain narrow and infre­ flatly stated to be authors but are merely to quent cases, inherently implausi­ . be considered to be such. However hedged ble." his rule might have been, the fact remains that Cutter had begun to stir the witches' cauldron of corporate authorship. The nineteenth century, the time of the In the Paris Principles of 1961, a work that single author giants of descriptive catalog­ emanated from a conference that was ing, was succeeded (with almost uncanny dominated by Lubetzkyan reformist chronological neatness) by the time of the ideas, we find reference to "entry under corporate creation of the Anglo-American corporate body'' and provisions that are cataloging codes. Since the committees considerably less sweeping than they that were responsible for those codes were might appear to the casual reader. What corporate entities, is it any wonder that this section of the Principles represents is they espoused the concept of corporate a political compromise between the authorship? That could be accepted as Anglo-American comprehensive view of mere human frailty. What is almost inex­ corporate authorship and the much nar­ cusable is the baroque indulgence with rower provisions for corporate entry which they elaborated on the fundamen­ found in the descriptive cataloging codes tally silly idea. Cutter's "bodies of men" of continental Europe. Corporate author­ were succeeded by the Rube Goldberg ship is not mentioned in the Principles, elaborations of the distinctions between but entry under a corporate body is al­ societies and institutions and the ultimate lowed in numerous cases. The idea be­ absurdities of (for example) rules for ob­ hind the Principles was that they were to servatories located outside municipalities form the basis for international standard­ and for institutions located in several ization and that the future codes that took places. As the years whirled down the al­ them as their bases would be in conform­ leys of time (1908, 1937, 1941, 1949), the ity. Alas, the loo.seness of their wording, whole crazy structure of corporate author­ which was made necessary by the political ship became less and less stable. What compromises that made the Paris meeting 628 College & Research Libraries November 1989 ''work,'' made it possible for new national and video recordings and other works cre­ codes to drive a coach and horses through ated by a performing group under the the idea of international uniformity. No­ name of the group seems to me to be a rec­ where is this more apparent than in the ognition of a plain fact. That fact is that it is use that was made of the section on corpo­ hard to dispute that, say, the Rolling rate entry. The first edition of the Anglo­ Stones are the authors of sound recordings American cataloging rules (AACR), in that contain songs that the group has writ­ both its British and North American mani­ ten, performed, and produced. So, as cor­ festations, explicitly embraced the con­ porate authors steal from the scene to be cept of corporate authorship while cl~­ replaced by a few "emanators," modem ing to be based on the Paris Principl~) At society and technology have given us a more or less the same time, European type of material in which corporate au­ codes were published which did exactly thorship is indisputable. the opposite while also claiming to be based on those self-same principles. But UNIFORM PERSONAL HEADINGS 'twas a famous victory! Charles Ammi Cutter was, in Paul The reaction was not long in coming. Dunkin's phraseology, the Prophet upon Seeing that the ambiguity of the Paris Prin­ whose dicta the Law of our cataloging ciples had made it possible for national and codes was based. His most Mosaic utter­ international catalog4tg codes to remain ance is to be found in his famous Objects far apart on a vital conceptual question, of a dictionary catalog. Those few state­ the IFLA Committee on Cataloguing en­ ments have been the cause of much that is couraged Eva Verona to do a study of cor­ good about the cataloging codes that took porate headings (published in 1975 as Cor­ them unquestioningly as their basis. They porate Headings: Their Use in Library have also been the cause of some persist­ Catalogues and National Bibliographies: A ent error and of some misunderstanding. I Comparative and Critical Study) which es­ have never seen it pointed out that, for in­ poused the Continental European idea stance, the very first "object" makes little that there is no such thing as a corporate or no sense. It reads "To enable the reader author, though the limited use of corporate to find a book of which . the author is main entry headings in author catalogs known.'' The fact is, of course, that if one may be justified. This distinction has the knows nothing of a book other than the whiff of angels and pins that is characteris­ name of its author, it will be impossible to tic of much of descriptive cataloging the­ locate that book with complete confi­ ory, but it did lead to an important theo­ dence.