Cataloging & Classification Quarterly

ISSN: 0163-9374 (Print) 1544-4554 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/wccq20

Forging the Anglo-American Cataloging Alliance:

Descriptive Cataloging, 1830–1908

Dr. Virgil L. P. Blake

To cite this article: Dr. Virgil L. P. Blake (2002) Forging the Anglo-American Cataloging Alliance:
Descriptive Cataloging, 1830–1908, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 35:1-2, 3-22, DOI:
10.1300/J104v35n01_02

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1300/J104v35n01_02

Published online: 23 Oct 2009.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 748

View related articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=wccq20
 GENERAL WORKS
ON CATALOGING RULES

Forging the Anglo-American

Cataloging Alliance:
Descriptive Cataloging, 1830-1908
Virgil L. P. Blake

SUMMARY. This paper discusses the development of descriptive cata-

loging from 1830 to 1908 and focuses on the careers of Antonio Panizzi,
Charles Coffin Jewett, and Charles Ammi Cutter and the development of
the American Library Association (ALA) and the Library Association of
the United Kingdom (LAUK). It analyzes the various rules and codes
put forth by both Americans and British librarians and the eventual
cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom. [Arti-
cle copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:
1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <getinfo@haworthpressinc.com> Website:
<http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights re-
served.]

Dr. Virgil L. P. Blake, Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information
Studies, Queens College, CUNY, has taught cataloging for many years (E-mail:
VirgilBF@cs.com).
This paper is dedicated to Dr. H. Gordon Stevenson.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Forging the Anglo-American Cataloging Alliance: Descriptive Cata-
loging, 1830-1908.” Blake, Virgil L. P. Co-published simultaneously in Cataloging & Classification Quar-
terly (The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 35, No. 1/2, 2002, pp. 3-22;
and: Historical Aspects of Cataloging and Classification (ed: Martin D. Joachim) The Haworth Information
Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2003, pp. 3-22. Single or multiple copies of this article are avail-
able for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
(EST). E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com].

 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 3

4 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

KEYWORDS. Antonio Panizzi, Charles Coffin Jewett, Charles Ammi

Cutter, American Library Association, Library Association of the United
Kingdom, descriptive cataloging, cooperative cataloging, cataloging rules

INTRODUCTION

For current (and many not so current) students of cataloging, the dominance
of an international standard of cataloging rules is a given. However, in histori-
cal terms, this is a comparatively recent development. Librarians have been
confronting the challenge of compiling a complete and accurate record of
their holdings since 2000 B.C.1 Our current situation owes its existence, pri-
marily, to three individuals–Antonio Panizzi, Charles Coffin Jewett, and
Charles Ammi Cutter. In this paper, the efforts of these three men and two
fledgling professional societies, the American Library Association (ALA)
and the Library Association of the United Kingdom (LAUK), in forging the
Anglo-American cataloging alliance will be examined. The joint publication
of the Anglo-American code of 1908 represents the conclusion of this first
phase of the creation of an international code now under the aegis of the Joint
Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR.
This paper limits itself to descriptive cataloging. What is of interest here are
two problems: first, creating a bibliographic description of an item based on its
physical characteristics according to some prescribed formula and, second, de-
termining where the resulting description should be filed. In current parlance
this is ascertaining both what the access points are and how they are to be re-
corded. Panizzi, Jewett, and Cutter would be familiar with these issues if they
were defined as problems of entry and heading. What is not of concern here is
subject cataloging. This is defined, for purposes of this paper, as determining
subject headings to be appended to a bibliographic record based on its content
and assigning a classification number to represent an item’s primary topic.

BEGINNINGS

As Strout2 indicates, catalogs up to the nineteenth century tended to be the

works of individuals and varied widely in quality. As long as collections re-
mained small and demands for the books in them remained modest, there was
little pressure for very sophisticated catalogs. But if either of these factors
changed and the need to retrieve books in a speedy fashion increased, there
would be a crisis. And that is what developed at the British Museum.
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 5

The most recent catalog of the British Museum had been completed in 1819
under the direction of Sir Henry Ellis, Principal Librarian, and Rev. H. H.
Baber, Keeper of the Department of Printed Books. It was a seven volume
printed book catalog organized alphabetically by author. It had no subject in-
dex. To this had been added another twenty-two volumes of manuscript entries
since 1820. There had been an attempt to create a classified catalog begun in
1826 by T. Hartwell Horne, but this had been abandoned. By the 1830s the
British Museum was “a disorganized and random collection of books cata-
logued by indigent clergymen and other part-time drudges.”3 In the midst of all
this, Antonio Panizzi, former Italian revolutionary and lawyer, was appointed
as an extra assistant librarian in 1831.
In 1833 the impatient trustees of the British Museum ordered a new printed
book catalog. Baber, who had succeeded Ellis as principal librarian, hoped that
this could be done following the system that he and Ellis had devised for the
1813-1819 catalog but had no one supervising the project. He was also limited
by the trustees’ decision that the catalog be completed letter by letter and not
shelf by shelf.
With little progress in the offing, the House of Commons, in 1836, ap-
pointed a select committee to investigate the British Museum, including the
sad state of its catalog. Witnesses complained about the inability to find books.
Others argued strongly for a classified catalog. Alphabetical catalogs were de-
fended. “Surely such great interest in the minutiae of cataloging has never been
displayed at any time by scholars, readers or government.”4 As a result, Baber
appointed Panizzi Keeper of the Department of Printed Books in 1837. Panizzi
inherited both the cataloging project and the impatience of the trustees.
Panizzi was an advocate of the alphabetical catalog. He was quickly asked
to submit a report on the state of the catalog and a copy of the Ellis-Baber rules
used in creating the 1819 book catalog. His response indicated that there had
been little progress made since 1834 and that he could find no copy of the six-
teen Ellis-Baber rules to share with them. He did agree, however, that a de-
tailed set of rules governing the creation of the new catalog was required. But
Panizzi was not going to be given much leeway in that regard. Mindful of the
fallacies of the oral tradition, the trustees insisted that the rules by which the
catalog was to be created be approved by them. Panizzi was given, however,
permission “to draw up a complete set of rules for their consideration.”5
The objective of this new set of rules was clear–“to standardize the format
of the bibliographic records and to assure that enough detail was included to
differentiate one record from another.”6 The ninety-one rules were devised by
Panizzi and a committee of librarians including J. Winter Jones, Thomas
Watts, Edward Edwards, and John Perry. Each of the members first considered
the task as individuals. Then they met as a group and, where there were differ-
6 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

ences, the issue was settled by majority vote. Panizzi submitted a proposal of
seventy-three rules, which the trustees expanded to ninety-one. The new code,
“Rules for the Compilation of the Catalogue,” was approved in 1839 and pub-
lished in the first volume of the catalog itself in 1841.
Lehnus’s7 analysis of the ninety-one rules indicates that thirteen rules
(XVIII-XXI) are devoted to description and thirteen rules (LIV-LXIX) focus
on cross references. The subjects of sixty-one of the ninety-one rules are the
twin problems of entry and heading. These ninety-one rules are based on three
principles: (1) the data are derived from the item in hand, (2) the title page is
the primary source of data, and (3) the title is to be transcribed exactly as it ap-
pears in the work. Virtually all aspects of personal author entry and heading are
considered. Corporate bodies (with a number of exceptions) are entered under
place but are not yet to be considered authors. There are a number of form
headings–e.g., ACADEMIES, PERIODICALS, etc.–under which other types
of publications are to be placed. The elements of description indicated are title
(and edition when this is a part of that element), place, printer and date of pub-
lication. Panizzi advocated using the name as it appeared on the title page even
for pseudonyms in those instances when the author’s true identity was known.
The apparent overemphasis on entry and heading is understandable since the
“main concern of the ‘Ninety One Rules’ was the alphabetic arrangement of
the printed book catalog of one library, in which related entries were grouped
together under headings determined according to the principles enunciated in
these rules.”8

CROSSING THE ATLANTIC

Charles Coffin Jewett graduated from Brown University in 1835. He then

attended Andover Theological Seminary and, while there, met Oliver A.
Taylor, who was then preparing a catalog for the library there. Jewett became
Taylor’s assistant. The Andover Theological Seminary catalog was an al-
phabetical listing of the books in the collection to which, Ranz adds, Taylor
intended to add a systematic index. “Certainly in America no previously pub-
lished catalogue exhibited a comparable method and skill in discovering and
listing the names of authors, the use of added entries and cross references, and
in the accuracy and completeness of the bibliographic descriptions.”9 Jewett
had been well educated by his participation in this project.
In 1841, as the ninety-one rules were being published, Jewett was appointed
librarian and Professor of Modern Languages at Brown University. The library
there had a collection of 10,000 volumes and was considered “one of the better
collections in the country.”10 Nevertheless, this library had previously pub-
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 7

lished only two catalogs: one in 1793 (2,173 volumes) and the second in 1826
(5,818 volumes). There was a need for a new catalog, and Jewett considered
this to be his first responsibility.
The catalog of the Brown University Library was completed in 1843. Jewett
“followed the plan of Mr. O. A. Taylor’s Catalogue of the Theological Semi-
nary of Andover.”11 Like Taylor’s, this catalog consisted of an alphabetical
“Descriptive Catalogue” and an alphabetical “Index of Subjects.” In the pref-
ace to the catalog Jewett explained:

In the Descriptive Catalog, the works are placed in alphabetical order un-
der the names of authors, and the names themselves alphabetically ar-
ranged . . . anonymous works, of which I have been unable to ascertain
the author, are placed under the most important word of the title, or sub-
jects to which they relate.12

The index of subjects featured three types of entries: (1) under the most impor-
tant word used in the title; (2) broad subjects, e.g., chemistry; and (3) specific
subjects, e.g., photographs. “The index of subjects,” Jewett said, “I have en-
deavored to arrange in such a manner as to answer the purpose of such an al-
phabetical index.”13
This catalog represented an important advance for American cataloging
since it was not a classified catalog, and Jewett was highly praised for this
achievement. Shortly thereafter, Jewett was sent on a book-buying tour of Eu-
rope. He took full advantage of this opportunity and met both Panizzi and Ed-
ward Edwards and spent a considerable amount of time with them learning
from two of those responsible for the ninety-one rules as much as he could. As
Lehnus phrases it, “the first link in the chain that was discovered begins with
Sir Anthony Panizzi of the British Museum. He knew personally Edward Ed-
wards, who was also at the British Museum, and Charles Jewett, who, at the
time of their meeting, was the librarian of Brown University in Providence,
Rhode Island.”14 During this same period the role of a bequest to the United
States was being debated.
James Smithson, upon his death in 1829, had willed his estate to his
nephew, Henry James Hungerford. By the terms of Smithson’s will, if his
nephew should die childless, the remainder of his estate would go to the United
States for the purpose of increasing and diffusing knowledge. Joseph Henry of
the new Smithsonian Institution was given authority, in 1846, to appoint a li-
brarian. Jewett was appointed to the position the following year. The seeds of
conflict already existed. Henry felt that the Smithsonian should support re-
search and publish the findings of the projects it funded. Jewett believed that
8 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

the Smithsonian should assume the role of de facto national library and worked
vigorously to bring about this end.
Jewett had two objectives in mind. At the Library Conference of 1853, he
assured his audience “that the collection and publication of statistics of li-
braries, the increase and dissemination of bibliographic knowledge . . .”15
would continue. But of far greater interest was his plan for a national union
catalog through a system of stereotyping catalog entries first revealed in
1850. There were to be two printing plates. “The title of every book and of
each distinct edition is stereotyped upon a separate plate. The author’s name
stands by itself.”16 The idea of separate stereotyping of individual entries
would permit the creation of a general catalog with location symbols as well
as the preparation of individual book catalogs for contributing public libraries.
Either catalog forced him to confront the problem of rules, i.e., the formulation
of the entries. Jewett outlined the Smithsonian Catalogue System thusly:

1. The Smithsonian Institution to publish rules for the preparation of cata-

logs.
2. Other institutions, intending to publish catalogs of their books, to be re-
quested to prepare them in accordance with these rules, with a view to
having them stereotyped under the direction of the Smithsonian Insti-
tute.17

In formulating these rules Jewett had two options. He could write an entirely
new code for cataloging, or he could adapt one already in existence. Jewett
opted for the second strategy. The rules, Jewett explained, “were formed after
a careful study of those adopted for the preparation of the catalogue of the Brit-
ish Museum.”18
Jewett, in his “On the Construction of Catalogs,” created a code of thirty-
nine rules, which were enhanced by exceptions and copious remarks. Nei-
ther of these features was found in Panizzi’s ninety-one rules since that
code was meant for the catalog of a single library. London points out that
this code was better organized than Panizzi’s and can “neatly be divided
into four parts: I. Titles, i.e., bibliographic description (Rules I-XII); II. Head-
ings (Rules XIII-XXIX); III. Cross References (Rules XXX-XXXI); IV. Ar-
rangement (Rules XXXII-XXXIX).”19
Jewett did adopt some of the ninety-one rules verbatim. Rule IV (Early
printed books without title pages . . .) is identical to Panizzi’s Rule XX. In other
cases, Jewett consolidated separate rules into one. Jewett’s Rule XVIII (The
following classes of persons . . .) combined Rules IV, V, VI and VIII of the
ninety-one rules. Some basic features recur: (1) cataloging data is to be elicited
from the item in hand; (2) the reliance upon the title page as the primary source
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 9

of information; and (3) the exact transcription of the title. The elements of bib-
liographic description are still title (with the addition of what is now called the
statement of responsibility), place of publication, publisher (as opposed to
Panizzi’s printer), date of publication, and, another new element, size of the
volume. Unlike Panizzi’s, Jewett’s rules mandated that, if the author used a
pseudonym and his identity was known, the work be filed under the author’s
real name. Title entries in Jewett’s code were entered under the first word in
the title, not the first important word. Nor was Jewett as willing to use form
headings such as ACADEMIES or PERIODICALS. Jewett’s Rule XXII
placed publications of academies under their own names. Periodicals (Rule
VII) were placed under title. Only sixteen of the thirty-nine rules were devoted
to the primary concern of Panizzzi: entry and heading. While that reflects a
better balance between the two activities in descriptive cataloging, far more in-
teresting is the order in which Jewett placed the rules. Description precedes en-
try and headings in this code–something that would not recur until 1978.
But the grand design was never to be. Shortly after the conclusion of the
1853 conference, Jewett overplayed his hand by demanding that 50 percent of
the Smithsonian’s budget be allocated for the national library he had outlined.
His zeal led to insubordination, and in January 1855 Jewett was relieved of his
duties as librarian. This marked the end of Jewett’s role in forging the An-
glo-American alliance.
Later that same year Jewett accepted a position as a cataloger at the Boston
Public Library. By 1858 he was director. In that year the Index to the Cata-
logue of a Portion of the Public Library of the City of Boston Arranged in its
Lower Hall was published. Many of the features of his cataloging rules for the
Smithsonian Institute were retained, but there were some significant changes.
He adopted a single alphabetical strategy, incorporating in one listing author,
title, and subject entries. He used full entries and included in the description
place of publication, date, and size (as had been the case in his proposed rules)
under the author entry. In the case of second authors, titles, and subject entries,
the bibliographic data was not as complete; and the user was expected to go to
the more complete author entry if more detail was needed. Jewett, once again,
chose to enter works by authors using pseudonyms under their real names
when that could be determined. In addition to the author entry, “each volume
was also entered under a subject heading and again under the first prominent
word in the title.”20 There was another distinguishing mark to this catalog and
its 1861 supplement. “Cross references were liberally and intelligently used,
the contents of multi-volume works were listed in detail; bibliographic notes
accompanied many of the titles; and bibliographic essays were prepared in
many subjects.”21 While this represented a significant achievement for Jewett,
there was an unanticipated event that moved the developing Anglo-American
10 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

cataloging alliance forward. During this same period Charles Ammi Cutter
worked at the Boston Public Library and “catalogued under the eye of Charles
Coffin Jewett, the most eminent cataloguer of his day whose cataloging ideas
Cutter thoroughly learned, especially those concerning author and title en-
try.”22

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

Charles Ammi Cutter graduated from Harvard College in 1855. He had to

wait a year before entering the Divinity School from which he graduated in
1859. From 1857 through 1859 Cutter worked as a student in the library of the
Divinity School, but he never became the Unitarian pastor that was his ex-
pected career. In 1860 he became assistant to Ezra Abbot, librarian and chief
cataloger of the Harvard College Library. Abbot was, at that time, working on
the creation of a new catalog for the library. Abbot’s planning called for two
catalogs: an index of authors and an index of subjects. Abbot had also con-
cluded that every volume should have at least one subject entry and more if
they were warranted. More interestingly, he felt that the subject entry/entries
should be based on the book’s content, not significant words in its title. Abbot
rejected the idea of a single alphabetical listing of subjects on the grounds that
this strategy dispersed related topics solely on the basis of a letter. On the other
hand, Abbot concluded, a classified catalog was too difficult for most users.
He took the middle ground and planned to use an alphabetical-classed arrange-
ment for his index of subjects. Cutter was intensely involved in the completion
of this catalog. In his “The New Catalogue of the Harvard College Library,”
Cutter indicated that this was going to be a card catalog rather than the usual
printed book catalog. Part One was to be an alphabetical list by author indicat-
ing “nor merely books and pamphlets, but all important memoirs and transac-
tions of learned societies and in periodicals.”23 Cutter added, “The need for a
catalogue of subjects does not admit of a moments doubt.”24 This is territory
into which neither Panizzi nor Jewett tread and is beyond our scope here. His
experiences at Harvard and the process of creating this catalog “provided Cut-
ter with an excellent apprenticeship in librarianship.”25 This is clearer when
one recalls that Cutter spent this same period working under Jewett at the
Boston Public Library.
In 1868 Cutter, based on his extensive background, was named librarian at
the Boston Athenaeum. At that time this library, like the Boston Public Li-
brary, had 70,000 volumes and was the third largest library in the United
States. It also had a major problem in the form of the state of its catalog. Cut-
ter’s predecessor, William A. Poole, had begun to develop a new catalog in
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 11

1856 “that was to resemble in its general features the catalogue of the Mercan-
tile Library Association of Boston.”26 Poole’s Mercantile Library catalog was
a printed book catalog with entries organized in a single alphabetical listing for
authors, titles, and subject words derived from the titles. The entries were
brief, i.e., the titles were not transcribed exactly. Many of the elements of de-
scription–place of publication, publisher, publishing date, collation–were in-
cluded, but Poole relied on a series of abbreviations to impart the information.
While all the entries were interfiled, there were no cross references, no con-
tents notes, and no analytics.
Poole’s effort at the Boston Athenaeum fared no better really. Poole himself
did not exercise close supervision of the undertaking. Completing the catalog
was placed in the hands of inexperienced assistants. With little progress appar-
ent by 1862, “full control of the work was transferred to Mr. Charles R.
Lowell.”27 Lowell worked diligently until his untimely death in 1870. Cutter
inherited the project (as Panizzi had earlier), and it “was not an enviable inheri-
tance. The work passed on to him was in poor repair.”28 Cutter examined the
work done to that date and was severely disappointed in its quality. Cutter
conceded that he “had been engaged chiefly upon a catalogue constructed of
an entirely different plan (that of Harvard College Library).”29 Despite that,
he undertook the task “with the intention of making as few changes as possi-
ble. . . .”30 The catalog of the Library of the Boston Athenaeum was a five-vol-
ume work that appeared between 1874 and 1882. Cutter made one major
change in it. Prominent words from the title as the basis for subject access to
items in the collection were rejected in favor of true subject headings based on
an item’s content. There were 6,000 subject headings created as well as a sys-
tem of cross references from general subjects to subordinate topics to which
they were related. Other unique features were contents notes to indicate indi-
vidual works within a collective volume and analytical entries to indicate por-
tions of a book that might be of interest to the reader. These are features that
Jewett had employed at the Boston Public Library. Cutter’s catalog, Ranz
notes, “was immediately recognized as an outstanding piece of work.”31 It also
“assured the predominance of the dictionary arrangement in American cata-
logues for years to come.”32
The experience of completing this catalog and his previous experiences
with both Abbot and Jewett also solidified Cutter’s thinking concerning cata-
logs and cataloging. This led to the publication of his Rules for a Printed Dic-
tionary Catalog as Part II of the U.S. Bureau of Education “Special Report on
Public Libraries” in 1876. There would be three more editions by 1904, and
Printed would disappear from its title. This is where Cutter laid out “the first
principles for cataloging.”33
12 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

The Rules for a Dictionary Catalog grew from 205 (1876) to 368 (1904).34
Of these 368 only twenty-seven (Rules 161 to 188) were concerned with sub-
ject entries. Included in this manual is Cutter’s classic statement of the objects
and means of cataloging and 115 definitions of terms (both unprecedented). A
basic premise for the descriptive aspects of cataloging was that the “heading
for a bibliographic unit will be the person or corporate body chiefly responsi-
ble for the intellectual content of the work.”35 Carpenter argues that by stating
“bodies of men are considered as authors of works published in their name or
by their authority,”36 Cutter went beyond the bounds established by Panizzi
and Jewett and created the concept of corporate authorship. Cutter’s rules re-
verted to the major concern of Panizzi, entry and heading. Jewett’s proposed
code had considered description first and then entry and heading. Cutter’s con-
centration on “Entry: Where to Enter” and “Style: How to Enter” is nearly to-
tal. In the Cutter rules, entry is the topic of rules 1 through 160, and headings
(“STYLE”) is the subject of rules 197 through 351. Three hundred fourteen
(92 percent) of the 341 rules not subject-related are taken up by these two con-
cerns. Description for Cutter was an afterthought as it had been for Panizzi.
Cutter, like Jewett, would enter both pseudonymous and anonymous works
under the authors’ real names if they could be determined. By the time Cutter
published his rules, the form headings used by Panizzi, severely eroded by
Jewett, disappeared entirely. Like Jewett, Cutter entered anonymous works
whose authors could not be determined under the first word in the title not an
article.
Cutter’s rules were highly acclaimed upon their publication and have since
become a vital part of descriptive cataloging. Hufford notes that it “was the last
published code published by one man.”37 Maxwell also comments: “Influen-
tial though they were, Cutter’s Rules did not win universal acceptance as a
code for the construction of catalogs either in the United States or Great Brit-
ain.”38 Nor did the Rules for a Dictionary Catalog ever receive the imprimatur
of the new professional associations emerging in both the United States or
Great Britain.

FIRST STEPS TOWARD AN ALLIANCE

The year 1876 saw the birth of the profession of librarianship in America.
Both Cutter’s Rules and the first edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification
appeared. Library Journal began publishing. Shortly after the Centennial Ex-
position closed, 103 librarians met in Philadelphia for the second national con-
ference. From this platform the American Library Association was launched.
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 13

A major concern of the 1876 conference was the revival of Jewett’s con-
cept of cooperative cataloging. Led by the two major systematizers on the
scene–Melvill Dewey and Charles Cutter–the new American Library Associa-
tion created the Committee on Co-operative Indexing with the objective of
recommending a uniform approach to cataloging. In January 1877 the commit-
tee published a proposed set of rules for comment and discussion. The hope
was that the process would result in a set of cataloging rules endorsed by the
association that would then be used by the leading libraries in the United
States. It was not to be.
In March 1878 the Committee on Uniform Titles published its “Condensed
Rules for Cataloging.” The proposed code was derived from Jewett and fea-
tured first “the elements of bibliographic description: title, edition, imprint,
collation and notes.”39 Only after these issues were resolved did the proposed
set of rules consider “choice and form of entry.”40 This proposed code was
closely tied to Cutter’s Rules. Following the individual rules in this proposed
set were annotations indicating the analogous rules in Cutter by rule number.
The Committee asked for comments and surveyed “several dozen librarians
and the next meeting of the full Committee on Co-operative Cataloging at the
Boston Conference of 1879 approved it as published.”41 At that point, progress
toward a uniform code of cataloging halted pending the results of similar ef-
forts in Great Britain.
In 1877 British librarians met in a conference that ultimately led to the for-
mation of their professional association: the Library Association of the United
Kingdom. A delegation of sixteen prominent American librarians, including
Charles Ammi Cutter, attended. As had been the case in Philadelphia the year
before, cataloging was a major concern of these librarians. The third session of
the conference “was devoted to seven papers in bibliography and catalog-
ing.”42 In responding to these papers, Cutter endorsed both the card catalog
and the dictionary arrangement of author-title-subject entries. Justin Winsor
discussed the methods in use at the Boston Public Library to create an au-
thor-subject-title catalog for the main library and all of its branches. Poole ex-
tolled the glories of the catalog of the Chicago Public Library while Lloyd
Smith discussed the general catalog of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
The fourth session of the conference featured four more papers on catalog-
ing. These papers discussed: (1) catchword subject entries for American
books, (2) cooperative cataloging, (3) a proposal for an international union cat-
alog, and (4) creation of a general catalog of English literature. In sum, approx-
imately one third of all the papers delivered at this conference concerned
cataloging, bibliography, and subject cataloging (subject headings). Like their
American counterparts, these British librarians were also very much interested
14 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

in the concept of cooperative cataloging. The prerequisite for this was a com-
mon cataloging code–a task that was then undertaken.
The results of the British efforts were two editions of Cataloging Rules of
the Library Association of the United Kingdom (LAUK), one in 1881, the sec-
ond in 1883. Both versions followed the Jewett model–i.e., description pre-
ceded the twin issues of entry and heading. The 1881 edition consisted of
forty-nine rules divided into six sections:

l. Title; 2. Volumes, Size, Place, Dates, etc.; 3. Language of Title and Im-
print; 4. Contents and Notes; 5. Headings, Books are to be entered . . .
(This is by far the longest section, it comprises rules 10-33); and 6. Mis-
cellaneous.43

The 1883 edition was a little more compact: forty-eight rules in four sections
with minor changes.44
Having seen what their British compatriots were up to, the Cooperation
Committee of ALA resumed its efforts. In 1882 this committee resolved “to re-
vise the American rules and bring them into harmony with the new LAUK
rules and the ‘Compendious Rules’ of the Bodleian Library . . .”45 In 1883 it
published, in Library Journal, the “Condensed Rules for an Author Title Cata-
log.” This code was not a detailed set of rules but only “the outlines of catalog-
ing.”46 The “Condensed Rules” reverted to the structure employed by Panizzi
and Cutter. The sequence in this proposed code was Entry (Rules 1a through
1z), Headings (2a through 2e), Titles (3a through 3z), Imprints (4a through
4h), Contents, Notes (5a), Miscellaneous (6a through 6f), and Arrangement
(7a through 7h). Thirty-one of the sixty-seven rules were devoted to entry and
heading. This emphasis is reminiscent of that of both Panizzi and Cutter. The
1883 proposed code retained the title page as the primary source of informa-
tion and the exact transcription of the title. The elements of description were
familiar–edition, place of publication, year of publication, collation (vol-
umes/pages), and size. This proposed code closely adheres to the Jewett-Cutter
model by applying the real names of authors to pseudonymous works if the au-
thors were known. It is ironic that, while the committee’s intentions were to be
more closely aligned to their British colleagues, the “Condensed Code for an
Author Title Catalog” was inverse in its structure to the LAUK codes of 1881
and 1883.
The “Condensed Rules” was not expected to be used by itself since it was
not “detailed enough to provide a universal American Standard for cataloging.
This code, as a result, simply joined Cutter’s Rules and the English Codes as a
source of advice and support for individual cataloguers.”47
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 15

In 1886 Dewey expanded upon the 1883 ALA code. Two years later this en-
hanced code was published as “Rules for Author and Classed Catalogs as Used
in the Columbia College Library.” This became better known as the “Library
School Card Catalog Rules.” Poole, chair of the ALA Cooperation Committee,
suggested at the 1889 conference “accepting Dewey’s revised code prepared
for the Columbia College Library except as it differed from the previous rec-
ommendations of the ALA.”48 Unfortunately, he linked this to a proposal to
change the approach for corporate bodies. As a result, the committee was un-
able to resolve that issue, and the idea of melding the 1883 “Condensed Rules”
and Dewey’s “Library School Rules” was shunted aside.
There was yet another factor coming into play here. Klas Linderfelt, then of
the Milwaukee Public Library, had set out to translate J. Dziatzko’s Instruction
für die Ordnung der Titel in alphabetischen Zettelkatalog der Königlichen und
Universitäts-Bibliothek zu Breslau (1886). He came to the conclusion, how-
ever, that “a mere translation would be of little service.”49 Consequently,
Linderfelt retained Dziatzko’s original structure but added rules adapted from
Cutter, the Bodleian Library, the British Museum, Jewett, the ALA and LAUK
rules and Dewey’s “Library School Rules.” The result was “a digest of the ac-
cepted practices of the art and mystery of cataloging.”50 It was published in
1890 by Cutter under the title The Eclectic Card Catalog Rules. There were
two parts to this code. Part I was concerned with author and title entries and
references; and part II discussed transliteration, spelling foreign names, and re-
lated issues. What was novel about it was that Linderfelt organized it in a
non-traditional fashion. The cataloger was to look at the item in hand and char-
acterize it as single personal author, multiple author, collection, etc.; and, once
it was categorized, the cataloger would be led to the appropriate rule for the sit-
uation revealed by the analysis of the item. It was similar to a programmed
learning tool in vogue much later. This code was regarded as something very
interesting, even helpful, but it made no real impact on the state of American
cataloging.
As the nineteenth century was coming to a close, there had been significant
gains in the state of the catalog since Panizzi’s ninety-one rules. But one
goal–the use of a uniform code by all libraries–was elusive. The degree to
which this was the case was illustrated by a survey of 191 libraries conducted
by W. C. Lane of the Boston Athenaeum in 1893. There were some interesting
differences in the types of catalogs in these libraries. Lane’s respondents indi-
cated that “six had only an author catalog, fifteen an author and title only,
eighty-nine a dictionary catalog, eight separate author and subject catalogs,
fifty-seven author and classed catalogs, and five libraries only a classed cata-
log.”51 More interesting were the catalog rules used in these libraries. Lane
found “eighty-five used Cutter’s rules with or without modification, thirty-six
16 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

Dewey’s Library School Rules, ten these two in combination, nine ALA rules,
three Linderfelt’s Eclectic Rules, two Jewett’s Rules for the Smithsonian Insti-
tution, and thirty-nine made no report or said they followed no system.”52
Clearly much more needed to be done to meet the goal of cooperative catalog-
ing espoused by Cutter and Dewey at Philadelphia in 1876.

A COMPACT AT LAST

In 1900 the idea of cooperative cataloging was resurrected, but any substan-
tial progress in that regard was dependent upon having a national code that all
libraries would use. The Lane survey had shown that there was no consensus
on cataloging in the United States. The idea of forming “a bureau for coopera-
tive cataloging and the printing of cards”53 surfaced. At the Montreal confer-
ence of 1900, a new Catalog Rules Committee was established to “consider the
cataloging rules in force, particularly those points on which American libraries
have been unable to agree.”54 In December, ALA’s Publishing Board ap-
pointed an advisory committee on Cataloging Rules. ALA was determined, it
seemed, to attain its long-sought goal.
ALA never had to print cards for libraries. There was an agreement reached
with the Library of Congress (LC) that committed that library to making
printed cataloging cards available to American libraries beginning in 1901. LC
itself had approved its own code for printed cards in 1898. This created a slight
difficulty since there were some differences between the 1898 LC code and the
1883 ALA code. While ALA was willing to accept the LC cards in order to get
the distribution of them to libraries, some accommodation was going to have to
be made as the Catalog Rules Committee moved toward the completion of a
new code that would replace the 1883 rules. In 1901 the committee decided
that the new code would be designed to fit the needs of larger more scholarly li-
braries. There were specific discussions concerning typography and form of
entry. It was also decided that “the variations on the part of the Library of Con-
gress rules would be specified in notes.”55 In July 1901 the ALA Executive
Board finally authorized the publication of ALA catalog rules for printed
cards.
The Advisory Committee on Cataloging Rules met in March 1902. The ob-
jective was to “bring about uniformity between its revision of the ALA rules,
the 4th edition of Cutter’s Rules for a Dictionary Catalog, then to be issued,
and a new edition of the Library School rules. . . .”56 The committee quickly
came to an agreement on all remaining outstanding issues. The committee’s
report was delivered to the ALA conference. After a long acrimonious debate
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 17

the committee received approval for a draft that was printed by the Library of
Congress as A.L.A. Rules, Advance Edition.
These proposed code rules were quite close to those adopted by LC in 1898,
and the Library of Congress “accepted them about in toto. . . .”57 The A.L.A.
Rules, Advance Edition was regarded as a “preliminary report of the Commit-
tee, they (the rules) are still open to criticism and amendment.”58 The proposed
code, it was reported, met Cutter’s criteria of being for the public, not for cata-
logers themselves.
The eighty-one rules made some minor changes in the order of the elements
of description. The title, as it appeared on the title page, was followed by edi-
tion, if it was present, place, publisher, date, and then collation. It opted to use
the fullest form of an author’s name and the author’s real name for pseudony-
mous works when that could be determined. Kroger, a member of the com-
mittee, did indicate that “the small library need not elaborate the details of
paging, illustrations etc.”59 and conceded that “a public library must find it
more convenient to enter authors who write under pseudonyms under the
pseudonym . . . .”60 The most sweeping change noted by Kroeger was the treat-
ment of books with multiple authors. In the era of printed book catalogs and
handwritten card catalogs, the most complete entry was always found under
the first author with briefer entries placed under the names of subsequent au-
thors. The adoption of printed cards from LC permitted full entries under each
of the authors since all copies of the card would be identical. The printed rules
of the 1902 advance edition were issued to each subscribing library either in
pamphlet or card form. In 1903 the Library of Congress added rules on colla-
tion and series notes. Throughout 1903 and 1904 cataloguers submitted com-
ments and criticisms of the draft. By the end of 1904 “the materials for the new
revision were sufficiently advanced to warrant the hope that a first edition
might go to press in the course of the winter.”61
British librarians were also actively considering the status of the LAUK
rules that had been in place since 1883. At its 1902 meeting the Library Asso-
ciation of the United Kingdom was considering reprinting/revising the 1883
code. Jast argued that “the rules do not adequately answer to the practice and
needs of today.”62 To support his contention, Jast indicated that the place of
publication and edition, both mandated in the 1883 code, ought to “be regarded
as optional.”63 He also pointed out that Cutter had stated that cataloging was
based on principles but that he had failed to indicate what these were. Jast
added that “if cataloging is a science, it must be reducible to principles, and if
we can bring these out in our new code, arranging particular rules under
wider rules from which they naturally flow, we shall have their mastery com-
paratively easy, and laid the foundation of an intelligent–the only intelli-
gent–method of teaching cataloging.”64
18 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

The LAUK began its revision process following that 1902 meeting. Shortly
after that conference, Dewey contacted Jast and suggested that the two profes-
sional associations combine their efforts and work toward a common catalog-
ing code. In the meantime Jast had written to H. Putnam at the Library of
Congress to secure a copy of the 1902 ALA rules as the basis for the revision
project then underway. The British Committee on Cataloging Rules did not see
major differences between their thinking and the ALA draft code and recom-
mended that the goal of a joint code be pursued.
At its September 1904 conference the LAUK officially accepted Dewey’s
proposal and sent Jast to the ALA conference in St. Louis to present the draft of
the proposed code then being considered by the LAUK. The draft and the pro-
posal for a joint code were accepted by ALA, and the Executive Council was
authorized to see the project through. Specific responsibility was placed in the
hands of the Catalog Rules Committee.
In 1905 the ALA Catalog Rules Committee met and accepted twenty-nine
of the fifty-four rules in the proposed British code. A report of this action was
then sent to the committee’s British counterpart. Both the American and Brit-
ish committees continued their efforts throughout 1906. At its meeting the
American committee’s differences were narrowed to the point that plans for
printing were under active consideration. Now that there was general agree-
ment among themselves, the American committee sent a report to the Secre-
tary of the Catalog Rules Revision Committee of the LAUK outlining its
discussions and agreements. At its meeting that year the British committee was
“of the opinion that the draft codes (English and American) have reached such
a stage of agreement as to warrant printing as soon as possible, and we have
been authorized by the Library Association to proceed with and conclude such
further negotiations as may be necessary.”65 The British committee suggested
that there be “two editions (English and American) but that the editions should
as far as possible be identical in arrangement and wording, and where a diver-
gence of opinion between the two committees exists with respect to a particu-
lar rule, such difference of opinion should be explained either in a note
appended to the rule in question or by printing the two rules side by side show-
ing which is which.”66
The American committee then agreed to present its draft code to the Library
Association at its annual conference in May 1907. This draft was adopted, and
the committee was instructed to negotiate further “in order to harmonize any
differences as to details still existing between the British and American Com-
mittees. . . .”67 J. C. M. Hanson, chair of the ALA committee, was sent to meet
with British librarians in September, and “the two committees came to full
agreement on all but 8 of the 174 rules.”68 The differences were minute and in-
cluded the form of entry for a married woman author, the translations of for-
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 19

eign works, issues arising from changing names, title changes for periodicals,
and similar very specific questions.69 Then the Executive Council of ALA au-
thorized the printing and publication of the joint code.
The result of this effort, Catalog Rules: Author and Title Entries, was very
much in the Panizzi-Cutter mold. It was limited to author and title entries.
Subjects were excluded from its scope. Like Cutter’s rules, this code had
fifty-eight definitions (pages xiii-xvi) before the main body of rules. The basic
structure was very much in the Panizzi/Cutter tradition with entry and heading
being resolved first. Personal authors were discussed first (rules 1 through 57),
then corporate bodies (rules 58 through 111), title entries (rules 112 through
129), and finally miscellaneous (rules 130 through 135). Only then was the
problem of description addressed (rules 136 through 166). The order of the ele-
ments of description was, by now, quite familiar: title, edition, place, pub-
lisher, date, collation, and series. References were treated next (rules 167
through 171) and, finally, capitals, punctuation and figures (rules 172 through
174). Like Panizzi’s and Cutter’s rules, the problems of entry and headings
dominate this code, accounting for 135 of the 174 rules. Both Panizzi and Cut-
ter would have been very comfortable with this result, Jewett less so.

EPILOGUE

Sixty-nine years after Panizzi’s ninety-one rules, the Anglo-American cata-

loging alliance had been forged. Over the course of the next two decades, nei-
ther professional association took active steps to maintain the currency of the
1908 code. In the interim the Library of Congress found it necessary to make a
number of “revisions, clarifications, and additions. . . .”70 In 1930 the ALA
Committee on Cataloging and Classification “suggested the advisability of a
revision of the 1908 rules. . . .”71 The dissolution of the alliance had begun.

REFERENCES
1. Ruth French Strout, “The Development of the Catalog and Cataloging Codes,”
Library Quarterly 26, no. 4 (October 1956): 255.
2. Ibid.
3. Michael Gorman, “Let Us Now Praise . . . ,” American Libraries 11, no. 4 (April
1980): 201.
4. Strout: 268.
5. Nancy Brault, The Debate on Panizzi’s Rules in 1841-1849: The Issues Dis-
cussed (Los Angeles: School of Library Service and the University Library, University
of California, Los Angeles, 1972), 3.
20 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

6. Jon R. Hufford, “The Pragmatic Basis of Catalog Codes: Has the User Been Ig-
nored?” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 14, no. 1 (1991): 28.
7. Donald J. Lehnus, A Comparison of Panizzi’s 91 Rules and the AACR of 1967,
Occasional Paper, no. 105 (Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois, Graduate School of
Library Service, 1972).
8. Gertrude London, “The Place and Role of Bibliographic Description in General
and Individual Catalogues: A Historical Analysis,” Libri 30, no. 4 (October 1980): 256.
9. Jim Ranz, The Printed Book Catalog in American Libraries: 1723-1900 (Chi-
cago: American Library Association, 1964), 28.
10. Michael H. Harris, ed., The Age of Jewett: Charles Coffin Jewett and American
Librarianship, 1841-1868 (Littleton, Col.: Libraries Unlimited, 1975), 11.
11. Ibid., p. 28.
12. Ibid., p. 60.
13. Ibid., p. 61.
14. Donald J. Lehnus, Milestones in Cataloging (Littleton, Col.: Libraries Unlim-
ited, 1974), 30.
15. George Utley, The Librarians Conference of 1853 (Chicago: American Library
Association, 1951), 57.
16. Charles Coffin Jewett, “The Smithsonian Catalogue System,” in The Librarians
Conference of 1853, 147.
17. Ibid.
18. Utley, 68.
19. London, 259.
20. Joseph A. Barome, Charles Coffin Jewett (Chicago: American Library Associa-
tion, 1951), 116.
21. Ranz, 68.
22. Francis L. Miksa, ed., Charles Ammi Cutter: Library Systematizer (Littleton,
Col.: Libraries Unlimited, 1977), 49.
23. Ibid., “The New Catalogue of Harvard College Library,” 154.
24. Ibid., 156.
25. Francis L. Miksa, “Cutter, Charles Ammi (1831-1903),” in Dictionary of Amer-
ican Library Biography, ed. Bohdan Wynar (Littleton, Col.: Libraries Unlimited,
1978), 110.
26. Charles Ammi Cutter, “Librarian’s Report on the Best Method of Copying Mr.
Lowell’s Catalog,” in Miksa, ed. Charles Ammi Cutter, 172.
27. Ibid.
28. Ranz, 73.
29. Cutter, “Librarian’s Report,” 173.
30. Ibid.
31. Ranz, 75.
32. Ibid.
33. Charles Ammi Cutter, Rules for a Dictionary Catalog, 4th ed. (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1904), 3.
34. Margaret F. Maxwell, “The Genesis of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules,”
Libri 27, no. 3 (1977): 239.
35. Ibid.
36. Michael Carpenter, Corporate Authorship: Its Role in Library Cataloging
(Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1981), 13.
37. Hufford, 31.
 General Works on Cataloging Rules 21

38. Maxwell, 239.

39. London, 266.
40. Ibid.
41. “Proceedings of the Boston Conference,” Library Journal 4 (July/August,
1879): 299. As cited in Terry M. Heisey, “Early Catalogue Code Development in the
United States, 1876-1908,” Journal of Library History XI, no. 3 (July 1976): 218-248.
42. Budd Gambee, “The Great Junket: American Participation in the Conference of
Librarians, London, 1877,” Journal of Library History 2, no. 1 (January 1967): 28.
43. London, 267.
44. Ibid.
45. Heisey, 220.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid., 221.
49. W.C. Lane, “Review of Eclectic Card Catalog Rules by Klas Linderfelt,” Li-
brary Journal 16, no. 5 (May 1891): 148.
50. Ibid.
51. Heisey, 223.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid., 226.
54. Paul S. Dunkin, Cataloging USA. (Chicago: American Library Association,
1969), 9.
55. Cataloging Rules: Author and Title Entries, compiled by Committees of the
American Library Association and the (British) Library Association (Chicago: Ameri-
can Library Association, 1908), v.
56. Ibid., vi.
57. Alice B. Kroeger, “Cataloging and the New A.L.A. Rules,” Public Libraries 8,
no. 1 (January 1903), 20.
58. “Review of A.L.A. Rules, Advance Edition,” Library Journal 27, no. 10 (Octo-
ber 1902): 904.
59. Kroeger, 20.
60. Ibid., 21.
61. Cataloging Rules: Author and Title Entries, vi.
62. L. Stanley Jast, “The Library Association Cataloging Rules,” The Library Asso-
ciation Record IV, no. 2 (December 1902): 571.
63. Ibid., 580.
64. Ibid., 581.
65. Cataloging Rules: Author and Title Entries, vii.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., viii.
68. Kathryn Luther Henderson, “Treated With A Degree of Uniformity and ‘Com-
mon Sense’: Descriptive Cataloging in the United States, 1876-1975,” Library Trends
25, no. 1 (July 1976): 231.
69. “Review of ‘Catalog Rules: Author and Title Entries,’ compiled by committees
of the American Library Association and the (British) Library Association,” Library
Journal 33, no. 2 (December 1908): 524.
70. Wyllis E. Wright, “The Anglo-American Cataloging Rules: A Historical Per-
spective,” Library Resources and Technical Service 20, no. 1 (Winter 1976): 36.
71. Ibid.
22 HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF CATALOGING AND CLASSIFICATION

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

“Condensed Rules for an Author and Title Catalogue,” prepared by the Cooperation
Committee, ALA. Library Journal 8, no. 9/10 (September/October 1883): 251-254.
Harris, Michael H. “Jewett, Charles Coffin (1816-1868).” In Dictionary of American
Library Biography, edited by Bohdan S. Wynar. Littleton, Col.: Libraries Unlim-
ited, 1978: 271-274.
Jewett, Charles Coffin. “On the Construction of Catalogues.” In The Age of Jewett:
Charles Coffin Jewett and American Librarianship, 1841-1868, edited by Michael
H. Harris. Littleton, Col: Libraries Unlimited, 1975: 131-155.
McCrimmon, Barbara. “Whose Ninety-One Rules? A Revisionist View.” Journal of
Library History 18, no. 2 (Spring 1983): 163-177.
“Rules for the Compilation of the Catalogue.” In Foundations of Cataloging: A Source
Book, edited by Michael Carpenter and Elaine Svenonius. Littleton, Colorado: Li-
braries Unlimited, 1985: 3-14.