About the ReviewerLanguages of the World: Cataloging Issues and Problems. Edited by Martin D. Joachim, Binghampton, N.Y. : Haworth Press, 1993. 292 p. ISBN 1‑56024‑520‑4. $39.95. (Published also as v. 17, no. 1/2, 1993 of Cataloging and Classification Quarterly)
The publisher’s announcement for this work refers to it as a practical guide which will help catalogers deal with specific problems in cataloging materials in languages from all parts of the world. Perhaps this is a little overstated; the book is more a miscellaneous collection of accounts of the experiences of catalogers faced with various difficulties posed by language problems. For example, there are chapters on: “Cataloging field recordings of American Indian languages,” “The Spanish Comedias project at the University of Colorado,” “Cataloging non‑English government publications in a medium‑research library,” “The cataloging of Chinese legal materials,” and “Cataloging at the Bibliothèque Nationale.” Thus, there is, at times, a certain emphasis on the medium being cataloged, or on the practices of a particular library, rather than on the general problems posed by a certain language. One wonders whether a better approach might have been for each chapter to concentrate on a specific language, without reference to a particular medium or a particular library, rather on the lines of the chapters on “Cataloging of materials in African languages,” “Languages of India: cataloging issues,” and “Cataloging Icelandic materials.” In each chapter, a uniform agenda could have been followed and general issues in descriptive cataloging, subject analysis, and classification addressed.
Some chapters sit uncomfortably with their companions. For example, “The literature of classical antiquity and the [Library of Congress] PA schedule” is sandwiched between “The Spanish Comedias project” and “A cooperative cataloging proposal for Slavic and East European languages of the Soviet Union.” This “Literature of classical antiquity” chapter is the only chapter which deals with classification per se, although classification is referred to, albeit sometimes very briefly, at other points throughout the text. The selection of subject headings is also given a rather uneven treatment. However, it is the role of subject headings in accessing information, rather than descriptive cataloging or classification, which is the theme in the one “viewpoint of the patron.” This recounts the experiences of a Spanish speaker who, at the time of the writing, was a student at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College. The convenience of the user, so Cutter taught us, is to be preferred to the ease of the cataloger, but the inclusion of a single chapter dealing with user reaction hardly seems representative.
Apart from the above, a whole range of other issues is examined in the various contributions: “bilingual cataloging,” “authority files,” “uniform titles,” “transliteration,” “backlogs,” “cooperative and shared cataloging,” “collection‑level cataloging,” “minimal‑level cataloging,” and so on. This reviewer’s head spun as he attempted to find some systematic pattern, some common approach, which would enable a logical assessment of the work to be made. This is not a book to be “read through” by anyone but the most dedicated.
What does one conclude from all of this? There is a genuine attempt to tackle a very arduous task and the book certainly has considerable merit. In the aforementioned publisher’s flier, John M. Sluk, Head of Cataloging at Oberlin College in Ohio, states that it “offers a wealth of information for anyone interested in the challenges presented to librarians and library users by the many languages spoken around the globe.” I would concur with this. Sluk goes on to say that the book “should be considered an essential reference work.” This is probably its most useful function, to be dipped into as and when problems with a particular language are encountered to see whether a solution is offered. One must recognize, however, that with such a wide canvas, one cannot hope for exhaustivity, or anything approaching it.
Eric J. Hunter is Head of Information and Library Studies at Liverpool John Moores University (formerly Liverpool Polytechnic). He was a member of the Library Association/British Library Committee for Revision of AACR from 1975 to 1985, and from 1980 to 1985 was the Library Association Representative on the Joint Steering Committee for AACR. His books include The ABC of Basic (1982), Cataloguing (3rd ed., 1991; with K. G. B. Bakewell), Computerized Cataloguing (1985), Examples Illustrating AACR2 (2nd ed., 1989), and An Introduction to AACR2 (1989); all are published by the Library Association. He has been a visiting professor at Drexel University and Kent State University.
© 1994 Dominican University
Citation
Hunter, Eric J. “Book Reviews: Languages of the World: Cataloging Issues and Problems” Third World Libraries, Volume 4, Number 2 (Fall 1994).