Preface
An information institution or a library tends to be prominent or popular for its organized rich collection and effective services. Organization of resources is attained through cataloguing and classification. Classification is a part of cataloguing. Effective and modern cataloguing by a person emanates from devoted, keen interest, long, arduous experience, and studies and knowledge in modern international developments obtaining in the field. This is, otherwise, called specialized up-to-date technical knowledge. Because the present subject, Information science and library studies fundamentally and largely depends on organization and dissemination of knowledge, the importance of a comprehensive, authoritative textbook or manual with up-to-date information can very scarcely be overemphasized.
The present author has been devoted to teaching and working in cataloguing and classification for about four decades in the University of Karachi, Pakistan, and the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. His experiences in the treatment of oriental names originally derived from the University of Karachi, special thanks to his illustrious teacher and colleague, Dr Anis Khurshid, and then were specialized while working on his Ph.D. thesis, A Code for cataloguing and indexing Bangladeshi Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist names. To complete the work he had also to work in Great Britain on a fellowship programme administered by the British Council, Dhaka in 1983. These studies and experiences also helped him greatly in preparing ‘Bangladesh’ chapter in international cataloguing code / manual, Names of persons: national usages for entry in catalogues, otherwise briefly called IFLA UBCIM ’96 published by IFLA / K. G. Saur from München, New Providence, London and Paris. For specialized, modern knowledge in automated cataloguing he again studied and worked on a fellowship programme in Malaysia, based in the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. A comparative study was accomplished on the major automation systems obtaining in the prominent university and national libraries in Malaysia.
All these studies, experiences and knowledge impelled us to modernize the courses of studies of the Department of Information Science & Library Management, University of Dhaka. This development stride by the present and other teachers created an environment of changing the name of the Department from Library Science to Library and Information Science, and then again to Information Science & Library Management. Our capable and devoted colleagues contributed considerably to modernizing the courses of studies followed by modern teaching programme and methods. Now, presumably, the Department is heading toward the ‘Department of Information Science & Technology’!
Immediately after liberation of Bangladesh (1971) the present author’s pangs grew sadly viewing the lurid picture of catalogue in the Dhaka University Library, and the obsolete courses of studies in the Department. No Cutter’s figure was used; treatment of oriental names was chaotic; a book was given different call numbers and was found shelved in different places; no particular catalogue code was followed; some entries were made according to AACR 1 (1967), some to A.L.A. ’49, and some were mixed; while some hand-written entries still exist! This happened because various librarians and cataloguers were appointed in various times, and they catalogued resources in their own ways in absence of an established cataloguing policy, manual or principle. It is, however, a happy augury that at present with the installation of online system, this confounded state is being gradually terminated. This chaotic situation prevailed not only in Dhaka University Library, but also, except a few, in the major libraries of Bangladesh. The part on the treatment of oriental names in the major libraries has been illustrated in chapter 3 under the rubric Local Name Practices in the Ph.D. thesis of the present author.
Being a senior teacher specialized in the field it was reasonable to feel the necessity of preparing a manual or a textbook, so in course of time, the practicing information scientists gradually could organize their resources applying modern technology and establish symmetry in cataloguing. This is also one of the reasons why practical part was also appended along with theoretical discourse. The practical part was, however, made brief with only one example in each category of authorship or material under the premise of retaining the text concise, so if required, another book on ‘Modern Practical Cataloguing’ could be launched in future, should time, energy, labour and finance permit.
Most of our students were educated in vernacular (Bengali) in their previous schools and colleges. It was found difficult for them to prepare their assignments and answers in examinations maintaining appreciable standards. To contravene the situation this author started distributing class lectures in complete Literature form to improve the standards of learning by students. This led to the growth of
preparation of enormous full-fledged literatures along with ‘Bibliographies’ and ‘References’ (at the end of each literature) thereby maintaining international standards. This measure worked miraculously, and the answers by the students were found to have radically improved in their examinations.
Some of our qualified students joined the Rajshahi University and developed the Department of Library and Information Science there, while the Chittagong University with its richer collection, still remained without such a Department due to lack of initiative.
Except for a few vernacular books written either by our past students or coming down from the neighboring country, there was no English language publication on cataloguing and classification. The book on classification based on 16th edition of DDC written by one of our well-informed professional friends Mr Abu Bakar Siddiq fell obsolete long ago, and was not revised. The vernacular books are of low quality, sometimes embodied with wrong information, and possibly meant for the certificate courses run by various library associations. There was thus a huge lacuna of standard books in the field. Sometimes some teachers of Rajshahi University were found to come down to Dhaka for ‘collecting’ literatures from the students given by this teacher in the classes. This situation also justified the demands of the students for a standard textbook on cataloguing and classification to be written by the present author.
Another astounding incident took place that made puissant sway in the mind of this author to bring out this publication. In the selection committee meeting for appointing new teachers for the Department of Library & Information Science, Rajshahi University, most of the candidates were failing to answer questions put by this author as a subject expert. At a stage the vice chancellor, chairman of the committee, but belonging to certain other discipline, suddenly asked this writer to write a book, so the students could properly learn the subject. Thence the earlier need became more pungent in the mind of this author to write a book.
Some of the local publishers sent a circular for publishing textbooks based on the new courses of studies in the university. Some publisher talked to the author expressing their ‘great interest’ for publication. At last it transpired that they were more interested to publish vernacular fictions and detective books that could sale profusely to fetch lot of money. And they put so many requirements and pre-conditions that were simply inconceivable to meet by a senior academician.
Hearkening the event in brief, one of our students of M.A. (Evening programme), who is also a publisher and writer of books in the subject (whose name and address have appeared in Acknowledgements) instantly expressed his willingness to publish the book.
The basic text of the book is based on the literatures given in the classes. In many cases they have been updated, edited and some chapters re-written.The work starts from the definition of cataloguing and classification, and stretches to advanced cataloguing envisaging complex areas like treatment of oriental names, corporate bodies as authors, special and cartographic materials. Emphasis has been laid on topics that are in the courses of studies of various universities and institutions, and haunt our minds every day, but are missing in the international publications.
In the international coliseum the tableau is also confounding. Classical international popular textbook like Margaret Mann’s Introduction to cataloging and classification of books stopped publishing revised editions during the last 64 years since 1943 although its 18th reprint appeared in 1971. Arthur Curley and Jana Varlejs deserve special encomium for bringing out the 7th edition of Susan Akers’ Simple library cataloging in 1984, while during the last 23 years the book has remained idle and outdated. Moreover, its textbook style has also changed. Arlene G. Taylor is, however, an exception, who took the courage, labour and drive to bring out not only the 9th revised edition of Wynar’s Introduction to cataloging and classification in 2004, but has also gone far to bring out the 10th revised edition, this time possibly alone, in 2006. Patrick Quigg’s monographic textbook Theory of cataloguing has ceased publication of revised edition during the last 39 years. Berwick Sayers’ classical textbook, An Introduction to library classification has not been revised during the last 49 years. The predicament of Arthur Maltby’s attempt to bring out the 5th revised edition of Sayers’ A Manual of classification for librarians in 1978 has been discussed in chapter 29 of this book. The aforestated books, however, mostly dwell on the traditional aspects of cataloguing, bypassing critical areas, while the cataloguing world has traveled a long way extending to automation. It is mainly Jennifer Rowley who has not only been consistently writing on computer-based library system, but has also changed her title Computers for libraries to The Electronic library in its 4th edition in 1998. Many aspects are, however, still missing in all these books. Issues like (i) Distinction between Catalogue and Bibliography; (ii) Construction of classified and dictionary catalogues; (iii) Comparative studies between these two popular inner forms; (iv) Appropriateness of classified and dictionary catalogues to different types of libraries; (v) Objectives, utilities and superiority of automated cataloguing; (vi) Use of C.A. Cutter’s author table; (vii) Practical cataloguing, with tracing, of personal, impersonal authors, special and cartographic materials; (viii) Comparative studies of construction of subject headings between Sears and LCSH; (ix) Integrated online library automation systems in the world; (x) OPAC search according to some major online system; (xi) USMARC3 format including variable data fields; (xii) Treatment of oriental names; (xiii) Purpose and usefulness of classification; (xiv) Mnemonic values in DDC and LCC; (xv) Construction, characteristics, types, and merits of Notation; (xvi) Knowledge classification vs. Book classification, and the like are conspicuous by their absence in the existing international standard publications. Some of these topics can be found here and there that too with shallow treatment. For some of the above topics a reader has to handle large number of different publications involving lot of time and labour instead of getting them together in one volume. Their treatment in depth in a single publication would certainly be helpful not only to students but also to practicing information scientists of the world. This concept also led to the publication of the present work. A connoisseur may, however, question, ‘is it not preposterous to find together in a single volume issues like treatment of oriental names embodied in IFLA’s Names of persons or, automated cataloguing presented by Rice, Tedd, Hunter, Saffady, Bakewell, Rowley or Needham to name a few, dwelt in their respective volumes’? This is the technique the present work has presented by providing major areas succinctly, and excluding the redundant elements.
Before the Internship programme for organization of eight government college libraries in Dhaka assisted by Asia Foundation, this author, as course director, prepared a mimeographed manual of classification meant for these libraries, which, after some additions and changes, was later published under the title Number building in Dewey decimal classification: 19th and 16th editions, a practical manual in 1991 with the assistance of Asia Foundation, Dhaka. It was a time when 16th edition of DDC was still in practice in the Dhaka University, while the 19th edition had just been creating an impact on the professional arena and hence on the teaching programme in the Department. We gradually switched
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over to 19th edition in classes, and the aforestated Manual worked substantially well with the students and the library and information scientists in the country. Demands and orders started pouring in not only from the libraries inside the
country, but also from abroad, even from country like Brazil. Now that we are
again switching over to 22nd edition of DDC, the Manual deserves to be updated. The notation or classification numbers may vary, and the phrases of standard subdivisions may slightly change, but the 13 rules for number-building process created and provided with examples by the author are fundamental and the principles will continue to exist in the practical horizon of classification for years to come. In the present work, in Basic Classification (chapters 29—32), however, classification numbers or notations along with standard subdivisions have been updated using 22nd edition of DDC. Some more topics like (i) Knowledge classification vs. Book classification, (ii) New features or innovations of 22nd edition, (iii) Comparative studies of major classification schemes of the world, (iv) Comparative studies of the structures of DDC and LCC and the like had to be included. But speculating that the book, which is designed to be a monographic textbook, would lose its characteristics by tending too bulky, these topics were dropped, and reserved for the second edition.
In Cataloguing part, however, the 18th edition of Sears list of subject headings could be used because of its availability. The headings of 3oth edition of LCSH could not be used since this set (of 5 vols.) has not yet reached Bangladesh, albeit, our endeavour is on to procure it in the Dhaka University Library. The author, likewise, faced paramount difficulties in citing References or preparing Bibliography because of the non-existence of latest editions of most of the text and important books in Bangladesh. He had, therefore, to approach US Information Resource Center (formerly USIC) and British Council libraries for obtaining latest bibliographical information of books. The American Center (USIC), after shifting from Motijheel C.A. to Banani discontinued procuring important book selection apparatus like Subject guide to BIP, not to talk of GBIP + or Bibliofile in cds. The director of USIC. however, was found to be very kind and co-0perative as she instantly asked this author to provide citations of items that could be procured. Search for BIP needed membership, and GBIP.com has recently been on sale. Amazon.com provided considerable information, sometimes outdated, but many could not be found at all while alibris.com provided citations of old or o.p. books. Search engine Google provided more up-to-date but incomplete information, and frequently mixed up with unrelated subjects. Moreover, complete bibliographical citation of a book was very difficult to find in
websites or search engines. This author, therefore, had to e-mail his American or British friends abroad for procuring bibliographical information, which sounds queer and even delirious. If pagination of some publication has to be obtained from
LC, Washington, DC or the British Library, London by e-mail, thanks to Anthony R D Franks, Richard Moore and others, how could research work be pursued in the third world countries? All these efforts were, however, exercised to make the work up-to-date conforming to international standards and get it suitable for international schools and world market. Moreover, it was also deeply felt that after retirement of the present author, there must not be a great lacuna in teaching the subject. It should be made convenient for new capable teachers to teach the course maintaining minimum standards with the help of this book.
The present work had to be published in 2005, when most of the literatures were ready for the book. Unfortunately, some unforeseen circumstances stood in the way. The author suddenly fell sick and was hospitalized. Secondly, a senior student specialized in computer handling, and who had considerable number of computers and system engineers in his university office, took the responsibility of downloading, composing, occasional correcting, and preserving files of the text in his computer. He suddenly left abroad without any information, or delivering the materials in cd or pen drive to the author or to publisher. After contact through e-mail, he, however, asked his engineer to download the files to pen drive of the author. It was again found that, without making minor correction in a single file, a single topic was downloaded in five files in five places, while some topics were found missing! Thus a long time was wasted to scan, delete, edit the existing multiple files, and re-write, and re-compose the missing topics. Another time-killing event took place as the printer changed the size of the font, and even indentions throughout the draft, and thus dislocated the entries of transliterated names of oriental authors thereby disturbing the set frame or structure of the original text. It was a stupendous, irritating task to set things right. All these killed precious time, labour, energy that ultimately told upon the health and patience of the writer.
However, it is to be conceded that any endeavour to creating a decent, novel, superior work may experience opposed currents and the success comes by intellectually overcoming such anti-currents.
As evident from the above discourse, the present work has been designed not only for students, teachers, and practicing information scientists of Bangladesh, but also for schools, information institutions and professional friends all over the world.
Dr. K.M. Saiful Islam