Rethinking the Authorship Principle

Abstract

The fundamental principle of order in the library catalogue is the authorship principle, which serves as the organizing node of an alphabetico-classed system, in which “texts” of “works” are organized first alphabetically by uniform title of the progenitor work and then are subarranged using titles for variant instantiations, under the heading for an “author.” We analyze case studies of entries from (1) the first documented imperial library catalogue, the Seven Epitomes (Qilue [七略]), in China; (2) Abelard’s Works, which featured prominently in the 1848 testimony of Antonio Panizzi; and (3)The French Chef and the large family of instantiated works associated with it. Our analysis shows that the catalogue typically contains many large superwork sets. A more pragmatic approach to the design of catalogues is to array descriptions of resources in relation to the superwork sets to which they might belong. In all cases, a multidimensional faceted arrangement incorporating ideational nodes from the universe of recorded knowledge holds promise for greatly enhanced retrieval capability.Submitted by Jacob Nash ([email protected]) on 2012-09-19T20:13:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 61.1.smiraglia.pdf: 264872 bytes, checksum: 5b8f940e4589d05690e1044ee933bbf2 (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2012-09-19T20:13:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 61.1.smiraglia.pdf: 264872 bytes, checksum: 5b8f940e4589d05690e1044ee933bbf2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012Item withdrawn by Jacob Nash ([email protected]) on 2012-09-19T20:13:30Z Item was in collections: Library Trends 61 (1) Summer 2012: Next-Generation Discovery and Access in Library Catalogs (Restricted) (ID: 892) No. of bitstreams: 1 61.1.smiraglia.pdf: 264872 bytes, checksum: 5b8f940e4589d05690e1044ee933bbf2 (MD5)Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:09:53-05:00 Original Data Group with Access full embargo (none) Release Date: 2014-09-19 15:08:08 UTC Reason: Agreement with PublisherItem marked as completely restricted (or under embargo) by Jacob Nash ([email protected]) on 2012-09-19T20:13:30Z Item is restricted until 2014-09-19T20:08:08ZItem reinstated by Sarah Shreeves ([email protected]) on 2014-09-19T10:00:36Z Item was in collections: Library Trends 61 (1) Summer 2012: Next-Generation Discovery and Access in Library Catalogs (Restricted) (ID: 892) No. of bitstreams: 1 61.1.smiraglia.pdf: 264872 bytes, checksum: 5b8f940e4589d05690e1044ee933bbf2 (MD5)Embargoed Restriction Lifted for Item 34868 on 2014-09-19T10:00:36Z.published or submitted for publicatio