Early organizers of information first made simple lists and bibliographies of documents. Later, complex cataloging systems were employed. Here is a brief history of organization, from antiquity up to the twentieth century.
2000 B.C.E. A Sumerian Tablet Contains Bibliographical Information
The oldest known bibliography is list of 62 titles recorded on a 4,000 year old Sumerian tablet found at the ancient Babylonian city of Nippur. The purpose of this list is unknown, but it has been speculated that it is the remnant of a catalog (Taylor, 2004).
1500 B.C.E. Hittite Tablets Include Colophons
A colophon is information found at the end of a text that, in ancient Hittite texts, included the name of the scribe, the title, and a serial number for the tablet. This serial information organized the tablet in its series (Taylor, 2004).
650 B.C.E. (approximately) Royal State Library of King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh Created Around the mid-7th century B.C.E. King Ashurbanipal, a "military and literary visionary" ("Ashurbanipal Library," 2008) created a library, which eventually consisted of approximately 25,000 clay tablets. These have been excavated and cataloged by The British Museum and are responsible for much of what is known about Assyrian literature and scientific thought ("Ashurbanipal Library," 2008).
300 B.C.E. (approximately) Founding of the Library at Alexandria
The Library at Alexandria is often considered the greatest collection of information in antiquity. It is important in the history of the organization of information because the library gave birth to cataloging and librarianship. The first cataloger was a man by the name of Callimachus of Cyrene who was the successor of Zenodotus of Ephesus, the first librarian. Callimachus created the first subject catalog of the library's holdings, called the Pinakes, cataloging over half a million scrolls (Brundige, 1995).
Note: The Library of Alexandria was destroyed, but a new, incredibly modern library has been built in Alexandria. Visit their Website at http://www.bibalex.org/English/index.aspx.
"The New Bibliotheca Alexandrina is dedicated to recapture the spirit of openness and scholarship of the original Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It is much more than a library ..."
1250 C.E. (approximately) Registrum Librorum Angliae CompiledDuring the middle ages in Europe libraries were almost nonexistent outside of churches and monasteries. They were generally small (less that 500 volumes) and did not require cataloging. During the 13th century, however, an unknown cataloger began the Registrum Librorum Angliae which is a "union list of holdings of English monastery libraries in which, in a quite modern way, each library was assigned a number for coding purposes" (Taylor, 2004, p. 52).
1389 C.E. Complex Catalog Created at St. Martin's Priory, Dover
This list cataloged the materials found at St. Martin's Priory. It lists the call numbers of the works, the contents of each volume, and a "catalog of analytical entries" (Taylor, 2004).
1494 C.E. Johann Tritheim Publishes His Catalogus Illustrium Virorum
After the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century, life became much more interesting for those interested in bibliographic control.
A Benedictine monk, Johann Tritheim was also a bibliographer and librarian. His work included the Catalogus Illustrium Virorum, a bibliography of 2000 works by 300 different German authors (Taylor, 2004).
1605 C.E. First Library Catalog Published
In 1598 Sir Thomas Bodley undertook the project to rebuild the Oxford University Library, which had been sadly neglected. While building up the collection, Bodley took care to create a comprehensive catalog of the materials he acquired. In 1605 he published this catalog so that scholarly communities would know what materials were available in the library (Clapinson, 2002).
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
1791 C.E. First Card Catalog Created in France
After the French Revolution the French government found itself in possession of a vast number of library holdings which had been confiscated. The government decided that a system for cataloging these collections was necessary and sent instructions to various libraries to create card catalogs. The cards in the catalog were created with confiscated playing cards! The cards contained the information found on the title page of the book and were filed by author's surname. When in order, the cards were strung together on a thread (Taylor, 2004).
1839 C.E. A Modern Cataloging Code is Created
In 1831, Anthony Panizzi was appointed as assistant librarian at the British Museum. Panizzi had strong views about cataloging which he set down in a formal cataloging code called the "91 Rules" (Taylor, 2004, p. 56). Panizzi's 91 Rules later became the basis for the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules. Kilgour includes Panizzi in his list of the nine innovative librarians of the past century and a half (1992).
1876 C.E. Rules for a Printed Dictionary Catalogue PublishedCharles Cutter worked first at Harvard College's library and learned cataloging from Dr. Ezra Abbott, Harvard's head cataloger. In 1868 he became the librarian of the Boston Anthenaeum. In Rules for a Printed Dictionary Catalogue, Cutter became the first cataloger to create guidelines for subject headings and introduced the idea of describing items in the catalog. Cutter also worked with Melvil Dewey to create the American Library Association. Stromgren, in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, writes this about Cutter:
"During his tenure at the Athenaeum, Cutter introduced several
practices still familiar today, including loan cards placed in a pocket
glued to the inside of rear book covers, an inter-library loan
program, and home deliveries to housebound patrons" (2004).
Charles Cutter, painted by W.H.W Bicknell in 1906.
