College and Research Libraries R I C H A R D C . B E R N E R Observations on Archivists, Librarians, and the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections The Anglo-American Cataloging Rules have incorporated the descrip- tive cataloging rules used for entries in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections. The relevancy of these rules and of "catalog- ing" itself is questioned. Experience with NUCMC should enable li- brarians to learn how manuscript collections are researched thereby to devise appropriate descriptive techniques. Recommendations for im- proving NUCMC: more extensive indexing of names (but largely eliminating them from contents note), use of broad subject headings, and addition of chronological index. T H I S P A P E R is a critical analysis of the methodology underlying cataloging for the National Union Catalog of Manu- script Collections and of the new Anglo- American Cataloging Rules for nonbook materials.1 I t also includes recommenda- tions for changes in the light of this criticism. T h e N U C M C represents a single inter- phased system of national bibliographic control. This fact is of the utmost im- portance; it is the really important con- tribution of N U C M C to the methodolo- gy of bibliographic control of manu- script collections. I t has guide entries and a cumulative name, subject, and place index which refers users to the appropriate manu- script groups wherever they are. And 1 Anglo-American Cataloging Rules ( A m e r i c a n L i - brary A s s o c i a t i o n , 1 9 6 7 ) . Mr. Berner is University Archivist in the University of Washington. This article is based on a paper given at a meeting of the Society of American Archivists in Santa Fe, October 18, 1967. this is done b y a uniform method. How- ever, this method and its implications for librarians at the repository level bear examination. The librarian normally has had little or no exposure to archival methods so he is inclined to apply methods of the librarian, particularly if they bear t h e imprint of the Library of Congress and of the American Library Association. These methods have been developed from forms and techniques that librari- ans have traditionally used for the de- scriptive cataloging of publications.2 It might b e appropriate and timely to analyze how scholars actually use manu- scripts and at what stage in their re- search. Librarians, and archivists ( b y default), tend to act as if the user of manuscripts differed in his approach to his material from the user of books and serials.3 Experience with referrals 2 S e e T . R . S c h e l l e n b e r g , The Management of Archives ( C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y , 1 9 6 5 ) P a r t I , f o r a t h o r o u g h a n a l y s i s . 3 S e e B e r n e r , "Archivists, Librarians, a n d t h e N a - t i o n a l U n i o n C a t a l o g of M a n u s c r i p t C o l l e c t i o n s , " Amer- ican Archivists, J u l y 1 9 6 4 . 2 7 6 / National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections / ¥11 from NUCMC and at the repository level cast doubt upon this view. It may be well to turn first to the sec- tion in the new Anglo-American Rules that applies to "nonbook materials." NUCMC descriptive cataloging rules as enshrined now in the new Anglo-Amer- ican "Code" unfortunately set in train a misleading line of thought about bibli- ographical control of manuscript collec- tions. These rules represent a "technocratic" approach to an organismic problem. They view "cataloging" as separable from the total process of bibliographic control. They lead manuscripts people to believe that "cataloging" can be done directly from the manuscripts them- selves, and done effectively. This is merely an extension of the technique that the Code recommends for individual manuscript items—a method modeled up- on those used for book cataloging. As such they are an inducement to item description or a variant thereof. Item description, with rare exceptions, is justifiable only after comprehensive con- trol has been already established for the collection as a whole. To attempt item description prior to establishment of broad comprehensive bibliographical controls results in the limiting of access to manuscript groups not yet processed, either because little is known about them, or, as often happens, because un- processed groups are restricted from use until they are actually processed. When the NUCMC cataloging rules are fol- lowed, the temptation—if not the tend- ency—is for the reporting repository to catalog its own holdings simultaneously and to do so by cataloging directly from the manuscripts themselves rather than from the synopses of the manuscript groups, whether the synopsis be a regis- ter, inventory, guide, or similar finding aid. This indeed was the hoped-for result as expressed by Lester K. Born, the first head of the Manuscripts Section for NUCMC, in a letter to the present au- thor dated October 19, 1959, wherein he hoped that ". . . these rules . . . will, presumably, be followed in the future by most repositories that have not al- ready set up elaborate catalogs." The im- portant step preceding that of "catalog- ing" should be, in the judgment of many, production of a register, guide, or other synopsis that is to be cataloged, not the cataloging of the manuscripts them- selves. A repository, however, need not do "original" cataloging. One of the saving features of the NUCMC reporting sys- tem is that reporting can be done in synopsis form with the data sheet. The data sheet is closely analogous to the repository's own "register" or inventory/ guide. By its use of the data reports, NUCMC can legitimately catalog with- out simultaneously imposing its catalog- ing system upon the reporting reposi- tory. It might therefore be recommended that NUCMC ask for reporting by data sheet alone, thereby escaping the onus for spreading an unproved, if not wrong, bibliographic method across the manu- script and library world. Its cataloging methods appear much too young to be enshrined. Present practice in fact suggests that the card catalog should be the basic- finding aid to the holdings of a manu- script collection. Although the card cata- log is the basic finding aid at most repositories, this is not necessarily good. The card catalog, as a form, simply de- veloped out of a vacuum that existed long before archival techniques were de- veloped. But even after archival methods began to spread, they were long thought to be applicable almost exclusively to public records. And, as evidenced by the strong representation of the archival pro- fession on the Advisory Committee for NUCMC, even the archivists themselves thought they were inapplicable to the management of manuscript collections, for the end result showed little archival influence. So instead of following Dr. 278 / College b- Research Libraries • March 1968 Born's suggestion that those repositories ". . . that have not already set up elabo- rate catalogs. . ." be guided by the NUCMC rules for descriptive catalog- ing, they might better be urged to con- sider whether NUCMC rules are appli- cable at all. It does not follow necessarily that uniformity of end product, which is desirable at the national level of biblio- graphical control, should be required at the repository level itself. It is perhaps unfortunate that the "Anglo-American Rules" imply that it should be. Quite the contrary; the inventory/ guide and register, which are basic ar- chival finding aids, should be seriously considered as the basic finding aids for manuscript collections as well, for the kind of records being described are es- sentially the same: file items or units usually arranged in record series and organic subgroups. There should in turn be cumulative indexes to names, subjects, places, and dates. In recognition that some users approach their materials by dates, there should be a chronological index that enables the researcher to find references by year or period. NUCMC itself would be made more useful with such an index. These indexes would accommodate effectively to the diverse ways in which manuscripts are ap- proached by the researcher. Whether these indexes be in catalog card form, sheet form, or in a form for machine re- trieval is less important, for scale will or should largely help to determine form.4 In all of this, however, the form which the description will take should 4 F o r a presentation o f this m e t h o d s e e : R i c h a r d C . B e r n e r , " M a n u s c r i p t C o l l e c t i o n s a n d A r c h i v e s — A U n i - t a r y A p p r o a c h " Library Resources arid Technical Services, S p r i n g 1 9 6 5 . Also R o b e r t L . B r u b a k e r , " A r c h i v a l P r i n c i p l e s a n d t h e C u r a t o r o f M a n u s c r i p t s " in t h e American Archivist, O c t o b e r 1 9 6 6 . S e e also: C a r o l y n A. W a l l a c e , " T h e S o u t h e r n H i s t o r i c a l C o l l e c - t i o n , " in t h e American Archivist, X X I I I ( J u l y 1 9 6 5 ) , 4 2 7 - 3 6 , for a description o f m e t h o d s at t h e University o f North C a r o l i n a , one o f t h e most e x e m p l a r y . F o r t h e definitive c o m p r e h e n s i v e b a c k g r o u n d analysis of library and a r c h i v a l m e t h o d o l o g i e s s e e : T . R . S c h e l l - e n b e r g , The Maimgement of Archives ( C o l u m b i a U n i - versity Press, 1 9 6 5 ) P a r t I . not be allowed to influence arrangement of the manuscript groups themselves. Discussion of "subject grouping" of small and/or miscellaneous units of manuscripts for cataloging purposes re- flects another line of library thinking and methodology (NUCMC Information Circular No. 2 revised). One of the un- fortunate results of such discussion is to suggest that repositories can validly classify manuscripts by subject. To do so would probably encourage violation of the principle of provenance in due course. It would therefore appear more desirable for the manuscript unit to be reported according to its own integral characteristics or not be reported at all. It would be well to be guided by the archivists' principle of provenance and its ramifications—keeping papers accord- ing to the source that generated them— and to extend this rule to reporting as well. It is indeed unfortunate that the Anglo-American Rules include only a slight and misleading reference to "prov- enance," limiting it to "donor or other source of acquisition" (p. 270). The es- sence of provenance is the organic ori- gins of the papers themselves; the papers are generated out of activity and reflect that activity. This concept is fundamen- tal to sound practice in manuscripts and archival work and should not be sub- ordinated to a casual note applied only to a description. As a concept it might better have prefaced the section in the Anglo-American Rules which is devoted to manuscripts (pp. 259-71). In this position and with a full statement of its theoretical impli- cations, it would have more properly qualified the recommendations that fol- lowed. A total view of the bibliographical process is needed in dealing with manu- script collections extending through both arrangement and description. "Catalog- ing," if that term be used, should be restricted to a description based upon National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections / 279 the finding aids or apparatus of the find- ing aids, and should not be done or encouraged to be done directly from the manuscripts themselves. NUCMC's experience with the sub- ject headings problem should make li- brarians and archivists wary. It started with the Library of Congress subject headings list, which was then abandoned for the wrong reasons,5 and is now using the more flexible but relatively uncon- trolled topical headings. This area is of great concern to specialists in informa- tion retrieval and will be the main con- cern of a member of the National Ar- chives staff in a forthcoming study being done under a grant from the Council on Library Resources. Strong reservations appear to be warranted about subject headings at this stage. There is too much to be learned before fixing upon a sys- tem. Dr. T. R. Schellenberg, for example, suggests using a few broad subject head- ings corresponding to the main lines of human activity.0 Such a system is now being experimented with at the Uni- versity of Washington. But its system is based on wholly different methodological considerations than those of Dr. Schel- lenberg; they are based on its own analy- sis of methods employed by scholars in their approach to manuscripts, recogniz- ing the function of name control. One important by-product of NUCMC is that it provides or can provide much of the data that is needed for an analysis of the methodologies of those who use manuscript collections. Librarians and archivists may well miss an important opportunity if they do not make the analysis and alter their methods of bibli- ographical control accordingly. 5 D r . S c h e l l e n b e r g ' s oral c r i t i c i s m was t h a t it was m o r e specific t h a n it c o u l d r e l i a b l y b e , a n d as a result it would m i s l e a d r e s e a r c h e r s into b e l i e v i n g t h a t all s p e c i f i c r e f e r e n c e s m a d e d i d in f a c t e x h a u s t all leads to t h e p a r t i c u l a r s u b j e c t b e i n g s o u g h t . " T . R . S c h e l l e n b e r g " A N a t i o n w i d e S y s t e m o f C o n - trolling Historical M a n u s c r i p t s in t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s , " in the American Archivist, X X V I I I ( J u l y 1 9 6 5 ) , 4 0 9 - 1 2 . Some experienced manuscript cura- tors have found that more than 95 per cent of the inquiries from scholars using NUCMC are for materials by way of personal and corporate names; thereby responding, consciously or not, to the fact that persons, real or corporate, cre- ate manuscript and archival materials. Yet there has been little response methodologically to this fact on the part of manuscripts people. And at the more "sophisticated" levels of methodology represented in the April 1967 issue of the American Archivist which was devoted to advanced information retrieval tech- niques—only one article, that by Russell Smith on the Presidential Papers, stresses the importance of names and name con- trol, and this is a matter largely of his- torical accident, not design. All others are concerned with minute subject analy- sis, largely ignoring the main approach that scholars use in approaching manu- script collections. The forthcoming study of information retrieval techniques in this field, being financed by the Council on Library Resources, should take this fact into consideration. Names and name control are very important and central to the methodolo- gy on which a national system of biblio- graphical control should be constructed. The reason names are so important is that by the time the scholar is ready to use manuscript and archival material he has already associated names of persons and corporate bodies with his particular subject more specifically than can the person who describes the manuscript group. This mental association is struc- tured into the researcher's own method- ology. He has done this inevitably in the normal course of reading published sources including newspapers, books, periodicals, government documents, and so on, prior to using manuscript and ar- chival sources. If this be true, then name control should influence the kind of sub- ject control needed, a choice between 280 / College b- Research Libraries • March 1968 broad clues to the manuscript group or the more subjective but specific and item-keyed technique. NUCMC now provides the chance to make these analy- ses. With what has just been said about names it appears justified to recommend that NUCMC entries eliminate names from the contents notes except where they can indicate organic relationships as, for example, names of subgroups that often exist within a given manu- script group, or organizational affiliations that are often reflected in it. They should be in the cumulative index, of course; by conserving space through their elimi- nation from the contents note more names can be entered in the index. The more names, the less arbitrary their se- lection. This too would make it more truly an interphased system wherein the user proceeds from individual name and subject leads successively to more de- tailed contextual information in N U C M C and then to the repositories themselves— interphasing without pointless repetition of information as he proceeds through the phases of information retrieval. • • NOTE—Other articles of interest on N U C M C a r e : Harriet C. Owsley, "The SAA Workshop on the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections," American Archivist, XXVIII (July 1965), 389-97. William C. Binkley, "A Historian Looks at the NUCMC," American Archivist, XXVIII (July 1965), 399-407. Robert H. Land, "The NUCMC," American Archivist, July 1954.