From Schmidt-Phiseldeck to ZanettiAuthor(s): Virginia CunninghamSource: Notes, Second Series, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Mar., 1967), pp. 449-452Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/895071 .

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FROM SCHMIDT-PHISELDECK TO ZANETTI By VIRGINIA CUNNINGHAM

The International Cataloguing Code Commission was organized in 1952

by the International Association of Music Libraries to investigate the

possibility of establishing an international cataloguing code for music. The Commission was originally made up of seven members, but was later

expanded to nine, each representing his own country, not a national association or national library. I have been the United States representa- tive since the Commission was established. The other representatives are from Denmark, France, German Democratic Republic, German Federal

Republic, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden, and the U. S. S. R. The title of this report stems from the fact that in an alphabetical listing of the members of the Commission, Dr. Schmidt-Phiseldeck, as President, would be named first, and Emilia Zanetti last.

The Commission inaugurated its Code International de Catalogage de la Musique with Der Autoren-Katalog der Musikdrucke (1957) by Franz

Grasberger. This work, published in German and English (and a later edition in French), is a survey of cataloguing practices in thirty-one American and European libraries. Mr. Grasberger investigated problems of choice of heading and descriptive cataloguing and provided factual data as a basis for rules. There are twelve examples in which title pages of works and representative catalogue entries for the works are repro- duced.

Volume II of the Code International is the Code Restreint (1961) by Yvette F6doroff, published in French, English, and German. This work contains simplified cataloguing rules for choice of heading, description, and conventional titles. The "Plan for the systematic classification of a subject catalogue (according to the Jahresverzeichnis of Hofmeister)" is included as a guide for the development of subject catalogues or for shelf arrangement of music.

In 1956 I was asked to compile the rules for full cataloguing, planned as volume III of the Code International. The Commission approved a tentative outline and statement of principles and purposes at its London

The author, Mrs. Music Cataloguer of the United States, is head of the Music Section of the Descriptive Cataloging Division in the Library of Congress. The article is from a paper read at a joint meeting of the Washington-Baltimore Chapter of the Music Library Association and the Greater Washington Chapter of the American Musicological Society, held at American University, 24 March 1966.-Ed.

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meeting in 1957. The first draft was discussed only briefly at the Kassel

meeting in 1958, and more fully at Cambridge in 1959. This draft was

inadequate in that it did not cover all the problems a music cataloguer meets. In 1959, however, it was decided to discontinue work on the full

cataloguing rules until the Code restreint had been published and we could take advantage of reviewers' comments.

In 1961 I attended the International Conference on Cataloguing Principles at Paris, one of the most important events in my professional life. Using ICCP's "Statement of Principles" and discarding the previous draft, I prepared an entirely new draft of the rules. This draft is proof that the Principles apply as well to special material as to books. The draft was first discussed by the Commission at Milan in 1963 and, after some revision, was approved for publication at Dijon in 1965. It was mailed to the publisher, C. F. Peters in Frankfurt, in February 1966 and will be issued in English, French, and German.

The volume contains rules for choice of heading, filing titles, descrip- tion, added entries, and cross references. There are complete examples, supplementing the illustrative examples within the text, and an extensive

glossary compiled by Meredith M. Moon of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The introduction includes a discussion of the principles on which the rules are based and a recapitulation of the considerations which led to certain decisions.

The International Cataloguing Code Commission is unique in that it is preparing cataloguing rules for international use, a task no other

group has been assigned. The idea is formidable. There have been prob- lems, but the members are persons of good will and have worked out solutions together. We represent various countries and have a variety of

backgrounds. Some members are primarily musicologists and some are librarians, most of whom do not have library-school training as we know it in this country. Communication has not been difficult, though I dis- covered that I had to choose my English words carefully, because con- notations for someone from, say, Sweden or Germany might be other than I intended. At meetings members spoke in English, French, or German; in writing we generally used our native languages.

Our task was to prepare international cataloguing rules for music. All of us came to the task standing solidly on the block of our own rules, with personal preferences that we occasionally found difficult to discard. It was especially difficult for us to think in terms of international rules (rules for use in an international union catalogue, for example) instead of rules for individual libraries. It occurred to the West German repre- sentative and me at about the same time that we could provide for both levels by including alternative rules. An illustration is the rule for filing

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titles for liturgical music of the Catholic church. In an international

catalogue the original language would have to be used in order to bring all editions of a work together; a local library, on the other hand, could use the filing title in its own language.

While there are differences among us, there are also similarities. Our

catalogue entries have many elements in common. All of us enter a musical composition under the name of the composer. The data in an

entry is generally the same and is presented in the same order. One of the most important differences between European practice, on the one hand, and Russian and American practice, on the other, has been the use of the filing title-we prefer the term filing title to conventional title. In European practice, organizing devices have been used, such as the opus number placed in the upper right corner, or a grouping of works of one composer by type or category. The filing-title idea was accepted by the Commission for the limited cataloguing rules, but only as a recom- mendation for an individual library.

In the full cataloguing rules, the filing title is required for certain kinds of works. The debate was not over the question of its use but of its con- struction. I was surprised to find that the members had studied our rules thoroughly and expected me to recommend their adoption in large part. I had already concluded, however, that in the international rules the use of the filing title should be restricted and its construction

simplified. I drafted the rules on the principle of using the minimum number of elements necessary to identify a work. Thus a particular filing title may consist only of the title proper and the opus number, eliminating medium, serial number, and key. There was strong feeling among the members that medium should be added, because it would group works under a composer's name and title. An alternative rule to this effect is included.

There was considerable discussion over the rule providing that the title in the filing title be given in the plural when it is the name of a musical form. A typical example is [Sonatas. Op. 27, no. 2]. This gram- matical construction looks strange in any language. It has, however, great advantages in catalogue organization and maintenance. The arrange- ment of the file is immediately comprehensible to any user, and filing is facilitated.

A second principle underlying the rules is that a title used in a filing title is a title, not a term expressing a category of works. The single ex- ception is "Works," which is used for publications of complete works. For publication of one symphony or a collection of symphonies by a com- poser, "Symphonies," a title, is used. Miscellaneous collections of a composer's works, having a title assigned by the editor or publisher

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but not by the composer, are not brought together by the use of a collect-

ing device but are filed under their own titles. The entry for librettos caused us more agony than any other problem.

The French representative insisted that a libretto is a book and should be entered under its author. The British representative felt that a libretto had to be treated as part of a musical production and entered under com-

poser. The Italian representative had a strong preference for entering eighteenth-century librettos under title. The representative of the German Federal Republic attempted valiantly to find a generally acceptable compromise. By a vote of the Commission we decided on entry under

composer, with an alternative rule providing for entry under librettist and title.

Who will use these rules? I think none of us expects them to be adopted by our national libraries. They certainly could be used, or adapted for use,

by individual libraries all over the world, though they will probably not be used widely in this country because of dependence on the Library of

Congress. They may fill a need as international bibliographic activities

develop in future years.

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