How is an Item Represented in the Catalog?

Each item represented in the catalog is described first on a single card (or sometimes multiple cards), the unit card, according to rules which have evolved over the course of the twentieth century.

Materials are entered in the catalog under author, and for much of the twentieth century, other access points, called added entries have been added to provide access by titles, and subject, as well as by editor, illustrator, translator, and other associated names. These added entries have not always, nor uniformly, been applied to records, however. Title added entries haven't always been made, for instance, so the only predictable way to locate a record in the catalog is to know the author's name.

What's an Author, and Why Should I Care?

Because of the importance of author in the Sterling catalog, it's necessary to clearly understand the concept of author in bibliographic records.

The author is that person or corporate body which has been determined to have intellectual responsibility for the creation of the work.

 

Personal Authors
Authors can be PEOPLE (as above).

Corporate Authors
They can be CORPORATE BODIES, such as corporations:
... or learned societies and associations:

... or universities, libraries, or museums:

... or governments:

... or conferences, congresses, or symposia:

Entry Under Title

In the absence of an identifiable author - or when there are more than three authors - entry is made under the title of the work.
This is true for books:

... for journals:

... and for newspapers:

For some types of materials - most notably sacred scriptures of the world's religions, epic poetry and poetry cycles - entry is not only under title, but under a standardized form of the title called a uniform title. This assures that all editions of works which have appeared in many languages under variant titles will all file together under a commonly-shared title in the catalog.

Form of the Name Used

Once the decision has been made concerning what entity to select as author, a decision must be made about the form of the name to use. The nature and importance of this decision can be illustrated by asking what name should be used to create the record for Madonna's book, Sex:

The name by which she's best known: Madonna, 1959- .

Her real name: Ciccione, Madonna Louise, 1959- .

Over the course of this century, the change in the way this decision has been made has created havoc in the catalogs.
Until 1981, personal authors were entered under the author's real name. Works by Mark Twain were entered under Clemens, Samual Langhorne 1835-1910 (and Madonna would have been entered as Ciccione, Madonna Louise, 1959- .
In 1981, it was decided to enter people under the names by which they chose to be known; Samuel Clemens becamae Twain, Mark 1835-1910 (and Madonna became Madonna, 1956- .)

For corporate bodies, the 1981 change in rules affected a specific type of name, but one that occurs often in academic library catalogs: names which are comprised of a generic institutional name (e.g. "university" or "library") and the name of the governmental body with authority over the institution.

Example: University of California
Until 1981, these corporate bodies were entered under the name of the government followed by the name of the institution: California. University
In 1981, the rule was changed to enter those corporate bodies under the name by which they're known: Univeristy of California, Berkeley

In a card catalog as large as Yale's, the effects of these changes were impressive, and were dealt with in two ways. Small files under a personal or corporate author whose form of entry changed had all the cards changed to reflect the new form of the name; large files have the old and new headings inerfiled under the new heading, and guide cards were provided which list all forms of the name interfiled.

What's on the Card?

Books:

Journals:

For series, it's important to understand that the information represented on the card is in on sense a platonic ideal. It tells you what in the ideal instance constitutes the full extent of the title. For the American historical review , above, that extent begins with v. 1 (1895), and, since there's no ending volume number and date given, extends to currently received issues. This information has no relationship to what volumes and dates Yale actually owns. For titles held in Sterling, Mudd, Beinecke, Cross Campus, and British Art, this information is provided on holdings cards file after the bibliographic cards for serials in the catalog; for all other libraries at Yale, this holdings information is not provided by the catalog.