call numbers

Call NumbersAuthor(s): A. G. DrachmannSource: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Apr., 1934), pp. 198-206Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4302064 .

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CALL NUMBERS

T HE usual procedure, when a man wants to take out a book from a learned library, is for him to look up the book in the catalog, write out a call slip, carefully copying in the call

number, hand in the slip, and wait for the book. It will probably sur- prise my readers to learn that ten years ago no call slips were required in the University Library of Copenhagen.

The lending department resembled a shop: a long counter ran through the room; on one side of it came the public, on the inner side were some four or five assistants. The borrower told the assistant that he wanted this or that book, whereupon the assistant fetched the book or books from the shelves in the bookstacks. Then the borrower wrote a receipt for the books, and since the receipts were arranged by the name of the borrower, there was no objection to his writing all the books on one slip, the only restriction being that no more than four books might be taken out by the same borrower on the same day.

In the reading-room a similar procedure was followed. One man had to remain on guard; the others fetched books. The catalogs were used by the public only for finding what books the library had on a certain subject; the catalogs were principally for the use of the librarians.

The assistants, of course, were no mere rhessengers or boys; they were fully trained librarians, and many of them old men. They took out the books without requiring the catalog at all. The youngest assistants in the lending department and the reading-room, respectively, put back each morning the books returned to the two departments; in this way they very soon learned to find their way about; a young assistant would have to look up, say, one-fourth of the books;-an old assistant could take out books for hours without referring to the catalog, as long as the book was in the library and the borrower knew its title correctly-or incorrectly-since the assistant very often could assist him to find a book from the merest hint of the right title.

To the public this arrangement was almost ideal. No call slips to write for books not in the library or not available; no looking up call numbers in the catalog; an unlimited possibility of alternative orders -"If this book is out, give me the other!"-but, above all, the feeling

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of having talked personally to an intelligent person, who was himself responsible for the whole carrying-out of the matter. The only drawback was that the number of volumes was limited to four for the same person on the same day, a rule prescribed only to limit the time of waiting for the next borrower and set aside whenever there was time enough, or the borrower had a good reason for needing more than four books.

To the staff the arrangement was less perfect. While each borrower got his books sooner than he could have had them under any other system, there was a great waste of time, since the assistants ran all over the place, and three or four of them would often have to go at the same time to every corner of the library, one after the other. It would clearly be a saving of time to the assistants, if, instead of four men go- ing to the same four corners to get one book from each, the calls were divided, so that each man got four books from one corner only. But worse than that was the strain of not knowing from one minute to the next how long you could remain at your work. For all cataloging and most of the work outside the desk service was done in between the calls. The youngest assistant took all the calls as long as he was present; when he was away, the next in age came into action, etc. In the reading-room, where books were given out from ten to three o'clock, the assistants, on duty during the same period, had no guaranteed time for other work at all; in the lending department, where the hours were from eleven to two, the two hours from ten to eleven and two to three were free; but they were mostly taken by the daily routine, and very little time was left for greater undertakings.

So the time came when a change was necessary. One way would have been to reduce the number of trained assistants, engaging a lot of boys and messengers to do the fetching and carrying, and asking the public to look up the books and put call numbers on the call slips. This way was not practicable. The University Library is a state institution, the staff are civil servants, and they cannot be discharged except by law and with pensions; a change in the personnel could be effected only slowly and by degrees. There were also other difficulties. The call numbers are not printed on the backs of the books, the catalogs are not very well adapted for the use of the public, and there was no room large enough to make the whole catalog accessible.

But still there were ways out of the difficulty. The public was required to make out call slips, one for each book. These were brought by messengers to the assistants, who had their places nearer the stacks



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and farther from the public, and each assistant had only a limited district in which to take out books. The call slips for the reading-room and the lending department were not kept apart, but were distributed together; each assistant put back all the books in his own district.

This was found to be a very great improvement. The number of assistants actually occupied in waiting on the public could be reduced, without too greatly increasing the time of each stack call; those who were free could get some work done, being no longer directly under the accusing eyes of the waiting public. The assistants saved many steps in fetching and carrying, since the messengers brought them the call slips all the way to the stacks and took back the books.

With the time thus saved it was possible to undertake a revision of the catalogs. Since the University Library, in spite of its name, is a special library for medicine and the exact and natural sciences, the recataloging of course had to take effect in these divisions. And since a recataloging of the entire collection in these divisions was neither practicable nor desirable, a line was drawn at the year igoo-only books after this date were to be taken out and placed in the new catalogs; the rest had to stay in the old arrangement. But before a plan could be drawn up for the new catalogs, the question of the call numbers and the whole arrangement for getting out books had to be taken into account once more.

It is evident that the power of the assistants to find most of the books without looking them up had its root in the arrangement of the old catalogs. The books were arranged in groups, each of which had a name: "Math." for Mathematics, "Fys." for Physics (Fysik), "Geol." for Geology, etc. The arrangement inside the groups was par- allel: Bibliography, History, Periodicals, Mixed collections, Collected papers, General, Special. The last group was subdivided if necessary; each subdivision was arranged once more on the same lines, ending with "General," "Special." Each book had a number; in a single group the numbers between i and 99.ooo were used, but from the first only every tenth or twentieth number was used, so that books could be inserted all along. But the most important thing was that in all the "last divisions" the books were arranged by author, not by date. If you knew the author and the title, which you had, of course, from the borrower, if was quite easy to get the book, since the subdivisions were few and large and the books arranged alphabetically.

Although this alphabetical arrangement was excellent, as long as it



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was only a question of finding a given book, it was far less perfect when it came to finding the best book on a given subject, or a very special book among the "other specialties" at the end of the larger divisions. In short, the catalog was a very fine shelf-list, but a very poor systematic catalog, and the more it grew, the less useful it was to the public. This "tug of war" between the interests of the shelf-list and the systematic catalog I have described in a short paper.'

It was evident that the new systematic catalog had to be divided into many small groups. Each group had to be arranged, not alphabetically by authors, but chronologically, and every book had to be entered several times, if necessary. But such a catalog is not very useful as a shelf-list-nobody could take out a book without looking it up first. And when that is the case, then the trouble of looking up the books has to fall on the public, since no library could afford to have this work done by its staff.

One way out of the difficulty was to make a dictionary catalog instead of a systematic catalog. This was discussed and rejected. The best thing, if you can afford it, is to have all three: shelf-list, systematic catalog, and dictionary catalog. This was out of the question. But what is the next best thing? That depends to a large extent on what sort of library it is and what sort of public it serves. In a general library I would prefer a dictionary catalog and a combined shelf-list and systematic catalog, e.g., the Decimal Classification; but for a special library I hold that the systematic catalog is of more value, espe- cially if the public is well informed and used to libraries.

This conclusion I reach in the following way: The more a reader knows about his subject, the less will he be dependent on the library catalogs for his titles; he will come to the library to get the books he has already found quoted somewhere else. If he wants the catalog, he will be better served by a systematic catalog, since he knows the particular science well, and will find no difficulty in grasping the system. He will sit quite happily with the smallest possible part of the systematic catalog, while a dictionary catalog would probably send him through half the alphabet before he was sure that he had seen everything he wanted. He has no use for the dictionary catalog except in one case: If he has to look up all his titles for call numbers, then the dictionary catalog is by far the best. But we were trying our best to dispense with the call numbers, and this seems to mean that

"'Realkatalog oder Standortskatalog?" Zentralblatt fpr Bibliothekswesen, XLV (1928), 42-45.



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we can better do without the dictionary catalog than without the systematic catalog.

Or take the argument from the other side: A systematic catalog that has to do as a shelf-list also is either a bad shelf-list or a bad systematic catalog (or bad both ways!). It needs the dictionary catalog for support in the second case, while in the first case, since then call numbers must be obligatory (as they are, with a bad shelf-list), it needs the dictionary catalog once more, since all the books have to be looked up by the public. So once more we find that the real need for a dictionary catalog is connected with the fusion of the shelf-list and the systematic catalog. But if we separate those two, and make a good systematic catalog, then we can do without the dictionary catalog, if we can so arrange our shelf-list that we can find the books without call numbers.

The new systematic catalogs lie outside the scope of this paper, which has to do with the new shelf-list. The problem raised is: Is it possible to make a shelf-list that will enable the staff to take out the books without call numbers?

First of all, there are two distinct sorts of books-periodicals and books proper. I have never seen the good of incorporating the journals in the systematic catalog or in the shelf-list together with the books. A man knows whether he is looking for a periodical or a book. Moreover, the periodicals are almost exclusively taken, out by people who know what they want; they are called for by volume and date. The percentage of calls for periodicals made from the bare entry in the catalog that the library possesses "3}ournal of ...." must be exceed- ingly small.

From this follow two conclusions: first, that the periodicals can be removed from the systematic catalog and placed in a shelf-list of their own; second, that they ought to be arranged by their titles rather than by their contents. It will be well to put them in groups, if only because the calls from any single man will often be in the same group. But this grouping should be done more by the title than by the real contents. An example will illustrate this better than any explanation. In the University Library the Zeitschriftfuir Biologie is placed among the medical periodicals, because it is more of a medical journal than one of biology. Cui bono? The public never looks through all our medical journals anyway; and the staff has only to learn, with no little loss of time, that this journal, in spite of its title, is not placed with the Annals of applied biology, the British journal of experimental biol-



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ogy, Quarterly review of biology, Biological reviews, etc., where it belongs-according to its title.

Let, then, the periodicals be arranged in groups corresponding more or less to the groups of the shelf-list, but by titles more than by contents. Within the group they are arranged either just alphabetically by titles, or first by languages, then by titles. By languages, not by countries. Why should the staff, whose duty it is to find one volume of the fournal of physiology and another of the Journal of general physiology, have to remember that one is English and the other Ameri- can? But that the fournal of physiology is written in English and Archiv far die gesamte Physiologie in German requires no power of remembrance. Once more the rule should be formal: periodicals with Latin titles-Acta, Folia, etc.-should come together; no need to remember that Folia haematologica is German; Hygiea, Swedish; Hygeia, American; 4cta paediatrica, Swedish; Acta rheumatologica, Dutch; Ars medici, Austrian; Clinica, Roumanian; Bibliotheca genetica, German; Bibliographia genetica, Dutch; Biometrica, British; Genetica, Dutch; Haematologica, Italian; Hereditas, Swedish; and Acta biologiae experi- mentalis, Polish.

Of course the journals should have call numbers; and an alphabetical list of them all, with call numbers, should be kept on the spot, so that any doubt about the place of a journal, or whether it is in the library at all, could be solved at once, without reference to the catalog.

Any journal of any length makes itself felt on the shelves. From my own initiation as an assistant I remember quite well how the journals were the landmarks, so to speak. I think that even a messenger could be taught to fetch most of the journals required without looking them up, or asking for call numbers, provided that they were placed together alphabetically, and if it was also his duty to put them back again; and I am not sure that there is really any excuse for a library, no matter what its size, demanding that the public must look up all the journals in the catalog every time.

So far I have dealt only with periodicals pure and simple; now for the periodicals issued by learned societies, universities, and the like- proceedings, transactions, bulletins, reports, etc. Well, what of them? Into the alphabet they go with the rest! They are generally neither in their contents, nor in their form, nor in their use difflerent from the rest. Indeed, there is no hard-and-fast rule by which to know them. When the Bericht der Senckenbergischen naturforschenden Gesellschaft



204 THE LIBRARY tUARTERLY

changed its name to Natur und Museum, its contents do not seem to have been affected. But far stronger is the argument from the use of these publications. Only very few readers will take out the collected publications of a single institution and read them from end to end; very few will take up a volume of transactions just for the sake of the institution that "transacts" them. Like all other periodicals, they are called for by volume and date, by people who know exactly what they want; they are just periodicals and should be treated as such. Since the titles are easily distinguishable from the titles of ordinary journals, it is quite possible to make a separate group out of them; but I generally think that Occam's razor is a very useful instrument in a library: entia (e.g., alphabets) non sunt multiplicanda praeter neces- sitatem. You have to prove the necessity of a new alphabet before you make it.

So I would put the publications into the same alphabet with the other periodicals, and I should arrange them just by titles, not by in- stitutions. This is a much-debated question on which I differ from many recognized American authorities. I may take up the argument elsewhere, but not here.

Having thus arranged the periodicals we turn to the books; but before we can take care of the ordinary books, there is a small class of books to be taken into account-the congresses and their reports. They are in some ways the most troublesome of all the librarian's charges; and it is no bad idea, if a thing is troublesome, to isolate it, so that it is easy to go through it all if necessary. So I take out the congresses, and put them at the head of every division. Within each group the congresses are arranged by countries, not, this time, by language, because one of the difficulties about them is that two con- secutive congresses in the same series may have different languages. The countries may be arranged either alphabetically or by some system. The alphabetical arrangement is easy to remember, and it is easy to place new countries in it. It has the drawback that things that belong together are separated, e.g., Scandinavian is S; Danish, D; Nor- wegian, N; Swedish once more S; Northern (Nordisk), either N or S, since it is the same as Scandinavian. The systematic arrangement has the advantage that International comes at the beginning, Scan- dinavian plus Northern together just before the single Scandinavian countries; on the other hand, it is a little more difficult to learn.

After the congresses come the books in one single alphabet, by au-



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thors; anonymous books go in by editors, if possible; otherwise by title. A card tray containing the shelf-list is found at the beginning of each group; in this way any book not found at once can be looked up on the spot, without the delay caused by sending the slip back to the catalog room.

Every volume has its call number. The call number consists of the "name" of the group-Math., Fys., Geol.,-and a number. For the books they are simply Cutter numbers with two letters, according to Danish practice; for the congresses they are Merrill numbers for the country, followed, if necessary, by a Cutter number for the subject. In this way the congresses automatically come before the books, since the Merrill numbers by themselves take precedence of the Cutter numbers. The periodicals are not kept together with the books and congresses; they form a separate group, distinguished by the letter T (for Tidsskrift = Periodical) before the group name. They get either a Merrill number for the language or, preferably, a letter denoting the language, and then Cutter numbers for the titles. I would prefer a letter for the language, because then all three forms of signatures will be different-books: Cutter numbers only; congresses: Cutter numbers preceded by simple Merrill numbers; periodicals: Cutter numbers preceded by one capital letter, e.g., Math., Pa27, a book; Math., 27, a congress; T. Math., E. Jo 27, an (English) journal.

The working of the system should be as follows: If a borrower looks up the book in the catalog, let him put the call number on the call slip, by all means; but if he knows the book or volume of periodical he wants, he will write a call slip and hand it in without having to go to the catalog. From the delivery desk or reading-room desk the slip is sent by compressed air to the distributing desk, where all the slips for books out are kept alphabetically by authors; the slip is taken through the trays, and, if the book is not out, the slip is sent on for expediting. If the distributor, who should be a man well versed in the library, either knows the book or has reason to believe that it is in the library, he will have no difficulty in choosing the district to which to send the slip; the man in charge, who knows his district well, since he has the work not only of fetching books, but also of returning them, will only have to seek for the book by author in the group to which it belongs. In case it is not found, the shelf-list will be at hand; if it is not there, he must send the slip back to the catalog department.

The result is that anyone who is able to read and understand the



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slip should be able to find the book on the shelf. If he is not able to understand the title, anyone who can will have to write on the slip only the name of the group and the two first letters of the author's name. With this aid, anyone should be able to take out the book, even if it is in a very foreign language.

The catalog is still in the making, but the day is not far off when it will be in use. Then we shall see. If it works, and I am convinced that it will work, we shall have taken a good step forward in the right di- rection, in getting the books to the public with as little trouble to them and to ourselves as possible.

A. G. DRACHMANN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK



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