Bibliotheca Digitalis. Reconstitution of Early Modern Cultural Networks. From Primary Source to Data. DARIAH / Biblissima Summer School, 4-8 July 2017, Le Mans, France. 3rd day, July 6th – Establishing Bibliographic Data. Overview of Primary sources of Bibliographic Data. Patrick Latour – Library curator, Bibliothèque Mazarine. Abstract: https://bvh.hypotheses.org/3324

1. Bibliotheca Digitalis
Reconstitution of Early Modern Cultural Networks
From Primary Source to Data
DARIAH / Biblissima Summer School
Le Mans, 4-8 July 2017
Bibliographic data
– Definition, Structure and Problems
(XVIth-XVIIth Centuries)
3rd day, July 6th – Establishing Bibliographic Data
Patrick Latour
Library curator, Bibliothèque Mazarine

2. Bibliographic data
Definition, Structure and Problems
SUMMER SCHOOL – BIBLIOTHECA DIGITALIS
Patrick Latour
Patrick.latour@bibliotheque-mazarine.fr

3. Bibliographic Description
A few questions…

4. What ?
• Informations about a special material object : a book
• physical characteristics (support, format, dimensions, extent, etc.)
• date of production
• place of production
• persons and corporate entities involved in the physical production (printers, booksellers etc.)
• Information about an editorial project : a work
• content of the book (title, subject, etc.)
• persons or corporate entities involved in the intellectual production of books (authors,
translators etc.)
• informations intended to distinguish between variants (edition/impression/issue/state,
language, etc.)
• Informations about a specific copy
• copy characteristics (binding, former book owner(s), binding, annotations, etc.)
• localisation (links to catalogues of the libraries where the book is held today with shelfmark,
inventory number, etc.)

5. Why ?
• Identify and distinguish among similar resources ; locate specific
copies.
• Relate variants of a same work, works from a same author (or a same
printer), etc.
• Compile data (entities involved, date, format, etc.) which can be
exploited, linked, re-used, etc.
• Necessity of normalization, interoperability, etc. (référentiels, liens,
etc.)

6. Who and how ?
• Various communities
• Booksellers
• Librarians
• Scholars
• Bibliographers and others
• Many tools closely related
• normative (rules, norms, etc.)
• technical (standards, protocols, models, etc.)
• informative (catalogs, databases, systems of references, etc.)

7. roughly…
Scholars, bibliographers and librarians both describe books but
• it isn’t exactly the same object : for scholars, it’s a reference, for
bibliographers it’s an ideal copy and for the librarian a specific copy
• it isn’t for the same purpose : for scholars, the most important thing is to
reference an idea or a quotation while, for bibliographers it’s to identify work
/ editions (and distinguish it from variants) and for librarian it’s to describe
an object, part of his collection

8. Bibliographic Description
A brief history…

9. Middle Ages
• Catalogue is – first – a management tool
• inventory
• « summary » of a collection
• Works (identified by title and, possibly, sometimes, author) take precedence over
all. Some of them are absolute references in their field like Bible, Corpus juris civilis
or canonicis and have their own internal references system. There is rare reference
to a specific copy.
• Informations are very succint (in most cases only title, sometimes with specific
characteristic like binding or decoration…)
• Classification isn’t alphabetical but topographical and/or thematic.

11. Until 17th
• No rules for bibliographic description
• Manuscripts and printed books are described together and in the same
way
• Only a few bibliographic data
• author
• title
• date
• extent
• possibly a few physical characteristics (format, binding…)
Still no « real » librarians but scholars and scientists begin to draw up
bibliographies in their fields and, because of increasing of print production,
try to distinguish editions and variants.

12. 17th – 18th
• Better consideration of informations about physical production (printer,
place, etc.).
• Care in the books sales catalogs to describe specific-copy informations
• Progressive adoption of « models » or principles for the struturation and
presentation of the bibliographic data (Bodleian catalog, parisian
booksellers system, Mazarine catalog by Desmarais, Bibliographie instructive
ou Traité des livres rares by De Bure, etc.)
• Libraries catalogs are oftently used as bibliographies (for exemple
Courtanvaux or Paulmy)

13. Focus
Naudé : scholar, bibliographer and librarian
• Gabriel Naudé (1600-1653), librarian for President de Mesme, write his
Advis pour dresser une bibliotheque in 1627. Two years later, he become
librarian for Cardinal Guidi di Bagno at Rome (and in 1641 librarian for
Cardinal Francesco Barberini). From 1643 to 1649, librarian for
Cardinal Mazarin, he build up for him the biggest library at this time
(estimated at 40,000 volumes) from a smaller collection of which he
drawn up the catalog (Bibliothecæ Cordesianæ catalogus).
• Naudé is also a scholar who write essays and bibliographies
(Bibliographia Politica, Bibliographia Militaris, etc.)

14. Advis pour dresser une bibliotheque,
presenté à Monseigneur le President de
Mesme par G. Naudé P., seconde
edition reveue, corrigée & augmentée,
Paris, Rollet Le Duc, 1644

15. Bibliothecæ Cordesianæ catalogus.
Cum indice titulorum. Paris,
Antoine Vitré pour Laurent
Saunier, 1643

18. Bodleian library catalog

20. 19th
• France
• 1791 : « Instruction pour procéder à la confection du catalogue de chacune des
bibliothèques sur lesquelles les directoires ont dû ou doivent incessamment
apposer des scellés »
• Models or rules by the National Library (Léopold Delisle) : manuscripts (1884),
incunabula (1886), printed books (Catalogue général des livres imprimés de la Bibliothèque
nationale)
• World
• 1841: Panizzi’s rules for a « full and accurate catalog »
• 1876 : Cutter’s Rules for a printed dictionary catalog
At the same time, development of bibliographies (Hahn’s Repertorium
bibliographicum, 1826-1836 ; Brunet ; Quérard, etc.)

21. Catalog like a bibliography…
The Catalogue général des imprimés
de la Bibliothèque nationale

22. 20th : rules, norms and standards
Principes de Paris
1961
Points d’accès
ISBD
1971-
Description
bibliographique
Formats MARC
1969-
Notices informatisées
Normes nationales
AFNOR
AACR / RDA
RAK
Etc.
Unimarc (1978)
Marc 21 (1997)
Etc.

23. ISBD (International Standard Bibliographic Description)
It is a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations
and Institutions (IFLA) from 1971 to create a bibliographic description in a standard,
human-readable form, that could be used to exchange records internationally.
especially for use in a bibliography or a library catalog. This is the standard that
determines the data elements to be recorded or transcribed in a specific
sequence as the basis of the description of the resource being catalogued, whatever
its support or type. From ISBD(G), there are seven different ISBD according the
type :
• monographs: ISBD(M) ;
• serials : ISBD(S) then (CR) for continuing resources ;
• cartographic materials : ISBD(CM) ;
• Printed music : ISBD(PM) ;
• Non-book materials : ISBD(NBM) ;
• older monographic publications : ISBD(A)
• electronic resources : ISBD(CF) puis (ER)
The reference version is ISBD International standard bibliographic description: consolidated
edition (2011).

24. Cataloguing rules and bibliographic description
close and different
• Material object vs intellectual object
• Cataloguing rules are a tool for libraries : they’re suited to identify
and completly describe a book as a physical object, a specific copy,
part of a collection.
• Cataloguing rules are often too complete and complex for a simple
bibliographical description : scholars aren’t librarians…
So…

25. ISO 690
• ISO (reference version : ISO 690 : 2010) is the international
norm which gives guidelines for the preparation of bibliographic
references.
• « It is applicable to bibliographic references and citations to all kinds of information
resources, including but not limited to monographs, serials, contributions, patents,
cartographic materials, electronic information resources (including computer
software and databases), music, recorded sound, prints, photographs, graphic and
audiovisual works, and moving images. »
• ISO 690 specifies the elements to be included in references to published
documents, and the order in which the elements of the reference should be stated.

26. Elements of the reference and order
• name(s) of creator(s)
• Title
• Type of medium
• Edition
• Information about publication (place, publisher and printer)
• Date
• Series title
• Numerotation within the item
• Standard number
• Availability, access or location information
• Additional general information

27. Be careful !
• ISO 690 isn’t a standard for description of ancient bibliographic
data but it’s a good basis to understand/come close to their
structuration.

28. Bibliographic Description
Elements, structuration, problems

29. Remember…
• The data used in a reference should, if possible, be taken from the
cited information resource itself.
• Any element in a non-Roman alphabet may be transliterated or
romanized in accordance with the appropriate International
Standard.
• Generally accepted bibliographic or usual terms should be
preserved abbreviated

30. Main problem : lost, hidden and implicit
informations
• Structuration of the source (by format, by date, etc.)
• Ellipsis to avoid repetition (ibidem, eodem, etc.)
• Factorization (especially « recueils » in libraries catalog)
• Language
And above all lack of information ! For example…

31. And then what ?

32. Most common form
(Creator) + Title+ Place of
publication + Printer / Publisher +
Date + (Format) + (Medium) + (Extent) +
(Binding or Note or other physical characteristics)

33. Creator(s)
• Problems : creator absent, hidden or masqued by the « first » creator ;
pseudonym or form in other language
• « To facilitate identification of a particular information resource, or because
of relevance to the purpose of the citation, the name of any editor,
translator or other person who has collaborated in the production of that
resource may be added after the title with an indication of the role, so
placed in the reference that the relation between that role and the whole or
part of the information resource is clear. » « If a new edition, abridgement
or updated version of an information resource is produced by a new
creator, the name of the first creator should be used if it appears as a
creator in the source ».

34. Title
• Problems : ambiguous, incorrect various or shortened title ;
translated title ; no title but only creator (citation)
For example…

35. Pseudo -Cyrillus, Speculum sapientiae, [Paris] : Georg Mittelhus, [between 1494 and
1500] ([about 1497], 8°

36. Medium
• Rare…

37. Edition
Rarely present … but sometimes found by inference (mention of
translator, editor, etc. ; indication in title ; format ; etc.)

38. Information about publication
• Problems : form of the place (language) ; shared edition ; hidden
publisher or printer

39. Date
• Problems : multiple dates (date of publication, manufacture,
distribution, etc.) ; form of the date (date from a special calendar
system or other than the Christian Era) ; no date (manuscripts and
incunabula) ; sometimes found by inference (“gothique”)

40. Additional general information
• Format
• Language
• Extent
• Specific-copy characteristics
• Binding
• Former owner marks
• Condition

41. Identification
Availability, access or location information & Standard number
• If it’s possible to locate the specific copy described in the source, it’s
necessary to indicate (text) library and shelfmark or to make a link (text
or URI with OPAC).
• If a bibliographic description exist in a database or in a ancient
bibliography, it must be interesting to link (text, standard number or
URI) it.