Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, Groupe des Cartothécaires de LIBER
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A current international bibliography of the literature of the history of cartography on the WWW : of whom, by whom, and for whom?
By Francis Herbert
© LIBER and author
Published from: LIBER Quarterly, the Journal of European Research Libraries, ISSN 1435-5205, Vol. 10(2000), No 4. With permission from K.G. Saur Verlag, Munich, Germany
E-mail: f.herbert@rgs.org
Introduction
I shall briefly mention, as a discussion basis, various facets of the proposal that have occurred to me under the headings: Currency, Countries, Contributions, Content, Compilation, Control & Co-operation, and Computer compatibility.
- Currency: should the proposed Web bibliography include material published within the last 3 years, 2 years, or only 1 year?
- Countries: is this project possible for Europe (i.e. LIBER)? If it succeeds could it expand to include another continent, a complete hemisphere, and then the world?
- Contributions: should these be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly? How is the cumulation to be done; and the indexing? For the indexing, by which retrieval point(s): geographical area, theme/subject both, or more? And by whom?
- Content: monographs, periodical articles, dissertations and theses; facsimiles with notes (either integral or separate); dealers and auction catalogues; CD-ROMs; Internet periodicals? What is ‘intellectual level’ of material to be included (educational, ‘popular’, academic/commercial)?
- Compilation: is this best effected nationally versus linguistically, e.g. by D-A-CH (‘Arbeitsgruppe deutscher, österreichischer, und schweizerischer Kartographiehistoriker’, established in 1996)? Effected by institutions, private individuals, or by professional societies; or by a combination? Will an employer permit time at work to be used? How much time would a person in private time be willing to use?
- Control & Co-operation: for a bibliographical record, what is to be the documentation standard? Which system of transliteration? Should titles (e.g. Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish) always be provided with a translation (in English or French)? To save space (but not to obfuscate) what use should be made of abbreviations for regular bibliographic and cartographic terms? What detail to include: if an author and/or publisher decides that a loose ‘Corrigenda’ or ‘Errata’ leaf/slip warrants the trouble to produce and to include it, should this not be noted? Such points are being discussed now by ICA Commission IV History of Cartography (under Chair of Dr Christopher Board (UK)).
- Computer compatibility: a census of who is using what hard- and software at any given moment would probably produce an incompatible mélange. The status of either or of both these technical aspects must differ considerably, e.g., between Slovak Republic and Switzerland. If the Web bibliography extends to beyond Europe, this may be exacerbated.
Case-study of the ‘Imago Mundi Bibliography’
An early attempt of the twentieth century to compile, and publish, a specialist and current bibliography on the history of cartography (including historical cartography) was that intended to be published annually in Imago Mundi : Jahrbuch der alten Kartographie = Yearbook of old cartography, edited by Leo Bagrow and Hans Wertheim (Berlin : Biblographikon, 1935). The Literatur des Jahres 1933 = Literature of the year 1933 consists of 117 entries for items published from 1932 to 1934 [!], plus two undated. The entries were listed in one sequence alphabetically either by author (individual or institutional) or by title, but there was no index (e.g. for co-authors). Publication information was sometimes minimal (place of publication only for monographs and pamphlets; place of publication not always given for periodicals); no mention of summaries in languages other than that of the entry itself; no mention of the presence of bibliographic references; no means of cumulative bibliographic reference or of an ‘archiving’ system for the entries. In the second issue of Imago Mundi : a periodical review of early cartography, edited by Leo Bagrow and Edward Lynam (London : Henry Stevens, Son & Stiles, 1937) there appears a Bibliography for 1934-36 consisting of 251 entries, including 12 published from 1931 to 1933 [!]. In volume 3 of Imago Mundi (1939) there is a ‘Bibliography’ of 151 entries of 1934-37, with 11 undated. The ‘Bibliography for 1945’ published in volume 4 of Imago Mundi : a review of early cartography, edited by Leo Bagrow (Stockholm : Kartografiska Sällskapet) consists of 491 entries from 1935 to 1945. There were no bibliographies in volumes 7 (1950) and 15 (1960). In volume 16 (1962) there was a ‘Bibliography (books only)’.
Both the style and content (e.g. including catalogues of antiquarian book and map dealers) continued in a similar way until, and including, the
Imago Mundi Bibliography (of literature, mainly published in 1971-1973.) for volume 27 (Second Series, vol. 1) of Imago Mundi : the Journal of the International Society for the History of Cartography (London, 1975). With that for volume 28 (Second Series, vol. 2) of 1976 began full imprint details, mention of the presence of bibliographies and/or references, and annotations or comments to the contents of each entry
(Figure no. 4). Of equal importance to the increased data – in both quantity and quality - was the system of referencing each entry with a unique identifying number. This began the possibilities of a sort of bibliographic control. Another innovation was the arrangement of the entries in each annual bibliography in alphabetical order by title. Due to lack of space in volume 28, some readers were doubtless a little puzzled - if not annoyed - that there was no obvious way of finding even primary authors. The ‘Index to personal and institutional names occurring as authors, authorities or subjects in the Bibliographies published in Imago Mundi, volumes 28 and 29’ remedied this temporary defect, thus adding to the existing search and retrieval facilities by title.
From volume 46 of Imago Mundi : the International Journal for the History of Cartography (London, 1994) three indexes have been appended to each annual bibliography: (a) Personal and institutional names (authors and subjects); (b) Geographical regions; and (c) Subjects. In theory, therefore, every entry in the ‘Imago Mundi Bibliography’ can now be indexed, and all data is retrievable, by three elements (some repeatable) The system of arrangement of the entries, from vol. 50 (1998) onwards, has – by request of the Imago Mundi Board – been ordered by (primary) author or institutional name. The ‘Imago Mundi Bibliography’ for volume 52 (2000) contains 357 entries. In case this appears to reflect but a small percentage of the published literature gathered by the Compiler over a period of one year, it should be pointed out that one entry can include 15 individual items – a conference proceedings, a ‘Festschrift’, etc. – and each of these 15 items is individually and analytically indexed, too ((a) Personal and institutional names 1; (c) Subjects).
It is time to consider a more worldwide, and more current, bibliography of the literature of the history of cartography. Both a multi-disciplinary ‘customer demand’ and technological advances seem to justify an Internet/World Wide Web bibliography. But are there sufficient compilers able to satisfy this desideratum? Should the compilers be limited to map curators only; historians of cartography; professors of geography and/or history; art and/or science historians; to ‘professional indexers’; or a combination? And can they agree on, and work to, an internationally accepted format and rules?
[For analyses of the total number of entries in the Imago Mundi bibliographies in volumes 1 to 35, (1935-83); the places of publication; and the languages of the entries, see pages 28-29 (with tables in footnotes 229 & 231) of The map and the development of the history of cartography by J.B. Harley in The history of cartography, volume 1, edited by J.B. Harley and David Woodward (Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 1987), ISBN 0-226-31633-5. The present Compiler has recorded a total of around 5330 entries (NB: one entry can have a dozen or more items), the majority of which have been seen personally, from 1976 to 2000 inclusive.]
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