Tag: mysteries

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La “Collation Sechehaye” du Cours de Linguistique Générale de Ferdinand de Saussure / édition, introduction et notes par Estanislao Sofia. (OCLC #954052946)

This title appears to be criticism/interpretation of a famous work, Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure. The copy we found for the book in hand had this LC call number assigned:

    P121.S369 S64 2015

It seemed odd that it had two cutters (one for Saussure, another for the editor?) so I checked the LC schedule. P121 is “Philology. Linguistics—Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar—Science of language (Linguistics)—General works”, so it makes sense that our copies of Saussure’s work itself have call numbers like:

    P121.S36

But what about that second cutter? Is there a rule somewhere in the Shelflisting manual about adding 9 and then a second cutter for the editor? I checked our catalog, and found two other titles around P121.S36 in our catalog with that same construction, but don’t know where it comes from.

G340 in the shelflisting manual says that for criticism/commentary of a work classified with one cutter, you should start with the call number of the main work, add the digit “3” and then a second cutter based on the main entry of the criticism/commentary work.

So is this a typo? (Repeated by several catalogers for commentaries of the same work?) Or is there a rule I haven’t yet found?

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Летопись по воскресенскому списку, Санкт петербург, Тип. Е. Пратса, 1856-1859. (OCLC #10600837)

I only have volume 2 of this set, and it doesn’t have its own title page; it has a table of contents which apparently covers the set (pagination: v, 1-301), and then starts with the content on page 71.

Fortunately, pages had a title “Воскресенская летопись” on the top of each page which was not the main title of the set, but was included in the record:

246 37 ǂa Воскресенская летопись

(second indicator 7 is for “running title”) so was helpful in finding a matching record!

I never did sort out what the “M&K” on the spine stood for.

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Istorīi︠a︡ russkoĭ literatury XIX stoli︠e︡tīi︠a︡; kritika, roman, poėzīi︠a︡ i drama. (OCLC #19772129)

This gift volume was missing its title page, but the spine did include the author’s last name (Engel’gardt) and an English translation of the title (“Russian literature”) which narrowed my search somewhat, but not quite enough. An early page of the volume included a dedication to the author’s grandfather (Nikolaĭ Makarov (a lexicographer) and his father Aleksandr Ėngelʹgardt (an author and scientist), which was even more helpful!

A biography of his grandfather’s daughter (his father’s wife) Anna Engelgardt (a writer, publicist, translator, and activist in the Russian women’s movement) mentioned three children, Mikhail (b. 1861), Vera (b. 1863), and Nikolai (b. 1867) all of whom became writers!

Armed with all of this new information, I searched OCLC again and found a record for what I suspected was the title in hand; as a bonus, we had holdings on that record, so I could confirm my suspicions by going to the stacks!

As it turned out, we already have two copies of this set on the shelf, so we will likely not accept this duplicate volume into the collection.

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On a shelf of old mysterious problems, I found four cardboard boxes of catalog cards. These were the shelf list and catalog for the sound recordings (on records and audio cassettes) in our media collection. I blew the dust off of the cards and packed them neatly into drawers in a nearby card catalog cabinet, which houses cards for similar collections.

Those cards poking up out of the right drawer are “see also” cards, like this one:

They are housed in plastic sleeves that make them stand up above the other cards.

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Reports … [microform]. (OCLC #40340781)

This set of microfiche came to my attention via a packet of printouts (circa 2005) detailing seven different problems with its (original) cataloging record, including:

  • typos
  • wrong number of fiche
  • lack of analytical title access points
  • sharing a call number with unrelated fiche

The cover page email ended with “UGH, sounds liked you’d rather I forget this, right?” (I guess it was in fact forgotten!)

I brought the set down to my desk and examined it briefly with a lightbox app and a 10x loupe (just strong enough to read the title pages) and managed to sort out all of its problems. It still shares a call number with another title, but have similar topics they appear to have been published as a set (numbering is continuous).

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The state houses of South Carolina, 1751-1936, by A.S. Salley, secretary, Historical commission of South Carolina. (OCLC #4226400)

Do you have any piles of mysterious work that have been lurking on a nearby shelf so long that nobody remembers why they are there? Today I am attacking one of those!

This bound pamphlet looked straight-forward enough: clear cover title, call number on the cover, barcode in the back – but the cover of the pamphlet actually contains no pages!

On the shelf under that call number was another pamphlet binding that now contains the pamphlet’s contents. It also has its own barcode too; in fact, both barcodes are attached to the same item in Voyager (one inactive).

I removed the cover’s barcode from Voyager, and discarded that item, after marking out the barcode sticker and call number so that it does not get rescued from the trash and returned to the book drop.