Authority Control of Printers, Publishers, and Booksellers

• Published in: Cataloging & classification quarterly 2004-10, Vol.38 (3-4), p.269-280
• Main Author: Baldacchini, Lorenzo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: access points; Access to information; annals; antiquarian booksellers; Authority control; Authority files; Bibliographic databases; Bibliographic description. Cataloging. Referencing; Booksellers; Cataloguing; Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL); corporate names; Early printed books; EDIT16; Exact sciences and technology; FRBR manifestation; hand printing; History; indexes; Information and communication sciences; Information and document structure and analysis; Information processing and retrieval; Information science. Documentation; International aspects; inventories; name authority file; Names; personal names; Printers; Publishers; Sciences and techniques of general use; thesauri
• ISSN: 0163-9374; 1544-4554
• DOI: 10.1300/J104v38n03_20

The functions of publishers, printers, and booksellers in the years of hand printing and their connection with the concept of manifestation in FRBR are quite interesting, and the form given to their denotations becomes important when this element turns into a stable and fundamental access point to bibliographic information. The normal access point for the entity responsible for the manifestation must cease to be a mere indexing element and must become part of a thesaurus- that is, the terms it contains must be subject to authority control, as only this will allow the user not only to access an item, but also to relate it correctly with other items that share certain features with it, such as, for instance, the responsibility for the manifestation. Data about those in charge of the publication of early printed books is often inconsistent, unreliable, and sometimes even misleading, and authority files for such names will of necessity be very complicated. This paper traces the evolution of access points for printers, publishers, and booksellers from the annals of the eighteenth century to modern bibliographical databases and catalogs of early printed materials, and discusses the recent suggestion that an authority file should be designed by each national agency for their printers, publishers, and booksellers-just as happens for authors-to create a Virtual International Authority File.