Historical development of the organization of information

Antiquity

Date	Event
2000 BC	Sumerian tablet, one of the oldest lists of books, found at Nippur. Sixty two titles are recorded on this tablet of which 24 titles of currently known literary works.
1500 BC	The Hittites recorded bibliographic information of written works onto tablets. Their tablets included colophons, a set of data at the end of a “document” that traced kinds of bibliographic data, such as number of the tablet in a series, its title, and the name of the scribe.
650 BC	The citizens in the city of Nineveh developed a library that provided a collection that had a systematic means of order and authenticity Greek civilization has contributed to the incarnation of the “main entry” concept, a western civilization manifestation. Early Far Eastern societies and even today designate a work’s title as its main entry.
	Middle Ages In Europe, there were church and monastery libraries. The demand for knowledge was not of great interest to common man and woman.
8th Century	Catalogs of library holding during this period were largely inventories of relatively small collections.
800 – 1200	There is evidence of very broad subject arrangements. The categories were usually two: Biblical and Humanistic.
1300	At the end of the 13th century, a milestone in the organization of information was attempted. The Registrum Librorum Angliae, a union list of holdings of English monastery libraries.
	European Renaissance
1450	The printing press was invented – creating an explosion in publishing and duplicate copies of works. The vocation of “Bibliographer” became a by-product of the existence of printing press.
1595	St. Martins Priory at Dover, the first list designated as a catalog. The catalog had 3 sections of arrangement. Part 1: Call number – located the exact location, where a volume could be found. Part 2: Also arranged by call number. Contain the contents of each volume, with paging and opening words. Part 3: Alphabetical listing by author and title and entries of each volume found within a published work, called an analytical entry.
1596	Andrew Maunsell, an English bookseller, compiled his Catalog of English Printed Books that was prefaced with rules of entry. Maunsell introduced the entry of personal names listed under surnames rather that forenames. This concept helped to promote the early developments of bibliographic control. College libraries were just developing with very small collections that were arranged in an inventory fashion.
	From Inventories to Codifying Devices
1697	Konrad Gesner published an author bibliography. Included was a preface that offered cross-references and variations of names.
1698	Konrad Gesnar published a subject index.
1791	Frederic Rostgaard published a discourse on cataloging in which he called for subject arrangement subdivided chronologically and by size of volume. Rostgaard also promoted a supplementary author index.
1792	Following the French Revolution, the French government sent out instructions for cataloging the collections of the libraries that had been confiscated throughout France. This marks the first instance of a national code. Libraries were directed to make card catalogs—the first instance of card catalogs. The reverse sides of playing cards were used as the source for recording the information.
	Period of Codification
1831	Anthony Panizzi, a lawyer and political refugee from Italy and an assistant librarian at the British Museum was a strong advocate of cataloging and subject analysis. Panizzi authored a cataloging code known as the “91 Rules”. Panizzi is credited with the start of developing the “modern” theories of cataloging.
1850	Charles C. Jewett marked the introduction of the American influence to cataloging and arrangement. Jewett builds on Panizzi’s earlier efforts. Jewett is credited with developing rules for entry as they relate corporate authors.
1876	Charles Cutter published his Rules for a Printed Dictionary Catalogue. Cutter’s efforts placed emphasis on establishing rules on filing entries. Cutter was also the first to establish rules foe subject headings.
1876	Melvil Dewey issued anonymously the first edition of his classification. Dewey divided all knowledge into ten main classes, with each of those divided again into ten divisions, and each of those divided into ten sections. Dewey is a landmark in the area of classification. Now in its 21st addition (DDC 21).
	Description In the twentieth century, the emphasis on description was rooted in codes.
1908	The British and the Americans collaborated on a code in 1908. This collaboration was significant, because it serves as the first international cataloging code to be established.
1931	Americans and Italians collaborated to publish the Vatican Code. It was quickly accepted by catalogers in many countries as the best and most complete code in existence, but because it was written in Italian, most Americans could not apply it.
1941	The British and the Americans cooperated on publishing a second edition to the volume that was written in 1908. This code was written in two parts: one for entry and heading, and one for description.
1941	The Library of Congress (LC) Rules for Descriptive Cataloging, Served as a substitute to the second part of the British and the American effort.
1949	The revisions. A.L.A. Cataloging Rules for Author and Title Entries, were written after great criticism by Andrew Osborn in an article that he authored entitled “The Crisis in Cataloging.”
1967	The American and the British collaborated to establish the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules. Because there was disagreement on a few points, this work was published in two separate versions: North American and British.
1967	The presidents of the colleges and universities in the state of Ohio founded the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) to develop a computerized system in which the libraries of Ohio academic institutions could share resources and reduce costs.
1974	The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) issued the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD), produced as a means for the international communication of bibliographic information. The ISBD’s objectives were to make records from different sources interchangeable, to facilitate their interpretation against language barriers, and to facilitate the conversion of such records to machine-readable form.
1977	The Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) was established to particularly to serve research libraries.
1978	The AACR2 was published to accommodate the developments established by the ISBD, to address non-book materials, to take into account machine processing of bibliographic records, and to reconcile the British and American texts.
1988	A revised edition of the AACR2 was published.
1998	The latest revised edition of the AACR2 was published.