Alphabetical book catalog of former City Library in Wroclaw
enter to catalog
description of catalog
Catalog information: phone: +48 71 375 75 98 or e-mail: oin.bu[w]uwr.edu.pl
From 2001 original catalog is being kept in Manuscript Department.
It consists of 289 tomes (300 volumes) of large format and as valuable historical antique is under special protection.
History of catalog is strictly connected to important event in history of City Library – unification in years 1860-1865 of three libraries: city library of Thomas Rehdiger and two church libraries – of St. Mary Magdalene Church and St. Bernard Church. For readers of this newly created Rehdiger City Library, in years 1860-1879, has been created one alphabetical multivolume catalog.
Alphabetical book catalog holds information on merged collections of City Library, without maps, portraits, music collections etc.
In 1930 catalog has been closed, but till the end of City Library additional descriptions of continued multivolume publications and ones, that were published before 1900, were inserted in it.
In alphabetical book catalog on every subject was reserved on page, but due to steady increase of materials, this reserve often proved insufficient and new descriptions were written on verso side of previous page or in any other free place in catalog with annotation on main page, where to look for next part of descriptions.
In alphabetical order omitted are letters: C and V. In place of letter C there is reference see. K, and in place of letter V – see F.
When using catalog, one should keep in mind, that names with letter C in the beginning will be sorted as with K in the beginning (Cicero will stand among names started with Ki etc.). Same rules applies for first names (Christian will stand after Johannes, Josephus). Moreover, names with different spelling were unified, e.g. Müller, Mueller and Muller will stand under Müller, and “Ei” in first syllable was sometimes treated as “ai”, and so term Heizung should be searched under „Haizung”.
In Alphabetical book catalog there are two types of subjects: author and title (for collective and anonymous publications). In case of title subject become first noun in title. Moreover, persons significant in history, literature, science etc., besides list of their publications, have separated registers of publications about them. Principle of objectively concentrating of writing was also applied to geographic and topographic names. It is important to remember, that authors of this elaborations could be omitted in authors' register.
Moreover, authors of catalog have also created general subject terms e.g. Akademien, Almanach, Gesangbuch, Jesuiten, Juden, Krieg, Tauchnitz-Edition, Zeitungen etc.
Sometimes, for very large subjects, like Goethe, Luter, Tauchnitz- Edition etc., separated volumes were created.
Call number indicates: origins of collection, field of science to which they belong, format and – in some cases – also date of purchases.
Collections of every library that created City Library, were separately standing and divided into six division. Every division has it own designation, marked with capital letter.
For Rediger's Library were designated letters from A to F, for collections of St. Mary Magdalene Church – letters I-O, and for St. Bernard Church – letters R-W. In divisions books were sorted by format, i.e. height of book's back. Formats were divided into three size: 2, 4 and 8, later 2 G format for especially large publications was added.
In the end – in Rehdige's Library for publications acquired after 1870 small letter “n”(neues) was added to the call number to mark out new publications.
This elements of call number: format marked by Arabic number, small letter “n” and capital letter for designation of science field and belonging to collection (e.g. 8 nA, 2 K etc.) were set as permanent scheme.
During development of Library, separation or includable of new collections, additional designations were added, e.g. Jur, Y, Gen. S. K. and others.
Besides of complexity of arrangement, sorting and spelling that was used in descriptions in Alphabetical book catalog, usage of microfiches is additionally complicated due to method of microfilming the catalog. Users of Catalog on microfiches will receive in Main Reading Room register of microfiches with instruction, how to use catalog.