Article Summary for Lecture # 6 - Wajenberg

A Cataloger's View of Authorship

                Wajenberg cautiously approaches the subject of authorship. As a cataloger, not an academician or cataloging theorist, as he likes to point out, he has spent his life working in academic institutions. He offers in this article, merely his opinion on authorship. Though Panizzi found no need to define “author”, Wajenberg does. He recommends the following definition:

An author of a work is a person identified as an author in items containing the work, and/or in secondary literature that mentions the work.

This definition of authorship is a point of contention in the field of cataloging. Lubetzky, in his Principles of Cataloging: defines authorship with a sensed irritation as “…the person who produces a work, whatever the character of the work, whether or not it has any ‘intellectual or artistic content,’ and whoever may actually be ‘chiefly responsible for the creation’ of that content.” This was found wanting one term “produce.” To illustrate this point, Wajenberg offers the example of a stenographer who transcribes dictation from a recording. A stenographer produces a document, but is he or she is not the author of the document produced.

                Likewise, translations also test the definition of authorship. For instance, how can Sophocles be considered to have produced a modern English translation of Antigone? The English language didn’t even exist during his time. What about music? Is the librettist or composer regarded as the author of an opera? Can Racter, a computer program that has written a book of poetry, be considered an author? Wajenberg, upon offering his definition, clarifies that the identification of an author may occur anywhere within the item (preface, introduction, formal statements on the chief source, or other prominent sources). For example, Shakespeare’s authorship of Hamlet may be indicated by use of the genitive (Shakespeare’s Hamlet) or by the use of the preposition “by” (Hamlet by Shakespeare), or by the placement of Shakespeare’s name on the title page.

                Wajenberg emphasizes that the cataloger must remain objective throughout the cataloging experience. He uses the example of Homer, whose existence is questioned by some scholars, is still listed as Author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. He states that catalogers are not researchers, and based on cataloging definition he is the author – this being the case, would mean Racter would also clearly be an author. The cataloger “has no right to permit his or her personal beliefs to intrude upon cataloging decisions.” Wajenberg also knows that neither his nor any other definition of authorship will entirely solve cataloging problems, and that only bibliographic scholarship is required to complete a cataloger’s work, which is expected of catalogers.

                Ultimately, Wajenberg’s article does a great job deconstructing the issues with authorship in the cataloging field. The examples really helped me see how big of an issue this can be. I went into this article, and a user and information organizer in training, thinking – “What could possibly be the argument about the author? An author is an author!” boy was I wrong! This article is a quick read, and the benefits of reading it are numerous.  I now look at cataloging as an even more involved process, and understand why small details and seemingly insignificant definitions are so important.

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If you want to read the full article see citation below!

Wajenberg, A. S. (1989). A Cataloger's View of Authorship. In E. Svevonius (Ed.), The Conceptual Foundations of Descriptive Cataloging (pp. 21-27). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.