Cataloger, Editor, and Scholar: Essays in Honor of Ruth C. Carter

Citation

Gourkova, H. (2008), "Cataloger, Editor, and Scholar: Essays in Honor of Ruth C. Carter", Library Management, Vol. 29 No. 6/7, pp. 627-628. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435120810894626

As a practicing cataloguer I had a great professional and personal pleasure reading this collection contributed by 22 authors, experts in the field of library technical services. This informative book honors the work and life of Ruth C. Carter upon her retirement as an editor of the journal Cataloguing & Classification Quarterly for which she served 20 years.

As for Robert P. Holley, the editor of the volume, the response from the authors to contribute a paper was enormous, many had to be declined, which testaments Dr Carter's high regard by the leaders in the field.

The papers are conveniently grouped into four categories. The first part includes articles on Ruth Carter's personal history, her dedication to cataloguing, history, and management depicting an outstanding career of a librarian, researcher, editor as well as active member of multiple professional associations, her contributions in serials, technical services, and archives.

Of high interest is an interview where Ruth comments on the most important issues in cataloguing for the twenty‐first century, and a survey of CCQ which turned into a highly respected journal in its field under her editorship. There is also a poem written in honor of Ruth Carter.

Part two takes a look at the history of cataloguing in the international perspective, including articles on historical contributions on early reading materials in the county of Indiana, the use of annotation in early twentieth century Great Britain, 25 years of bibliographic control research, and a comparison history of international and Italian cataloguing rules.

Part three presents new research in the different aspects of cataloguing and technical services, while part four takes an overview of current and emerging trends in cataloguing as well as challenges and issues of digital formats.

A unique compilation of many diverse issues makes this volume a very informative resource for librarians. I shall certainly refer this book to my colleagues, a bunch of highly skilled multilingual professionals in the art of cataloguing. As much as Ruth Carter we too see “fun, excitement, and opportunities of working with library collections and technical services” (Carter, 1991, ALCTS Annual Reports).

I would encourage library technical services professionals, students, educators, administrators, and everyone interested in the constant dynamic development of technical services operations to have an encounter with this book.