Today
I found this ‘Cataloguer’s ABC’, written for a conference workshop and left in
a file dated June 2004. I cannot even remember writing this ABC. “Amateur
expert in software configurations. Bearer of the full depth of the collection. Collator
of inconvenient authorities. Defender of enduring standards. Elucidator of
erroneous electronic entries. Free floater amidst the free-floatings. Gardener
of the right terms. Handler contracted to supervise the products of time. Indexer
or rejector of every misspelt name, title travesty, puffed-up publisher,
insufferable pseudonym, faulty form division, and variable series you wouldn’t
want to meet in a month of Sundays. Janitor of injudicious inclusions. Kleptomaniac
of overseas expertise. Light touch with lumber. Master or mistress of the
perpendicular or precious periodical, or its impermanent online partner. Nitpicker
of the hopelessly incorrect. Overseer of backups, transaction analyses, and program
updates. Provider of anything and everything required to keep the place going
that has nothing to do with cataloguing. Quoter of other people’s forgotten
prefaces. Replacer of commas with colons and colons with semi-colons and dashes
with full-stops. Subtle synchroniser of the synonymous see reference. Tracer of
a thousand names with odd initials and no death. Undeterred unjumbler of
indeterminate jumble. Vanquisher of the viable backlog. Warden of predictable
passwords. X-marker of misbindings, printing errors, blank chapters. Yes-man to
utterly insignificant no-noes. Zealot for every jot and tittle in a file of
fixed fields.” An incomplete second ABC is also in the paper. “Arbiter who
distinguishes the controversial from the contrariwise. Bibliographer of
revelation and revealer of bibliography. Colander of the old and new calendar. Delineator
of deity. Educator in the classification of religion. [F G] Hebraist-cum-Hellenist-cum-Latinist-cum-Americanist.
Inquisitor who separates the heretical from the heterodox and the heterodox
from the orthodox. Judge and jury of theological context. Keeper of sacred
traditions. Lifter of leaning learning. Minister to the ministers of ministry.
[N O] Preserver of all the possible holy versions. [Q R S] Tender of the
treasures old and new. [U V W] X-ray maker to the bones of the living words. Yearner
after the perfect religious thesaurus. Zoologist of papal bulls.” A purpose of
the paper was to get attendees to think about all of the unwritten role
descriptions of the job. As I say in my 2004 introduction: “One-word roles for a theological cataloguer would
include once in a blue moon ‘holy fool’, some of the time ‘neophyte’, most of
the time ‘devotee’, fairly frequently ‘angel’, and occasionally ‘saint'.” Longer
statements about the role included all the job descriptions listed in the two
ABCs. I must have run out of time.
