Choice of uniform title in old and rare Chinese books cataloguing: case study on "Xi xiang ji"

Abstract

Old and rare Chinese books provide historical and cultural information about China and are a valuable resource for studying Chinese culture and history. They are an important part of collections in many Western research libraries. The purpose of this article is to point out some of the challenges in making these materials accessible, especially when using Western cataloguing systems. One of the first problems cataloguers come across is the choice of a uniform title. The Cataloguing Guidelines (Research Library Group, 2009) recommend avoiding assigning uniform titles for old and rare Chinese books, unless it enhances access to an item. But if and when a cataloguer chooses to assign a uniform title, there is the problem of which version of the title should be chosen. “Xi xiang ji” is used as an example to illustrate how difficult this process can become. The collection of old and rare Chinese books hosted at the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services has thirteen different versions of this popular Chinese work, which were printed between 1640 and 1957, published in traditional Chinese bookbinding style. This article focuses on analysing the title varieties and related title issues on “Xi xiang ji” to identify how to choose the uniform title in cataloguing practice.