Have people taken courses in Latin or Greek? Any particular ones recommended?
If you work at a University, or large institute, do you ever grab a specialist in a language if you are really stuck?
For example, we have a couple of books in Arabic in our special collection – when we originally scoped out the collection from the
public library, we just wrote on the spreadsheet ‘book in Arabic’ as we had no idea what they were. Whoever comes to catalogue them would need help, or be able to read Arabic.
Karen
From: CIG E-Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Lucy Evans
Sent: 15 April 2015 11:36
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Subject: Re: [CIG-E-FORUM] What do people think are the sort of qualities needed for a rare books cataloguer?
Michael,
Latin would definitely be useful and Greek very helpful. It is amazing what you pick up from cataloguing though, I would now say I can catalogue in French, German
and Italian pretty easily, but I only really speak German. I have turned my hand to Spanish and Danish too!
It sometimes depends on where you work too, for example, here at the Bodleian we are desperate for someone who can read Esperanto!!
Lucy
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On Behalf Of michael towsey
Sent: 15 April 2015 11:32
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Subject: [CIG-E-FORUM] What do people think are the sort of qualities needed for a rare books cataloguer?
Are there any particular qualities, talents, knowledge etc. that it is felt suit rare books cataloguing? Obvious things like patience and attention to
detail can be assumed. Also more generalised cataloguing skills would I assume clearly be a useful background, as well (presumably) as some knowledge of the history of the book and an interest in general cultural and intellectual history. What about knowledge
of languages (will obviously depend on the language or languages represented in a collection, but I assume generally Latin might be the most useful?)