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Historiographic Considerations in the Repertorium Veterrimarum
Societatum Litterariarum
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The Types of Historical Data in the Repertorium
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The point of view
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he choice of types of historical data to be included in the
Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum
Litterariarum
was very much influenced by experiences of
the Editor (as both librarian
and bibliographer) in dealing with historical
conundrums
over a span of three decades.
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The historical conundrums
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Examples of these puzzles include the interpretation of cryptic journal-title abbreviations
for 17th & 18th century journals, and
tracking the
name changes of scholarly societies and
academies through
turbulent periods in European history, and also the
name changes of the associated
journals.
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The types of historical data included
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Consequently, emphasis has been placed on determining (or deducing) and
enumerating the following types of historical data:
(1) the founding date of each
society,
(2) the cessation date of each
defunct society,
(3) the sequence of name
changes for each society
(4) information on any splits or
mergers of societies
(5) bibliographic data on the
journals published by each
society, and
(6) the abbreviations used in
standard old bibliographies
for the titles of these
journals.
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Documentation Supporting the Historical Data
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The guiding principle
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f there were but one guiding principle in the compilation of the
Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum
Litterariarum, then it would
have to be the notion that each piece of data
should be documented so that the user can consult the
sources.
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Complications due to inconsistency in data
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This admirable and necessary principle encounters certain
complications in practice.
One frequent situtation in which complication arises is when one
respectable source supplies data that is
inconsistent with
that supplied by another respectable source;
this multiplies the amount of documentation that must be supplied.
It should be noted that it is possible for
both sources to be correct,
despite the inconsistencies; see the section below on The Fuzziness of Some Historical
Data.
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Complications due to the data source
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Another complication is that it may be relatively easy to
find
certain historical data in sources that are either of
dubious quality (e.g.
on the Internet) or that may not be accessible
very far into future (again, e.g. on the Internet), yet
very difficult to
verify
that data in sources that are of high quality and likely to be available
to users in the future.
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Finding the Historical Data
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Given that a particular society existed, we want to find historical
data for it
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uppose that we already know that a particular
society existed
(for example, from using the technique mentioned in
Identifying Societies that Contributed to the Scholarly
Record), and
we wish to find historical data on it.
As noted above, it
may be relatively easy to find
certain historical data in sources that are either of
dubious quality (e.g.
on the Internet) or that may not be accessible
very far into future (again, e.g. on the Internet).
The challenge, however, is to verify the data in sources that are of high
quality and likely to be available to users in the future.
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Historical monographs on one or more scholarly societies
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Many societies that were founded more than a century ago have issued
commemorative monographs;
in other cases, individual scholars have published histories on one or more societies.
These historical monographs can generally be identified using
rich online library catalogues or
rich printed library catalogues.
The most precise search technique involves treating the society name
as the subject.
But depending on the way in which the cataloguing was done, this may not
work.
A more reliable technique is to search for the society name in a title
keyword index.
Most of the historical monographs used in the preparation of the
Repertorium are listed in
Historical Monographs.
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Historical journal articles on one or more societies
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There are various indexes that cover journal
articles on the history of scholarly societies.
Aside from the broadly-based historical journal indexes (e.g.
Historical Abstracts), we have
found the
ISIS Cumulative Bibliography to
be useful for societies that
were in some sense scientific or technical;
it is a bibliography of the history of science formed from ISIS Critical Bibliographies,
published by the
History of Science Society (HSS).
Most of the historical journal articles used in the preparation of the
Repertorium are listed in
Historical Articles or Papers.
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Authority records in library catalogues
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We have spoken of using library catalogues as tools for locating
historical monographs on scholarly societies.
Under certain circumstances, however, even the
cataloguing data in a
library catalogue may provide useful
historical information.
For example, a library catalogue may contain an authority record for
a society in which we are interested.
That authority record will likely give alternative names
under which the
society has been known (although rarely will it give the dates when these
various names were in effect).
The authority record will sometimes give the founding year
as well.
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Serials cataloguing data in library catalogues
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If the library catalogue provides high-quality
cataloguing
for the journals (and other journal-like publications) of the society, it
may be possible to trace the name changes of
the society
through the name changes of its
journals.
Unfortunately, some of the richest library catalogues have
cataloguing of variable
quality.
As an example, the Bibliot. Nat. France
cat.
(which has extraordinarily rich collections) sometimes catalogues society
journals in enough detail to trace when the journal title bore the
designations
Royale,
Impériale, or
Nationale.
Often, however, it merely indicates that the title bore those designations
at some time or other, and leaves the rest to one's imagination.
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Websites containing scholarly historical information
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Another way to find historical information on scholarly societies is to
search for websites using an
Internet search
engine.
If one finds interesting historical data on the Internet, one must,
however, exercise considerable
caution (as suggested above).
First, it is important to evaluate the website to ascertain that it is
indeed of scholarly quality, and likely to contain reliable information.
Then, one must assess whether the site appears to be
sufficiently
permanent to be used as a source of authority for the data,
or
whether it is likely to disappear within a few short years.
In the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum
Litterariarum,
we have dealt with these problems by confining most of our external links
to websites maintained as part of the mandate
of some scholarly institution.
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The Fuzziness of Some Historical Data
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e now consider some of the ways in which the historical data in the
Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum
Litterariarum may be considered
to be fuzzy.
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Founding dates
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It is frequently the case that different sources provide
different
founding dates for the same society.
Occasionally this is simple error.
More often, a careful examination of the sources reveals that the various
dates all have some claim to
legitimacy as founding dates.
The reason for this is that many scholarly societies grew from
informal meetings that began on
one date;
yet the date on which the society was considered to have been
formally
founded may be a later date.
In addition, incorporation may
have occurred at an even
later date, and it may also have some claim to being the real founding
date of the society.
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Cessation dates
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It is also frequently the case for defunct societies that
different sources provide different cessation
dates for the
same society.
The most common reason here is that some of the older societies did not
decide
formally to cease.
Instead they went into a period of such gradual decline that
it becomes
problematic to decide upon an actual cessation date.
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Society names
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It is quite common for a society to change its
name over a
period of a couple of centuries;
and indeed in countries like France, where there were
frequent dramatic regime changes, it is generally inevitable.
In addition to these name
changes, at any given
time, there sometimes appears to be more than one variant of a society
name in use.
The most common situation has a longer name with a place name at the end
of the name (e.g. te Amsterdam)
and a shorter form that
lacks this ending;
there were, however, less straightforward cases.
It is sometimes difficult to
verify that a particular form
is in some sense legitimate.
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Dates when a society name was in effect
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It is important to note that, if one draws the
data from the cataloguing records for journal titles, the
title quoted may not
have been the only
one in effect throughout the entire run of that journal;
hence the society may have had variant names
during the run of the journal.
This is not a problem when the catalogue record is of high quality, since
then the record will include an annotation indicating any title
variants during a run, and specify when these variants occurred.
The problem is knowing whether information about variant titles has been
omitted or not.
One way of checking is to look for monographs
published by the society as well, and check the society
name during the years in question.
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Dates of journal runs
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One of the more interesting types of variance in the bibliographic data of
journals of scholarly societies lies in the area of the dates assigned to the periodical run.
It is very common to find bibliographic records that are clearly for the
same run of a periodical, but with dates that
differ by a year or two.
The reason for this is almost always that some bibliographic records give
the dates corresponding to the
sessions of the society being
covered, whilst other bibliographic records give the dates of publication, which are
sometimes a year or two later.
Occasionally we find high-quality cataloguing records that give both kinds
of dates for a particular run.
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Published 2004, June 7
Amended 2004, September 11
Jim Parrott, Editor
Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum
Sending Email to the Project
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