The Catalogue Problem

So what would time travel mean to cataloguers?

A chononaut could steal the first printed manuscript of Hamlet from a museum, jump down-time into 1570 -- and then hand the document to a teenaged Shakespeare.

The teenaged Shakespeare grows up, gets into the theater business, and, looking to make a quick buck, takes the manuscript given to him from the time traveler and uses it to launch the first-ever production of Hamlet.

The play goes on to be famous; that first folio ends up in a museum -- where it will end up stolen ...

But who wrote Hamlet?  Not Shakespeare, for he plagiarized the idea from a manuscript he was given.  And not the time traveler -- she only found the play, or stole it, that is.

So what would a cataloguer give as the creator of Hamlet?

Even worse, who published that first printed folio? 

Clearly no one created Hamlet.  And no one published that first printed manuscript.  It is a printed document that was never printed.  The work and the manuscript simply exist without origin.

RDA, the new cataloguring standard, prides itself on being able to handle future innovations in the bibliographic universe.  Could it handle time travel?  We'll have to wait and see.

Beaming back to the mothership,
Engage!

Hot new print monographs

               Hot New Print Monographs Corner

What exciting new print monographs are on YOUR coffee table or bedside table this summer?

I'm simply crazy for  Zolton Gravlock's new travelogue, Time Traveling Turtles Trapped in the Tiny Turnstiles of Tartulus-2.

This book transported me to Tartulus-2 where, where I  fell in  love with that planet's silver floating cities and had my heart broken at the plight of its poor amphibian time travelers.

It's perfect summer reading for that cottage on Mars or Titan!

faint transmissions from galacitc hub observatory: unidentifed planet

Legacy

This is just to report:
Commander Raganafrozzle-Smith brought five barbie dolls to Mars in 2101 AD.
Centuries later -- after the destruction of planet Earth -- these dolls were discovered by alien anthropologists of the Crab Nebula who concluded that a great and tiny race of blonde humanoids once inhabited the planet.

May the stars be on your back.
Beaming back to the mothership,
Engage...