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!