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H-ASIA November 9, 2005 Observations on some publishing and on library classifications ************************************************************************* From: Frances Wood <Frances.Wood@bl.uk> The publication of rubbish as history is very depressing and reveals quite clearly how irresponsible many publishers have become. David Selbourne's _The City of Light_ was condemned as riddled with errors by several Arabists, a handful of Sinologists, a couple of Hebraists and an historian of Medieval Italy, all eminent and highly respected scholars- I remember it well as I wrote a long piece on its critical reception in the UK for publication in Shanghai to clarify the situation for Chinese colleagues. Despite this, I received a query only about a year ago asking if this (travesty) was suitable for use by undergraduates? From this perspective, Geoff Wade's campaign is very important and deserves general support unless we want to spend the rest of our lives explaining patiently why 1421 or whatever it is is not just a waste of time but seriously misleading. I am happy to say that I've never met the author but I understand from colleagues who, to their mortification, are mentioned in his preface that they are invariably misquoted. The question of subject indexing is, to me, slightly less important. Cataloguers, who are not always subject specialists, take subject cataloguing far too seriously. These days title-word searches will suffice for most puposes and many of us would do well to avoid subject indexing and classification which in specialist areas can get pretty fraught. As a cataloguer of Chinese books, I've never been able to take the Dewey Decimal system seriously since I discovered that it had a special number for elastic-sided boots but nothing for eunuchs. In my youth, I used to consider it harmless fun to classify obvious works of exaggerated political propaganda as 'fiction' but my colleagues now tell me that this is very bad indeed, the librarian is supposed to be a mere filter for the classification proposed by publishers- which if they continue to publish such rubbish seems a position of almost equally irresponsible passivity. Frances Wood (I've probably gone too far!) ----- Ed. note: Well, I don't think so! Dr Frances Wood is Head of Chinese, Manchu & Mongolian Collections at the British Library. A major figure in East Asian Librarianship, she is also author of a number of important books including: _The Silk Road: two thousand years in the heart of Asia_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) ISBN 0520237862 (orig. published London: Folio Society, 2002) _Did Marco Polo go to China?_ (London: Secker & Warburg, 1995) ISBN 0436201666 [and Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996) ISBN 0813389984; 0813389992 (pbk.) _No dogs and not many Chinese: treaty port life in China 1843-1943_ (London: John Murray, 1998) ISBN 0719557585 _Oriental gardens_ (with Norah Titley) (London: British Library, 1991) ISBN 0712302395 _Chinese illustration_ (London: British Library, c1985)ISBN 0712300538 (and San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1992) ISBN 0811801322 FFC ************************************************************************* To post to H-ASIA simply send your message to: <H-ASIA@h-net.msu.edu> For holidays or short absences send post to: <listserv@h-net.msu.edu> with message: SET H-ASIA NOMAIL Upon return, send post with message SET H-ASIA MAIL H-ASIA WEB HOMEPAGE URL: http://h-net.msu.edu/~asia/
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