A Corpus Linguistic Analysis of Catalogue Data: Understanding Curatorial Practice Over Time [submitted version]
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AttanasovaBaker_V4_RA_FinalFINAL.pdf
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5.62 MB
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Adobe PDF
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Resource type
Preprint
Date published
August 14, 2025
Abstract
This is a preprint of a chapter accepted for publication by Facet Publishing. This extract has been taken from the author’s original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive version of this piece may be found in Paul Gooding, Melissa Terras, Sarah Ames (eds.), Library Catalogues as Data: Research, Practice and Usage, 2025, Facet Publishing, London and can be purchased from www.facetpubishing.co.uk. The author agrees not to update the preprint or replace it with the published version of the chapter.
In this chapter we discuss the application of corpus linguistic approaches to printed catalogue data and how they open up new areas of enquiry into cataloguing and curatorial practice over time. While similar methods are being adopted by scholars and practitioners in a range of fields, here we are primarily concerned with research in libraries that aims to develop collections metadata processes and practice for description, discovery, enrichment and computational use.
Our use case is Atanassova’s project ‘Legacies of Curatorial Voice in the Descriptions of Incunabula Collections at the British Library and Their Future Reuse’ undertaken between 2022-23, with Baker as her mentor. This research was funded under the Research Libraries UK and Arts and Humanities Research Council Professional Practice Fellowship scheme that enables library professionals to be active participants in research and was one of ten funded projects in the first year of the scheme. The project took a ‘catalogues as data’ approach by using corpus linguistics methods to analyse legacy catalogue descriptions of books printed before 1500, with the ambition of gaining new insights into both the catalogues and the collections they describe. The motivation for undertaking this project was to use and embed the research methodology within British Library (BL) operations as a means of demonstrating the impact of digital scholarship applied to collection catalogues.
Funder
| Funder name | Awards |
Arts and Humanities Research Council | |
Research Libraries, UK | |
Publisher
British Library
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Collection
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