Guilhem IX: Banned at the BN?

Abstract

Guilhem IX:Banned at the BN? Kathryn Klingebiel What troubadour names and details do we see when consulting online catalogues (OPACs)? Can we trust the author-specific information contained in bibliographic records to be accurate, if not consistent? Caveat lector! While a good number of troubadours are present in the catalogs of major national libraries ("BN" being any bibliothèque nationale, biblioteca nazionale, biblioteca nacional, and so on), most troubadours appear to have become the unintended victims of database practices designed with cataloguing needs uppermost in mind. Despite widespread use of the term troubabour in its French spelling, even by those who should know better (viz. the author of this article), the poets themselves did not belong to the "France" of their time nor were they of "French" nationality, no matter to what extent their language and names and culture have been subsumed into those of the modern French nation through a kind of internal imperialism that receives occasional acknowledgment.1 In light of historical reality, how can troubadour language be characterized as "Old French"? How does a library, even the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), justify bestowing "French nationality" on any troubadour? (Is a twelfth-century Dalai Lama now to be counted as a Chinese citizen?) While Guilhem IX is certainly present at the BnF, this society's namesake is not to be found qua "Guilhem" in either of his two authorized name headings.2 Caveat lector, indeed. It would seem that there are a number of reasons for the reader to beware at any BN. Catalogue name headings can be inaccurate, outdated, even anachronistic. Modern procedures for cataloguing can yield disparate results, not only in biographical identifications, but also in the spelling of an author's name and in the additional data included in his or her index or name authority record. Granted, the nature of cataloguing is essentially piecemeal. While cataloguers are trained in their craft and must be authorized to work at the rarified level of BN cataloguing, they are not necessarily experts in a given subject matter. The BnF staff itself, for example, is not directly responsible for capturing much of the material that ends up in its catalogues. [End Page 63] Rather, individual cataloguers scattered across France, and working over a considerable period of time, have been responsible for creating records and entering information. When new works are entered into the database, cataloguers must choose whether to repeat an existing author name or to create a new entry. Multiple name records, in conflicting formats, are not infrequent in many OPACs—although careful bibliographic practice would require that variants be hierarchized under a single authorized heading. The BnF implements these hierarchies in less explicit fashion than does the Library of Congress (henceforth LC), with its red "Authorized Heading" button. Duplicate records result from different types of logical disparities, two in particular: first, multiple records for a single author: BnF Type d'autorité / Entrées d'index autorité personne Guillaume d'Aquitaine (1071-1127) Guillaume VII (Comte de Poitiers) (accessed 2008-11-28) LC Name Authority Heading [Authorized Heading] William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, 1071-1127 [References] Guillaume IX, Duke of Aquitaine, 1071-1127 Guilhem IX, Duke of Aquitaine, 1071-1127 Guillem IX, Duke of Aquitaine, 1071-1127 (accessed 2008-11-28) (in computer logic, such a duplication represents a many-to-one relationship); and second, a single name linked to multiple authors (a one-to-many relationship). In addition, links between works by or about a given troubadour may go unrecognized and unrecorded. Background information gleaned from newly published sources can find its way into the catalogue even as older or outdated records remain uncorrected and unquestioned, given current budgetary restrictions.3 Within name records, biographic information entered from succeeding editions of a given work may be inconsistent. The labels within the biographical information field can force unfortunate [End Page 64] choices upon cataloguers. While the BnF catalogue generally identifies medieval Occitan poets as "troubadours" (Jaufre Rudel, Uc Brunenc, Bernart de Ventadour, et al.), other labels are also found: "troubadours provençaux" (Raimbaut d'Orange, Bertran d'Alamanon, Cadenet) "troubadours français" (Peire Cardenal, Pons de Capdoill, Raimon de Miraval, and others) "troubadour limousin...