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Historiographic Considerations in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum
The Types of Historical Data in the Repertorium
The point of view Initial T, Ornate he choice of types of historical data to be included in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum was very much influenced by experiences of the Editor (as both librarian and bibliographer) in dealing with historical conundrums over a span of three decades.
The historical conundrums Examples of these puzzles include the interpretation of cryptic journal-title abbreviations for 17th & 18th century journals, and tracking the name changes of scholarly societies and academies through turbulent periods in European history, and also the name changes of the associated journals.
The types of historical data included Consequently, emphasis has been placed on determining (or deducing) and enumerating the following types of historical data: (1) the founding date of each society, (2) the cessation date of each defunct society, (3) the sequence of name changes for each society (4) information on any splits or mergers of societies (5) bibliographic data on the journals published by each society, and (6) the abbreviations used in standard old bibliographies for the titles of these journals.
Documentation Supporting the Historical Data
The guiding principle Initial I, Ornate f there were but one guiding principle in the compilation of the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum, then it would have to be the notion that each piece of data should be documented so that the user can consult the sources.
Complications due to inconsistency in data This admirable and necessary principle encounters certain complications in practice. One frequent situtation in which complication arises is when one respectable source supplies data that is inconsistent with that supplied by another respectable source; this multiplies the amount of documentation that must be supplied. It should be noted that it is possible for both sources to be correct, despite the inconsistencies; see the section below on The Fuzziness of Some Historical Data.
Complications due to the data source Another complication is that it may be relatively easy to find certain historical data in sources that are either of dubious quality (e.g. on the Internet) or that may not be accessible very far into future (again, e.g. on the Internet), yet very difficult to verify that data in sources that are of high quality and likely to be available to users in the future.
Finding the Historical Data
Given that a particular society existed, we want to find historical data for it Initial S, Ornate uppose that we already know that a particular society existed (for example, from using the technique mentioned in Identifying Societies that Contributed to the Scholarly Record), and we wish to find historical data on it. As noted above, it may be relatively easy to find certain historical data in sources that are either of dubious quality (e.g. on the Internet) or that may not be accessible very far into future (again, e.g. on the Internet). The challenge, however, is to verify the data in sources that are of high quality and likely to be available to users in the future.
Historical monographs on one or more scholarly societies Many societies that were founded more than a century ago have issued commemorative monographs; in other cases, individual scholars have published histories on one or more societies. These historical monographs can generally be identified using rich online library catalogues or rich printed library catalogues. The most precise search technique involves treating the society name as the subject. But depending on the way in which the cataloguing was done, this may not work. A more reliable technique is to search for the society name in a title keyword index. Most of the historical monographs used in the preparation of the Repertorium are listed in Historical Monographs.
Historical journal articles on one or more societies There are various indexes that cover journal articles on the history of scholarly societies. Aside from the broadly-based historical journal indexes (e.g. Historical Abstracts), we have found the ISIS Cumulative Bibliography to be useful for societies that were in some sense scientific or technical; it is a bibliography of the history of science formed from ISIS Critical Bibliographies, published by the History of Science Society (HSS). Most of the historical journal articles used in the preparation of the Repertorium are listed in Historical Articles or Papers.
Authority records in library catalogues We have spoken of using library catalogues as tools for locating historical monographs on scholarly societies. Under certain circumstances, however, even the cataloguing data in a library catalogue may provide useful historical information. For example, a library catalogue may contain an authority record for a society in which we are interested. That authority record will likely give alternative names under which the society has been known (although rarely will it give the dates when these various names were in effect). The authority record will sometimes give the founding year as well.
Serials cataloguing data in library catalogues If the library catalogue provides high-quality cataloguing for the journals (and other journal-like publications) of the society, it may be possible to trace the name changes of the society through the name changes of its journals. Unfortunately, some of the richest library catalogues have cataloguing of variable quality. As an example, the Bibliot. Nat. France cat. (which has extraordinarily rich collections) sometimes catalogues society journals in enough detail to trace when the journal title bore the designations Royale, Impériale, or Nationale. Often, however, it merely indicates that the title bore those designations at some time or other, and leaves the rest to one's imagination.
Websites containing scholarly historical information Another way to find historical information on scholarly societies is to search for websites using an Internet search engine. If one finds interesting historical data on the Internet, one must, however, exercise considerable caution (as suggested above). First, it is important to evaluate the website to ascertain that it is indeed of scholarly quality, and likely to contain reliable information. Then, one must assess whether the site appears to be sufficiently permanent to be used as a source of authority for the data, or whether it is likely to disappear within a few short years. In the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum, we have dealt with these problems by confining most of our external links to websites maintained as part of the mandate of some scholarly institution.
The Fuzziness of Some Historical Data
Initial W, Ornate e now consider some of the ways in which the historical data in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum may be considered to be fuzzy.
Founding dates It is frequently the case that different sources provide different founding dates for the same society. Occasionally this is simple error. More often, a careful examination of the sources reveals that the various dates all have some claim to legitimacy as founding dates. The reason for this is that many scholarly societies grew from informal meetings that began on one date; yet the date on which the society was considered to have been formally founded may be a later date. In addition, incorporation may have occurred at an even later date, and it may also have some claim to being the real founding date of the society.
Cessation dates It is also frequently the case for defunct societies that different sources provide different cessation dates for the same society. The most common reason here is that some of the older societies did not decide formally to cease. Instead they went into a period of such gradual decline that it becomes problematic to decide upon an actual cessation date.
Society names It is quite common for a society to change its name over a period of a couple of centuries; and indeed in countries like France, where there were frequent dramatic regime changes, it is generally inevitable. In addition to these name changes, at any given time, there sometimes appears to be more than one variant of a society name in use. The most common situation has a longer name with a place name at the end of the name (e.g. te Amsterdam) and a shorter form that lacks this ending; there were, however, less straightforward cases. It is sometimes difficult to verify that a particular form is in some sense legitimate.
Dates when a society name was in effect It is important to note that, if one draws the data from the cataloguing records for journal titles, the title quoted may not have been the only one in effect throughout the entire run of that journal; hence the society may have had variant names during the run of the journal. This is not a problem when the catalogue record is of high quality, since then the record will include an annotation indicating any title variants during a run, and specify when these variants occurred. The problem is knowing whether information about variant titles has been omitted or not. One way of checking is to look for monographs published by the society as well, and check the society name during the years in question.
Dates of journal runs One of the more interesting types of variance in the bibliographic data of journals of scholarly societies lies in the area of the dates assigned to the periodical run. It is very common to find bibliographic records that are clearly for the same run of a periodical, but with dates that differ by a year or two. The reason for this is almost always that some bibliographic records give the dates corresponding to the sessions of the society being covered, whilst other bibliographic records give the dates of publication, which are sometimes a year or two later. Occasionally we find high-quality cataloguing records that give both kinds of dates for a particular run.

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Published 2004, June 7
Amended 2004, September 11
Jim Parrott, Editor
Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum
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