Kipling Flash-mob!

Let's catalog Rudyard Kipling's library!

See the wiki-page for login information and to pick your section of the catalog.

Blog post.

Use this thread for questions, discussion, &c. If you run into trouble, just ask for a hand :-)

Anyone want to have a go at the profile text?

Great choice!

Do you want shelf location notation? If so, where?

See the tag section on the wiki page, but yeah: Please tag with the room, case and shelf number: so for Study 1.A, tag as Study, Study Case 1 and Study Shelf 1.A; for Hall 2.B, tag Hall, Hall Case 2 and Hall Shelf 2.B, &c.

Sorry, I got too excited.
Do you want us to note all discrepancies between the pdf list and other records as problems?
For instance The Sherbro and its Hinterland on 2.B Study is by T. J. Alldridge, not J. J. Alldridge.

No worries :-)

Nah, no need to record oddities like that, as long as you've been able to add the right thing.

Note: please be careful about the editions being added - at the moment there's a 2010 POD thing in there which definitely isn't right :-) If you can't find the right edition, please just mark it as a problem or manually add; don't add a wrong edition.

Anyone else finding that WorldCat is giving garbage search results at the moment? It looks as though their indexing may be broken.

I was having issues with them earlier too. It's quite weird, actually.

It is! For those of us in library-land, it's like the power suddenly going out. :/

I've been getting weird results from Worldcat for a week or more. I find often that if I search a second time for the same term I get a better result the than the first time.

I'm in. I've been wanting to do one of these for a while.

How do we catalogue a multivolume set? Do I enter it as vol. 1 and vol. 2, or just list it as 2 vols.?

In the comments field, so far everyone (myself included) have been marking them as multivolume e.g. 2 vols, 4 vols etc.

I have to say, Kipling had a pretty impressive library.

>12 BuiltByBooks:

Oh, I wasn't putting volumes detail in comments, just making sure it was listed that way in the book information. Almost always, it was already there.

>13 2wonderY: - That's fine - no real matter in this case.
>11 bernsad: - Definitely just do one record for both volumes, not one for each.

please take a look at http://www.librarything.com/work/13000829/book/89540112
and the corporate author. I used the entry from a similar, but earlier publication at Brown University Library-
http://library.brown.edu/find/Record/b1876339

change it if you think necessary. it seems awfully cumbersome.

I'm refraining from adding other Transactions of the Lodge till you look.

>14 jbd1: Thanks Jeremy.

>15 2wonderY: - For authors like that what I typically do is "Freemasons (District or Lodge") ... so as http://www.librarything.com/work/12999831/details/89530676 "Freemasons (Punjab District)". That would make your example "Freemasons (Quatuor Coronati Lodge)" (which I think is somewhat less cumbersome).

okay, will do. thanx.

>16 KiplingLibrary: - You bet!

It looks like the person doing 4A is mistakenly adding books from 3E, on the same PDF page.

>20 KiplingLibrary: - Messaged them - thanks.

Also, when did the stupid BL records start putting last names in CAPS? Gah. So ugly. I'm editing them out, so if you think of it, please do so as well.

Jeremy, take a look at page 35 of the pdf, at the ARS Quatuor Coronatorum

I added the subsequent 1917 and 1935 volumes seperately, adding the volume numbers to the title, but they are showing as duplicates. Should I edit title (how?) to clarify better? Or should I smush them into a single entry?

>23 2wonderY: - I think I would do one record for all of those, and in Comments add "Holdings: Vols. 12-13, 19, 30 (parts 1 & 2), 45 (part 2). Volumes 12, 13, 19 sm. folio, half morocco (Margate, 1899-1906). Vol. 30 sewn (1917). Vol. 45 sewn (1935)" or something to that effect.

Also, I think I've figured out what's up with 3.E and 4.A. On p. 36, 4.A starts with Lilly, Ennemoser, Addison, Montesquieu, and Camoeno. Then on p. 37 we seem to be back in 3.E with Indian Heraldry, Domesday Book, Facsimiles, Clutton, &c. (see them also at the top of p. 36). So those seven titles at the top of p. 37 should be included in 3.E but not in 4.A.

>23 2wonderY: - The way you have it works fine too, though ...

>22 jbd1:
Yes, it's horrible, worse when they put in other qualifiers like army ranks and LT imports them all in the wrong order...

Fun to see that Kipling's Swinburne is "worn & Loose" - what can he have been doing with it...?

Only real puzzle I've encountered so far is Conan-Doyle's The British Campaign in France and Flanders, where Kipling only had 4 of the 6 parts. I just put that in a comment. For the rest, just the usual typos in the inventory list to make it more interesting...

This one is curious (via @MusicianInc in the problems section):

Page 65 of the catalogue; O.W.H.B. Society. Register 1912. post 8vo. Exeter. 1912.

Any ideas, anyone?

Page 42 (5.A) - Anonymous - Miscellaneous effusions, no place or date. Somebody has to check the effusions to attribute them correctly. Manual add?

>28 jcbrunner: - Yep.

Page 43 (5.A) - Browning - Poetical Works 1896 seems to be listed twice, perhaps because one edition has loose covers? I added it twice, you may kill one entry if you like.

jbd1 - OWHB is the "Old Westward Ho! Boys Society" - ie, the United Services College at Westward Ho!, Kipling's old school. It'll be a register of former pupils & their current occupations, etc, from what I know of similar works.

(Yes, the ! is part of the placename.)

COPAC lists two copies, one at Oxford and this exact copy at Bateman's - the National Trust catalogue seems to be on there, surprisingly.

Excellent!

Glad to be of help. I wish I had the time to do some of this, but I'll settle for solving a couple of riddles instead ;-)

This is (I think) the complete catalogue of what's currently at Batemans: http://copac.ac.uk/search?lib=National+Trust&keyword-within-result=Batemans - searching within this may be helpful for identifying oddities.

Pausing for a moment of respect for shimgray. Nice work!
I see that the Library of Congress owns a group photo of the lads, but I couldn't view it.
I added the link on the author page.

I'm having the best time with this catalog.
My degree is in agriculture, so I snapped up the shelf concerning manures. It also has other great titles, like Draining for Profit & Draining for Health, and make me love the old man even more. We'de have gotten along famously.

I had a first go at the profile text this morning (sorry - I just spotted that my edit to the Wiki didn't take for some reason - hope that didn't cause any confusion). I don't think it's quite right yet: if someone else wants a go I won't be offended!

I have a couple of photos from my recent visit to Bateman's that I'll try to upload later today.

The picture of the library is upside down.
http://www.librarything.com/pic/3489400

>36 al.vick:
You worked that out from the waste-paper basket, I suppose!
Fixed.

Whoever's adding from Shelf 5.B, please put your name on the wiki :-)

Attention, there is a tag inconsistency:
Dairy Cows and the Dairy: A Practical Treatise on the Best Breeds of Dairy Cows … by John Walker
No other members; Tags: Study, Study Case 5, Study Shelf 8.E

Got 'em.

Shimgray - Thanks for that info! Those little letters were definitely beyond my searching skills.

jbd1 - Page 97 of the catalogue, 9.A. first item 'manuscript (? By Rudyard Kipling) etc.' I wasn't so sure how to catalogue that, so I've used my own discretion. It may be wrong. Could you take a look in the library when you get a chance?

Sorry, the cows sorta wandered. They've been corralled back on the proper case.

Awkward solution to a small problem: I couldn't locate a record for just the 1933 volume of Lloyd's Calendar, so I used the serial record "Lloyd's Calendar, 1898-1977" and noted in the comments "1933 only".

Is this a legitimate solution?

I have tried to do so, but it's not showing up :( Tried pasting in the code that was there but putting in my user name and it showed up as a '1'...so then I typed my user name directly and it just showed up in black...help, please :)

I just fixed it! My name is showing up now, but for each entry I do it's saying one already exists...is someone else also doing this shelf?

>45 KiplingLibrary: - What shelf are you doing?

Just as a general word of caution, please in posting on the thread try to either post as yourself (not KiplingLibrary) or at least include your own username and the shelf number ...

>41 BuiltByBooks: - Yes, just fine :-)

>43 melonbrawl: - I just edited the record to indicate that it's just 1933 (there's no real need to include the entire serial title info).

>48 jbd1: - Cool, thanks.

Oh, sorry...I am doing shelf 5.B

>50 kristinevandusen: - thanks!

Looks like we're nearly done! Just a few shelves still in progress and one more to be claimed.
I've got to go do other things - the sun's out and the grass is overgrown.

I've certainly been enjoying this work. I paused to combine works and author names so that the connections would be most fruitful. One of the fascinations of this work, too, is digging into the backgrounds of the authors. I've been connecting wiki pages, and will be going back at leisure to add biographical info and add a few titles to my own wishlist.

One thing I noticed is that England of the early 20th century valued its scientists highly. There were a lot of Sirs (Knights, Earls and even Barons) created in tribute to their contributions. Lots of colorful stories and connections to discover.

ps: will there be any further sorting into collections or tagging according to subject matter? I would find that useful.

>53 2wonderY: - The tag mirror should be helpful: http://www.librarything.com/profile_tagmirror.php?view=KiplingLibrary (I don't know that anyone's going to want to take on the huge task of tagging by subject, but the tag mirror will help some, for sure!)

Well, may I do some elementary tagging in my areas of interest? There is some organization by shelving, but it's not perfect.

Unless you're going to do the whole thing (or are going to recruit others to do the rest), I'd rather you didn't. Tagging bits and pieces of LLs just doesn't look good at all.

This is benjclark slowly making my way through 7B. It looks like this work could use some global sized editing: http://www.librarything.com/work/2182009. It looks to be confusing a work called Fishing by the Boy Scouts and another by Henry Cholmondeley-Pennell

>57 KiplingLibrary: - Should be all set.

Working on an entirely different project this morning, I came across an interesting discovery.

It seems that sometime after Kipling's death, Carrie Kipling divided the library into two parts - the general library, which remained at Batemans, and "the File", Kipling's collection of his own works, which was bequeathed to the British Museum.

The "File" was around 1200 volumes, 300 of which were translations - see http://www.jstor.org/stable/4422232

I can't find an exact date for this, but the BM received the donation in late 1940, and the typescript catalogue is dated May 1940. It only contains one Kipling item (Irish Guards in the Great War), though there's an ink annotation on the last page referring to a 36vol edition of Kipling's work; this strongly suggests it was post-division.

I wonder where the Kipling books were housed before this? It would represent a little under half the total collection, and would require at least another room of the house...

>59 generalising: Hmm, very interesting! It doesn't look like the BL has kept this collection together, but if anyone can find records for in their OPAC, let me know!

7.B -- DONE.

>60 jbd1: I've done a little digging, and they seem to all(?) be shelfmarked as "File123", etc. (There's a few which are "File 123", with a space, but not many)

http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vl(freeText0)=%22File...

Unfortunately, the current BL catalogue client doesn't allow specifically shelfmark searching. Proxying by searching for file* and author:Kipling gives 505 results, but this includes duplicate editions (the first, Schoolboy Lyrics, has six copies with File shelfmarks). The highest I can identify is File839, a single sheet translation of Danny Deever into French. (837 is a translation of If into Esperanto!)

The 1200 figure was for "volumes" - I would not have expected Kipling to have very many multi-volume works, but it seems the probable explanation. There seem to be some complete sets - eg 470/473, each 38 vols - which probably serves to drive the total up quite fast. He was certainly prolific!

That was good fun. I wish I'd started earlier. There were some anomalies with numbers of volumes, especially comparing with the current Copac catalogue. The latter seems always to say sets are complete, whereas our typescript says, for example, that Paton's translation of the Greek anthology is in only 2 vols, where there should be 5. I don't know which 2 are in Bateman's, without visiting!

>63 dud5ers: - Yeah, I'm not particularly surprised at that; I wonder whether the COPAC catalog is actually based on someone looking at the books themselves or not ...

>Shimgray, since most of Kipling's work was published abroad, am I right in thinking that the British Library wouldn't have received copies under Colonial Copyright at the time? Then we could assume that the individual books held in the British Library under the authorship of 'Rudyard Kipling' originated from the 1940 bequest. It's not 100% accurate, but close.

>65 BuiltByBooks: - Well, I definitely wouldn't make that assumption. They certainly might have acquired copies in other ways (and probably did).

I've opened shelves 1.B and 8.A for other takers, since the original claimants haven't started cataloging (I messaged them both on Monday and asked them to touch base with me by Thursday p.m. if they still intended to catalog the books). So, if you're free, have at those sections (be sure to claim them on the wiki page).

1.B done, despite nasty typos - "The Poem Sagur" turns out to be "The Prem sagur".

One final shelf 8.A of mostly French works is still open.

I've just claimed 8.A. I can already see a few challenging typos to come. I hope there's a well-stocked French catalogue out there somewhere. It will keep me out of mischief this weekend.

For French books I usually have best results with SUDOC. Good luck.

Thanks, BarkingMatt. SUDOC had all but a half-dozen, which I added manually.

(Now, as myself) It seems we may have finished.

>71 KiplingLibrary:: You're very welcome.

Nice - well done, all!

Yay. Pass the grog.

Great job! Looking at the library there are a few things that surprised. The first is how much poetry Kipling had, which when I thought about it simply demonstrates my own simple mindedness. The number and range of magazines and the multilingual nature of the library also was a revelation. Again I don't think I should have been surprised.

Again, great work everybody.

I found the numerous Shakespeare complete/partial works interesting. Did he really sit down to compare the variants of the different editions?

Or maybe he had a touch of collecting mania.

I'm thinking that, too, Matt. His collection is certainly wide ranging and deep.

>MusicianInc - He did have wide overseas publication, but he also had a very large "home" audience, and the Museum would have taken those editions as normal. Checking the old British Museum Quarterly, they estimated it "doubled" their collection of Kipling, which suggests around 1000-1200 volumes which did not come from the donation, plus of course any editions published after 1940.

They hadn't received much under colonial copyright (which was very erratic in this period) but they had previously acquired a good chunk of the Indian material via gifts from Thacker & Spink, his publishers. A lot of the material was first published in America as well, which took it completely out of their system unless purchased.

I've come back to LT and see the whole project has been completed. Brilliant. I see the comment about part of the Kipling library gong to the BM (British Library); but did Kipling's surviving daughter Elsie, not also inherit part of the collection? And has the project included the books at her home?

Elsie Kipling Bambridge and her husband Capt George Bambridge purchased Wimpole Hall , 14 Kms sw of Cambridge in 1938. they restored and loved the house and the project. Following her death in 1976, the property was bequeathed to the National Trust. Mrs Kipling Bambridge has many of Kiplings books and it would be good to be able to add these to the legacy library. If on line, take a virtual tour on virtualtours.nationaltrust.org.uk/Wimpole/map.ground.html
The library is a grand one, 10 000 , though there are collections through many generations and seemingly owners. I shall make enquiries as to whether the catalogue of the library is accessible and whether it is possible to identify the books owned by Kipling.

Sure. If a list of the Kipling books is available, it would be great to add them.

For LT people interested in Kipling.... this year is the 125 year anniversary of the Rand Club, in Johannesburg. Kipling was an honorary member. this week the Club has had a gala week of celebrations including a Dinner In honour of Kipling. I shall certainly be promoting the LT /LL effort in the mamoth cataloguing of the Kipling books . there will be many in SA who will be interested and the LL is a means of promoting LT. So fitting that this should have been a 5th LL anniversaury project. The Rand Club (current building built in 1904 and restored follwing a devaststing 2005 fire) in centre of old Jhb is a grand Victorian colonial gentleman's club (these days women are admitted) founded in 1887 (a year after the city) It is steeped in Jhb and SA politicsl history , as it was here that the 1895 Jameson Raid (meant to overthrow the Transvaal Kruger government was plotted though it failed) . Kipling wrote If in honour of Jameson. Today , the Rand Club located in Loveday St, houses an extraordinarily collection of photographs and memorabilia of the late 19th C and early 20th century and has a fine library (the fire did not reach the library), it's a grand example of colonial architecture and living history. an anachronism in many respects but thriving . If any LT Kipling fans pass through Johannesburg do be in contact and I'll gladly introduce you to a wonderful African city rooted in a mining past.

I've heard from staff at the BL, and they've found a list of 511 titles from Kipling, those that were transferred to the BM in 1940 and then to the BL in the 70s. Volunteers to add 'em?

Oooo! Looks like I'll have some time this weekend. Do you have the list?

>86 benjclark: - Yep, sent you the link!

>JBD1 I'd love to help. And to see what was missing.