Possibilities for Standardized Cataloging of Prints: The Collection of Engravings at the Hamburg State and University Library

ABSTRACT German museums keep over 5,000,000 graphic prints in their graphic collections from the late Middle Ages to the present.1 Due to the poor availability of data it is hard to ascertain how many additional sheets “slumber” in libraries and archives. Libraries often keep conglomerations of graphic sheets, which have grown over the centuries by bequests and donations, without being accessible in a systematic way for the users of a collection. Such a collection is the small but excellent collection of engravings at the Hamburg State and University Library. This article will propose how Resource Description and Access (RDA) can be adapted in such a way that our special graphic material can be made accessible and be used and how a standardized set of elements can be developed.2


Introduction
The Hamburg State and University Library collection of more than 2,000 prints originated mainly through bequests and gifts from individuals from the eighteenth century. Only a handwritten catalog from the nineteenth century documents the attempt at cataloging and systematizing this material. 3 During the teaching, exhibition, and publication project "Manner, Myth and Moral-Dutch Graphic Prints in 1600 in the Hamburg State and University Library" the most valuable and important part of this collection was edited and analyzed. Through cataloging and digitization, 161 rare prints of high artistic quality are now available worldwide for scholars and art lovers. The accompanying publication "Manier, Mythos und Moral," published by Imhof in 2014, underscores the high potential of such collections for research and teaching. 4 This article will focus on showing possibilities for developing standardized access to original prints in German libraries. The necessary characteristics of prints needed to create useful catalog records have already been formulated in cooperation with the Dutch art historian Ad Stiijnman 5 for "Recommendations for Cataloguing Original Prints" (referred to hereafter as the "AAD Recommendations"). 6 The "AAD Recommendations" have been practically applied by the AAD Libraries since 2009. These libraries are members of the Working Group Rare Books (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Alte Drucke-AAD) within the Common Library Association (Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund-GBV).
With the introduction of Resource Description and Access (RDA) these "AAD Recommendations" need to be reviewed and modified. Thus it will be useful to ask the following questions: How can we make original prints accessible within the German version of RDA? What are the possibilities and limitations of RDA in describing graphic material? Which rules are of limited use and which should be extended or adapted? The focus will be on the practical application of the German version of RDA within the existing systems. The next step should then be a comparison of standards developed in other institutions or countries with regard to the possibility of developing international standards for describing graphic material. 7

Starting point
In recent years digitization efforts in Germany have contributed to the worldwide visibility of graphic collections. The number of sheets is growing daily in the digital collections of museums, archives, and libraries. Two German examples provide an idea of the huge number of digitized holdings of image archives: "Bildarchiv Foto Marburg" 8 with 2 million images and "Deutsche Fotothek" 9 with more than 1.7 million images. These archives present photographs, paintings, graphic prints, maps, and architectural drawings/drafts from different collections. Other important digital collections are: "Zentrales Verzeichnis Deutscher Drucke" (ZVDD) 10 as the central access point to printed works from the fifteenth century up to today, digitized in Germany "Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek" (DDB) 11 Digital collections of the State Libraries of Munich, Berlin, G€ ottingen, and Dresden Digital collections of the Research Libraries of Wolfenb€ uttel and Weimar Two digitization projects should also be mentioned here, which are funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft-DFG) explicitly for the development of graphic material, especially from the Fr€ uhe Neuzeit: "Virtuelles Kupferstichkabinett" 12 ("Virtual gallery of prints"), a joint project of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum Braunschweig and the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenb€ uttel-with more than 46,000 detailed descriptions of graphical prints and illustrations from books and "Digitaler Portraitindex," 13 more than 250,000 sheets from different museum and library portrait collections.
In most German libraries, graphic prints are not normally found in a special graphic collection; they are often scattered in different bequests, subject collections, or folders. Besides the formal lack of a "collection" and due to lack of resources, the indexing and cataloging of graphic material has rarely been considered a priority. Smaller and poorly described holdings can hardly be considered for mass digitization projects for which electronic indexing is a basic condition. Many libraries lack resources and often the know-how to apply for funds for cataloging and digitization. This is what a lot of librarians of small and understaffed regional, museum, or institute libraries have experienced. But also in bigger libraries like the Hamburg State and University Library the necessary resources for the indexing/cataloging of such special material are scarce due to the increasing workload and lack of finances.
The engraving collection of the Hamburg State Library: Cataloging and digitization Since 2006, the Hamburg State Library has been paying more attention to the indexing of its graphic material, which is divided into two main collections: 1. The portrait collection, with more than 15,000 portraits in different formats, dates, and countries of origin, among them around 1,800 portraits of Hamburg individuals; 2. The engraving collection, with around 2,000 sheets, mainly comprised of Dutch, German, and Italian prints. 14 The display of prints for the exhibition "Erlesen-Die Sondersammlungen der Staats-und Universit€ atsbibliothek Hamburg" ("Exquisite-The Special Collections of the Hamburg State and University Library") in 2007 and the first publication of a leaflet with descriptions of the special collections attracted especially the attention of regional scholars and art historians. Other exhibitions followed that presented further items from the engraving collection.
Since 2007, AAD members have been developing the "AAD Recommendations" for cataloging graphic prints (see above). These "AAD Recommendations" were completed in 2009 under the leadership of the Hamburg State Library in cooperation with the research libraries of Gotha and Wolfenb€ uttel. 15 Finally, the art historian Iris Wenderholm and I had the idea to create a teaching and exhibition project with the aim to put the students to work with original prints. It was within this framework that we experienced how important the indexing and digitization of these holdings for such projects would be. During the selection phase of this course, the instructors found the handwritten catalog barely readable and almost completely useless. The focus was on the selection of Dutch engravings. In time-consuming sessions we viewed each sheet and made our selection. Wenderholm conceived two successive seminars at the Art History Institute of Hamburg University for the winter semesters 2012/13 and 2013/14. About 40 students worked with the original material, resulting in detailed descriptions and interpretations of these important Mannerist prints. Moreover, quite a few rare or valuable prints were discovered. The descriptions made by students were the basis for my colleague Gabriele Urban, an expert for map cataloging, to form the catalog records for the Hamburg Library online catalog.
The Hamburg State Library also took protective measures with the holdings and sorted the individual sheets by formats in boxes made of acid-free cardboard. 16 The large-size engravings are stocked in special drawer cabinets. The new kind of storage and the allocation of call numbers for each sheet improved the findability. Further measures are to follow: restorations, passe-partouts, and storage in robust storage cassettes.
For the project, 161 sheets were selected, cataloged, and digitized so that this material is now available worldwide. Finally, this work resulted in the presentation of the engravings in the exhibition Manner, Myth, and Morals from July 4 to August 24, 2014 in the Hamburg State Library and, the highlight of the project, a publication with five scholarly articles and the detailed descriptions of the engravings made by the students, and illustrated with 100 figures on over 360 pages. 17 This work will be continued. In the winter semester 2015/16 a new teaching and exhibition project was launched: "Images of Women in Nature-Nature Images of the Woman" (Frauenbilder der Natur-Naturbilder der Frau) under the direction of the Hamburg art historians Iris Wenderholm and Maurice Saß. 18 The respective exhibition, featuring engravings from the Hamburg collection and from the art collections of G€ ottingen University, is scheduled to be shown in G€ ottingen in 2017.

Recommendations for cataloging graphic prints ("AAD Recommendations"/GBV)
The recommendations mentioned above were developed according to the Rules for Alphabetical Cataloguing in Academic Libraries (RAK-WB) as well as the included rules for non-book materials (NBM), rare books, and maps in the GBV. 19 Furthermore, the indexing rules of the DFG-funded project "Virtuelles Kupferstichkabinett" (see above) were also consulted. 20 Only graphic prints with the publication year before 1850 have been included according to the AAD work order, the reason for this being that engravings were made by hand up until the middle of the nineteenth century (i.e., before the first photo-technical processes were being adopted). However, it would make sense to apply the "AAD Recommendations" for engravings with more recent publication dates as well-and moreover to extend them to graphic material as a whole, including, for instance, photographic material 21 ; this would take into account the change to RDA. 22 In view of the inadequate explanation for this material in the rules of RAK-WB, 23 the AAD working group developed-from the point of view of art historya detailed and sound definition of graphic prints: One sheet of graphic print will be defined as a flat pictorial representation which is made by hand from a printing form prepared by hand (wood-block, copper plate, stone, etc.) on carrier material (paper, silk, etc.) with ink by print or stamp etc., a process which can be repeated. The production is made by hand or with support of a machine (press etc.). 24 Typical examples for graphic print according to this definition are mythological, biblical and historical scenes, portraits, landscapes, and also views 25 and caricatures. 26 Music prints, maps, plans, technical drafts, mathematical diagrams, posters, and stamps are excluded here. Pamphlets/thesis sheets, diplomas, leaflets, dedications, funeral poems, and bookplates (ex-libris) are examples of a "grey area." The evaluation of several online image databases 27 with respect to existing library software resulted in determining the following descriptive elements as crucial for cataloging graphic prints: artist or printing workshop, title, place, date, genre, production technique, material/painting tools, dimensions, collection, provenance, customers if applicable, keywords/iconography, short description (framing, state, etc.), bibliography/sources, link to the digital reproduction.
I would like to present the current state of the revision of the "AAD Recommendations" with respect to the rules of RDA. As we can see, again the graphic print is treated like a poor relative as far as indexing is concerned. There are still no elaborate guidelines for the cataloging of graphical material in German libraries. 28 Being responsible for the cataloging guidelines for this material in GBV and cooperating closely with our partners at the Art History Institute at Hamburg University-especially working on our engraving collection-my colleague Gabriele Urban and I from the Hamburg State Library have tried to push the development here and have begun revising the "AAD Recommendations."

Core elements
Let us start with the most important core and standard elements of the bibliographical description: the title and responsibility data. 29 The title proper-this is clear-will be taken from the preferred information source. 30 We often find several inscriptions on the engravings, giving information about the persons who were involved in the production and edition of the respective work. 31 Sometimes there are also dates about place and date of publication or print privileges. These inscriptions we find mostly at the bottom of the sheet, in the "address" 32 ( Figure 1). Early copper engravings or wood cuts rarely have an address. In this case you have to refer to other sources to identify the title proper. This could be a published description of the original as well as a reference work or an annotation of the previous owner on the sheet, on the folder or elsewhere. 33 Otherwise the cataloger has to make it up.
It is useful to add a short description of the content, state, and so on. 34 Further additions can be made on the item level, for instance annotations, old shelfmarks, and so on. The provenances that are part of the item level should be recorded on the manifestation level in the future. 35 In addition to the title proper all persons, families, or corporate bodies are recorded according to the source. 36 With regard to the graphic print these are, as a rule, all artists or persons, respectively, who have participated in the work, for instance the painter ("inventor"), engraver, lithographer, printer, or publisher. Often, paintings are the direct model for engravings, but also for drawings or drafts. The drawer or painter of the original art work will be recorded as the main one responsible (i.e., first intellectual creator), 37 while the other persons involved are recorded as participants. 38 Represented persons who are not participants, for instance in portraits, receive a secondary entry with a mark of relation accordingly. 39 The edition statement 40 is a further RDA core element. But edition notes are rare on engravings. It is in the nature of engravings that they can be printed repeatedly from one printing form with almost equal results. Often the question is how many copies were printed in a single go-or step-by-step. Moreover, the printing form itself could have been changed, for instance re-engraved, during the printing process or after some time. The result of such a change is termed "state" ("Zustand"). You can distinguish one or several states of the graphic print whereby each change forms a new state. It is also possible that the printing form is used several times or at different points in time without a change of state. Differences can be recognized only through paper research because often another kind of paper (or another carrier material) came to use. 41 We recommend recording the state as an edition statement if it can be identified without great effort, for instance through a reference work or a published description. 42 Possible counts of copies in a single printing process, for instance "third copy out of seven copies," can be noted in an annotation on the item level.
Publisher, publication date, and place of publication are also RDA core elements. 43 If a cataloger cannot find publication dates on the work then they must use other sources, and in many cases will have to estimate the time of publication. Determined or estimated dates will be recorded in square brackets.
All further information about the elements of the bibliographical description can be noted in the appropriate annotation fields. Bibliographical sources, for example reference works, and identifier, for example national bibliographical databases, should be also noted. 44

Physical description
Now let's have a look at the physical description of the data medium with the RDA standard elements media type, carrier type, and size. 45 Here you can note, for example, the number of the graphical prints within a unit, for instance, "2 engravings on 1 sheet" or "1 portrait" or "1 engraving on 2 sheets" or "1 engraving in 2 parts" or simply "1 engraving." 46 If it is a color print you can add this information to the color content, for instance, "1 engraving (coloured)," 47 and a subsequent coloring accordingly "1 engraving (hand coloured)." 48 In addition, the so-called illustrative content can be noted, 49 representing the primary content of a work. 50 An important element for the physical description of graphic prints is the production method or technique. 51 Of course, we should take into account that we want to develop cataloging standards that offer just enough necessary information for research-and that librarians can use without expert knowledge. However, it may not always be possible to identify the right technique without considerable effort, with so many printing methods existing. In practice, the graphic prints often were divided in (a) copper engravings and (b) wood cuts/engravings, the two techniques representing the most frequent printing method-from a printing form with black ink on paper. But there are also other methods, for instance the color print (monochrome or multi-colored). 52 We recommend using the following terms, parallel to the cataloging guidelines for maps: wood-cut, wood-engraving, copper engraving, lithography, etching, or engraving. 53 Before, we used the terms "relief printing," "intaglio," "flat printing," and "screen printing." But today we are convinced that the use of more detailed terms makes much more sense. As with maps it should also be obligatory to note the dimension. 54 Here the format of the printing frame (outer border lines) of the sheet (height by width) is important, noted in millimeters (standard in museums) or in centimeters (standard in libraries). Other dimensions or annotations about trimmed paper edges or other particularities can be noticed in annotations on the item area. 55 If applicable, it will also be useful to note the format of the frame or plate that is created by blind stamping of the copper plate.

Subject indexing
Subject indexing includes recording a formal specification ("Formangabe"), here: graphic print ("Grafik"), as subject entity. We have standardized vocabulary for the content description that a cataloger has to use (special German rule D-A-C-H). 56 This also involves the formal subject indexing of the document type and the additional recording of single subject headings, and genre terms. An additional iconographic subject indexing or classification like "Iconclass" would be desirable. 57 Moreover, we note codes for the countries of origin and for the language used.
As an example the engraving "Vertumnus and Pomona" was chosen; it was published in 1605 (Figure 2). The Hamburg State Library as a member of the GBV uses the cataloging system/database Pica, but the examples will be showed in a formatneutral manner (Table 1).

Print series
Apart from single sheets or works with several sheets there are also series of art/ graphic prints ("Druckreihe"), which can be accompanied by texts. Sheets of an engraving series have the following characteristics: one subject/theme, one inventor/artist, one or more engravers, one publisher, often sequential numbering, same or similar decorations, mostly printing forms of the same format, the same production technique with the same ink (color) and on the same carrier material, often a printed title page, possibly accompanied by a printed text (introduction, register) or an explanatory text. The kind of binding depended on the production process, selling, collecting, or shelving methods. Often the kind of binding or storage points to the production history and provenance of the object. Up until now we recorded each single sheet individually with an indication of the series. But now we have decided to apply hierarchical cataloging-while knowing that it is absolutely unusual in Anglo-American systems but a typical feature of German catalogingand to record a series similar to multi-part monographs. 58 The following example shows the engraving series Circulus vicissitudinis rerum humanarum by Maarten de Vos ( Table 2). The series with the subject/theme "The course of the world" contains eight numbered engravings by different engravers (Figures 3-10). This series is one of the spectacular discoveries of the project "Manner, Myth, and Moral" mentioned earlier. The title page was completely unknown and is only documented in the Hamburg collection. The relevant reference work, the so-called Hollstein, does not document this work. 59

Illustrations in printed books
The third kind of published engravings are illustrations in printed books. Users and scholars alike are strongly interested in the findability of this material. Furthermore, the cataloging of these engravings would support the work of every librarian or curator; engravings in high demand, which can be found in valuable, rare, or          important regional works, could merit special cataloging and priority for digitization. The Hamburg State Library records these items as dependent titles like articles.

Conclusion
Finally, our recommendations are a proposal for cataloging graphic prints after a first revision of the former rules with a view to the new cataloging system RDA. The Hamburg State Library will work according to these recommendations for the recording of graphical prints until the rules are complete with new guidelines. It is important for our institution to push the development of new RDA guidelines/ rules for cataloging this material because we have planned further projects with our graphic collection as well as other image collections. Indexing and digitization are important, necessary preconditions for using this kind of special material in teaching and research projects.