Assumptions, Variables, general Perplexities

Recently I had the benefit of a helpful 'information literacy' session at Jefferson Library. This wasn't a scheduled regular library event or anything. I've been keeping notes of problems or roadblocks I encounter in my LibraryThing project - basically things that stump me. My supervisor and I went through these notes the other day and it was an illuminating ordeal. I got to see the process through her eyes, and it further solidified for me that the Thomas Jefferson's Libraries Project that I'm contributing to is complex and meaningful work. Also, it seemed that the records that stumped me did so for pretty good reason, and that was satisfying, even if still perplexing.

For questions tracing provenance and accounting for titles I saw some new or different resources at play: the 1840 Library of Congress catalogue and the 1873 Leavitt auction catalogue. With the LibraryThing records I'm working on - the Wythe bequest to Jefferson in 1806 - we're trying to show users an awful lot, and there are lots of variables. There's the fact/assumption that the book came from Wythe in 1806. We have the newly discovered Wythe list showing these titles in Jefferson's hand. Then, we want to show these titles appearing in Jefferson's "master" list of 1783, so I search for them there. When the title appears written the same way as on the Wythe list, and in darker ink (suggesting a late entry ca. 1806), this suggests that it's Wythe's copy. Then we want to see if that title was sold to Congress, so we check a resource reconstructing Jefferson's list of books sold to them in 1815. If it's there, and still in the same nomenclature and size (4to, 8vo, etc.), presumably this is Wythe's copy that ended up at Congress. Lastly, we want to describe the item itself. To do this we rely on E. Milicent Sowerby's five volume Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson (1952-59), which reconstructed TJ's library at Congress. Some of the works she described were not extant, having been destroyed in the library's 1851 fire or otherwise missing. If they do exist, we include a physical description in our LibraryThing record based on Sowerby's notes.

Whew! An interesting variable that often crops up is that Wythe's copy might duplicate one Jefferson already owned. TJ's 1783 master list entry for that title might be written over, rubbed out then written over, or have "2 copies" written out in the margin, or something to that effect. If that title appears at Congress, this complicates determining whether or not it was Wythe's copy Jefferson sold. Sometimes this plays out more easily: if Wythe's and TJ's copies are dissimilar in some way like publication or size. But sometimes it does not play out, and so we do what we can. Sometimes the title does not appear at Congress. Sometimes it appears but does not seem to be Wythe's entry - why? Sometimes it seems TJ kept one of two copies for himself, selling the other to Congress, but which one? We try to account for the titles on TJ's lists using the resources avaliable and determine what happened to them without making great assumptions.

Therein lies the rub. We're trying to make connections with these LibraryThing records, link lots of data together in meaningful and apparent ways. Sometimes it's hard to know how to straddle subjectivity and objectivity in that endeavor. This translates broadly in information management: in deciphering and disseminating access to recources we must be careful of our whims. I like it when these LT records present a clear story - Wythe bequethed this title to TJ in 1806; TJ sold it to Congress in 1815 where it still resides and looks like _this_. But I also like reminding myself and others that we can't know everything, and furthermore that we can't presume to know, and so some records reflect this.