8560 B.C.
Cultivation of emmer, barley, and other wild grasses begins on the steppes of Central Asia, leading to the development of specialized occupations, such as cereal catalogers.

4362 B.C.
First evidence (from Scythia, modern day Crimea) of a four-wheeled book cart. Within two generations this design was adopted throughout Europe and Asia, replacing the more maneuverable, but much less stable two-wheeled book cart.

Spring, 3193 B.C.
First serial title attested: "Publications of the Royal Sumerian Academy."

Late summer, 3193 B.C.
First serial title change attested: to "Royal Sumerian Academy Publications."

537 B.C.
The National Library of Babylon, finally switching to papyrus, ceases maintaining its clay tablet shelflist, but is unable to discard it for nostalgic reasons. Two years later, under seige by the Persians, the city finds a new use for the old tablets and manages to inflict severe losses on the beseiging army by pelting them from the ramparts with large quantities of shelflist tablets.

43 B.C.
First attested use of an ISBN (for the special collector's edition of Caesar's Gallic Wars with an introduction by Marc Anthony): IXIVVIIXVIIIVIIIVIVII.

81 A.D.
Second gospel of the Christian New Testament becomes the first document written in MARK format.

427 A.D.
The Library at Alexandria decides to contract out its annual weeding project; Vandal hordes are the lowest bidder.

June 21, 762 A.D.
Death of St. Minutia, patron saint of catalogers. The birth date of St. Minutia is unknown. The only reliable chronicle has an unlucky lacuna: "Sa. Minutia in [.......an]no domini nata est", where only the last two missing letters can be supplied with any certainty. Vitae of the saint written later naively abbreviate the "...no domini" as 'n.d.', and this is the form traditionally cited for her birth. Minutia is said to have been born in the former Roman province of Nova Panonia (part of the present day Czech Republic), in the village of Sineloco (modern day Odnikud). Her time and place of birth, therefore, are usually given as "s.l., n.p., n.d."

Happily, a generous amount of hagiographical material on St. Minutia has survived, perhaps the most popular of which is a collection of her homilies and sayings, including the motto most closely associated with her: "Non pilus tam tenuis ut secari non possit."* She appears to have had some interest in ecclesiastical architecture; one early vita has references to a church which was built using plans drawn up by Minutia herself. The actual building has not survived, but there is a fragment from a contemporary description: "On either side of the main entry, St. Minutia caused innumerable added entries to be placed, such that people marvelled at the great multitude of doors, and rebuked the Saint for the labor wasted in putting them there. 'No labor has been wasted', she answered them patiently, 'for by these means no one will be barred from my church through a lack of access.'" Another account explains that her plans were an improvement on earlier designs which had called for a single entry at the east end, near the tabernacle; the inconvenience of relying on this so-called corporate entry was immediately recognized and rectified by the saint.

She was, not surprisingly, an influential member of her convent. There are a number of references to her reorganization of its agricultural property: she is said to have divided the land into holdings devoted to permanent crops (fixed fields) and holdings given over to crop rotation (variable fields). The variable fields were further divided into smaller parcels (subfields) assigned individually to peasants attached to the convent. Minutia is also renowned for her role as a mediator between the warring factions so prevalent in those chaotic times. She was continually optimistic in even the most threatening circumstances and was careful never to anticipate a conflict, although she quickly resolved them when they arose.
*translation: There is no hair too fine to be split.

 [Contributors to the St. Minutia entry include D. Boice (Divine Word College) and J. Mirejovsky (UCI).]

1066 A.D.
William the Conqueror defeats his cousin Harold at the Battle of Hastings and imposes the Anglo-Norman Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed. (ANCR2) on his new subjects. Ten years later he commissions the first systematic catalog of selected realia (the Domesday Boke).

1757
Lakota Indians begin recording information on the insides of their portable dwellings; this is the first known use of the teepee verso.

1778
A small group of Irish-American colonists from County Corc form the Dublin Corps to assist in the struggle for independence. By limiting themselves to only the most essential supplies, members of the Corps could be prepared and mounted more quickly than other militias.

August 5, 1782
Birthdate of the Werke brothers, Gesammelte ("Gus"), Sämtliche ("Sam"), and Ausgewählte ("Wally"). In addition to being prolific authors, the brothers were devoted to their military music, and appeared in countless Bands, always in uniform.

Gus	Sam	Wally

1870s
Widespread use of highly acidic paper for book production begins, thus introducing the first disintegrating resource.
 

1883-4
Cattlemen at the Bar and Drum Ranch, outside Lone Stack, South Dakota, develop the 'barcode' brand as a way to keep track of individual animals in the herd.

1916
Jean Arp, Marcel DuChamp and others mount an assault on the traditional definition of art. Catalogers attempting to describe their work respond with the invention of metadada.

 Compiled by W. Lewis; edited by M.Urrizola
Both of the Catalog Department., UCI Libraries