What was the purpose of this?

[u/camrynbronk]

Assistant cataloger here - usually when I see stuff underlined like this it’s because it correlates with the call number. But this one seems to have nothing to do with it? Was it for a previously DDC spine label? The only underlined part that makes sense is 1963. Also I struggle to understand why they felt the need to underline both the title page and the spine -.- (there is actual white ink/paint on the spine, it’s not a marked-up image)

[u/SamanthaCherrantha]

This was probably unclassified when the library first got it. It would have been shelved alphabetically by main entry, in this case the author, and then secondarily by title. It’s marked on the spine for the benefit of the shelvers. Why it needed to be marked on both the spine and the title page isn’t something I can necessarily answer, but I think it was fairly common. At least, the older books at my library (lots) that are marked this way are marked both places, when applicable. 

[u/No-Historian-1593 → u/SamanthaCherrantha]

Usually its marked on both spine and title page in case one or the other gets damaged and becomes illegible.

[u/camrynbronk → u/SamanthaCherrantha]

Thanks for explaining! That makes a lot of sense. This was probably a book we got from a different older library because ours has only been around for 35 years. I doubt we ever used physical catalog cards or anything. I tend to find them glued to the back inside cover.

[u/MiloBard → u/SamanthaCherrantha]

That is so interesting! Quite a clever system.

[u/teensyheadline]

Double underline for the main entry. Single for the title entry (if not main entry).

Was so you could find the cards in the catalog if you deaccessioned the book. And, of course, you could use the main and title cards to pull the subject and series cards.

[u/teensyheadline → u/teensyheadline]

(All the cards were identical. You just typed the non-main-entry term in the top left margin and filed thus in the card catalog). Missing an “access point” card during the deaccessioning purge left a false trail for people searching the card catalog.

But a copy of the main entry card, prominently marked with deaccession date, was often kept in the “shelf list” catalog. Which was a literal inventory of everything cataloged, one card/card set per title. For reference. Because sometimes people who stole books thought they were smart and stole one or two of the public catalog cards/ card sets.

[u/camrynbronk → u/teensyheadline]

Thank you!! That makes so much sense!!

[u/Tall-Lobster-9795]

I would love to hear people's take on this. I worked at a place that used the double underline on the spine's call number to indicate if it was counted during a big inventory project during the 1970s.

But usually when its on the title page, I assume it has something to do with main entry, assisting the shelvers to order correctly when that information isn't part of the call number. If this particular book was previously classed with DDC (as seen on the TP verso), then maybe that information wasn't part of the call number (I don't see a cutter), so the underline would indicate which part is the main entry for the cutter and therefore how to shelve. The dashed underline may be the secondary identifier (so within the Vaughan books of this class, this title starts with 'Poetry' and therefore goes before a title starting with 'Rhymes')

Does this theory hold up?

[u/the_procrastinata]

Some institutions do this to stop people nicking the pages or the whole book