Part 3 (1/2)

Another advantage of this plan is that a practically new library catalogue may be made up from old printed catalogues. Some five-and-twenty years ago, the Athenaeum Club possessed a worn-out catalogue of its library. Supplements were printed, and I laid down in one alphabet a catalogue of the whole, which has lasted to the present time, although I believe it is pretty well worn out now. There were certain difficulties to be overcome, for the catalogue and its supplements were not made on the same system.

Card catalogues have been strongly advocated by some, and they present many advantages if used while the catalogue is growing in completeness; but for use when the catalogue is completed they cannot compete in convenience with the plan just described. It takes much longer to look through a series of cards representing the works of a given author than it does to run the eye down a page of t.i.tles.[19]

Professor Otis Robinson, in his article on ”College Library Administration” (_United States Report on Public Libraries_, p. 512), writes thus on the adoption of card catalogues in the United States:--

”In some of the largest libraries of the country the card system has been exclusively adopted. Several of them have no intention of printing any more catalogues in book form. In others cards are adopted for current accessions, with the expectation of printing supplements from them from time to time. I think the tendency of the smaller libraries is to adopt the former plan, keeping a ma.n.u.script card catalogue of books as they are added, without a thought of printing.”

This system of cataloguing has not taken hold of the English mind, although it has been adopted at the Bodleian Library by Mr. Nicholson, and at the Guildhall Library. The growth of this fas.h.i.+on appears to me as something almost incomprehensible, and one can only ask why such a primitive mode of arrangement should be preferred to a book catalogue. I can scarcely imagine anything more maddening than a frequent reference to cards in a drawer; and my objection is not theoretical, but formed on a long course of fingering slips or cards. If the arrangement of the catalogue is constantly being altered, it may be convenient to have cards; but when a proper system has been settled at the beginning, this cannot be necessary. When additions only have to be considered, these can be inserted into the book catalogue, so that the catalogue may last for many years. The use of a duplicate set of t.i.tles on cards for use in arrangement, which can be arranged and rearranged as often as required, is quite another matter. This plan is adopted at the Bodleian.

Varieties of type help the eye to choose out what it requires, and there is much saving of time in consulting a good printed catalogue instead of a good ma.n.u.script one. This is not a matter of opinion merely, but can be proved at once by consulting the printed volumes of the British Museum Catalogue against the volumes still in ma.n.u.script.

Before the details of printing are finally settled it is well to pay particular attention to the typographical arrangement, as a catalogue will be all the more useful as it is well set out.

A very ingenious scheme for the stereotyping of catalogue t.i.tles was published by Mr. C. C. Jewett, Librarian of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, in 1850.[20]

The mode of carrying out the plan is explained as follows:--

”1. The Smithsonian Inst.i.tution to publish rules for the preparation of catalogues.

”2. To request other inst.i.tutions intending to publish catalogues of their books to prepare them according to these rules, with a view to their being stereotyped under the direction of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution.

”3. The Smithsonian Inst.i.tution to pay the whole _extra_ expense of stereotyping, or such part thereof as may be agreed on.

”4. The stereotyped t.i.tles to remain the property of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution.

”5. Every library uniting in this plan to have the right of using all the t.i.tles in the possession of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, as often as desired for the printing of its own catalogue by the Inst.i.tution; paying only the expense of making up the pages, of the press work, and of distributing the t.i.tles to their proper places.

”6. The Smithsonian Inst.i.tution to publish as soon as possible, and at stated intervals, general catalogues of all libraries coming into this system.”

It is not necessary here to explain how the stereotyped slips were to be manufactured, as the explanation will be found in the original paper.

A scheme of an allied character was propounded by the late Mr. Henry Stevens, who read a very interesting and amusing paper before the Conference of Librarians in 1877 on ”Photo-Bibliography; or, A Central Bibliographical Clearing House” (_Transactions_, pp. 70-81). Mr. Stevens wrote:--

”My notion is that every book, big and little, that is published, like every child, big and little, that is born, should be registered, without inquiry into its merits or character.... I ask the attention of this Conference of Librarians to a word on the necessity of cataloguing every book printed; the importance of printed card catalogues of old, rare, beautiful, and costly books, and how to make them on a co-operative or universal system, which, for lack of a better term, I shall for the present call 'photo-bibliography.' For carrying out this project a Central Bibliographical Bureau or Clearing House for Librarians is suggested.”

The author goes on to say:--

”From the days of Hipparchus to the present time, the stars have been catalogued; and to-day every bird, beast, fish, sh.e.l.l, insect, and living thing, yea every tree, shrub, flower, rock, and gem, as they become known are scientifically, systematically, and intelligently named, described, and catalogued. In all these departments of human knowledge there is a well-ascertained and generally acknowledged system, which is dignified as a science.”

But no such system of registering books has ever been attempted. The cure for this negligence is then suggested:--

”This isolation and waste of vain repet.i.tion, it is believed, is wholly unnecessary. There is no royal road, it has been said, to knowledge. He who would attain the goal must learn to labour and to wait, for knowledge is locked up mainly in books, appropriately termed works. There is, however, a short cut with a pa.s.s-key in universal or co-operative bibliography, a simple system of arrangement by which may be economized the labours of hundreds who are cataloguing over and over the same books.”

Mr. Stevens's special contribution to this great object was the use of reduced photographs of the t.i.tle-pages of rare and curious books. The adoption of this plan would help on vastly the study of bibliography.

The strong feeling as to the waste of time occupied in the constant repet.i.tion going on in cataloguing the same book in different libraries crops up again and again, and surely we shall in the end be able to elaborate some scheme which will meet such a universally felt want.

Professor Robinson was one of the earliest to protest against this waste, and his attention was called to it when inspecting various card catalogues. He found similar cards being repeatedly reproduced, and he suggested that by some system of cooperation this waste of labour might be reduced (_United States Report on Public Libraries_, pp. 512-14).