Part 6 (1/2)
4th. All books wholly without t.i.tles on the back, of which many are published--the t.i.tle being frequently given on the side only, or in the interior alone.
5th. All periodicals having the volume on the back, without the year, to have the year lettered; and periodicals having the year, but not the volume, are to have the number of the volume added.
If these things, all essential to good management and prompt library service, are not done before the books go to their shelves, the chances are that they will not be done at all.
The second requisite to be attended to is to examine whether any of the volumes catalogued require to be bound or re-bound. In any lot of books of considerable extent, there will always be some (especially if from auction sales) dilapidated and shaken, so as to unfit them for use. There will be others so soiled in the bindings or the edges as to be positively shabby, and they should be re-bound to render them presentable.
The third point demanding attention is to see what volumes need repair.
It very often happens that books otherwise pretty well bound have torn corners, or rubbed or shop-worn backs, or shabby marbled paper frayed at the sides, or some other defect, which may be cured by mending or furbis.h.i.+ng up, without re-binding. This a skilful binder is always competent to take in charge; and as in the other cases, it should have attention immediately upon the acquisition of the books.
All books coming into a library which contain autographs, book-plates of former owners, coats of arms, presentation inscriptions from the author, monograms, or other distinguis.h.i.+ng features, should preserve them as of interest to the present or the future.
And all printed paper covers should be carefully preserved by binding them inside the new cover which the book receives, thus preserving authentic evidence of the form in which the book was first issued to the public, and often its original price. In like manner, when a cloth-bound book comes to re-binding, its side and back covers may be bound in at the end of the book, as showing the style in which it was originally issued, frequently displaying much artistic beauty.
Whoever receives back any books which have been out in circulation, whether it be the librarian or a.s.sistant, must examine each volume, to see if it is in apparent good order. If it is found (as frequently happens) that it is shaky and loose, or if leaves are ready to drop out, or if the cover is nearly off, it should never be allowed to go back to the shelves, but laid aside for re-binding or repair with the next lot sent to the binder. Only prompt vigilance on this point, combined with the requirement of speedy return by the binder, will save the loss or injury beyond repair of many books. It will also save the patrons of the library from the frequent inconvenience of having to do without books, which should be on the shelves for their use. How frequent this sending of books to repair should be, cannot be settled by any arbitrary rule; but it would be wise, in the interest of all, to do it as often as two or three dozen damaged books are acc.u.mulated.
If you find other injury to a book returned, than the natural wear and tear that the library must a.s.sume, if a book, for example, is blotched with ink, or soiled with grease, or has been so far wet as to be badly stained in the leaves, or if it is found torn in any part on a hasty inspection, or if a plate or a map is missing, or the binding is violently broken (as sometimes happens) then the damage should be borne by the reader, and not by the library. This will sometimes require the purchase of a fresh copy of the book, which no fair-minded reader can object to pay, who is favored with the privileges of free enjoyment of the treasures of a public library. Indeed, it will be found in the majority of cases that honest readers themselves call attention to such injuries as books have accidentally received while in their possession, with voluntary offer to make good the damage.
All unbound or paper covered volumes should be reserved from the shelves, and not supplied to readers until bound. This rule may be relaxed (as there is almost no rule without some valid exception) in the case of a popular new book, issued only in paper covers, if it is desired to give an opportunity of early perusal to readers frequenting the library. But such books should not be permitted to circulate, as they would soon be worn to pieces by handling. Only books dressed in a substantial covering are fit to be loaned out of any library. In preparing for the bindery any new books, or old ones to be re-bound or repaired, lists should be made of any convenient number set apart for the purpose, prompt return should be required, and all should be checked off on the list when returned.
No shelf in a well-regulated library should be unprovided with book-supports, in order to prevent the volumes from sagging and straining by falling against one another, in a long row of books. Numerous different devices are in the market for this purpose, from the solid brick to the light sheet-iron support; but it is important to protect the end of every row from strain on the bindings, and the cost of book supports is indefinitely less than that of the re-binding entailed by neglecting to use them.
Some libraries of circulation make it a rule to cover all their books with paper or thin muslin covers, before they are placed on the shelves for use. This method has its advantages and its drawbacks. It doubtless protects the bindings from soiling, and where books circulate widely and long, no one who has seen how foul with dirt they become, can doubt the expediency of at least trying the experiment of clean covers. They should be of the firmest thin but tough Manila paper, and it is claimed that twenty renewals of clean paper covers actually cost less than one re-binding. On the other hand, it is not to be denied that books thus covered look shabby, monotonous, and uninteresting. In the library used for reference and reading only, without circulation, covers are quite out of place.
Book-plates having been briefly referred to above, a few words as to their styles and uses may here be pertinent. The name ”book-plate” is a clumsy and misleading t.i.tle, suggesting to the uninitiated the ill.u.s.trations or plates which embellish the text of a book. The name _Ex libris_, two latin words used for book-plate in all European languages, is clearer, but still not exact, as a definition of the thing, signifying simply ”out of books.” A book-plate is the owner's or the library's distinctive mark of owners.h.i.+p, pasted upon the inside cover, whether it be a simple name-label, or an elaborately engraved heraldic or pictorial device. The earliest known book-plates date back to the fifteenth century, and are of German origin, though English plates are known as early as 1700. In France, specimens appear for the first time between 1600 and 1650.
Foreign book-plates are, as a rule, heraldic in design, as are also the early American plates, representing the coat of arms or family crest of the owner of the books, with a motto of some kind. The fas.h.i.+on of collecting these owners' marks, as such, irrespective of the books containing them, is a recent and very possibly a pa.s.sing mania. Still, there is something of interest in early American plates, and in those used by distinguished men, aside from the collector's fad. Some of the first American engravers showed their skill in these designs, and a signed and dated plate engraved by Nathaniel Hurd, for example, of Boston, is of some historic value as an example of early American art. He engraved many plates about the middle of the last century, and died in 1777. Paul Revere, who was an engraver, designed and executed some few plates, which are rare, and highly prized, more for his name than for his skill, for, as generally known, he was a noted patriot of the Revolutionary period, belonging by his acts to the heroic age of American history.
A book of George Was.h.i.+ngton's containing his book-plate has an added interest, though the plate itself is an armorial design, not at all well executed. Its motto is ”_exitus acta probat_”--the event justifies the deed. From its rarity and the high price it commands, it has probably been the only American book-plate ever counterfeited. At an auction sale of books in Was.h.i.+ngton in 1863, this counterfeit plate had been placed in many books to give a fict.i.tious value, but the fraud was discovered and announced by the present writer, just before the books were sold. Yet the sale was attended by many attracted to bid upon books said to have been owned by Was.h.i.+ngton, and among them the late Dr. W. F. Poole, then librarian of the Boston Athenaeum, which possesses most of the library authentically known to have been at Mount Vernon.
John Adams and John Quincy Adams used book-plates, and James Monroe and John Tyler each had a plain name-label. These are all of our presidents known to have used them, except General Garfield, who had a printed book-plate of simple design, with the motto ”_inter folia fructus_.”
Eleven of the signers of the Declaration of Independence are known to have had these signs of gentle birth--for in the early years of the American Colonies, it was only the families of aristocratic connection and scholarly tastes who indulged in what may be termed a superfluous luxury.
The plates used among the Southern settlers were generally ordered from England, and not at all American. The Northern plates were more frequently of native design and execution, and therefore of much greater value and interest, though far inferior in style of workmans.h.i.+p and elaboration of ornament to the best European ones.
The ordinary library label is also a book-plate, and some of the early libraries and small collections have elaborate designs. The early Harvard College library plate was a large and fine piece of engraving by Hurd.
The Harvard Library had some few of this fine engraved label printed in red ink, and placed in the rarer books of the library--as a reminder that the works containing the rubricated book-plates were not to be drawn out by students.
The learned bibliophile and librarian of Florence, Magliabecchi, who died in 1714, devised for his library of thirty thousand volumes, which he bequeathed to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, a book-plate representing his own profile on a medal surrounded with books and oak boughs, with the inscription--”Antonius Magliabecchius Florentinus.”
Some book-plates embody designs of great beauty. The late George Bancroft's, engraved on copper, represented a winged cherub (from Raphael) gazing sun-ward, holding a tablet with the inscription ”_Eis phaos_,” toward the light.
Some French book-plates aim at humor or caricature. One familiar example represents an old book-worm mounted on a tall ladder in a library, profoundly absorbed in reading, and utterly unconscious that the room beneath him is on fire.
To those who ask of what possible utility it can be to cultivate so unfruitful a pursuit as the devising or the collecting of book-plates, it may be pertinent to state the claim made in behalf of the amateurs of this art, by a connoisseur, namely, ”Book-plates foster the study of art, history, genealogy, and human character.” On this theory, we may add, the coat of arms or family crest teaches heraldry; the mottoes or inscriptions chosen cultivate the taste for language and sententious literature; the engraving appeals to the sense of the artistic; the names of early or ancient families who are often thus commemorated teach biography, history, or genealogy; while the great variety of sentiments selected for the plates ill.u.s.trate the character and taste of those selecting them.
On the other hand, it must be said that the coat of arms fails to indicate individual taste or genius, and might better be supplanted by original and characteristic designs, especially such as relate to books, libraries, and learning.
CHAPTER 5.