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+Project Gutenberg's A Book for All Readers, by Ainsworth Rand Spofford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Book for All Readers
+       An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books
+       and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries
+
+Author: Ainsworth Rand Spofford
+
+Release Date: September 15, 2007 [EBook #22608]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK FOR ALL READERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Ciesielski and the booksmiths at
+http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+A BOOK FOR ALL READERS
+
+DESIGNED AS AN AID TO THE
+
+COLLECTION, USE, AND PRESERVATION
+
+OF BOOKS
+
+AND THE
+
+FORMATION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES
+
+
+BY
+
+AINSWORTH RAND SPOFFORD
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+NEW YORK & LONDON
+1900
+
+
+COPYRIGHT 1900
+
+BY
+
+A R SPOFFORD
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+Chapter                                               Page
+ 1. THE CHOICE OF BOOKS,                                 3
+ 2. BOOK BUYING,                                        33
+ 3. THE ART OF BOOK BINDING,                            50
+ 4. PREPARATION FOR THE SHELVES: BOOK PLATES, &C.,      88
+ 5. THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS,                              101
+ 6. RESTORATION AND RECLAMATION OF BOOKS,              119
+ 7. PAMPHLET LITERATURE,                               145
+ 8. PERIODICAL LITERATURE,                             157
+ 9. THE ART OF READING,                                171
+10. AIDS TO READERS,                                   190
+11. ACCESS TO LIBRARY SHELVES,                         215
+12. THE FACULTY OF MEMORY,                             226
+13. QUALIFICATIONS OF LIBRARIANS,                      242
+14. SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES,                     275
+15. THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES,                          287
+16. LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND FURNISHINGS,                 321
+17. LIBRARY MANAGERS OR TRUSTEES,                      333
+18. LIBRARY REGULATIONS,                               341
+19. LIBRARY REPORTS AND ADVERTISING,                   349
+20. THE FORMATION OF LIBRARIES,                        357
+21. CLASSIFICATION,                                    362
+22. CATALOGUES,                                        373
+23. COPYRIGHT AND LIBRARIES,                           400
+24. POETRY OF THE LIBRARY,                             417
+25. HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY,                             430
+26. RARE BOOKS,                                        444
+27. BIBLIOGRAPHY,                                      459
+    INDEX,                                             501
+
+
+
+
+A BOOK FOR ALL READERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1.
+
+THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.
+
+
+When we survey the really illimitable field of human knowledge, the vast
+accumulation of works already printed, and the ever-increasing flood of
+new books poured out by the modern press, the first feeling which is apt
+to arise in the mind is one of dismay, if not of despair. We ask--who is
+sufficient for these things? What life is long enough--what intellect
+strong enough, to master even a tithe of the learning which all these
+books contain? But the reflection comes to our aid that, after all, the
+really important books bear but a small proportion to the mass. Most
+books are but repetitions, in a different form, of what has already been
+many times written and printed. The rarest of literary qualities is
+originality. Most writers are mere echoes, and the greater part of
+literature is the pouring out of one bottle into another. If you can get
+hold of the few really best books, you can well afford to be ignorant of
+all the rest. The reader who has mastered Kames's "Elements of
+Criticism," need not spend his time over the multitudinous treatises upon
+rhetoric. He who has read Plutarch's Lives thoroughly has before him a
+gallery of heroes which will go farther to instruct him in the elements
+of character than a whole library of modern biographies. The student of
+the best plays of Shakespeare may save his time by letting other and
+inferior dramatists alone. He whose imagination has been fed upon Homer,
+Dante, Milton, Burns, and Tennyson, with a few of the world's
+master-pieces in single poems like Gray's Elegy, may dispense with the
+whole race of poetasters. Until you have read the best fictions of
+Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne, George Eliot, and Victor Hugo, you
+should not be hungry after the last new novel,--sure to be forgotten in a
+year, while the former are perennial. The taste which is once formed upon
+models such as have been named, will not be satisfied with the trashy
+book, or the spasmodic school of writing.
+
+What kind of books should form the predominant part in the selection of
+our reading, is a question admitting of widely differing opinions. Rigid
+utilitarians may hold that only books of fact, of history and science,
+works crammed full of knowledge, should be encouraged. Others will plead
+in behalf of lighter reading, or for a universal range. It must be
+admitted that the most attractive reading to the mass of people is not
+scientific or philosophical. But there are many very attractive books
+outside the field of science, and outside the realm of fiction, books
+capable of yielding pleasure as well as instruction. There are few books
+that render a more substantial benefit to readers of any age than good
+biographies. In them we find those personal experiences and adventures,
+those traits of character, that environment of social and domestic life,
+which form the chief interest in works of fiction. In fact, the novel, in
+its best estate, is only biography amplified by imagination, and
+enlivened by dialogue. And the novel is successful only when it succeeds
+in depicting the most truly the scenes, circumstances, and characters of
+real life. A well written biography, like that of Dr. Johnson, by
+Boswell, Walter Scott, by Lockhart, or Charles Dickens, by Forster, gives
+the reader an insight into the history of the times they lived in, the
+social, political, and literary environment, and the impress of their
+famous writings upon their contemporaries. In the autobiography of Dr.
+Franklin, one of the most charming narratives ever written, we are taken
+into the writer's confidence, sympathize with his early struggles,
+mistakes, and successes, and learn how he made himself, from a poor boy
+selling ballads on Boston streets, into a leader among men, whom two
+worlds have delighted to honor. Another most interesting book of
+biography is that of the brothers William and Robert Chambers, the famous
+publishers of Edinburgh, who did more to diffuse useful knowledge, and to
+educate the people, by their manifold cheap issues of improving and
+entertaining literature, than was ever done by the British Useful
+Knowledge Society itself.
+
+The French nation has, of all others, the greatest genius for personal
+memoirs, and the past two centuries are brought far more vividly before
+us in these free-spoken and often amusing chronicles, than in all the
+formal histories. Among the most readable of these (comparatively few
+having been translated into English) are the Memoirs of Marmontel,
+Rousseau, Madame Rémusat, Amiel, and Madame De Staël. The recently
+published memoirs by Imbert de St. Amand, of court life in France in the
+times of Marie Antoinette, Josephine, Marie Louise, and other periods,
+while hastily written and not always accurate, are lively and
+entertaining.
+
+The English people fall far behind the French in biographic skill, and
+many of their memoirs are as heavy and dull as the persons whom they
+commemorate. But there are bright exceptions, in the lives of literary
+men and women, and in some of those of noted public men in church and
+state. Thus, there are few books more enjoyable than Sydney Smith's
+Memoirs and Letters, or Greville's Journals covering the period including
+George IV to Victoria, or the Life and Letters of Macaulay, or Mrs.
+Gaskell's Charlotte Brontë, or the memoirs of Harriet Martineau, or
+Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson. Among the briefer biographies worthy of
+special mention are the series of English Men of Letters, edited by John
+Morley, and written by some of the best of contemporary British writers.
+They embrace memoirs of Chaucer, Spenser, Bacon, Sidney, Milton, De Foe,
+Swift, Sterne, Fielding, Locke, Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Gray, Addison,
+Goldsmith, Burke, Hume, Gibbon, Bunyan, Bentley, Sheridan, Burns, Cowper,
+Southey, Scott, Byron, Lamb, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, De
+Quincey, Macaulay, Landor, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Carlyle.
+These biographies, being quite compendious, and in the main very well
+written, afford to busy readers a short-hand method of acquainting
+themselves with most of the notable writers of Britain, their personal
+characteristics, their relation to their contemporaries, and the quality
+and influence of their works. Americans have not as yet illustrated the
+field of biographic literature by many notably skilful examples. We are
+especially deficient in good autobiographies, so that Dr. Franklin's
+stands almost alone in singular merit in that class. We have an abundance
+of lives of notable generals, professional men, and politicians, in which
+indiscriminate eulogy and partisanship too often usurp the place of
+actual facts, and the truth of history is distorted to glorify the merits
+of the subject of the biography. The great success of General Grant's own
+Memoirs, too, has led publishers to tempt many public men in military or
+civil life, into the field of personal memoirs, not as yet with
+distinguished success.
+
+It were to be wished that more writers possessed of some literary skill,
+who have borne a part in the wonderful drama involving men and events
+enacted in this country during the century now drawing to a close, had
+given us their sincere personal impressions in autobiographic form. Such
+narratives, in proportion as they are truthful, are far more trustworthy
+than history written long after the event by authors who were neither
+observers nor participants in the scenes which they describe.
+
+Among American biographies which will help the reader to gain a tolerably
+wide acquaintance with the men and affairs of the past century in this
+country, are the series of Lives of American Statesmen, of which thirty
+volumes have been published. These include Washington, the Adamses,
+Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Henry,
+Gallatin, Morris, Randolph, Jackson, Van Buren, Webster, Clay, Calhoun,
+Cass, Benton, Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Stevens, and Sumner. While these
+Memoirs are of very unequal merit, they are sufficiently instructive to
+be valuable to all students of our national history.
+
+Another very useful series is that of American Men of Letters, edited by
+Charles Dudley Warner, in fifteen volumes, which already includes
+Franklin, Bryant, Cooper, Irving, Noah Webster, Simms, Poe, Emerson,
+Ripley, Margaret Fuller, Willis, Thoreau, Taylor, and Curtis.
+
+In the department of history, the best books for learners are not always
+the most famous. Any mere synopsis of universal history is necessarily
+dry reading, but for a constant help in reference, guiding one to the
+best original sources, under each country, and with very readable
+extracts from the best writers treating on each period, the late work of
+J. N. Larned, "History for Ready Reference," five volumes, will be found
+invaluable. Brewer's Historic Note Book, in a single volume, answers many
+historic queries in a single glance at the alphabet. For the History of
+the United States, either John Fiske's or Eggleston's is an excellent
+compend, while for the fullest treatment, Bancroft's covers the period
+from the discovery of America up to the adoption of the constitution in
+1789, in a style at once full, classical, and picturesque. For
+continuations, McMaster's History of the People of the United States
+covers the period from 1789 to 1824, and is being continued. James
+Schouler has written a History of the United States from 1789 to 1861, in
+five volumes, while J. F. Rhodes ably covers the years 1850 to the Civil
+War with a much more copious narrative.
+
+For the annals of England, the Short History of England by J. R. Green is
+a most excellent compend. For more elaborate works, the histories of Hume
+and Macaulay bring the story of the British Empire down to about 1700.
+For the more modern period, Lecky's History of England in the 18th
+century is excellent, and for the present century, McCarthy's History of
+Our Own Time, and Miss Martineau's History of England, 1815-52, are well
+written works. French history is briefly treated in the Student's History
+of France, while Guizot's complete History, in eight volumes, gives a
+much fuller account, from the beginnings of France in the Roman period,
+to the year 1848. Carlyle's French Revolution is a splendid picture of
+that wonderful epoch, and Sloane's History of Napoleon gives very full
+details of the later period.
+
+For the history of Germany, Austria, Russia, France, Spain, Italy,
+Holland, and other countries, the various works in the "Story of the
+Nations" series, are excellent brief histories.
+
+Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic and his United Netherlands are highly
+important and well written historical works.
+
+The annals of the ancient world are elaborately and ably set forth in
+Grote's History of Greece, Merivale's Rome, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall
+of the Roman Empire.
+
+Another class of books closely allied to biography and history, is the
+correspondence of public men, and men of letters, with friends and
+contemporaries. These familiar letters frequently give us views of
+social, public, and professional life which are of absorbing interest.
+Among the best letters of this class may be reckoned the correspondence
+of Horace Walpole, Madame de Sévigné, the poets Gray and Cowper, Lord
+Macaulay, Lord Byron, and Charles Dickens. Written for the most part with
+unstudied ease and unreserve, they entertain the reader with constant
+variety of incident and character, while at the same time they throw
+innumerable side-lights upon the society and the history of the time.
+
+Next, we may come to the master-pieces of the essay-writers. You will
+often find that the best treatise on any subject is the briefest, because
+the writer is put upon condensation and pointed statement, by the very
+form and limitations of the essay, or the review or magazine article.
+Book-writers are apt to be diffuse and episodical, having so extensive a
+canvas to cover with their literary designs. Among the finest of the
+essayists are Montaigne, Lord Bacon, Addison, Goldsmith, Macaulay, Sir
+James Stephen, Cardinal Newman, De Quincey, Charles Lamb, Washington
+Irving, Emerson, Froude, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. You may spend
+many a delightful hour in the perusal of any one of these authors.
+
+We come now to poetry, which some people consider very unsubstantial
+pabulum, but which forms one of the most precious and inspiring portions
+of the literature of the world. In all ages, the true poet has exercised
+an influence upon men's minds that is unsurpassed by that of any other
+class of writers. And the reason is not far to seek. Poetry deals with
+the highest thoughts, in the most expressive language. It gives utterance
+to all the sentiments and passions of humanity in rhythmic and harmonious
+verse. The poet's lines are remembered long after the finest compositions
+of the writers of prose are forgotten. They fasten themselves in the
+memory by the very flow and cadence of the verse, and they minister to
+that sense of melody that dwells in every human brain. What the world
+owes to its great poets can never be fully measured. But some faint idea
+of it may be gained from the wondrous stimulus given through them to the
+imaginative power, and from the fact that those sentiments of human
+sympathy, justice, virtue, and freedom, which inspire the best poetry of
+all nations, become sooner or later incarnated in their institutions.
+This is the real significance of the oft-quoted saying of Andrew
+Fletcher, that stout Scotch republican of two centuries ago, that if one
+were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who
+should make the laws.
+
+In the best poetry, the felicity of its expressions of thought, joined
+with their rhythmical form, makes it easy for the reader to lay up almost
+unconsciously a store in the memory of the noblest poetic sentiments, to
+comfort or to divert him in many a weary or troubled hour. Hence time is
+well spent in reading over and over again the great poems of the world.
+Far better and wiser is this, than to waste it upon the newest trash that
+captivates the popular fancy, for the last will only tickle the
+intellectual palate for an hour, or a day, and be then forgotten, while
+the former will make one better and wiser for all time.
+
+Nor need one seek to read the works of very many writers in order to fill
+his mind with images of truth and beauty which will dwell with him
+forever. The really great poets in the English tongue may be counted upon
+the fingers. Shakespeare fitly heads the list--a world's classic,
+unsurpassed for reach of imagination, variety of scenes and characters,
+profound insight, ideal power, lofty eloquence, moral purpose, the most
+moving pathos, alternating with the finest humor, and diction unequalled
+for strength and beauty of expression. Milton, too, in his minor poems,
+has given us some of the noblest verse in the language. There is poetry
+enough in his L'Allegro and Il Penseroso to furnish forth a whole galaxy
+of poets.
+
+Spenser and Pope, Gray and Campbell, Goldsmith and Burns, Wordsworth and
+the Brownings, Tennyson and Longfellow,--these are among the other
+foremost names in the catalogue of poets which none can afford to
+neglect. Add to these the best translations of Homer, Virgil, Horace,
+Dante, and Goethe, and one need not want for intellectual company and
+solace in youth or age.
+
+Among the books which combine entertainment with information, the best
+narratives of travellers and voyagers hold an eminent place. In them the
+reader enlarges the bounds of his horizon, and travels in companionship
+with his author all over the globe. While many, if not the most, of the
+books of modern travellers are filled with petty incidents and personal
+observations of no importance, there are some wonderfully good books of
+this attractive class. Such are Kinglake's "Eothen, or traces of travel
+in the East," Helen Hunt Jackson's "Bits of Travel," a volume of keen and
+amusing sketches of German and French experiences, the books of De Amicus
+on Holland, Constantinople, and Paris, those on England by Emerson,
+Hawthorne, William Winter, and Richard Grant White, Curtis's Nile Notes,
+Howell's "Venetian Life," and Taine's "Italy, Rome and Naples."
+
+The wide domain of science can be but cursorily touched upon. Many
+readers get so thorough a distaste for science in early life--mainly from
+the fearfully and wonderfully dry text-books in which our schools and
+colleges have abounded--that they never open a scientific book in later
+years. This is a profound mistake, since no one can afford to remain
+ignorant of the world in which we live, with its myriad wonders, its
+inexhaustible beauties, and its unsolved problems. And there are now
+works produced in every department of scientific research which give in a
+popular and often in a fascinating style, the revelations of nature which
+have come through the study and investigation of man. Such books are "The
+Stars and the Earth," Kingsley's "Glaucus, or Wonders of the Shore,"
+Clodd's "Story of Creation," (a clear account of the evolution theory)
+Figuier's "Vegetable World," and Professor Langley's "New Astronomy."
+There are wise specialists whose published labors have illuminated for
+the uninformed reader every nook and province of the mysteries of
+creation, from the wing of a beetle to the orbits of the planetary
+worlds. There are few pursuits more fascinating than those that bring us
+acquainted with the secrets of nature, whether dragged up from the depths
+of the sea, or demonstrated in the substance and garniture of the green
+earth, or wrung from the far-off worlds in the shining heavens.
+
+A word only can be spared to the wide and attractive realm of fiction. In
+this field, those are the best books which have longest kept their hold
+upon the public mind. It is a wise plan to neglect the novels of the
+year, and to read (or to re-read in many cases) the master-pieces which
+have stood the test of time, and criticism, and changing fashions, by the
+sure verdict of a call for continually new editions. Ouida and Trilby may
+endure for a day, but Thackeray and Walter Scott are perennial. It is
+better to read a fine old book through three times, than to read three
+new books through once.
+
+Of books more especially devoted to the history of literature, in times
+ancient and modern, and in various nations, the name is legion. I count
+up, of histories of English literature alone (leaving out the American)
+no less than one hundred and thirty authors on this great field or some
+portion of it. To know what ones of these to study, and what to leave
+alone, would require critical judgment and time not at my command. I can
+only suggest a few known by me to be good. For a succinct yet most
+skilfully written summary of English writers, there is no book that can
+compare with Stopford A. Brooke's Primer of English Literature. For more
+full and detailed treatment, Taine's History of English Literature, or
+Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature, two volumes, with specimens
+of the writers of every period, are the best. E. C. Stedman's Victorian
+Poets is admirable, as is also his Poets of America. For a bird's eye
+view of American authors and their works, C. F. Richardson's Primer of
+American Literature can be studied to advantage, while for more full
+reference to our authors, with specimens of each, Stedman's Library of
+American Literature in eleven volumes, should be consulted. M. C. Tyler's
+very interesting critical History of the Early American Literature, so
+little known, comes down in its fourth volume only to the close of the
+revolution in 1783.
+
+For classical literature, the importance of a good general knowledge of
+which can hardly be overrated, J. P. Mahaffy's History of Greek
+Literature, two volumes, and G. A. Simcox's Latin Literature, two
+volumes, may be commended. On the literature of modern languages, to
+refer only to works written in English, Saintsbury's Primer of French
+Literature is good, and R. Garnett's History of Italian Literature is
+admirable (by the former Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum
+Library). Lublin's Primer of German Literature is excellent for a
+condensed survey of the writers of Germany, while W. Scherer's History of
+German Literature, two volumes, covers a far wider field. For Spanish
+Literature in its full extent, there is no work at all equal to George
+Ticknor's three volumes, but for a briefer history, H. B. Clark's
+Hand-book of Spanish Literature, London, 1893, may be used.
+
+I make no allusion here to the many works of reference in the form of
+catalogues and bibliographical works, which may be hereafter noted. My
+aim has been only to indicate the best and latest treatises covering the
+leading literatures of the world, having no space for the Scandinavian,
+Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, or any of the Slavonic or oriental tongues.
+
+Those who find no time for studying the more extended works named, will
+find much profit in devoting their hours to the articles in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica upon the literatures of the various countries.
+These are within reach of everyone.
+
+The select list of books named in this chapter does not by any means aim
+to cover those which are well worth reading; but only to indicate a few,
+a very few, of the best. It is based on the supposition that intelligent
+readers will give far less time to fiction than to the more solid food of
+history, biography, essays, travels, literary history, and applied
+science. The select list of books in the fields already named is designed
+to include only the most improving and well-executed works. Many will not
+find their favorites in the list, which is purposely kept within narrow
+limits, as a suggestion only of a few of the best books for a home
+library or for general reading. You will find it wise to own, as early in
+life as possible, a few of the choicest productions of the great writers
+of the world. Those who can afford only a selection from a selection, can
+begin with never so few of the authors most desired, or which they have
+not already, putting in practice the advice of Shakespeare:
+
+    "In brief, sir, study what you most affect."
+
+Says John Ruskin: "I would urge upon every young man to obtain as soon
+as he can, by the severest economy, a restricted and steadily increasing
+series of books, for use through life; making his little library, of all
+his furniture, the most studied and decorative piece." And Henry Ward
+Beecher urged it as the most important early ambition for clerks, working
+men and women, and all who are struggling up in life, to form gradually a
+library of good books. "It is a man's duty," says he, "to have books. A
+library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."
+
+And says Bishop Hurst, urging the vital importance of wise selection in
+choosing our reading: "If two-thirds of the shelves of the typical
+domestic library were emptied of their burden, and choice books put in
+their stead, there would be reformation in intelligence and thought
+throughout the civilized world."
+
+
+SELECTION OF BOOKS FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES.
+
+Let us now consider the subject of books fitted for public libraries. At
+the outset, it is most important that each selection should be made on a
+well considered plan. No hap-hazard, or fitfully, or hastily made
+collection can answer the two ends constantly to be aimed at--namely,
+first, to select the best and most useful books, and, secondly, to
+economize the funds of the library. No money should be wasted upon whims
+and experiments, but every dollar should be devoted to the acquisition of
+improving books.
+
+As to the principles that should govern and the limitations to be laid
+down, these will depend much upon the scope of the library, and the
+amount of its funds. No library of the limited and moderate class
+commonly found in our public town libraries can afford to aim at the
+universal range of a national library, nor even at the broad selections
+proper to a liberally endowed city library.
+
+But its aims, while modest, should be comprehensive enough to provide a
+complete selection of what may be termed standard literature, for the
+reading public. If the funds are inadequate to do this in the beginning,
+it should be kept constantly in view, as the months and years go on.
+Every great and notable book should be in the library sooner or later,
+and if possible at its foundation. Thus will its utility and
+attractiveness both be well secured.
+
+Taking first the case of a small public library about to be started, let
+us see in a few leading outlines what it will need.
+
+1. A selection of the best works of reference should be the corner-stone
+of every library collection. In choosing these, regard must be had to
+secure the latest as well as the best. Never buy the first edition of
+Soule's Synonymes because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and
+enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated Lempriere's or
+Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some venerable library director,
+who used it in his boyhood, suggests it, when you can get Professor H. T.
+Peck's "Dictionary of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897. Never be
+tempted to buy an old edition of an encyclopaedia at half or quarter
+price, for it will be sure to lack the populations of the last census,
+besides being a quarter of a century or more in arrears in its other
+information. When consulting sale catalogues to select reference books,
+look closely at the dates of publication, and make sure by your American
+or English catalogues that no later edition has appeared. It goes without
+saying that you will have these essential bibliographies, as well as
+Lowndes' Manual of English Literature first of all, whether you are able
+to buy Watt and Brunet or not.
+
+2. Without here stopping to treat of books of reference in detail, which
+will appear in another place, let me refer to some other great classes
+of literature in which every library should be strong. History stands
+fairly at the head, and while a newly established library cannot hope to
+possess at once all the noted writers, it should begin by securing a fine
+selection, embracing general history, ancient and modern, and the history
+of each country, at least of the important nations. For compendious short
+histories, the "Story of the Nations" series, by various writers, should
+be secured, and the more extensive works of Gibbon, Grote, Mommsen,
+Duruy, Fyffe, Green, Macaulay, Froude, McCarthy, Carlyle, Thiers,
+Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Fiske, Schouler, McMaster, Buckle, Guizot,
+etc., should be acquired. The copious lists of historical works appended
+to Larned's "History for Ready Reference" will be useful here.
+
+3. Biography stands close to history in interest and importance. For
+general reference, or the biography of all nations, Lippincott's
+Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography is essential, as well as
+Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, for our own country. For
+Great Britain, the "Dictionary of National Biography" is a mine of
+information, and should be added if funds are sufficient. Certain sets of
+collective biographies which are important are American Statesmen, 26
+vols., Englishmen of Letters, -- vols., Autobiography, 33 vols., Famous
+Women series, 21 vols., Heroes of the Nation series, 24 vols., American
+Pioneers and Patriots, 12 vols., and Plutarch's Lives. Then of
+indispensable single biographies there are Boswell's Johnson, Lockhart's
+Scott, Froude's Carlyle, Trevelyan's Macaulay, Froude's Caesar, Lewes'
+Goethe, etc.
+
+4. Of notable essays, a high class of literature in which there are many
+names, may be named Addison, Montaigne, Bacon, Goldsmith, Emerson, Lamb,
+De Quincey, Holmes, Lowell, etc.
+
+5. Poetry stands at the head of all the literature of imagination. Some
+people of highly utilitarian views decry poetry, and desire to feed all
+readers upon facts. But that this is a great mistake will be apparent
+when we consider that the highest expressions of moral and intellectual
+truth and the most finely wrought examples of literature in every nation
+are in poetic form. Take out of the world's literature the works of its
+great poets, and you would leave it poor indeed. Poetry is the only great
+source for the nurture of imagination, and without imagination man is a
+poor creature. I read the other day a dictum of a certain writer,
+alleging that Dickens's Christmas Carol is far more effective as a piece
+of writing than Milton's noble ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity."
+Such comparisons are of small value. In point of fact, no library can
+spare either of them. I need not repeat the familiar names of the great
+poets; they are found in all styles of production, and some of the best
+are among the least expensive.
+
+6. Travels and voyages form a very entertaining as well as highly
+instructive part of a library. A good selection of the more notable will
+prove a valuable resource to readers of nearly every age.
+
+7. The wide field of science should be carefully gleaned for a good range
+of approved text-books in each department. So progressive is the modern
+world that the latest books are apt to be the best in each science,
+something which is by no means true in literature.
+
+8. In law, medicine, theology, political science, sociology, economics,
+art, architecture, music, eloquence, and language, the library should be
+provided with the leading modern works.
+
+9. We come now to fiction, which the experience of all libraries shows is
+the favorite pabulum of about three readers out of four. The great demand
+for this class of reading renders it all the more important to make a
+wise and improving selection of that which forms the minds of multitudes,
+and especially of the young. This selection presents to every librarian
+and library director or trustee some perplexing problems. To buy
+indiscriminately the new novels of the day, good, bad, and indifferent
+(the last named greatly predominating) would be a very poor discharge of
+the duty devolving upon those who are the responsible choosers of the
+reading of any community. Conceding, as we must, the vast influence and
+untold value of fiction as a vehicle of entertainment and instruction,
+the question arises--where can the line be drawn between the good and
+improving novels, and novels which are neither good nor improving? This
+involves something more than the moral tone and influence of the
+fictions: it involves their merits and demerits as literature also. I
+hold it to be the bounden duty of those who select the reading of a
+community to maintain a standard of good taste, as well as of good
+morals. They have no business to fill the library with wretched models of
+writing, when there are thousand of good models ready, in numbers far
+greater than they have money to purchase. Weak and flabby and silly books
+tend to make weak and flabby and silly brains. Why should library guides
+put in circulation such stuff as the dime novels, or "Old Sleuth"
+stories, or the slip-slop novels of "The Duchess," when the great masters
+of romantic fiction have endowed us with so many books replete with
+intellectual and moral power? To furnish immature minds with the
+miserable trash which does not deserve the name of literature, is as
+blameworthy as to put before them books full of feverish excitement, or
+stories of successful crime.
+
+We are told, indeed (and some librarians even have said it) that for
+unformed readers to read a bad book is better than to read none at all.
+I do not believe it. You might as well say that it is better for one to
+swallow poison than not to swallow any thing at all. I hold that library
+providers are as much bound to furnish wholesome food for the minds of
+the young who resort to them for guidance, as their parents are to
+provide wholesome food for their bodies.
+
+But the question returns upon us--what is wholesome food? In the first
+place, it is that great body of fiction which has borne the test, both of
+critical judgment, and of popularity with successive generations of
+readers. It is the novels of Scott, Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, George
+Eliot, Cooper, Hawthorne, Kingsley, Mulock-Craik, and many more, such as
+no parents need blush to put into the hands of their daughters. In the
+next place, it is such a selection from the myriads of stories that have
+poured from the press of this generation as have been approved by the
+best readers, and the critical judgment of a responsible press.
+
+As to books of questionable morality, I am aware that contrary opinions
+prevail on the question whether any such books should be allowed in a
+public library, or not. The question is a different one for the small
+town libraries and for the great reference libraries of the world. The
+former are really educational institutions, supported at the people's
+expense, like the free schools, and should be held to a responsibility
+from which the extensive reference libraries in the city are free. The
+latter may and ought to preserve every form of literature, and, if
+national libraries, they would be derelict in their duty to posterity if
+they did not acquire and preserve the whole literature of the country,
+and hand it down complete to future generations. The function of the
+public town library is different. It must indispensably make a selection,
+since its means are not adequate to buy one-tenth of the annual product
+of the press, which amounts in only four nations (England, France,
+Germany, and the United States) to more than thirty-five thousand new
+volumes a year. Its selection, mainly of American and English books, must
+be small, and the smaller it is, the greater is the need of care in
+buying. In fact, it is in most cases, compelled to be a selection from a
+selection. Therefore, in the many cases of doubt arising as to the fit
+character of a book, let the doubt be resolved in favor of the fund, thus
+preserving the chance of getting a better book for the money.
+
+With this careful and limited selection of the best, out of the multitude
+of novels that swarm from the press, the reading public will have every
+reason to be satisfied. No excuse can be alleged for filling up our
+libraries with poor books, while there is no dearth whatever of good
+ones. It is not the business of a public library to compete with the news
+stands or the daily press in furnishing the latest short stories for
+popular consumption; a class of literature whose survival is likely to be
+quite as short as the stories themselves.
+
+Take an object lesson as to the mischiefs of reading the wretched stuff
+which some people pretend is "better than no reading at all" from the boy
+Jesse Pomeroy, who perpetrated a murder of peculiar atrocity in Boston.
+"Pomeroy confessed that he had always been a great reader of 'blood and
+thunder' stories, having read probably sixty dime novels, all treating of
+scalping and deeds of violence. The boy said that he had no doubt that
+the reading of those books had a great deal to do with his course, and he
+would advise all boys to leave them alone."
+
+In some libraries, where the pernicious effect of the lower class of
+fiction has been observed, the directors have withdrawn from circulation
+a large proportion of the novels, which had been bought by reason of
+their popularity. In other newly started libraries only fiction of the
+highest grade has been placed in the library from the start, and this is
+by far the best course. If readers inquire for inferior or immoral books,
+and are told that the library does not have them, although they will
+express surprise and disappointment, they will take other and improving
+reading, thus fulfilling the true function of the library as an educator.
+Librarians and library boards cannot be too careful about what
+constitutes the collection which is to form the pabulum of so many of the
+rising generation.
+
+This does not imply that they are to be censors, or prudes, but with the
+vast field of literature before them from which to choose, they are bound
+to choose the best.
+
+The American Library Association has had this subject under discussion
+repeatedly, and while much difference of opinion has arisen from the
+difficulty of finding any absolute standard of excellence, nearly all
+have agreed that as to certain books, readers should look elsewhere than
+to the public free library for them. At one time a list of authors was
+made out, many of whose works were deemed objectionable, either from
+their highly sensational character, or their bad style, or their highly
+wrought and morbid pictures of human passions, or their immoral tendency.
+This list no doubt will surprise many, as including writers whose books
+everybody, almost, has read, or has been accustomed to think well of. It
+embraces the following popular authors, many of whose novels have had a
+wide circulation, and that principally through popular libraries.
+
+Here follow the names:
+
+Mary J. Holmes, Mrs. Henry Wood, C. L. Hentz, M. P. Finley, Mrs. A. S.
+Stephens, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mrs. Forrester, Rhoda Broughton, Helen
+Mathers, Jessie Fothergill, M. E. Braddon, Florence Marryat, Ouida,
+Horatio Alger, Mayne Reid, Oliver Optic, W. H. S. Kingston, E. Kellogg,
+G. W. M. Reynolds, C. Fosdick, Edmund Yates, G. A. Lawrence, Grenville
+Murray, W. H. Ainsworth, Wilkie Collins, E. L. Bulwer-Lytton, W. H.
+Thomes, and Augusta Evans Wilson.
+
+Bear in mind, that only English and American novels are included, and
+those only of the present century: also, that as to many which are
+included, no imputation of immorality was made. Such a "black list" is
+obviously open to the charge of doing great injustice to the good repute
+of writers named, since only a part of the works written by some of them
+can properly be objected to, and these are not specially named.
+Bulwer-Lytton, for example, whose "Paul Clifford" is a very improper book
+to go into the hands of young people, has written at least a dozen other
+fictions of noble moral purpose, and high literary merit.
+
+Out of seventy public libraries to which the list was sent, with inquiry
+whether the authors named were admitted as books of circulation, thirty
+libraries replied. All of them admitted Bulwer-Lytton and Wilkie Collins,
+all but two Oliver Optic's books, and all but six Augusta Evans Wilson's.
+Reynolds' novels were excluded by twenty libraries, Mrs. Southworth's by
+eleven, "Ouida's" by nine, and Mrs. Stephens's and Mrs. Henry Wood's by
+eight. Other details cannot find space for notice here.
+
+This instance is one among many of endeavors constantly being made by
+associated librarians to stem the ever increasing flood of poor fiction
+which threatens to submerge the better class of books in our public
+libraries.
+
+That no such wholesome attempt can be wholly successful is evident
+enough. The passion for reading fiction is both epidemic and chronic; and
+in saying this, do not infer that I reckon it as a disease. A librarian
+has no right to banish fiction because the appetite for it is abused. He
+is not to set up any ideal and impossible standard of selection. His
+most useful and beneficent function is to turn into better channels the
+universal hunger for reading which is entertaining. Do readers want an
+exciting novel? What can be more exciting than "Les Miserables" of Victor
+Hugo, a book of exceptional literary excellence and power? Literature is
+full of fascinating stories, admirably told, and there is no excuse for
+loading our libraries with trash, going into the slums for models, or
+feeding young minds upon the unclean brood of pessimistic novels. If it
+is said that people will have trash, let them buy it, and let the
+libraries wash their hands of it, and refuse to circulate the stuff which
+no boy nor girl can touch without being contaminated.
+
+Those who claim that we might as well let the libraries down to the level
+of the poorest books, because unformed and ignorant minds are capable of
+nothing better, should be told that people are never raised by giving
+them nothing to look up to. To devour infinite trash is not the road to
+learn wisdom, or virtue, or even to attain genuine amusement. To those
+who are afraid that if the libraries are purified, the masses will get
+nothing that they can read, the answer is, have they not got the entire
+world of magazines, the weekly, daily, and Sunday newspapers, which
+supply a whole library of fiction almost daily? Add to these plenty of
+imaginative literature in fiction and in poetry, on every library's
+shelves, which all who can read can comprehend, and what excuse remains
+for buying what is neither decent nor improving?
+
+Take an example of the boundless capacity for improvement that exists in
+the human mind and human taste, from the spread of the fine arts among
+the people. Thirty years ago, their houses, if having any decoration at
+all, exhibited those fearful and wonderful colored lithographs and
+chromos in which bad drawing, bad portraiture, and bad coloring vied with
+each other to produce pictures which it would be a mild use of terms to
+call detestable. Then came the two great international art expositions at
+Philadelphia and Chicago, each greatly advancing by the finest models,
+the standard of taste in art, and by new economies of reproduction
+placing the most beautiful statues and pictures within the reach of the
+most moderate purse. What has been the result? An incalculable
+improvement in the public taste, educated by the diffusion of the best
+models, until even the poor farmer of the backwoods will no longer
+tolerate the cheap and nasty horrors that once disfigured his walls.
+
+The lesson in art is good in literature also. Give the common people good
+models, and there is no danger but they will appreciate and understand
+them. Never stoop to pander to a depraved taste, no matter what specious
+pleas you may hear for tolerating the low in order to lead to the high,
+or for making your library contribute to the survival of the unfittest.
+
+Is it asked, how can the librarian find out, among the world of novels
+from which he is to select, what is pure and what is not, what is
+wholesome and what unhealthy, what is improving and what is trash? The
+answer is--there are some lists which will be most useful in this
+discrimination, while there is no list which is infallible. Mr. F.
+Leypoldt's little catalogue of "Books for all Time" has nothing that any
+library need do without. Another compendious list is published by the
+American Library Association. And the more extensive catalogue prepared
+for the World's Fair in 1893, and embracing about 5,000 volumes, entitled
+"Catalogue of A. L. A. Library: 5,000 vols. for a popular library," while
+it has many mistakes and omissions, is a tolerably safe guide in making
+up a popular library. I may note that the list of novels in this large
+catalogue put forth by the American Library Association has the names of
+five only out of the twenty-eight writers of fiction heretofore
+pronounced objectionable, and names a select few only of the books of
+these five.
+
+As for the later issues of the press, and especially the new novels, let
+him skim them for himself, unless in cases where trustworthy critical
+judgments are found in journals. Running through a book to test its style
+and moral drift is no difficult task for the practiced eye.
+
+Let us suppose that you are cursorily perusing a novel which has made a
+great sensation, and you come upon the following sentence: "Eighteen
+millions of years would level all in one huge, common, shapeless ruin.
+Perish the microcosm in the limitless macrocosm! and sink this feeble
+earthly segregate in the boundless rushing choral aggregation!" This is
+in Augusta J. Evans Wilson's story "Macaria", and many equally
+extraordinary examples of "prose run mad" are found in the novels of this
+once noted writer. What kind of a model is that to form the style of the
+youthful neophyte, to whom one book is as good as another, since it was
+found on the shelves of the public library?
+
+I am not insisting that all books admitted should be models of style;
+even a purist must admit that one of the greatest charms of literature is
+its infinite variety. But when book after book is filled with such
+specimens of literary lunacy as this, one is tempted to believe that
+Homer and Shakespeare, to say nothing of Thackeray and Hawthorne, have
+lived in vain.
+
+Never fear criticism of those who find fault with the absence from your
+library of books that you know to be nearly worthless; their absence will
+be a silent but eloquent protest against them, sure to be vindicated by
+the utter oblivion into which they will fall. Many a flaming reputation
+has been extinguished after dazzling callow admirers for six months, or
+even less. Do not dread the empty sarcasm, that may grow out of the
+exclusion of freshly printed trash, that your library is a "back number."
+To some poor souls every thing that is great and good in the world's
+literature is a "back number"; and the Bible itself, with its immortal
+poetry and sublimity, is the oldest back number of all. It is no part of
+your business as a librarian to cater to the tastes of those who act as
+if the reading of endless novels of sensation were the chief end of man.
+As one fed on highly spiced viands and stimulating drinks surely loses
+the appetite for wholesome and nourishing food, so one who reads only
+exciting and highly wrought fictions loses the taste for the
+master-pieces of prose and poetry.
+
+Let not the fear of making many mistakes be a bug-bear in your path. If
+you are told that your library is too exclusive, reply that it has not
+means enough to buy all the good books that are wanted, and cannot afford
+to spend money on bad or even on doubtful ones. If you have excluded any
+highly-sought-for book on insufficient evidence, never fail to revise the
+judgment. All that can be expected of any library is approximately just
+and wise selection, having regard to merit, interest, and moral tone,
+more than to novelty or popularity.
+
+In the matter of choice, individual opinions are of small value. Never
+buy a book simply because some reader extols it as very fine, or
+"splendid," or "perfectly lovely." Such praises are commonly to be
+distrusted in direct proportion to their extravagance.
+
+A good lesson to libraries is furnished in the experience of the
+Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library. In 1878, out of 16,000 volumes in that
+library, no less than 6,000 were novels. The governing board, on the
+plea of giving people what they wanted, bought nearly all new books of
+fiction, and went so far, even, as to buy of Pinkerton's Detective
+stories, fifteen copies each, fifteen of all Mrs. Southworth's novels,
+etc. But a change took place in the board, and the librarian was
+permitted to stop the growing flood of worthless fiction, and as fast as
+the books were worn out, they were replaced by useful reading. It
+resulted that four years later, with 40,000 volumes in the library, only
+7,000 were novels, or less than one-fifth, instead of more than one-third
+of the whole collection, as formerly. In the same time, the percentage of
+fiction drawn out was reduced from 69 per cent. of the aggregate books
+read, to 50 per cent.
+
+Libraries are always complaining that they cannot buy many valuable books
+from lack of funds. Yet some of them buy a great many that are valueless
+in spite of this lack. Can any thing be conceived more valueless than a
+set of Sylvanus Cobb's novels, reprinted to the number of thirty-five to
+forty, from the New York Ledger? Yet these have been bought for scores of
+libraries, which could not afford the latest books in science and art, or
+biography, history, or travel. There are libraries in which the latest
+books on electricity, or sewerage, or sanitary plumbing, might have saved
+many lives, but which must go without them, because the money has been
+squandered on vapid and pernicious literature.
+
+In almost every library, while some branches of knowledge are fairly
+represented, others are not represented at all. Nearly all present
+glaring deficiencies, and these are often caused by want of systematic
+plan in building up the collection. Boards of managers are frequently
+changed, and the policy of the library with them. All the more important
+is it that the librarian should be so well equipped with a definite aim,
+and with knowledge and skill competent to urge that aim consistently, as
+to preserve some unity of plan.
+
+I need not add that a librarian should be always wide awake to the needs
+of his library in every direction. It should be taken for granted that
+its general aim is to include the best books in the whole range of human
+knowledge. With the vast area of book production before him, he should
+strengthen every year some department, taking them in order of
+importance.
+
+Some scholarly writers tell us that very few books are essential to a
+good education. James Russell Lowell named five, which in his view
+embraced all the essentials; namely, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare,
+Cervantes, and Goethe's Faust. Prof. Charles E. Norton of Harvard
+remarked that this list might even be abridged so as to embrace only
+Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. I can only regard such exclusiveness as
+misleading, though conceding the many-sidedness of these great writers.
+To extend the list is the function of all public libraries, as well as of
+most of the private ones. Next after the really essential books, that
+library will be doing its public good service which acquires all the
+important works that record the history of man. This will include
+biography, travels and voyages, science, and much besides, as well as
+history.
+
+Special pains should be taken in every library to have every thing
+produced in its own town, county, and State. Not only books, but all
+pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, and even broadsides or circulars,
+should be sought for and stored up as memorials of the present age,
+tending in large part rapidly to disappear.
+
+In selecting editions of standard authors, one should always
+discriminate, so as to secure for the library, if not the best, at least
+good, clear type, sound, thick paper, and durable binding. Cheap and
+poor editions wear out quickly, and have to be thrown away for better
+ones, which wise economy should have selected in the first place. For
+example, a widely circulated edition of Scott's novels, found in most
+libraries, has the type so worn and battered by the many large editions
+printed from the plates, that many letters and words are wanting, thus
+spoiling not only the pleasure but abridging the profit of the reader in
+perusing the novels. The same is true of one edition of Cooper. Then
+there are many cheap reprints of English novels in the Seaside and other
+libraries which abound in typographical errors. A close examination of a
+cheap edition of a leading English novelist's works revealed more than
+3,000 typographical errors in the one set of books! It would be
+unpardonable carelessness to buy such books for general reading because
+they are cheap.
+
+Librarians should avoid what are known as subscription books, as a rule,
+though some valid exceptions exist. Most of such books are profusely
+illustrated and in gaudy bindings, gotten up to dazzle the eye. If works
+of merit, it is better to wait for them, than to subscribe for an
+unfinished work, which perhaps may never reach completion.
+
+A librarian or book collector should be ever observant of what he may
+find to enrich his collection. When in a book-store, or a private or
+public library, he should make notes of such works seen as are new to
+him, with any characteristics which their custodian may remark upon. Such
+personal examination is more informing than any catalogue.
+
+I think each public library should possess, besides a complete set of the
+English translations of the Greek and Latin classics, a full set of the
+originals, for the benefit of scholarly readers. These classic texts can
+be had complete in modern editions for a very moderate price.
+
+How far duplicate volumes should be bought should depend upon demand, and
+the views of the purchasing powers. There is a real need of more than one
+copy of almost every standard work, else it will be perpetually out,
+giving occasion for numerous complaints from those who use the library.
+It would be a good rule to keep one copy always in, and at the service of
+readers, of every leading history, standard poet, or popular novel. Then
+the duplicate copies for circulation may be one or more, as experience
+and ability to provide may determine. A library which caters to the
+novel-reading habit as extensively as the New York Mercantile (a
+subscription library) has to buy fifty to one hundred copies of "Trilby,"
+for example, to keep up with the demand. No such obligation exists for
+the free public libraries. They, however, often buy half a dozen to a
+dozen copies of a very popular story, when new, and sell them out after
+the demand has slackened or died away.
+
+The methods of selection and purchase in public libraries are very
+various. In the Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, the librarian makes a
+list of desiderata, has it manifolded, and sends a copy to each of the
+thirteen members of the Board of directors. This list is reported on by
+the members at the next monthly meeting of the Board, and generally, in
+the main, approved. Novels and stories are not bought until time has
+shown of what value they may be. The aim is mainly educational at the
+Worcester library, very special pains being taken to aid all the pupils
+and teachers in the public schools, by careful selection, and providing
+duplicate or more copies of important works.
+
+In the Public Library of Cleveland, Ohio, there is appointed out of the
+governing Board a book-committee of three. To one of these are referred
+English books wanted, to another French, and to the third German books.
+This sub-committee approves or amends the Librarian's recommendations,
+at its discretion; but expensive works are referred to the whole board
+for determination.
+
+In the New York Mercantile Library, which must keep continually up to
+date in its supply of new books, the announcements in all the morning
+papers are daily scanned, and books just out secured by immediate order.
+Many publishers send in books on approval, which are frequently bought.
+An agent in London is required to send on the day of publication all new
+books on certain subjects.
+
+The library boards of management meet weekly in New York and
+Philadelphia, but monthly in most country libraries. The selection of
+books made by committees introduces often an element of chance, not quite
+favorable to the unity of plan in developing the resources of the
+library. But with a librarian of large information, discretion, and
+skill, there need seldom be any difficulty in securing approval of his
+selections, or of most of them. In some libraries the librarian is
+authorized to buy at discretion additions of books in certain lines, to
+be reported at the next meeting of the board; and to fill up all
+deficiencies in periodicals that are taken. This is an important
+concession to his judgment, made in the interest of completeness in the
+library, saving a delay of days and sometimes weeks in waiting for the
+board of directors.
+
+All orders sent out for accessions should previously be compared with the
+alphabeted order-card list, as well as with the general catalogue of the
+library, to avoid duplication. After this the titles are to be
+incorporated in the alphabet of all outstanding orders, to be withdrawn
+only on receipt of the books.
+
+The library should invite suggestions from all frequenting it, of books
+recommended and not found in the collection. A blank record-book for this
+purpose, or an equivalent in order-cards, should be always kept on the
+counter of the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.
+
+BOOK BUYING.
+
+
+The buying of books is to some men a pastime; to others it is a passion;
+but to the librarian and the intelligent book collector it is both a
+business and a pleasure. The man who is endowed with a zeal for knowledge
+is eager to be continually adding to the stores which will enable him to
+acquire and to dispense that knowledge. Hence the perusal of catalogues
+is to him an ever fresh and fascinating pursuit. However hampered he may
+be by the lack of funds, the zest of being continually in quest of some
+coveted volumes gives him an interest in every sale catalogue, whether of
+bookseller or of auctioneer. He is led on by the perennial hope that he
+may find one or more of the long-wished for and waited-for _desiderata_
+in the thin pamphlet whose solid columns bristle with book-titles in
+every variety of abbreviation and arrangement. It is a good plan, if one
+can possibly command the time, to read every catalogue of the book
+auctions, and of the second-hand book dealers, which comes to hand. You
+will thus find a world of books chronicled and offered which you do not
+want, because you have got them already: you will find many, also, which
+you want, but which you know you cannot have; and you may find some of
+the very volumes which you have sought through many years in vain. In any
+case, you will have acquired valuable information--whether you acquire
+any books or not; since there is hardly a priced catalogue, of any
+considerable extent, from which you cannot reap knowledge of some
+kind--knowledge of editions, knowledge of prices, and knowledge of the
+comparative scarcity or full supply of many books, with a glimpse of
+titles which you may never have met before. The value of the study of
+catalogues as an education in bibliography can never be over-estimated.
+
+The large number of active and discriminating book-buyers from America
+has for years past awakened the interest and jealousy of collectors
+abroad, where it has very largely enhanced the price of all first-class
+editions, and rare works.
+
+No longer, as in the early days of Dibdin and Heber, is the competition
+for the curiosities of old English literature confined to a half-score of
+native amateurs. True, we have no such omnivorous gatherers of literary
+rubbish as that magnificent _helluo librorum_, Richard Heber, who amassed
+what was claimed to be the largest collection of books ever formed by a
+single individual. Endowed with a princely fortune, and an undying
+passion for the possession of books, he spent nearly a million dollars in
+their acquisition. His library, variously stated at from 105,000 volumes
+(by Dr. Dibdin) to 146,000 volumes (by Dr. Allibone) was brought to the
+hammer in 1834. The catalogue filled 13 octavo volumes, and the sale
+occupied 216 days. The insatiable owner (who was a brother of Reginald
+Heber, Bishop of Calcutta) died while still collecting, at the age of
+sixty, leaving his enormous library, which no single house of ordinary
+size could hold, scattered in half a dozen mansions in London, Oxford,
+Paris, Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent.
+
+Yet the owner of this vast mass of mingled nonsense and erudition, this
+library of the curiosities of literature, was as generous in imparting as
+in acquiring his literary treasures. No English scholar but was freely
+welcome to the loan of his volumes; and his own taste and critical
+knowledge are said to have been of the first order.
+
+From this, probably the most extensive private library ever gathered, let
+us turn to the largest single purchase, in number of volumes, made at one
+time for a public library. When Dr. J. G. Cogswell went abroad in 1848,
+to lay the foundations of the Astor Library, he took with him credentials
+for the expenditure of $100,000; and, what was of even greater
+importance, a thoroughly digested catalogue of _desiderata_, embracing
+the most important books in every department of literature and science.
+No such opportunity of buying the finest books at the lowest prices is
+likely ever to occur again, as the fortuitous concourse of events brought
+to Dr. Cogswell. It was the year of revolutions--the year when the
+thrones were tottering or falling all over Europe, when the wealthy and
+privileged classes were trembling for their possessions, and anxious to
+turn them into ready money. In every time of panic, political or
+financial, the prices of books, as well as of all articles of luxury, are
+the first to fall. Many of the choicest collections came to the hammer;
+multitudes were eager to sell--but there were few buyers except the book
+merchants, who were all ready to sell again. The result was that some
+80,000 volumes were gathered for the Astor Library, embracing a very
+large share of the best editions and the most expensive works, with many
+books strictly denominated rare, and nearly all bound in superior style,
+at an average cost of about $1.40 per volume. This extraordinary good
+fortune enabled the Astor Library to be opened on a very small endowment,
+more splendidly equipped for a library of reference than any new
+institution could be today with four or five times the money.
+
+Compared with such opportunities as these, you may consider the
+experiences of the little libraries, and the narrow means of recruitment
+generally found, as very literally the day of small things. But a wise
+apportionment of small funds, combined with a good knowledge of the
+commercial value of books, and perpetual vigilance in using
+opportunities, will go very far toward enlarging any collection in the
+most desirable directions.
+
+Compare for a moment with the results stated of the Astor Library's early
+purchases, the average prices paid by British Libraries for books
+purchased from 1826 to 1854, as published in a parliamentary return. The
+average cost per volume varied from 16_s_ or about $4 a volume, for the
+University Library of Edinburgh, to 4_s_ 6_d_, or $1.10 a volume for the
+Manchester Free Library. The latter, however, were chiefly popular new
+books, published at low prices, while the former included many costly old
+works, law books, etc. The British Museum Library's average was 8_s_ 5_d_
+or about $2.00 per volume. Those figures represent cloth binding, while
+the Astor's purchases were mostly in permanent leather bindings.
+
+Averages are very uncertain standards of comparison, as a single book
+rarity often costs more than a hundred volumes of the new books of the
+day; but in a library filled with the best editions of classical and
+scientific works, and reference books, I presume that two dollars a
+volume is not too high an estimate of average cost, in these days
+represented by the last twenty years. For a circulating library, on the
+other hand, composed chiefly of what the public most seek to read, half
+that average would perhaps express the full commercial value of the
+collection. Of its intrinsic value I will not here pause to speak.
+
+There are many methods of book buying, of which we may indicate the
+principal as follows:
+
+    1. By direct orders from book dealers.
+    2. By competition on select lists of wants.
+    3. By order from priced catalogues.
+    4. By purchase at auction sales.
+    5. By personal research among book stocks.
+    6. By lists and samples of books sent on approval.
+
+Each of these methods has its advantages--and, I may add, its
+disadvantages likewise. The collector who combines them, as opportunity
+presents, is most likely to make his funds go the farthest, and to enrich
+his collection the most. Direct orders for purchase are necessary for
+most new books wanted, except in the case of the one government library,
+which in most countries, receives them under copyright provision. An
+advantageous arrangement can usually be made with one or more
+book-dealers, to supply all new books at a fairly liberal discount from
+retail prices. And it is wise management to distribute purchases where
+good terms are made, as thereby the trade will feel an interest in the
+library, and a mutuality of interest will secure more opportunities and
+better bargains.
+
+The submission of lists of books wanted, to houses having large stocks or
+good facilities, helps to make funds go as far as possible through
+competition. By the typewriter such lists can now be manifolded much more
+cheaply than they can be written or printed.
+
+Selection from priced catalogues presents a constantly recurring
+opportunity of buying volumes of the greatest consequence, to fill gaps
+in any collection, and often at surprisingly low prices. Much as book
+values have been enhanced of late years, there are yet catalogues issued
+by American, English and continental dealers which quote books both of
+the standard and secondary class at very cheap rates. Even now English
+books are sold by the Mudie and the W. H. Smith lending libraries in
+London, after a very few months, at one-half to one-fourth their original
+publishing price. These must usually be rebound, but by instructing your
+agent to select copies which are clean within, all the soil of the edges
+will disappear with the light trimming of the binder.
+
+Purchase at auction supplies a means of recruiting libraries both public
+and private with many rare works, and with the best editions of the
+standard authors, often finely bound. The choice private libraries of the
+country, as well as the poor ones, tend to pour themselves sooner or
+later into public auctions. The collectors of books, whose early avidity
+to amass libraries of fine editions was phenomenal, rarely persist in
+cultivating the passion through life. Sometimes they are overtaken by
+misfortune--sometimes by indifference--the bibliomania not being a
+perennial inspiration, but often an acute and fiery attack, which in a
+few years burns out. Even if the library gathered with so much money and
+pains descends to the heirs of the collector, the passion for books is
+very seldom an inherited one. Thus the public libraries are constantly
+recruited by the opportunities of selection furnished by the forced sale
+of the private ones. Here, public competition frequently runs up the
+price of certain books to an exorbitant degree, while those not wanted
+often sell for the merest trifle. One should have a pretty clear idea of
+the approximate commercial value of books, before competing for them at
+public sale. He may, however, if well persuaded in his own mind as to the
+importance or the relative unimportance to his own collection of any
+work, regulate his bids by that standard, regardless of commercial value,
+except as a limit beyond which he will not go. Few librarians can
+personally attend auction sales--nor is it needful, when limits can so
+easily be set to orders. It is never safe to send an unlimited bid, as
+there may be others without limit, in which case the book is commonly
+awarded to the most remote bidder.
+
+There are many curiosities of the auction room, one of them being the
+frequent re-appearance of book rarities which have been through several
+auctions, sometimes at intervals of years, keenly competed for by rival
+bibliophiles, and carried off in triumph by some ardent collector, who
+little thought at the time how soon his own collection would come to the
+hammer.
+
+There are also many curiosities of compilation in auction catalogues. Not
+to name errors of commission, like giving the authorship of books to the
+wrong name, and errors of omission, like giving no author's name at all,
+some catalogues are thickly strewn with the epithets _rare_--and _very
+rare_, when the books are sufficiently common in one or the other market.
+Do not be misled by these surface indications. Books are often attributed
+in catalogues to their editor or translator, and the unwary buyer may
+thus find himself saddled with a duplicate already in his own collection.
+There has been much improvement in late years in the care with which
+auction catalogues are edited, and no important collection at least is
+offered, without having first passed through the hands of an expert,
+familiar with bibliography. It is the minor book sales where the
+catalogues receive no careful editing, and where the dates and editions
+are frequently omitted, that it is necessary to guard against. It is well
+to refrain from sending any bids out of such lists, because they furnish
+no certain identification of the books, and if all would do the same,
+thus diminishing the competition and the profit of the auctioneer, he
+might learn never to print a catalogue without date, place of
+publication, and full name of author of every book offered.
+
+Never be too eager to acquire an auction book, unless you are very
+thoroughly assured that it is one of the kind truly designated
+_rarissimus_. An eminent and thoroughly informed book collector, with an
+experience of forty years devoted to book auctions and book catalogues,
+assured me that it was his experience that almost every book would turn
+up on the average about every seven years. Of course there are notable
+exceptions--and especially among the class of books known as
+_incunabula_, (or cradle-books printed in the infancy of printing) and of
+early Americana: but it is not these which the majority of libraries are
+most in search of. Remember always, if you lose a coveted volume, that
+there will be another chance--perhaps many of them. The private
+collector, who carries it off against you, has had no former opportunity
+to get the rare volume, and may never have another. He is therefore
+justified in paying what is to ordinary judgment an extraordinary price.
+Individual collectors die, but public libraries are immortal.
+
+If you become thoroughly conversant with priced catalogues, you will make
+fewer mistakes than most private buyers. Not only catalogues of notable
+collections, with the prices obtained at auction, but the large and very
+copious catalogues of such London book-dealers as Quaritch and Sotheran,
+are accessible in the great city libraries. These are of the highest use
+in suggesting the proximate prices at which important books have been or
+may be acquired. Since 1895, annual volumes entitled "American Book
+Prices Current" have been issued, giving the figures at which books have
+been sold at all the principal auction sales of the year.
+
+There is no word so much abused as the term _rare_, when applied to
+books. Librarians know well the unsophisticated citizen who wants to sell
+at a high price a "rare" volume of divinity "a hundred and fifty years
+old" (worth possibly twenty-five cents to half a dollar,) and the
+persistent woman who has the rarest old bible in the country, which she
+values anywhere from fifty to five hundred dollars, and which turns out
+on inspection to be an imperfect copy of one of Barker's multitudinous
+editions of 1612 to '18, which may be picked up at five to eight
+shillings in any old London book-shop. The confident assertions so often
+paraded, even in catalogues, "only three copies known," and the like, are
+to be received with absolute incredulity, and the claims of ignorant
+owners of books who fancy that their little pet goose is a fine swan,
+because they never saw another, are as ridiculous as the laudation
+bestowed by a sapient collector upon two of his most valued nuggets.
+"This, sir, is unique, but not so unique as the other."
+
+Buying books by actual inspection at the book-shops is even more
+fascinating employment than buying them through catalogues. You thus come
+upon the most unexpected volumes unawares. You open the covers, scan the
+title-pages, get a glimpse of the plates, and flit from book to book,
+like a bee gathering honey for its hive. It is a good way to recruit your
+library economically, to run through the stock of a book-dealer
+systematically--neglecting no shelf, but selecting throughout the whole
+stock, and laying aside what you think you may want. When this is done,
+you will have quite a pile of literature upon which to negotiate with the
+proprietor. It is cheaper to buy thus at wholesale than by piecemeal,
+because the bookseller will make you a larger discount on a round lot of
+which you relieve his shelves.
+
+Another method of recruiting your library is the examination of books "on
+approval." Most book-dealers will be so obliging as to send in parcels of
+books for the inspection of a librarian or collector, who can thus
+examine them leisurely and with more thoroughness than in a book store,
+without leaving his business.
+
+All books, by whatever course they may be purchased, are indispensably
+to be collated before they are accepted and paid for. Neglect of this
+will fill any library with imperfections, since second-hand books are
+liable to have missing leaves, or plates, or maps, while new books may
+lack signatures or plates, or be wrongly bound together. In the case of
+new books, or books still in print, the publisher is bound to make good
+an imperfection.
+
+In old books, this is usually impossible, and the only remedy is to
+return the imperfect books upon the seller's hands, unless there may be a
+reason, such as the rarity of the volume, or its comparative little cost,
+or the trifling nature of the imperfection, for retaining it. The
+equities in these cases are in favor of the buyer, who is presumed to
+have purchased a perfect copy. But the right of reclamation must be
+exercised promptly, or it may be forfeited by lapse of time. If an
+imperfection in any book you order is noted in the catalogue, it is not
+subject to return. I have ever found the book auctioneers most courteous
+and considerate in their dealings--and the same can be said of the book
+trade generally, among whom instances of liberality to libraries are by
+no means rare.
+
+One of the choicest pleasures of the book collector, whether private
+student or librarian, is to visit the second-hand book-shops of any city,
+and examine the stock with care. While he may find but few notable
+treasures in one collection, a search through several shops will be
+almost sure to reward him. Here are found many of the outpourings of the
+private libraries, formed by specialists or amateurs, and either
+purchased by the second-hand dealer _en bloc_, or bid off by him at some
+auction sale. Even rare books are picked up in this way, no copies of
+which can be had by order, because long since "out of print." The stock
+in these shops is constantly changing, thus adding a piquant and
+sometimes exciting element to the book-hunter, who is wise in proportion
+as he seizes quickly upon all opportunities of new "finds" by frequent
+visits. To mourn over a lost chance in rare books is often more grievous
+to the zealous collector, than to lose a large share out of his fortune;
+while to exult over a literary nugget long sought and at length found is
+a pleasure to which few others can be compared.
+
+Of the many _bouquinistes_ whose open-air shops line the quays of Paris
+along the Seine, numbering once as many as a hundred and fifty dealers in
+second-hand books, I have no room to treat; books have been written about
+them, and the _littérateurs_ of France, of Europe, and of America have
+profited by countless bargains in their learned wares. Nor can I dwell
+upon the literary wealth of London book-shops, dark and dingy, but ever
+attractive to the hungry scholar, or the devotee of bibliomania.
+
+Of the many second-hand booksellers (or rather sellers of second-hand
+books) in American cities, the more notable have passed from the stage of
+action in the last quarter of a century. Old William Gowans, a quaint,
+intelligent Scotchman, in shabby clothes and a strong face deeply marked
+with small pox, was for many years the dean of this fraternity in New
+York. His extensive book-shop in Nassau street, with its dark cellar, was
+crowded and packed with books on shelves, on stairways and on the floors,
+heaped and piled in enormous masses, amid which the visitor could hardly
+find room to move. On one of the piles you might find the proprietor
+seated--
+
+    Books to the right of him,
+    Books to the left of him,
+    Books behind him,
+    Volleyed and tumbled,
+
+while he answered inquiries for books from clergymen and students, or
+gruffly bargained with a boy or an old woman for a dilapidated lot of
+old books. He had a curious quizzical way with strangers, who at once set
+him down as an oddity, and his impatience with ignoramuses and bores gave
+him the repute of crustiness, which was redeemed by suavity enough
+whenever he met with people of intelligence.
+
+Gowans issued scores of catalogues of his stock, in which titles were
+often illustrated by notes, always curious and often amusing, credited to
+"Western Memorabilia," a work which no bookseller or man of letters had
+ever heard of, but which was shrewdly suspected to have been a projected
+scrap-book of the observations and opinions of William Gowans.
+
+There was another eccentric book-dealer's shop in Nassau street kept by
+one John Doyle, who aimed so high in his profession as to post over his
+door a sign reading "The Moral Centre of the Intellectual Universe." This
+establishment was notably full of old editions of books of English
+history and controversial theology.
+
+The most famous second-hand book-shop in Boston was Burnham's, whose
+fore-name was Thomas Oliver Hazard Perry, shortened into "Perry Burnham"
+by his familiars. He was a little, pale-faced, wiry, nervous man, with
+piercing black eyes and very brusque manners. In old and musty books he
+lived and moved and had his being, for more than a generation. He
+exchanged a stuffy, narrow shop in Cornhill for more spacious quarters in
+Washington street, near School street, where he bought and sold books
+with an assiduous devotion to business, never trusting to others what he
+could do himself. He was proud of his collection and its extent. He
+bought books and pamphlets at auction literally by the cart-load, every
+thing that nobody else wanted being bid off to Burnham at an
+insignificant price, almost nominal. He got a wide reputation for
+selling cheaply, but he always knew when to charge a stiff price for a
+book, and to stick to it. Once when I was pricing a lot of miscellaneous
+books picked out for purchase, mostly under a dollar a volume, we came to
+a copy of "The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of
+America," 1st edition, Philadelphia, 1781, of which two hundred copies
+only were printed, by order of Congress. This copy was in the original
+boards, uncut, and with the autograph of Timothy Pickering on the title
+page. "If the Congress Library wants that book," said Mr. Burnham, "it
+will have to pay eight dollars for it." I took it, well pleased to secure
+what years of search had failed to bring. The next year my satisfaction
+was enhanced when an inferior copy of the same book was offered at twenty
+dollars.
+
+Burnham died a wealthy man, having amassed a million dollars in trade and
+by rise in real estate, as he owned the land on which the Parker House
+stands in Boston.
+
+Among Philadelphia dealers in second-hand books, one John Penington was
+recognized as most intelligent and honorable. He was a book-lover and a
+scholar, and one instinctively ranked him not as a bookseller, but as a
+gentleman who dealt in books. On his shelves one always found books of
+science and volumes in foreign languages.
+
+Another notable dealer was John Campbell, a jolly, hearty Irish-American,
+with a taste for good books, and an antipathy to negroes, as keen as the
+proverbial hatred of the devil for holy water. Campbell wrote a book
+entitled "Negromania," published in 1851, in which his creed was set
+forth in strong language. He was a regular bidder at book auctions, where
+his burly form and loud voice made him a prominent figure.
+
+Of notable auction sales of books, and of the extravagant prices obtained
+for certain editions by ambitious and eager competition, there is little
+room to treat. The oft-told story of the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471,
+carried off at the Roxburghe sale in 1812, at £2,260 from Earl Spencer by
+the Marquis of Blandford, and re-purchased seven years after at another
+auction for £918, has been far surpassed in modern bibliomania. "The
+sound of that hammer," wrote the melodramatic Dibdin, "echoed through
+Europe:" but what would he have said of the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg
+and Fust (1450-55) sold in 1897, at the Ashburnham sale, for four
+thousand pounds, or of the Latin Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, 2d ed.
+1459, which brought £4,950 at the Syston Park sale in 1884? This last sum
+(about twenty-four thousand dollars) is the largest price ever yet
+recorded as received for a single volume. Among books of less rarity,
+though always eagerly sought, is the first folio Shakespeare of 1623, a
+very fine and perfect copy of which brought £716.2 at Daniel's sale in
+1864. Copies warranted perfect have since been sold in London for £415 to
+£470. In New York, a perfect but not "tall" copy brought $4,200 in 1891
+at auction. Walton's "Compleat Angler," London, 1st ed. 1653, a little
+book of only 250 pages, sold for £310 in 1891. It was published for one
+shilling and sixpence. The first edition of Robinson Crusoe brought £75
+at the Crampton sale in 1896.
+
+The rage for first editions of very modern books reached what might be
+called high-water mark some time since, and has been on the decline.
+Shelley's "Queen Mab," 1st ed. 1813, was sold at London for £22.10, and
+his "Refutation of Deism," 1814, was sold at £33, at a London sale in
+1887. In New York, many first editions of Shelley's poems brought the
+following enormous prices in 1897.
+
+    Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, Italy, 1821, $335.
+    Alastor, London, 1816, $130.
+    The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $65.
+    Hellas, London, 1822, $13.
+
+But these were purely adventitious prices, as was clearly shown in the
+sale at the same auction rooms, a year or two earlier, of the following:
+
+    Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, 1821, $19.
+    Alastor, London, 1816, $32.
+    The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $21.
+    Hellas, London, 1822, $2.
+
+The sales occasionally made at auction of certain books at extraordinary
+prices, prove nothing whatever as to the real market value, for these
+reasons: (1) The auctioneer often has an unlimited bid, and the price is
+carried up to an inordinate height. (2) Two or more bidders present,
+infatuated by the idea of extreme rarity, bid against one another until
+all but one succumb, when the price has reached a figure which it is a
+mild use of terms to call absurd. (3) Descriptions in sale catalogues,
+though often entirely unfounded, characterising a book as "excessively
+rare;" "only -- copies known," "very scarce," "never before offered at
+our sales," etc., may carry the bidding on a book up to an unheard-of
+price.
+
+The appeal always lies to the years against the hours; and many a poor
+book-mad enthusiast has had to rue his too easy credulity in giving an
+extravagant sum for books which he discovers later that he could have
+bought for as many shillings as he has paid dollars. Not that the
+_rarissimi_ of early printed books can ever be purchased for a trifle;
+but it should ever be remembered that even at the sales where a few--a
+very few--bring the enormous prices that are bruited abroad, the mass of
+the books offered are knocked down at very moderate figures, or are even
+sacrificed at rates very far below their cost. The possessor of one of
+the books so advertised as sold at some auction for a hundred dollars or
+upwards, if he expects to realise a tithe of the figure quoted, will
+speedily find himself in the vocative.
+
+While there are almost priceless rarities not to be found in the market
+by any buyer, let the book collector be consoled by the knowledge that
+good books, in good editions, were never so easy to come by as now. A
+fine library can be gathered by any one with very moderate means,
+supplemented by a fair amount of sagacity and common sense. The buyer
+with a carefully digested list of books wanted will find that to buy them
+wisely takes more time and less money than he had anticipated. The time
+is required to acquaint himself with the many competing editions, with
+their respective merits and demerits. This involves a comparison of type,
+paper, and binding, as well as the comparative prices of various dealers
+for the same books. No one who is himself gifted with good perceptions
+and good taste, should trust to other hands the selection of his library.
+His enjoyment of it will be proportioned to the extent to which it is his
+own creation. The passion for nobly written books, handsomely printed,
+and clothed in a fitting garb, when it has once dawned, is not to be
+defrauded of its satisfaction by hiring a commission merchant to appease
+it. What we do for ourselves, in the acquirement of any knowledge, is apt
+to be well done: what is done for us by others is of little value.
+
+We have heard of some uninformed _parvenus_, grown suddenly rich, who
+have first ordered a magnificent library room fitted with rose-wood,
+marble and gilded trappings, and then ordered it to be filled with
+splendidly bound volumes at so much per volume. And it is an authentic
+fact, that a bookseller to the Czar of Russia one Klostermann, actually
+sold books at fifty to one hundred roubles by the yard, according to the
+binding. The force of folly could no farther go, to debase the aims and
+degrade the intellect of man.
+
+In the chapter upon rare books, the reader will find instances in great
+variety of the causes that contribute to the scarcity and enhancement of
+prices of certain books, without at all affecting their intrinsic value,
+which may be of the smallest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.
+
+THE ART OF BOOK BINDING.
+
+
+In these suggestions upon the important question of the binding of books,
+I shall have nothing to say of the history of the art, and very little of
+its aesthetics. The plainest and most practical hints will be aimed at,
+and if my experience shall prove of value to any, I shall be well
+rewarded for giving it here. For other matters readers will naturally
+consult some of the numerous manuals of book-binding in English, French
+and German. The sumptuous bindings executed in the sixteenth century,
+under the patronage and the eyes of Grolier, the famous tooled
+masterpieces of Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup, Trautz and other French
+artists, and the beautiful gems of the binder's art from the hands of
+Roger Payne, Lewis, Mackenzie, Hayday and Bedford, are they not
+celebrated in the pages of Dibdin, Lacroix, Fournier, Wheatley, and
+Robert Hoe?
+
+There are some professed lovers of books who affect either indifference
+or contempt for the style in which their favorites are dressed. A well
+known epigram of Burns is sometimes quoted against the fondness for fine
+bindings which widely prevails in the present day, as it did in that of
+the Scottish Poet. A certain Scottish nobleman, endowed with more wealth
+than brains, was vain of his splendidly bound Shakespeare, which,
+however, he never read. Burns, on opening the folio, found the leaves
+sadly worm-eaten, and wrote these lines on the fly-leaf:
+
+    "Through and through th' inspired leaves,
+        Ye maggots make your windings;
+      But O respect his lordship's taste,
+        And spare the golden bindings!"
+
+Yet no real book-lover fails to appreciate the neatness and beauty of a
+tasteful binding, any more than he is indifferent to the same qualities
+in literary style. Slovenly binding is almost as offensive to a
+cultivated eye as slovenly composition. No doubt both are "mere
+externals," as we are told, and so are the splendors of scenery, the
+beauty of flowers, and the comeliness of the human form, or features, or
+costume. Talk as men will of the insignificance of dress, it constitutes
+a large share of the attractiveness of the world in which we live.
+
+The two prime requisites of good binding for libraries are neatness and
+solidity. It is pleasant to note the steady improvement in American
+bindings of late years. As the old style of "Half cloth boards," of half
+a century ago, with paper titles pasted on the backs, has given way to
+the neat, embossed, full muslin gilt, so the clumsy and homely sheep-skin
+binding has been supplanted by the half-roan or morocco, with marble or
+muslin sides. Few books are issued, however, either here or abroad, in
+what may be called permanent bindings. The cheapness demanded by buyers
+of popular books forbids this, while it leaves to the taste and fancy of
+every one the selection of the "library style" in which he will have his
+collection permanently dressed.
+
+What is the best style of binding for a select or a public library? is a
+question often discussed, with wide discrepancies of opinion. The so
+universally prevalent cloth binding is too flimsy for books subjected to
+much use--as most volumes in public collections and many in private
+libraries are likely to be. The choice of the more substantial bindings
+lies between calf and morocco, and between half or full bindings of
+either. For nearly all books, half binding, if well executed, and with
+cloth sides, is quite as elegant, and very nearly as solid and lasting as
+full leather; for if a book is so worn as to need rebinding, it is
+generally in a part where the full binding wears out quite as fast as the
+other. That is, it gets worn at the hinges and on the back, whether full
+or half-bound. The exceptions are the heavy dictionaries, encyclopaedias,
+and other works of reference, which are subjected to much wear and tear
+at the sides, as well as at the back and corners. Full leather is much
+more expensive than half binding, though not doubly so.
+
+Every librarian or book collector should understand something of
+book-binding and its terms, so that he may be able to give clear
+directions as to every item involved in binding, repairing, or
+re-lettering, and to detect imperfect or slighted work.
+
+The qualities that we always expect to find in a well-bound book are
+solidity, flexibility, and elegance. Special examination should be
+directed toward each of these points in revising any lot of books
+returned from a binder. Look at each book with regard to:--
+
+    1. Flexibility in opening.
+
+    2. Evenness of the cover, which should lie flat and
+    smooth--each edge being just parallel with the others
+    throughout.
+
+    3. Compactness--see that the volumes are thoroughly
+    pressed--solid, and not loose or spongy.
+
+    4. Correct and even lettering of titles, and other tooling.
+
+    5. Good wide margins.
+
+A well-bound book always opens out flat, and stays open. It also shuts up
+completely, and when closed stays shut. But how many books do we see
+always bulging open at the sides, or stiffly resisting being opened by
+too great tightness in the back? If the books you have had bound do not
+meet all these requirements, it is time to look for another binder.
+
+The different styles of dressing books may all be summed up in the
+following materials: Boards, cloth, vellum, sheep, bock, pig-skin, calf,
+Russia, and morocco--to which may be added of recent years, buckram,
+duck, linoleum, and the imitations of leather, such as leatherette and
+morocco paper, and of parchment. I take no account here of obsolete
+styles--as ivory, wood, brass, silver and other metals, nor of velvet,
+satin, and other occasional luxuries of the binder's art. These belong to
+the domain of the amateur, the antiquary, or the book-fancier--not to
+that of the librarian or the ordinary book-collector.
+
+Roan leather is nothing but sheep-skin, stained or colored; basil or
+basan is sheepskin tanned in bark, while roan is tanned in sumac, and
+most of the so called moroccos are also sheep, ingeniously grained by a
+mechanical process. As all the manufactures in the world are full of
+"shoddy," or sham materials, the bookbinder's art affords no exception.
+But if the librarian or collector patronises shams, he should at least do
+it with his eyes open, and with due counting of the cost.
+
+Now as to the relative merits and demerits of materials for binding. No
+one will choose boards covered with paper for any book which is to be
+subjected to perusal, and cloth is too flimsy and shaky in its attachment
+to the book, however cheap, for any library volumes which are to be
+constantly in use. It is true that since the bulk of the new books coming
+into any library are bound in cloth, they may be safely left in it until
+well worn; and by this rule, all the books which nobody ever reads may be
+expected to last many years, if not for generations. Cloth is a very
+durable material, and will outlast some of the leathers, but any wetting
+destroys its beauty, and all colors but the darkest soon become soiled
+and repulsive, if in constant use. In most libraries, I hold that every
+cloth-bound book which is read, must sooner or later come to have a
+stout leather jacket. It may go for years, especially if the book is well
+sewed, but to rebinding it must come at last; and the larger the volume,
+the sooner it becomes shaky, or broken at some weak spot.
+
+The many beautiful new forms of cloth binding should have a word of
+praise, but the many more which we see of gaudy, fantastic, and
+meretricious bindings, and frightful combinations of colors must be
+viewed with a shudder.
+
+Vellum, formerly much used for book-bindings, is the modern name for
+parchment. Parchment was the only known writing material up to the 12th
+century, when paper was first invented. There are two kinds--animal and
+vegetable. The vegetable is made from cotton fibre or paper, by dipping
+it in a solution of sulphuric acid and [sometimes] gelatine, then
+removing the acid by a weak solution of ammonia, and smooth finishing by
+rolling the sheets over a heated cylinder. Vegetable parchment is used to
+bind many booklets which it is desired to dress in an elegant or dainty
+style, but is highly unsuitable for library books. Vellum proper is a
+much thicker material, made from the skins of calves, sheep, or lambs,
+soaked in lime-water, and smoothed and hardened by burnishing with a hard
+instrument, or pumice-stone. The common vellum is made from sheep-skin
+splits, or skivers, but the best from whole calf-skins. The hard, strong
+texture of vellum is in its favor, but its white color and tendency to
+warp are fatal objections to it as a binding material.
+
+Vellum is wholly unfit for the shelves of a library; the elegant white
+binding soils with dust, or the use of the hands, more quickly than any
+other; and the vellum warps in a dry climate, or curls up in a heated
+room, so as to be unmanageable upon the shelves, and a nuisance in the
+eyes of librarian and reader alike. The thin vegetable parchment lately
+in vogue for some books and booklets is too unsubstantial for anything
+but a lady's boudoir, where it may have its little day--"a thing of
+beauty," but by no means "a joy forever."
+
+Sheepskin--once the full binding for most school-books, and for a large
+share of law and miscellaneous works for libraries, is now but little
+used, except in its disguised forms. It is too soft a leather for hard
+wear and tear, and what with abrasion and breaking at the hinges (termed
+by binders the joints), it will give little satisfaction in the long run.
+Under the effect of gas and heated atmospheres sheep crumbles and turns
+to powder. Its cheapness is about its only merit, and even this is
+doubtful economy, since no binding can be called cheap that has to be
+rebound or repaired every few years. In the form of half-roan or bock,
+colored sheep presents a handsome appearance on the shelf, and in volumes
+or sets which are reasonably secure from frequent handling, one is
+sometimes justified in adopting it, as it is far less expensive than
+morocco. Pig-skin has been recently revived as a binding material, but
+though extremely hard and durable, it is found to warp badly on the
+shelves.
+
+Calf bindings have always been great favorites with book-lovers, and
+there are few things more beautiful--_prima facie_, than a volume
+daintily bound in light French calf, as smooth as glass, as fine as silk,
+with elegant gold tooling without and within, gilt edges, and fly-leaves
+of finest satin. I said beautiful, _prima facie_--and this calls to mind
+the definition of that law term by a learned Vermont jurist, who said:
+"Gentlemen of the jury, I must explain to you that a _prima facie_ case
+is a case that is very good in front, but may be very bad in the rear."
+So of our so much lauded and really lovely calf bindings: they develop
+qualities in use which give us pause. Calf is the most brittle of the
+leathers--hence it is always breaking at the hinges; it is a very smooth
+leather--hence it shows every scratch instantly; it is a light and
+delicate leather--hence it shows soils and stains more quickly than any
+other. Out of every hundred calf-bound volumes in any well-used library,
+there will not remain ten which have not had to be re-bound or repaired
+at the end of twenty or thirty years. Heavy volumes bound in calf or
+half-calf leather will break by their own weight on the shelves, without
+any use at all; and smaller volumes are sure to have their brittle joints
+snapped asunder by handling sooner or later--it is only a question of
+time.
+
+Next comes Russia leather, which is very thick and strong, being made of
+the hides of cattle, colored, and perfumed by the oil of birch, and made
+chiefly in Russia. The objections to this leather are its great cost, its
+stiffness and want of elasticity, and its tendency to desiccate and lose
+all its tenacity in the dry or heated atmosphere of our libraries. It
+will break at the hinges--though not so readily as calf.
+
+Lastly, we have the morocco leather, so called because it was brought
+from Morocco, in Africa, and still we get the best from thence, and from
+the Mediterranean ports of the Levant--whence comes another name for the
+best of this favorite leather, "Levant morocco," which is the skin of the
+mountain goat, and reckoned superior to all other leathers. The
+characteristics of the genuine morocco, sometimes called Turkey morocco,
+having a pebbled grain, distinguishing it from the smooth morocco, are
+its toughness and durability, combined with softness and flexibility. It
+has a very tenacious fibre, and I have never found a real morocco binding
+broken at the hinges. The old proverb--"there is nothing like
+leather"--is pregnant with meaning, and especially applies to the best
+morocco. As no material yet discovered in so many ages can take the
+place of leather for foot-wear and for harness, such is its tenacity and
+elasticity--so for book coverings, to withstand wear and tear, good
+leather is indispensable. There are thoroughly-bound books existing which
+are five centuries old--representing about the time when leather began to
+replace wood and metals for binding. The three great enemies of books are
+too great heat, too much moisture, and coal gas, which produces a
+sulphurous acid very destructive to bindings, and should never be used in
+libraries. From the dangers which destroy calf and Russia leather,
+morocco is measurably free.
+
+As to color, I usually choose red for books which come to binding or
+rebinding, for these reasons. The bulk of every library is of dark and
+sombre color, being composed of the old-fashioned calf bindings, which
+grow darker with age, mingled with the cloth bindings of our own day, in
+which dark colors predominate. Now the intermixture of red morocco, in
+all or most of the newly bound books, relieves the monotony of so much
+blackness, lights up the shelves, and gives a more cheerful aspect to the
+whole library. Some there are who insist upon varying the colors of
+bindings with the subjects of the books--and the British Museum Library
+actually once bound all works on botany in green, poetry in yellow,
+history in red, and theology in blue; but this is more fanciful than
+important. A second reason for preferring red in moroccos is that, being
+dyed with cochineal, it holds its color more permanently than any
+other--the moroccos not colored red turning to a dingy, disagreeable
+brown after forty or fifty years, while the red are found to be fast
+colors. This was first discovered in the National Library of France, and
+ever since most books in that great collection have been bound in red. A
+celebrated binder having recommended this color to a connoisseur who was
+having fine morocco binding done, instanced the example of the Paris
+Library, whose books, said he, are "mostly red," to which the amateur
+replied that he hoped they were.
+
+Add to the merits of morocco leather the fact that it is not easily
+scratched nor stained, that it is very tough in wear, and resists better
+than any other the moisture and soiling of the hands--and we have a
+material worthy of all acceptance.
+
+In half-binding chosen for the great majority of books because it is much
+cheaper than full leather, the sides are covered with muslin or with some
+kind of colored paper--usually marble. The four corners of every book,
+however, should always be protected by leather or, better still, by
+vellum, which is a firmer material--otherwise they will rapidly wear off,
+and the boards will break easily at their corners. As to the relative
+merits of cloth and paper for the sides of books, cloth is far more
+durable, though it costs more. Paper becomes quickly frayed at the edges,
+or is liable to peel where pasted on, though it may be renewed at small
+expense, and may properly be used except upon the much-read portion of
+the library. The cloth or paper should always harmonize in color with the
+leather to which it is attached. They need not be the same, but they
+should be of similar shade.
+
+One more reason for preferring morocco to other leathers is that you can
+always dispense with lettering-pieces or patches in gilding the titles on
+the back. All light-colored bindings (including law calf) are open to the
+objection that gold lettering is hardly legible upon them. Hence the
+necessity of stamping the titles upon darker pieces of leather, which are
+fastened to the backs. These lettering-pieces become loose in over-heated
+libraries, and tend continually to peel off, entailing the expense of
+repairing or re-lettering. Every morocco bound book can be lettered
+directly upon the leather. Bock is made of the skin of the Persian sheep,
+and is called Persian in London. It is a partially unsuccessful imitation
+of morocco, becoming easily abraded, like all the sheep-skin leathers,
+and although it is to be had in all colors, and looks fairly handsome for
+a time, and is tougher than skiver (or split sheep-skin), the books that
+are bound in it will sooner or later become an eyesore upon the shelves.
+A skin of Persian leather costs about one-third the price of genuine
+morocco, or goat. But the actual saving in binding is in a far less
+ratio--the difference being only six to eight cents per volume. It is
+really much cheaper to use morocco in the first place, than to undergo
+all the risks of deterioration and re-binding.
+
+Of the various imitations of leather, or substitutes for it, we have
+leatherette, leather-cloth, duck, fibrette, feltine, and buckram. Buckram
+and duck are strong cotton or linen fabricks, made of different colors,
+and sometimes figured or embossed to give them somewhat the look of
+leather. Hitherto, they are made mostly in England, and I have learned of
+no American experience in their favor except the use of stout duck for
+covering blank books and binding newspapers. The use of buckram has been
+mostly abandoned by the libraries. Morocco cloth is American, but has no
+advantage over plain muslin or book cloth, that I am aware of.
+Leatherette, made principally of paper, colored and embossed to simulate
+morocco leather, appears to have dropped out of use almost as fast as it
+came in, having no quality of permanence, elegance, or even of great
+cheapness to commend it. Leatherette tears easily, and lacks both
+tenacity and smoothness.
+
+Both feltine and fibrette are made of paper--tear quickly, and are unfit
+for use on any book that is ever likely to be read. All these imitations
+of leather are made of paper as their basis, and hence can never be
+proper substitutes for leather.
+
+All torn leaves or plates in books should be at once mended by pasting a
+very thin onion-skin paper on both sides of the torn leaf, and pressing
+gently between leaves of sized paper until dry.
+
+Corners made of vellum or parchment are more durable than any leather.
+When dry, the parchment becomes as hard almost as iron and resists falls
+or abrasion. To use it on books where the backs are of leather is a
+departure from the uniformity or harmony of style insisted upon by many,
+but in binding books that are to be greatly worn, use should come before
+beauty.
+
+In rebinding, all maps or folded plates should be mounted on thin canvas,
+linen, or muslin, strong and fine, to protect them from inevitable
+tearing by long use. If a coarse or thick cloth is used, the maps will
+not fold or open easily and smoothly.
+
+The cutting or trimming of the edges of books needs to be watched with
+jealous care. Few have reflected that the more margin a binder cuts off,
+the greater his profit on any job, white paper shavings having a very
+appreciable price by the pound. A strictly uncut book is in many American
+libraries a rarity. And of the books which go a second time to the
+binder, although at first uncut, how many retain their fair proportions
+of margin when they come back? You have all seen books in which the text
+has been cut into by the ruthless knife-machine of the binder. This is
+called "bleeding" a book, and there are no words strong enough to
+denounce this murderous and cold-blooded atrocity. The trimming of all
+books should be held within the narrowest limits--for the life of a book
+depends largely upon its preserving a good margin. Its only chance of
+being able to stand a second rebinding may depend upon its being very
+little trimmed at its first. If it must be cut at all, charge your binder
+to take off the merest shaving from either edge.
+
+Every new book or magazine added to the library, if uncut, should be
+carefully cut with a paper-knife before it goes into the hands of any
+reader. Spoiled or torn or ragged edges will be the penalty of neglecting
+this. You have seen people tear open the leaves of books and magazines
+with their fingers--a barbarism which renders him who would be guilty of
+it worthy of banishment from the resorts of civilization. In cutting
+books, the leaves should always be held firmly down--and the knife
+pressed evenly through the uncut leaves to the farthest verge of the
+back. Books which are cut in the loose fashion which many use are left
+with rough or ragged edges always, and often a slice is gouged out of the
+margin by the mis-directed knife. Never trust a book to a novice to be
+cut, without showing him how to do it, and how not to do it.
+
+The collation of new books in cloth or _broché_ should be done before
+cutting, provided they are issued to readers untrimmed. In collating
+books in two or more volumes double watchfulness is needed to guard
+against a missing signature, which may have its place filled by the same
+pages belonging to another volume--a mixture sometimes made in binderies,
+in "gathering" the sheets, and which makes it necessary to see that the
+signatures are right as well as the pages. The collator should check off
+all plates and maps called for by the table of contents to make sure that
+the copy is perfect. Books without pagination are of course to have their
+leaves counted, which is done first in detail, one by one, and then
+verified by a rapid counting in sections, in the manner used by printers
+and binders in counting paper by the quire.
+
+The binding of books may be divided into two styles or methods, namely,
+machine-made book-bindings, and hand-made bindings. Binding by machinery
+is wholly a modern art, and is applied to all or nearly all new books
+coming from the press. As these are, in more than nine cases out of ten,
+bound in cloth covers, and these covers, or cases, are cut out and
+stamped by machinery, such books are called "case-made." The distinction
+between this method of binding and the hand method is that in the former
+the case is made separately from the book, which is then put into it.
+After the sheets of any book come pressed and dried from the printing
+office, the first step is to fold them from the large flat sheets into
+book form. This is sometimes done by hand-folders of bone or some other
+hard material, but in large establishments for making books, it is done
+by a folding machine. This will fold ten thousand or more sheets in a
+day. The folded sheets are next placed in piles or rows, in their
+numerical sequence, and "gathered" by hand, _i. e._: a bindery hand picks
+up the sheets one by one, with great rapidity, until one whole book is
+gathered and collated, and the process is repeated so long as any sheets
+remain. Next, the books are thoroughly pressed or "smashed" as it is
+called, in a powerful smashing-machine, giving solidity to the book,
+which before pressing was loose and spongy. Then the books are sawed or
+grooved in the back by another machine, operating a swiftly moving saw,
+and sewed on cords by still another machine, at about half the cost of
+hand-sewing. Next, they are cut or trimmed on the three edges in a
+cutting-machine. The backs of the books are made round by a
+rounding-machine, leaving the back convex and the front concave in form,
+as seen in all finished books. The books are now ready for the covers.
+These consist of binders' board or mill-board, cut out of large sheets
+into proper size, with lightning-like rapidity, by another machine
+called a rotary board-cutter. The cloth which is to form the back and
+sides of the book is cut out, of proper size for the boards, from great
+rolls of stamped or ribbed or embossed muslin, by another machine. The
+use of cloth, now so universal for book-binding, dates back little more
+than half a century. About 1825, Mr. Leighton, of London, introduced it
+as a substitute for the drab-colored paper then used on the sides, and
+for the printed titles on the backs. The boards are firmly glued to the
+cloth, the edges of which are turned over the boards, and fastened on the
+inside of the covers. The ornamental stamps or figures seen on the
+covers, both at the back and sides are stamped in with a heated die of
+brass, or other metal, worked by machinery. The lettering of the title is
+done in the same way, only that gold-leaf is applied before the die
+falls. Lastly, the book is pasted by its fly leaves or end-leaves,
+(sometimes with the addition of a cloth guard) to the inside of the cloth
+case or cover, and the book is done, after a final pressing. By these
+rapid machine methods a single book-manufacturing house can turn out ten
+thousand volumes in a day, with a rapidity which almost takes the breath
+away from the beholder.
+
+There is a kind of binding which dispenses entirely with sewing the
+sheets of a book. The backs are soaked with a solution of india-rubber,
+and each sheet must be thoroughly agglutinated to the backs, so as to
+adhere firmly to its fellows. This requires that all the sheets shall be
+folded as single leaves or folios, otherwise the inner leaves of the
+sheets, having no sewing, would drop out. This method is employed on
+volumes of plates, music, or any books made up of large separate sheets.
+
+In notable contrast to these rapid methods of binding what are termed
+case-made books, comes the hand-made process, where only partial use of
+machinery is possible.
+
+The rebinding process is divided into three branches: preparing,
+forwarding, and finishing. The most vital distinction between a
+machine-made and a hand-made binding, is that the cloth or case-made book
+is not fastened into its cover in a firm and permanent way, as in
+leather-backed books. It is simply pasted or glued to its boards--not
+interlaced by the cords or bands on which it is sewed. Hence one can
+easily tear off the whole cover of a cloth-bound book, by a slight
+effort, and such volumes tend to come to pieces early, under constant
+wear and tear of library service.
+
+Let us now turn to the practical steps pursued in the treatment of books
+for library use. In re-binding a book, the first step is to take the book
+apart, or, as it is sometimes called, to take it to pieces. This is done
+by first stripping off its cover, if it has one. Cloth covers easily come
+off, as their boards are not tied to the cords on which the book is
+sewed, but are simply fastened by paste or glue to the boards by a muslin
+guard, or else the cloth is glued to the back of the book. If the book is
+leather-covered, or half-bound, _i. e._: with a leather back and
+(usually) leather on its four corners, taking it to pieces is a somewhat
+slower process. The binder's knife is used to cut the leather at the
+joints or hinges of the volume, so that the boards may be removed. The
+cords that tie the boards to the volume are cut at the same time. If the
+book has a loose or flexible back, the whole cover comes easily off: if
+bound with a tight back, the glued leather back must be soaked with a
+sponge full of water, till it is soft enough to peel off, and let the
+sheets be easily separated.
+
+The book is now stripped of its former binding, and the next step is to
+take it apart, signature by signature. A signature is that number of
+leaves which make up one sheet of the book in hand. Thus, an octavo
+volume, or a volume printed in eights, as it is called, has eight leaves,
+or sixteen pages to a signature; a quarto four leaves; a duodecimo, or 12
+mo. twelve leaves. The term signature (from Lat. _signare_, a sign) is
+also applied to a letter or figure printed at the foot of the first page
+of each sheet or section of the book. If the letters are used, the
+signatures begin with A. and follow in regular sequence of the alphabet.
+If the book is a very thick one, (or more than twenty-six signatures)
+then after signature Z, it is customary to duplicate the letters--A.
+A.--etc., for the remaining signatures. If figures are used instead of
+letters, the signatures run on to the last, in order of numbers. These
+letters, indicating signatures are an aid to the binder, in folding,
+"gathering," and collating the consecutive sheets of any book, saving
+constant reference to the "pagination," as it is termed, or the paging of
+the volume, which would take much more time. In many books, you find the
+signature repeated in the "inset," or the inner leaves of the sheet, with
+a star or a figure to mark the sequence. Many books, however, are now
+printed without any signature marks whatever.
+
+To return: in taking apart the sheets or signatures, where they are stuck
+together at the back by adhesive glue or paste, the knife is first used
+to cut the thread in the grooves, where the book is sewed on cords or
+tape. Then the back is again soaked, the sheets are carefully separated,
+and the adhering substance removed by the knife or fingers. Care has to
+be taken to lay the signatures in strict order or sequence of pages, or
+the book may be bound up wrongly. The threads are next to be removed from
+the inside of every sheet. The sheets being all separated, the book is
+next pressed, to render all the leaves smooth, and the book solid for
+binding. Formerly, books were beaten by a powerful hammer, to accomplish
+this, but it is much more quickly and effectively done in most binderies
+by the ordinary screw press. Every pressing of books should leave them
+under pressure at least eight hours.
+
+After pressing, the next step is to sew the sheets on to cords or twine,
+set vertically at proper distances in a frame, called a "sewing bench,"
+for this purpose. No book can be thoroughly well bound if the sewing is
+slighted in any degree. Insist upon strong, honest linen thread--if it
+breaks with a slight pull it is not fit to be used in a book. The book is
+prepared for the sewer by sawing several grooves across the back with a
+common saw. The two end grooves are light and narrow, the central ones
+wider and deeper. Into these inner grooves, the cords fit easily, and the
+book being taken, sheet by sheet, is firmly sewed around the cords, by
+alternate movements of the needle and thread, always along the middle of
+the sheet, the thread making a firm knot at each end (called the
+"kettle-stitch") as it is returned for sewing on the next sheet.
+Sometimes the backs are not sawed at all, but the sheets of the book are
+sewed around the cords, which thus project a little from the back, and
+form the "bands," seen in raised form on the backs of some books. Books
+should be sewed on three to six cords, according to their size. This
+raised-band sewing is reckoned by some a feature of excellent binding.
+The sunken-band style is apt to give a stiff back, while the raised bands
+are usually treated with a flexible back. When sewed, the book is
+detached from its fellows, which may have been sewed on the same bench,
+by slipping it along the cords, then cutting them apart, so as to leave
+some two inches of each cord projecting, as ends to be fastened later to
+the board. In careful binding, the thread is sewed "all along," _i. e._:
+each sheet by itself, instead of "two on," as it is called.
+
+The next process is termed "lining up," and consists of putting on the
+proper fly-leaves or end-leaves, at the beginning and end of the volume.
+These usually consist of four leaves of ordinary white printing paper at
+each end, sometimes finished out with two leaves of colored or marbled
+paper, to add a touch of beauty to the book when opened. Marbled paper is
+more durable in color than the tinted, and does not stain so easily. One
+of these end-leaves is pasted down to the inside cover, while the other
+is left flying--whence "fly-leaf."
+
+After this comes the cutting of the book at the edges. This is done by
+screwing it firmly in a cutting-machine, which works a sharp knife
+rapidly, shaving off the edges successively of the head, front and end,
+or "tail" as it is called in book-binding parlance. This trimming used to
+be done by hand, with a sharp cutting knife called by binders a "plough."
+Now, there are many forms of cutting machines, some of which are called
+"guillotines" for an obvious reason. In binding some books, which it is
+desired to preserve with wide margins, only a mere shaving is taken off
+the head, so as to leave it smooth at the top, letting the front and tail
+leaves remain uncut. But in case of re-binding much-used books, the edges
+are commonly so much soiled that trimming all around may be required, in
+order that they may present a decent appearance. Yet in no case should
+the binder be allowed to cut any book deeply, so as to destroy a good,
+fair margin. Care must also be taken to cut the margins evenly, at right
+angles, avoiding any crooked lines.
+
+After cutting the book comes "rounding," or giving the back of the book a
+curved instead of its flat shape. This process is done with the hand, by
+a hammer, or in a rounding press, with a metallic roller. Before
+rounding, the back of the book is glued up, that is, receives a coating
+of melted glue with a glueing brush, to hold the sections together, and
+render the back firm, and a thorough rubbing of the back with hot glue
+between the sections gives strength to the volume.
+
+Next comes the treatment of the edges of the book, hitherto all white, in
+order to protect them from showing soil in long use. Sometimes (and this
+is the cheaper process) the books are simply sprinkled at the edges with
+a brush dipped in a dark fluid made of burnt umber or red ochre, and
+shaken with a quick concussion near the edges until they receive a
+sprinkle of color from the brush. Other books receive what is called a
+solid color on the edges, the books being screwed into a press, and the
+color applied with a sponge or brush.
+
+But a marbled edge presents a far more handsome appearance, and should
+harmonize in color and figure with the marbled paper of the end leaves.
+Marbling, so called from its imitation of richly veined colored marble,
+is staining paper or book edges with variegated colors. The process of
+marbling is highly curious, both chemically and aesthetically, and may be
+briefly described. A large shallow trough or vat is filled with prepared
+gum water (gum-tragacanth being used); on the surface of this gum-water
+bright colors, mixed with a little ox-gall, to be used in producing the
+composite effect aimed at in the marbling are thrown or sprinkled in
+liquid form. Then they are deftly stirred or agitated on the surface of
+the water, with an implement shaped to produce a certain pattern. The
+most commonly used one is a long metallic comb, which is drawn across the
+surface of the combined liquids, leaving its pattern impressed upon the
+ductile fluid. The edges of the book to be marbled are then touched or
+dipped on the top of the water, on which the coloring matter floats, and
+at once withdrawn, exhibiting on the edge the precise pattern of "combed
+marble" desired, since the various colors--red, yellow, blue, white,
+etc., have adhered to the surface of the book-edges. The serrated and
+diversified effect of most comb-marbling is due to stroking the comb in
+waved lines over the surface. The spotted effect so much admired in other
+forms, is produced by throwing the colors on with a brush, at the fancy
+of the skilled workman, or artist, as you may call him. Marbled paper is
+made in the same way, by dipping one surface of the white sheet, held in
+a curved form, with great care on the surface of the coloring vat. This
+is termed shell and wave marbling, as distinguished from comb-marbling.
+The paper or the book edges are next finished by sizing and burnishing,
+which gives them a bright glistening appearance.
+
+A still more ornate effect in a book is attained by gilding the edges.
+Frequently the head of a book is gilt, leaving the front and tail of an
+uncut book without ornament, and this is esteemed a very elegant style by
+book connoisseurs, who are, or should be solicitous of wide margins. The
+gilding of the top edge is a partial protection from dust falling inside,
+to which the other edges are not so liable. To gild a book edge, it is
+placed in a press, the edges scraped or smoothed, and coated with a
+red-colored fluid, which serves to heighten the effect of the gold. Then
+a sizing is applied by a camel's-hair brush, being a sticky substance,
+usually the white of an egg, mixed with water (termed by binders
+"glaire") and the gold-leaf is laid smoothly over it. When the sizing is
+dry, the gold is burnished with a tool, tipped with an agate or
+blood-stone, drawn forcibly over the edge until it assumes a glistening
+appearance.
+
+After the edges have been treated by whatever process, there follows what
+is termed the "backing" of the book. The volume is pressed between iron
+clamps, and the back is hammered or rolled where it joins the sides, so
+as to form a groove to hold the boards forming the solid portion of the
+cover of every book. A backing-machine is sometimes used for this
+process, making by pressure the joint or groove for the boards. Then the
+"head-band" is glued on, being a silk braid or colored muslin, fastened
+around a cord, which projects a little above the head and the tail, at
+the back of the book, giving it a more finished appearance. At the same
+time, a book-mark for keeping the place is sometimes inserted and
+fastened like the head-band. This is often a narrow ribbon of colored
+silk, or satin, and helps to give a finish to the book, as well as to
+furnish the reader a trustworthy guide to keep a place--as it will not
+fall out like bits of paper inserted for that purpose.
+
+Next, the mill-boards are applied, cut so as to project about an eighth
+to a quarter of an inch from the edges of the book on three sides. The
+book is held to the boards by the ends of its cords being interlaced, _i.
+e._: passed twice through holes pierced in the boards, the loose ends of
+the cords being then wet with paste and hammered down flat to the surface
+of the boards. The best tar-boards should be used, which are made of old
+rope; no board made of straw is fit to be used on any book. Straw boards
+are an abomination--a cheap expedient which costs dearly in the end. The
+binder should use heavy boards on the larger and thicker volumes, but
+thin ones on all duodecimos and smaller sizes.
+
+Next, the books are subjected to a second pressing, after which the
+lining of the back is in order. Good thick brown paper is generally used
+for this, cut to the length of the book, and is firmly glued to the back,
+and rubbed down closely with a bone folder. A cloth "joint," or piece of
+linen (termed "muslin super,") is often glued to the back, with two
+narrow flaps to be pasted to the boards, on each side, thus giving
+greater tenacity to the covering. If the book is to be backed so as to
+open freely, that is, to have a spring back or elastic back, two
+thicknesses of a firm, strong paper, or thin card-board are used, one
+thickness of the paper being glued to the back of the book, while the
+other--open in the middle, but fastened at the edges, is to be glued to
+the leather of which the back is to be made.
+
+After this, comes putting the book in leather. If full bound a piece of
+leather cut full size of the volume, with about half an inch over, is
+firmly glued or pasted to the boards and the back, the leather being
+turned over the edges of the boards, and nicely glued on their inside
+margin. It is of great importance that the edges of the leather should be
+smoothly pared down with a sharp knife, so as to present an even edge
+where the leather joins the boards, not a protuberance--which makes an
+ugly and clumsy piece of work, instead of a neat one.
+
+For half-binding, a piece of leather is taken large enough to cover the
+back lengthwise, and turn in at the head and tail, while the width should
+be such as to allow from one to one and a half inches of the leather to
+be firmly glued to the boards next the back. The four corners of the
+boards are next to be leathered, the edges of the leather being carefully
+pared down, to give a smooth surface, even with the boards, when turned
+in. The leather is usually wet, preparatory to being manipulated thus,
+which renders it more flexible and ductile than in its dry state. The
+cloth or marbled paper is afterwards pasted or glued to the sides of the
+book, and turned neatly over the edge of the boards.
+
+It may be added, that the edges of the boards, in binding nice books, are
+sometimes ground off on a swiftly revolving emery-wheel, giving the book
+a beveled edge, which is regarded as handsomer and more finished than a
+straight rectangular edge.
+
+All the processes hitherto described are called "forwarding" the book: we
+now come to what is denominated "finishing." This includes the lettering
+of the title, and the embellishing of the back and sides, with or without
+gilding, as the case may be. Before this is taken in hand, the leather of
+the book must be perfectly dry. For the lettering, copper-faced types are
+used to set up the desired sequence of letters and words, and care and
+taste should be exercised to have (1) Types neither too large, which
+present a clumsy appearance, nor too small, which are difficult to read.
+(2) Proper spacing of the words and lines, and "balancing" the component
+parts of the lettering on the back, so as to present a neat and
+harmonious effect to the eye. A word should never be divided or
+hyphenated in lettering, when it can be avoided. In the case of quite
+thin volumes, the title may be lettered lengthwise along the back, in
+plain, legible type, instead of in very small letters across the back,
+which are often illegible. The method of applying gold lettering is as
+follows: the back of the book where the title is to go, is first
+moistened with a sticky substance, as albumen or glaire, heretofore
+mentioned, laid on with a camel's hair brush. The type (or the die as the
+case may be) is heated in a binder's charcoal furnace, or gas stove, to
+insure the adhesion of the gold leaf. The thin gold leaf (which comes
+packed in little square "books," one sheet between every two leaves) is
+then cut the proper size by the broad thin knife of the "finisher," and
+carefully laid over the sized spot to receive the lettering. Usually, two
+thicknesses of gold leaf are laid one above another, which ensures a
+brighter and more decided effect in the lettering. The type metal or die
+is then pressed firmly and evenly down upon the gold-leaf, and the
+surplus shavings of the gold carefully brushed off and husbanded, for
+this leaf is worth money. The gold leaf generally in use costs about
+$6.50 for 500 little squares or sheets. It is almost inconceivably thin,
+the thickness of one gold leaf being estimated at about 1/280000 of an
+inch.
+
+Besides the lettering, many books receive gold ornamentation on the back
+or side of a more or less elaborate character. Designs of great artistic
+beauty, and in countless variety, have been devised for book ornaments,
+and French and English book-binders have vied with each other for
+generations in the production of decorative borders, fillets,
+centre-pieces, rolls, and the most exquisite gold-tooling, of which the
+art is capable.
+
+These varied patterns of book ornamentation are cut in brass or steel,
+and applied by the embossing press with a rapidity far exceeding that of
+the hand-work formerly executed by the gilders of books. But for choice
+books and select jobs, only the hands are employed, with such fillets,
+stamps, pallets, rolls, and polishing irons as may aid in the nice
+execution of the work. If a book is to be bound in what is called
+"morocco antique," it is to be "blind-tooled," _i. e._: the hot iron
+wheels which impress the fillets or rolls, are to be worked in blank, or
+without gold-leaf ornamentation. This is a rich and tasteful binding,
+especially with carefully beveled boards, and gilded edges.
+
+On some books, money has been lavished on the binding to an amount
+exceeding by many fold the cost of the book itself. Elegant book-binding
+has come to be reckoned as a fine art, and why should not "the art
+preservative of all other arts"--printing--be preserved in permanent and
+sumptuous, if not splendid style, in its environment? Specimens of French
+artistic binding from the library of Grolier, that celebrated and
+munificent patron of art, who died in 1565, have passed through the hands
+of many eager connoisseurs, always at advancing prices. The Grolier
+binding was notable for the elegant finish of its interlaced ornaments
+in gold-leaf, a delicacy of touch, and an inimitable flowing grace, which
+modern binders have struggled after in vain. At the Beckford Library sale
+in London, in 1884, there was a great array of fine French bindings of
+early date. A book from Grolier's library, the "Toison d'Or," 1563,
+brought £405, or over $2,000, and a Heptameron, which had belonged to
+Louis XIV, in beautiful brown morocco, with crown, fleur-de-lys, a stag,
+a cock, and stars, as ornaments, all exquisitely worked in gold, lined
+with vellum, was sold for £400. Following the Grolier patterns, came
+another highly decorative style, by the French binders, which was notable
+for the very delicate gold tooling, covering the whole sides of the book
+with exquisite scroll-work, and branches of laurel.
+
+The most celebrated of English book-binders was Roger Payne, who was
+notable for the careful labor bestowed on the forwarding and finishing of
+his books, specimens of which are still reckoned among the
+_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the art. His favorite style was a roughly-grained red
+morocco, always full-bound, and he kept in view what many binders forget,
+that the leather is the main thing in a finely executed binding, not to
+be overlaid by too much gilding and decoration. He charged twelve guineas
+each (over $60) for binding some small volumes in his best style. Payne's
+most notable successors have been Lewis, Hayday, Bedford, and Zaehnsdorf,
+the latter of whom is the author of a treatise on book-binding. At the
+art exhibition of 1862, a book bound by Bedford was exhibited, which took
+two months merely to finish, and the binding cost forty guineas; and a
+Doré's Dante, exquisitely bound by Zaehnsdorf, in Grolier style, cost one
+hundred guineas.
+
+A decorative treatment not yet mentioned is applied to the covers of some
+books, which are bound in elegant full calf. To give to this leather the
+elegant finish known as "tree-calf binding", it is first washed with
+glaire or albumen. The boards of the book are then bent to a convex
+shape, and water sprinkled over, until it runs down from the centre in
+many little branches or rivulets. While running, a solution of copperas
+is sprinkled on, and carried along the branches which radiate from the
+central trunk, producing the dark-mottled colored effect which resembles,
+more or less nearly, a tree with its spreading branches.
+
+To make the book beautiful should be the united aim of all who are
+concerned in its manufacture--the paper-maker, the printer, and the
+book-binder. While utility comes first in the art of book-making for
+libraries, yet neatness and even elegance should always be united with
+it. An ill-forwarded book, or a badly finished one, presents a clumsy,
+unattractive look to the eye; while an evenly made piece of work, and a
+careful and tasteful ornamentation in the gilding, attract every
+discerning reader by their beauty. One writer upon book-binding terms the
+forwarder of the book an artizan, and the finisher an artist; but both
+should have the true artist's taste, in order to produce the work that
+shall commend itself by intrinsic excellence. The form and shape of the
+book depend wholly, indeed, on the forwarder.
+
+We are told that the great beauty of the Grolier bindings lay in the
+lavish and tasteful adornment of the sides. In fact, much depends upon
+the design, in every piece of decorative work. The pretty scroll
+patterns, the interlaced figures, the delicate tracery, the circles,
+rosettes, and stars, the lovely arabesques, the flowers and leaves
+borrowed from the floral kingdom, the geometric lines, the embroidered
+borders, like fine lace-work,--all these lend their separate individual
+charms to the finish of the varied specimens of the binder's art. There
+are some books that look as brilliant as jewels in their rich, lustrous
+adornment, the design sometimes powdered with gold points and stars. Some
+gems of art are lined with rich colored leather in the inside covers,
+which are stamped and figured in gold. This is termed "_doublé_" by the
+French. Some have their edges gilded over marbling, a refinement of
+beauty which adds richness to the work, the marble design showing through
+the brilliant gold, when the edge is turned. Others have pictorial
+designs drawn on the edges, which are then gilded over the pictures. This
+complex style of gilding, the French term _gaufré_. It was formerly much
+in vogue, but is latterly out of fashion. Many gems of binding are
+adorned with fly-leaves of moire silk, or rich colored satin. Color,
+interspersed with gold in the finish of a book covering, heightens the
+effect. The morocco of the side-cover is sometimes cut, and inlaid with
+leather of a different color. Inlaying with morocco or kid is the richest
+style of decoration which the art has yet reached. Beautiful bindings
+have been in greater request during the past twenty years than ever
+before. There was a renaissance of the ancient styles of decoration in
+France, and the choice Grolier and Maioli patterns were revived with the
+general applause of the lovers of fine books.
+
+In vivid contrast to these lovely specimens of the binder's art, are
+found innumerable bibliopegic horrors, on the shelves of countless
+libraries, public and private. Among these are to be reckoned most law
+books, clad in that dead monotony of ugliness, which Charles Dickens has
+described as "that _under-done pie-crust_ cover, which is technically
+known as law calf." There are other uncouth and unwholesome specimens
+everywhere abroad, "whom Satan hath bound", to borrow Mr. Henry Stevens's
+witty application of a well-known Scripture text. Such repellant
+bindings are only fit to serve as models to be avoided by the librarian.
+
+The binding that is executed by machinery is sometimes called "commercial
+binding". It is also known as "edition binding", because the whole
+edition of a book is bound in uniform style of cover. While the modern
+figured cloth binding originated in England, it has had its fullest
+development in the United States. Here, those ingenious and powerful
+machines which execute every branch of the folding and forwarding of a
+book, and even the finishing of the covers, with almost lightning speed,
+were mostly invented and applied. Very vivid is the contrast between the
+quiet, humdrum air of the old-fashioned bindery hand-work, and the
+ceaseless clang and roar of the machinery which turns out thousands of
+volumes in a day.
+
+    "Not as ours the books of old,
+    Things that steam can stamp and fold."
+
+I believe that I failed to notice, among the varieties of material for
+book-bindings heretofore enumerated, some of the rarer and more singular
+styles. Thus, books have been bound in enamel, (richly variegated in
+color) in Persian silk, in seal-skin, in the skin of the rabbit,
+white-bear, crocodile, cat, dog, mole, tiger, otter, buffalo, wolf, and
+even rattle-snake. A favorite modern leather for purses and satchels,
+alligator-skin, has been also applied to the clothing of books. Many
+eccentric fancies have been exemplified in book-binding, but the acme of
+gruesome oddity has been reached by binding books in human skin, of which
+many examples are on record. It is perhaps three centuries old, but the
+first considerable instance of its use grew out of the horrors of the
+French Revolution. In England, the Bristol law library has several
+volumes bound in the skin of local criminals, flayed after execution,
+and specially tanned for the purpose. It is described as rather darker
+than vellum. A Russian poet is said to have bound his sonnets in human
+leather--his own skin--taken from a broken thigh--and the book he
+presented to the lady of his affections! Such ghoulish incidents as these
+afford curious though repulsive glimpses of the endless vagaries of human
+nature.
+
+It is said that the invention of half-binding originated among the
+economists of Germany; and some wealthy bibliophiles have stigmatized
+this style of dressing books as "genteel poverty." But its utility and
+economy have been demonstrated too long to admit of any doubt that
+half-binding has come to stay; while, as we have seen, it is also capable
+of attractive aesthetic features. Mr. William Matthews, perhaps the
+foremost of American binders, said that "a book when neatly forwarded,
+and cleanly covered, is in a very satisfactory condition without any
+finishing or decorating." It was this same binder who exhibited at the
+New York World's Fair Exhibition of 1853, a copy of Owen Jones's
+Alhambra, bound by him in full Russia, inlaid with blue and red morocco,
+with gold tooling all executed by hand, taking six months to complete,
+and costing the binder no less than five hundred dollars.
+
+Book lettering, or stamping the proper title on the back of the book, is
+a matter of the first importance. As the titles of most books are much
+too long to go on the back, a careful selection of the most distinctive
+words becomes necessary. Here the taste and judgment of the librarian
+come indispensably into play. To select the lettering of a book should
+never be left to the binder, because it is not his business, and because,
+in most cases, he will make a mistake somewhere in the matter. From want
+of care on this point, many libraries are filled with wrongly lettered
+books, misleading titles, and blunders as ludicrous as they are
+distressing. I have had to have thousands of volumes in the Library of
+Congress re-lettered. A copy of Lord Bacon's "Sylva Sylvarum", for
+example, was lettered "Verlum's Sylva"--because the sapient binder read
+on the title-page "By Baron Verulam", and it was not his business to find
+out that this was the title of honor which Bacon bore; so, by a compound
+blunder, he converted Verulam into Verlum, and gave the book to an
+unknown writer. This is perhaps an extreme case, but you will find many
+to match it. Another folio, Rochefort's History of the Caribby Islands,
+was lettered "Davies' Carriby Islands," because the title bore the
+statement "Rendered into English by John Davies." In another library, the
+great work of the naturalist, Buffon, was actually lettered "Buffoon's
+Natural History." Neither of these blunders was as bad as that of the
+owner of an elegant black-letter edition of a Latin classic, which was
+printed without title-page, like most fifteenth century books, and began
+at the top of the first leaf, in large letters--"HOC INCIPIT," signifying
+"This begins", followed by the title or subject of the book. The wiseacre
+who owned it had the book richly bound, and directed it to be lettered on
+the back--"Works of Hoc Incipit, Rome, 1490." This is a true story, and
+the hero of it might perhaps, on the strength of owning so many learned
+works, have passed for a philosopher, if he had not taken the pains to
+advertise himself as a blockhead.
+
+Some of the commonest blunders are stamping on the back the translator's
+or the editor's name, instead of that of the author of the book; putting
+on adjectives instead of substantives for titles; modernizing ancient and
+characteristic spelling, found in the title, (the exact orthography of
+which should always be followed); mixing up the number and the case of
+Latin titles, and those in other foreign languages; leaving off entirely
+the name of the writer; and lettering periodicals by putting on the
+volume without the year, or the year, without the number of the volume.
+"No one but an idiot", said Mr. C. Walford to the London Librarians'
+Conference, "would send his books to the binder, without indicating the
+lettering he desires on the backs." The only safe-guard is for the
+librarian or owner to prescribe on a written slip in each volume, a title
+for every book, before it goes to the binder, who will be only too glad
+to have his own time saved--since time is money to him. I would not
+underrate the book-binders, who are a most worthy and intelligent class,
+numbering in their ranks men who are scholars as well as artists; but
+they are concerned chiefly with the mechanics and not with the
+metaphysics of their art, and moreover, they are not bound by that rigid
+rule which should govern the librarian--namely--to have no ignoramus
+about the premises.
+
+In writing letterings (for I take it that no one would be guilty of
+defacing his title-pages by marking them up with directions to the
+binder) you should definitely write out the parts of the title as they
+are to run on the back of the book, spaced line upon line, and not "run
+together." I think that the name of the author should always stand first
+at the head of the lettering, because it affords the quickest guide to
+the eye in finding any book, as well as in replacing it upon the shelves.
+Especially useful and time-saving is this, where classes of books are
+arranged in alphabetical sequence. Is not the name of the author commonly
+uppermost in the mind of the searcher? Then, let it be uppermost on the
+book sought also. Follow the name of the author by the briefest possible
+words selected from the title which will suffice to characterize the
+subject of the work. Thus, the title--"On the Origin of Species by means
+of Natural Selection", by Charles Darwin, should be abbreviated into
+
+                           Darwin
+                          --------
+                      Origin of Species.
+
+Here are no superfluous words, to consume the binder's time and
+gold-leaf, and to be charged in the bill; or to consume the time of the
+book-searcher, in stopping to read a lot of surplusage on the back of the
+book, before seizing it for immediate use. Books in several volumes
+should have the number of each volume plainly marked in Arabic (not
+Roman) numerals on the back. The old-fashioned method of expressing
+numerals by letters, instead of figures, is too cumbrous and
+time-consuming to be tolerated. You want to letter, we will say, vol. 88
+of Blackwood's Magazine. If you follow the title-page of that book, as
+printed, you have to write
+
+"Volume LXXXVIII," eight letters, for the number of the volume, instead
+of two simple figures--thus--88.
+
+Now can any one give a valid reason for the awkward and tedious method of
+notation exhibited in the Roman numerals? If it were only the lost time
+of the person who writes it, or the binder's finisher who letters it, it
+would be comparatively insignificant. But think of the time wasted by the
+whole world of readers, who must go through a more or less troublesome
+process of notation before they get a clear notion of what all this
+superfluous stuff stands for instead of the quick intuition with which
+they take in the Arabic figures; and who must moreover, by the antiquated
+method, take valuable time to write out LXXXVIII, eight figures instead
+of two, to say nothing of the added liability to error, which increases
+in the exact ratio of the number of figures to be written. Which of these
+two forms of expression is more quickly written, or stamped, or read? By
+which method of notation will the library messenger boys or girls soonest
+find the book? This leads me to say what cannot be too strongly insisted
+upon; all library methods should be time-saving methods, and so devised
+for the benefit alike of the librarian, the assistants, and the readers.
+Until one has learned the supreme value of moments, he will not be fit
+for a librarian. The same method by Arabic numerals only, should be used
+in all references to books; and it would be well if the legal fashion of
+citing authorities by volume and page, now adopted in most law books,
+were extended to all literature--thus:
+
+"3 Macaulay's England, 481. N. Y. 1854," instead of "Macaulay's England,
+N. Y. ed. 1854. vol. 3, page 481." It is a matter of congratulation to
+all librarians, as well as to the reading public, that Poole's Indexes to
+Periodical Literature have wisely adopted Arabic figures only, both for
+volume and page. The valuable time thus saved to all is quite
+incalculable.
+
+Every book which is leather-bound has its back divided off into panels or
+sections, by the band across the back or by the gold or plain fillet or
+roll forming part of the finish of the book. These panels are usually
+five or six in number, the former being the more common. Now it is the
+librarian's function to prescribe in which of these panels the lettering
+of the book--especially where there is double lettering--shall go. Thus
+
+          |   COUSIN   |       |       |      |      |
+          |    ----    |       |       |      | NEW  |
+     2nd  |  HISTORY   |  4th  | WIGHT | End  |YORK, |
+    panel |    OF      | panel |       |      |1852. |
+          |  MODERN    |       |       |      |      |
+          | PHILOSOPHY.|       |       |      |      |
+
+Many books, especially dramatic works, and the collected works of authors
+require the contents of the various volumes to be briefed on the back.
+Here is a Shakespeare, for example, in 10 volumes, or a Swift in 19, or
+Carlyle in 33, and you want to find _King Lear_, or _Gulliver's Travels_,
+or _Heroes and Hero Worship_. The other volumes concern you not--but you
+want the shortest road to these. If the name of each play is briefed by
+the first word upon the different volumes of your Shakespeare, or the
+contents of each volume upon the Swift and the Carlyle,--as they should
+be--you find instantly what you want, with one glance of the eye along
+the backs. If put to the trouble of opening every volume to find the
+contents, or of hunting it in the index, or the library catalogue, you
+lose precious time, while readers wait, thus making the needless delay
+cumulative, and as it must be often repeated, indefinite.
+
+Each volume should have its date and place of publication plainly
+lettered at the lower end, or what binders term the tail of the book.
+This often saves time, as you may not want an edition of old date, or
+_vice versa_, while the place and date enable readers' tickets to be
+filled out quickly without the book. The name of the library might well
+be lettered also on the back, being more obvious as a permanent means of
+identification than the book-plate or inside stamp.
+
+Books should never be used when fresh from the binder's hands. The covers
+are then always damp, and warp on exposure to air and heat. Unless
+pressed firmly in shelves, or in piles, for at least two weeks, they may
+become incurably warped out of shape. Many an otherwise handsomely bound
+book is ruined by neglect of this caution, for once thoroughly dried in
+its warped condition, there is no remedy save the costly one of
+rebinding.
+
+Books are frequently lettered so carelessly that the titles instead of
+aligning, or being in straight horizontal lines, run obliquely upward or
+downward, thus defacing the volume. Errors in spelling words are also
+liable to occur. All crooked lettering and all mistakes in spelling
+should at once be rejected, and the faulty books returned to the binder,
+to be corrected at his own expense. This severe revision of all books
+when newly bound, before they are placed upon the shelves, should be done
+by the librarian's or owner's own eye--not entrusted to subordinates,
+unless to one thoroughly skilled.
+
+One should never receive back books from a binder without collating them,
+to see if all are perfect as to pages, and if all plates or maps are in
+place. If deficiencies are found, the binder, and not the library is
+responsible, provided the book was known to be perfect when sent for
+binding.
+
+In the Congressional Library I had the periodicals which are analyzed in
+Poole's Index of Periodical Literature thoroughly compared and
+re-lettered, wherever necessary, to make the series of volumes correspond
+with the references in that invaluable and labor-saving index. For
+instance, the Eclectic Review, as published in London, had eight distinct
+and successive series (thus confusing reference by making eight different
+volumes called 1, 2, 3, etc.) each with a different numbering, "First
+series, 2d series," etc., which Poole's Index very properly consolidated
+into one, for convenient reference. By adding the figures as scheduled in
+that work--prefixed by the words _Poole's Index No._ ---- or simply
+_Poole_, in small letters, followed by the figure of the volume as given
+in that index, you will find a saving of time in hunting and supplying
+references that is almost incalculable. If you cannot afford to have this
+re-numbering done by a binder in gilt letters, it will many times repay
+the cost and time of doing it on thin manila paper titles, written or
+printed by a numbering machine and pasted on the backs of the volumes.
+
+In all periodicals,--magazines and serials of every kind,--the covers and
+their advertisements should be bound in their proper place, with each
+month or number of the periodical, though it may interrupt the continuity
+of the paging. Thus will be preserved valuable contemporary records
+respecting prices, bibliographical information, etc., which should never
+be destroyed, as it is illustrative of the life and history of the
+period. The covers of the magazines, too, frequently contain the table of
+contents of the number, which of course must be prefixed to it, in order
+to be of any use. If advertising pages are very numerous and bulky, (as
+in many popular periodicals of late years) they may well be bound at the
+end of the volume, or, if so many as to make the volume excessively
+thick, they might be bound in a supplementary volume. In all books,
+half-titles or bastard titles, as they are called, should be bound in, as
+they are a part of the book.
+
+With each lot of books to be bound, there should always be sent a sample
+volume of good work as a pattern, that the binder may have no excuse for
+hasty or inferior workmanship.
+
+The Grolier Club was founded in New York in 1884, having for its objects
+to promote the literary study and progress of the arts pertaining to the
+production of books. It has published more than twenty books in sumptuous
+style, and mostly in quarto form, the editions being limited to 150
+copies at first, since increased to 300, under the rapidly enlarging
+membership of the Club. Most of these books relate to fine binding, fine
+printing, or fine illustration of books, or are intended to exemplify
+them, and by their means, by lectures, and exhibitions of fine book-work,
+this society has contributed much toward the diffusion of correct taste.
+More care has been bestowed upon fine binding in New York than in London
+itself. In fact, elegant book-binding is coming to be recognized as one
+of the foremost of the decorative arts.
+
+The art of designing book-covers and patterns for gilding books has
+engaged the talents of many artists, among whom may be named Edwin A.
+Abbey, Howard Pyle, Stanford White, and Elihu Vedder. Nor have skilful
+designs been wanting among women, as witness Mrs. Whitman's elegant
+tea-leaf border for the cover of Dr. O. W. Holmes's "Over the Tea-cups,"
+and Miss Alice Morse's arabesques and medallions for Lafcadio Hearn's
+"Two Years in the French West Indies." Miss May Morris designed many
+tasteful letters for the fine bindings executed by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson
+of London, and Kate Greenaway's many exquisite little books for little
+people have become widely known for their quaint and curious cover
+designs. A new field thus opens for skilled cultivators of the beautiful
+who have an eye for the art of drawing.
+
+Mr. William Matthews, the accomplished New York binder, in an address
+before the Grolier Club in 1895, said: "I have been astonished that so
+few women--in America, I know none--are encouragers of the art; they
+certainly could not bestow their taste on anything that would do them
+more credit, or as a study, give them more satisfaction." It is but fair
+to add that since this judgment was put forth, its implied reproach is no
+longer applicable: a number of American women have interested themselves
+in the study of binding as a fine art; and some few in practical work as
+binders of books.
+
+There is no question that readers take a greater interest in books that
+are neatly and attractively bound, than in volumes dressed in a mean
+garb. No book owner or librarian with any knowledge of the incurable
+defects of calf, sheep, or roan leather, if he has any regard for the
+usefulness or the economies of his library, will use them in binding
+books that are to possess permanent value in personal or public use. True
+economy lies in employing the best description of binding in the first
+instance.
+
+When it is considered that the purposed object of book-binding is to
+preserve in a shape at once attractive and permanent, the best and
+noblest thoughts of man, it rises to a high rank among the arts. Side by
+side with printing, it strives after that perfection which shall ensure
+the perpetuity of human thought. Thus a book, clothed in morocco, is not
+a mere piece of mechanism, but a vehicle in which the intellectual life
+of writers no longer on earth is transmitted from age to age. And it is
+the art of book-binding which renders libraries possible. What the
+author, the printer, and the binder create, the library takes charge of
+and preserves. It is thus that the material and the practical link
+themselves indissolubly with the ideal. And the ideal of every true
+librarian should be so to care for the embodiments of intelligence
+entrusted to his guardianship, that they may become in the highest degree
+useful to mankind. In this sense, the care bestowed upon thorough and
+enduring binding can hardly be overrated, since the life of the book
+depends upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4.
+
+PREPARATION FOR THE SHELVES: BOOK PLATES, ETC.
+
+
+When any lot of books is acquired, whether by purchase from book-dealers
+or from auction, or by presentation, the first step to be taken, after
+seeing that they agree with the bill, and have been collated, in
+accordance with methods elsewhere given, should be to stamp and label
+each volume, as the property of the library. These two processes are
+quite distinct, and may be performed by one or two persons, according to
+convenience, or to the library force employed. The stamp may be the
+ordinary rubber one, inked by striking on a pad, and ink of any color may
+be used, although black or blue ink has the neatest appearance. The stamp
+should bear the name of the library, in clear, legible, plain type, with
+year of acquisition of the book in the centre, followed by the month and
+day if desired. A more permanent kind of stamp is the embossing stamp,
+which is a steel die, the letters cut in relief, but it is very expensive
+and slow, requiring the leaf to be inserted between the two parts of the
+stamp, though the impression, once made, is practically indelible.
+
+The size of the stamp (which is preferably oval in shape) should not
+exceed 1¼ to 1½ inches in diameter, as a large, coarse stamp never
+presents a neat appearance on a book. Indeed, many books are too small to
+admit any but a stamp of very moderate dimensions. The books should be
+stamped on the verso (reverse) of the title page, or if preferred, on the
+widest unprinted portion of the title-page, preferably on the right hand
+of the centre, or just below the centre on the right. This, because its
+impression is far more legible on the plain white surface than on any
+part of the printed title. In a circulating library, the stamps should be
+impressed on one or more pages in the body of the book, as well as on the
+last page, as a means of identification if the book is stolen or
+otherwise lost; as it is very easy to erase the impression of a rubber
+stamp from the title-page, and thereby commit a fraud by appropriating or
+selling the book. In such a case, the duplicate or triplicate impression
+of the stamp on some subsequent page (say page 5 or 16, many books having
+but few pages) as fixed upon by the librarian, is quite likely to escape
+notice of the thief, while it remains a safe-guard, enabling the
+librarian to reclaim the book, wherever found. The law will enforce this
+right of free reclamation in favor of a public library, in the case of
+stolen books, no matter in what hands found, and even though the last
+holder may be an innocent purchaser. All libraries are victimized at some
+time by unscrupulous or dishonest readers, who will appropriate books,
+thinking themselves safe from detection, and sometimes easing their
+consciences, (if they have any) by the plea that the book is in a measure
+public property.
+
+In these cases, there is no absolute safe-guard, as it is easy to carry
+off a book under one's coat, and the librarian and his few aids are far
+too busy to act as detectives in watching readers. Still, a vigilant
+librarian will almost always find out, by some suspicious
+circumstance--such as the hiding of books away, or a certain furtive
+action observed in a reader--who are the persons that should be watched,
+and when it is advisable to call in the policeman.
+
+The British Museum Library, which has no circulation or book lending,
+enforces a rule that no one making his exit can have a book with him,
+unless checked as his own property, all overcoats and other wraps being
+of course checked at the door.
+
+It is a melancholy fact, duly recorded in a Massachusetts paper, that no
+less than two hundred and fifty volumes, duly labeled and stamped as
+public library books, were stolen from a single library in a single year,
+and sold to second-hand booksellers.
+
+The impression of the stamp in the middle of a certain page, known to the
+librarian, renders it less liable to detection by others, while if
+stamped on the lower unprinted margin, it might be cut out by a designing
+person.
+
+Next to the stamping, comes the labeling of the books to be added to the
+library. This is a mechanical process, and yet one of much importance.
+Upon its being done neatly and properly, depends the good or bad
+appearance of the library books, as labels with rough or ragged edges, or
+put on askew, or trimmed irregularly at their margins, present an ugly
+and unfinished aspect, offensive to the eye of good taste, and reflecting
+discredit on the management. A librarian should take pride in seeing all
+details of his work carefully and neatly carried out. If he cannot have
+perfection, from want of time, he should always aim at it, at least, and
+then only will he come near to achieving it.
+
+The label, or book-plate (for they are one and the same thing) should be
+of convenient size to go into books both small and large; and a good size
+is approximately 2¼ inches wide by 1½ inches high when trimmed. As
+comparatively few libraries care to go to the expense, which is about ten
+times that of printing, of an engraved label (although such work adds to
+the attractiveness of the books containing it) it should be printed in
+clear, not ornamental type, with the name of the library, that of the
+city or town in which it is located (unless forming a part of the title)
+and the abbreviation No. for number, with such other spaces for section
+marks or divisions, shelf-marks, etc., as the classification adopted may
+require. The whole should be enclosed in an ornamental border--not too
+ornate for good taste.
+
+The labels, nicely trimmed to uniform size by a cutting machine, (if that
+is not in the library equipment, any binder will do it for you) are next
+to be pasted or gummed, as preferred. This process is a nice one,
+requiring patience, care, and practice. Most libraries are full of books
+imperfectly labelled, pasted on in crooked fashion, or perhaps damaging
+the end-leaves by an over-use of paste, causing the leaves to adhere to
+the page labelled--which should always be the inside left hand cover of
+the book. This slovenly work is unworthy of a skilled librarian, who
+should not suffer torn waste leaves, nor daubs of over-running paste in
+any of his books. To prevent both these blunders in library economy, it
+is only needful to instruct any intelligent assistant thoroughly, by
+practical example how to do it--accompanied by a counter-example how not
+to do it. The way to do it is to have your paste as thin as that used by
+binders in pasting their fly-leaves, or their leather, or about the
+consistency of porridge or pea soup. Then lay the label or book-plate
+face downward on a board or table covered with blotting paper, dip your
+paste brush (a half inch bristle brush is the best) in the paste, stroke
+it (to remove too much adhering matter) on the inner side of your paste
+cup, then apply it across the whole surface of the label, with light,
+even strokes of the brush, until you see that it is all moistened with
+paste. Next, take up the label and lay it evenly in the middle of the
+left inner cover page of the book to be labelled, and with a small piece
+of paper (not with the naked fingers) laid over it, stroke it down firmly
+in its place, by rubbing over a few times the incumbent paper. This being
+properly done (and it is done by an expert, once learned, very rapidly)
+your book-plate will be firmly and smoothly pasted in, with no exuding
+of paste at the edges, to spoil the fly-leaves, and no curling up of
+edges because insufficiently pasted down.
+
+So much for the book-plate--for the inside of the volumes; now let us
+turn attention to the outside label. This is necessarily very much
+smaller than the book-plate: in fact, it should not be larger than
+three-quarters or seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, and even smaller
+for the thinner volumes, while in the case of the very smallest, or
+thinnest of books, it becomes necessary to paste the labels on the side,
+instead of on the back. This label is to contain the section and
+shelf-mark of the book, marked by plain figures, according to the plan of
+classification adopted. When well done, it is an inexpressible comfort to
+any librarian, because it shows at one glance of the eye, and without
+opening the book at all, just where in the wide range of the
+miscellaneous library it is to go. Thus the book service of every day is
+incalculably aided, and the books are both found when sought on the
+shelves, and replaced there, with no trouble of opening them.
+
+This outer-label system once established, in strict correspondence with
+the catalogue, the only part of the librarian's work remaining to be
+prescribed in this field, concerns the kind of label to be selected, and
+the method of affixing them to the books. The adhesive gummed labels
+furnished by the Library Bureau, or those manufactured by the Dennison
+Company of New York have the requisite qualities for practical use. They
+may be purchased in sheets, or cut apart, as convenient handling may
+dictate. Having first written in ink in plain figures, as large as the
+labels will bear, the proper locality marks, take a label moistener (a
+hollow tube filled with water, provided with a bit of sponge at the end
+and sold by stationers) and wet the label throughout its surface, then
+fix it on the back of the book, on the smooth part of the binding near
+the lower end, and with a piece of paper (not the fingers) press it down
+firmly to its place by repeated rubbings. If thoroughly done, the labels
+will not peel off nor curl up at the edges for a long time. Under much
+usage of the volumes, however, they must occasionally be renewed.
+
+When the books being prepared for the shelves have all been duly
+collated, labelled and stamped, processes which should precede
+cataloguing them, they are next ready for the cataloguer. His functions
+having been elsewhere described, it need only be said that the books when
+catalogued and handed over to the reviser, (or whoever is to scrutinize
+the titles and assign them their proper places in the library
+classification) are to have the shelf-marks of the card-titles written on
+the inside labels, as well as upon the outside.
+
+When this is done, the title-cards can be withdrawn and alphabeted in the
+catalogue drawers. Next, all the books thus catalogued, labelled, and
+supposed to be ready for the shelves, should be examined with reference
+to three points:
+
+1st. Whether any of the volumes need re-lettering.
+
+2nd. Whether any of them require re-binding.
+
+3rd. If any of the bindings are in need of repair.
+
+In any lot of books purchased or presented, are almost always to be found
+some that are wrongly or imperfectly lettered on the back. Before these
+are ready for the shelves, they should be carefully gone through with,
+and all errors or shortcomings corrected. It is needful to send to the
+binder
+
+1st. All books which lack the name of the author on the back. This should
+be stamped by the binder at the head, if there is room--if not, in the
+middle panel on the back of the book.
+
+2nd. All books lettered with mis-spelled words.
+
+3rd. All volumes in sets, embracing several distinct works--to have the
+name of each book in the contents plainly stamped on the outside.
+
+4th. All books wholly without titles on the back, of which many are
+published--the title 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
+furbishing 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 distinguishing 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 assistant, 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 accumulated.
+
+If you find other injury to a book returned, than the natural wear and
+tear that the library must assume, 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 title, suggesting to the uninitiated the
+illustrations 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 ownership, 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 fashion of
+collecting these owners' marks, as such, irrespective of the books
+containing them, is a recent and very possibly a passing 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 Washington'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 Washington in 1863, this counterfeit plate had been placed in
+many books to give a fictitious 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 Washington, 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 workmanship 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 illustrate 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.
+
+THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS.
+
+
+We have seen in former chapters how the books of a library are acquired,
+how they are prepared for the shelves, or for use, and how they are or
+should be bound. Let us now consider the important questions which
+involve the care, the protection, and the preservation of the books.
+
+Every librarian or book owner should be something more than a custodian
+of the books in his collection. He should also exercise perpetual
+vigilance with regard to their safety and condition. The books of every
+library are beset by dangers and by enemies. Some of these are open and
+palpable; others are secret, illusive, little suspected, and liable to
+come unlooked for and without warning. Some of these enemies are
+impersonal and immaterial, but none the less deadly; others are
+personally human in form, but most inhuman in their careless and brutal
+treatment of books. How far and how fatally the books of many libraries
+have been injured by these ever active and persistent enemies can never
+be adequately told. But we may point out what the several dangers are
+which beset them, and how far the watchful care of the librarian and his
+assistants may fore-stall or prevent them.
+
+One of the foremost of the inanimate enemies of books is dust. In some
+libraries the atmosphere is dust-laden, to a degree which seems
+incredible until you witness its results in the deposits upon books,
+which soil your fingers, and contaminate the air you breathe, as you
+brush or blow it away. Peculiarly liable to dust are library rooms
+located in populous towns, or in business streets, and built close to
+the avenues of traffic. Here, the dust is driven in at the windows and
+doors by every breeze that blows. It is an omnipresent evil, that cannot
+be escaped or very largely remedied. As preventive measures, care should
+be taken not to build libraries too near the street, but to have ample
+front and side yards to isolate the books as far as may be consistent
+with convenient access. Where the library is already located immediately
+on the street, a subscription for sprinkling the thoroughfare with water,
+the year round, would be true economy.
+
+In some cities, the evils of street dust are supplemented by the
+mischiefs of coal smoke, to an aggravated degree. Wherever soft coal is
+burned as the principal fuel, a black, fuliginous substance goes floating
+through the air, and soils every thing it touches. It penetrates into
+houses and public buildings, often intensified by their own interior use
+of the same generator of dirt, and covers the books of the library with
+its foul deposits. You may see, in the public libraries of some western
+cities, how this perpetual curse of coal smoke has penetrated the leaves
+of all the books, resisting all efforts to keep it out, and slowly but
+surely deteriorating both paper and bindings. Here, preventive measures
+are impossible, unless some device for consuming the coal smoke of
+chimneys and factories were made compulsory, or the evil somewhat
+mitigated by using a less dangerous fuel within the library.
+
+But, aside from these afflictions of dust, in its most aggravated form,
+every library and every room in any building is subject to its persistent
+visitations. Wherever carpets or rugs cover the floors, there dust has an
+assured abiding-place, and it is diffused throughout the apartment in
+impalpable clouds, at every sweeping of the floors. Hence it would be
+wise to adopt in public libraries a floor-covering like linoleum, or some
+substance other than woolen, which would be measurably free from dust,
+while soft enough to deaden the sound of feet upon the floors. Even with
+this preventive precaution, there will always be dust enough, and too
+much for comfort, or for the health of the books. Only a thorough
+dusting, carried on if possible daily, can prevent an accumulation of
+dust, at once deleterious to the durability of the books, and to the
+comfort both of librarians and readers. Dust is an insidious foe,
+stealing on its march silently and unobserved, yet, however impalpable in
+the atmosphere of a library, it will settle upon the tops of every shelf
+of books, it will penetrate their inner leaves, it will lodge upon the
+bindings, soiling books and readers, and constituting a perpetual
+annoyance.
+
+It is not enough to dust the tops of the books periodically; a more full
+and radical remedy is required, to render library books presentable. At
+no long intervals, there should be a thorough library cleaning, as
+drastic and complete as the house-cleaning which neat housewives
+institute twice a year, with such wholesome results. The books are to be
+taken down from the shelves, and subjected to a shaking-up process, which
+will remove more of the dust they have absorbed than any brush can reach.
+To do this effectually, take them, if of moderate thickness, by the
+half-dozen at a time from the shelf, hold them loosely on a table, their
+fronts downward, backs uppermost, then with a hand at either side of the
+little pile, strike them smartly together a few times, until the dust,
+which will fly from them in a very palpable cloud, ceases to fall. Then
+lay them on their ends, with the tops uppermost on the table, and repeat
+the concussion in that posture, when you will eliminate a fresh crop of
+dust, though not so thick as the first. After this, let each volume of
+the lot be brushed over at the sides and back with a soft (never stiff)
+brush, or else with a piece of cotton or woolen cloth, and so restored
+clean to the shelves. While this thorough method of cleansing will take
+time and pains, it will pay in the long run. It will not eliminate all
+the dust (which in a large collection is a physical impossibility) but it
+will reduce it to a minimum. Faithfully carried out, as a periodical
+supplement to a daily dusting of the books as they stand on the shelves,
+it will immensely relieve the librarian or book-owner, who can then, (and
+then only) feel that he has done his whole duty by his books.
+
+Another dangerous enemy of the library book is damp, already briefly
+referred to. Books kept in any basement room, or near any wall, absorb
+moisture with avidity; both paper and bindings becoming mildewed, and
+often covered with blue mould. If long left in this perilous condition,
+sure destruction follows; the glue or paste which fastens the cover
+softens, the leather loses its tenacity, and the leaves slowly rot, until
+the worthless volumes smell to heaven. Books thus injured may be
+partially recovered, before the advanced stage of decomposition, by
+removal to a dry atmosphere, and by taking the volumes apart, drying the
+sheets, and rebinding--a very expensive, but necessary remedy, provided
+the books are deemed worth preserving.
+
+But a true remedy is the preventive one. No library should ever be kept,
+even in part, in a basement story, nor should any books ever be located
+near the wall of a building. All walls absorb, retain, and give out
+moisture, and are dangerous and oft-times fatal neighbors to books. Let
+the shelves be located at right angles to every wall--with the end
+nearest to it at least twelve to eighteen inches removed, and the danger
+will be obviated.
+
+A third enemy of the book is heat. Most libraries are unfortunately
+over-heated,--sometimes from defective means of controlling the
+temperature, and sometimes from carelessness or want of thought in the
+attendant. A high temperature is very destructive to books. It warps
+their covers, so that volumes unprotected by their fellows, or by a book
+support, tend to curl up, and stay warped until they become a nuisance.
+It also injures the paper of the volumes by over-heating, and weakening
+the tenacity of the leaves held together by the glue on the back, besides
+drying to an extreme the leather, till it cracks or crumbles under the
+heat. The upper shelves or galleries of any library are most seriously
+affected by over-heating, because the natural law causes the heat to rise
+toward the ceiling. If you put your hand on some books occupying the
+highest places in some library rooms, in mid-winter, when the fires are
+kept at their maximum, the heat of the volume will almost burn your
+fingers. If these books were sentient beings, and could speak, would they
+not say--"our sufferings are intolerable?"
+
+The remedy is of course a preventive one; never to suffer the library to
+become over-heated, and to have proper ventilation on every floor,
+communicating with the air outside. Seventy degrees Fahrenheit is a safe
+and proper maximum temperature for books and librarian.
+
+The mischief arising from gas exhalations is another serious source of
+danger to books. In many well-lighted libraries, the heat itself from the
+numerous gas-burners is sufficient to injure them, and there is besides a
+sulphuric acid escaping from the coal-gas fluid, in combustion, which is
+most deleterious to bindings. The only remedy appears to be, where
+libraries are open evenings, to furnish them with electric lights. This
+improved mode of illumination is now so perfected, and so widely
+diffused, that it may be reckoned a positive boon to public libraries, in
+saving their books from one of their worst and most destructive enemies.
+
+Another of the potent enemies of books is fire. I refer, not to
+over-heating the rooms they occupy, but to the risk they continually run,
+in most libraries, of total destruction. The chronicle of burned
+libraries would make a long and melancholy record, on which there is no
+space here to enter. Irreparable losses of manuscripts and early printed
+books, and precious volumes printed in small editions, have arisen from
+men's neglect of building our book-repositories fire-proof. In all
+libraries not provided with iron or steel shelves, there is perpetual
+danger. Books do not burn easily, unless surrounded with combustibles,
+but these are furnished in nearly all libraries, by surrounding the books
+on three sides with wooden shelves, which need only to be ignited at any
+point to put the whole collection in a blaze. Then follows the usual
+abortive endeavor to save the library by the aid of fire engines, which
+flood the building, until the water spoils nearly all which the fire does
+not consume. The incalculable losses which the cause of learning has
+sustained from the burning of public, university and ecclesiastical
+libraries are far greater than the cost which the provision of fire-proof
+repositories would have entailed.
+
+Of late years, there has been a partial reform in library construction.
+Some have been built fire-proof throughout, with only stone, brick,
+concrete and iron material, even to the floors and window casings. Many
+more have had iron shelves and iron stacks to hold the shelves
+constructed, and there are now several competing manufacturers of these
+invaluable safeguards to books. The first library interior constructed
+wholly of iron was that of the Library of Congress at Washington, which
+had been twice consumed, first when the Capitol was burned by the British
+army in 1814, and again in 1851, through a defective flue, when only
+20,000 volumes were saved from the flames, out of a total of 55,000. The
+example of iron construction has been slowly followed, until now the
+large cities have most of their newly-constructed libraries approximately
+fire-proof, although many are exposed to fire in parts, owing to a
+niggardly and false economy. The lesson that what is worth doing at all
+is worth doing well, and that every neglect of security brings sooner or
+later irreparable loss, is very slowly learned. Whole hecatombs of books
+have been sacrificed to the spirit of commercial greed, blind or
+short-sighted enough not to see that secure protection to public
+property, though costlier at first, is far cheaper in the end. You may
+speak of insurance against library losses by fire, but what insurance
+could restore the rare and costly Shakespearean treasures of the
+Birmingham Free Library, or the unique and priceless manuscripts that
+went up in flames in the city library of Strasburg, in 1870, or the many
+precious and irreplaceable manuscript archives of so many of our States,
+burned in the conflagration of their capitols?
+
+One would think that the civilized world had had lessons enough, ever
+since that seventh century burning of the Alexandrian library by the
+Caliph Omar, with that famous but apocryphal rhetorical dilemma, put in
+his mouth perhaps by some nimble-witted reporter:--"If these books agree
+with the Koran, they are useless, and should be burned: if not, they are
+pernicious, and must not be spared." But the heedless world goes
+carelessly on, deaf to the voice of reason, and the lessons of history,
+amid the holocausts of literature and the wreck of blazing libraries,
+uttering loud newspaper wails at each new instance of destruction,
+forgotten in a week, then cheerfully renewing the business of building
+libraries that invite the flames.
+
+Nothing here said should be interpreted as advice not to insure any
+library, in all cases where it is not provided with iron cases for the
+books, or a fire-proof building. On the contrary, the menaced destruction
+of books or manuscripts that cannot be replaced should lead to securing
+means in advance for replacing all the rest in case of loss by fire. And
+the experience of the past points the wisdom of locating every library in
+an isolated building, where risks of fire from other buildings are
+reduced to a minimum, instead of in a block whose buildings (as in most
+commercial structures) are lined with wood.
+
+You will perhaps attach but small importance at first thought, to the
+next insidious foe to library books that I shall name--that is, wetting
+by rain. Yet most buildings leak at the roof, sometime, and some old
+buildings are subject to leaks all the time. Even under the roof of the
+Capitol at Washington, at every melting of a heavy snow-fall, and on
+occasion of violent and protracted rains, there have been leaks pouring
+down water into the libraries located in the old part of the building.
+Each of these saturated and injured its quota of books, some of which
+could only be restored to available use by re-binding, and even then the
+leaves were left water-stained in part. See to it that your library roof
+is water-tight, or the contents of your library will be constantly
+exposed to damage against which there is no insurance.
+
+Another besetting danger to the books of our libraries arises from
+insects and vermin. These animated foes appear chiefly in the form of
+book-worms, cockroaches, and mice. The first-named is rare in American
+libraries, though its ravages have extended far and wide among the old
+European ones. This minute little insect, whose scientific name is the
+_anobium paniceum_, bores through the leaves of old volumes, making
+sometimes holes which deface and mutilate the text. All our public
+libraries, doubtless, have on their shelves old folios in vellum or
+leather bindings, which present upon opening the disagreeable vision of
+leaves eaten through (usually before they crossed the sea) by these
+pernicious little borers. It is comforting to add, that I have never
+known of any book-worm in the Congressional Library--except the human
+variety, which is frequently in evidence. Georgetown College library once
+sent me a specimen of the insect, which was found alive in one of its
+volumes, but the united testimony of librarians is that this pest is rare
+in the United States. As to remedies, the preventive one of sprinkling
+the shelves twice a year with a mixture of powdered camphor and snuff, or
+the vapor of benzine or carbolic acid, or other repellant chemicals, is
+resorted to abroad, but I have not heard of any similar practice in this
+country. I may remark in passing, that the term "book-worm" is a
+misnomer, since it is not a worm at all, but an insect. A more serious
+insect menace is the cockroach, a hungry, unclean little beast, which
+frequents a good many libraries, and devours bindings (especially fresh
+ones) to get at the paste or savory parts of the binding. The remedy for
+this evil, when once found to exist, is to scatter the most effective
+roach poison that can be found, which may arrest further ravages.
+
+Another insect pest is the Croton bug, (_Blatta Germanica_) which eats
+into cloth bindings to get at the sizing or albumen. The late eminent
+entomologist, Dr. C. V. Riley, pronounced them the worst pest known in
+libraries, but observed that they do not attack books bound in leather,
+and confine their ravages to the outside of cloth-bound books, never
+troubling the leaves. The remedy prescribed is a powder in which
+pyrethrum is the chief ingredient, sprinkled about the shelves.
+
+Among the rodents, mice are apt to be busy and mischievous infesters of
+libraries. They are extremely fond of paste, and being in a chronic
+state of hunger, they watch opportunities of getting at any library
+receptacle of it. They will gnaw any fresh binding, whether of cloth,
+board, or leather, to get at the coveted food. They will also gnaw some
+books, and even pamphlets, without any apparent temptation of a succulent
+nature. A good library cat or a series of mouse traps, skilfully baited,
+may rid you of this evil.
+
+The injury that comes to library books from insufficient care in
+protecting them on the shelves is great and incalculable. There are to be
+seen in every library, volumes all twisted out of shape by the sagging or
+leaning, to which the end-book is subjected, and which is often shared by
+all its neighbors on the shelf. The inevitable result is that the book is
+not only spoiled in its good looks, but (which is vastly more important)
+it is injured in its binding, which is strained and weakened just in
+proportion to the length of time in which it is subjected to such risks.
+The plain remedy is to take care that every volume is supported upright
+upon the shelf, in some way. When the shelf is full, the books will
+support one another. But when volumes are withdrawn, or when a shelf is
+only partly filled with books, the unsupported volumes tumble by force of
+gravitation, and those next them sag and lean, or fall like a row of
+bricks, pushing one another over. No shelf of books can safely be left in
+this condition. Some one of the numerous book-supports that have been
+contrived should be always ready, to hold up the volumes which are liable
+to lean and fall.
+
+We come now to the active human enemies of books, and these are unhappily
+found among some of the readers who frequent our libraries. These abuses
+are manifold and far-reaching. Most of them are committed through
+ignorance, and can be corrected by the courteous but firm interposition
+of the librarian, instructing the delinquent how to treat a book in hand.
+Others are wilful and unpardonable offences against property rights and
+public morals, even if not made penal offences by law. One of these is
+book mutilation, very widely practiced, but rarely detected until the
+mischief is done, and the culprit gone. I have found whole pages torn out
+of translations, in the volumes of Bohn's Classical Library, doubtless by
+students wanting the translated text as a "crib" in their study of the
+original tongue. Some readers will watch their opportunity, and mutilate
+a book by cutting out plates or a map, to please their fancy, or perhaps
+to make up a defective copy of the same work. Those consulting bound
+files of newspapers will ruthlessly despoil them by cutting out articles
+or correspondence, or advertisements, and carrying off the stolen
+extracts, to save themselves the trouble of copying. Others, bolder
+still, if not more unscrupulous, will deliberately carry off a library
+book under a coat, or in a pocket, perhaps signing a false name to a
+reader's ticket to hide the theft, or escape detection. Against these
+scandalous practices, there is no absolute safeguard in any library. Even
+where a police watch is kept, thefts are perpetrated, and in most
+libraries where no watchman is employed, the librarian and his assistants
+are commonly far too busy to exercise close scrutiny of all readers. As
+one safeguard, no rare or specially costly book should be entrusted to a
+reader except under the immediate eye of the librarian or assistant.
+Ordinary books can be replaced if carried off, and by watching the
+rarities, risk of theft can be reduced to a minimum.
+
+When newspapers are given out to readers, it should always be in a part
+of the library where those using them are conscious of a surveillance
+exercised over their movements. The penalty of neglecting this may at any
+time be the mutilation of an important file, and it must be remembered
+that such damage, once done, cannot be repaired. You can replace a
+mutilated book usually by buying a new one, but a newspaper can almost
+never be replaced. Even in the city of Boston, the librarian of the
+Athenaeum library records the disgraceful fact, that "the temptation to
+avoid the trouble of copying, by cutting out articles from newspapers is
+too strong for the honesty of a considerable part of the public." And it
+was recorded by the custodian of a public library in Albany that all the
+plates were missing from certain books, that the poetry and best
+illustrations were cut from magazines before they had lain on the tables
+a week, and strange to say, that many of these depredations were
+committed by women.
+
+It is a difficult problem how to prevent such outrages to decency, and
+such irreparable depredations on the books in our libraries as destroy,
+in great part, their value. A posted notice, reminding readers that
+mutilation of books or periodicals is a penal offence, will warn off
+many, if not all, from such acts of vandalism. If there is no law
+punishing the offence, agitate until you get one. Expose through the
+press such thefts and mutilations as are discovered. Interest readers
+whom you know, to be watchful of those you do not know, and to quietly
+report any observed violation of rules. When a culprit is detected, push
+the case to prompt legal hearing, and let the penalty of the law be
+enforced. Let it be known that the public property in books is too sacred
+a right to be violated with impunity. Inculcate by every means and on
+every opportunity the sentiment that readers who freely benefit by the
+books supplied should themselves feel personal concern in their
+cleanliness and preservation, and that the interest of the library is
+really the interest of all.
+
+A daily abuse practiced by many readers in libraries, though without
+wrongful intent, is the piling of one book on top of another while open.
+This is inexcusable ill-treatment, for it subjects the open book thus
+burdened, to injury, besides probably soiling its pages with dust.
+Especially harmful is such careless treatment of large volumes of
+newspapers or illustrated works.
+
+Careless use of ink is the cause of much injury to library books. As a
+rule (to which the very fewest exceptions should be made) pencils only
+should be allowed to readers, who must forego the use of ink, with the
+inevitable risk of dropping it upon the book to its irreparable injury.
+The use of ink in fountain pens is less objectionable. Tracing of maps or
+plates should not be allowed, unless with a soft pencil. Under no
+circumstances should tracing with a pen or other hard instrument be
+permitted to any reader. Failure to enforce this rule may result in ruin
+of valuable engravings or maps.
+
+There is one class of books which demand special and watchful care at the
+hands of the librarian. These are the fine illustrated works, mostly in
+large folio, which include the engravings of the art galleries of Europe,
+and many other specially rare or costly publications. These should be
+carefully shelved in cases where they can lie on their sides, not placed
+upright, as in some collections, to lean over, and, sooner or later to
+break their backs, and necessitate rebinding. When supplied to readers,
+there should not be more than one volume at a time given out, to avoid
+the risk, always threatening, of careless handling or of opening one
+volume on top of another that is open. There should also be a printed
+notice or label affixed to the side cover of every illustrated work
+reading, "Never touch an engraving," or an equivalent warning. This will
+go far, by its plain reminder, to prevent soiling the pages by the
+fingers, a practice which rapidly deteriorates fine books, and if long
+continued, renders them unfit to be exhibited to clean-handed readers.
+
+All plates should be stamped at some portion of their surface (it is
+often done on the back) with the embossing stamp of the library, as a
+means of identification if abstracted from the volume to which they
+belong.
+
+Such books should, moreover, be consulted on a large table, or better an
+adjustable stand (to avoid frequent lifting or shifting of the position
+of the volume when inspecting the plates) and always under the eye of the
+librarian or an assistant not far removed. These precautions will insure
+far more careful treatment, and will result in handing down to a new
+generation of readers many a rare and precious volume, which would
+otherwise be destroyed or irretrievably injured in a very few years. The
+library treasures which cost so much to bring together should never be
+permitted to suffer from want of care to preserve them.
+
+All writing upon the margins of books should be prohibited--other than
+simple pencil corrections of the text, as to an erroneous date, name,
+etc., which corrections of errors should not only be permitted, but
+welcomed, upon due verification. The marking of passages for copying or
+citation should be tolerated only upon the rigid condition that every
+user of the book rubs out his own pencil marks before returning it. I
+have seen lawyers and others thoughtless enough of right and wrong to
+mark long passages in pen and ink in books belonging to public libraries.
+This is a practice to be sternly repressed, even at the cost of denying
+further library privileges to the offender.
+
+Turning down leaves in a book to keep the place is one of the easily
+besetting sins of too many readers. Those who thus dogs-ear a volume
+should be taught that the vile practice weakens and wears out the leaves
+thus folded down, and makes the book a more easy prey to dust and
+disintegration. However busy I may be, I instinctively turn back every
+turned-down leaf I notice in any book, before using it, or handing it to
+another. A good safe-guard would be to provide a supply of little narrow
+strips of paper, in the ticket boxes at the library tables to serve as
+the book-markers so frequently needed by readers. For this purpose, no
+thick or smooth calendered paper should be used, which falls out of any
+loosely bound book too readily--but a thin soft paper un-sized, which
+will be apt to retain its place. I have lost valuable time (which I shall
+never see again) in trying to find the pages marked for me by a searcher
+who had thoughtlessly inserted bits of card-board as markers--which kept
+falling out by their own weight. The book-marks should be at least two
+inches long, and not more than half an inch wide; and rough edges are
+better than smooth ones, for they will adhere better to the head of the
+volume where placed. Better still it is, to provide paper book-marks
+forked at the lower end by slitting, then doubled so that the mark will
+go on both sides of the leaf at once. This is the only sure safe-guard
+against these bits of paper falling out, and thus losing the place. Never
+put cards, or letters, or documents, or any solid substance into a book.
+It weakens the binding, and if continued, often breaks the back. The fact
+that most of the injuries to which books are exposed are unintentional
+injuries does not alter the fact that they are none the less injuries to
+be guarded against. Wilful perpetration of the many abuses referred to
+may be rare, but the unconscious perpetrators should be instructed how to
+use books by a vigilant librarian. And they who have thus been taught to
+be careful of the books in a public library will learn to be more careful
+of their own, which is a great step in the education of any one.
+
+It ought not to be needful to charge any one never to wet the finger to
+turn over the leaves of a book--a childish habit, akin to running out the
+tongue when writing, or moving the lips when reading to one's self. The
+only proper way to turn the leaf is at the upper right-hand corner, and
+the index-finger of the right hand will always be found competent to that
+duty.
+
+Still less should it be needful to insist upon the importance to every
+reader of books, of coming to their perusal clean-handed. When you
+reflect that nine-tenths of the soiling and spoiling which books undergo
+comes from the dirty hands of many readers, this becomes a vital point.
+Fouquet, a learned book collector of France, used to keep a pile of white
+gloves in the ante-room of his library, and no visitor was allowed to
+cross the threshold, or to handle a book without putting on a pair, lest
+he should soil the precious volumes with naked hands. Such a refinement
+of care to keep books immaculate is not to be expected in this age of the
+world; and yet, a librarian who respects his calling is often tempted to
+wish that there were some means of compelling people to be more careful
+about books than they are.
+
+It ought not ever to be true that an enemy to the welfare of library
+books is found in the librarian himself, or in any of his assistants, yet
+there have been those employed in the care of books who have abused their
+positions and the volumes entrusted to their charge, not only by neglect
+of care, (which is a negative injury) but by positive and continual ill
+treatment. This may arise from ignorance of better methods, but ignorance
+is a poor excuse for one credited with the intelligence of a librarian.
+In some libraries, books are treated with positive indignity, and are
+permanently injured by tightly wedging them together. Never crowd books
+by main force into shelves too short or too small for them. It strains
+the backs, and seriously injures the bindings. Every book should slip
+easily past its fellows on the shelf. If a volume is too tall to go in
+its place, it should be relegated to lower shelves for larger books,
+never letting its head be crowded against the shelf above it.
+
+One should never pull books out from the shelf by their head-bands, or by
+pulling at the binding, but place the finger firmly on the top of the
+book, next to the binding, and press down while drawing out the volume.
+From failure to observe this simple precaution, you will find in all
+libraries multitudes of torn or broken bindings at the top--a wholly
+needless defacement and waste.
+
+Never permit a book to be turned down on its face to keep the place. This
+easily besetting habit weakens the book, and frequently soils its leaves
+by contact with a dusty table. For the same reason, one volume should not
+be placed within the leaves of another to keep the place where a
+book-mark of paper, so easily supplied, should always be used. Books
+should not be turned down on the fore-edges or fronts on the library
+tables, as practiced in most book-stores, in order to better display the
+stock. The same habit prevails in many libraries, from careless
+inattention. When necessary, in order to better read the titles, they
+should never be left long in such position. This treatment weakens the
+back infallibly, and if long continued breaks it. Librarians, of all
+persons in the world, should learn, and should lead others to learn,
+never to treat a book with indignity, and how truly the life of a book
+depends upon proper treatment, as well as that of an animated being.
+
+These things, and others of my suggestions, may seem trifles to some; but
+to those who consider how much success in life depends upon attention to
+what are called trifles--nay, how much both human taste and human
+happiness are promoted by care regarding trifles, they will not appear
+unimportant. The existence of schools to teach library science, and of
+manuals devoted to similar laudable aims, is an auspicious omen of the
+new reign of refined taste in those nobler arts of life which connect
+themselves with literature, and are to be hailed as authentic evidences
+of the onward progress of civilization.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6.
+
+THE RESTORATION AND RECLAMATION OF BOOKS.
+
+
+We are now to consider carefully the restoration and the reclamation of
+the books of a library, whether public or private.
+
+Nothing can be more important than the means of restoring or reclaiming
+library books that are lost or injured, since every such restoration will
+save the funds of the library or collector from replacing them with fresh
+or newly bought copies, and will enable it to furnish its stores with as
+many new books as the money thus saved represents. The cardinal thing to
+be kept always in view is a wise economy of means. An every-day prudence
+is the price of successful administration. A management which permits any
+of the enemies of books to destroy or damage them, thereby wasting the
+substance of the library without repair, is a fatally defective
+management, which should be changed as soon as possible.
+
+This consideration assumes added importance when it is remembered that
+the means of nearly all our libraries are very limited and inadequate to
+the drafts upon them, year by year. A great many libraries are compelled
+to let their books needing rebinding accumulate, from the mere want of
+money to pay for reclothing the nearly worn-out volumes, thus depriving
+the readers for a considerable time, of the use of many coveted books.
+And even with those which have large means, I have never yet heard of a
+library that had enough, either to satisfy the eager desire of the
+librarian to fill up deficiencies, or to meet fully the manifold wants of
+readers. So much the more important, then, is it to husband every dollar
+that can be saved, to keep the books in such good condition that they
+will not need frequent rebinding, and to reduce to a minimum all the
+evils which beset them, menacing their safety, or injuring their
+condition.
+
+To attain these great ends, the librarian who is qualified for his
+responsible position, must be both a preserver and a restorer of books.
+If not personally able to go through the mechanical processes which
+belong to the art of restoration, (and this is the case in all libraries
+except the smallest) he should at least learn all about them, so as to be
+able to teach them thoroughly and intelligently to an assistant. It is
+frequently made an excuse for the soiled and slovenly and even torn
+condition of books and bindings in a much used public library, that
+neither the librarian nor his aids have any time to look into the
+condition of the books, much less to repair any of the numerous damages
+they sustain. But it should be remembered that in most libraries, even
+the busiest, there are seasons of the day, or periods of very stormy
+weather, when the frequentation of readers is quite small. Those times
+should always be seized upon to take hold of volumes which have had to be
+laid aside as damaged, in the hurry of business. To arrest such damages
+at the threshold is the duty and the interest of the library. A torn leaf
+can be quickly mended, a slightly broken binding can be pasted or glued,
+turned-down leaves can be restored where they belong, a plate or map that
+is started can be fastened in, by devoting a few minutes at the proper
+time, and with the proper appliances ready at hand. Multitudes of volumes
+can be so treated in the course of the year, thus saving the heavy cost
+of rebinding. It is the proverbial stitch in time that saves nine. Never
+wait, in such matters, for the leisure day that never comes, but seize
+the golden moment as it flies, when no reader is interrupting you, and
+clear off at least one of the little jobs that are awaiting your
+attention. No one who does not know how to use the odd moments is
+qualified for the duties of a librarian. I have seen, in country
+libraries, the librarian and his lady assistant absorbed in reading
+newspapers, with no other readers in the room. This is a use of valuable
+time never to be indulged in during library hours. If they had given
+those moments to proper care of the books under their charge, their
+shelves would not have been found filled with neglected volumes, many of
+which had been plainly badly treated and injured, but not beyond
+reclamation by timely and provident care.
+
+It is amazing how any one can expect long employment as a librarian, who
+takes no interest in the condition of the books under his charge. The way
+to build up a library, and to establish the reputation of a librarian at
+the same time, is to devote every energy and intelligence to the great
+work in hand. Convince the library directors, by incessant care of the
+condition of the books, that you are not only a fit, but an indispensable
+custodian of them. Let them see your methods of preserving and restoring,
+and they will be induced to give you every facility of which you stand in
+need. Show them how the cost of binding or re-buying many books can be
+saved by timely repair within the library, and then ask for another
+assistant to be always employed on such work at very moderate cost.
+Library directors and trustees are commonly intensely practical men, and
+quick to see into the heart of good management. They do not want a
+librarian who has a great reputation as a linguist, or an educator, or a
+book-worm, but one who knows and cares about making their funds go as far
+as possible, and can show them how he has saved by restoring old books,
+enough money to pay for a great many new ones.
+
+Nothing is more common in public lending libraries than to find torn
+leaves in some of the books. If the leaf is simply broken, without being
+absolutely detached, or if part is torn off, and remains on hand, the
+volume may be restored by a very simple process. Keep always at hand in
+some drawer, a few sheets of thin "onion-skin" paper, or the transparent
+adhesive paper supplied by the Library Bureau. Paste this on either side
+of the torn leaf, seeing that it laps over all the points of juncture
+where the tear occurred, and that the fitting of the text or reading
+matter is complete and perfect. The paper being transparent, there will
+be no difficulty in reading the torn page through it.
+
+This little piece of restoration should always be effected immediately on
+discovery, both that the torn piece or fragment may be saved, and that
+the volume may be restored to use.
+
+In case of absolute loss of a leaf or a part of a page, there are only
+three remedies known to me.
+
+1. The book may be condemned as imperfect, and a new copy purchased.
+
+2. The missing part may be restored from a perfect copy of the same work,
+by copying the portions of the text wanting, and inserting them where
+they belong. This can be done with a pen, and the written deficiency
+neatly inserted, in fac-simile of the type, or in ordinary script hand;
+or else the part wanting may be photographed or heliotyped by the best
+modern process from a duplicate copy of the book.
+
+3. If the book is of very recent issue, the publishers may furnish a
+signature or sheet which would make good the deficiency, from the
+"imperfections" left in the bindery, after making up the edition of the
+work.
+
+In most cases, the last named means of replacement will not be found
+available. The first, or buying a fresh copy, may entail a greater
+expense than the library authorities would deem proper at the time, and
+it might be preferred to continue the book in use, with a slight
+imperfection.
+
+The second method, more or less troublesome according to circumstances,
+or the extent of the matter to be copied is sometimes the most
+economical. Of course, it is subject to the drawback of not being, when
+done, a _bona fide_ or genuine copy of the book as published. This
+diminishes the commercial value of even the rarest book, although so
+fully restored as to text that the reader has it all before him, so that
+it supplies every requisite of a perfect copy for the purposes of a
+public library, or a private owner who is not a connoisseur in books.
+
+When the corners of a book are found to be broken (as often happens by
+falling to the floor or severe handling) the book may be restored by a
+treatment which will give it new leather corners. With paste or glue well
+rubbed in, apply thick brown paper on the corners, which, when dry, will
+be as hard as desired, and ready to receive the leather. Then the sides
+may be covered with marbled paper or cloth, and the volume is restored.
+
+When the back of a book becomes loose, the remedy is to take it out of
+the cover, re-sew it, and glue it firmly into the former back. This will
+of course render the back of the volume more rigid, but, in compensation,
+it will be more durable.
+
+In these cases of loose or broken backs, the study should be to save the
+leather cover and the boards or sides of the book intact, so as to
+diminish by more than one-half the cost of repair. As the volume cannot
+be restored to a solid and safe condition without being re-sewed, it may
+be carefully separated from the cover by cutting the cords or bands at
+their junction with the boards, then slowly stripping the book out of its
+cover, little by little, and treating the sheets when separated as
+already indicated in the chapter on rebinding.
+
+One of the most common defacements which library books undergo is marking
+up the margins with comments or references in pencil. Of course no
+thoughtful reader would be guilty of this practice, but thoughtless
+readers are often in the majority, and the books they read or fancy that
+they read, get such silly commentaries on the margins as these:
+"beautiful," "very sad," "perfectly splendid," "I think Becky is horrid,"
+or, "this book ends badly." Such vile practices or defacements are not
+always traceable to the true offender, especially in a circulating
+library, where the hours are so busy as to prevent the librarian from
+looking through the volumes as they come in from the readers. But if
+detected, as they may be after a few trials of suspected parties, by
+giving them out books known to be clean and free from pencil marks when
+issued to them, the reader should be required always to rub out his own
+marks, as a wholesome object-lesson for the future. The same course
+should be pursued with any reader detected in scribbling on the margin of
+any book which is being read within the library. Incorrigible cases,
+amounting to malicious marking up of books, should be visited by severe
+penalties--even to the denial of further library privileges to the
+offender.
+
+Not long ago, I bought at an auction sale a copy of the first edition of
+Tennyson's "In Memoriam," which was found on receipt to be defaced by
+marking dozens of verses in the margin with black lines drawn along them,
+absolutely with pen and ink! The owner of that book, who did the
+ruthless deed, never reflected that it might fall into hands where his
+indelible folly would be sharply denounced.
+
+The librarian or assistant librarian who will instinctively rub out all
+pencil marks observed in a library book deserves well of his countrymen.
+It is time well spent.
+
+The writing on book-margins is so common a practice, and so destructive
+of the comfort and satisfaction which readers of taste should find in
+their perusal of books, that no legitimate means of arresting it or
+repairing it should be neglected. In a public library in Massachusetts, a
+young woman of eighteen who was detected as having marked a library copy
+of "Middlemarch" with gushing effusions, was required to read the statute
+prescribing fine and imprisonment for such offenses, with very tearful
+effect, and undoubtedly with a wholesome and permanent improvement in her
+relations to books and libraries.
+
+In some libraries, a warning notice is posted up like this: "Readers
+finding a book injured or defaced, are required to report it at once to
+the librarian, otherwise they will be held responsible for the damage
+done." This rule, while its object is highly commendable, may lead in
+practice to injustice to some readers. So long as the reader uses the
+book inside of the library walls, he should of course report such defects
+as meet his eye in reading, whether missing pages, plates, or maps, or
+serious internal soiling, torn leaves, etc. But in the case of drawing
+out books for home reading, the rule might embarrass any reader, however
+well disposed, if too strictly construed. A reader finding any serious
+defect in a library volume used at home, should simply place a mark or
+slip in the proper place with the word "damaged," or "defective" written
+on it. Then, on returning the book to the library, his simple statement
+of finding it damaged or defective when he came to read it should be
+accepted by the librarian as exonerating him from blame for any damage.
+And this gives point to the importance of examining every book, at least
+by cursory inspection, before it is handed out for use. A volume can be
+run through quickly by a practiced hand, so as to show in a moment or two
+any leaves started or torn, or, usually, any other important injury. If
+any such is found, the volume should under no circumstances be given out,
+but at once subjected to repair or restoration. This degree of care will
+not only save the books of the library from rapid deterioration, but will
+also save the feelings of readers, who might be anxious lest they be
+unjustly charged with damaging while in their hands.
+
+The treatment of their imperfect books (which tend perpetually to
+accumulate) is very different in different libraries. Some libraries,
+where funds are ample enough to enable them to do it, condemn any book
+that has so much as a sentence torn out, and replace it on the shelves
+with a new copy. The imperfect volumes are sold for waste paper, or put
+into some sale of duplicate books, marked as imperfect, with note of the
+damage upon a slip inserted at the proper place in the book, and also in
+the catalogue, if sold at auction or in a printed list of duplicates
+offered by the library. This notice of what imperfection exists is
+necessary, so that no incautious purchaser may think that he is securing
+a perfect copy of the work.
+
+Other libraries not blessed with means to pursue this course, do as best
+they can afford, supplying what is deficient when possible without much
+cost of time or money, or else continuing the damaged book in use "with
+all its imperfections on its head."
+
+The loss of a single plate does not destroy the value of the book for
+readers, however to be regretted as diminishing the satisfaction to be
+derived from the volume. And one can sometimes pardon the loss of a part
+of a page in a mutilated book, especially when he is made aware of the
+fact that the library which welcomes him to the free enjoyment of its
+treasures cannot well afford to buy another.
+
+It is disheartening to read, in an annual report of a public library of
+circulation in Massachusetts, that many of its popular books are so
+soiled and defaced, after a few readings, as to be unfit for further
+service; that books of poetry are despoiled by the scissors to save
+trouble of copying verses wanted; that plates are often abstracted, and
+that many magazines "seem to be taken from the library for no other
+reason than that private scrap-books may be enriched or restless children
+amused." The only remedy suggested is to examine each book before again
+giving it out, and, if returned defaced, to hold the borrower
+responsible.
+
+The art of cleaning books that are stained or dirty, is a matter not
+widely known, and in this country there are few experts at it. Some of
+these keep closely guarded the methods they use to cleanse a book.
+Comparatively few libraries avail themselves of the practice of washing
+their soiled volumes, as the process is too expensive for most of them,
+and so they are accustomed to let the library books remain in use and
+re-issue them again and again, until they become so filthy as to be quite
+unfit to be seen--much less handled by any reader.
+
+But there are often valuable or rare works which have sustained interior
+injury, and which it is desired to restore to a clean condition. The best
+method is to take the book apart as the first step. When separated into
+sheets, those leaves which are merely dirty should be placed in a bath
+composed of about four ounces of chloride of lime, dissolved in a quart
+of water. They should soak until all stains are removed, and the paper is
+restored to its proper color. Then the pages should be washed in cold
+water--running water is preferable--and allowed to soak about six hours.
+This removes all traces of the lime, which would otherwise tend to rot or
+injure the book. After this, the sheets are to be "sized," _i. e._,
+dipped in a bath of size and water, and laid out to dry. This process
+gives firmness and consistency to the paper, which would otherwise remain
+too soft to handle. The sheets should be pressed a few hours between
+glazed paste-boards, as used in printing offices. A cheap and simple size
+for this purpose may be made by mixing white gelatine with water, and
+this may be kept in a bottle, so as to be always conveniently at hand.
+The art of restoring and rendering fit for handling books and rare early
+pamphlets by sizing all the leaves is in constant use in Europe. By this
+means, and by piecing out margins, the most rotten paper, ready to drop
+apart in turning the leaves, may be restored to use, if not quite to its
+pristine condition.
+
+Ink-spots or mildew stains may be wholly removed, when freshly made, by
+applying a solution of oxalic or citric acid, and then washing the leaf
+with a wet sponge. It is more effectual to follow the bath of oxalic acid
+by applying a solution of one part hydrochloric acid to six parts of
+water, after which bathe in cold water, and dry slowly. Or an infusion of
+hypochlorite of potash in twice its volume of water may be used instead
+of the preceding.
+
+If a leather-bound book has grease on its cover, it can be removed by
+scraping French chalk or magnesia over the place, and ironing with a warm
+(not hot) iron. A simpler method is to apply benzine to the grease spots,
+(which dissolves the fatty material) and then dry the spot quickly with a
+fine cloth. This operation may be repeated, if not effectual at the first
+trial. The same method of applying benzine to oily spots upon plates or
+engravings, will remove the stains.
+
+Ink-stains may also be taken off from the leather covers of books bound
+in calf or morocco by the use of oxalic acid. Care should be taken first
+to try the acid on a piece of similar leather or on a discarded book of
+the same color. If the leather is discolored after removing the black
+spot, one may apply, after taking out the traces of oxalic acid by some
+alkali, a coloring matter similar to the tint of the leather.
+
+Spots or stains of grease or oil are often found in books. They may be
+wholly removed by applying carbonate of magnesia on both sides of the
+leaf stained, backed by paper, and pressing with a hot iron, after which
+the sheets should be washed and left under pressure over night. Another
+method is to dilute spirits of salts with five times its bulk of water,
+then let the stained leaves lie in the liquid four minutes, after which
+they are to be washed. Still another method is to make a mixture of one
+pound of soap, half a pound of clay and two ounces of lime, dissolved in
+water to a proper consistency; apply it to the spots; fifteen minutes
+after, dip the leaf in a bath of warm water for half an hour, after which
+dry and press until smooth.
+
+Stains left by mud on the leaves of a book (a not uncommon fate of
+volumes falling in a wet street) can be removed thus: spread over the
+spots a jelly composed of white soap and water, letting it remain about
+half an hour. Then dip the leaf in clear water, and remove the soap with
+a fine sponge dipped in warm water; all the mud stains will disappear at
+the same time. To remove the last traces of the soap, dip a second time
+in clear water, place the leaf between two sheets of blotting paper, and
+dry slowly in a cool and shady place.
+
+The same process, of washing in soap and water, will remove what are
+doubtless the most common of all the soilings that library books
+undergo, namely, the soil that comes from the dirty hands and fingers of
+readers.
+
+It is sometimes necessary to color the sheets that have been washed
+white, so as to correspond in tint with the rest of the volume, which has
+not needed that treatment. An infusion of cheap tobacco leaves, or a bath
+of brown stout will effect this.
+
+In all these methods of removing soil from the pages of books, it is
+absolutely necessary to give attention to thorough washing after the
+chemicals are used. Otherwise there will remain an element of destruction
+which will sooner or later spoil the book, to restore which so much pains
+may have been expended.
+
+And one can readily learn how to restore a valuable book by these
+methods. He should, however, first practice on the restoration of a
+volume of little worth--and venture upon the treatment of a precious
+volume only after practice has made him an expert.
+
+To restore a fresher look to volumes whose bindings are much rubbed or
+"scuffed" as it is sometimes called, one may spread over their surface a
+little wet starch pretty thick, with a little alum added, applied with an
+old leather glove. With this the back of the book, and the sides and
+edges of the boards should be smartly rubbed, after which, with a fine
+rag rub off the thicker part of the starch, and the book will present a
+much brighter appearance, besides being rid of dust and soil.
+
+There will remain on the volume a very slight deposit of gelatine or
+gluten; before it dries completely, the palm of the hand may be passed
+over it at all points, and the leather, which may have assumed a dull
+color from the starch, will resume a bright brown or other tint. If this
+fails to appear, a bit of flannel, impregnated with a few drops of
+varnish, should be rubbed over the leather, and when nearly dry, rub
+with a white rag slightly touched with olive oil, and a brilliant
+appearance will be given to the binding.
+
+When leaves are started, or a signature becomes loose in any volume, it
+should be at once withdrawn from circulation, or the loss of an important
+part of the book may result. The remedy commonly resorted to, of patching
+up the book by pasting in the loose leaves, is a mere makeshift which
+will not last. The cause of a loose signature is generally to be found in
+a broken thread in the sewing, and the only permanent cure is to take the
+book out of its cover, and re-sew it, when it may usually be re-inserted
+in the same binding. This is for cloth-bound books. When bound in
+leather, it is best to take out the loose sheet, "overcast" it, that is,
+secure all the leaves by sewing, then carefully lay some paste along the
+outer edge or back of the sheet, insert the sheet in its place, pressing
+it firmly with a paper knife along the middle of the sheet, and the
+volume will be restored ready for use after a few days drying under
+weight.
+
+On occasion of a fire next to the Mercantile Library rooms in
+Philadelphia, in 1877, great damage was done, from water thrown by the
+fire-engines, to many thousands of books. The library authorities tried
+various methods of restoring the volumes, and among others, drying them
+in ovens was resorted to. This was found, however, to dry the books so
+rapidly, that the bindings cracked, and in many cases came off, while
+many volumes were much warped. The most advantageous method that was
+adopted was to prepare a large number of frames on which many wires were
+strung horizontally across a large room. The wet books (many of which
+were soaked through) were suspended on these wires in such a way as to
+dry them by degrees, the temperature of the room being raised
+considerably by furnace heat.
+
+The condition in which the books were found after the wetting varied
+greatly. Nearly all that were printed on soft paper were wet through,
+while those next to them printed on thick paper, and with solid leather
+bindings, were scarcely damaged at all. The water stains constituted the
+most serious injury to the volumes, and multitudes of fine books that
+were wet will always bear the marks of the stain. Some of the more costly
+books were restored by taking them apart, washing them thoroughly, then
+placing them in a heated press, and drying them, so that the water-stains
+were removed. All the books, however different the degree of damage from
+the water, retained their legibility, and were put to the same uses in
+the library as before the fire occurred. None were burned, the actual
+fire being confined to the neighboring buildings of the block in the
+midst of which the library was unfortunately located.
+
+The whole number of volumes damaged was about 55,000, and the insurance,
+which was assessed by referees at the amount of $42,000, would nearly
+have replaced the books by new ones. Many of the volumes had to be
+rebound as the damage by wetting the glue and paste which are such
+important elements in binding securely, led to the falling apart of the
+covers.
+
+There are multitudes of books restored by some one of the processes which
+have been ingeniously contrived to make an old book as good as new, or an
+imperfect volume perfect. The art of reproducing in facsimile, by mere
+manual dexterity with the pen, letters, words, and whole pages, has been
+carried to a high degree of perfection, notably in London. A celebrated
+book restorer named Harris, gained a great reputation among book lovers
+and librarians by his consummate skill in the reproduction of the text
+of black-letter rarities and early-printed books of every kind. To such
+perfection did he carry the art of imitating an original that in many
+cases one could not distinguish the original from the imitation, and even
+experts have announced a Harris facsimile in a Shakespeare folio to be
+the printed original. The art has even been extended to engravings, with
+such success that the famous Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare, which
+illustrates the title-page of the first folio of 1623, has been
+multiplied in pen-made facsimile, so as to deceive the most careful
+scrutiny.
+
+This nice and difficult art is not widely pursued in this country, though
+there are some experts among New York and Philadelphia book-binders, who
+practice it. The British Museum Library has a corps of workers engaged in
+the restoration both of books and of manuscripts (as well as engravings)
+who are men of the highest training and skill.
+
+The process is necessarily quite expensive, because of the time required
+and of the small number of competing artists in this field. It is chiefly
+confined to the restoration of imperfect copies of early printed and rare
+books, which are so frequently found in imperfect condition, often
+wanting title-pages or the final leaves, or parts of pages in any part of
+the volume.
+
+So costly, indeed, is this skilful hand-restoration of imperfect books,
+that it has been a great boon to the collectors of libraries and rare
+works, to see the arts of photography so developed in recent years, as to
+reproduce with almost exact fidelity printed matter of any kind from the
+pages of books. The cost of such facsimiles of course varies with the
+locality, the work, the skill, or the competition involved. But it may be
+said in general that the average cost of book-page facsimiles by
+photographic process need not exceed one dollar a page.
+
+An entire edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has been printed from
+plates made in replica from photographs of the original text of the
+Edinburgh edition. The reproduction in this case can hardly be commended,
+as it is trying to the eyes to read, when compared with the original,
+presenting a somewhat blurred and irregular aspect to the eyes.
+
+It is very difficult to lay down rules which shall be effective in
+checking the abuse of books which compels exercise of the means of
+restoration. Writing upon margins (already referred to) may sometimes be
+checked by putting a printed slip in every library book bearing the
+warning--"Never write in a library book." To this may be added--"Never
+turn down leaves," an equally important injunction. Indeed, a whole list
+of "Dont's" might be inserted, but for the chance that too many warnings
+might operate to warn off a reader from absorbing any of them. Thus--
+
+    "Don't soil any book
+    Don't write on margins
+    Don't turn down leaves
+    Don't lay a book on its face open
+    Don't wet fingers to turn leaves
+    Don't fail to use the book-mark
+    Don't read with unclean hands."
+
+As a loose slip is liable to fall out, some such reminder should be
+pasted into the fly-leaf of every book, next the book-plate.
+
+A self-respecting reader will generally heed such hints, which a moment's
+reflection will teach him are meant to preserve the library book clean
+and presentable for his own use, as well as for that of others. But there
+will always be some rude, boorish people who will persist in their brutal
+and destructive treatment of books, in the face of whatever warnings. How
+to deal with such unwelcome persons is an ever-present problem with the
+librarian. If sustained by the other library authorities, a really
+effectual remedy is to deny the further use of the library to any
+offender clearly proven to have subjected library books to damage while
+in his hands. Some librarians go so far as to post the names of such
+offenders in the library hall, stating that they are denied the
+privileges of the library by the authorities, for mutilating books.
+
+In any case, great care must be taken to have the clearest proof, before
+proceeding to fasten the offense upon a particular individual. This
+involves, where the injury is not committed in the presence of any
+library officer, so as to be observed, but has been done while the book
+was drawn out, an examination of each volume before giving it out. If
+this rule were to be observed as to all, it would entail an expense that
+few libraries could afford. In a large circulating library in a city, it
+might require the entire time of two assistants to collate the books
+before re-issuing them. The circumstances of each library must determine
+how to deal with this matter. Probably the majority will limit the close
+examination of books before giving them out, to cases where there is
+reason to suspect wilful continued soiling, scribbling, or dog's-earing.
+A few such cases once detected and dealt with will have a most salutary
+restraining influence upon others, especially if re-enforced by frequent
+and judicious paragraphs in the local press, setting forth the offense
+and the remedy.
+
+But all in vain will be the endeavor to abate these defacements and
+consequent waste of the library books, unless it is enforced by a
+positive law, with penal provisions, to punish offenders who mutilate or
+deface books that are public property. A good model of such a statute is
+the following, slightly abridged as to verbiage, from an act of Congress,
+of which we procured the enactment in the year 1878:
+
+"Any person who steals, defaces, injures, mutilates, tears, or destroys
+any book, pamphlet, work of art, or manuscript, belonging to any public
+library, or to the United States, in the District of Columbia, shall be
+fined ten dollars to one hundred dollars, and punished by imprisonment
+from one to twelve months, for every such offense."
+
+This act will be found in the United States Statutes at Large, Vol. 20,
+p. 171. It would be well if the term "periodical" were added to the list
+of objects to be protected, to avoid all risk of a failure to punish the
+mutilation of newspapers and magazines, by pleading technical points, of
+which lawyers are prone to avail themselves in aiding offenders to escape
+conviction.
+
+It will be observed, that the word "deface," employed in this statute,
+actually covers the marking of margins by any reader, all such marking
+constituting a defacement within the meaning of the law.
+
+While the great multitude of readers who frequent our public libraries
+are honest and trustworthy, there are always some who are conspicuously
+the reverse. It is rarely safe in a large public library to admit readers
+to the shelves, without the company or the surveillance of an attendant.
+And it is not alone the uncultivated reader who cannot be trusted; the
+experience of librarians is almost uniform to the effect that literary
+men, and special scholars, as well as the collectors of rare books, are
+among those who watch the opportunity to purloin what they wish to save
+themselves the cost of buying. Sometimes, you may find your most valuable
+work on coins mutilated by the abstraction of a plate, carried off by
+some student of numismatics. Sometimes, you may discover a fine picture
+or portrait abstracted from a book by some lover of art or collector of
+portraits. Again, you may be horrified by finding a whole sermon torn out
+of a volume of theology by a theological student or even a clergyman.
+All these things have happened, and are liable to happen again. No
+library is safe that is not closely watched and guarded. In the Astor
+library a literary man actually tore out sixty pages of the _Revue de
+Paris_, and added to the theft the fraud of plagiarism, by translating
+from the stolen leaves an article which he sold to Appleton's Journal as
+an original production!
+
+In this case, the culprit, though detected, could not be punished, the
+law of New York requiring the posting in the library of the statute
+prohibiting mutilation or other injury to the books, and this posting had
+not been done. The law has since been amended, to make the penalties
+absolute and unconditional.
+
+In the Astor Library, over six hundred volumes were discovered to have
+been mutilated, including art works, Patent office reports, magazines,
+newspapers, and even encyclopaedias. The books stolen from that library
+had been many, until several exposures and punishment of thieves inspired
+a wholesome dread of a similar fate.
+
+At a meeting of the American Library Association, one member inquired
+whether there was any effectual way to prevent the abstraction of books.
+He was answered by another librarian (from Cincinnati) who replied that
+he knew of only one effectual method, and that was to keep a man standing
+over each book with a club. Of course this was a humorous paradox, not to
+be taken literally, but it points a moral.
+
+Seriously, however, the evil may be greatly curtailed, (though we may be
+hopeless of absolute prevention) by adopting the precautions already
+referred to. In the Library of the British Museum, a great library of
+reference, from which no book is permitted to be taken under any
+circumstances, the evil of mutilation was much reduced by prosecuting
+and posting the offenders publicly. After a few years, the obnoxious
+practice had so far ceased, that the placards, having an unpleasant
+aspect, were taken down. But on renewal of such depredations and
+defacements of books by readers, the placards were renewed, and some of
+the mutilated books, suitably labelled, were posted in the great reading
+room before the eyes of all. The authorities of the British Museum are
+convinced of the salutary effects of such warnings, though books are
+sometimes stolen or mutilated under the liberal management which leaves
+several thousand volumes open for reference, without tickets.
+
+The late Dr. Wm. F. Poole, the Chicago librarian, recorded his experience
+in dealing with some clergymen, who, said he, seem to have as regards
+books, an imperfect appreciation of the laws of _meum_ and _tuum_. He had
+found ministers more remiss in returning books than any other class of
+men. He would by no means reflect on a noble and sacred profession by
+charging the derelictions of a few upon the many. But he had had
+unpleasant experiences with men of that profession, who had absolutely
+purloined books from the Public Library, removed the book-plates and
+library stamp, and covered the volumes with paper carefully pasted down
+inside of the covers.
+
+A librarian in Massachusetts testified that it was common experience that
+clergymen and professional men gave the most trouble. Second-hand
+book-dealers in Boston had found a judge of the court purloining rare
+pamphlets, and ministers making away with pamphlet sermons under their
+coats. Without insisting here upon any such extenuations of such
+practices as the prevalence of kleptomania, it has been made abundantly
+manifest that theft and mutilation of books are sufficiently common to
+demonstrate the weakness of human nature, and the necessity of every
+safeguard which public libraries can provide against such abuses of
+their treasures.
+
+A Boston librarian stated that the thieves or mutilators of books
+included school-boys, clerks, students, teachers, soldiers, physicians,
+lawyers, clergymen, etc. In only one case was the crime committed through
+want or suffering. Yet, though the offenders had been proven guilty in
+every instance, only two cases were known in which the penalty of the law
+had been enforced. Does not this bespeak laxity of public morals in
+Boston in regard to such abuses of library property?
+
+The Union Theological Seminary at New York recorded its experience with
+ministers and theological students, to the effect that its library had
+lost more than a thousand volumes, taken and not returned. This of course
+included what were charged out, but could not be recovered.
+
+A librarian in Auburn, N. Y., returning from vacation, found that the
+American Architect, an important illustrated weekly, had been mutilated
+in seven different volumes, and that 130 pages in all had been stolen.
+Fortunately, she was able to trace the reader who had been using the
+work, and succeeded in recovering the abstracted plates. The offender was
+prosecuted to conviction, and had to pay a fine of fifty dollars.
+
+It often happens that books which disappear mysteriously from a public
+library re-appear quite as mysteriously. Those taking them, finding that
+the rules do not allow certain books to leave the library, make a law
+unto themselves, carry off the book wanted, keep it until read, and then
+return it surreptitiously, by replacing it on some shelf or table, when
+no one is looking. This is where no intention of stealing the book
+exists, and the borrower wilfully makes his own convenience override the
+library regulations, in the belief that he will not be found out. The
+Buffalo Young Men's Library reported in one year eighteen illustrated
+works on the fine arts, reserved from being taken out by its by-laws, as
+disappearing for weeks, but brought back in this underhanded manner. In
+other cases of such return, it is likely that the purpose was to keep the
+book, but that conscience or better thoughts, or fear of detection
+prevailed, and secured its return.
+
+Some instances where leniency has been exercised to save book thieves
+from penalties may be instructive. One man who had carried off and sold
+two volumes from the Astor Library was traced and arrested, when he
+pleaded that absolute want had driven him to the act. He had a wife ill
+and starving at his home, and this on investigation proving true, he was
+pardoned and saved further misery.
+
+In another case, a poor German had stolen a volume of the classics which
+he pawned for a small sum to get bread for himself, being long out of
+work, and in a condition bordering closely upon starvation. He was
+released, the book reclaimed, and the offender turned over to the
+agencies of public charity.
+
+A librarian of New York gave it as his experience that some ministers are
+not to be trusted any more than other people. Some of them like to write
+their opinions on the margins of the books. He found one of the library
+books written on in thirty pages, recognized the hand-writing, and wrote
+to the reverend gentleman asking an interview. He came, admitted the
+fact, and said that his notes made the book more valuable. This ingenious
+excuse did not satisfy the librarian, who said, "others do not think so,
+sir; so if you will get us a new book, you may keep the more valuable
+one." He soon brought in a new copy, and the matter ended.
+
+At the New York Mercantile Library, a young lady, amply able to buy all
+the books she could want, was discovered going out of the library with
+one book in her hand which she was entitled to, it being charged, and
+with five others hidden under her cloak, without permission.
+
+Mr. Melvil Dewey has truly said that it is very hard to tell a library
+thief at sight. Well-dressed, gentlemanly, even sanctimonious looking men
+are among them, and the wife of a well-known college professor, detected
+in purloining books, begged so hard not to be exposed, that she was
+reluctantly pardoned, and even restored to library privileges.
+
+A prominent lawyer of Brooklyn, of distinguished appearance and fine
+manners, did not steal books, but his specialty was magazines and
+newspapers, which he carried off frequently. Being caught at it one day,
+and accused by the librarian, he put on an air of dignity, declared he
+was insulted, and walked out. The librarian found the periodical he had
+taken thrown down in the entry, and he never after frequented that
+library.
+
+It is curious and instructive to know the experience of some libraries
+regarding the theft or mutilation of books. Thus, in the public library
+of Woburn, Mass., a case of mutilation occurred by the cutting out of a
+picture from "Drake's Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex County."
+On discovery of the loss, a reward of $10 was offered for information
+leading to detection of the culprit. This was published in the town
+paper, and an article was printed calling attention to these library
+thefts and abuses, followed by citing the State law making such
+depredations a penal offense. Within a week the missing plate came back
+to the librarian through the mail--anonymously of course, the person who
+had abstracted it finding that it was rather an unsafe picture to keep or
+exhibit, and so choosing to make his best policy honesty, though rather
+tardy in coming to that wise conclusion.
+
+This experience, and others here cited, may serve as a hint what course
+to pursue under similar circumstances, in the reclamation of library
+books.
+
+In the Library of the London Institution, continuous thefts of valuable
+editions of the classics had occurred. Putting a detective in the
+library, a young man of suspicious demeanor was soon identified as the
+thief, and was followed and arrested in the very act of selling a library
+book. He proved to be a young man of good family, education and previous
+good character; but the library had suffered such losses from his
+depredations, that no mercy was shown, and he received and underwent the
+sentence to two months imprisonment.
+
+It may be added as an instance of methods availed of in London to trace
+missing books, that the librarian, knowing from the vacancies on the
+shelves what books had been abstracted, printed a list of them, sent it
+to every second-hand book-dealer in London, at the same time supplying it
+to the police, who circulate daily a list of missing property among all
+the pawn-brokers' shops in the city, and recovered all the books within
+twenty-four hours.
+
+The Mercantile Library of Philadelphia missed a number of valuable books
+from its shelves, and on a watch being set, a physician in the most
+respectable rank in society was detected as the purloiner, and more than
+fifty volumes recovered from him.
+
+A library at Lancaster, Pa., reported the almost incredible incident of a
+thief having hidden under his coat, and carried off, a Webster's
+Unabridged Dictionary!
+
+In most cases of detected theft or mutilation of books, strong appeals
+are made by the culprit or his friends to save exposure by public
+prosecution. These are commonly, in the case of persons in very
+respectable circumstances in life, not so much to avoid paying fines
+imposed by law as to avoid the disgrace attached to publicity, and the
+consequent damage done to the character of the individual. It is probably
+true that in a majority of cases, such influences have been strong enough
+to overcome the determination of the librarian or library authorities to
+let the law take its course. Now, while it must be admitted that there is
+no rule without some valid exception that may be made, it is nevertheless
+to be insisted upon that due protection to public property in libraries
+demands the enforcement of the laws enacted to that end. The consequence
+of leniency to the majority of book thieves would be not only an indirect
+encouragement to the culprits to continue their depredations, but it
+would also lead to a lax and dangerous notion of the obligations of
+readers, and the sacredness of such property, in the public mind.
+Enforcement of the penalties of wrong-doing, on the other hand, tends
+unquestionably to deter others, both by the fear of publicity which must
+follow detection, and by terror of the penalty which is or may be
+imprisonment for a considerable term, besides the imposing of a fine.
+
+At the Worcester, Mass., Public Library, a young man of twenty-two was
+detected in stealing a book, obliged to confess, and prosecuted. Much
+pressure was brought to bear by his family and friends, very respectable
+people, to save him from the penalty. The Court, however, imposed a fine
+of thirty dollars, and it being represented that his relatives would have
+to pay the amount, though innocent parties, the judge suspended the
+sentence until the young man should pay it in instalments from his own
+earnings, one of the family giving bail. The valuable lesson was in this
+way not lost, either to the offender or to the community; the law was
+enforced, and the young man perhaps saved from a life of wrong-doing,
+while if he had been let off scot-free, in deference to the influence
+exerted to that end, he might have gone from bad to worse.
+
+At the Pratt Institute Free Library in Brooklyn, books had been
+disappearing from the reference department at intervals of about a week,
+and a watch was instituted. After some weeks' fruitless watching, a young
+man who came frequently to consult books was singled out as the probable
+offender, and the eyes of the library staff were centered upon him. The
+janitor watched his movements for some days, from a concealed post of
+observation, as the young man walked back and forth between the book
+stacks, and one day caught him in the act of slipping a book into his
+pocket, and arrested him as he was leaving the building. He had stolen a
+dozen books from the library, all but three of which were recovered. He
+claimed to be a theological student, and that he had taken the books
+merely for the purposes of study. Much sympathy was expressed for him by
+people who believed that this was his motive, and that it was some
+partial atonement for his offense. The grief of his relatives at his
+disgrace was intense. The Court sentenced him to eight years in the
+penitentiary, but suspended the sentence in view of the fact that it was
+a first offense, by a youth of twenty-one years. He was put under police
+surveillance for his good behavior (equivalent to being paroled) but the
+sentence becomes active upon any further transgression of the law on his
+part.
+
+It may be gathered from these many cases of library depredations, that
+they are very common, that perpetual vigilance is the price of safety,
+that punishment in nearly all cases is wiser than pardon, and that the
+few exceptions made should be mostly confined to offenders who steal
+books under desperate necessity or actual want.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7.
+
+PAMPHLET LITERATURE.
+
+
+What is a pamphlet? is a question which is by no means capable of being
+scientifically answered. Yet, to the librarian dealing continually with a
+mass of pamphlets, books, and periodicals, it becomes important to define
+somewhere, the boundary line between the pamphlet and the book. The
+dictionaries will not aid us, for they all call the pamphlet "a few
+sheets of printed paper stitched together, but not bound." Suppose (as
+often happens) that you bind your pamphlet, does it then cease to be a
+pamphlet, and become a book? Again, most pamphlets now published are not
+stitched at all, but stabbed and wired to fasten the leaves together. The
+origin of the word "pamphlet," is in great doubt. A plausible derivation
+is from two French words, "_paume_," and "_feuillet_," literally a
+hand-leaf; and another derives the word from a corruption of
+Latin--"_papyrus_," paper, into _pampilus_, or _panfletus_, whence
+pamphlet. The word is in Shakespeare:
+
+    "Comest thou with deep premeditated lines,
+     With written pamphlets studiously devised?"
+
+But we also find "pamphlets and bookys," in a work printed by Caxton in
+1490, a hundred years before Shakespeare.
+
+Whatever the origin, the common acceptation of the word is plain,
+signifying a little book, though where the pamphlet ends, and the book
+begins, is uncertain. The rule of the British Museum Library calls every
+printed publication of one hundred pages or less, a pamphlet. This is
+arbitrary, and so would any other rule be. As that library binds its
+pamphlets separately, and counts them in its aggregate of volumes, the
+reason for any distinction in the matter is not plain. Some of the
+government libraries in Europe are greatly overrated numerically by
+reckoning pamphlets as volumes. Thus, the Royal Library at Munich, in
+Bavaria, has been ranked fourth among the libraries of the world,
+claiming over a million volumes, but as it reckons every university
+thesis, or discussion of some special topic by candidates for degrees, as
+a volume, and has perhaps 400,000 of this prolific class of publications,
+it is actually not so large as some American libraries, which count their
+pamphlets as distinct from books in their returns.
+
+The pamphlet, or thin book, or tract (as some prefer to call it) is
+reckoned by some librarians as a nuisance, and by others as a treasure.
+That it forms rather a troublesome asset in the wealth of a library
+cannot be doubted. Pamphlets taken singly, will not stand upon the
+shelves; they will curl up, become dogs-eared, accumulate dust, and get
+in the way of the books. If kept in piles, as is most frequent, it is
+very hard to get at any one that is wanted in the mass. Then it is
+objected to them, that the majority of them are worthless, that they cost
+altogether too much money, and time, and pains, to catalogue them, and
+that they are useless if not catalogued; that if kept bound, they cost
+the library a sum out of all proportion to their value; that they
+accumulate so rapidly (much faster, in fact, than books) as to outrun the
+means at the disposal of any library to deal with them; in short, that
+they cost more than they come to, if bound, and if unbound, they vex the
+soul of the librarian day by day.
+
+This is one side of the pamphlet question; and it may be candidly
+admitted, that in most libraries, the accumulation of uncatalogued and
+unbound pamphlets is one of the chief among those arrears which form the
+skeleton in the closet of the librarian. But there is another side to the
+matter. It is always possible to divide your pamphlets into two
+classes--the important, and the insignificant. Some of them have great
+historical, or economic, or intellectual value; others are as nearly
+worthless as it is possible for any printed matter to be. Why should you
+treat a pamphlet upon Pears's soap, or a quack medicine, or advertising
+the Columbia bicycle, with the same attention which you would naturally
+give to an essay on international politics by Gladstone, or a review of
+the Cuban question by a prominent Spaniard, or a tract on Chinese
+immigration by Minister Seward, or the pamphlet genealogy of an American
+family? Take out of the mass of pamphlets, as they come in, what appear
+to you the more valuable, or the more liable to be called for; catalogue
+and bind them, or file them away, according to the use which they are
+likely to have: relegate the rest, assorted always by subject-matters or
+classes, to marked piles, or to pamphlet cases, according to your means;
+and the problem is approximately solved.
+
+To condemn any pamphlet to "innocuous desuetude," or to permanent
+banishment from among the intellectual stores of a library, merely
+because it is innocent of a stiff cover, is to despoil the temple of
+learning and reject the good things of Providence. What great and
+influential publications have appeared in the world in the guise of
+pamphlets! Milton's immortal "Areopagitica, or Plea for Unlicenced
+Printing," was a pamphlet of only forty pages; Webster's speech for the
+Union, in reply to Hayne, was a pamphlet; every play of Shakespeare, that
+was printed in his life-time, was a pamphlet; Charles Sumner's discourse
+on "The True Grandeur of Nations" was a pamphlet; the "Crisis" and
+"Common Sense" of Thomas Paine, which fired the American heart in the
+Revolution, were pamphlets. Strike out of literature, ancient and modern,
+what was first published in pamphlets, and you would leave it the poorer
+and weaker to an incalculable degree.
+
+Pamphlets are not only vehicles of thought and opinion, and propagandists
+of new ideas; they are often also store-houses of facts, repositories of
+history, annals of biography, records of genealogy, treasuries of
+statistics, chronicles of invention and discovery. They sometimes throw
+an unexpected light upon obscure questions where all books are silent.
+Being published for the most part upon some subject that was interesting
+the public mind when written, they reflect, as in a mirror, the social,
+political, and religious spirit and life of the time. As much as
+newspapers, they illustrate the civilization (or want of it) of an epoch,
+and multitudes of them, preserved in great libraries, exhibit this at
+those early periods when no newspapers existed as vehicles of public
+opinion. Many of the government libraries of Europe have been buying up
+for many years past, the rare, early-printed pamphlets of their
+respective countries, paying enormous prices for what, a century ago,
+they would have slighted, even as a gift.
+
+When Thomas Carlyle undertook to write the life of Oliver Cromwell, and
+to resurrect from the dust-bins of two centuries, the letters and
+speeches of the great Protector, he found his richest quarry in a
+collection of pamphlets in the British Museum Library. An indefatigable
+patriot and bookseller, named Thomason, had carefully gathered and kept
+every pamphlet, book, periodical, or broadside that appeared from the
+British press, during the whole time from A. D. 1649 to 1660, the period
+of the interregnum in the English monarchy, represented by Cromwell and
+the Commonwealth. This vast collection, numbering over 20,000 pamphlets,
+bound in 2,000 volumes, after escaping the perils of fire, and of both
+hostile armies, was finally purchased by the King, and afterward
+presented to the British Museum Library. Its completeness is one great
+source of its value, furnishing, as it does, to the historical student of
+that exceedingly interesting revolution, the most precious memorials of
+the spirit of the times, many of which have been utterly lost, except the
+single copy preserved in this collection.
+
+Several great European libraries number as many pamphlets as books in
+their collections. The printed catalogue of the British Museum Library is
+widely sought by historical students, because of the enormous amount of
+pamphlet literature it contains, that is described nowhere else. And the
+Librarian of the Boston Athenaeum said that some readers found the great
+interest in his catalogue of that collection lay in its early American
+pamphlets.
+
+As another instance of the value to the historical stores of a public
+library of this ephemeral literature, it may be noted that the great
+collection of printed matter, mostly of a fugitive character, relating to
+the French Revolutionary period, gathered by the late M. de La Bedoyère,
+amounted to 15,000 volumes and pamphlets. Fifty years of the life of the
+wealthy and enthusiastic collector, besides a very large sum of money,
+were spent in amassing this collection. With an avidity almost
+incredible, he ransacked every book-store, quay, and private shelf that
+might contribute a fresh morsel to his stores; and when Paris was
+exhausted, had his agents and purveyors busy in executing his orders all
+over Europe. Rival collectors, and particularly M. Deschiens, who had
+been a contemporary in the Revolution, and had laid aside everything that
+appeared in his day, only contributed at their decease, to swell the
+precious stores of M. de La Bedoyère. This vast collection, so precious
+for the history of France at its most memorable period, contained
+several thousands of volumes of newspapers and ephemeral journals, and
+was acquired in the year 1863, for the National Library of France, where
+it will ever remain a monument to the enlightened and far-sighted spirit
+of its projector.
+
+In like manner, the late Peter Force, Mayor of Washington City, and
+historiographer of the "American Archives," devoted forty years to
+amassing an extensive collection of _Americana_, or books, pamphlets,
+newspapers, manuscripts, and maps, relating to the discovery, history,
+topography, natural history, and biography of America. He carried off at
+auction sales, from all competitors, six great collections of early
+American pamphlets, formed by Ebenezer Hazard, William Duane, Oliver
+Wolcott, etc., representing the copious literature of all schools of
+political opinion. He sedulously laid aside and preserved every pamphlet
+that appeared at the capital or elsewhere, on which he could lay hands,
+and his rich historical collection, purchased by the government in 1866,
+thirty-three years ago, now forms an invaluable portion of the
+Congressional Library.
+
+Of the multitudinous literature of pamphlets it is not necessary to speak
+at length. Suffice it to say that the library which neglects the
+acquisition and proper preservation and binding of these publications is
+far behind its duty, both to those of its own generation, and to those
+which are to follow. The pamphlet literature of every period often
+furnishes the most precious material to illustrate the history and
+development of that period. The new ideas, the critical sagacity, the
+political controversies, the mechanical and industrial development, the
+religious thought, and the social character of many epochs, find their
+best expression in the pamphlets that swarmed from the press while those
+agencies were operating. The fact that multitudes of these productions
+are anonymous, does not detract from their value as materials for
+students.
+
+Pamphlets, from their peculiar style of publication, and the difficulty
+of preserving them, tend to disappear more quickly than any class of
+publications except newspapers, and broad-sides, and hand-bills. They are
+far less likely to be preserved in the hands of private holders than even
+reviews and magazines. It is the common experience of librarians that a
+pamphlet is far more difficult to procure than a book. Multitudes of
+pamphlets are annually lost to the world, from the want of any preserving
+hand to gather them and deposit them permanently in some library. So much
+the more important is it that the custodians of all our public libraries
+should form as complete collections as possible of all pamphlets, at
+least, that appear in their own city or neighborhood. How to do this is a
+problem not unattended with difficulty. Pamphlets are rarely furnished
+for sale in the same manner as books, and when they are, book-sellers
+treat them with such indignity that they are commonly thrust aside as
+waste paper, almost as soon as they have appeared from the press. If all
+the writers of pamphlets would take pains to present them to the public
+libraries of the country, and especially to those in their own
+neighborhood, they would at once enrich these collections, and provide
+for the perpetuity of their own thought. A vigilant librarian should
+invite and collect from private libraries all the pamphlets which their
+owners will part with. It would also be a wise practice to engage the
+printing-offices where these fugitive leaves of literature are put in
+type, to lay aside one copy of each for the library making the
+collection.
+
+Our local libraries should each and all make it a settled object to
+preserve not only full sets of the reports of all societies,
+corporations, charity organizations, churches, railroads, etc., in their
+own neighborhood, but all catalogues of educational institutions, all
+sermons or memorial addresses, and in short, every fugitive publication
+which helps to a knowledge of the people or the region in which the
+library is situated.
+
+The binding of pamphlets is a mooted point in all libraries. While the
+British Museum and the Library of Congress treat the pamphlets as a book,
+binding all separately, this is deemed in some quarters too vexatious and
+troublesome, as well as needlessly expensive. It must be considered,
+however, that the crowding together of a heterogenous mass of a dozen or
+twenty pamphlets, by different authors, and on various subjects, into a
+single cover, is just as objectionable as binding books on unrelated
+subjects together. Much time is consumed in finding the pamphlet wanted,
+among the dozen or more that precede or follow it, and, if valuable or
+much sought-for pamphlets are thus bound, many readers may be kept
+waiting for some of them, while one reader engrosses the volume
+containing all. Besides, if separately bound, a single pamphlet can be
+far more easily replaced in case of loss than can a whole volume of them.
+Pamphlets may be lightly bound in paste-board, stitched, with cloth
+backs, at a small cost; and the compensating advantage of being able to
+classify them like books upon the shelves, should weigh materially in the
+decision of the question. If many are bound together, they should
+invariably be assorted into classes, and those only on the same general
+topic should be embraced in the same cover. The long series of annual
+reports of societies and institutions, corporations, annual catalogues,
+etc., need not be bound separately, but should be bound in chronological
+series, with five to ten years in a volume, according to thickness. So
+may several pamphlets, by the same writer, if preferred, be bound
+together. Libraries which acquire many bound volumes of pamphlets should
+divide them into series, and number them throughout with strict reference
+to the catalogue. There will thus be accumulated a constantly increasing
+series of theological, political, agricultural, medical, educational,
+scientific, and other pamphlets, while the remaining mass, which cannot
+be thus classified, may be designated in a consecutive series of volumes,
+as "Miscellaneous Pamphlets." When catalogued, the title-page or
+beginning of each pamphlet in the volume, should be marked by a thin slip
+of unsized paper, projected above the top of the book, to facilitate
+quick reference in finding each one without turning many leaves to get at
+the titles. In all cases, the contents of each volume of pamphlets should
+be briefed in numerical order upon the fly-leaf of the volume, and its
+corresponding number, or sequence in the volumes written in pencil on the
+title page of each pamphlet, to correspond with the figures of this brief
+list. Then the catalogue of each should indicate its exact location,
+thus: Wilkeson (Samuel) How our National Debt may become a National
+Blessing, 21 pp. 8vo. Phila., 1863 [Miscellaneous pamphlets, v. 347:3],
+meaning that this is the third pamphlet bound in vol. 347.
+
+The only objection to separate binding of each pamphlet, is the increased
+expense. The advantage of distinct treatment may or may not outweigh
+this, according to the importance of the pamphlet, the circumstances of
+the library, and the funds at its command. If bound substantially in good
+half-leather, with leather corners, the cost is reckoned at 1_s._ 4_d._
+each, in London. Here, they cost about thirty cents with cloth sides,
+which may be reduced by the use of marble or Manila paper, to twenty
+cents each. Black roan is perhaps the best leather for pamphlets, as it
+brings out the lettering on the backs more distinctly--always a cardinal
+point in a library.
+
+But there is a more economical method, which dispenses with leather
+entirely. As no patent is claimed for the invention, or rather the
+modification of well-known methods, it may be briefly described. The
+thinnest tar-board is used for the sides, which, _i. e._, the boards, are
+cut down to nearly the size of the pamphlet to be bound. The latter is
+prepared for the boards by adding two or more waste leaves to the front
+and back, and backing it with a strip of common muslin, which is firmly
+pasted the full length of the back, and overlaps the sides to the width
+of an inch or more. The pamphlet has to be stitched through, or stabbed
+and fastened with wire, in the manner commonly practiced with thin books;
+after which it is ready to receive the boards. These are glued to a strip
+of book muslin, which constitutes the ultimate back of the book, being
+turned in neatly at each end, so as to form, with the boards, a skeleton
+cover, into which the pamphlet is inserted, and held in its place by the
+inner strip of muslin before described, which is pasted or glued to the
+inside of the boards. The boards are then covered with marbled paper,
+turned in at each edge, and the waste leaves pasted smoothly down to the
+boards on the inside. The only remaining process is the lettering, which
+is done by printing the titles in bronze upon glazed colored paper, which
+is pasted lengthwise on the back. A small font of type, with a
+hand-press, will suffice for this, and a stabbing machine, with a small
+pair of binding shears, constitutes the only other apparatus required.
+The cost of binding pamphlets in this style varies from seven to twelve
+cents each, according to the material employed, and the amount of labor
+paid for. The advantages of the method are too obvious to all acquainted
+with books to require exemplification.
+
+Two still cheaper methods of binding may be named. What is known as the
+Harvard binder, employed in that library at Cambridge, Mass., consists
+simply of thin board sides with muslin back, and stubs also of cloth on
+the inside. The pamphlet is inserted and held in place by paste or glue.
+The cost of each binding is stated at six cents.
+
+The cheapest style of separate treatment for pamphlets yet suggested is
+of stiff Manila paper, with cloth back, costing about three cents each.
+
+I think that the rule of never mixing incongruous subjects within the
+same cover should be adhered to. The expense, by the cheaper method of
+binding referred to, is but slightly greater than must be incurred by
+binding several in a volume, in solid half morocco style. But, whenever
+pamphlets are bound together, the original printed paper covers should
+never be destroyed, but should be bound in.
+
+Another method of preserving pamphlets is to file them away in selected
+lots, placed inside of cloth covers, of considerable thickness. These may
+be had from any book-binder, being the rejected covers in which books
+sent for re-binding were originally bound. If kept in this way, each
+volume, or case of pamphlets, should be firmly tied with cord (or better
+with tape) fastened to the front edge of the cloth cover. Never use
+rubber or elastic bands for this, or any other purpose where time and
+security of fastening are involved, because the rubber will surely rot in
+a few weeks or months, and be useless as a means of holding together any
+objects whatever.
+
+Still another means of assorting and keeping pamphlets is to use
+Woodruff's file-holders, one of which holds from ten to thirty pamphlets
+according to their thickness. They should be arranged in classes, placing
+in each file case only pamphlets on similar subjects, in order of the
+authors' names, arranged alphabetically. Each pamphlet should be plainly
+numbered at its head by colored pencil, with the figure of its place in
+the volume, and the number of the case, containing it, which should also
+be volumed, and assigned to shelves containing books on related subjects.
+I need not add that all these numbers should correspond with the
+catalogue-title of each pamphlet. Then, when any one pamphlet is wanted,
+send for the case containing it, find it and withdraw it at once by its
+number, place it in one of the Koch spring-back binders, and give it to
+the reader precisely like any book that is served at the library counter.
+
+A more economical plan still, for libraries which cannot afford the
+expense of the Woodruff file-holders, is to cut out cases for the
+pamphlets, of suitable size, from tough Manila board, which need not cost
+more than about three cents each case.
+
+In whatever way the unbound pamphlets are treated, you should always mark
+them as such on the left-hand margin of each catalogue-card, by the
+designation "ub." (unbound) in pencil. If you decide later, to bind any
+of them, this pencil-mark should be erased from the cards, on the return
+of the pamphlets from the bindery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8.
+
+PERIODICAL LITERATURE.
+
+
+The librarian who desires to make the management of his library in the
+highest degree successful, must give special attention to the important
+field of periodical literature. More and more, as the years roll on, the
+periodical becomes the successful rival of the book in the claim for
+public attention. Indeed, we hear now and then, denunciations of the
+ever-swelling flood of magazines and newspapers, as tending to drive out
+the book. Readers, we are told, are seduced from solid and improving
+reading, by the mass of daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals which lie
+in wait for them on every hand. But no indiscriminate censure of
+periodicals or of their reading, can blind us to the fact of their great
+value. Because some persons devote an inordinate amount of time to them,
+is no reason why we should fail to use them judiciously ourselves, or to
+aid others in doing so. And because many periodicals (and even the vast
+majority) are of little importance, and are filled with trifling and
+ephemeral matter, that fact does not discredit the meritorious ones.
+Counterfeit currency does not diminish the value of the true coin; it is
+very sure to find its own just level at last; and so the wretched or the
+sensational periodical, however pretentious, will fall into inevitable
+neglect and failure in the long run.
+
+It is true that the figures as to the relative issues of books and
+periodicals in the publishing world are startling enough to give us
+pause. It has been computed that of the annual product of the American
+press, eighty-two per cent. consists of newspapers, ten per cent. of
+magazines and reviews, and only eight per cent. of books. Yet this vast
+redundancy of periodical literature is by no means such a menace to our
+permanent literature as it appears at first sight;--and that for three
+reasons: (1) a large share of the books actually published, appear in the
+first instance in the periodicals in serial or casual form; (2) the
+periodicals contain very much matter of permanent value; (3) the steady
+increase of carefully prepared books in the publishing world, while it
+may not keep pace with the rapid increase of periodicals, evinces a
+growth in the right direction. It is no longer so easy to get a crude or
+a poor book published, as it was a generation ago. The standard of
+critical taste has risen, and far more readers are judges of what
+constitutes a really good book than ever before. While it is true that
+our periodical product has so grown, that whereas there were twenty years
+ago, in 1878, only 7,958 different newspapers and magazines published in
+the United States, there are now, in 1899, over 20,500 issued, it can
+also be stated that the annual product of books has increased in the same
+twenty years from less than two thousand to more than five thousand
+volumes of new issues in a year. Whatever may be the future of our
+American literature, it can hardly be doubted that the tendency is
+steadily toward the production of more books, and better ones.
+
+Whether a public library be large or small, its value to students will
+depend greatly upon the care and completeness with which its selection of
+periodical works is made, and kept up from year to year. Nothing is more
+common in all libraries, public and private, than imperfect and partially
+bound sets of serials, whether newspapers, reviews, magazines or the
+proceedings and reports of scientific and other societies. Nothing can be
+more annoying than to find the sets of such publications broken at the
+very point where the reference or the wants of those consulting them
+require satisfaction. In these matters, perpetual vigilance is the price
+of completeness; and the librarian who is not willing or able to devote
+the time and means requisite to complete the files of periodical
+publications under his charge is to be censured or commiserated,
+according to the causes of the failure. The first essential in keeping up
+the completeness of files of ephemeral publications, next to vigilance on
+the part of their custodian, is room for the arrangement of the various
+parts, and means for binding with promptitude. Some libraries, and among
+them a few of the largest, are so hampered for want of room, that their
+serials are piled in heaps without order or arrangement, and are thus
+comparatively useless until bound. In the more fortunate institutions,
+which possess adequate space for the orderly arrangement of all their
+stores, there can be no excuse for failing to supply any periodical,
+whether bound or unbound, at the moment it is called for. It is simply
+necessary to devote sufficient time each day to the systematic
+arrangement of all receipts: to keep each file together in chronological
+order; to supply them for the perusal of readers, with a proper check or
+receipt, and to make sure of binding each new volume as fast as the
+publication of titles and index enables it to be done properly. While
+some libraries receive several thousands of serials, the periodical
+publications taken by others amount to a very small number; but in either
+case, the importance of prompt collation and immediate supply of missing
+parts or numbers is equally imperative. While deficiencies in daily
+newspapers can rarely be made up after the week, and sometimes not after
+the day of their appearance, the missing parts of official and other
+publications, as well as of reviews and magazines appearing at less
+frequent intervals, can usually be supplied within the year, although a
+more prompt securing of them is often necessary. In these publications,
+as in the acquisition of books for any library, the collation of each
+part or number is imperative, in order to avoid imperfections which may
+be irreparable.
+
+First in the ranks of these ephemeral publications, in order of number,
+if not of importance, come the journals of all classes, daily and weekly,
+political, illustrated, literary, scientific, mechanical, professional,
+agricultural, financial, etc. From the obscure and fugitive beginnings of
+journalism in the sixteenth century to the establishment of the first
+continuous newspaper--the London Weekly News, in 1622, and Renaudot's
+Gazette (afterwards the _Gazette de France_) in 1631, followed by the
+issue of the first daily newspaper, the London Daily Courant, in 1702,
+and the Boston Weekly News-letter in 1704, (the first American
+journal)--to the wonderful fecundity of the modern periodical press,
+which scatters the leaves of more than thirty thousand different journals
+broadcast over the world, there is a long and interesting history of the
+trials and triumphs of a free press. In whatever respect American
+libraries may fall behind those of older lands (and their deficiencies
+are vast, and, in many directions permanent) it may be said with
+confidence, that in the United States the newspaper has received its
+widest and most complete development. Numerically, the fullest
+approximate return of the newspaper and periodical press gives a total
+number of 21,500 periodical publications, regularly appearing within the
+limits of the United States.
+
+While no one library, however large and comprehensive, has either the
+space or the means to accumulate a tithe of the periodicals that swarm
+from a productive press, there are valid reasons why more attention
+should be paid by the librarian to a careful preservation of a wise
+selection of the best of all this current literature. The modern
+newspaper and other periodical publications afford the fullest and
+truest, and on the whole, the most impartial image of the age we live in,
+that can be derived from a single source. Taken together, they afford the
+richest material for the historian, or the student of politics, of
+society, of literature, and of civilization in all its varied aspects.
+What precious memorials of the day, even the advertisements and brief
+paragraphs of the newspapers of a century ago afford us! While in a field
+so vast, it is impossible for any one library to be more than a gleaner,
+no such institution can afford to neglect the collection and preservation
+of at least some of the more important newspapers from year to year. A
+public library is not for one generation only, but it is for all time.
+Opportunities once neglected of securing the current periodicals of any
+age in continuous and complete form seldom or never recur. The principle
+of selection will of course vary in different libraries and localities.
+While the safest general rule is to secure the best and most
+representative of all the journals, reviews, and magazines within the
+limit of the funds which can be devoted to that purpose, there is another
+principle which should largely guide the selection. In each locality, it
+should be one leading object of the principal library to gather within
+its walls the fullest representation possible, of the literature relating
+to its own State and neighborhood. In every city and large town, the
+local journals and other periodicals should form an indispensable part of
+a public library collection. Where the means are wanting to purchase
+these, the proprietors will frequently furnish them free of expense, for
+public use; but no occasion should be lost of securing, immediately on
+its issue from the press, every publication, large or small, which
+relates to the local history or interests of the place where the library
+is maintained.
+
+While the files of the journals of any period furnish unquestionably the
+best instruments for the history of that epoch, it is lamentable to
+reflect that so little care has ever been taken to preserve a fair
+representation of those of any age. The destiny of nearly all newspapers
+is swift destruction; and even those which are preserved, commonly
+survive in a lamentably fragmentary state. The obvious causes of the
+rapid disappearance of periodical literature, are its great volume,
+necessarily increasing with every year, the difficulty of lodging the
+files of any long period in our narrow apartments, and the continual
+demand for paper for the uses of trade. To these must be added the great
+cost of binding files of journals, increasing in the direct ratio of the
+size of the volume. As so formidable an expense can be incurred by very
+few private subscribers to periodicals, so much the more important is it
+that the public libraries should not neglect a duty which they owe to
+their generation, as well as to those that are to follow. These poor
+journals of to-day, which everybody is willing to stigmatize as trash,
+not worth the room to store or the money to bind, are the very materials
+which the man of the future will search for with eagerness, and for some
+of which he will be ready to pay their weight in gold. These
+representatives of the commercial, industrial, inventive, social,
+literary, political, moral and religious life of the times, should be
+preserved and handed down to posterity with sedulous care. No historian
+or other writer on any subject who would write conscientiously or with
+full information, can afford to neglect this fruitful mine of the
+journals, where his richest materials are frequently to be found.
+
+In the absence of any great library of journals, or of that universal
+library which every nation should possess, it becomes the more important
+to assemble in the various local libraries all those ephemeral
+publications, which, if not thus preserved contemporaneously with their
+issue, will disappear utterly, and elude the search of future historical
+inquirers. And that library which shall most sedulously gather and
+preserve such fugitive memorials of the life of the people among which it
+is situated will be found to have best subserved its purpose to the
+succeeding generations of men.
+
+Not less important than the preservation of newspapers is that of reviews
+and magazines. In fact, the latter are almost universally recognized as
+far more important than the more fugitive literature of the daily and
+weekly press. Though inferior to the journals as historical and
+statistical materials, reviews and magazines supply the largest fund of
+discussion concerning such topics of scientific, social, literary, and
+religious interest as occupy the public mind during the time in which
+they appear. More and more the best thought of the times gets reflected
+in the pages of this portion of the periodical press. No investigator in
+any department can afford to overlook the rich stores contributed to
+thought in reviews and magazines. These articles are commonly more
+condensed and full of matter than the average books of the period. While
+every library, therefore, should possess for the current use and ultimate
+reference of its readers a selection of the best, as large as its means
+will permit, a great and comprehensive library, in order to be
+representative of the national literature, should possess them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The salient fact that the periodical press absorbs, year by year, more of
+the talent which might otherwise be expended upon literature of more
+permanent form is abundantly obvious. This tendency has both its good and
+its evil results. On the one hand, the best writing ability is often
+drawn out by magazines and journals, which are keen competitors for
+attractive matter, and for known reputations, and sometimes they secure
+both in combination. On the other hand, it is a notable fact that writers
+capable of excellent work often do great injustice to their reputations
+by producing too hastily articles written to order, instead of the
+well-considered, ripe fruits of their literary skill. Whether the brief
+article answering the limits of a magazine or a review is apt to be more
+or less superficial than a book treating the same topic, is a question
+admitting of different views. If the writer is capable of skilful
+condensation, without loss of grace of composition, or of graphic power,
+then the article, measured by its influence upon the public mind, must be
+preferred to the more diffuse treatise of the book. It has the immense
+advantage of demanding far less of the reader's time; and whenever its
+conclusions are stated in a masterly way, its impression should be quite
+as lasting as that of any book treating a similar theme. Such is
+doubtless the effect of the abler articles written for periodicals, which
+are more condensed and full of matter in speedily available form, than
+the average book of the period. In this sense it is a misuse of terms to
+call the review article ephemeral, or to treat the periodicals containing
+them as perishable literary commodities, which serve their term with the
+month or year that produced them. On the contrary, the experience of
+librarians shows that the most sought-for, and the most useful
+contributions to any subject are frequently found, not in the books
+written upon it, but in the files of current periodicals, or in those of
+former years. It is especially to be noted that the book may frequently
+lose its adaptation and usefulness by lapse of time, and the onward march
+of science, while the article is apt to reflect the latest light which
+can help to illustrate the subject.
+
+While, therefore, there is always a liability of finding many crude and
+sketchy contributions in the literature of the periodical press, its
+conductors are ever on the alert to reduce to a minimum the weak or
+unworthy offerings, and to secure a maximum of articles embodying mature
+thought and fit expression. The pronounced tendency toward short methods
+in every channel of human activity, is reflected in the constantly
+multiplying series of periodical publications.
+
+The publishing activities of the times are taking on a certain
+coöperative element, which was not formerly known. Thus, the "literary
+syndicate" has been developed by degrees into one of the most
+far-reaching agencies for popular entertainment. The taste for short
+stories, in place of the ancient three volume novel, has been cultivated
+even in conservative England, and has become so wide-spread in the United
+States, that very few periodicals which deal in fiction at all, are
+without their stories begun and finished in a single issue. The talent
+required to produce a fascinating and successful fiction in this narrow
+compass is a peculiar one, and while there are numerous failures, there
+are also a surprising number of successes. Well written descriptive
+articles, too, are in demand, and special cravings for personal gossip
+and lively sketches of notable living characters are manifest. That
+perennial interest which mankind and womankind evince in every individual
+whose name, for whatever reason, has become familiar, supplies a basis
+for an inexhaustible series of light paragraphic articles. Another
+fruitful field for the syndicate composition is brief essays upon any
+topic of the times, the fashions, notable events, or new inventions,
+public charities, education, governmental doings, current political
+movements, etc. These appear almost simultaneously, in many different
+periodicals, scattered throughout the country, under the copyright
+_imprimatur_, which warns off all journals from republishing, which have
+not subscribed to the special "syndicate" engaging them. Thus each
+periodical secures, at extremely moderate rates, contributions which are
+frequently written by the most noted and popular living writers, who, in
+their turn, are much better remunerated for their work than they would be
+for the same amount of writing if published in book form. Whether this
+now popular method of attaining a wide and remunerative circulation for
+their productions will prove permanent, is less certain than that many
+authors now find it the surest road to profitable employment of their
+pens. The fact that it rarely serves to introduce unknown writers of
+talent to the reading world, may be laid to the account of the eagerness
+of the syndicates to secure names that already enjoy notoriety.
+
+The best method for filing newspapers for current reading is a vexed
+question in libraries. In the large ones, where room enough exists, large
+reading-stands with sloping sides furnish the most convenient access,
+provided with movable metal rods to keep the papers in place. Where no
+room exists for these stands, some of the numerous portable
+newspaper-file inventions, or racks, may be substituted, allowing one to
+each paper received at the library.
+
+For filing current magazines, reviews, and the smaller newspapers, like
+the literary and technical journals, various plans are in use. All of
+these have advantages, while none is free from objection. Some libraries
+use the ordinary pamphlet case, in which the successive numbers are kept
+until a volume is accumulated for binding. This requires a separate case
+for each periodical, and where many are taken, is expensive, though by
+this method the magazines are kept neat and in order. Others use small
+newspaper files or tapes for periodicals. Others still arrange them
+alphabetically on shelves, in which case the latest issues are found on
+top, if the chronology is preserved. In serving periodicals to readers,
+tickets should be required (as for books) with title and date, as a
+precaution against loss, or careless leaving upon tables.
+
+Whether current periodicals are ever allowed to be drawn out, must depend
+upon several weighty considerations. When only one copy is taken, no
+circulation should be permitted, so that the magazines and journals may
+be always in, at the service of readers frequenting the library. But in
+some large public libraries, where several copies of each of the more
+popular serials are subscribed to, it is the custom to keep one copy
+(sometimes two) always in, and to allow the duplicate copies to be drawn
+out. This circulation should be limited to a period much shorter than is
+allowed for keeping books.
+
+In no case, should the bound volumes of magazines, reviews, and journals
+of whatever kind be allowed to leave the library. This is a rule which
+should be enforced for the common benefit of all the readers, since to
+lend to one reader any periodical or work of general reference is to
+deprive all the rest of its use just so long as it is out of the library.
+This has become all the more important since the publication of Poole's
+Indexes to periodical literature has put the whole reading community on
+the quest for information to be found only (in condensed form, or in the
+latest treatment) in the volumes of the periodical press. And it is
+really no hardship to any quick, intelligent reader, to require that
+these valuable serials should be used within the library only. An article
+is not like a book;--a long and perhaps serious study, requiring many
+hours or days to master it. The magazine or review article, whatever
+other virtues it may lack, has the supreme merit of brevity.
+
+The only valid exception which will justify loaning the serial volumes of
+periodicals outside the library, is when there are duplicate sets of any
+of them. Some large libraries having a wide popular circulation are able
+to buy two or more sets of the magazines most in demand, and so to lend
+one out, while another is kept constantly in for use and reference. And
+even a library of small means might secure for its shelves duplicate sets
+of many periodicals, by simply making known that it would be glad to
+receive from any families or other owners, all the numbers of their
+magazines, etc., which they no longer need for use. This would bring in,
+in any large town or city, a copious supply of periodicals which
+house-keepers, tired of keeping, storing and dusting such unsightly
+property, would be glad to bestow where they would do the most good.
+
+Whatever periodicals are taken, it is essential to watch over their
+completeness by keeping a faithfully revised check-list. This should be
+ruled to furnish blank spaces for each issue of all serials taken,
+whether quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily, and no week should elapse
+without complete scrutiny of the list, and ordering all missing numbers
+from the publishers. Mail failures are common, and unceasing vigilance is
+the price that must be paid for completeness. The same check-list, by
+other spaces, should show the time of expiration of subscriptions, and
+the price paid per year. And where a large number of periodicals are
+received, covering many parts of the country, they should be listed, not
+only by an alphabet of titles, but by another alphabet of places where
+published, as well.
+
+If a new library is to be formed, having no sets of periodicals on which
+to build, effort should be made to secure full sets from the beginning of
+as many of the prominent magazines and reviews, American and foreign, as
+the funds will permit. It is expedient to wait a little, rather than to
+take up with incomplete sets, as full ones are pretty sure to turn up,
+and competition between the many dealers should bring down prices to a
+fair medium. In fact, many old sets of magazines are offered surprisingly
+cheap, and usually well-bound. But vigilant care must be exercised to
+secure perfect sets, as numbers are often mutilated, or deficient in some
+pages or illustrations. This object can only be secured by collation of
+every volume, page by page, with due attention to the list of
+illustrations, if any are published.
+
+In the absence of British bibliographical enterprise (a want much to be
+deplored) it has fallen to the lot of American librarians to produce the
+only general index of subjects to English periodical literature which
+exists. Poole's Index to Periodical Literature is called by the name of
+its senior editor, the late Dr. Wm. F. Poole, and was contributed to by
+many librarians on a coöperative division of labor, in indexing, under
+direction of Mr. Wm. I. Fletcher, librarian of Amherst College. This
+index to leading periodicals is literally invaluable, and indispensable
+as an aid to research. Its first volume indexes in one alphabet the
+periodicals embraced, from their first issues up to 1882. The second
+volume runs from 1882 to 1887, and the third covers the period from 1887
+to 1891, while a fourth volume indexes the periodicals from 1892 to 1896,
+inclusive. For 1897, and each year after, an annual index to the
+publications of the year is issued.
+
+Besides this, the _Review of Reviews_ publishes monthly an index to one
+month's leading periodicals, and also an annual index, very full, in a
+single alphabet. And the "Cumulative Index," issued both monthly and
+quarterly, by W. H. Brett, the Cleveland, Ohio, librarian, is an
+admirably full means of keeping our keys to periodical literature up to
+date. There are other indexes to periodicals, published monthly or
+quarterly, too numerous to be noticed here. The annual _New York Tribune_
+Index (the only daily journal, except the _London Times_, which prints an
+index) is highly useful, and may be used for other newspapers as well,
+for the most important events or discussions, enabling one to search the
+dailies for himself, the date once being fixed by aid of the index.
+
+Mention should also be made here of the admirably comprehensive annual
+"_Rowell's Newspaper Directory_," which should rather be called the
+"American Periodical Directory," since it has a classified catalogue of
+all periodicals published in the United States and Canada.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9.
+
+THE ART OF READING.
+
+
+"The true University of these days," says a great scholar of our century,
+Thomas Carlyle, "is a collection of books, and all education is to teach
+us how to read."
+
+If there were any volume, out of the multitude of books about books that
+have been written, which could illuminate the pathway of the unskilled
+reader, so as to guide him into all knowledge by the shortest road, what
+a boon that book would be!
+
+When we survey the vast and rapidly growing product of the modern
+press,--when we see these hosts of poets without imagination, historians
+without accuracy, critics without discernment, and novelists without
+invention or style, in short, the whole prolific brood of writers who do
+not know how to write,--we are tempted to echo the sentiment of
+Wordsworth:--
+
+    "The intellectual power, through words and things,
+     Goes sounding on a dim and perilous way."
+
+The most that any one can hope to do for others is to suggest to them a
+clue which, however feeble, has helped to guide his uncertain footsteps
+through the labyrinthian maze of folly and wisdom which we call
+literature.
+
+The knowledge acquired by a Librarian, while it may be very wide and very
+varied, runs much risk of being as superficial as it is diversified.
+There is a very prevalent, but very erroneous notion which conceives of a
+librarian as a kind of animated encyclopaedia, who, if you tap him in any
+direction, from A to Z, will straightway pour forth a flood of knowledge
+upon any subject in history, science, or literature. This popular ideal,
+however fine in theory, has to undergo what commercial men call a heavy
+discount when reduced to practice. The librarian is a constant and busy
+worker in far other fields than exploring the contents of books. His day
+is filled with cataloguing, arranging and classifying them, searching
+catalogues, selecting new books, correspondence, directing assistants,
+keeping library records, adjusting accounts, etc., in the midst of which
+he is constantly at the call of the public for books and information.
+What time has he, wearied by the day's multifarious and exacting labors,
+for any thorough study of books? So, when anyone begins an inquiry with,
+"You know everything; can you tell me,"--I say: "Stop a moment;
+omniscience is not a human quality; I really know very few things, and am
+not quite sure of some of them." There are many men, and women, too, in
+almost every community, whose range of knowledge is more extended than
+that of most librarians.
+
+The idea, then, that because one lives perpetually among books, he
+absorbs all the learning that they contain, must be abandoned as a
+popular delusion. To know a little upon many subjects is quite compatible
+with not knowing much about any one. "Beware of the man of one book," is
+an ancient proverb, pregnant with meaning. The man of one book, if it is
+wisely chosen, and if he knows it all, can sometimes confound a whole
+assembly of scholars. An American poet once declared to me that all
+leisure time is lost that is not spent in reading Shakespeare. And we
+remember Emerson's panegyric upon Plato's writings, borrowing from the
+Caliph Omar his famous (but apocryphal) sentence against all books but
+the Koran: "Burn all the libraries, for their value is in this book." So
+Sheffield, duke of Buckingham:
+
+    "Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
+     For all books else appear so tame, so poor,
+     Verse will seem prose, but still persist to read,
+     And Homer will be all the books you need."
+
+Of course I am far from designing to say anything against the widest
+study, which great libraries exist to supply and to encourage; and all
+utterances of a half-truth, like the maxim I have quoted, are
+exaggerations. But the saying points a moral--and that is, the supreme
+importance of thoroughness in all that we undertake. The poetical
+wiseacre who endowed the world with the maxim, "A little learning is a
+dangerous thing," does not appear to have reflected upon the logical
+sequence of the dictum, namely: that if a little learning upon any
+subject is dangerous, then less must be still more dangerous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The art of reading to the best advantage implies the command of adequate
+time to read. The art of having time to read depends upon knowing how to
+make the best use of our days. Days are short, and time is fleeting, but
+no one's day ever holds less than 24 hours. Engrossing as one's
+occupation may be, it need never consume all the time remaining from
+sleep, refreshment and social intercourse. The half hour before
+breakfast, the fifteen minutes waiting for dinner, given to the book you
+wish to read, will soon finish it, and make room for another. The busiest
+men I have known have often been the most intelligent, and the widest
+readers. The idle person never knows how to make use of odd moments; the
+busy one always knows how. Yet the vast majority of people go through
+life without ever learning the great lesson of the supreme value of
+moments.
+
+Let us suppose that you determine to devote two hours every day to
+reading. That is equivalent to more than seven hundred hours a year, or
+to three months of working time of eight hours a day. What could you not
+do in three months, if you had all the time to yourself? You could almost
+learn a new language, or master a new science; yet this two hours a day,
+which would give you three months of free time every year, is frittered
+away, you scarcely know how, in aimless matters that lead to nothing.
+
+A famous writer of our century, some of whose books you have
+read,--Edward Bulwer Lytton,--devoted only four hours a day to writing;
+yet he produced more than sixty volumes of fiction, poetry, drama and
+criticism, of singular literary merit. The great naturalist, Darwin, a
+chronic sufferer from a depressing malady, counted two hours a fortunate
+day's work for him; yet he accomplished results in the world of science
+which render his name immortal.
+
+Be not over particular as to hours, or the time of day, and you will soon
+find that all hours are good for the muse. Have a purpose, and adhere to
+it with good-humored pertinacity. Be independent of the advice and
+opinions of others; the world of books, like the world of nature, was
+made for you; possess it in your own way. If you find no good in ancient
+history or in metaphysics, let them alone and read books of art, or
+poetry, or biography, or voyages and travels. The wide domain of
+knowledge and the world of books are so related, that all roads cross and
+converge, like the paths that carry us over the surface of the globe on
+which we live. Many a reader has learned more of past times from good
+biographies, than from any formal history; and it is a fact that many owe
+to the plays of Shakespeare and the novels of Walter Scott nearly all the
+knowledge which they possess of the history of England and Scotland.
+
+It is unhappily true that books do not teach the use of books. The art of
+extracting what is important or instructive in any book, from the mass
+of verbiage that commonly overlays it, cannot be learned by theory.
+Invaluable as the art of reading is, as a means of enlightenment, its
+highest uses can only be obtained by a certain method of reading, which
+will separate the wheat from the chaff. Different readers will, of
+course, possess different capacities for doing this. Young or
+undisciplined minds can read only in one way,--and that way is, to
+mentally pronounce every word, and dwell equally upon all the parts of
+every sentence. This comes naturally in the first instance, from the mere
+method of learning to read, in which every word is a spoken symbol, and
+has to be sounded, whether it is essential to the sense, or not. This
+habit of reading, which may be termed the literal method, goes with most
+persons through life. Once learned, it is very hard to unlearn. There are
+multitudes who cannot read a newspaper, even, without dwelling upon every
+word, and coming to a full stop at the end of every sentence. Now this
+method of reading, while it may be indispensable to all readers at some
+time, and to some readers at all times, is too slow and fruitless for the
+student who aims to absorb the largest amount of knowledge in the
+briefest space of time. Life is too short to be wasted over the rhetoric
+or the periods of an author whose knowledge we want as all that concerns
+us.
+
+Doubtless there are classes of literature in which form or expression
+predominates, and we cannot read poetry, for example, or the drama, or
+even the higher class of fiction, without lingering upon the finer
+passages, to get the full impression of their beauty. In reading works of
+the imagination, we read not for ideas alone, but for expression also,
+and to enjoy the rhythm and melody of the verse, if it be poetry, or, if
+prose, the finished rhetoric, and the pleasing cadence of the style. It
+is here that the literary skill of an accomplished writer, and all that
+we understand by rhetoric, becomes important, while in reading for
+information only, we may either ignore words and phrases entirely, or
+subordinate them to the ideas which they convey. In reading any book for
+the knowledge it contains, I should as soon think of spelling out all the
+words, as of reading out all the sentences. Just as, in listening to a
+slow speaker, you divine the whole meaning of what he is about to say,
+before he has got half through his sentence, so, in reading, you can
+gather the full sense of the ideas which any sentence contains, without
+stopping to accentuate the words.
+
+Leaving aside the purely literary works, in which form or style is a
+predominant element, let us come to books of science, history, biography,
+voyages, travels, etc. In these, the primal aim is to convey information,
+and thus the style of expression is little or nothing--the thought or the
+fact is all. Yet most writers envelop the thought or the fact in so much
+verbiage, complicate it with so many episodes, beat it out thin, by so
+much iteration and reiteration, that the student must needs learn the art
+of skipping, in self-defense. To one in zealous pursuit of knowledge, to
+read most books through is paying them too extravagant a compliment. He
+has to read between the lines, as it were, to note down a fact here, or a
+thought there, or an illustration elsewhere, and leaves alone all that
+contributes nothing to his special purpose. As the quick, practiced eye
+glances over the visible signs of thought, page after page is rapidly
+absorbed, and a book which would occupy an ordinary reader many days in
+reading, is mastered in a few hours.
+
+The habit of reading which I have outlined, and which may be termed the
+intuitive method, or, if you prefer it, the short-hand method, will more
+than double the working power of the reader. It is not difficult to
+practice, especially to a busy man, who does with all his might what he
+has got to do. But it should be learned early in life, when the faculties
+are fresh, the mind full of zeal for knowledge, and the mental habits are
+ductile, not fixed. With it one's capacity for acquiring knowledge, and
+consequently his accomplishment, whether as writer, teacher, librarian,
+or private student, will be immeasureably increased.
+
+Doubtless it is true that some native or intuitive gifts must be
+conjoined with much mental discipline and perseverance, in order to reach
+the highest result, in this method of reading, as in any other study.
+"_Non omnia possumus omnes_," Virgil says; and there are intellects who
+could no more master such a method, than they could understand the
+binomial theorem, or calculate the orbit of Uranus. If it be true, as has
+been epigramatically said, that "a great book is a great evil," let it be
+reduced to a small one by the skilful use of the art of skipping. Then,
+"he that runs may read" as he runs--while, without this refuge, he that
+reads will often assuredly be tempted to run.
+
+What I said, just now, in deprecation of set courses of reading, was
+designed for private students only, who so often find a stereotyped
+sequence of books barren or uninteresting. It was not intended to
+discourage the pursuit of a special course of study in the school, or the
+society, or the reading class. This is, in fact, one of the best means of
+intellectual progress. Here, there is the opportunity to discuss the
+style, the merits, and the characteristics of the author in hand, and by
+the attrition of mind with mind, to inform and entertain the whole circle
+of readers. In an association of this kind, embracing one or two acute
+minds, the excellent practice of reading aloud finds its best results.
+Here, too, the art of expression becomes important, how to adapt the
+sound to the sense, by a just emphasis, intonation, and modulation of the
+voice. In short, the value of a book thus read and discussed, in an
+appreciative circle, may be more than doubled to each reader.
+
+It is almost literally true that no book, undertaken merely as task work,
+ever helped the reader to knowledge of permanent or material value. How
+many persons, struck by Mr. Emerson's exalted praise of the writings of
+Plato, have undertaken to go through the Dialogues. Alas! for the vain
+ambition to be or to seem learned! After trying to understand the Phaedo,
+or falling asleep over the Gorgias, the book has been dropped as hastily
+as it was taken up. It was not perceived that in order to enjoy or
+comprehend a philosopher, one must have a capacity for ideas. It requires
+almost as much intelligence to appreciate an idea as to conceive one. One
+will bring nothing home from the most persistent cruise after knowledge,
+unless he carries something out. In the realm of learning, we recognize
+the full meaning of that Scripture, that to him that hath, shall be
+given; and he that hath not, though never so anxious to read and
+understand Plato, will quickly return to the perusal of his daily
+newspaper.
+
+It were easier, perhaps, in one sense, to tell what not to read, than to
+recommend what is best worth reading. In the publishing world, this is
+the age of compilation, not of creation. If we seek for great original
+works, if we must go to the wholesale merchants to buy knowledge, since
+retail geniuses are worth but little, one must go back many years for his
+main selection of books. It would not be a bad rule for those who can
+read but little, to read no book until it has been published at least a
+year or two. This fever for the newest books is not a wholesome condition
+of the mind. And since a selection must indispensably be made, and that
+selection must be, for the great mass of readers, so rigid and so small,
+why should precious time be wasted upon the ephemeral productions of the
+hour? What business, for example, has one to be reading Rider Haggard, or
+Amélie Rives, or Ian Maclaren, who has never read Homer, or Dante, or
+even so much as half-a-dozen plays of Shakespeare?
+
+One hears with dismay that about three-fourths of the books drawn from
+our popular libraries are novels. Now, while such aimless reading, merely
+to be amused, is doubtless better than no reading at all, it is
+unquestionably true that over-much reading of fiction, especially at an
+early age, enervates the mind, weakens the will, makes dreamers instead
+of thinkers and workers, and fills the imagination with morbid and unreal
+views of life. Yet the vast consumption of novels is due more to the
+cheapness and wide diffusion of such works, and the want of wise
+direction in other fields, than to any original tendency on the part of
+the young. People will always read the most, that which is most put
+before them, if only the style be attractive. The mischief that is done
+by improper books is literally immeasureable. The superabundance of cheap
+fictions in the markets creates and supplies an appetite which should be
+directed by wise guidance into more improving fields. A two-fold evil
+follows upon the reading of every unworthy book; in the first place, it
+absorbs the time which should be bestowed upon a worthy one; and
+secondly, it leaves the mind and heart unimproved, instead of conducing
+to the benefit of both. As there are few books more elevating than a
+really good novel, so there are none more fruitful of evil than a bad
+one.
+
+And what of the newspaper? it may be asked. When I consider for how much
+really good literature we are beholden to the daily and weekly press, how
+indispensable is its function as purveyor of the news of the world, how
+widely it has been improved in recent years, I cannot advise quarreling
+with the bridge that brings so many across the gulf of ignorance. Yet the
+newspaper, like the book, is to be read sparingly, and with judgment. It
+is to be used, not abused. I call that an abuse which squanders the
+precious and unreturning hours over long chronicles of depravity. The
+murders, the suicides, the executions, the divorces, the criminal trials,
+are each and all so like one another that it is only a wanton waste of
+time to read them. The morbid style in which social disorders of all
+kinds are written up in the sensational press, with staring headlines to
+attract attention, ought to warn off every healthy mind from their
+perusal. Every scandal in society that can be brought to the surface is
+eagerly caught up and paraded, while the millions of people who lead
+blameless lives of course go unnoticed and unchronicled. Such journals
+thus inculcate the vilest pessimism, instead of a wholesome and honest
+belief in the average decency of human nature. The prolixity of the
+narrative, too, is always in monstrous disproportion to its importance.
+"Does not the burning of a metropolitan theatre," says a great writer,
+"take above a million times as much telling as the creation of a world?"
+Here is where the art of skipping is to be rigorously applied. Read the
+newspaper by headlines only,--skipping all the murders, all the fires,
+all the executions, all the crimes, all the news, except the most
+important and immediately interesting,--and you will spend perhaps
+fifteen or twenty minutes upon what would otherwise occupy hours. It is
+no exaggeration to say that most persons have spent time enough over the
+newspapers, to have given them a liberal education.
+
+As all readers cannot have the same gifts, so all cannot enjoy the same
+books. There are those who can see no greatness in Shakespeare, but who
+think Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy sublime. Some will eagerly devour
+every novel of Miss Braddon's, or "The Duchess," or the woman calling
+herself "Ouida," but they cannot appreciate the masterly fictions of
+Thackeray. I have known very good people who could not, for the life of
+them, find any humor in Dickens, but who actually enjoyed the strained
+wit of Mrs. Partington and Bill Nye. Readers who could not get through a
+volume of Gibbon will read with admiration a so-called History of
+Napoleon by Abbott. And I fear that you will find many a young lady of
+to-day, who is content to be ignorant of Homer and Shakespeare, but who
+is ravished by the charms of "Trilby" or the "Heavenly Twins." But taste
+in literature, as in art, or in anything else, can be cultivated. Lay
+down the rule, and adhere to it, to read none but the best books, and you
+will soon lose all relish for the poor ones. You can educate readers into
+good judges, in no long time, by feeding them on the masterpieces of
+English prose and poetry. Surely, we all have cause to deprecate the
+remorseless flood of fictitious literature in which better books are
+drowned.
+
+Be not dismayed at the vast multitude of books, nor fear that, with your
+small leisure, you will never be able to master any appreciable share of
+them. Few and far between are the great books of the world. The works
+which it is necessary to know, may be comprised in a comparatively small
+compass. The rest are to be preserved in the great literary
+conservatories, some as records of the past, others as chronicles of the
+times, and not a few as models to be avoided. The Congressional Library
+at Washington is our great National conservatory of books. As the library
+of the government--that is, of the whole people,--it is inclusive of all
+the literature which the country produces, while all the other libraries
+are and must be more or less exclusive. No National Library can ever be
+too large. In order that the completeness of the collection shall not
+fail, and to preserve the whole of our literature, it is put into the
+Statute of Copyright, as a condition precedent of the exclusive right to
+multiply copies of any book, that it shall be deposited in the Library of
+Congress. Apprehension is sometimes expressed that our National Library
+will become overloaded with trash, and so fail of its usefulness. 'Tis a
+lost fear. There is no act of Congress requiring all the books to be
+read. The public sense is continually winnowing and sifting the
+literature of every period, and to books and their authors, every day is
+the day of judgment. Nowhere in the world is the inexorable law of the
+survival of the fittest more rigidly applied than in the world of books.
+The works which are the most frequently re-printed in successive ages are
+the ones which it is safe to stand by.
+
+Books may be divided into three classes: 1st, acquaintances; 2d, friends;
+and 3d, intimates.
+
+It is well enough to have an acquaintance with a multitude of books, as
+with many people; though in either case much time should not be given to
+merely pleasant intercourse, that leads to no result. With our literary
+friends, we can spend more time, for they awaken keen interest, and are
+to be read with zest, and consequently with profit. But for our chosen
+intimates, our heart-companions, we reserve our highest regard, and our
+best hours. Choice and sacred is the book that makes an era in the life
+of the reader; the book which first rouses his higher nature, and awakens
+the reason or the imagination. Such a volume will many a one remember;
+the book which first excited his own thought, made him conscious of
+untried powers, and opened to his charmed vision a new world.
+
+Such a book has Carlyle's Sartor Resartus been to many; or the play of
+Hamlet, read for the first time; or the Faust of Goethe; or the
+Confessions of St. Augustine; or an essay of Emerson; or John Ruskin; or
+the Divine Comedy of Dante; or even an exquisite work of fiction, like
+John Halifax, or Henry Esmond. What the book is that works such miracles
+is never of so much importance as the epoch in the mind of the reader
+which it signalizes. It were vain to single out any one writer, and say
+to all readers--"Here is the book that must indispensably be read;" for
+the same book will have totally different effects upon different minds,
+or even upon the same mind, at different stages of development.
+
+When I have been asked to contribute to the once popular _symposia_ upon
+"Books which have helped me,"--I have declined, for such catalogues of
+intellectual aids are liable to be very misleading. Thus, if I were to
+name the book which did more than most others for my own mind, I should
+say that it was the Emile of Rousseau, read at about the age of
+seventeen. This work, written with that marvellous eloquence which
+characterises all the best productions of Jean Jacques, first brought me
+acquainted with those advanced ideas of education which have penetrated
+the whole modern world. Yet the Emile would probably appear to most of my
+readers trite and common-place, as it would now to me, for the reason
+that we have long passed the period of development when its ideas were
+new to us.
+
+But the formative power of books can never be over-rated: their subtle
+mastery to stimulate all the germs of intellectual and moral life that
+lie enfolded in the mind. As the poet sings--
+
+    "Books are not seldom talismans and spells."
+
+Why should they not be so? They furnish us the means, and the only
+means, whereby we may hold communion with the master-spirits of all ages.
+They bring us acquainted with the best thoughts which the human mind has
+produced, expressed in the noblest language. Books create for us the
+many-sided world, carry us abroad, out of our narrow provincial horizons,
+and reveal to us new scenery, new men, new languages, and new modes of
+life. As we read, the mind expands with the horizon, and becomes broad as
+the blue heaven above us. With Homer, we breathe the fresh air of the
+pristine world, when the light of poetry gilded every mountain top, and
+peopled the earth with heroes and demigods. With Plutarch, we walk in
+company with sages, warriors, and statesmen, and kindle with admiration
+of their virtues, or are roused to indignation at their crimes. With
+Sophocles, we sound the depths of human passion, and learn the sublime
+lesson of endurance. We are charmed with an ode of Horace, perfect in
+rhythm, perfect in sentiment, perfect in diction, and perfect in moral;
+the condensed essence of volumes in a single page. We walk with Dante
+through the nether world, awed by the tremendous power with which he
+depicts for us the secrets of the prison house. With Milton, we mount
+heaven-ward, and in the immortal verse of his minor poems, finer even
+than the stately march of Paradise Lost, we hear celestial music, and
+breathe diviner air. With that sovereign artist, Shakespeare, full
+equally of delight and of majesty, we sweep the horizon of this complex
+human life, and become comprehensive scholars and citizens of the world.
+The masters of fiction enthrall us with their fascinating pages, one
+moment shaking us with uncontrollable laughter, and the next, dissolving
+us in tears. In the presence of all these emanations of genius, the wise
+reader may feed on nectar and ambrosia, and forget the petty cares and
+vexations of to-day.
+
+There are some books that charm us by their wit or their sweetness,
+others that surprise and captivate us by their strength: books that
+refresh us when weary: books that comfort us when afflicted: books that
+stimulate us by their robust health: books that exalt and refine our
+natures, as it were, to a finer mould: books that rouse us like the sound
+of a trumpet: books that illumine the darkest hours, and fill all our day
+with delight.
+
+It is books that record the advance and the decline of nations, the
+experience of the world, the achievements and the possibilities of
+mankind. It is books that reveal to us ideas and images almost above
+ourselves, and go far to open for us the gates of the invisible. "A river
+of thought," says Emerson, "is continually flowing out of the invisible
+world into the mind of man:" and we may add that books contain the most
+fruitful and permanent of the currents of that mighty river.
+
+I am not disposed to celebrate the praises of all books, nor to recommend
+to readers of any age a habit of indiscriminate reading: but for the
+books which are true helpers and teachers, the thoughts of the best
+poets, historians, publicists, philosophers, orators,--if their value is
+not real, then there are no realities in the world.
+
+Very true is it, nevertheless, that the many-sided man cannot be
+cultivated by books alone. One may learn by heart whole libraries, and
+yet be profoundly unacquainted with the face of nature, or the life of
+man. The pale student who gives himself wholly to books pays the penalty
+by losing that robust energy of character, that sympathy with his kind,
+that keen sense of the charms of earth and sky, that are essential to
+complete development. "The world's great men," says Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, "have not commonly been great scholars, nor its scholars great
+men." To know what other men have said about things is not always the
+most important part of knowledge. There is nothing that can dispense us
+from the independent use of our own faculties. Meditation and observation
+are more valuable than mere absorption; and knowledge itself is not
+wisdom. The true way to use books is to make them our servants--not our
+masters. Very helpful, cheering, and profitable will they become, when
+they fall naturally into our daily life and growth--when they tally with
+the moods of the mind.
+
+The habits and methods of readers are as various as those of authors.
+Thus, there are some readers who gobble a book, as Boswell tells us Dr.
+Johnson used to gobble his dinner--eagerly, and with a furious appetite,
+suggestive of dyspepsia, and the non-assimilation of food. Then there are
+slow readers, who plod along through a book, sentence by sentence,
+putting in a mark conscientiously where they left off to-day, so as to
+begin at the self-same spot to-morrow; fast readers, who gallop through a
+book, as you would ride a flying bicycle on a race; drowsy readers, to
+whom a book is only a covert apology for a nap, and who pretend to be
+reading Macaulay or Herbert Spencer only to dream between the leaves;
+sensitive readers, who cannot abide the least noise or interruption when
+reading, and to whose nerves a foot-fall or a conversation is an
+exquisite torture; absorbed readers, who are so pre-occupied with their
+pursuit that they forget all their surroundings--the time of day, the
+presence or the voices of others, the hour for dinner, and even their own
+existence; credulous readers, who believe everything they read because it
+is printed in a book, and swallow without winking the most colossal
+lying; critical and captious readers, who quarrel with the blunders or
+the beliefs of their author, and who cannot refrain from calling him an
+idiot or an ass--and perhaps even writing him down so on his own pages;
+admiring and receptive readers, who find fresh beauties in a favorite
+author every time they peruse him, and even discover beautiful swans in
+the stupidest geese that ever cackled along the flowery meads of
+literature; reverent readers, who treat a book as they would treat a
+great and good man, considerately and politely, carefully brushing the
+dust from a beloved volume with the sleeve, or tenderly lifting a book
+fallen to the floor, as if they thought it suffered, or felt harm;
+careless and rough readers, who will turn down books on their faces to
+keep the place, tumble them over in heaps, cram them into shelves never
+meant for them, scribble upon the margins, dogs-ear the leaves, or even
+cut them with their fingers--all brutal and intolerable practices,
+totally unworthy of any one pretending to civilization.
+
+To those who have well learned the art of reading, what inexhaustible
+delights does the world of books contain! With Milton, "to behold the
+bright countenance of truth, in the quiet and still air of delightful
+studies;" to journey through far countries with Marco Polo; to steer
+across an unknown sea with Columbus, or to brave the dangers of the
+frozen ocean with Nansen or Dr. Kane; to study the manners of ancient
+nations with Herodotus; to live over again the life of Greece and Rome
+with Plutarch's heroes; to trace the decline of empires with Gibbon and
+Mommsen; to pursue the story of the modern world in the pages of Hume,
+Macaulay, Thiers and Sismondi, and our own Prescott, Motley, and
+Bancroft; to enjoy afresh the eloquence of Demosthenes, and the polished
+and splendid diction of Cicero; to drink in the wisdom of philosophers,
+and to walk with Socrates, Plato and the stoics through the groves of
+Academia; to be kindled by the saintly utterances of prophets and
+apostles, St. Paul's high reasoning of immortality, or the seraphic
+visions of St. John; to study the laws that govern communities with the
+great publicists, or the economy of nations with Adam Smith and Stuart
+Mill; with the naturalists, to sound the depths of the argument as to the
+origin of species and the genesis of man; with the astronomers, to leave
+the narrow bounds of earth, and explore the illimitable spaces of the
+universe, in which our solar system is but a speck; with the
+mathematicians, to quit the uncertain realm of speculation and
+assumption, and plant our feet firmly on the rock of exact science:--to
+come back anon to lighter themes, and to revel in the grotesque humor of
+Dickens, the philosophic page of Bulwer, the chivalric romances of Walter
+Scott, the ideal creations of Hawthorne, the finished life-pictures of
+George Eliot, the powerful imagination of Victor Hugo, and the masterly
+delineations of Thackeray; to hang over the absorbing biographies of Dr.
+Franklin, Walter Scott and Dr. Johnson; to peruse with fresh delight the
+masterpieces of Irving and Goldsmith, and the best essays of Hazlitt, De
+Quincey, Charles Lamb, and Montaigne; to feel the inspiration of the
+great poets of all ages, from Homer down to Tennyson; to read
+Shakespeare--a book that is in itself almost a university:--is not all
+this satisfaction enough for human appetite, however craving, solace
+enough for trouble, however bitter, occupation enough for life, however
+long?
+
+There are pleasures that perish in the using; but the pleasure which the
+art of reading carries with it is perennial. He who can feast on the
+intellectual spoils of centuries need fear neither poverty nor hunger. In
+the society of those immortals who still rule our spirits from their
+urns, we become assured that though heaven and earth may pass away, no
+true thought shall ever pass away.
+
+The great orator, on whose lips once hung multitudes, dies and is
+forgotten; the great actor passes swiftly off the stage, and is seen no
+more; the great singer, whose voice charmed listening crowds by its
+melody, is hushed in the grave; the great preacher survives but a single
+generation in the memory of men; all we who now live and act must be, in
+a little while, with yesterday's seven thousand years:--but the book of
+the great writer lives on and on, inspiring age after age of readers, and
+has in it more of the seeds of immortality than anything upon earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10.
+
+AIDS TO READERS.
+
+
+There is one venerable Latin proverb which deserves a wider recognition
+than it has yet received. It is to the effect that "the best part of
+learning is to know where to find things." From lack of this knowledge,
+an unskilled reader will often spend hours in vainly searching for what a
+skilled reader can find in less than five minutes. Now, librarians are
+presumed to be skilled readers, although it would not be quite safe to
+apply this designation to all of that profession, since there are those
+among librarians, or their assistants, who are mere novices in the art of
+reading to advantage. Manifestly, one cannot teach what he does not know:
+and so the librarian who has not previously travelled the same road, will
+not be able to guide the inquiring reader who asks him to point out the
+way. But if the way has once been found, the librarian, with only a
+fairly good memory, kept in constant exercise by his vocation, can find
+it again. Still more surely, if he has been through it many times, will
+he know it intuitively, the moment any question is asked about it.
+
+It is true of the great majority of readers resorting to a library, that
+they have a most imperfect idea, both of what they want, and of the
+proper way to find it. The world of knowledge, they know, is vast, and
+they are quite bewildered by the many paths that lead to some part or
+other of it, crossing each other in all directions. And among the
+would-be readers may be found every shade of intelligence, and every
+degree of ignorance. There is the timid variety, too modest or diffident
+to ask for any help at all, and so feeling about among the catalogues or
+other reference-books in a baffled search for information. There is the
+sciolist variety, who knows it all, or imagines that he does, and who
+asks for proof of impossible facts, with an assurance born of the
+profoundest ignorance. Then, too, there is the half-informed reader, who
+is in search of a book he once read, but has clean forgotten, which had a
+remarkable description of a tornado in the West, or a storm and
+ship-wreck at sea, or a wonderful tropical garden, or a thrilling escape
+from prison, or a descent into the bowels of the earth, or a tremendous
+snow-storm, or a swarming flight of migratory birds, or a mausoleum of
+departed kings, or a haunted chamber hung with tapestry, or the fatal
+caving-in of a coal-mine, or a widely destructive flood, or a
+hair-breadth escape from cannibals, or a race for life, pursued by
+wolves, or a wondrous sub-marine grotto, or a terrible forest fire, or
+any one of a hundred scenes or descriptions, all of which the librarian
+is presumed, not only to have read, but to have retained in his memory
+the author, the title, and the very chapter of the book which contained
+it.
+
+To give some idea of the extent and variety of information which a
+librarian is supposed to possess, I have been asked, almost at the same
+time, to refer a reader to the origin of Candlemas day, to define the
+Pragmatic Sanction, to give, out of hand, the aggregate wealth of Great
+Britain, compared with that of half-a-dozen other nations, to define the
+limits of neutrality or belligerent rights, to explain what is meant by
+the Gresham law, to tell what ship has made the quickest voyage to
+Europe, when she made it, and what the time was, to elucidate the meaning
+of the Carolina doctrine, to explain the character and objects of the
+Knights of the Golden Circle, to tell how large are the endowments of the
+British Universities, to give the origin of the custom of egg-rolling,
+to tell the meaning of the cipher dispatches, to explain who was "Extra
+Billy Smith," to tell the aggregate number killed on all sides during the
+Napoleonic wars, to certify who wrote the "Vestiges of Creation," or,
+finally, to give the author of one of those innumerable ancient proverbs,
+which float about the world without a father.
+
+The great number and variety of such inquiries as are propounded by
+readers should not appal one. Nor should one too readily take refuge from
+a troublesome reader by the plea, however convenient, that the library
+contains nothing on that subject. While this may unquestionably be true,
+especially as regards a small public library, it should never be put
+forward as a certainty, until one has looked. Most inquiring readers are
+very patient, and being fully sensible how much they owe to the free
+enjoyment of the library treasures, and to the aid of the superintendent
+of them, they are willing to wait for information. However busy you may
+be at the moment, the reader can be asked to wait, or to call at a less
+busy time, when you will be prepared with a more satisfactory answer than
+can be given on the spur of the moment. What cannot be done to-day, may
+often be done to-morrow. Remember always, that readers are entitled to
+the best and most careful service, for a librarian is not only the
+keeper, but the interpreter of the intellectual stores of the library. It
+is a good and a safe rule to let no opportunity of aiding a reader
+escape. One should be particularly careful to volunteer help to those who
+are too new or too timid to ask: and it is they who will be most grateful
+for any assistance. The librarian has only to put himself in their
+place--(the golden rule for a librarian, as for all the world besides),
+and to consider how often, in his own searches in libraries, in the
+continual, never-ending quest of knowledge, he would have been thankful
+for a hint from some one who knew, or had been over the ground of his
+search before; and then he will feel the full value to the novice, of
+such knowledge as he can impart.
+
+He is not to forget that his superior opportunities for learning all
+about things, with a whole library at command, and within elbow-reach
+every hour of the day, should impose upon him a higher standard of
+attainment than most readers are supposed to have reached. In the
+intervals of library work, I am accustomed to consider the looking up of
+subjects or authorities as one of my very best recreations. It is as
+interesting as a game of whist, and much more profitable. It is more
+welcome than routine labor, for it rests or diverts the mind, by its very
+variety, while, to note the different views or expressions of writers on
+the same subject, affords almost endless entertainment. In tracing down a
+quotation also, or the half-remembered line of some verse in poetry, you
+encounter a host of parallel poetic images or expressions, which
+contribute to aid the memory, or to feed the imagination. Or, in pursuing
+a sought-for fact in history, through many volumes, you learn
+collaterally much that may never have met your eye before. Full, as all
+libraries are, of what we call trash, there is almost no book which will
+not give us something,--even though it be only the negative virtue of a
+model to be avoided. One may not, indeed, always find what he seeks,
+because it may not exist at all, or it may not be found in the limited
+range of his small library, but he is almost sure to find something which
+gives food for thought, or for memory to note. And this is one of the
+foremost attractions, let me add, of the librarian's calling; it is more
+full of intellectual variety, of wide-open avenues to knowledge, than any
+other vocation whatever. His daily quests in pursuit of information to
+lay before others, bring him acquainted with passages that are full of
+endless suggestion for himself. He may not be able to pursue any of these
+avenues at the moment; but he should make a mental or a written note of
+them, for future benefit. His daily business being learning, why should
+he not in time, become learned? There are, of course, among the
+infinitude of questions, that come before the librarian, some that are
+really insoluble problems. One of these is to be found among the topics
+of inquiry I just now suggested; namely: what is the aggregate wealth of
+Great Britain, or that of other nations? This is a question frequently
+asked by inquiring Congressmen, who imagine that an answer may readily be
+had from one of those gifted librarians who is invested with that
+apocryphal attribute, commonly called omniscience. But the inquirer is
+suddenly confronted by the fact (and a very stubborn fact it is) that not
+a single foreign nation has ever taken any census of wealth whatever. In
+Great Britain (about which country inquiry as to the national resources
+more largely centres) the government wisely lets alone the attempt to
+tabulate the value of private wealth, knowing that such an object is
+utterly impracticable.
+
+But, while the British census makes no attempt at estimating the property
+of the people, the independent estimates of statistical writers vary
+hopelessly and irreconcilably. Mr. J. R. McCulloch, one of the foremost
+accredited writers on economic science, lays it down as a dictum, that
+"sixty years is the shortest time in which the capital of an old and
+densely-peopled country can be expected to be doubled." Yet Joseph Lowe
+assumes the wealth of the United Kingdom to have doubled in eighteen
+years, from 1823 to 1841; while George R. Porter, in his
+widely-accredited book on the "Progress of the Nation," and Leoni Levi, a
+publicist of high reputation, make out, (by combining their estimates)
+that the private wealth of England increased fifty per cent. in seventeen
+years, at which rate it would double in about twenty-nine years, instead
+of sixty, as laid down by Mr. McCulloch. Mr. Levi calculates the
+aggregate private wealth of Great Britain in 1858, at $29,178,000,000,
+being a fraction less than the guesses of the census enumerators at the
+national wealth of the United States, twelve years later, in 1870. Can
+one guess be said to be any nearer the fact than the other? May we not be
+pardoned for treating all estimates as utterly fallacious that are not
+based upon known facts and figures? Why do we hear so much of the
+"approximate correctness" of so many statistical tables, when, in point
+of fact, the primary data are incapable of proof, and the averages and
+conclusions built upon them are all assumed? "Statisticians," says one of
+the fraternity, "are generally held to be eminently practical people; on
+the contrary, they are more given to theorizing than any other class of
+writers; and are generally less expert in it."
+
+In the presence of such gross discrepancies as these, by statisticians of
+the highest repute, and among such a practical people as the English,
+what value can be attached to the mere estimates of wealth which have
+been attempted in the census of the United States? The careful
+Superintendent of the Census of 1870 and 1880, the late Francis A.
+Walker, writes concerning it:
+
+"At the best, these figures represent but the opinion of one man, or of a
+body of men, in the collection of material, and in the calculation of the
+several elements of the public wealth." And in the last Census Report for
+1890, the results of the so-called "census of wealth," are cautiously
+submitted, "as showing in a general way a continuous increase in the
+wealth of the nation, the exact proportions of which cannot be
+measured."
+
+Now, what are we to conclude regarding the attempt to elevate to a rank
+in statistical science, mere estimates of private wealth, for a large
+portion of which, by the statements of those who make them, no actual
+statistical data exist? And when this is confessedly the case in our own
+country, the only one attempting the impossible task of tabulating the
+wealth of the people, what shall we say of the demand that is made upon
+our credulity of accepting the guesses of Mr. Giffen, or Mr. Mulhall, as
+to British wealth? Are we not justified in applying the old Latin
+maxim--"_De non apparentibus, et de non existentibus, eadem est ratio_,"
+and replying to those who demand of us to know how much any nation is
+worth, that it is sometimes an important part of knowledge to know that
+nothing can be known?
+
+Among the literally innumerable inquiries liable to be made of a
+librarian, here is one which may give him more than a moment's pause,
+unless he is uncommonly well versed in American political
+history--namely, "What was the Ostend Manifesto?" To a mind not
+previously instructed these two words "Ostend Manifesto", convey
+absolutely no meaning. You turn to the standard encyclopaedias,
+Appleton's, Johnson's Universal, and the Britannica, and you find an
+account of Ostend, a little Belgian city, its locality, commerce, and
+population, but absolutely nothing about an Ostend manifesto. But in J.
+N. Larned's "History for Ready Reference", a useful book in five volumes,
+arranged in alphabetical order, you get a clue. It refers you from
+Ostend, under letter O, to Cuba, where you learn that this formidable
+Ostend manifesto was nothing more nor less than a paper drawn up and
+signed by Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Slidell, Ministers of the United
+States to Great Britain, France, and Spain, respectively, when at the
+watering-place of Ostend, in 1854, importing that the island of Cuba
+ought to, and under certain circumstances, must belong to the United
+States. Looking a little farther, as the manifesto is not published in
+Larned, you find the text of the document itself in Cluskey's "Political
+Text-Book", of 1860, and in some of the American newspapers of 1854. This
+is a case of pursuing a once notorious, but more recently obscure topic,
+through many works of reference until found.
+
+In many searches for names of persons, it becomes highly important to
+know before-hand where to look, and equally important where not to look,
+for certain biographies. Thus, if you seek for the name of any living
+character, it is necessary to know that it would be useless to look in
+the Encyclopædia Britannica, because the rule of compilation of that work
+purposely confined its sketches of notable persons to those who were
+already deceased when its volumes appeared. So you save the time of
+hunting in at least one conspicuous work of reference, before you begin,
+by simply knowing its plan.
+
+In like manner, you should know that it is useless to search for two
+classes of names in the "Dictionary of National Biography," the most
+copious biographical dictionary of British personages ever published,
+begun in 1885, under Leslie Stephen, and reaching its sixty-first volume,
+and letter W in 1899, under the editorship of Sidney Lee. These two
+classes of names are first, all persons not British, that is, not either
+English, Scottish or Irish; and secondly, names of British persons now
+living. This is because this great work, like the Britannica, purposely
+confines itself to the names of notables deceased; and, unlike the
+Britannica, it further limits its biographies to persons connected by
+birth or long residence with the British kingdom. Knowing this fact
+before-hand, will save any time wasted in searching the Dictionary of
+National Biography for any persons now living, or for any American or
+European names.
+
+Another caveat may properly be interposed as regards searches for
+information in that most widely advertised and circulated of all works of
+reference,--the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The plan of that work was to
+furnish the reading public with the very best treatises upon leading
+topics in science, history, and literature, by eminent scholars and
+specialists in various fields. Pursuant to this general scheme, each
+great subject has a most elaborate, and sometimes almost exhaustive
+article--as, for example, chemistry, geology, etc., while the minor
+divisions of each topic do not appear in the alphabet at all, or appear
+only by cross-reference to the generic name under which they are treated.
+It results, that while you find, for example, a most extensive article
+upon "Anatomy", filling a large part of a volume of the Britannica, you
+look in vain in the alphabet for such subjects as "blood, brain,
+cartilage, sinew, tissue," etc., which are described only in the article
+"Anatomy." This method has to be well comprehended in order for any
+reader to make use of this great Cyclopaedia understandingly. Even by the
+aid of the English index to the work, issued by its foreign publishers,
+the reader who is in hasty quest of information in the Britannica, will
+most frequently be baffled by not finding any minor subject in the index.
+The English nation, judged by most of the productions of its literary and
+scientific men in that field, has small genius for indexing. It was
+reserved to an American to prepare and print a thorough index, at once
+alphabetical and analytical, to this great English thesaurus of
+information--an index ten times more copious, and therefore more useful
+to the student, than the meagre one issued in England. This index fills
+3,900 closely printed columns, forming the whole of volume 25 of the
+Philadelphia edition of the work. By its aid, every name and every topic,
+treated anywhere in this vast repository of human knowledge can be traced
+out and appropriated; while without it, the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
+with all its great merits, must remain very much in the nature of a
+sealed book to the reader who stands in need of immediate use and
+reference. We have to take it for what it is--a collection of masterly
+treatises, rather than a handy dictionary of knowledge.
+
+The usefulness and success of any library will depend very largely upon
+the sympathy, so to speak, between the readers and the librarian. When
+this is well established, the rest is very easy. The librarian should not
+seclude himself so as to be practically inaccessible to readers, nor
+trust wholly to assistants to answer their inquiries. This may be
+necessary in some large libraries, where great and diversified interests
+connected with the building up of the collection, the catalogue system,
+and the library management and administration are all concerned. In the
+British Museum Library, no one ever sees the Principal Librarian; even
+the next officer, who is called the keeper of the printed books, is not
+usually visible in the reading-room at all.
+
+A librarian who is really desirous of doing the greatest good to the
+greatest number of people, will be not only willing, but anxious to
+answer inquiries, even though they may appear to him trivial and
+unimportant. Still, he should also economise time by cultivating the
+habit of putting his answers into the fewest and plainest words.
+
+How far the librarian should place himself in direct communication with
+readers, must depend largely upon the extent of the library, the labor
+required in managing its various departments, the amount and value of
+assistance at his command, and upon various other circumstances,
+depending upon the different conditions with different librarians. But it
+may be laid down as a safe general rule, that the librarian should hold
+himself perpetually as a public servant, ready and anxious to answer in
+some way, all inquiries that may come to him. Thus, and thus only, can he
+make himself, and the collection of books under his charge, useful in the
+highest degree to the public. He will not indeed, in any extensive
+library, find it convenient, or even possible, to answer all inquiries in
+person; but he should always be ready to enable his assistants to answer
+them, by his superior knowledge as to the best sources of information,
+whenever they fail to trace out what is wanted. In any small library, he
+should be always accessible, at or near the place where people are
+accustomed to have their wants for books or information supplied: and the
+public resorting to the library will thus come not only to rely upon him
+for aid in their intellectual researches, but to appreciate and respect
+him for the wide extent of his knowledge, and to consider him, in time,
+an indispensable guide, if not leader, in the community. His reputation,
+in fact, will depend upon the extent to which he has been able to help
+others, as well as upon the number of people whom he has thus aided.
+
+In a very high sense, the true librarian is an educator; his school is as
+large as the town in which his library is situated. Very few people in
+that town know what he is always presumed to know,--namely--to what books
+to go to get answers to the questions they want answered. In supplying
+continually the means of answering these countless questions, the library
+becomes actually a popular university, in which the librarian is the
+professor, the tuition is free, and the course is optional, both as to
+study and as to time.
+
+Most persons who come to make any investigation in a public library
+require a good deal of assistance. For example, a reader is in need of
+the latest information as to the amount of steel and iron made in this
+country, and what State produces these important manufactures. He has not
+the faintest idea where to look for the information, except that it may
+be in the census, but the census is nine years old, and he wants recent
+facts. It is vain to turn him over to the cyclopaedias, for there is not
+one whose information upon such statistics comes anywhere near up to
+date. You have to put before him a pamphlet annual, published by the
+American Iron and Steel Association, which contains exactly what he
+wants; and no other source of information does contain it.
+
+Another inquirer seeks to know how to treat some disease. In such cases,
+of course, the librarian should not go farther than to put before the
+reader a work on domestic medicine, for it is not his function to deal in
+recommendations of this, that, or the other method of treatment, any more
+than it is to give legal opinions, if asked--although he may have studied
+law. So, if the reader wants to know about the religious tenets of the
+Presbyterians, or the Mormons, or the Buddhists, or the doctrines of the
+Catholic Church, and asks the librarian's opinion about any controverted
+question of belief, he is to be answered only by the statement that the
+library is there to supply information, not opinions, and then pointed to
+the religious cyclopaedias, which give full summaries of all the sects.
+
+He may frequently be asked for information on a subject which he knows
+nothing about; and I have heard a librarian declare, that he often found
+himself able to give fuller and better information on a subject of which
+he was previously ignorant, than upon one he had long been familiar with.
+The reason was that in the one case he had freshly looked up all the
+authorities, and put them before the reader, while in the other, giving
+the references from a memory, more or less imperfect, he had overlooked
+some of the most important means of information.
+
+The constant exercise of the habit of supplying helps to readers is a
+splendid intellectual school for the librarian himself. Through it, his
+memory is quickened and consequently improved, (as every faculty is by
+use) his habits of mental classification and analysis are formed or
+strengthened, and his mind is kept on the alert to utilize the whole
+arsenal of the knowledge he has already acquired, or to acquire new
+knowledge.
+
+Another very important benefit derived by the librarian from his
+constantly recurring attention to the calls of readers for aid, is the
+suggestion thereby furnished of the deficiencies in the collection in his
+charge. This will be a continual reminder to him, of what he most needs,
+namely, how to equip the library with the best and most recent sources of
+information in every field of inquiry. Whether the library be a large or
+a small one, its deficiencies in some directions are sure to be very
+considerable: and these gaps are more conspicuously revealed in trying to
+supply readers with the means of making what may be termed an exhaustive
+research upon a given subject, than in any other way. You find, for
+example, in looking up your authorities in what has come to be called
+Egyptology, that while you have Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt, and Lane's
+Modern Egyptians, both of which are very valuable works, you have not the
+more modern books of Brugsch-Bey, or of A. H. Sayce, or of Maspero. You
+may also find out, by mingling freely with a good part of the readers,
+what subjects are most frequently looked into or inquired about, and you
+can thus secure valuable information as to the directions in which the
+library most needs strengthening. Thus, in a community largely made up of
+people connected with manufacturing interests, the inquiries are liable
+to be much concerned with the mechanic arts; and you would therefore
+naturally seek to acquire a liberal selection of the best and latest
+works in technical science, or the useful arts. If you have, on the other
+hand, very few inquiries, indeed, for theological works, you take it as
+some evidence that that department of the collection needs little
+enlargement, and you may devote your funds in other directions. Then too,
+the great value of popularising the library by the hearty interest shown
+by the librarian in the wants of the people can hardly be over-rated.
+This interest, being a perennial one, and continued through a series of
+years, the number of citizens and their families assisted will be
+constantly on the increase, and the public opinion of the town will come
+in time, to regard the library as a great popular necessity. Hence, if it
+is an institution supported in whole or in part by town or municipal
+funds, its claims to liberal consideration will be immeasurably
+strengthened. If an enlargement of room for the books, or even a new
+library building comes to be needed, its chances for securing the funds
+requisite will be excellent. If a more liberal supply of new books, or an
+extended range of older ones of great value is reported by the librarian
+as wanted to increase the usefulness of the library, the authorities will
+more cheerfully consider the claim. And if it is proposed that additional
+and competent assistance shall be given to the librarian, or that he
+should be more liberally compensated for his highly useful and important
+labors, that, too, may be accomplished--especially if it has come to be
+recognized that by his wide knowledge, and skilful management, and
+helpful devotion to the service of the reading public, he has rendered
+himself indispensable.
+
+In the supply of information desired by readers, it is better to leave
+them to their own search, once you have put before them the proper
+authorities, than to spend your time in turning for them to the volume
+and page. This, for two reasons--first, it leaves your own time free to
+help other readers, or to attend to the ever-waiting library work; and,
+secondly, it induces habits of research and self-help on the part of the
+reader. It is enough for the librarian to act as an intelligent
+guide-post, to point the way; to travel the road is the business of the
+reader himself. Therefore, let the visitor in quest of a quotation, look
+it out in the index of the volumes you put before him. If he fails to
+find it, it will then be time for you to intervene, and lend the aid of
+your more practiced eye, and superior knowledge of how to search; or
+else, let the reader look for it in some more copious anthology, which
+you may put before him. There are multitudes of inquiries for the authors
+of poems, which are in no sense "familiar quotations," nor even select
+quotations, but which are merely common-place sentiments expressed in
+language quite unpoetic,--and not the work of any notable writer at all.
+They are either the production of some utterly obscure author of a volume
+of verse, quite unknown to fame, or, still more probably, the
+half-remembered verses of some anonymous contributor to the poet's corner
+of the newspaper or magazine. In such cases, where you see no poetic
+beauty or imaginative power in the lines, it is well to inform the
+inquirer at once that you do not think them the production of any noted
+writer, and thus end the fruitless search for memorizing what is not at
+all memorable. What may strike uncultivated readers as beautiful, may be
+set down as trash, by a mind that has been fed upon the masterpieces of
+poetry. Not that the librarian is to assume the air of an oracle or a
+censor, (something to be in all circumstances avoided) or to pronounce
+positive judgment upon what is submitted: he should inform any admiring
+reader of a passage not referred to in any of the anthologies, and not
+possessing apparent poetic merit, that he believes the author is unknown
+to fame. That should be sufficient for any reasonably disposed reader,
+who, after search duly completed, will go away answered, if not
+satisfied.
+
+I gave some instances of the singular variety of questions asked of a
+librarian. Let me add one, reported by Mr. Robert Harrison, of the London
+Library, as asked of him by William M. Thackeray. The distinguished
+author of Esmond and The Virginians wanted a book that would tell of
+General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. "I don't want to know about his
+battles", said the novelist. "I can get all that from the histories. I
+want something that will tell me the color of the breeches he wore."
+After due search, the librarian was obliged to confess that there was no
+such book.
+
+A librarian is likely to be constantly in a position to aid the
+uninformed reader how to use the books of reference which every public
+library contains. The young person who is new to the habit of
+investigation, or the adult who has never learned the method of finding
+things, needs to be shown how to use even so simple a thing as an index.
+Do not be impatient with his ignorance, although you may find him
+fumbling over the pages in the body of the book in vain, to find what
+you, with your acquired knowledge of indexes and their use, can find in
+half a minute or less. Practice alone can make one perfect in the art of
+search and speedy finding. The tyro who tries your patience this year,
+will very likely become an expert reader the next. Wide as is the domain
+of ignorance, there are few among those intelligent enough to resort to a
+library at all, who cannot learn. You will find some who come to the
+library so unskilled, that they will turn over the leaves even of an
+index, in a blind, hap-hazard way, evidently at a loss how to use it.
+These must be instructed first, that the index is arranged just like a
+dictionary, in the alphabetical order of the names or subjects treated,
+and secondly, that after finding the word they seek in it, they must turn
+to the page indicated by the figure attached to that word. This is the
+very primer of learning in the use of a library, but the library in any
+town, used as it is by many boys and girls of all ages, has to be a
+primary school for beginners, as well as a university for advanced
+students. Despise not the day of small things, however you may find it
+more agreeable to be occupied with great ones.
+
+On the other hand, you will find at the other extreme of intelligence,
+among your clientage of readers, those who are completely familiar with
+books and their uses. There are some readers frequenting public
+libraries, who not only do not need assistance themselves, but who are
+fully competent to instruct the librarian. In meeting the calls of such
+skilled readers, who always know what they require, it is never good
+policy to obtrude advice or suggestion, but simply to supply what they
+call for. You will readily recognize and discriminate such experts from
+the mass of readers, if you have good discernment. Sometimes they are
+quite as sensitive as they are intelligent, and it may annoy them to have
+offered them books they do not want, in the absence of what they require.
+An officious, or super-serviceable librarian or assistant, may sometimes
+prejudice such a reader by proffering help which he does not want,
+instead of waiting for his own call or occasion.
+
+Let us look at a few examples of the numerous calls at a popular library.
+For example, a reader asks to see a book, giving an account of the
+marriage of the Adriatic. You know that this concerns the history of
+Venice and its Doges, and you turn to various books on Venice, and its
+history, until you find a description of the strange festival. It may be,
+and probably is the case, that the books, like most descriptive works and
+narratives of travellers, are without index. This is a disability in the
+use of books which you must continually encounter, since multitudes of
+volumes, old and new, are sent out without a vestige of an index to their
+contents. Some writers have urged that a law should be made refusing
+copyright to the author of any book who failed to provide it with an
+index; a requirement highly desirable, but also highly impracticable. Yet
+you will find in most books, a division of the contents into chapters,
+and in the beginning of the volume a table of the contents of each
+chapter, giving its leading topics. This is a substitute for an index,
+although (not being arranged in alphabetical order) it is far less useful
+than that time-saving aid to research. But you have to learn to take
+advantage of even poor and inferior helps, when you cannot have the best,
+(as a poor guide is better than no guide at all, unless it misguides,)
+and so you run your eye quickly through the table of contents to find
+what you seek. In the case supposed, of the ceremony at Venice, you will
+be aided in the search by having in mind that the catch-words involved
+are "Adriatic," and "Doge," and as these begin with capital letters,
+which stand out, as it were, from the monotonous "lower case" type (as
+printers call all the letters that are not capitals) your search will be
+much abridged by omitting to read through all the sentences of your table
+of contents, and seizing only the passage or passages where "Doge," or
+"Adriatic," may occur.
+
+This remark will apply as well to numerous other searches which you will
+have to make in books. The table of contents will commonly take note of
+all the more salient topics that are treated in the book, whether of
+persons, of places, of notable scenes, historic events, etc., and so
+will aid you in finding what you seek. In the last resort only, in the
+books whose table of contents fails you, will you have to turn the leaves
+page by page, which, while not equivalent to reading the book through, is
+a time-consuming business.
+
+Of course no librarian can devote hours of his precious time to searches
+in such detail for readers. They are to be supplied with the books likely
+to contain what they are in search of, and left to seek it in their own
+way, with such hints and cautions as to saving time by taking the
+shortest road, as the experience of the librarian enables him to supply.
+The suggestions here given are not needed by scholarly readers, but are
+the fruits of long experience in searching books for what they contain.
+
+Again, let us take the case of a call by a reader who happens to be a
+decorative painter, for patterns which may furnish him hints in finishing
+an interior of a house. Of course he wants color--that is, not theory
+only, but illustration, or practical examples. So you put before him Owen
+Jones's Grammar of Ornament, or Racinet's _L'Ornement polychrome_, both
+illustrated with many beautiful designs in color, which he is delighted
+to find.
+
+Another reader is anxious to see a picture of "St. George and the
+Dragon." If you have the "Museum of Painting and Sculpture," in 17
+volumes, or Champlin's "Cyclopaedia of Painters and Painting," a
+dictionary of art in four volumes, you find it in either work, in the
+alphabet, under "St. George," and his want is satisfied.
+
+A youngster wants to know how to build a boat, and you find him Folkard
+on Boats, or Frazar's Sail-boats, which describe and figure various
+styles of water-craft.
+
+Perhaps an inquisitive reader wants to find out all about the families of
+the various languages, and what is known of their origin, and you supply
+him with W. D. Whitney's "Life and Growth of Language," or Max Müller's
+"Science of Language," either of which furnishes full information.
+
+Another inquirer seeks for information about the aggregate debts of
+nations. You give him the great quarto volume of the last Census on
+Wealth and Indebtedness, or for still later information the Statesman's
+Year Book for 1899, or the Almanach de Gotha for the current year, both
+of which contain the comparative debts of nations at the latest dates.
+
+The inquirer who seeks to know the rates of wages paid for all kinds of
+labor in a series of several years, can be supplied with the elaborate
+Report on Labor and Wages for fifty-two years, published by the U. S.
+Government in 1893, in four volumes.
+
+Another reader wishes, we will suppose, to hunt up the drawings of all
+patents that have been issued on type-writers, and type-writing
+inventions. You put before him the many indexes to the Patent
+Specifications and Patent Office Gazette; he makes out from these his
+list of volumes wanted, which are at once supplied, and he falls to work
+on his long, but to him interesting job.
+
+A reader who has seen in the library or elsewhere a book he would much
+like to own, but cannot find a copy in town, wants to know what it will
+cost: you turn to your American or foreign catalogue, covering the year
+of publication, and give him not only the price, but the publisher's name
+from whom he can order it, and he goes on his way rejoicing.
+
+An artist engaged upon a painting in which he wishes to introduce a deer,
+or a group of rabbits, or an American eagle, or a peacock, asks for an
+accurate picture of the bird or animal wanted. You put before him J. S.
+Kingsley's Riverside Natural History, in six volumes, and his desire is
+satisfied.
+
+In dealing with books of reference, there will often be found very
+important discrepancies of statement, different works giving different
+dates, for example, for the same event in history or biography.
+
+Next to a bible and a dictionary of language, there is no book, perhaps,
+more common than a biographical dictionary. Our interest in our
+fellow-men is perennial; and we seek to know not only their
+characteristics, and the distinguishing events of their lives, but also
+the time of their birth into the world and their exit from it. This is a
+species of statistics upon which one naturally expects certainty, since
+no person eminent enough to be recorded at all is likely to have the
+epoch of his death, at least, unremarked. Yet the seeker after exact
+information in the biographical dictionaries will find, if he extends his
+quest among various authorities, that he is afloat on a sea of
+uncertainties. Not only can he not find out the date of decease of some
+famous navigators, like Sir John Franklin and La Perouse, who sailed into
+unexplored regions of the globe, and were never heard of more, but the
+men who died at home, in the midst of friends and families, are
+frequently recorded as deceased at dates so discrepant that no ingenuity
+can reconcile them.
+
+In Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, Sir Henry Havelock was said to have died
+November 25th, 1857, while Maunder's Treasury of Biography gives November
+21st, the London Almanac, November 27th, and the Life of Havelock, by his
+brother-in-law, November 24th. Here are four distinct dates of death
+given, by authorities apparently equally accredited, to a celebrated
+general, who died within forty years of our own time. Of the death of the
+notorious Robespierre, guillotined in 1794, we find in Chalmers'
+Biographical Dictionary that he died July 10th, in Rees's Cyclopaedia,
+July 28th, and in Alison's History of Europe, July 29th. Doubtless it is
+some comfort to reflect, in view of his many crimes, that the bloody
+tyrant of the Jacobins is really dead, irrespective of the date, about
+which biographers may dispute. Of the English mechanician Joseph Bramah,
+inventor of the Bramah lock, we learn from the English Cyclopaedia, that
+he died in 1814, and from Rose's Biographical Dictionary, that he died in
+1815.
+
+Now, although a large share of the errors and discrepancies that abound
+in biographical dictionaries and other books of reference may be
+accounted for by misprints, others by reckoning old style instead of new,
+and many more by carelessness of writers and transcribers, it is plain
+that all the variations cannot be thus accounted for. Nothing is more
+common in printing offices than to find a figure 6 inverted serving as a
+9, a 5 for a 3, or a 3 for an 8, while 8, 9, and O, are frequently
+interchanged. In such cases, a keen-eyed proof-reader may not always be
+present to prevent the falsification of history; and it is a fact, not
+sufficiently recognized, that to the untiring vigilance, intelligence,
+and hard, conscientious labors of proof-readers, the world owes a deeper
+debt of gratitude than it does to many a famous maker of books. It is
+easy enough to make books, Heaven knows, but to make them correct, "_Hic
+labor, hoc opus est_."
+
+A high authority in encyclopaedical lore tells us that the best
+accredited authorities are at odds with regard to the birth or death of
+individuals in the enormous ratio of from twenty to twenty-five per cent.
+of the whole number in the biographical dictionaries. The Portuguese poet
+Camoens is said by some authorities to have been born in 1517, and by
+others in 1525; a discrepancy of eight years. Chateaubriand is declared
+by the English Cyclopaedia to have been born September 4th, 1768;
+September 14th, 1768, by the Nouvelle Biographie générale of Dr. Hoefer;
+and September 4th, 1769, by the Conversations-Lexicon. Of course it is
+clear that all these authorities cannot be right; but which of the three
+is so, is matter of extreme doubt, leaving the student of facts perplexed
+and uncertain at the very point where certainty is not only most
+important, but most confidently expected.
+
+Of another kind are the errors that sometimes creep into works of
+reference of high credit, by accepting too confidently statements
+publicly made. In one edition of the Dictionary of Congress a certain
+honorable member from Pennsylvania, in uncommonly robust health, was
+astonished to find himself recorded as having died of the National Hotel
+disease, contracted at Washington in 1856. In this case, the editor of
+the work was a victim of too much confidence in the newspapers. In the
+Congressional Directory, where brief biographies of Congressmen are
+given, one distinguished member was printed as having been elected to
+Congress at a time which, taken in connection with his birth-date in the
+same paragraph, made him precisely one year old when he took his seat in
+Congress.
+
+Even in reporting the contents of public and private libraries,
+exaggeration holds sway. The library of George the Fourth, inherited by
+that graceless ignoramus from a book-collecting father, and presented to
+the British nation with ostentatious liberality only after he had failed
+to sell it to Russia, was said in the publications of those times to
+contain about 120,000 volumes. But an actual enumeration when the books
+were lodged in the King's library at the British Museum, where they have
+ever since remained, showed that there were only 65,250 volumes, being
+but little more than half the reported number. Many libraries, public
+and private, are equally over-estimated. It is so much easier to guess
+than to count, and the stern test of arithmetic is too seldom applied,
+notwithstanding the fact that 100,000 volumes can easily be counted in a
+day by a single person, and so on in the same proportion. Here, as in the
+statistics of population, the same proverb holds good, that the unknown
+is always the magnificent, and on the surface of the globe we inhabit,
+the unexplored country is always the most marvellous, since the world
+began.
+
+These discrepancies in authorities, and exaggerations of writers, are not
+referred to for the purpose of casting doubt upon all published history,
+but only to point out that we cannot trust implicitly to what we find in
+books. Bearing in mind always, that accuracy is perhaps the rarest of
+human qualities, we should hold our judgment in reserve upon controverted
+statements, trusting no writer implicitly, unless sustained by original
+authorities. When asked to recommend the best book upon any subject, do
+not too confidently assert the merits of the one you may think the best,
+but say simply that it is well accredited, or very popular. It is not
+always safe to recommend books, and the librarian does well to speak with
+proper reservations as to most of them, and to recommend only what are
+well known to him to be good, by his own intimate acquaintance with them,
+or, which is the surest test of all, by the verdicts of critical reviews,
+or by the constant reprinting of them in many successive years.
+
+It was the well-nigh unanimous report at a Conference of American
+librarians, upon the subject of "aids to readers", that "nothing can take
+the place of an intelligent and obliging assistant at the desk." This was
+after a thorough canvass of the relative merits of the various reference
+books and helps to readers in book form. Not only the casual reader, and
+the reader with a purpose may be constantly aided by the librarian's
+knowledge, and larger experience in the art of finding things, but
+teachers in the schools, clergymen preparing discourses, and every one
+seeking to know anything, should find the librarian a living catalogue.
+There is nothing so effective in the world as individual effort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11.
+
+ACCESS TO LIBRARY SHELVES.
+
+
+The matter of free or unrestricted access to the books on the shelves is
+a vexed question in libraries. Open and unprotected shelves, either in
+alcoves or the main reading room, while they appear to be a boon to
+readers, who can thus browse at will through the literary pastures, and
+turn over volumes at their pleasure, furnish by no means good security
+for the books. Some of the smaller public libraries protect their books
+from access by glass doors in front of the shelves, which form also a
+partial protection against dust. Others again, use wire screen doors,
+opened, like the others, by lock and key when books are wanted. Both of
+these arrangements give to readers the advantage of reading the titles on
+the backs of most of the books in the library, while protecting them from
+being handled, disarranged, or removed. But they are also open to the
+objection that they obstruct the prompt service of the books, by just the
+amount of time it takes to open the doors or screens, and close them
+again. This trouble and delay may overbalance the supposed advantages.
+Certainly they must do so in all large libraries, where the frequentation
+is great, and where every moment's delay in the book service works
+disadvantage to numerous readers. While private libraries, or quite small
+public ones, can indulge in the luxury of glass cases, no extensive
+collection can be managed with the requisite promptitude under their
+obstructions.
+
+But how to avoid the indiscriminate and usually careless handling of the
+books on shelves, by the people frequenting the library, and still
+extend to readers prompt and full service of all the books they wish to
+consult on any subject, is a problem. In a few of the great libraries,
+where that modern improvement, the stack system, prevails, the difficulty
+is solved by the storing of the books in the outside repositories, or
+iron book-stacks to which readers are not admitted. In this case the
+reading room is only for books in use by those frequenting it, or is
+supplied with a selection of reference books simply, the stacks being
+drawn upon for all the rest. This of course secures the books both from
+misplacement and from pillage.
+
+In smaller libraries which have no stack system (and this includes by far
+the greater number) a variety of treatment prevails. Most of them are
+unprovided with any effective means of guarding the books on the shelves
+from handling. The result is great insecurity, and inevitable
+misplacement of books, amounting often to confusion and chaos on the
+shelves, unless corrected by much daily re-arrangement by the librarian
+or assistants. This consumes much valuable time, which ought to be
+devoted to other pressing duties.
+
+One remedy is to guard the shelves by a railing of some kind, which
+cannot be passed, except at the gates or passage-ways provided for the
+attendants. This simple provision will protect the orderly arrangement as
+well as the safety of the library--two objects both of cardinal
+importance. Absolutely free access to all the shelves means, sooner or
+later, loss to the library. And the books most certain to be taken or
+mutilated are those which it is costly, or difficult, or in some cases,
+impossible to replace. The chances of abstracting engravings from books
+are much greater in the shadow of the shelves, than in the open
+reading-room, under the eyes of many. In any library but the smaller
+ones, the difficulties and dangers of unrestricted handling of all the
+books by the public will be developed in the direct ratio of the size of
+the library. Nor will it do to admit one class of readers to the shelves,
+and exclude others. It often happens that persons claiming to have
+special literary or scientific objects, and who profess that they cannot
+get along at all by having books brought to them, are favored in their
+wish to go to the shelves, while others are disfavored. This raises at
+once the just complaint that invidious distinctions are made. The only
+safe rule to follow is that of universal free access, or impartial and
+uniform exclusion from the shelves. In the latter case, no one can
+complain, especially when made aware that he can have all the works on a
+given subject brought to his seat in a brief time, and can work upon them
+to much greater comfort and advantage, seated where there is good light
+and ample room, than if standing up in the shadow of the shelves to
+pursue his researches.
+
+It is also to be considered that such disarrangement of books as
+inevitably follows free admission to the shelves deprives the very
+persons who claim this privilege, of finding what they seek, until a
+complete replacement takes place, throughout the library, and this is
+necessarily a work of time. That it involves much more time and
+consequent delay than is occasioned by the re-shelving of books used in a
+day, is apparent when we consider that in the latter case, only the
+number of volumes actually withdrawn from shelves by the library
+attendants have to be replaced, and that these are in conveniently
+assorted piles all ready to go to their respective shelves; while in the
+other case, the displacement is made by many hands, most of them careless
+of any convenience but their own, and moreover, the disarranged books
+are, or are liable to be, scattered on the wrong shelves, thus throwing
+the entire library into disorder, requiring great pains, knowledge, and
+time to repair.
+
+In any well-regulated library, the absence of any book from its place can
+almost always be accounted for. Thus it is either--1. In the reading
+room, in use; or 2. Charged out to a borrower; or 3. Sent to the binder
+for rebinding, or repair; or 4. Reserved for some reader's use; or 5. In
+temporary use by a cataloguer, or some other library assistant; or 6.
+Among the books not yet re-shelved from recent use.
+
+Now each of these is a legitimate reason for the absence of any book not
+found in its place. By search under each of these heads, _seriatim_,
+aided by the memory of librarian and assistants, the missing volume
+should be readily located, and soon availed of for use.
+
+But in the case of books misplaced by readers, no such tracing out of the
+whereabouts of any volume is effectual, for the reason that the book may
+have been (and probably is) put on some shelf where it does not belong.
+And the question, where in an extensive collection, a book-hunter
+admitted to freely range over all the shelves, and a stranger to the
+minute classification of books, has misplaced the missing volumes, is an
+insoluble problem, except by hunting over or handling the entire library.
+
+In this close practical view of the case we have to add to the long list
+of the enemies of books, formerly enumerated, those who demand a right to
+browse (as they term it) among the shelves of a public library, and who
+displace the books they take down to gratify, it may be, only an idle
+curiosity. Their offence consists, not in being anxious to see the books,
+but in preventing others from seeing them, by segregating them where
+neither librarian nor assistants may be able to find them, when called
+for. The whole question is summed up in the statement that the ability
+to produce library books when called for, depends strictly upon keeping
+them in their proper place: and this is quite incompatible with
+promiscuous handling upon the shelves.
+
+The preservation of order is alike in the interest of the reading public,
+of the librarian and his assistants, and of the very persons who complain
+of it as depriving them of library facilities. If library facilities
+consist in rendering the books in it unfindable, and therefore
+unavailable to any reader, then the argument for free range of the
+shelves arrives at a _reductio ad absurdum_. The true library facilities
+consist in a classification and a catalogue which arrange the books in
+systematic order, and keep them there, save when called into use. Thus,
+and thus only, can those who resort to a public library for actual
+research, be assured of finding what they want, just when they want it.
+The time saved to all readers by the sure and steady preservation of an
+orderly arrangement of the books, is simply incalculable. Multiply the
+number of volumes out of place by the number of readers who call for
+them, and you have some idea of the mischief that may be done through the
+carelessness of a few favored readers, to the whole community of
+scholars. Of course the considerations here set forth pre-suppose an
+active and intelligent librarian, and zealous and willing attendants, all
+ever ready to aid the researches of readers by the most prompt and
+helpful suggestions, and by dispatch in placing before them what they
+most need. The one cardinal design of a library--to supply the largest
+amount of information in the shortest time, is subverted by any
+disorganizing scheme. If the library be administered on the just
+principle of "the greatest good to the greatest number," then such
+individual favoritism should never be allowed.
+
+It may, indeed, be claimed that there is no rule without some valid
+exceptions; but these exceptions should never be permitted to defeat the
+cardinal object of the rule--which is to keep every book strictly in its
+own place. Let the exception be confined to allowing an occasional
+inspection of the shelves in the company of a library attendant, and
+there will be no trouble.
+
+But there is another danger, aside from the misplacement of books.
+Experience has shown that thefts or mutilations of books have been
+numerous, in direct proportion to the extension of freedom and
+opportunity to those frequenting the library. Literary men and
+book-lovers are frequently book-collectors also; and the temptation to
+take what is often too loosely considered public property is sometimes
+yielded to by persons whose character and standing may render them the
+least suspected. In one of the largest lending libraries in this country,
+the purloining of books had been carried so far, that the authorities had
+to provide a wire fence all around the reading room, to keep the readers
+from access to the shelves. The result was soon seen in the reduction of
+the number of books stolen from 700 volumes to 300 volumes a year.
+
+After several years' experience of the Astor Library in opening its
+alcoves to readers (amounting to practical free admission to the shelves
+to all calling themselves special students) the losses and mutilations of
+books became so serious, that alcove admissions have been greatly
+curtailed.
+
+At the Conference of Librarians in London, in 1877, the subject of
+admission or non-admission to the shelves was discussed with the result
+that opinions were preponderantly adverse to the free range of the
+library by readers. It was pointed out that libraries are established and
+maintained at great cost for serious purposes of reading and study, and
+that these ends are best subserved by systematic service at a common
+centre--not by letting the readers scatter themselves about the library
+shelves. To one speaker who held that every one in a free public library
+had the right to go to the shelves, and choose his books for himself, it
+was answered that this was equivalent to saying that it is the idler's
+right to stroll about in every place devoted to a special business, and
+interrupt that business at his pleasure.
+
+At the International Conference of 1897, an able defence of open shelves
+was presented, claiming that it saves much librarians' time in finding
+books, if readers are allowed to find them for themselves; that thefts
+and mutilations are inconsiderable; that it makes an appeal to the honor
+of people to respect the books; that the open shelf system does better
+educational work; that it is economical by requiring fewer library
+attendants; that it has grown steadily in favor in America, and that it
+gives the people the same right in the library which is their own, as the
+individual has in his own.
+
+On the other hand, it was urged that the arguments for open shelves were
+all arguments for anarchy; that the readers who want to rummage about for
+what they want lack proper discipline of the mind; that the number of
+books lost under it has been very large; that librarians are custodians
+and conservers, as well as dispensers of books; that all books misplaced
+are practically lost to the library for the time being; that the open
+shelf system requires far more space, and is more expensive; and that,
+however desirable, its general adoption is utterly impracticable.
+
+The practice of libraries in this particular of administration differs
+widely, as do the opinions of librarians regarding it. In most colleges
+and universities free access is allowed; and in some public free
+libraries, both east and west, the readers are allowed to handle the
+books on the shelves. This is comparatively safe in the smaller town
+libraries, where the books are in compact shape, and the unavoidable
+misplacement can be corrected daily in no long time. The experience of
+"open shelves" in such collections has been so favorable that their
+librarians have testified that the losses were insignificant when
+compared with the great public convenience resulting. But the difficulty
+and confusion arising from free handling of the books on shelves
+increases in the direct ratio of the size of the library, until, in an
+extensive collection, it reaches an intolerable result.
+
+What is encountered continually in enforcing the rule of exclusion from
+shelves is the almost universal conceit that some reader is entitled to
+exemption from such a rule. Explain to him never so courteously that
+experience has proved that a library is thrown into confusion by such
+admission; that while he may be careful to replace every book handled in
+the same spot, nearly all readers are careless, and he will insist that
+he is the exception, and that he is always careful. That is human nature,
+the world over--to believe that one can do things better than any one
+else. But if such importunities prevail, the chances are that books will
+be misplaced by the very literary expert who has solemnly asserted his
+infallibility.
+
+On the whole, open shelves may be viewed as an open question. It may be
+best for small libraries, as to all the books, and for all libraries as
+to some classes of books. But make it general, and order and arrangement
+are at an end, while chaos takes the place of cosmos. The real student is
+better served by the knowledge and aid of the librarian, thus saving his
+time for study, than he can be by ranging about dark shelves to find,
+among multitudes of books he does not want, the ones that he actually
+does want. The business of the librarian, and his highest use, is to
+bring the resources of the library to the reader. If this takes a hundred
+or more volumes a day, he is to have them; but to give him the right to
+throw a library into confusion by "browsing around," is to sacrifice the
+rights of the public to prompt service, to the whim of one man. Those who
+think that "browsing" is an education should reflect that it is like any
+other wandering employment, fatal to fixity of purpose. Like desultory
+reading of infinite periodicals, it tends rather to dissipate the time
+and the attention than to inform and strengthen the mind.
+
+In libraries of wide circulation in America, many have open shelves, and
+many more free access to certain classes of books. The Newark Free
+Library opens all departments except fiction; others open fiction and
+current literature only. Some libraries, notably in England, have a
+"safe-guarded" open-shelf system, by which the public are given free
+range inside the library, while the librarians take post at the outside
+railing, to charge books drawn, and check off depredations. This method
+may be styled "every one his own librarian," and is claimed by its
+originators to work well.
+
+At the Conference of the American Library Association in 1899, after
+discussion, votes were taken, showing 50 librarians in favor of free
+access to shelves for small libraries, as against only 10 for
+unrestricted access in large libraries.
+
+The debate brought out curious and instructive facts as to losses of
+books where free range is allowed. The Denver Public Library lost in one
+year 955 volumes; the Buffalo Public Library 700 books in seventeen
+months; the Minneapolis, 300 in a year; and the St. Louis Public Library
+1,062 volumes in two years, out of "a very limited open shelf
+collection." One librarian, estimating the loss of books at $1,000 worth
+in two years, said the library board were perfectly satisfied, and that
+"unless we lose $2,500 worth of books a year, the open-shelf system pays
+in its saving of the expenses of attendance." It does not appear to have
+occurred to them that a public library owes anything to the public
+morality, nor that a library losing its books by the thousand, to save
+the cost of proper management, may be holding out a premium to wholesale
+robbery.
+
+There is another precaution essential to be observed regarding the more
+costly and rare possessions of the library. Such books should not be
+placed upon the shelves with the ordinary books of the collection, but
+provided for in a repository under lock and key. In a large library,
+where many hundred volumes of books of especial rarity and value are to
+be found, a separate room should always exist for this class of books.
+They will properly include (1) Incunabula, or early printed books; (2)
+Manuscripts, or unique specimens, such as collections of autographs of
+notable people; (3) Illuminated books, usually written on vellum, or
+printed in color; (4) Early and rare Americana, or books of American
+discovery, history, etc., which are scarce and difficult to replace; (5)
+Any books known to be out of print; and (6) Many costly illustrated works
+which should be kept apart for only occasional inspection by readers.
+Where no separate room exists for safe custody of such treasures, they
+should be provided with a locked book-case or cases, according to their
+number. When any of these reserved books are called for, they should be
+supplied to readers under special injunctions of careful handling.
+Neglect of precaution may at any time be the means of losing to the
+library a precious volume. It is easy for an unknown reader who calls for
+such a rare or costly work, to sign his ticket with a false name, and
+slip the book under his coat when unobserved, and so leave the library
+unchallenged. But the librarian or assistant who supplies the book, if
+put on his guard by having to fetch it from a locked repository, should
+keep the reader under observation, unless well known, until the volume
+is safely returned. Designing and dishonest persons are ever hovering
+about public libraries, and some of the most dangerous among them are men
+who know the value of books.
+
+This class of reserved books should not be given out in circulation,
+under any circumstances. Not only are they subject to injury by being
+handled in households where there are children or careless persons, who
+soil or deface them, but they are exposed to the continual peril of fire,
+and consequent loss to the library. There are often books among these
+rarities, which money cannot replace, because no copies can be found when
+wanted. In the Library of Congress, there is a very salutary safe-guard
+thrown around the most valuable books in the form of a library regulation
+which provides that no manuscript whatever, and no printed book of
+special rarity and value shall be taken out of the library by any person.
+This restriction of course applies to Members of Congress, as well as to
+those officials who have the legal right to draw books from the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12.
+
+THE FACULTY OF MEMORY.
+
+
+To every reader nothing can be more important than that faculty of the
+mind which we call memory. The retentive memory instinctively stores up
+the facts, ideas, imagery, and often the very language found in books, so
+clearly that they become available at any moment in after life. The
+tenacity of this hold upon the intellectual treasures which books contain
+depends largely upon the strength of the impression made upon the mind
+when reading. And this, in turn, depends much upon the force, clearness
+and beauty of the author's style or expression. A crude, or feeble, or
+wordy, redundant statement makes little impression, while a terse, clear,
+well-balanced sentence fixes the attention, and so fastens itself in the
+memory. Hence the books which are best remembered will be those which are
+the best written. Great as is the power of thought, we are often obliged
+to confess that the power of expression is greater still. When the
+substance and the style of any writing concur to make a harmonious and
+strong impression on the reader's mind, the writer has achieved success.
+All our study of literature tends to confirm the conviction of the
+supreme importance of an effective style.
+
+We must set down a good memory as a cardinal qualification of the
+librarian. This faculty of the mind, in fact, is more important to him
+than to the members of any other profession whatever, because it is more
+incessantly drawn upon. Every hour in the day, and sometimes every minute
+in the hour, he has to recall the names of certain books, the authors of
+the same, including both their surnames and Christian or forenames, the
+subjects principally treated in them, the words of some proverb or
+quotation, or elegant extract in poetry or prose, the period of time of
+an author or other noted person, the standard measurements and weights in
+use, with their equivalents, the moneys of foreign nations and their
+American values, the time of certain notable events in history, whether
+foreign or American, ancient or modern, the names and succession of
+rulers, the prices of many books, the rules observed in the catalogue,
+both of authors and subjects, the names and schools of great artists,
+with their period, the meaning in various foreign languages of certain
+words, the geographical location of any place on the earth's surface, the
+region of the library in which any book is located--and, in short, an
+infinitude of items of information which he wants to know out of hand,
+for his own use, or in aid of Library readers or assistants. The immense
+variety of these drafts upon his memory seldom perplexes one who is well
+endowed with a natural gift in that direction. In fact, it seems actually
+true of such minds, that the more numerous the calls upon the memory, the
+more ready is the response.
+
+The metaphysicians have spent many words in attempting to define the
+various qualities of the mind, and to account for a strong or a weak
+memory; but after all is said, we find that the surprising difference
+between different memories is unaccounted for; as unaccountable, indeed,
+as what differences the man of genius from the mere plodder. The
+principle of association of ideas is doubtless the leading element in a
+memory which is not merely verbal. We associate in our minds, almost
+instinctively, ideas of time, or space, or persons, or events, and these
+connect or compare one with another, so that what we want is called up
+or recalled in memory, by a train of endless suggestion. We all have this
+kind of memory, which may be termed the rational or ideal, as
+distinguished from the verbal and the local memory. The verbal memory is
+that which retains in the mind, and reproduces at will what has been said
+in our hearing by others, or what we have read which has made a marked
+impression upon us. Thus, some persons can repeat with almost exact
+accuracy, every word of a long conversation held with another. Others can
+repeat whole poems, or long passages in prose from favorite authors,
+after reading them over two or three times, and can retain them perfectly
+in memory for half a century or more. There have even been persons to
+whom one single reading of any production was sufficient to enable them
+to repeat it _verbatim_. These instances of a great verbal memory are by
+no means rare, although some of them appear almost incredible. John Locke
+tells us of the French philosopher Pascal, that he never forgot anything
+of what he had done, said, or thought, in any part of his natural life.
+And the same thing is recorded of that great scholar of Holland, Hugo
+Grotius.
+
+The mathematician Euler could repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning
+to end, containing nearly nine thousand lines. Mozart, upon hearing the
+_Miserere_ of Allegri played in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, only once,
+went to his hotel, and wrote it all down from memory, note for note.
+
+Cardinal Mezzofanti both wrote and spoke thirty languages, and was quite
+familiar with more than a hundred. He said that if he once heard the
+meaning of a word in any language, he never forgot it. Yet he was of the
+opinion, that although he had twenty words for one idea, it was better to
+have twenty ideas for one word; which is no doubt true, so far as real
+intellectual culture is concerned. Lord Macaulay, who had a phenomenal
+memory, said that if all the copies of Milton's Paradise Lost were to be
+destroyed, he could reproduce the book complete, from memory. In early
+life he was a great admirer of Walter Scott's poetry, and especially the
+"Lay of the Last Minstrel", and could repeat the whole of that long poem,
+more than six hundred lines, from memory. And at the age of fifty-seven
+he records--"I walked in the portico, and learned by heart the noble
+fourth act of the Merchant of Venice. There are four hundred lines. I
+made myself perfect master of the whole in two hours." It was said of him
+that every incident he heard of, and every page he read, "assumed in his
+mind a concrete spectral form."
+
+But the memory for names and words has been sometimes called the lowest
+form of memory. Persons of defective or impaired intellect frequently
+have strong and retentive verbal memories. Mrs. Somerville records the
+case of an idiot who could repeat a whole sermon _verbatim_, after once
+hearing it, but who was stupid and ignorant as to every thing else. And
+there are many instances in the books to the same effect.
+
+Another kind of memory may be called, for want of a better name, the
+local memory. A person who has this strongly developed, if he once goes
+to a place, whether a room, or a street in a city, or a road in any part
+of the country, knows the way again, and can find it by instinct ever
+after. In the same way any one gifted with this almost unerring sense of
+locality, can find any book on any shelf in any part of a library where
+he has once been. He knows, in like manner, on which side of the page he
+saw any given passage in a book, which impressed him at the time,
+although he may never have had the volume in his hand more than once. He
+may not remember the number of the page, but he is sure of his
+recollection that it was the left or the right hand one, as the case may
+be, and this knowledge will abridge his labor and time in finding it
+again by just one half. This local memory is invaluable to a librarian or
+an assistant in shortening the labor of finding things. If you have a
+good local memory, you can, in no long time, come to dispense with the
+catalogue and its shelf-marks or classification marks, almost entirely,
+in finding your books. Although this special gift of memory--the sense of
+locality--is unquestionably a lower faculty of the mind than some others
+named, and although there are illiterate persons who can readily find and
+produce any books in a library which have often passed through their
+hands, yet it is a faculty by no means to be despised. It is one of the
+labor-saving, time-saving gifts, which should be welcomed by every
+librarian. The time saved from searching the catalogues for
+location-marks of the outside of books, will enable him to make many a
+research in their inside. This faculty, of course, is indefinitely
+strengthened and improved by use--and the same is true of the other
+branches of the sense which we call memory. The oftener you have been to
+any place, the better you know the way. The more frequently you have
+found and produced a given book from its proper receptacle, the easier
+and the quicker will be your finding it again.
+
+Another faculty or phase of memory is found in the ability to call up the
+impression made by any object once seen by the eye, so as to reproduce it
+accurately in speech or writing. This may be termed the intuitive memory.
+There are many applications or illustrations of this faculty. Thus, for
+example, you see a book on some shelf in your library. You take in its
+size, its binding, both the material and the color, and its title as
+lettered on the back. All this you absorb with one glance of the eye. You
+remember it by the principle of association--that is, you associate with
+that particular book, in connection with its title, a certain dimension,
+color, and style of binding. Now, when you have occasion to look up that
+special volume again, you not only go, aided by your memory of locality,
+to the very section and shelf of the library where it belongs, but you
+take with you instinctively, your memory or mental image of the book's
+appearance. Thus, you perhaps distinctly remember (1) that it was an
+octavo, and your eye in glancing along the shelf where it belongs,
+rejects intuitively all the duodecimos or books of lesser size, to come
+to the octavos. (2) Then you also remember that it was bound in leather,
+consequently you pass quickly by all the cloth bound volumes on the
+shelf. (3) in the third place you know that its color was red; and you
+pay no attention whatever to books of any other color, but quickly seize
+your red leather-bound octavo, and bear it off to the reading-room in
+triumph. Of course there are circumstances where this quick operation of
+the faculties of memory and intuition combined, would not be so easy. For
+example, all the books (or nearly all) on a given shelf might be octavos;
+or they might all be leather-bound; or a majority of them with red backs;
+and the presence of one or more of these conditions would eliminate one
+or more of the facilities for most rapidly picking out the book wanted.
+But take a pile of books, we will say returned by many readers, on the
+library counter. You are searching among them for a particular volume
+that is again wanted. There is no order or arrangement of the volumes,
+but you distinctly remember, from having handled it, its size both as to
+height and thickness, its color, and how it was bound. You know it was a
+thin 12mo. in green cloth binding. Do you, in your search, take up every
+book in that mass, to scrutinize its title, and see if it is the one you
+seek? By no means. You quickly thrust aside, one by one, or by the
+half-dozen, all the volumes which are not green, cloth-bound, thin
+duodecimos, without so much as glancing at them. Your special volume is
+quickly found among hundreds of volumes, and your faculty of memory and
+intuition has saved you perhaps a quarter of an hour of valuable time,
+which, without that faculty, might have been wasted in search.
+
+Again, another circumstance which might intervene to diminish the
+frequency of application of the memory referred to, as to the physical
+features or appearance of a book sought for, is where the
+shelf-arrangement is alphabetical, by authors' names, or by the names of
+the subjects of the books, if it is an alphabet of biographies. Here, the
+surest and the quickest guide to the book is of course the alphabetical
+order, in which it must necessarily be found.
+
+This memory of the aspect of any object once looked at, is further well
+illustrated in the very varied facilities for the spelling of words found
+in different persons. Thus, there are people who, when they once see any
+word (we will say a proper name) written or printed, can always
+afterwards spell that word unerringly, no matter how uncommon it may be.
+The mental retina, so to speak, receives so clear and exact an impression
+of the form of that word from the eye, that it retains and reproduces it
+at will.
+
+But there are others, (and among them persons of much learning in some
+directions) upon whom the form or orthography of a word makes little or
+no impression, however frequently it meets the eye in reading. I have
+known several fine scholars, and among them the head of an institution of
+learning, who could not for the life of them spell correctly; and this
+infirmity extended even to some of the commonest words in the language.
+Why this inaptitude on the part of many, and this extraordinary facility
+on the part of others, in the memorizing faculty, is a phenomenon which
+may be noted down, but not solved. That vivid mental picture which is
+seen by the inward eye of the person favored with a good memory, is
+wholly wanting, or seen only dimly and rarely in the case of one who
+easily forgets.
+
+So vital and important is memory, that it has been justly denominated by
+the German philosopher, Kant, "the most wonderful of our faculties."
+Without it, the words of a book would be unintelligible to us, since it
+is memory alone which furnishes us with the several meanings to be
+attached to them.
+
+Some writers on the science of mind assert that there is no such thing
+with any of us as absolutely forgetting anything that has once been in
+the mind. All mental activities, all knowledge which ever existed,
+persists. We never wholly lose them, but they become faint and obscure.
+One mental image effaces another. But those which have thus disappeared
+may be recalled by an act of reminiscence. While it may sometimes be
+impossible to recover one of them at the moment when wanted, by an act of
+voluntary recollection, some association may bring it unexpectedly and
+vividly before us. Memory plays us many strange tricks, both when we wake
+and when we dream. It revives, by an involuntary process, an infinite
+variety of past scenes, faces, events, ideas, emotions, passions,
+conversations, and written or printed pages, all of which we may have
+fancied had passed forever from our consciousness.
+
+The aids to memory supposed to be furnished by the various mnemonic
+systems may now be briefly considered. These methods of supplying the
+defects of a naturally weak memory, or of strengthening a fairly good
+one, are one and all artificial. This might not be a conclusive
+objection to them, were they really effective and permanent helps,
+enabling one who has learned them to recall with certainty ideas, names,
+dates, and events which he is unable to recall by other means. Theory
+apart, it is conceded that a system of memorizing which had proved widely
+or generally successful in making a good memory out of a poor one, would
+deserve much credit. But experience with these systems has as yet failed
+to show, by the stern test of practical utility, that they can give
+substantial (and still less permanent) aid in curing the defects of
+memory. Most of the systems of mnemonics that have been invented are
+constructed on the principle of locality, or of utilizing objects which
+appeal to the sight. There is nothing new in these methods, for the
+principle is as old as Simonides, who lived in the fifth century before
+Christ, and who devised a system of memorizing by locality. One of the
+most prevalent systems now taught is to select a number of rooms in a
+house (in the mind's eye, of course) and divide the walls and the floors
+of each room into nine equal parts or squares, three in a row. Then
+
+     "On the front wall--that opposite the entrance of the first
+     room--are the units, on the right-hand wall the tens, on the left
+     hand the twenties, on the fourth wall the thirties, and on the
+     floor the forties. Numbers 10, 20, 30, and 40, each find a place
+     on the roof above their respective walls. One room will thus
+     furnish 50 places, and ten rooms as many as 500, while 50
+     occupies the centre of the roof. Having fixed these clearly in
+     the mind, so as to be able readily and at once to tell the exact
+     position of each place or number, it is then necessary to
+     associate with each of them some familiar object (or symbol) so
+     that the object being suggested, its place may be instantly
+     remembered, or when the place is before the mind, its object may
+     immediately spring up. When this has been done thoroughly, the
+     objects can be run over in any order from beginning to end, or
+     from end to beginning, or the place of any particular one can at
+     once be given. All that is further necessary is to associate the
+     ideas we wish to remember with the objects in the various places,
+     by which means they are readily remembered, and can be gone over
+     in any order. In this way, one may learn to repeat several
+     hundred disconnected words or ideas in any order, after hearing
+     them only once."
+
+This rather complicated machinery for aiding the memory is quite too
+mechanical to commend itself to any one accustomed to reflect or to take
+note of his own mental processes. Such an elaborate system crowds the
+mind with a lot of useless furniture, and hinders rather than helps a
+rational and straightforward habit of memorizing. It too much resembles
+the feat of trying to jump over a wall by running back a hundred or more
+yards to acquire a good start or momentum. The very complication of the
+system is fitted to puzzle rather than to aid the memory. It is based on
+mechanical or arithmetical associations--not founded on nature, and is of
+very small practical utility. It does not strengthen or improve the habit
+of memorizing, which should always be based upon close attention, and a
+logical method of classifying, associating, and analyzing facts or ideas.
+
+Lord Bacon, more than two centuries ago, wisely characterized mnemonic
+systems as "barren and useless." He wrote, "For immediately to repeat a
+multitude of names or words once repeated before, I esteem no more than
+rope-dancing, antic postures, and feats of activity; and, indeed, they
+are nearly the same thing, the one being the abuse of the bodily, as the
+other is of mental powers; and though they may cause admiration, they
+cannot be highly esteemed."
+
+In fact, these mnemonical systems are only a kind of crutches, sometimes
+useful to people who cannot walk, but actual impediments to those having
+the use of their limbs, and who by proper exercise can maintain their
+healthy and natural use indefinitely.
+
+I have given you an account of one of these artificial systems of memory,
+or systems of artificial memory, as you may choose to call them. There
+have been invented more than one hundred different systems of mnemonics,
+all professing to be invaluable, and some claiming to be infallible. It
+appears to be a fatal objection to these memory-systems that they
+substitute a wholly artificial association of ideas for a natural one.
+The habit of looking for accidental or arbitrary relations of names and
+things is cultivated, and the power of logical, spontaneous thought is
+injured by neglecting essential for unessential relations. These
+artificial associations of ideas work endless mischief by crowding out
+the natural ones.
+
+How then, you may ask, is a weak memory to be strengthened, or a fairly
+good memory to be cultivated into a better one? The answer is, by
+constant practice, and for this the vocation of a librarian furnishes far
+more opportunities than any other. At the basis of this practice of the
+memory, lies the habit of attention. All memory depends upon the strength
+or vividness of the impression made upon the mind, by the object, the
+name, the word, the date, which is sought to be remembered. And this, in
+turn, depends on the degree of attention with which it was first
+regarded. If the attention was so fixed that a clear mental image was
+formed, there will be no difficulty in remembering it again. If, on the
+other hand, you were inattentive, or listless, or pre-occupied with other
+thoughts, when you encountered the object, your impression of it would be
+hazy and indistinct, and no effort of memory would be likely to recall
+it.
+
+Attention has been defined as the fixing of the mind intently upon one
+particular object, to the exclusion for a time, of all other objects
+soliciting notice. It is essential to those who would have a good memory,
+to cultivate assiduously the habit of concentration of thought. As the
+scattering shot hits no mark, so the scattering and random thoughts that
+sweep through an unoccupied brain lead to no memorable result, simply
+from want of attention or of fixation upon some one mental vision or
+idea. With your attention fastened upon any subject or object, you see it
+more clearly, and it impresses itself more vividly in the memory, as a
+natural consequence. Not only so, but its related objects or ideas are
+brought up by the principle of association, and they too make a deeper
+impression and are more closely remembered. In fact, one thing carefully
+observed and memorized, leads almost insensibly to another that is
+related to it, and thus the faculty of association is strengthened, the
+memory is stimulated, and the seeds of knowledge are deeply planted in
+that complex organism which we call the mind. This power of attention, of
+keeping an object or a subject steadily in view until it is absorbed or
+mastered, is held by some to be the most distinctive element in genius.
+Most people have not this habit of concentration of the mind, but allow
+it to wander aimlessly on, flitting from subject to subject, without
+mastering any; but then, most people are not geniuses. The habit to be
+cultivated is that of thinking persistently of only one thing at a time,
+sternly preventing the attention from wandering.
+
+It may be laid down as an axiom that the two corner-stones of memory are
+attention and association. And both of these must act in harmony, the
+habit of fixed attention being formed or guided by the will, before a
+normal or retentive memory becomes possible. What is called cultivating
+the memory, therefore, does not mean anything more than close attention
+to whatever we wish to remember, with whatever associations naturally
+cling to it, until it is actually mastered. If one has not an instinctive
+or naturally strong memory, he should not rest satisfied with letting the
+days go by until he has improved it. The way to improve it, is to begin
+at the foundation, and by the constant exercise of the will-power, to
+take up every subject with fixed attention, and one at a time, excluding
+every other for the time being. There is no doubt whatever that the
+memory is capable of indefinite improvement; and though one's first
+efforts in that direction may prove a disappointment, because only
+partially successful, he should try, and try again, until he is rewarded
+with the full fruits of earnest intellectual effort, in whatever field.
+He may have, at the start, instead of a fine memory, what a learned
+professor called, "a fine forgettery," but let him persevere to the end.
+None of us were made to sit down in despair because we are not endowed
+with an all-embracing memory, or because we cannot "speak with the
+tongues of men and of angels," and do not know "all mysteries and all
+knowledge." It rather becomes us to make the best and highest use, day by
+day, of the talents that are bestowed upon us, remembering that however
+short of perfection they may be, we are yet far more gifted than myriads
+of our fellow-creatures in this very imperfect world.
+
+There is no question that the proper cultivation of the memory is, or
+ought to be, the chief aim of education. All else is so dependent upon
+this, that it may be truly affirmed that, without memory, knowledge
+itself would be impossible. By giving up oneself with fixed attention to
+what one seeks to remember, and trusting the memory, though it may often
+fail, any person can increase his powers of memory and consequently of
+learning, to an indefinite degree. To improve and strengthen the memory,
+it must be constantly exercised. Let it be supplied with new knowledge
+frequently, and called on daily to reproduce it. If remembered only
+imperfectly or in part, refresh it by reference to the source whence the
+knowledge came; and repeat this carefully and thoroughly, until memory
+becomes actually the store-house of what you know on that subject. If
+there are certain kinds of facts and ideas which you more easily forget
+than others, it is a good way to practice upon them, taking up a few
+daily, and adding to them by degrees. Dr. W. T. Harris, the United States
+Commissioner of Education, gave his personal experience to the effect
+that he always found it hard to remember dates. He resolved to improve a
+feeble memory in this respect by learning the succession of English
+Kings, from William the Conqueror, down to Victoria. With his
+characteristic thoroughness, he began by learning three or four dates of
+accession only, the first day; two new ones were added the second day;
+then one new king added the third day; and thereafter even less frequency
+was observed in learning the chronology. By this method he had the whole
+table of thirty-six sovereigns learned, and made familiar by constant
+review. It had to be learned anew one year after, and once again after
+years of neglect. But his memory for dates steadily grew, and without
+conscious effort, dates and numbers soon came to be seized with a firmer
+grasp than before. This kind of memory, he adds, now improves or
+increases with him from year to year. Here is an instance of cultivation
+of memory by a notable scholar, who adds a monition to learners with weak
+memories, not to undertake to memorize too much at once. Learning a
+succession of fifty names slowly, he says, will so discipline the memory
+for names, as to partially or even permanently remove all embarrassment
+from that source. I may add that a long table of names or dates, or any
+prolonged extract in verse or prose, if learned by repeating it over and
+over as a whole, will be less tenaciously retained in memory, than if
+committed in parts.
+
+The highest form of memory is actually unconscious, _i. e._, that in
+which what we would recall comes to us spontaneously, without effort or
+lapse of time in thinking about it. It is this kind of memory that has
+been possessed by all the notable persons who have been credited with
+knowing everything, or with never forgetting anything. It is not to be
+reckoned to their credit, so much as to their good fortune. What merit is
+there in having a good memory, when one cannot help remembering?
+
+There is one caution to be given to those who are learning to improve a
+memory naturally weak. When such a one tries to recall a date, or name,
+or place, or idea, or book, it frequently happens that the endeavor fails
+utterly. The more he tries, the more obstinately the desired object fails
+to respond. As the poet Pope wrote about the witless author:
+
+    "You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
+     Knock as you please, there's nobody at home."
+
+In these cases, no attempt to force the memory should be made, nor should
+the attention be kept long on the subject, for this course only injures
+the faculty, and leads to confusion of mind. To persist in a constantly
+baffled effort to recover a word, or other forgotten link in memory, is a
+laborious attempt which is itself likely to cause failure, and induce a
+distrust of the memory which is far from rational. The forgotten object
+will probably recur in no long time after, when least expected.
+
+Much discursive reading is not only injurious to the faculty of memory,
+but may be positively destructive of it. The vast extent of our modern
+world of reviews, magazines and newspapers, with their immense variety of
+subjects, dissipates the attention instead of concentrating it, and
+becomes fatal to systematic thought, tenacious memory, and the
+acquirement of real knowledge. The mind that is fed upon a diet of
+morning and evening newspapers, mainly or solely, will become flabby,
+uncertain, illogical, frivolous, and, in fact, little better than a
+scatterbrains. As one who listens to an endless dribble of small talk
+lays up nothing out of all the palaver, which, to use a common phrase,
+"goes in at one ear, and out at the other," so the reader who
+continuously absorbs all the stuff which the daily press, under the
+pretext of "printing the news," inflicts upon us, is nothing benefited in
+intellectual gifts or permanent knowledge. What does he learn by his
+assiduous pursuit of these ephemeral will o' the wisps, that only "lead
+to bewilder, and dazzle to blind?" He absorbs an incredible amount of
+empty gossip, doubtful assertions, trifling descriptions, apocryphal
+news, and some useful, but more useless knowledge. The only visible
+object of spending valuable time over these papers appears to be to
+satisfy a momentary curiosity, and then the mass of material read passes
+almost wholly out of the mind, and is never more thought of. Says
+Coleridge, one of the foremost of English thinkers: "I believe the habit
+of perusing periodical works may be properly added to the catalogue of
+anti-mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory."
+
+If read sparingly, and for actual events, newspapers have a value which
+is all their own; but to spend hours upon them, as many do, is mere
+mental dissipation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13.
+
+QUALIFICATIONS OF A LIBRARIAN.
+
+
+In directing attention to some of the more important elements which
+should enter into the character and acquirements of a librarian, I shall
+perhaps not treat them in the order of their relative importance. Thus,
+some persons might consider the foremost qualification for one aspiring
+to the position of a librarian to be wide knowledge in literature and
+science: others would say that the possession of sound common sense is
+above all things essential; others an excellent and retentive memory;
+still others might insist that business habits and administrative faculty
+are all-important; and others again, a zeal for learning and for
+communicating it to others.
+
+I shall not venture to pronounce what, among the multitude of talents
+that are requisite to constitute a good librarian is the most requisite.
+Suffice it to say, that all of them which I shall notice are important,
+and that the order of their treatment determines nothing as to which are
+more and which are less important. So much is expected of librarians that
+it actually appears as if a large portion of the public were of the
+opinion that it is the duty of him who has a library in charge to possess
+himself, in some occult or mysterious way, unknown to the common mind, of
+all the knowledge which all the books combine.
+
+The Librarian of the British Museum, speaking to a conference of
+librarians in London, quoted a remark of Pattison, in his "Life of
+Casaubon," that "the librarian who reads is lost." This was certainly
+true of that great scholar Casaubon, who in his love for the contents of
+the books under his charge, forgot his duties as a librarian. And it is
+to a large degree true of librarians in general, that those who pursue
+their own personal reading or study during library hours do it at the
+expense of their usefulness as librarians. They must be content with such
+snatches of reading as come in the definite pursuit of some object of
+research incident to their library work, supplemented by such reading
+time as unoccupied evenings, Sundays, and annual vacations may give them.
+
+Yet nothing is more common than for applicants for the position of
+librarians or assistant librarians to base their aspiration upon the
+foolish plea that they are "so fond of reading", or that they "have
+always been in love with books." So far from this being a qualification,
+it may become a disqualification. Unless combined with habits of
+practical, serious, unremitting application to labor, the taste for
+reading may seduce its possessor into spending the minutes and the hours
+which belong to the public, in his own private gratification. The
+conscientious, the useful librarian, living amid the rich intellectual
+treasures of centuries, the vast majority of which he has never read,
+must be content daily to enact the part of Tantalus, in the presence of a
+tempting and appetizing banquet which is virtually beyond his reach.
+
+But he may console himself by the reflection that comparatively few of
+the books upon his shelves are so far worth reading as to be essential.
+"If I had read as many books as other men," said Hobbes of Malmesbury, "I
+should have been as ignorant as they."
+
+If the librarian, in the precious time which is indisputably his, reads a
+wise selection of the best books, the masterpieces of the literature of
+all lands, which have been consecrated by time and the suffrages of
+successive generations of readers, he can well afford to apply to the
+rest, the short-hand method recommended in a former chapter, and skim
+them in the intervals of his daily work, instead of reading them. Thus he
+will become sufficiently familiar with the new books of the day (together
+with the information about their contents and merits furnished by the
+literary reviews, which he must read, however sparingly, in order to keep
+up with his profession) to be able to furnish readers with some word of
+comment as to most books coming into the Library. This course, or as
+close an approximation to it as his multifarious duties will permit, will
+go far to solve the problem that confronts every librarian who is
+expected to be an exponent of universal knowledge. Always refraining from
+unqualified praise of books (especially of new ones) always maintaining
+that impartial attitude toward men and opinions which becomes the
+librarian, he should act the part of a liberal, eclectic, catholic guide
+to inquirers of every kind.
+
+And here let me emphasize the great importance to every librarian or
+assistant of early learning to make the most of his working faculties. He
+cannot afford to plod along through a book, sentence by sentence, like an
+ordinary reader. He must learn to read a sentence at a glance. The moment
+his eye lights upon a title-page he should be able to take it all in by a
+comprehensive and intuitive mental process. Too much stress cannot be
+laid upon the every-day habit or method of reading. It makes all the
+difference between time saved, and time wasted; between efficiency and
+inefficiency; between rapid progress and standing still, in one's daily
+work. No pains should be spared, before entering upon the all-engrossing
+work of a library, to acquire the habit of rapid reading. An eminent
+librarian of one of the largest libraries was asked whether he did not
+find a great deal of time to read? His reply was--"I wish that I could
+ever get as much as one hour a day for reading--but I have never been
+able to do it." Of course every librarian must spend much time in special
+researches; and in this way a good deal of some of his days will be spent
+in acquainting himself with the resources of his library; but this is
+incidental and not systematic reading.
+
+In viewing the essential qualifications of a librarian, it is necessary
+to say at the outset that a library is no place for uneducated people.
+The requirements of the position are such as to demand not only native
+talent above the average, but also intellectual acquirements above the
+average. The more a librarian knows, the more he is worth, and the
+converse of the proposition is equally true, that the less he knows the
+less he is worth. Before undertaking the arduous task of guiding others
+in their intellectual pursuits, one should make sure that he is himself
+so well-grounded in learning that he can find the way in which to guide
+them. To do this, he must indispensably have something more than a
+smattering of the knowledge that lies at the foundation of his
+profession. He must be, if not widely read, at least carefully grounded
+in history, science, literature, and art. While he may not, like Lord
+Bacon, take all knowledge to be his province, because he is not a Lord
+Bacon, nor if he were, could he begin to grasp the illimitable domain of
+books of science and literature which have been added to human knowledge
+in the two centuries and a half since Bacon wrote, he can at least, by
+wise selection, master enough of the leading works in each field, to make
+him a well-informed scholar. That great treasury of information on the
+whole circle of the sciences, and the entire range of literature, the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, judiciously studied, will alone give what would
+appear to the average mind, a very liberal education.
+
+One of the most common and most inconsiderate questions propounded to a
+librarian is this: "Do you ever expect to read all these books through?"
+and it is well answered by propounding another question, namely--"Did
+_you_ ever read your dictionary through?" A great library is the
+scholar's dictionary--not to be read through, but to enable him to put
+his finger on the fact he wants, just when it is wanted.
+
+A knowledge of some at least of the foreign languages is indispensable to
+the skilled librarian. In fact, any one aspiring to become an assistant
+in any large library, or the head of any small one, should first acquire
+at least an elementary knowledge of French and Latin. Aside from books in
+other languages than English which necessarily form part of every
+considerable library, there are innumerable quotations or words in
+foreign tongues scattered through books and periodicals in English, which
+a librarian, appealed to by readers who are not scholars, would be
+mortified if found unable to interpret them. The librarian who does not
+understand several languages will be continually at a loss in his daily
+work. A great many important catalogues, and bibliographies, essential
+parts of the equipment of a library, will be lost to him as aids, and he
+can neither select foreign books intelligently nor catalogue them
+properly. If he depends upon the aid of others more expert, his position
+will be far from agreeable or satisfactory. How many and what foreign
+languages should be learned may be matter for wide difference of opinion.
+But so far-reaching is the prevalence of the Latin, as one of the
+principal sources of our own language, and of other modern tongues, that
+a knowledge of it is most important. And so rich is the literature of
+France, to say nothing of the vast number of French words constantly
+found in current English and American books and periodicals, that at
+least a fairly thorough mastery of that language should be acquired. The
+same may be said of the German, which is even more important in some
+parts of the United States, and which has a literature most copious and
+valuable in every varied department of knowledge. With these three
+tongues once familiar, the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and
+Scandinavian languages may be, through the aid of dictionaries, so far
+utilized as to enable one to read titles and catalogue books in any of
+them, although a knowledge of all, so as to be able to read books in
+them, is highly desirable.
+
+In the Boston Public Library, the assistants are required to possess an
+adequate knowledge of Latin, French, and German. And all candidates for
+positions in the reading-room of the British Museum Library must undergo
+a thorough test examination as to their knowledge of the Latin language.
+Opportunities for acquiring foreign languages are now so abundant that
+there is small excuse for any one who wants to know French, Latin or
+German, and yet goes through life without learning them. There are even
+ways of learning these languages with sufficient thoroughness for reading
+purposes without a teacher, and sometimes without a text-book. Two
+assistant librarians taught themselves French and German in their
+evenings, by setting out to read familiar works of English fiction in
+translations into those languages, and soon acquired a good working
+knowledge of both, so as to be able to read any work in either, with only
+occasional aid from the dictionary for the less common words. It is
+surprising how soon one can acquire a sufficient vocabulary in any
+language, by reading any of its great writers. A good way for a beginner
+to learn French without a master is to take a French New Testament, and
+read the four Gospels through. After doing this three or four times,
+almost any one who is at all familiar with the Scriptures, will be able
+to read most books in the French language with facility. In the great art
+of learning, all doors are easily unlocked--by those who have the key.
+
+It should go without saying that the librarian should possess a wide
+knowledge of books. This knowledge should include (1) an acquaintance
+with ancient and modern literature, so as to be able to characterize the
+notable writers in each of the leading languages of the world; (2) a
+knowledge of history extensive enough to enable him to locate all the
+great characters, including authors, in their proper century and country;
+(3) a knowledge of editions, so as to discriminate between the old and
+the new, the full and the abridged, the best edited, best printed, etc.;
+(4) an acquaintance with the intrinsic value or the subject and scope of
+most of the great books of the world; (5) a knowledge of commercial
+values, so as to be able to bid or to buy understandingly, and with
+proper economy; (6) a familiarity with what constitutes condition in
+library books, and with binding and repairing processes, for the
+restoration of imperfect volumes for use.
+
+The librarian should be one who has had the benefit of thorough
+preliminary training, for no novice is qualified to undertake the role of
+an expert, and any attempt to do so can result only in disappointment and
+failure. No one who has read little or nothing but novels since leaving
+school need ever hope to succeed.
+
+No librarian can know too much, since his work brings him into relation
+with the boundless domain of human knowledge. He should not be a
+specialist in science (except in the one science of bibliography) but
+must be content with knowing a little about a great many things, rather
+than knowing everything about one thing. Much converse with books must
+fill him with a sense of his own ignorance. The more he comes to know,
+the wider will open before him the illimitable realm of what is yet to
+be known. In the lowest deep which research the most profound can reach,
+there is a lower deep still unattained--perhaps, even, unattainable. But
+the fact that he cannot by any possibility master all human knowledge
+should not deter the student from making ever advancing inroads upon that
+domain. The vast extent of the world of books only emphasizes the need of
+making a wise selection from the mass. We are brought inevitably back to
+that precept by every excursion that we make into whatever field of
+literature.
+
+The librarian should possess, besides a wide acquaintance with books, a
+faculty of administration, and this rests upon careful business habits.
+He should have a system in all the library work. Every assistant should
+have a prescribed task, and be required to learn and to practice all the
+methods peculiar to library economy, including the economy of time. Each
+day's business should be so organized as to show an advance at the end.
+The library must of course have rules, and every rule should be so simple
+and so reasonable that it will commend itself to every considerate reader
+or library assistant. All questions of doubt or dispute as to the
+observance of any regulation, should be decided at once, courteously but
+firmly, and in a few words. Nothing can be more unseemly than a wrangle
+in a public library over some rule or its application, disturbing readers
+who are entitled to silence, and consuming time that should be given to
+the service of the public.
+
+When Thomas Carlyle, one of the great scholars of modern times, testified
+in 1848 before a Parliamentary Commission upon the British Museum
+Library, he thus spoke of the qualifications of a librarian:
+
+"All must depend upon the kind of management you get within the library
+itself. You must get a good pilot to steer the ship, or you will never
+get into the harbor. You must have a man to direct who knows well what
+the duty is that he has to do, and who is determined to go through that,
+in spite of all clamor raised against him; and who is not anxious to
+obtain approbation, but is satisfied that he will obtain it by and by,
+provided he acts ingenuously and faithfully."
+
+Another quality most important in a librarian is an even temper. He
+should be always and unfailingly courteous, not only to scholars and
+visitors of high consideration, but to every reader, however humble or
+ignorant, and to every employee, however subordinate in position. There
+is nothing which more detracts from one's usefulness than a querulous
+temper. Its possessor is seldom happy himself, and is the frequent cause
+of unhappiness in others. Visitors and questions should never be met with
+a clouded brow. A cheerful "good-morning" goes a great way oftentimes.
+Many library visitors come in a complaining mood--it may be from long
+waiting to be served, or from mistake in supplying them with the wrong
+books, or from errors in charging their accounts, or from some fancied
+neglect or slight, or from any other cause. The way to meet such
+ill-humored or offended readers is to gently explain the matter, with
+that "soft answer which turneth away wrath." Many a foolish and useless
+altercation may thus be avoided, and the complainant restored to
+cheerfulness, if not to courtesy; whereas, if the librarian were to meet
+the case with a sharp or haughty answer, it would probably end without
+satisfaction on either side. Whatever you do, never permit yourself to be
+irritable, and resolve never to be irritated. It will make you unhappy,
+and will breed irritation in others. Cheerfulness under all
+circumstances, however difficult, is the duty and the interest of the
+librarian. Thus he will cultivate successfully an obliging disposition,
+which is a prime requisite to his success with the public and his
+usefulness as a librarian.
+
+It ought not to be requisite to insist upon good health as a condition
+precedent for any one aspiring to be a librarian. So very much depends
+upon this, that it should form a part of the conscientious duty of every
+one to acquire and maintain a sound condition of physical health, as a
+most important adjunct of a thoroughly sound and healthy condition of the
+mind. This is easier than most persons are aware. If we except inherited
+constitutional weaknesses, or maladies of a serious character, there is
+almost no one who is not able by proper diet, regimen, and daily
+exercise, to maintain a degree of health which will enable him to use his
+brain to its full working capacity. It demands an intelligent and
+watchful care of the daily regimen, so that only simple and wholesome
+food and drink may be taken into the system, and what is equally
+important, adequate sleep, and habitual moderate exercise. No one can
+maintain perfect health without breathing good unadulterated air, and
+exercising in it with great frequency. One's walks to and from the
+library may be sufficient to give this, and it is well to have the motive
+of such a walk, since exercise taken for the mere purpose of it is of far
+less value. The habit of taking drugs, or going to a doctor for every
+little malady, is most pernicious. Every one, and especially a librarian,
+who is supposed (however erroneously) to know everything, should know
+more of his own constitution than any physician. With a few judicious
+experiments in daily regimen, and a little abstinence now and then, he
+can subdue head-aches, catarrhs and digestive troubles, and by exercising
+an intelligent will, can generally prevent their recurrence. If one finds
+himself in the morning in a state of languor and lassitude, be sure he
+has abused some physical function, and apply a remedy. An invalid will
+make a poorly equipped librarian. How can a dyspeptic who dwells in the
+darkness of a disease, be a guiding light to the multitudes who beset him
+every hour? There are few callings demanding as much mental and physical
+soundness and alertness as the care of a public library.
+
+Sound common sense is as essential to the librarian as sound health. He
+should always take the practical straightforward view of every item of
+library business and management, remembering that the straight road is
+always the shortest way between two points. While he may be full of
+ideas, he should be neither an idealist nor a dreamer. In library
+methods, the cardinal requisites to be aimed at, are utility and
+convenience. A person of the most perfect education, and the highest
+literary attainments, but destitute of common sense, will not succeed in
+the conduct of a library. That intuitive judgment, which sees the reason
+of everything at a glance, and applies the proper agencies to the case in
+hand, is wanting in his composition. Multitudes of emergencies arise in
+library service, where the prompt and practical sense of the librarian is
+required to settle a dispute, adjust a difficulty, or to direct what is
+to be done in some arrangement or re-arrangement of books, or some
+library appliance or repair. In such cases, the unpractical or
+impracticable man will be very likely to decide wrongly, choosing the
+inconvenient method instead of the convenient, the more costly instead of
+the more economical, the laborious in place of the obvious and easy; in
+short, some way of doing the work or settling the difficulty which will
+not permit it to stay settled, or will require the work to be done over
+again. The man of common-sense methods, on the other hand, will at once
+see the end from the beginning, anticipate every difficulty, and decide
+upon the proper course without trouble or hesitation, finding his
+judgment fully vindicated by the result.
+
+The librarian in whom the quality of common sense is well developed will
+be ever ready to devise or to accept improvements in library methods.
+Never a slave to "red tape," he will promptly cut it wherever and
+whenever it stands in the way of the readiest service of books and
+information to all comers.
+
+Another quality which every librarian or assistant in a library should
+possess is a thorough love of his work. He should cherish a noble
+enthusiasm for the success and usefulness of the institution with which
+he has chosen to be associated. Nor should this spirit be by any means
+limited to the literary and scientific aid which he is enabled to extend
+to others, nor to the acquisition of the knowledge requisite to meet the
+endless inquiries that are made of him. He should take as much interest
+in restoring a broken binding, or in seeing that a torn leaf is repaired,
+as in informing a great scholar what the library contains upon any
+subject.
+
+No one who is listless or indifferent in the discharge of daily duties is
+fit for a place in a public library. There should be an _esprit de
+corps_, a zeal for his profession, which will lead him to make almost any
+sacrifice of outside interests to become proficient in it. Thus only will
+he render himself indispensable in his place, and do the greatest amount
+of service to the greatest number of readers. I have seen employees in
+libraries so utterly careless of what belongs to their vocation, as to
+let books, totally unfit for use, ragged or broken, or with plates
+loosened, ready to drop out and disappear, go back to the shelves
+unrepaired, to pursue the downward road toward destruction. And I have
+been in many libraries in which the books upon the shelves exhibited such
+utter want of care, such disarrangement, such tumbling about and
+upside-down chaos, and such want of cleanliness, as fairly to make one's
+heart ache. In some cases this may have been due in great part to unwise
+free admission of the public to the shelves, and consequent inevitable
+disorder; in others, it may be partially excused by the librarian's
+absolute want of the needful help or time, to keep the library in order;
+but in others, it was too apparent that the librarian in charge took no
+interest in the condition of the books. Too many librarians (at least of
+the past, however it may now be) have been of the class described by Dr.
+Poole, the Chicago librarian. He said that library trustees too often
+appeared to think that anybody almost would do for a librarian; men who
+have failed in everything else, broken-down clergymen, or unsuccessful
+teachers, and the like.
+
+Passing now to other needful qualifications of librarians and library
+assistants, let me say that one of the foremost is accuracy. Perhaps I
+have before this remarked that exact accuracy is one of the rarest of
+human qualities. Even an approximation to it is rare, and absolute
+accuracy is still rarer. Beware of the person who is sure of every
+thing--who retails to you a conversation he has heard, affecting to give
+the exact words of a third person, or who quotes passages in verse or in
+prose, with glib assurance, as the production of some well-known writer.
+The chances are ten to one that the conversation is mainly manufactured
+in the brain of the narrator, and that the quotation is either not
+written by the author to whom it is attributed, or else is a travesty of
+his real language. It is Lord Byron who tells of that numerous class of
+sciolists whom one finds everywhere--
+
+    "With just enough of learning to misquote."
+
+The books one reads abound in erroneous dates, mistaken names, garbled
+extracts, and blundering quotations. So much the more important is it to
+the librarian, who is so continually drawn upon for correct information
+upon every subject, to make sure of his facts, before communicating them.
+When (as frequently happens) he has no way of verifying them, he should
+report them, not as his own conclusions, but on the authority of the book
+or periodical where found. This will relieve him of all responsibility,
+if they turn out to be erroneous. Whenever I find a wrong date or name in
+a printed book, or an erroneous reference in the index, or a mis-spelled
+word, I always pencil the correct date, or name, or page of reference in
+the margin. This I do as a matter of instinct, as well as of duty, for
+the benefit of future inquirers, so that they may not be misled. I speak
+here of errors which are palpable, or of the inaccuracy of which I have
+positive knowledge; if in doubt, I either let the matter go entirely, or
+write a query in pencil at the place, with the presumed correct
+substitute appended.
+
+Never be too sure of what you find in books; but prove all things and
+hold fast to those only which you find to be beyond dispute. Thus will
+you save yourself from falling into many errors, and from recanting many
+opinions. It is the method of ordinary education to take everything for
+granted; it is the method of science to take nothing for granted.
+
+I may refer here to another rule always to be observed, and pertaining to
+the theme of strict accuracy in your daily work. That is, the necessity
+of carefully examining every piece of work you may have done, before it
+leaves your hands, for the purpose of correcting errors. All of us are
+not only liable to make mistakes, but all of us do make them; and if any
+one has a conceit of his own accuracy, the surest way to take it out of
+him is to let him serve an apprenticeship in some library, where there
+is competent revision of all the labor performed. There are multitudes of
+assistants in libraries who cannot write a letter, even, without making
+one or more errors. How often do you leave out a word in your writing
+experience, which may change the meaning of a whole sentence? So, in
+writing titles, whether for the catalogue, or for a library order, or for
+the information of some inquirer, you are liable to make errors of date,
+or edition, or place of publication, or size, or to misplace or omit or
+substitute some word in the description of the book. There is nothing in
+the world quite so easy as to be mistaken: and the only remedy (and it is
+an all-essential one) is to go over every line and every word of what you
+have written, before it leaves your hands. As second thoughts are
+proverbially best, so a second careful glance over a piece of writing
+will almost always reveal some error or omission to be corrected. Think
+of the mortification you must feel at finding an unverified piece of work
+returned upon your hands, with several glaring mistakes marked by the
+reviser! Think, on the other hand, of the inward satisfaction experienced
+when you have done your best, written and revised your own work, and
+found it always passed as perfect. I have tried many persons by many
+tests, and while I have found a great number who were industrious,
+intelligent, zealous, conscientious, good-tempered, and expeditious, I
+have found scarcely one who was always accurate. One of the rarest things
+in a library is to find an assistant who has an unerring sense of the
+French accents. This knowledge, to one expert in that language, even if
+he does not speak it, should be as intuitive as the art of spelling
+correctly, either in English or French. He should write the proper accent
+over a letter just as infallibly as he writes the proper letters in a
+word. But, strange to say, it is very common, even with good French
+scholars (in the book-sense or literary sense of scholarship) to find
+them putting the acute accent for the grave over a vowel, or the grave
+instead of the acute, or omitting the circumflex accent entirely, and so
+on.
+
+Every one commits errors, but the wise man is he who learns by his
+mistakes, and applies the remedy. The best remedy (as I said in the case
+of memory in another chapter,) is to cultivate a habit of trained
+attention in whatever we do. Yet many people (and I am afraid we must say
+most people) go on through life, making the same blunders, and repeating
+them. It appears as if the habit of inaccuracy were innate in the human
+race, and only to be reformed by the utmost painstaking, and even with
+the aid of that, only by a few. I have had to observe and correct such
+numberless errors in the work of well-educated, adult, and otherwise
+accomplished persons, as filled me with despair. Yet there is no more
+doubt of the improvability of the average mind, however inaccurate at the
+start, than of the power of the will to correct other bad habits into
+which people unconsciously fall.
+
+One of the requisites of a successful librarian is a faculty of order and
+system, applied throughout all the details of library administration.
+Without these, the work will be performed in a hap-hazard, slovenly
+manner, and the library itself will tend to become a chaos. Bear in mind
+the great extent and variety of the objects which come under the care of
+the librarian, all of which are to be classified and reduced to order.
+These include not only books upon every earthly subject (and very many
+upon unearthly ones) but a possibly wide range of newspapers and
+periodicals, a great mass of miscellaneous pamphlets, sometimes of maps
+and charts, of manuscripts and broadsides, and frequently collections of
+engravings, photographs, and other pictures, all of which come in to form
+a part of most libraries. This great complexity of material, too,
+exhibits only the physical aspect of the librarian's labors. There are,
+besides, the preparation, arrangement and continuation of the catalogue,
+in its three or more forms, the charging and crediting of the books in
+circulation, the searching of many book lists for purchases, the library
+bills and accounts, the supervision and revision of the work of
+assistants, the library correspondence, often requiring wide researches
+to answer inquiries, the continual aid to readers, and a multitude of
+minor objects of attention quite too numerous to name. Is it any
+over-statement of the case to say that the librarian who has to organize
+and provide for all this physical and intellectual labor, should be
+systematic and orderly in a high degree?
+
+That portion of his responsible task which pertains to the arrangement
+and classification of books has been elsewhere treated. But there is
+required in addition, a faculty of arranging his time, so as to meet
+seasonably the multifarious drafts upon it. He should early learn not
+only the supreme value of moments, but how to make all the library hours
+fruitful of results. To this end the time should be apportioned with
+careful reference to each department of library service. One hour may be
+set for revising one kind of work of assistants; another for a different
+one; another for perusing sale catalogues, and marking _desiderata_ to be
+looked up in the library catalogue; another for researches in aid of
+readers or correspondents; still another for answering letters on the
+many subjects about which librarians are constantly addressed; and still
+another for a survey of all the varied interests of the library and its
+frequenters, to see what features of the service need strengthening, what
+improvements can be made, what errors corrected, and how its general
+usefulness can be increased. So to apportion one's time as to get out of
+the day (which is all too short for what is to be done in it) the utmost
+of accomplishment is a problem requiring much skill, as well as the
+ability to profit by experience. One has always to be subject to
+interruptions--and these must be allowed for, and in some way made up
+for. Remember, when you have lost valuable time with some visitor whose
+claims to your attention are paramount, that when to-morrow comes one
+should take up early the arrears of work postponed, and make progress
+with them, even though unable to finish them.
+
+Another suggestion; proper system in the management and control of one's
+time demands that none of it be absorbed by trifles or triflers; and so
+every librarian must indispensably know how to get rid of bores. One may
+almost always manage to effect this without giving offense, and at the
+same time without wasting any time upon them, which is the one thing
+needful. The bore is commonly one who, having little or nothing to do,
+inflicts himself upon the busy persons of his acquaintance, and
+especially upon the ones whom he credits with knowing the most--to wit,
+the librarians. Receive him courteously, but keep on steadily at the work
+you are doing when he enters. If you are skilful, you can easily do two
+things at once, for example, answer your idler friend or your bore, and
+revise title-cards, or mark a catalogue, or collate a book, or look up a
+quotation, or write a letter, at the same time. Never lose your good
+humor, never say that your time is valuable, or that you are very busy;
+never hint at his going away; but never quit your work, answer questions
+cheerfully, and keep on, allowing nothing to take your eyes off your
+business. By and by he will take the hint, if not wholly pachydermatous,
+and go away of his own accord. By pursuing this course I have saved
+infinite time, and got rid of infinite bores, by one and the same
+process.
+
+The faculty of organizing one's work is essential, in order to efficiency
+and accomplishment. If you do not have a plan and adhere to it, if you
+let this, that, and the other person interrupt you with trifling gossip,
+or unnecessary requests, you will never get ahead of your work; on the
+contrary, your work will always get ahead of you. The same result will
+follow if you interrupt yourself, by yielding to the temptation of
+reading just a page or a paragraph of something that attracts your eye
+while at work. This dissipation of time, to say nothing of its unfair
+appropriation of what belongs to the library, defeats the prompt
+accomplishment of the work in hand, and fosters the evil habit of
+scattering your forces, in idleness and procrastination.
+
+It ought not to be needful to urge habits of neatness and the love of
+order upon candidates for places in libraries. How much a neat and
+carefully arranged shelf of books appeals to one's taste, I need not say,
+nor urge the point how much an orderly and neatly kept room, or desk, or
+table adds to one's comfort. The librarian who has the proper spirit of
+his calling should take pains to make the whole library look neat and
+attractive, to have a place for everything, and everything in its place.
+This, with adequate space existing, will be found easier than to have the
+books and other material scattered about in confusion, thus requiring
+much more time to find them when wanted. A slovenly-kept library is
+certain to provoke public criticism, and this always tells to the
+disadvantage of the librarian; while a neatly kept, carefully arranged
+collection of books is not only pleasing to the eye, but elicits
+favorable judgment from all visitors.
+
+Among the qualities that should enter into the composition of a
+successful librarian must be reckoned an inexhaustible patience. He will
+be sorely tried in his endeavors to satisfy his own ideals, and sometimes
+still more sorely in his efforts to satisfy the public. Against the
+mistakes and short-comings of assistants, the ignorance of many readers,
+and the unreasonable expectations of others, the hamperings of library
+authorities, and the frequently unfounded criticisms of the press, he
+should arm himself with a patience and equanimity that are unfailing.
+When he knows he is right, he should never be disturbed at complaint, nor
+suffer a too sensitive mood to ruffle his feelings. When there is any
+foundation for censure, however slight, he should learn by it and apply
+the remedy. The many and varied characters who come within the
+comprehensive sphere of the librarian necessarily include people of all
+tempers and dispositions, as well as of every degree of culture. To be
+gracious and courteous to all is his interest as well as his duty. With
+the ignorant he will often have to exercise a vast amount of patience,
+but he should never betray a supercilious air, as though looking down
+upon them from the height of his own superior intelligence. To be always
+amiable toward inferiors, superiors, and equals, is to conciliate the
+regard of all. Courtesy costs so little, and makes so large a return in
+proportion to the investment, that it is surprising not to find it
+universal. Yet it is so far from being so that we hear people praising
+one whose manners are always affable, as if he were deserving of special
+credit for it, as an exception to the general rule. It is frequently
+observed that a person of brusque address or crusty speech begets
+crustiness in others. There are subtle currents of feeling in human
+intercourse, not easy to define, but none the less potent in effect. A
+person of marked suavity of speech and bearing radiates about him an
+atmosphere of good humor, which insensibly influences the manners and the
+speech of others.
+
+There will often come into a public library a man whose whole manner is
+aggressive and over-bearing, who acts and talks as if he had a right to
+the whole place, including the librarian. No doubt, being a citizen, he
+has every right, except the right to violate the rules--or to make
+himself disagreeable. The way to meet him is to be neither aggressive,
+nor submissive and deferential, but with a cool and pleasant courtesy,
+ignoring any idea of unpleasant feeling on your part. You will thus at
+least teach a lesson in good manners, which may or may not be learned,
+according to circumstances and the hopeful or hopeless character of the
+pupil.
+
+Closely allied to the virtue of patience, is that of unfailing tact. This
+will be found an important adjunct in the administration of a public
+library. How to meet the innumerable inquiries made of him with just the
+proper answer, saying neither too much, nor too little, to be civil to
+all, without needless multiplication of words, this requires one to hold
+his faculties well in hand, never to forget himself, and to show that no
+demand whatever can vex or fluster him. The librarian should know how, or
+learn how to adapt himself to all readers, and how to aid their
+researches without devoting much time to each. This requires a fine
+quality of tact, of adapting one's self quickly to the varied
+circumstances of the case in hand. One who has it well developed will go
+through the manifold labors and interviews and annoyances of the day
+without friction, while one who is without tact will be worried and
+fretted until life seems to him a burden.
+
+Need I mention, after all that has been said of the exacting labors that
+continually wait upon the librarian, that he should be possessed both of
+energy and untiring industry? By the very nature of the calling to which
+he is dedicated, he is pledged to earnest and thorough work in it. He
+cannot afford to be a trifler or a loiterer on the way, but must push on
+continually. He should find time for play, it is true, and for reading
+for his own recreation and instruction, but that time should be out of
+library hours. And a vigilant and determined economy of time in library
+hours will be found a prime necessity. I have dwelt elsewhere upon the
+importance of choosing the shortest methods in every piece of work to be
+accomplished. Equally important is it to cultivate economy of speech, or
+the habit of condensing instructions to assistants, and answers to
+inquiries into the fewest words. A library should never be a
+circumlocution office. The faculty of condensed expression, though
+somewhat rare, can be cultivated.
+
+In the relations existing between librarian and assistants there should
+be mutual confidence and support. All are equally interested in the
+credit and success of the institution which engages their services, and
+all should labor harmoniously to that end. Loyalty to one's employers is
+both the duty and the interest of the employed: and the reciprocal duty
+of faithfulness to those employed, and interest in their improvement and
+success should mark the intercourse of the librarian with his assistants.
+He should never be too old nor too wise to learn, and should welcome
+suggestions from every intelligent aid. I have suggested the importance
+of an even temper in the relations between librarians and readers; and it
+is equally important as between all those associated in the
+administration of a library. Every one has faults and weaknesses; and
+those encountered in others will be viewed with the most charity by those
+who are duly conscious of their own. Every one makes mistakes, and these
+are often provoking or irritating to one who knows better; but a mild and
+pleasant explanation of the error is far more likely to lead to
+amendment, than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness
+behind. Under no circumstances is peevishness or passion justifiable.
+Library assistants in their bearing toward each other, should suppress
+all feelings of censoriousness, fault-finding or jealousy, if they have
+them, in favor of civility and good manners, if not of good fellowship.
+They are all public servants engaged in a common cause, aiming at the
+enlightenment and improvement of the community; they should cherish a
+just pride in being selected for this great service, and to help one
+another in every step of the work, should be their golden rule.
+Everything should be done for the success and usefulness of the library,
+and all personal considerations should be merged in public ones.
+
+Turning now to what remains of suggestion regarding the qualities which
+should enter into the character, or form a part of the equipment of a
+librarian, let me urge the importance of his possessing a truly liberal
+and impartial mind. It is due to all who frequent a public library to
+find all those in charge ready and willing to aid their researches in
+whatever direction they may lie. Their attitude should be one of constant
+and sincere open-mindedness. They are to remember that it is the function
+of the library to supply the writings of all kinds of authors, on all
+sides of all questions. In doing this, it is no part of a librarian's
+function to interpose any judgments of his own upon the authors asked
+for. He has no right as a librarian to be an advocate of any theories, or
+a propagandist of any opinions. His attitude should be one of strict and
+absolute impartiality. A public library is the one common property of
+all, the one neutral ground where all varieties of character, and all
+schools of opinion meet and mingle. Within its hallowed precincts, sacred
+to literature and science, the voice of controversy should be hushed.
+While the librarian may and should hold his own private opinions with
+firmness and entire independence, he should keep them private--as regards
+the frequenters of the library. He may, for example, be profoundly
+convinced of the truth of the Christian religion; and he is called on, we
+will suppose, for books attacking Christianity, like Thomas Paine's "Age
+of Reason," or Robert G. Ingersoll's lectures on "Myth and Miracle." It
+is his simple duty to supply the writers asked for, without comment, for
+in a public library, Christian and Jew, Mahometan and Agnostic, stand on
+the same level of absolute equality. The library has the Koran, and the
+Book of Mormon, as well as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,
+and one is to be as freely supplied as the other. A library is an
+institution of universal range--of encyclopaedic knowledge, which gathers
+in and dispenses to all comers, the various and conflicting opinions of
+all writers upon religion, science, politics, philosophy, and sociology.
+The librarian may chance to be an ardent Republican or a zealous
+Democrat; but in either case, he should show as much alacrity in
+furnishing readers with W. J. Bryan's book "The First Battle," as with
+McKinley's speeches, or the Republican Hand-Book. A library is no place
+for dogmatism; the librarian is pledged, by the very nature of his
+profession, which is that of a dispenser of all knowledge--not of a part
+of it--to entire liberality, and absolute impartiality. Remembering the
+axiom that all errors may be safely tolerated, while reason is left free
+to combat them, he should be ever ready to furnish out of the
+intellectual arsenal under his charge, the best and strongest weapons to
+either side in any conflict of opinion.
+
+It will have been gathered from what has gone before, in recapitulation
+of the duties and responsibilities of the librarian's calling, that it is
+one demanding a high order of talent. The business of successfully
+conducting a public library is complex and difficult. It is full of
+never-ending detail, and the work accomplished does not show for what it
+is really worth, except in the eyes of the more thoughtful and discerning
+observers.
+
+I may here bring into view some of the drawbacks and discouragements
+incident to the librarian's vocation, together with an outline of the
+advantages which belong to it.
+
+In the first place, there is little money in it. No one who looks upon
+the acquisition of money as one of the chief aims of life, should think
+for a moment of entering on a librarian's career. The prizes in the
+profession are few--so few indeed, as to be quite out of the question for
+most aspirants. The salaries paid in subordinate positions are very low
+in most libraries, and even those of head-librarians are not such that
+one can lay up money on them. A lady assistant librarian in one city said
+she had found that one of a librarian's proper qualifications was to be
+able to live on two meals a day. This doubtless was a humorous
+exaggeration, but it is true that the average salaries hitherto paid in
+our public libraries, with few exceptions, do not quite come up to those
+of public school teachers, taking the various grades into account. Most
+of the newly formed libraries are poor, and have to be economical. But
+there is some reason to hope that as libraries multiply and their
+unspeakable advantages become more fully appreciated, the standard of
+compensation for all skilled librarians will rise. I say skilled, because
+training and experience are the leading elements which command the better
+salaries, in this, as in other professions.
+
+Another drawback to be recognized in the librarian's calling, is that
+there are peculiar trials and vexations connected with it. There are
+almost no limits to the demands made upon the knowledge and the time of
+the librarian. In other professions, teaching for example, there are
+prescribed and well-defined routines of the instruction to be given, and
+the teacher who thoroughly masters this course, and brings the pupils
+through it creditably, has nothing to do beyond. The librarian, on the
+other hand, must be, as it were, a teacher of all sciences and
+literatures at once. The field to be covered by the wants of readers, and
+the inquiries that he is expected to answer, are literally illimitable.
+He cannot rest satisfied with what he has already learned, however expert
+or learned he may have become; but he must keep on learning forevermore.
+The new books that are continually flooding him, the new sciences or new
+developments of old ones that arise, must be so far assimilated that he
+can give some account of the scope of all of them to inquiring readers.
+
+In the third place, there are special annoyances in the service of a
+public, which includes always some inconsiderate and many ignorant
+persons, and these will frequently try one's patience, however angelic
+and forbearing. So, too, the short-comings of library assistants or
+associates may often annoy him, but as all these trials have been before
+referred to, it may be added that they are not peculiar to library
+service, but are liable to occur in the profession of teaching or in any
+other.
+
+In the next place, the peculiar variety and great number of the calls
+incessantly made upon the librarian's knowledge, constitute a formidable
+draft upon any but the strongest brain. There is no escape from these
+continual drafts upon his nervous energy for one who has deliberately
+chosen to serve in a public library. And he will sometimes find, wearied
+as he often must be with many cares and a perfect flood of questions,
+that the most welcome hour of the day is the hour of closing the
+library.
+
+Another of the librarian's vexations is frequently the interference with
+his proper work by the library authorities. Committees or trustees to
+oversee the management and supervise expenditures are necessary to any
+public library. Sometimes they are quick-sighted and intelligent persons,
+and recognize the importance of letting the librarian work out everything
+in his own way, when once satisfied that they have got a competent head
+in charge. But there are sometimes men on a board of library control who
+are self-conceited and pragmatical, thinking that they know everything
+about how a library should be managed, when in fact, they are profoundly
+ignorant of the first rudiments of library science. Such men will
+sometimes overbear their fellows, who may be more intelligent, but not so
+self-asserting, and so manage as to overrule the best and wisest plans,
+or the most expedient methods, and vex the very soul of the librarian. In
+such cases the only remedy is patience and tact. Some day, what has been
+decided wrongly may be reversed, or what has been denied the librarian
+may be granted, through the conversion of a minority of the trustees into
+a majority, by the gentle suasion and skilful reasoning of the librarian.
+
+There are other drawbacks and discomforts in the course of a librarian's
+duties which have been referred to in dealing with the daily work under
+his charge. There remains the fact that the profession is no bed of
+roses, but a laborious and exacting calling, the price of success in
+which is an unremitting industry, and energy inexhaustible. But these
+will not appear very formidable requisites to those who have a native
+love of work, and it is a fact not to be doubted that work of some kind
+is the only salvation of every human creature.
+
+Upon the whole, if the calling of the librarian involves many trials and
+vexations, it has also many notable compensations. Foremost among these
+is to be reckoned the fact that it opens more and wider avenues to
+intellectual culture than any other profession whatever. This comes in a
+two-fold way: first, through the stimulus to research given by the
+incessant inquiries of readers, and by the very necessity of his being,
+as a librarian; and secondly, by the rare facilities for investigation
+and improvement supplied by the ample and varied stores of the library
+always immediately at hand. Other scholars can commonly command but few
+books, unless able to possess a large private library: their researches
+in the public one are hampered by the rule that no works of reference can
+be withdrawn, and that constitutes a very large and essential class,
+constantly needed by every scholar and writer. The librarian, on the
+other hand, has them all at his elbow.
+
+In the next place, there are few professions which are in themselves so
+attractive as librarianship. Its tendency is both to absorb and to
+satisfy the intellectual faculties. No where else is the sense of
+continual growth so palpable; in no other field of labor is such an
+enlargement of the bounds of one's horizon likely to be found. Compare it
+with the profession of teaching. In that, the mind is chained down to a
+rigorous course of imparting instruction in a narrow and limited field.
+One must perforce go on rehearsing the same rudiments of learning,
+grinding over the same Latin gerunds, hearing the same monotonous
+recitations, month after month, and year after year. This continual
+threshing over of old straw has its uses, but to an ardent and active
+mind, it is liable to become very depressing. Such a mind would rather be
+kept on the _qui vive_ of activity by a volley of questions fired at him
+every hour in a library, than to grind forever in an intellectual
+tread-mill, with no hope of change and very little of relief. The very
+variety of the employments which fill up the library hours, the
+versatility required in the service, contributes to it a certain zest
+which other professions lack.
+
+Again, the labors of the librarian bring him into an intimate knowledge
+of a wide range of books, or at least an acquaintance with authors and
+titles far more extensive than can be acquired by most persons. The
+reading of book catalogues is a great and never-ending fascination to one
+who has a love for books. The information thus acquired of the mighty
+range of the world's literature and science is of inestimable value. Most
+of it, if retained in a retentive memory, will enable its possessor to
+answer multitudes of the questions continually put to the librarian.
+
+Then, too, the service of a public library is a valuable school for the
+study of human nature. One comes in contact with scholars, men of
+business, authors, bright young people, journalists, professional men and
+cultured women, to an extent unequaled by the opportunities of any other
+calling. This variety of intercourse tends to broaden one's sympathies,
+to strengthen his powers of observation, to cultivate habits of courtesy,
+to develop the faculty of adapting himself to all persons--qualities
+which contribute much to social interest and success. The discipline of
+such an intercourse may sometimes make out of a silent and bashful
+recluse, a ready and engaging adept in conversation, able to command the
+attention and conciliate the regard of all. Farther than this, one
+brought into so wide a circle of communication with others, cannot fail
+to learn something from at least some among them, and so to receive
+knowledge as well as to impart it. The curious and diverse elements of
+character brought out in such intercourse will make their impress, and
+may have their value. All these many facilities for intellectual
+intercourse both with books and with men, contribute directly to keep
+the librarian in contact with all the great objects of human interest.
+They supply an unfailing stimulus to his intellectual and moral nature.
+They give any active-minded person rare facilities, not only for the
+acquisition, but for the communication of ideas. And there is one avenue
+for such communication that is peculiarly open to one whose mind is
+stored with the ripe fruits of reading and observation. I mean the field
+of authorship--not necessarily the authorship of books, but of writing in
+the form of essays, reviews, lectures, stories or contributions to the
+periodical press. There are in every community literary societies, clubs,
+and evening gatherings, where such contributions are always in demand,
+and always welcomed, in exact proportion to their inherent interest and
+value. Such avenues for the communication of one's thought are of great
+and sometimes permanent advantage. The knowledge which we acquire is
+comparatively barren, until it is shared with others. And whether this be
+in an appreciative circle of listeners, or in the press, it gives a
+certain stimulus and reward to the thinker and writer, which nothing else
+can impart. To convey one's best thought to the world is one of the
+purest and highest of intellectual pleasures.
+
+Let me add that there are two sides to the question of authorship, as
+concerns librarians. On the one hand, their advantages for entering that
+field are undoubtedly superior, both from the ready command of the most
+abundant material, and from experience in its use. On the other hand,
+while authorship may be said to be the most besetting temptation of the
+librarian, it is one that should be steadily resisted whenever it
+encroaches on the time and attention due to library duties. If he makes
+it a rule to write nothing and to study nothing for his own objects
+during library hours, he is safe. Some years since it was a common
+subject of reproach regarding the librarians of several university
+libraries in England that they were so engaged in writing books, that no
+scholar could get at them for aid in his literary researches. The
+librarians and assistants employed in the British Museum Library, where
+the hours of service are short, have found time to produce numerous
+contributions to literature. Witness the works, as authors and editors,
+of Sir Henry Ellis, Antonio Panizzi, Dr. Richard Garnett, Edward Edwards,
+J. Winter Jones, Thomas Watts, George Smith, and others. And in America,
+the late Justin Winsor was one of the most prolific and versatile of
+authors, while John Fiske, once assistant librarian at Harvard, Reuben A.
+Guild, William F. Poole, George H. Moore, J. N. Larned, Frederick
+Saunders and others have been copious contributors to the press.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a retrospective view of what has been said in respect to the
+qualifications of a librarian, it may appear that I have insisted upon
+too high a standard, and have claimed that he should be possessed of
+every virtue under heaven. I freely admit that I have aimed to paint the
+portrait of the ideal librarian; and I have done it in order to show what
+might be accomplished, rather than what has been accomplished. To set
+one's mark high--higher even than we are likely to reach, is the surest
+way to attain real excellence in any vocation. It is very true that it is
+not given to mortals to achieve perfection: but it is none the less our
+business to aim at it, and the higher the ideal, the nearer we are likely
+to come to a notable success in the work we have chosen.
+
+Librarianship furnishes one of the widest fields for the most eminent
+attainments. The librarian, more than any other person whatever, is
+brought into contact with those who are hungering and thirsting after
+knowledge. He should be able to satisfy those longings, to lead
+inquirers in the way they should go, and to be to all who seek his
+assistance a guide, philosopher and friend. Of all the pleasures which a
+generous mind is capable of enjoying, that of aiding and enlightening
+others is one of the finest and most delightful. To learn continually for
+one's self is a noble ambition, but to learn for the sake of
+communicating to others, is a far nobler one. In fact, the librarian
+becomes most widely useful by effacing himself, as it were, in seeking to
+promote the intelligence of the community in which he lives. One of the
+best librarians in the country said that such were the privileges and
+opportunities of the profession, that one might well afford to live on
+bread and water for the sake of being a librarian, provided one had no
+family to support.
+
+There is a new and signally marked advance in recent years, in the public
+idea of what constitutes a librarian. The old idea of a librarian was
+that of a guardian or keeper of books--not a diffuser of knowledge, but a
+mere custodian of it. This idea had its origin in ages when books were
+few, were printed chiefly in dead languages, and rendered still more dead
+by being chained to the shelves or tables of the library. The librarian
+might be a monk, or a professor, or a priest, or a doctor of law, or
+theology, or medicine, but in any case his function was to guard the
+books, and not to dispense them. Those who resorted to the library were
+kept at arm's length, as it were, and the fewer there were who came, the
+better the grim or studious custodian was pleased. Every inquiry which
+broke the profound silence of the cloistered library was a kind of rude
+interruption, and when it was answered, the perfunctory librarian resumed
+his reading or his studies. The institution appeared to exist, not for
+the benefit of the people, but for that of the librarian; or for the
+benefit, besides, of a few sequestered scholars, like himself, and any
+wide popular use of it would have been viewed as a kind of profanation.
+
+We have changed all that in the modern world, and library service is now
+one of the busiest occupations in the whole range of human enterprise.
+One cannot succeed in the profession, if his main idea is that a public
+library is a nice and easy place where one may do one's own reading and
+writing to the best advantage. A library is an intellectual and material
+work-shop, in which there is no room for fossils nor for drones. My only
+conception of a useful library is a library that is used--and the same of
+a librarian. He should be a lover of books--but not a book-worm. If his
+tendencies toward idealism are strong, he should hold them in check by
+addicting himself to steady, practical, every-day work. While careful of
+all details, he should not be mastered by them. If I have sometimes
+seemed to dwell upon trifling or obvious suggestions as to temper, or
+conduct, or methods, let it be remembered that trifles make up
+perfection, and that perfection is no trifle.
+
+I once quoted the saying that "the librarian who reads is lost"; but it
+would be far truer to say that the librarian who does not read is lost;
+only he should read wisely and with a purpose. He should make his reading
+helpful in giving him a wide knowledge of facts, of thoughts, and of
+illustrations, which will come perpetually in play in his daily
+intercourse with an inquiring public.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14.
+
+SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES.
+
+
+Let us now consider the subject of the uses of public libraries to
+schools and those connected with them. Most town and city libraries are
+supported, like the free schools, by the public money, drawn from the
+tax-payers, and supposed to be expended for the common benefit of all the
+people. It results that one leading object of the library should be to
+acquire such a collection of books as will be in the highest degree
+useful to all. And especially should the wants of the younger generation
+be cared for, since they are always not only nearly one half of the
+community, but they are also to become the future citizens of the
+republic. What we learn in youth is likely to make a more marked and
+lasting impression than what we may acquire in later years. And the
+public library should be viewed as the most important and necessary
+adjunct of the school, in the instruction and improvement of the young.
+Each is adapted to supply what the other lacks. The school supplies oral
+instruction and public exercises in various departments of learning; but
+it has few or no books, beyond the class text-books which are used in
+these instructions. The library, on the other hand, is a silent school of
+learning, free to all, and supplying a wide range of information, in
+books adapted to every age. It thus supplements, and in proportion to the
+extent and judicious choice of its collections, helps to complete that
+education, which the school falls short of. In this view, we see the
+great importance of making sure that the public library has not only a
+full supply of the best books in every field, avoiding (as previously
+urged) the bad or the inferior ones, but also that it has the best
+juvenile and elementary literature in ample supply. This subject of
+reading for the young has of late years come into unprecedented
+prominence. Formerly, and even up to the middle of our century, very
+slight attention was paid to it, either by authors or readers. Whole
+generations had been brought up on the New England Primer, with its
+grotesque wood-cuts, and antique theology in prose and verse, with a few
+moral narratives in addition, as solemn as a meeting-house, like the
+"Dairyman's Daughter," the "History of Sandford and Merton," or "The
+Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." Very dreary and melancholy do such books
+appear to the frequenters of our modern libraries, filled as they now are
+with thousands of volumes of lively and entertaining juvenile books.
+
+The transition from the old to the new in this class of literature was
+through the Sunday-school and religious tract society books, professedly
+adapted to the young. While some of these had enough of interest to be
+fairly readable, if one had no other resource, the mass were irredeemably
+stale and poor. The mawkishness of the sentiment was only surpassed by
+the feebleness of the style. At last, weary of the goody-goody and
+artificial school of juvenile books, which had been produced for
+generations, until a surfeit of it led to something like a nausea in the
+public mind, there came a new type of writers for the young, who at least
+began to speak the language of reason. The dry bones took on some
+semblance of life and of human nature, and boys and girls were painted as
+real boys and genuine girls, instead of lifeless dolls and manikins. The
+reformation went on, until we now have a world of books for the young to
+choose from, very many of which are fresh and entertaining.
+
+But the very wealth and redundancy of such literature is a new
+embarrassment to the librarian, who must indispensably make a selection,
+since no library can have or ought to have it all. Recurring to the
+function of the public library as the coadjutor of the school, let us see
+what classes of books should form essential parts of its stores.
+
+1. As geography, or an account of the earth on which we live, is a
+fundamental part of education, the library should possess a liberal
+selection of the best books in that science. The latest general gazetteer
+of the world, the best modern and a good ancient atlas, one or more of
+the great general collections of voyages, a set of Baedeker's admirable
+and inexpensive guide books, and descriptive works or travels in nearly
+all countries--those in America and Europe predominating--should be
+secured. The scholars of all grades will thus be able to supplement their
+studies by ready reference, and every part of the globe will lie open
+before them, as it were, by the aid of the library.
+
+2. The best and latest text-books in all the sciences, as geology,
+chemistry, natural history, physics, botany, agriculture, mechanic arts,
+mathematics, mental and moral science, architecture, fine arts, music,
+sociology, political science, etc., should be accessible.
+
+3. Every important history, with all the latest manuals or elementary
+books in general and national history should be found.
+
+4. The great collections of biography, with separate lives of all noted
+characters, should be provided.
+
+5. Dictionaries, cyclopaedias, statistical annuals, and other books of
+reference will be needed in abundance.
+
+6. A small but select number of approved works in law, medicine, and
+theology should be embraced in the library.
+
+7. I need not add that the poets and novelists should be well
+represented, as that goes without saying in all popular libraries.
+
+And special attention should be paid to building up a collection of the
+best books for juvenile readers, such as have passed the ordeal of good
+critical judgment among the librarians, as eminently fit to be read.
+There are several useful catalogues of such reading, as: Caroline M.
+Hewins' "Books for the Young," G. E. Hardy's "Five Hundred Books for the
+Young," and the admirable "List of Books for Girls and Women" by Augusta
+H. Leypoldt and Geo. Iles, contributed to by many experts, and copiously
+supplied with notes describing the scope and quality of the books. The
+last two are published by the Library Bureau.
+
+With this broad equipment of the best books in every field, and vigilance
+in constant exercise to add fresh stores from the constantly appearing
+and often improved text-books in every science, the library will be a
+treasury of knowledge both for teachers and pupils in the schools. And
+the fact should not be overlooked, that there will be found as much
+growth for teachers as for scholars in such a collection of books. Very
+few teachers, save those of well-furnished minds and of much careful
+reading, are competent to guide their scholars into the highways and
+byways of knowledge, as the librarian should be able to do.
+
+To establish a relation of confidence and aid with teachers is the
+preliminary step to be taken in order to make the library at once
+practically useful to them and to their scholars. In case there are
+several public schools in charge of a general superintendent, that
+officer should be first consulted, and tendered the free aid of the
+library and its librarian for himself and the teachers. In some public
+libraries, the school superintendent is made an _ex officio_ member of
+the library board. Then suitable regulations should be mutually agreed
+upon, fixing the number of books to be drawn on account of the schools at
+any one time, and the period of return to the library. It is most usual
+to charge such books on teachers' cards, or account, to fix
+responsibility, although the teachers loan them to the scholars at their
+option.
+
+In places where there are no school libraries proper, the public library
+will need to provide a goodly number of duplicates, in order to meet the
+special school demand. This, however, will usually be of low-priced
+rather than costly books, as the elementary text-books do not draw
+heavily upon library funds.
+
+A very attractive feature in providing books for the young is the large
+number of illustrated books now available to all libraries. All the
+kingdoms of nature are depicted in these introductory manuals of science,
+rendering its pursuit more interesting, and cultivating the habits of
+observation of form and of proportion, in the minds of the young. Pupils
+who have never accomplished anything in school have been roused by
+interest in illustrated natural histories to take an eager interest in
+learning all about birds and animals. This always leads on and up to
+other study, since the mind that is once awakened to observation and to
+thought, needs only a slight guidance to develop an unappeasable hunger
+for finding out all about things.
+
+The ancient maxim that "it is only the first step that costs" is
+especially true in the great art of education. It matters little what it
+is that first awakens the intellect--the great fact is that it is
+awakened, and sleeps no more thenceforward. A mottled bird's egg, found
+on the way to school, excites the little finder to ascertain the name of
+the bird that laid it. The school or the teacher supplies no means of
+finding out, but the public library has books upon birds, with colored
+plates of their eggs, and an eager search ensues, until the young student
+is rewarded by finding the very bird, with its name, plumage, habits,
+size, and season, all described. That child has taken an enormous step
+forward on the road to knowledge, which will never be forgotten.
+
+Instances might be multiplied indefinitely of such valuable aids to
+research, afforded by libraries, all along the innumerable roads
+travelled by students of every age in search of information. One of the
+most profitable of school exercises is to take up successively the great
+men and notable women of the past, and, by the effective and practical
+aid of the libraries, to find out what is best worth knowing about
+Columbus, Franklin, Walter Scott, Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, Longfellow,
+Hawthorne, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, Victor Hugo, or others too numerous
+to name. Reading Longfellow's Evangeline will lead one to search out the
+history and geography of Acadia, and so fix indelibly the practical facts
+concerned, as well as the imagery of a fine poem. So in the notable
+events of history, if a study is made of the English Commonwealth, or the
+French Revolution, or the war between the United States and England in
+1812-15, the library will supply the student with copious materials for
+illustration.
+
+Not alone in the fields of science, history, and biography, but in the
+attractive fields of literature, also, can the libraries aid and
+supplement the teachings of the school. A fine poem, or a simple,
+humorous, or pathetic story, told with artless grace or notable literary
+skill, when read aloud by a teacher in school, awakens a desire in many
+to have the same book at home to read, re-read, and perhaps commit to
+memory the finer passages. What more inspiring or pleasing reading than
+some of Longfellow's poems, or the Vicar of Wakefield, or Milton's
+L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, or Saintine's Picciola, or selections from
+the poems of Holmes, Whittier, Kipling, or Lowell? For all these and
+similar wants, the library has an unfailing supply.
+
+As a practical illustration of the extensive, use of books by schools in
+some advanced communities, I may note that Librarian Green, of the
+Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, said in 1891 that his average daily
+account of the books loaned to schools in two busy winter months showed
+over 1,600 volumes thus in daily use. This too, was in addition to all
+that were drawn out by pupils on their own independent cards as
+borrowers. Such a record speaks volumes.
+
+In the same city, where the Massachusetts State Normal School is located,
+sixty-four per cent. of the scholars visited the library to look up
+subjects connected with their studies.
+
+A forcible argument for librarians taking an interest in reading for
+schools is that both parents and teachers often neglect to see that the
+young get only proper books to read. The children are themselves quite
+ignorant what to choose, and if left to themselves, are likely to choose
+unwisely, and to read story papers or quite unimproving books. Their
+parents, busied as they are, commonly give no thought to the matter, and
+are quite destitute of that knowledge of the various classes of books
+which it is the province of the librarian to know and to discriminate.
+Teachers themselves do not possess this special knowledge, except in rare
+instances, and have to become far more conversant with libraries than is
+usual, in order to acquire it.
+
+That the very young, left to themselves, will choose many bad or
+worthless books is shown in the account of a principal of a school in San
+Francisco, who found that sixty per cent. of the books drawn from the
+public library by pupils had been dime novels, or other worthless
+literature. The wide prevalence of the dime novel evil appeared in the
+report of the reading of 1,000 boys in a western New York city. Out of
+this number, 472 (or nearly one-half) were in the habit of devouring this
+pernicious trash, procured in most cases by purchase at the news stands.
+The matter was taken up by teachers, and, by wise direction and by aid of
+the public library, the reading of these youthful candidates for
+citizenship was led into more improving fields. To lead a mind in the
+formative stage from the low to the high, from tales of wild adventure to
+the best stories for the young, is by no means difficult. Take a book
+that you know is wholesome and entertaining, and it will be eagerly read
+by almost every one. There is an endless variety of good books adapted to
+the most rudimentary capacity. Even young minds can become interested in
+the works of standard writers, if the proper selection is made. Wonderful
+is the stimulus which the reading of a purely written, fascinating book
+gives to the young mind. It opens the way for more books and for infinite
+growth. All that is needed is to set the youth in the right direction,
+and he will go forward with rapid strides of his own accord. This
+teaching how to read is really the most profitable part of any education.
+To recite endless lessons is not education: and one book eagerly read
+through, has often proved more valuable than all the text-books that ever
+were printed.
+
+
+THE USES OF THE LIBRARY TO THE UNIVERSITY.
+
+Closely allied to the benefits derived from the library by the teachers
+and scholars in public schools are its uses to all those engaged in the
+pursuit of higher education. For our colleges and universities and their
+researches, the library must have all that we have suggested as important
+for the schools, and a great deal more. The term university implies an
+education as broad as the whole world of books can supply: yet we must
+here meet with limitations that are inevitable. In this country we have
+to regret the application of the word "university" to institutions where
+the training is only academical, or at the highest, collegiate. The
+university, properly speaking, is an institution for the most advanced
+scholars or graduates of our colleges. Just as the college takes up and
+carries forward the training of those who have been through the academy,
+the seminary, or the high school, so it is the function of the university
+to carry forward (we will not say complete) the education of the graduate
+of the college. No education is ever completed: the doctor who has
+received the highest honors at the university has only begun his
+education--for that is to go on through life--and who knows how far
+beyond?
+
+Now the aid which a well equipped library can furnish to all these higher
+institutions of learning, the academy, the seminary, the college, and the
+university, is quite incalculable. Their students are constantly engaged
+upon themes which not only demand the text-books they study, but
+collateral illustrations almost without number. The professors, too, who
+impart instruction, perpetually need to be instructed themselves, with
+fuller knowledge upon the themes they are daily called upon to elucidate.
+There is no text-book that can teach all, or anywhere near all there is
+upon the subject it professes to cover. So the library, which has many
+books upon that subject, comes in to supply its deficiencies. And the
+librarian is useful to the professors and students just in proportion as
+he knows, not the contents, but the range of books upon each subject
+sought to be investigated. Here is where the subject catalogue, or the
+dictionary catalogue, combining the subjects and the authors under a
+single alphabet, comes into play. But, as no catalogue of subjects was
+ever yet up to date in any considerable library, the librarian should be
+able to supplement the catalogue by his own knowledge of later works in
+any line of inquiry.
+
+The most profitable studies carried on in libraries are, beyond all
+question, what we may term topical researches. To pursue one subject
+though many authorities is the true way to arrive at comprehensive
+knowledge. And in this kind of research, the librarian ought to be better
+equipped than any who frequent his library. Why? Simply because his
+business is bibliography; which is not the business of learned
+professors, or other scholars who visit the library.
+
+The late Librarian Winsor said that he considered the librarian's
+instruction far more valuable than that of the specialist. And this may
+be owing largely to the point of view, as well as to the training, of
+each. The specialist, perhaps, is an enthusiast or a devotee to his
+science, and so apt to give undue importance to the details of it, or to
+magnify some one feature: the librarian, on the other hand, who is
+nothing if not comprehensive, takes the larger view of the wide field of
+literature on each subject, and his suggestions concerning sources of
+information are correspondingly valuable.
+
+In those constantly arising questions which form the subjects of essays
+or discussions in all institutions of learning, the well-furnished
+library is an unfailing resource. The student who finds his unaided mind
+almost a blank upon the topic given out for treatment, resorts at once to
+the public library, searches catalogues, questions the librarian, and
+surrounds himself with books and periodicals which may throw light upon
+it. He is soon master of facts and reasonings which enable him to start
+upon a train of thought that bears fruit in an essay or discourse. In
+fact, it may be laid down as an axiom, that nearly every new book that is
+written is indebted to the library for most of its ideas, its facts, or
+its illustrations, so that libraries actually beget libraries.
+
+Some of the endlessly diversified uses of a well-equipped library, not
+only to scholars but to the general public, may here be referred to.
+Among the most sought for sources of information, the periodical press,
+both of the past and the current time, holds a prominent rank. When it is
+considered how far-reaching are the fields embraced in the wide range of
+these periodicals, literary, religious, scientific, political, technical,
+philosophical, social, medical, legal, educational, agricultural,
+bibliographical, commercial, financial, historical, mechanical, nautical,
+military, artistic, musical, dramatic, typographical, sanitary, sporting,
+economic, and miscellaneous, is it any wonder that specialists and
+writers for the press seek and find ready aid therein for their
+many-sided labors?
+
+To the skeptical mind, accustomed to undervalue what does not happen to
+come within the range of his pet idols or pursuits, the observation of a
+single day's multifold research in a great library might be in the nature
+of a revelation. Hither flock the ever-present searchers into family
+history, laying under contribution all the genealogies and town and
+county histories which the country has produced. Here one finds an
+industrious compiler intent upon the history of American duels, for which
+the many files of Northern and Southern newspapers, reaching back to the
+beginning of the century, afford copious material. At another table sits
+a deputation from a government department, commissioned to make a record
+of all notable strikes and labor troubles for a series of years, to be
+gleaned from the columns of the journals of leading cities.
+
+An absorbed reader of French romances sits side by side with a clergyman
+perusing homilies, or endeavoring to elucidate, through a mass of
+commentators, a special text. Here are to be found ladies in pursuit of
+costumes of every age; artists turning over the great folio galleries of
+Europe for models or suggestions; lawyers seeking precedents or leading
+cases; journalists verifying dates, speeches, conventions, or other
+forgotten facts; engineers studying the literature of railways or
+machinery; actors or amateurs in search of plays or works on the dramatic
+art; physicians looking up biographies of their profession or the history
+of epidemics; students of heraldry after coats of arms; inventors
+searching the specifications and drawings of patents; historical students
+pursuing some special field in American or foreign annals; scientists
+verifying facts or citations by original authorities; searchers tracing
+personal residences or deaths in old directories or newspapers; querists
+seeking for the words of some half-remembered passage in poetry or prose,
+or the original author of one of the myriad proverbs which have no
+father; architects or builders of houses comparing hundreds of designs
+and models; teachers perusing works on education or comparing text-books
+new or old; readers absorbing the great poems of the world; writers in
+pursuit of new or curious themes among books of antiquities or folk-lore;
+students of all the questions of finance and economic science;
+naturalists seeking to trace through many volumes descriptions of
+species; pursuers of military or naval history or science; enthusiasts
+venturing into the occult domains of spiritualism or thaumaturgy;
+explorers of voyages and travels in every region of the globe; fair
+readers, with dreamy eyes, devouring the last psychological novel;
+devotees of musical art perusing the lives or the scores of great
+composers; college and high-school students intent upon "booking up" on
+themes of study or composition or debate; and a host of other seekers
+after suggestion or information in a library of encyclopedic range.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15.
+
+THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES.
+
+
+The Library, from very early times, has enlisted the enthusiasm of the
+learned, and the encomiums of the wise. The actual origin of the earliest
+collection of books (or rather of manuscripts) is lost in the mists of
+remote antiquity. Notwithstanding professed descriptions of several
+libraries found in Aulus Gellius, Athenaeus, and others, who wrote
+centuries after the alleged collections were made, we lack the convincing
+evidence of eye-witnesses and contemporaries. But so far as critical
+research has run, the earliest monuments of man which approached
+collections of written records are found not in Europe, but in Africa and
+Asia.
+
+That land of wonders, Egypt, abounds in hieroglyphic inscriptions, going
+back, as is agreed by modern scholars, to the year 2000 before the
+Christian era. A Papyrus manuscript, too, exists, which is assigned to
+about 1600 B. C. And the earliest recorded collection of books in the
+world, though perhaps not the first that existed, was that of the
+Egyptian king Ramses I.--B. C. 1400, near Thebes, which Diodorus Siculus
+says bore the inscription "Dispensary of the soul." Thus early were books
+regarded as remedial agents of great force and virtue.
+
+But before the library of Ramses the Egyptian king, there existed in
+Babylonia collections of books, written not on parchment, nor on the more
+perishable papyrus, but on clay. Whole poems, fables, laws, and hymns of
+the gods have been found, stamped in small characters upon baked bricks.
+These clay tablets or books were arranged in numerical order, and the
+library at Agane, which existed about 2000 B. C. even had a catalogue, in
+which each piece of literature was numbered, so that readers had only to
+write down the number of the tablet wanted, and the librarian would hand
+it over. Two of these curious poems in clay have been found intact, one
+on the deluge, the other on the descent of Istar into Hades.
+
+The next ancient library in point of time yet known to us was gathered in
+Asia by an Assyrian King, and this collection has actually come down to
+us, _in propria persona_. Buried beneath the earth for centuries, the
+archaeologist Layard discovered in 1850 at Nineveh, an extensive
+collection of tablets or tiles of clay, covered with cuneiform
+characters, and representing some ten thousand distinct works or
+documents. The Assyrian monarch Sardanapalus, a great patron of letters,
+was the collector of this primitive and curious library of clay. He
+flourished about 1650 B. C.
+
+In Greece, where a copious and magnificent literature had grown up
+centuries before Christ, Pisistratus collected a library at Athens, and
+died B. C. 527. When Xerxes captured Athens, this collection, which
+represents the earliest record of a library dedicated to the public, was
+carried off to Persia, but restored two centuries later. The renowned
+philosopher Aristotle gathered one of the largest Greek libraries, about
+350 B. C. said to have embraced about 1400 volumes, or rather, rolls.
+Plato called Aristotle's residence "the house of the reader." This
+library, also, was carried off to Scepsis, and later by the victorious
+Sulla to Rome. History shows that the Greek collections were the earliest
+"travelling libraries" on record, though they went as the spoils of war,
+and not to spread abroad learning by the arts of peace.
+
+Rome having conquered Athens, we hear no more of the Athenian libraries,
+but the seat of ancient learning was transferred to Alexandria, where
+were gathered under the liberal sway of the Ptolemies, more books than
+had ever been assembled together in any part of the world. Marc Antony
+presented to Cleopatra the library of the Kings of Pergamus, said to have
+contained 200,000 rolls. There is no space to sketch the ancient
+libraries, so scantily commemorated, of Greece. Through Aristotle's
+enthusiasm for learning, as it is believed, the Ptolemies were fired with
+the zeal of book-collecting, and their capital of Alexandria became the
+seat of extensive libraries, stored in the Brucheion and the Serapeum.
+Here, according to general belief, occurred the burning of the famous
+Alexandrian library of 700,000 volumes, by the Saracens under Omar, A. D.
+640. If any one would have an object lesson in the uncertainties of
+history and of human testimony, let him read the various conflicting
+accounts of the writers who have treated upon this subject. The number of
+volumes varies from 700,000, as stated by Aulus Gellius, to 100,000 by
+Eusebius. The fact that in ancient times each book or division of an
+author's work written on a roll of papyrus was reckoned as a volume, may
+account for the exaggeration, since the nine books of Herodotus would
+thus make nine volumes, and the twenty-four of Homer's Iliad, twenty-four
+volumes, instead of one. So, by an arbitrary application of averages, the
+size of the Alexandrian Library might be brought within reasonable
+dimensions, though there is nothing more misleading than the doctrine of
+averages, unless indeed it be a false analogy. But that any library eight
+hundred years before the invention of printing contained 700,000 volumes
+in the modern sense of the word, when the largest collection in the
+world, three centuries after books began to be multiplied by types, held
+less than 100,000 volumes, is one of the wildest fictions which writers
+have imposed upon the credulity of ages.
+
+I cannot even touch upon the libraries of the Romans, though we have very
+attractive accounts, among others, of the literary riches of Lucullus, of
+Atticus, and of Cicero. The first library in Rome was founded 167 B. C.
+and in the Augustan age they multiplied, until there were twenty-nine
+public libraries in Hadrian's time, 120 A. D. The emperor Julian, in the
+fourth century, was a founder of libraries, and is said to have placed
+over the doors this inscription: "_Alii quidem equos amant, alii oves,
+alii feros; mihi vero a puerulo mirandum acquirendi et possidendi libros
+insedit desiderium._"
+
+The libraries of the middle ages were neither large nor numerous. The
+neglect of learning and of literature was wide-spread; only in the
+monasteries of Europe were to be found scholars who kept alive the sacred
+flame. In these were renewed those fruitful labors of the _scriptorium_
+which had preserved and multiplied so many precious books in classic
+times among the Romans. The monks, indeed, were not seldom creators as
+well as copyists, though the works which they composed were mainly
+theological (as became their sacred profession and ascetic life). The
+Latin, however, being the almost universal language for so many
+centuries, the love of learning conspired to widen the field of monastic
+study. Many zealous ecclesiastics were found who revived the classic
+authors, and copies of the works of poets, historians, philosophers and
+rhetoricians were multiplied. Then were gradually formed those monastic
+libraries to which so many thousands of mediaeval scholars owed a debt of
+gratitude. The order of Benedictines took a leading and effective part in
+this revival of learning. Taxes were levied on the inmates of monasteries
+expressly for furnishing the library with books, and the novices in many
+houses must contribute writing materials upon entering, and books at the
+close of their novitiate, for the enrichment of the library. Among
+notably valuable libraries, several of which still survive, were those of
+Monte Cassino in Italy, the Abbey of Fleury in France, St. Gall in
+Switzerland, and that of the illustrious congregation of St. Maur in
+France. The latter had at one time no less than one hundred and seven
+writers engaged in multiplying books.
+
+The first library in England is recorded (in the Canterbury Chartulary)
+to have been given by Pope Gregory the Great, and brought by St.
+Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, on his mission to England
+about A. D. 600. It consisted of nine precious volumes on vellum, being
+copies of parts of the Scriptures, with commentaries, and a volume of
+Lives of the Martyrs. The library of the Benedictine Monastery at
+Canterbury had grown in the 13th century to 3000 titles, being very rich
+in theology, but with many books also in history, poetry and science. At
+York had been founded, in the 8th century, a noble library by Archbishop
+Egbert, and the great scholar Alcuin here acquired, amidst that "infinite
+number of excellent books," his life-long devotion to literature. When he
+removed to Tours, in France, he lamented the loss of the literary
+treasures of York, in a poem composed of excellent hexameters. He begged
+of Charlemagne to send into Britain to procure books, "that the garden of
+paradise may not be confined to York."
+
+Fine libraries were also gathered at the monasteries of Durham, of
+Glastonbury, and of Croyland, and at the Abbeys of Whitby and
+Peterborough.
+
+Nor were the orders of Franciscans and Dominicans far behind as
+book-collectors, though they commonly preferred to buy rather than to
+transcribe manuscripts, like the Benedictines. "In every convent of
+friars," wrote Fitzralph to the Pope, in 1350, "there is a large and
+noble library." And Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Chancellor of
+England in 1334, whose "Philobiblon" is the most eloquent treatise in
+praise of books ever written, said, when visiting places where the
+mendicants had convents; "there amid the deepest poverty, we found the
+most precious riches stored up." The Pope, it appears, relaxed for these
+orders the rigor of their vows of poverty, in favor of amassing
+books--mindful, doubtless, of that saying of Solomon the wise--"Therefore
+get wisdom, because it is better than gold."
+
+Richard de Bury, the enthusiast of learning, wrote thus:
+
+"The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and
+nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it.
+Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of
+the truth, of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith,
+must of necessity make himself a lover of books."
+
+And said Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich--"I can wonder at nothing more
+than how a man can be idle--but of all others a scholar; in so many
+improvements of reason, in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety
+of studies, in such importunity of thoughts. To find wit in poetry; in
+philosophy profoundness; in history wonder of events; in oratory, sweet
+eloquence; in divinity, supernatural light and holy devotion--whom would
+it not ravish with delight?"
+
+Charles the Fifth of France amassed a fine library, afterwards sold to an
+English nobleman. Lorenzo de Medici, of Hungary, and Frederic Duke of
+Urbino, each gathered in the 15th century a magnificent collection of
+books. All of these became widely dispersed in later years, though the
+manuscripts of the Duke of Urbino's collection are preserved in the
+library of the Vatican.
+
+I may here note a very few of the most extensive library collections now
+existing in Europe and America.
+
+1. Of the great public libraries of Europe, which owe much of their
+riches to the government privilege of the copy-tax, the national library
+of France is the oldest and the largest, now numbering two million six
+hundred thousand volumes. Founded in the 15th century, it has had four
+hundred years of opportunity for steady and large increase. Paris abounds
+in other public libraries also, in which respect it is far superior to
+London.
+
+2. Next to the Bibliothèque nationale of France, comes the Library of the
+British Museum, with 2,000,000 volumes, very rich both in manuscripts and
+in printed books in all languages. A liberal Parliamentary grant of
+$60,000 a year for purchase of books and manuscripts keeps this great
+collection well up to date as to all important new works, besides
+enabling it constantly to fill up deficiencies in the literature of the
+past. Following this, among the great libraries having over half a
+million books, come in numerical order
+
+                                                  Volumes.
+ 3. Russian Imperial Library, St. Petersburg,    1,200,000
+ 4. Royal Library of Prussia, Berlin,            1,000,000
+ 5. Royal Library of Bavaria, Munich,              980,000
+ 6. Library of Congress, Washington City,          840,000
+ 7. Boston Public Library,                         734,000
+ 8. University Library, Strasburg, Germany,        700,000
+ 9. Imperial Public Library, Vienna,               575,000
+10. Bodleian Library, Oxford                       530,000
+
+It is a notable fact that among the richest monuments of learning that
+have been gathered by mankind, the University libraries hold a very high
+rank. Reckoned in number of volumes, there are many of them which far
+outrank the government libraries, except in six instances. Out of 174
+libraries, all exceeding 100,000 volumes, as reported in the annual
+_Minerva_, in October, 1898, no less than 72 are the libraries of
+universities. Strasburg heads the list, with a noble collection of
+700,000 volumes; then Oxford university, whose Bodleian library numbers
+530,000; Leipzig university, 504,000; Cambridge university, England,
+Göttingen university, and Harvard university, 500,000 each; the
+university of Vienna, 475,000; the universities of Heidelberg and of
+Munich, 400,000 each; Ghent and Würzburg universities, 350,000 each;
+Christiania, Norway, university, and Tübingen, each 340,000; University
+of Chicago, 330,000; Copenhagen university, 305,000; Breslau, Cracow,
+Rostock and Upsala, 300,000 each; Yale university, New Haven, 280,000;
+St. Petersburg, 257,000; Bologna, 255,000; Freiburg and Bonn
+universities, 250,000 each; Prague, 245,000; Trinity, Dublin, 232,000;
+Königsberg, 231,000; Kiel, 229,000; Naples, 224,000; and Buda-Pest,
+210,000. I need not detain you by enumerating those that fall below
+200,000 volumes, but will say that the whole number of volumes in the 72
+university libraries embraced in my table is more than fifteen millions,
+which would be much enlarged if smaller libraries were included. A noble
+exhibit is this, which the institutions of the highest education hold up
+before us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We may now consider, somewhat more in detail as to particulars, the
+origin and growth of the libraries of the United States. The record will
+show an amazingly rapid development, chiefly accomplished during the last
+quarter of a century, contrasted with the lamentably slow growth of
+earlier years.
+
+Thirty years ago the present year, I was invited to give to the American
+Social Science Association, then meeting at New York, a discourse upon
+Public Libraries in the United States. On recurring to this address, I
+have been agreeably surprised to find how completely its facts and
+figures belong to the domain of ancient history. For, while it may excite
+a smile to allude to anything belonging to a period only thirty years
+back as ancient history, yet, so rapid has been the accumulation, not
+only of books, but of libraries themselves in that brief period of three
+decades, as almost to justify the term employed.
+
+Antiquarians must ever regard with interest the first efforts for the
+establishment of public libraries in the New World. The first record of
+books dedicated to a public purpose in that part of this country now
+occupied by the English-speaking race is, I believe, to be found in the
+following entry in the Records of the Virginia Company of London:
+
+"November 15, 1620.--After the Acts of the former Courte were read, a
+straunger stept in presentinge a Mapp of S^r Walter Rawlighes contayinge
+a Descripcon of Guiana, and with the same fower great books as the Guifte
+of one unto the Company that desyred his name might not be made knowne,
+whereof one booke was a treatise of St. Augustine of the Citty of God
+translated into English, the other three greate Volumes wer the works of
+Mr. Perkins' newlie corrected and amended, wch books the Donor desyred
+they might be sent to the Colledge in Virginia there to remayne in saftie
+to the use of the collegiates thereafter, and not suffered at any time to
+be sent abroade or used in the meane while. For wch so worthy a guifte my
+Lord of Southampton desyred the p'tie that presented them to returne
+deserued thanks from himselfe and the rest of the Company to him that had
+so kindly bestowed them."[1]
+
+The college here referred to was the first ever founded in America, and
+was seated at Henrico, at the confluence of the James River with the
+Chickahominy. It was designed not only for the education of the Virginia
+settlers, but to teach science and Christianity to the Indians. Large
+contributions were raised in England by Sir Edwin Sandys, and others of
+the Virginia Company, for its support. But this Virginia college and its
+incipient library were doomed to a speedy extinction. Like so many other
+brilliant "prospects for planting arts and learning in America," it did
+not survive the perils of the colonial epoch. It was brought to a period
+by the bloody Indian massacre of March 22, 1622, when three hundred and
+forty-seven of the Virginia settlers were slaughtered in a day, the new
+settlement broken up, and the expanding lines of civilization contracted
+to the neighborhood of Jamestown.
+
+Harvard University Library was founded in 1638 by the endowment of John
+Harvard, who bequeathed to the new college his library and half of his
+estate. Soon afterwards enriched by the zealous contributions of English
+Puritans and philosophers, of Berkeley, and Baxter, and Lightfoot, and
+Sir Kenelm Digby, the first university library in America, after a
+century and a quarter of usefulness, was totally destroyed with the
+college edifice in the year 1764 by fire. When we contemplate the ravages
+of this element, which has consumed so many noble libraries, destroying
+not only printed books of priceless value, but often precious manuscripts
+which are unique and irreplaceable, a lively sense of regret comes over
+us that these creations of the intellect, which should be imperishable,
+are even yet at the mercy of an accident in all the libraries of the
+world save a very few. The destruction of books in private hands is
+natural and inevitable enough, and goes on continually. Whole editions of
+books, now sought with avidity as the rarest volumes known to literature,
+have been gradually destroyed in innumerable fires, worn out in the hands
+of readers, used for waste paper by grocers and petty tradesmen,
+swallowed up in the sack of towns, or consumed by dampness, mould, or, in
+rare instances, by the remorseless tooth of time. Yet there have always
+existed public libraries enough, had they been fire-proof, to have
+preserved many copies of every book bequeathed to the world, both before
+the invention of printing and since. But, when your insurance office is
+bankrupt, what becomes of the insured? When nearly all our public
+libraries are so constructed as to become an easy prey to the flames, the
+loss of so many books which have completely perished from the earth
+ceases to be wonderful.
+
+The growth of Harvard University library, from its second foundation a
+century ago, has been steady, though at no time rapid. Select and
+valuable in its principal contents, it has received numerous benefactions
+from the friends of learning, and promises to become the best, as it
+already is much the largest, among the university libraries of the
+country. Its present strength is about 500,000 volumes.
+
+The year 1700 witnessed the birth of the first New York library open to
+public use. The Rev. John Sharp, then chaplain of His Majesty's forces in
+that city (it was in the days of good King William of Orange), bequeathed
+his private collection of books to found a "public library" in New York.
+The library thus organized was placed in charge of the corporation of the
+city, but the first city library of New York languished with little or no
+increase until 1754, when a society of gentlemen undertook to found a
+public library by subscription, and succeeded so well that the city
+authorities turned over to them what remained of the Public City Library.
+This was the beginning of the New York Society Library, one of the
+largest of the proprietary libraries of the country. It was then, and for
+a long time afterwards, commonly known as "The City Library." The
+Continental Congress profited by its stores, there being no other library
+open to their use; and the First Congress under the Constitution, which
+met in New York in 1789, received the free use of the books it contained.
+The library is conducted on the share system, the payment of twenty-five
+dollars, and an annual assessment of six dollars, giving any one the
+privilege of membership. It now contains about 100,000 volumes.
+
+The same year, 1700, in which the New York Library was founded, ten
+Connecticut ministers met together at Lyme, each bringing a number of
+books, and saying, "I give these books for the founding of a college in
+this colony." Such was the foundation of Yale University, an institution
+that has done inestimable service to the cause of letters, having been
+fruitful of writers of books, as well as of living contributions to the
+ranks of every learned profession. Thirty years later, we find the good
+Bishop Berkeley pausing from the lofty speculations which absorbed him,
+to send over to Yale College what was called "the finest collection of
+books that ever came together at one time into America." For a century
+and a half the growth of this library was very slow, the college being
+oppressed with poverty. In 1869, the number of volumes had risen only to
+50,000, but it is cheering to relate that the last thirty years have
+witnessed a growth so rapid that in 1899 Yale University Library had
+285,000 volumes.
+
+The fourth considerable library founded in the United States was due in a
+large degree to the industry and zeal for knowledge of the illustrous
+Franklin. As unquestionably the first established proprietary library in
+America, the Library Company of Philadelphia merits especial notice. Let
+us reverently take a leaf out of the autobiography of the
+printer-statesman of Pennsylvania:
+
+"And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a
+subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by
+our great scrivener, Brockden, and by the help of my friends in the Junto
+[the Junto was a club for mutual improvement, founded by Franklin]
+procured fifty subscribers at forty shillings each to begin with, and ten
+shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue.
+We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one
+hundred; this was the mother of all the North American subscription
+libraries now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and
+continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general
+conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as
+intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have
+contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the
+colonies in defence of their privileges."
+
+When this Philadelphia Library was founded, in 1731, not a single city or
+town in England possessed a subscription library. Even the library of the
+British Museum, since become the greatest collection of books in the
+world, save one, was not opened until 1759, more than a quarter of a
+century afterwards. Although not designed as a public library of
+circulation, save to its own subscribers, the Philadelphia Library has
+been kept free to all for reference and consultation. The record of the
+gradual increase of the first Philadelphia Library from its first few
+hundred volumes, when Franklin was but twenty-five years of age, to its
+present rank as the largest proprietary library in America, with 195,000
+volumes of books, is highly interesting. Its history, in fact, is to a
+large extent the history of intellectual culture in Philadelphia, which
+remained, until the second decade in the present century, the foremost
+city of the Union in population, and, from 1791 to 1800, the seat of
+government of the United States.
+
+The Philadelphia Library Company, in 1774, voted that "the gentlemen who
+were to meet in Congress" in that city should be furnished with such
+books as they might have occasion for; and the same privilege was
+exercised on the return of the Government to that city, in 1791, and
+until the removal of Congress to Washington in 1800. During the nine
+months' occupation of Philadelphia by the British army, it is refreshing
+to read that the conquerors lifted no spear against the Muses' bower, but
+that "the officers, without exception, left deposits, and paid hire for
+the books borrowed by them." The collection, in respect of early printed
+books, is one of the largest and most valuable in America, embracing some
+books and files of newspapers which are to be found in no other public
+library. The selection of new books has been kept unusually free from the
+masses of novels and other ephemeral publications which overload most of
+our popular libraries, and the collection, although limited in extent in
+every field, and purposely leaving special topics, such as the medical
+and natural sciences, to the scientific libraries which abound in
+Philadelphia, affords to the man of letters a good working library. The
+shares in the library cost forty dollars, with an annual assessment of
+four dollars to each stockholder.
+
+In 1869, the great bequest of Doctor James Rush to the Philadelphia
+Library of his whole property, valued at over $1,000,000, was accepted by
+its stockholders, by the bare majority of five votes in a poll of over
+five hundred. This lack of harmony is attributable to the fact that the
+bequest, so generous in itself, was hampered by the donor with numerous
+conditions, deemed by many friends of the library to be highly onerous
+and vexatious. Not the least among these was the following, which is
+cited from the will itself:
+
+"Let the library not keep cushioned seats for time-wasting and lounging
+readers, nor places for every-day novels, mind-tainting reviews,
+controversial politics, scribblings of poetry and prose, biographies of
+unknown names, nor for those teachers of disjointed thinking, the daily
+newspapers."
+
+Here is one more melancholy instance of a broad and liberal bequest
+narrowly bestowed. The spirit which animated the respectable testator in
+attempting to exclude the larger part of modern literature from the
+library which his money was to benefit may have been unexceptionable
+enough. Doubtless there are evils connected with a public supply of
+frivolous and trifling literature; and perhaps our periodicals may be
+justly chargeable with devoting an undue proportion of their columns to
+topics of merely ephemeral interest. But it should never be forgotten
+that the literature of any period is and must be largely occupied with
+the questions of the day. Thus, and thus only, it becomes a
+representative literature, and it is precious to posterity in proportion
+as it accurately reflects the spirit, the prejudices, and the
+personalities of a time which has passed into history, leaving behind it
+no living representatives. If we admit that the development of the human
+intellect at any particular period is worth studying, then all books are,
+or may become, useful. It is amazing that a person with any pretensions
+to discernment should denounce newspapers as unfitted to form a part of a
+public library. The best newspapers of the time are sometimes the best
+books of the time. A first-class daily journal is an epitome of the
+world, recording the life and the deeds of men, their laws and their
+literature, their politics and religion, their social and criminal
+statistics, the progress of invention and of art, the revolutions of
+empires, and the latest results of science. Grant that newspapers are
+prejudiced, superficial, unfair; so also are books. Grant that the
+journals often give place to things scurrilous and base; but can there be
+anything baser or more scurrilous than are suffered to run riot in books?
+There is to be found hidden away in the pages of some books such filth as
+no man would dare to print in a newspaper, from fear of the instant wrath
+of the passers-by.
+
+When I consider the debt which libraries and literature alike owe to the
+daily and weekly press, it is difficult to characterize with patience the
+Parthian arrow flung at it from the grave of a querulous millionaire, who
+will owe to these very newspapers the greater part of his success and his
+reputation. The father of the respectable testator, Doctor Benjamin Rush,
+has left on record many learned speculations concerning the signs and
+evidences of lunacy. We may now add to the number the vagaries of the
+author of a ponderous work on the human intellect, who gravely proposed
+to hand over to posterity an expurgated copy of the nineteenth century,
+with all its newspapers left out.
+
+The Library of Congress, or, as it was called in its first general
+catalogue in 1815, "The Library of the United States," was founded in
+1800, by the purchase of five thousand dollars' worth of books by act of
+Congress, upon the removal of the government to Washington. By the act of
+January 26, 1802, entitled "An act concerning the Library for the use of
+both Houses of Congress," this library was placed in charge of a joint
+committee of both Houses of Congress, consisting of three Senators and
+three Representatives, and a Librarian, to be appointed by the President
+of the United States. It had grown to the number of only 3,000 volumes in
+1814, when the British army made a bonfire of our national Capitol, and
+the library was consumed in the ruins. The first library of Congress
+being thus destroyed, ex-President Jefferson, then living, involved in
+debt, and in his old age, at Monticello, offered his fine private library
+of 6,700 volumes to Congress, through friends in that body, the terms of
+payment to be made convenient to the public, and the price to be fixed by
+a committee. The proposition met with able advocacy and also with some
+warm opposition. It is illustrative of the crude conceptions regarding
+the uses of books which prevailed in the minds of some members, that the
+library was objected to on the somewhat incongruous grounds of embracing
+too many editions of the Bible, and a number of the French writers in
+skeptical philosophy. It was gravely proposed to pack up this portion of
+the library, and return it to the illustrious owner at Monticello, paying
+him for the remainder. More enlightened counsels, however, prevailed, and
+the nation became possessed, for about $23,000, of a good basis for a
+public library which might become worthy of the country. The collection
+thus formed grew by slow accretion until, in 1851, it had accumulated
+55,000 volumes. On the 24th of December in that year, a defective flue
+in the Capitol set fire to the wood-work with which the whole library was
+surrounded, and the result was a conflagration, from which 20,000 volumes
+only were saved. Congress at once appropriated, with praiseworthy
+liberality, $75,000 for the purchase of new books, and $92,500 for
+rebuilding the library room in solid iron; the first instance of the
+employment of that safe and permanent material, so capable of the
+lightest and most beautiful architectural effects, in the entire interior
+structure of any public building. The appropriation of $75,000 was
+principally expended in the purchase of standard English literature,
+including complete sets of many important periodicals, and a selection of
+the more costly works in science and the fine arts. In 1866, two wings,
+each as large as the central library, and constructed of the same
+fire-proof material, were added to it, and quickly filled by the
+accession, the same year and the following, of two large libraries, that
+of the Smithsonian Institution, and the historical library of Peter
+Force, of Washington. The latter was the largest private library ever
+then brought together in the United States, but its chief value consisted
+in its possession of a very great proportion of the books relating to the
+settlement, history, topography, and politics of America, its 45,000
+pamphlets, its files of early newspapers of the Revolution, its early
+printed books, and its rich assemblage of maps and manuscripts, many of
+the latter being original autographs of the highest historical interest,
+including military letters and papers of the period of the American
+Revolution. The Smithsonian library, the custody of which was accepted by
+Congress as a trust, is rich in scientific works in all the languages of
+Europe, and forms an extensive and appropriate supplement to the Library
+of Congress, the chief strength of which lies in jurisprudence,
+political science, history, and books relating to America. Yet no
+department of literature or science has been left unrepresented in its
+formation, and the fact has been kept steadily in view that the Library
+of the Government must become, sooner or later, a universal one. As the
+only library which is entitled to the benefit of the copyright law, by
+which copies of each publication for which the Government grants an
+exclusive right must be deposited in the National Library, this
+collection must become annually more important as an exponent of the
+growth of American literature. This wise provision of law prevents the
+dispersion or destruction of books that tend continually to disappear; a
+benefit to the cause of letters, the full value of which it requires
+slight reflection to estimate.
+
+This National Library now embraces 840,000 volumes, besides about 250,000
+pamphlets. It is freely open, as a library of reference and reading, to
+the whole people; but the books are not permitted to be drawn out, except
+by Senators and Representatives and a few officials for use at the seat
+of government. Its new, commodious and beautiful building, which may
+fitly be called the book-palace of the American people, open day and
+evening to all comers, is a delight to the eye, and to the mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The library of the Boston Athenaeum originated, in the year 1806, with a
+society of gentlemen of literary tastes, who aimed at creating a
+reading-room for the best foreign and American periodicals, together with
+a library of books. To this a gallery of art was subsequently added. The
+undertaking proved at once successful, leaving us to wonder why
+cultivated Boston, though abounding in special and parish libraries,
+should so long have done without a good general library; New York having
+anticipated her by fifty-two years, and Philadelphia by three-quarters
+of a century. The Athenaeum Library is peculiarly rich in files of
+American newspapers, both old and new, and its collection of early
+pamphlets is one of the largest in the country. In literature and science
+it embraces a heavy proportion of the best books, its total number of
+volumes being reckoned at 190,000. Its collection of books, pamphlets,
+and newspapers relating to the recent civil war is among the completest
+known. The price of a share in the Athenaeum is three hundred dollars, a
+large sum when compared with that of other proprietary libraries; but it
+involves much more valuable property-rights than any other. The annual
+assessment is five dollars to shareholders, who alone possess the right
+to draw books. The proprietors have also the power to grant free
+admission to others, and the library and reading-room are thus thrown
+open for reference to a wide range of readers.
+
+The history of the Astor Library, opened in 1854, has been made too
+familiar by repeated publication to need repetition here. The generous
+founder gave two per cent. out of his fortune of $20,000,000 to create a
+free public library for the city which had given him all his wealth. The
+gift was a splendid one, greater than had ever before been given in money
+to found a library. Moreover, the $400,000 of Mr. Astor, half a century
+ago, appeared to be, and perhaps was, a larger sum relatively than four
+millions in New York of to-day. Yet it remains true that the bequest was
+but one-fiftieth part of the fortune of the donor, and that the growth
+and even the proper accommodation of the library must have stopped, but
+for the spontaneous supplementary gifts of the principal inheritors of
+his vast wealth.
+
+The growth of the Astor library has been very slow, the annual income
+from what was left of Mr. Astor's $400,000 bequest, after defraying the
+cost of the library building, and the $100,000 expended for books at its
+foundation in 1848, having been so small as to necessitate a pinching
+economy, both in salaries of the library staff, and in the annual
+purchase of books. It was an example of a generous act performed in a
+niggardly way. But after the lapse of half a century, enlightened public
+policy, building upon the Astor foundation, and on the Lenox and Tilden
+bequests for founding public libraries in New York city, is about to
+equip that long neglected city with a library worthy of the name. There
+has already been gathered from these three united benefactions, a
+collection of no less than 450,000 volumes, making the New York Public
+Library take rank as the fourth, numerically, in the United States.
+
+While no library in America has yet reached one million volumes, there
+are five libraries in Europe, which have passed the million mark. Some of
+these, it is true, are repositories of ancient and mediaeval literature,
+chiefly, with a considerable representation of the books of the last
+century, and but few accessions from the more modern press. Such, for the
+most part, are the numerous libraries of Italy, while others, like the
+Library of the British Museum, in London, and the National Library, at
+Paris, are about equally rich in ancient and modern literature. The one
+great advantage which European libraries possess over American consists
+in the stores of ancient literature which the accumulations of the past
+have given them. This advantage, so far as manuscripts and early printed
+books are concerned, can never be overcome. With one or two hundred
+thousand volumes as a basis, what but utter neglect can prevent a library
+from becoming a great and useful institution? The most moderate share of
+discrimination, applied to the selection of current literature, will keep
+up the character of the collection as a progressive one. But with nothing
+at all as a basis, as most of our large American libraries have started,
+it will take generations for us to overtake some of the vast collections
+of Europe--even numerically.
+
+In the "American Almanac" for 1837 was published the earliest statistical
+account of American libraries which I have found. It is confined to a
+statement of the numerical contents of twenty public and university
+libraries, being all the American libraries which then (sixty years
+since) contained over 10,000 volumes each. The largest library in the
+United States at that date was that of the Philadelphia Library Company,
+which embraced 44,000 volumes. The first organized effort to collect the
+full statistics of libraries in the United States was made in 1849, by
+Professor C. C. Jewett, then librarian of the Smithsonian Institution,
+and the results were published in 1851, under the auspices of that
+institution, in a volume of 207 pages. It contains interesting notices of
+numerous libraries, only forty of which, however, contained as many as
+10,000 volumes each. In 1859, Mr. W. J. Rhees, of the Smithsonian
+Institution, published "A Manual of Public Libraries, Institutions, and
+Societies in the United States," a large volume of 687 pages, filled with
+statistical information in great detail, and recording the number of
+volumes in 1338 libraries. This work was an expansion of that of
+Professor Jewett. The next publication of the statistics of American
+Libraries, of an official character, was published in "The National
+Almanac," Philadelphia, for the year 1864, pp. 58-62, and was prepared by
+the present writer. It gave the statistics of 104 libraries, each
+numbering 10,000 volumes or upwards, exhibiting a gratifying progress in
+all the larger collections, and commemorating the more advanced and
+vigorous of the new libraries which had sprung into life.
+
+The work of collecting and publishing the statistics of American
+Libraries has for years past been admirably performed by the United
+States Bureau of Education. Begun in 1875, that institution has issued
+four tabular statements of all libraries responding to its circulars of
+inquiry, and having (as last reported in 1897) one thousand volumes or
+upwards. Besides these invaluable reports, costing much careful labor and
+great expense, the Bureau of Education published, in 1876, an extensive
+work wholly devoted to the subject of libraries, bearing the title
+"Special Report on Public Libraries in the United States." This
+publication (now wholly out of print) consisted of 1222 pages, replete
+with information upon the history, management, and condition of American
+Libraries, under the editorship of S. R. Warren and S. N. Clark, of the
+Bureau of Education. It embraced many original contributions upon topics
+connected with library science, by experienced librarians, _viz._:
+Messrs. W. F. Poole, Justin Winsor, C. A. Cutter, J. S. Billings, Theo.
+Gill, Melvil Dewey, O. H. Robinson, W. I. Fletcher, F. B. Perkins, H. A.
+Homes, A. R. Spofford, and others.
+
+I have prepared a table of the numerical contents of the thirty-four
+largest libraries in this country in 1897, being all those having 100,000
+volumes each or upwards:
+
+Library of Congress, Washington,                          840,000
+Boston Public Library, Boston,                            730,000
+Harvard University Library, Cambridge,                    510,000
+New York Public Library, New York City,                   450,000
+University of Chicago Library,                            335,000
+New York State Library, Albany,                           320,710
+Yale University Library, New Haven,                       285,000
+New York Mercantile Library, New York,                    270,000
+Columbia University Library, New York,                    260,000
+Chicago Public Library,                                   235,385
+Cincinnati Public Library,                                223,043
+Cornell University Library, Ithaca, N. Y.,                220,000
+Sutro Library, San Francisco,                             206,300
+Newberry Library, Chicago,                                203,108
+Philadelphia Library Company,                             200,000
+Philadelphia Mercantile Library,                          190,000
+Boston Athenaeum Library,                                 190,000
+Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore,                           185,902
+Philadelphia Mercantile Library,                          183,000
+Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Mich.,                   148,198
+University of Pennsylvania Library, Phila.,               140,000
+Princeton University Library, Princeton, N. J.,           135,000
+Pennsylvania State Library, Harrisburg,                   134,000
+Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore,                     130,000
+Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, O.,                  129,000
+St. Louis Public Library,                                 125,000
+Mechanics and Tradesmen's Library, New York,              115,185
+Free Public Library, Worcester, Mass.,                    115,000
+San Francisco Public Library,                             108,066
+Philadelphia Free Library,                                105,000
+American Antiquarian Society Library, Worcester, Mass.,   105,000
+California State Library, Sacramento,                     100,032
+Massachusetts State Library, Boston,                      100,000
+New York Society Library, New York,                       100,000
+
+Public libraries endowed by private munificence form already a large
+class, and these are constantly increasing. Of the public libraries
+founded by individual bequest, some of the principal are the Public
+Library of New York, the Watkinson Library, at Hartford, the Peabody
+Institute Libraries, of Baltimore, and at Danvers and Peabody, Mass., the
+Newberry Library and the John Crerar Library at Chicago, the Sutro
+Library, San Francisco, the Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore, and the
+Carnegie Libraries at Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, Pa. Nearly all of
+them are the growth of the last quarter of a century. The more prominent,
+in point of well equipped buildings or collections of books, are here
+named, including all which number ten thousand volumes each, or upwards,
+among the public libraries associated with the founder's name.
+
+New York Public Library (Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations),  450,000
+Newberry Library, Chicago,                                     203,100
+Sutro Library, San Francisco,                                  206,300
+Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore,                                185,900
+Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore,                          130,000
+Davenport Library, Bath, N. Y.,                                 90,000
+Silas Bronson Library, Waterbury, Conn.,                        52,000
+Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, N. Y.,                  51,000
+Watkinson Library, Hartford, Conn.,                             47,000
+Sage Library, New Brunswick, N. Y.,                             43,000
+Case Library, Cleveland, Ohio,                                  40,000
+Grosvenor Library, Buffalo, N. Y.,                              39,000
+Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.,                             36,000
+Cooper Union Library, New York,                                 34,000
+Fisk Free Public Library, New Orleans,                          33,000
+Peabody Institute Library, Peabody, Mass.,                      33,000
+Reynolds Library, Rochester, N. Y.,                             33,000
+Carnegie Free Library, Allegheny, Pa.,                          30,000
+Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, Vt.,                         30,000
+Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans,                           26,000
+Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Pa.,                              25,000
+Sage Public Library, West Bay City, Mich.,                      25,000
+Hoyt Public Library, Saginaw, Mich.,                            24,000
+Osterhout Free Library, Wilkesbarre, Pa.,                       24,000
+Seymour Library, Auburn, N. Y.,                                 24,000
+Hackley Public Library, Muskegon, Mich.,                        22,000
+Willard Library, Evansville, Ind.,                              22,000
+Otis Library, Norwich, Conn.,                                   21,000
+Morrison-Reeves Library, Richmond, Ind.,                        21,000
+Baxter Memorial Library, Rutland, Vt.,                          20,000
+Cornell Library Association, Ithaca, N. Y.,                     20,000
+Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy, Mass.,                     19,000
+Dimmick Library, Mauch Chunk, Pa.,                              18,000
+Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill.,                        17,000
+Peabody Institute Library, Danvers, Mass.,                      17,000
+Tufts Library, Weymouth, Mass.,                                 17,000
+Warder Public Library, Springfield, Ohio,                       17,000
+Withers Public Library, Bloomington, Ill.,                      15,000
+Cary Library, Lexington, Mass.,                                 15,000
+Fritz Public Library, Chelsea, Mass.,                           15,000
+Turner Free Library, Randolph, Mass.,                           15,000
+Ames Free Library, North Easton, Mass.,                         14,000
+Bigelow Free Library, Clinton, Mass.,                           14,000
+Clarke Public Library, Coldwater, Mich.,                        14,000
+Harris Institute Library, Woonsocket, R. I.,                    14,000
+Merrick Public Library, Brookfield, Mass.,                      14,000
+Robbins Library, Arlington, Mass.,                              14,000
+Nevins Memorial Library, Methuen, Mass.,                        14,000
+Sturgis Library, Barnstable, Mass.,                             13,000
+Birchard Library, Fremont, Ohio,                                12,500
+James Prendergast Library, Jamestown, N. Y.,                    12,500
+Rogers Free Library, Bristol, R. I.,                            12,300
+Abbott Public Library, Marblehead, Mass.,                       12,000
+Armour Institute, Chicago, Ill.,                                12,000
+Beebe Town Library, Wakefield, Mass.,                           12,000
+Carnegie Free Library, Braddock, Pa.,                           12,000
+Goodnow Library, South Sudbury, Mass.,                          12,000
+Millicent Library, Fairhaven, Mass.,                            12,000
+Thayer Public Library, South Braintree, Mass.,                  11,000
+Dyer Library, Saco, Maine,                                      10,500
+Cossit Library, Memphis, Tenn.,                                 10,000
+Gloucester (Mass.) Sawyer Free Library,                         10,000
+Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn.,                              10,000
+Parlin Memorial Library, Everett, Mass.,                        10,000
+Jennie D. Haynes Library, Alton, Ill.,                          10,000
+Hornell Free Library, Hornellsville, N. Y.,                     10,000
+
+Besides the preceding list, purposely confined to free libraries chiefly
+founded by individuals, which have reached the ten thousand volume mark,
+there are a multitude of others, too numerous to be named, having a less
+number of volumes. In fact, the public spirit which gives freely of
+private wealth to enlarge the intelligence of the community may be said
+to grow by emulation. Many men who have made fortunes have endowed their
+native places with libraries. It is yearly becoming more and more widely
+recognized that a man can build no monument to himself so honorable or so
+lasting as a free public library. Its influence is well nigh universal,
+and its benefits are perennial.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We now come to consider the city or town libraries, created or maintained
+by voluntary taxation. These, like the class of libraries founded by
+private munificence, are purely a modern growth. While the earliest
+movement in this direction in Great Britain dates back only to 1850, New
+Hampshire has the honor of adopting the first free public library law, in
+America, in the year 1849. Massachusetts followed in 1851, and the
+example was emulated by other States at various intervals, until there
+now remain but fifteen out of our forty-five States which have no public
+library law. The general provisions of these laws authorize any town or
+city to collect taxes by vote of the citizens for maintaining a public
+library, to be managed by trustees elected or appointed for the purpose.
+
+But a more far-reaching provision for supplying the people with public
+libraries was adopted by New Hampshire (again the pioneer State), in
+1895. This was nothing less than the passage of a State law making it
+compulsory on every town in New Hampshire to assess annually the sum of
+thirty dollars for every dollar of public taxes apportioned to such town,
+the amount to be appropriated to establish and maintain a free public
+library. Library trustees are to be elected, and in towns where no public
+library exists, the money is to be held by them, and to accumulate until
+the town is ready to establish a library.
+
+This New Hampshire statute, making obligatory the supply of public
+information through books and periodicals in free libraries in every
+town, may fairly be termed the high-water mark of modern means for the
+diffusion of knowledge. This system of creating libraries proceeds upon
+the principle that intellectual enlightenment is as much a concern of the
+local government as sanitary regulations or public morality. Society has
+an interest that is common to all classes in the means that are provided
+for the education of the people. Among these means free town or city
+libraries are one of the most potent and useful. New Hampshire and
+Massachusetts, in nearly all of their towns and cities, have recognized
+the principle that public books are just as important to the general
+welfare as public lamps. What are everywhere needed are libraries open to
+the people as a matter of right, and not as a matter of favor.
+
+The largest library in the country, save one (that at Washington), owes
+its origin and success to this principle, combined with some private
+munificence. The Boston Public Library is unquestionably one of the most
+widely useful collections of books open to the public in this country. Of
+all the greater collections, it is the only one which lends out books
+free of charge to all citizens. Instituted in 1852, its career has been
+one of rapid progress and ever widening usefulness. I shall not dwell
+upon it at length, as the facts regarding it have been more widely
+published than those relating to any other library.
+
+Under the permissive library laws of thirty States, there had been formed
+up to 1896, when the last comprehensive statistics were gathered, about
+1,200 free public libraries, supported by taxation, in the United States.
+
+A still more widely successful means of securing a library foundation
+that shall be permanent is found in uniting private benefactions with
+public money to found or to maintain a library. Many public-spirited
+citizens, fortunately endowed with large means, have offered to erect
+library buildings in certain places, on condition that the local
+authorities would provide the books, and the means of maintaining a free
+library. Such generous offers, whether coupled with the condition of
+perpetuating the donor's name with that of the library, or leaving the
+gift unhampered, so that the library may bear the name of the town or
+city of its location, have generally been accepted by municipal bodies,
+or by popular vote. This secures, in most cases, a good working library
+of choice reading, as well as its steady annual growth and management,
+free of the heavy expense of building, of which the tax-payers are
+relieved. The many munificent gifts of library buildings by Mr. Andrew
+Carnegie, to American towns and cities, and to some in his native
+Scotland, are worthy of special note. And the reader will see from the
+long list heretofore given of the more considerable public libraries to
+be credited wholly or in part to private munificence, that American men
+of wealth have not been wanting as public benefactors.
+
+In some cases, whole libraries have been given to a town or village where
+a public library already existed, or liberal gifts or bequests of money,
+to be expended in the enrichment of such libraries, have been bestowed.
+Very interesting lists of benefactions for the benefit of libraries may
+be found in the volumes of the Library Journal, New York. It is with
+regret that candor requires me to add, that several proffers of fine
+library buildings to certain places, coupled with the condition that the
+municipal authorities would establish and maintain a free library, have
+remained without acceptance, thus forfeiting a liberal endowment. Where
+public education has been so neglected as to render possible such a
+niggardly, penny-wise and pound-foolish policy, there is manifestly
+signal need of every means of enlightenment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We now come to the various State libraries founded at the public charge,
+and designed primarily for the use of the respective legislatures of the
+States. The earliest of these is the New Hampshire State Library,
+established in 1790, and the largest is the New York State Library, at
+Albany, founded in 1818, now embracing 325,000 volumes, and distinguished
+alike by the value of its stores and the liberality of its management.
+The reason for being of a State library is obviously and primarily to
+furnish the legislative body and State courts with such ample books of
+reference in jurisprudence, history, science, etc., as will aid them in
+the intelligent discharge of their duties as law-makers and judges of the
+law. The library thus existing at each State capital may well be opened
+to the public for reading and reference, thus greatly enlarging its
+usefulness.
+
+Every State in the Union has now at least a legislative library, although
+the most of them consist chiefly of laws and legislative documents, with
+a few works of reference superadded; and their direct usefulness to the
+public is therefore very circumscribed. The New York State Library is a
+model of what a great public library should be in the capital of a State.
+In it are gathered a great proportion of the best books in each
+department of literature and science, while indefatigable efforts have
+been made to enrich it in whatever relates to American history and
+polity. Its reading-room is freely opened to the public during many hours
+daily. But a State library should never be made a library of circulation,
+since its utility as a reference library, having its books always in for
+those who seek them, would thereby be destroyed. Even under the existing
+system, with the privilege of drawing books out confined to the
+Legislature, some of the State libraries have been depleted and despoiled
+of many of their most valuable books, through loaning them freely on the
+orders of members. The sense of responsibility is far less in the case of
+borrowed books which are government property, than in other cases. The
+only safe rule for keeping a government library from being scattered, is
+strict refusal of orders for loaning to any one not legally entitled to
+draw books, and short terms of withdrawal to legislators, with
+enforcement of a rule of replacement, at their expense, as to all books
+not returned at the end of each session.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is one class of libraries not yet touched upon, namely, school
+district libraries. These originated for the first time in a legally
+organized system, through an act of the New York State Legislature in
+1835, authorizing the voters in each school district to levy a tax of
+twenty dollars with which to start a library, and ten dollars a year for
+adding to the same. These were not to be for the schools alone, but for
+all the people living in the district where the school was located. This
+was supplemented in 1838 by a State appropriation of $55,000 a year, from
+New York's share of the surplus revenue fund distributed by Congress to
+the States in 1837, and the income of which was devoted by New York to
+enlarging the school district libraries. After spending nearly two
+millions of dollars on these libraries in forty years, the system was
+found to have been so far a failure that the volumes in the libraries had
+decreased from 1,600,000 to 700,000 volumes.
+
+This extraordinary and deplorable result was attributed to several
+distinct causes. 1st. No proper responsibility as to the use and return
+of books was enforced. 2d. The insignificance of the sum raised by
+taxation in each district prevented any considerable supply of books from
+being acquired. 3d. The funds were largely devoted to buying the same
+books in each school district, instead of being expended in building up a
+large and varied collection. Thus the system produced innumerable petty
+libraries of duplicates, enriching publishers and booksellers, while
+impoverishing the community. The school district library system, in
+short, while promising much in theory, in the way of public intelligence,
+broke down completely in practice. The people quickly lost interest in
+libraries which gave them so little variety in books, either of
+instruction or of recreation.
+
+Although widely introduced in other States besides New York, from 1837 to
+1877, it proved an admitted failure in all. Much public money, raised by
+taxation of the people, was squandered upon sets of books, selected by
+State authority, and often of inferior interest and utility. Finally, it
+was recognized that school district libraries were an evanescent dream,
+and that town libraries must take their place. This instructive chapter
+in Library history shows an experience by which much was learned, though
+the lesson was a costly one.
+
+The Historical libraries of the country are numerous, and some of the
+larger ones are rich in printed Americana, and in historical manuscripts.
+The oldest is that of the Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in
+1791, and among the most extensive are those of the New York Historical
+Society, American Antiquarian Society, the Historical Society of
+Pennsylvania, the New England Historic-genealogical Society, and the
+Wisconsin State Historical Society. There are no less than 230 historical
+societies in the U. S., some forty of which are State associations.
+
+The Mercantile libraries are properly a branch of the proprietary, though
+depending mostly upon annual subscriptions. The earliest of these was the
+Boston Mercantile Library, founded in 1820, and followed closely by the
+New York Mercantile the same year, the Philadelphia in 1821, and the
+Cincinnati Mercantile in 1835.
+
+Next we have the professional libraries, law, medical, scientific, and,
+in several cities, theological. These supply a want of each of these
+professions seldom met by the public collections, and are proportionately
+valuable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most recent plan for the wide diffusion of popular books is the
+travelling library. This originated in New York in 1893, when the
+Legislature empowered the Regents of the State University (a body of
+trustees having charge of all library interests in that State) to send
+out selections of books to any community without a library, on request of
+25 resident taxpayers. The results were most beneficial, the sole
+expense being five dollars for each library.
+
+Travelling libraries, (mostly of fifty volumes each) have been set on
+foot in Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and other
+States, and, as the system appears capable of indefinite expansion, great
+results are anticipated in the direction of the public intelligence. It
+is pointed out that while the State, by its free school system, trains
+all the people to read, it should not leave the quality of their reading
+to chance or to utter neglect, when a few cents _per capita_ annually
+would help them to an education of inestimable value in after life.
+
+Some objections, on the other hand, have been urged to the system, as
+introducing features of paternalism into State government, and taking out
+of the hands of individual generosity and local effort and enterprise
+what belongs properly to such agencies. The vexed question of the proper
+function and limitations of State control in the domain of education
+cannot here be entered upon.
+
+In the volume last published of statistics of American libraries, that of
+1897, great progress was shown in the five years since 1891. The record
+of libraries reported in 1896 embraced 4,026 collections, being all which
+contained over 1,000 volumes each. The increase in volumes in the five
+years was a little over seven millions, the aggregate of the 4,026
+libraries being 33,051,872 volumes. This increase was over 27 per cent.
+in only five years.
+
+If the good work so splendidly begun, in New England, New York,
+Pennsylvania, and some of the Western States, in establishing libraries
+through public taxation and private munificence, can only be extended in
+the Southern and Middle States, the century now about to dawn will
+witness an advance quite as remarkable as we have seen in the latter
+years of the century about to close.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] MS. Records of the Virginia Company, in the Library of Congress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16.
+
+LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND FURNISHINGS.
+
+
+Proceeding now to the subject of library buildings, reading-rooms, and
+furnishings, it must be remarked at the outset that very few rules can be
+laid down which are of universal application. The architectural plans,
+exterior and interior, of such great institutions as the Library of
+Congress, or the Boston Public Library, with their costly marbles,
+splendid mural decorations, and electric book-serving machinery, afford
+no model for the library building in the country village. Where the
+government of a nation or a wealthy city has millions to devote for
+providing a magnificent book-palace for its library, the smaller cities
+or towns have only a few thousands. So much the more important is it,
+that a thoroughly well-considered plan for building should be marked out
+before beginning to build, that no dollars should be wasted, or costly
+alterations required, in order to fit the interior for all the uses of a
+library.
+
+The need of this caution will be abundantly evident, in the light of the
+unfit and inconvenient constructions seen in so many public libraries,
+all over the country. So general has been the want of carefully planned
+and well-executed structures for books, that it may fairly be said that
+mistakes have been the rule, and fit adaptation the exception. For twenty
+years past, at every meeting of the American Library Association, the
+reports upon library buildings have deplored the waste of money in
+well-meant edifices designed to accommodate the library service, but
+successful only in obstructing it. Even in so recent a construction as
+the Boston Public Library building, so many defects and inconveniences
+were found after it was supposed to have been finished, that rooms had to
+be torn out and re-constructed on three floors, while the pneumatic tube
+system had been found so noisy as to be a public nuisance, and had to be
+replaced by a later improved construction.
+
+One leading cause for the mistakes which are so patent in our library
+buildings is that they are not planned by librarians but mainly by
+architects. The library authorities commonly take it for granted that the
+able architect is master of his profession, and entrust him with the
+whole design, leaving out of account the librarian, as a mere
+subordinate, entitled only to secondary consideration. The result is a
+plan which exhibits, in its prominent features, the architect's skill in
+effective pilasters, pillars, architraves, cornices, and balustrades,
+while the library apartments which these features ornament are planned,
+not for convenient and rapid book-service, but mainly for show. It is the
+interest of architects to magnify their profession: and as none of them
+has ever been, or ever will be a librarian, they cannot be expected to
+carry into effect unaided, what they have never learned; namely, the
+interior arrangements which will best meet the utilities of the library
+service. Here is where the librarian's practical experience, or his
+observation of the successes or failures in the reading-room and delivery
+service of other libraries, should imperatively be called in. Let him
+demonstrate to the governing board that he knows what is needed for
+prompt and economical administration, and they will heed his judgment, if
+they are reasonable men. While it belongs to the architect to plan,
+according to his own ideas, the outside of the building, the inside
+should be planned by the architect in direct concert with the librarian,
+in all save merely ornamental or finishing work.
+
+We do not erect a building and then determine whether it is to be a
+school house or a church: it is planned from the start with strict
+reference to the utilities involved; and so should it always be with a
+library.
+
+In treating this subject, I shall not occupy space in outlining the
+proper scheme of building and interior arrangement for a great library,
+with its many distinct departments, for such institutions are the
+exceptions, while most libraries come within the rule of very moderate
+size, and comparatively inexpensive equipment. The first requisite for a
+public library, then, is a good location. It is important that this
+should be central, but it is equally important that the building should
+be isolated--that is, with proper open space on all sides, and not
+located in a block with other buildings. Many libraries have been
+destroyed or seriously damaged by fire originating in neighboring
+buildings, or in other apartments in the same building; while fires in
+separate library buildings have been extremely rare. It would be a wise
+provision to secure a library lot sufficiently large in area to admit of
+further additions to the building, both in the rear and at the side; and
+with slight addition to the cost, the walls and their supports may be so
+planned as to admit of this. Committees are seldom willing to incur the
+expense of an edifice large enough to provide for very prolonged growth
+of their collection; and the result is that the country is full of
+overcrowded libraries, without money to build, and prevented from
+expanding on the spot because no foresight was exercised in the original
+construction or land purchase, to provide for ready increase of space by
+widening out, and removing an outer wall so as to connect the old
+building with the new addition. If a library has 10,000 volumes, it would
+be very short-sighted policy to plan an edifice to contain less than
+40,000, which it is likely to reach in from ten to forty years.
+
+The next requisite to a central and sufficient site is that the location
+must be dry and airy. Any low site, especially in river towns, will be
+damp, and among the enemies of books, moisture holds a foremost place.
+Next, the site should afford light on all sides, and if necessary to
+place it near any thoroughfare, it should be set back so as to afford
+ample light and ventilation in front.
+
+It need hardly be said that every library building should be fire-proof,
+after the many costly lessons we have had of the burning of public
+libraries at home and abroad. The material for the outside walls may be
+brick or stone, according to taste or relative cost. Brick is good
+enough, and if of the best quality, and treated with stone trimmings, is
+capable of sufficiently ornate effects, and is quite as durable as any
+granite or marble. No temptation of cheapness should ever be allowed to
+introduce wood in any part of the construction: walls, floors, and roof
+should be only of brick, stone, iron, or slate. A wooden roof is nothing
+but a tinder-box that invites the flames.
+
+In general, two stories is a sufficient height for library buildings,
+except in those of the largest class, and the upper floors may be amply
+lighted by sky-lights. The side-lights can hardly be too numerous: yet I
+have seen library buildings running back from a street fifty to
+seventy-five feet, without a single window in either of the side walls.
+The result was to throw all the books on shelves into a gloomy shade for
+many hours of each day.
+
+The interior construction should be so managed as to effect the finding
+and delivery of books to readers with the greatest possible economy of
+time and space. No shelves should be placed higher than can be reached by
+hand without mounting upon any steps or ladders; _i. e._, seven to seven
+and a half feet. The system of shelving should all be constructed of iron
+or steel, instead of surrounding the books on three sides with
+combustible wood, as is done in most libraries. Shelves of oxidized metal
+will be found smooth enough to prevent any abrasion of bindings. Shelves
+should be easily adjustable to any height, to accommodate the various
+sizes of books.
+
+In calculating shelf capacity, one and a half inches thickness a volume
+is a fair average, so that each hundred volumes would require about
+thirteen feet of linear shelf measurement. The space between uprights,
+that is, the length of each shelf, should not exceed two and a half feet.
+All spaces between shelves should be 10½ or 11 inches high, to
+accommodate large octavos indiscriminately with smaller sizes; and a base
+shelf for quartos and folios, at a proper height from the floor, will
+restrict the number of shelves to six in each tier.
+
+In the arrangement of the cases or book-stacks, the most economical
+method is to place book-cases of double face, not less than three feet
+apart, approached by aisles on either side, so as to afford free passage
+for two persons meeting or passing one another. The cases may be about
+ten feet each in length. There should be electric lights between all
+cases, to be turned on only when books are sought. The cases should be
+set at right angles to the wall, two or three feet from it, with the
+light from abundant windows coming in between them. The width of shelves
+may be from 16 to 18 inches in these double cases, thus giving about
+eight to nine inches depth to each side. No partition is required between
+the two sides.
+
+It should be stated that the light obtained from windows, when thrown
+more than twenty feet, among cases of books on shelves, becomes too
+feeble for effective use in finding books. This fact should be considered
+in advance, while plans of construction, lighting, and interior
+arrangement are being made. All experience has shown that too much light
+cannot be had in any public library.
+
+Railings and stair-cases for the second or upper floors should be of
+perforated iron.
+
+The reading-room should be distinct from the book delivery or
+charging-room, to secure quiet for readers at all hours, avoiding the
+pressure, hurry and noise of conversation inevitable in a lending library
+or department. In the reading-room should be shelved a liberal supply of
+books of reference, and bibliographies, open without tickets to the
+readers. Next the central desk there should be shelves for the deposit of
+books reserved day by day for the use of readers. The library chairs, of
+whatever pattern may be preferred, should always combine the two
+requisites of strength and lightness. The floor should be covered with
+linoleum, or some similar floor covering, to deaden sound. Woolen
+carpets, those perennial breeders of dust, are an abomination.
+
+In a library reading-room of any considerable size, each reader should be
+provided with table or desk room, not flat but sloping at a moderate
+angle, and allowing about three feet of space for each reader. These
+appliances for study need not be single pieces of furniture, but made in
+sections to accommodate from three to six readers at each. About thirty
+inches from the floor is a proper height.
+
+For large dictionaries, atlases, or other bulky volumes, the adjustable
+revolving case, mounted on a pedestal, should be used.
+
+For moving any large number of volumes about the library, book-trucks or
+barrows, with noiseless rubber wheels, are required.
+
+Every library will need one or more catalogue cases to hold the
+alphabetical card catalogue. These are made with a maximum of skill by
+the Library Bureau, Boston.
+
+The location of the issue-counter or desk is of cardinal importance. It
+should be located near the centre of the system of book-cases, or near
+the entrance to the stack, so as to minimize the time consumed in
+collecting the books wanted. It should also have a full supply of light,
+and this may be secured by a location directly in front of a large side
+window. Readers are impatient of delay, and the farther the books are
+from the issue-counter the longer they will have to wait for them.
+
+Among modern designs for libraries, that of Dr. W. F. Poole, adapted for
+the Newberry Library, Chicago, is notable for dividing the library into
+many departments or separate rooms, the book shelves occupying one half
+the height of each, or 7½ feet out of 15, the remaining space being
+occupied by windows. This construction, of course, does not furnish as
+compact storage for books as the stack system. It is claimed to possess
+the advantage of extraordinarily good light, and of aiding the researches
+of readers. But it has the disadvantage of requiring readers to visit
+widely separated rooms to pursue studies involving several subjects, and
+of mounting in elevators to reach some departments. A system which brings
+the books to the reader, instead of the readers travelling after the
+books, would appear to be more practically useful to the public, with
+whom time is of cardinal importance.
+
+In all libraries, there should be a receiving or packing room, where
+boxes and parcels of books are opened and books mended, collated, and
+prepared for the shelves. This room may well be in a dry and well lighted
+basement. Two small cloak-rooms for wraps will be needed, one for each
+sex. Two toilet rooms or lavatories should be provided. A room for the
+library directors or trustees, and one for the librarian, are essential
+in libraries of much extent. A janitor's room or sleeping quarters
+sometimes needs to be provided. A storage room for blanks, stationery,
+catalogues, etc., will be necessary in libraries of much extent. A
+periodical room is sometimes provided, distinct from the reading-room or
+the delivery department. In this case, if several hundred periodicals are
+taken, an attendant should be always present to serve them to readers,
+from the shelves or cases where they should be kept in alphabetical
+order. Without this, and a ticket system to keep track of what are in
+use, no one can readily find what is needed, nor ascertain whether it is
+in a reader's hands when sought for. System and the alphabet alone will
+solve all difficulties.
+
+As to the space required for readers in a periodical room, it may be
+assumed that about five hundred square feet will accommodate twenty-five
+readers, and the same proportion for a larger number at one time. A room
+twenty-five by forty would seat fifty readers, while one twenty-five by
+twenty would accommodate twenty-five readers, with proper space for
+tables, &c. The files for newspapers are referred to in another chapter
+on periodicals.
+
+In a library building, the heating and ventilation are of prime
+importance. Upon their proper regulation largely depends the health and
+consequently the efficiency of all employed, as well as the comfort of
+the reading public. There is no space to enter upon specific
+descriptions, for which the many conflicting systems, with experience of
+their practical working, should be examined. Suffice it to say in
+general, that a temperature not far below nor above 70 degrees Fahrenheit
+should be aimed at; that the furnace, with its attendant nuisances of
+noise, dust, and odors, should be outside the library building--not under
+it; and that electric lighting alone should be used, gas being highly
+injurious to the welfare of books.
+
+In calculating the space required for books shelved as has been
+heretofore suggested, it may be approximately stated that every one
+thousand volumes will require at least eighty to one hundred square feet
+of floor measurement. Thus, a library of 10,000 volumes would occupy an
+area of nearly one thousand square feet. But it is necessary to provide
+also for the continual growth of the collection. To do this, experience
+shows that in any flourishing public library, space should be reserved
+for three or four times the number of volumes in actual possession. If
+rooms are hired for the books, because of inability to build, the library
+should be so arranged as to leave each alternate shelf vacant for
+additions, or, in the more rapidly growing divisions, a still greater
+space. This will permit accessions to be shelved with their related
+books, without the trouble of frequently moving and re-arranging large
+divisions of the library. This latter is a very laborious process, and
+should be resorted to only under compulsion. The preventive remedy, of
+making sure of space in advance, by leaving a sufficiency of unoccupied
+shelves in every division of the library, is the true one.
+
+In some libraries, a separate reading-room for ladies is provided. Mr. W.
+F. Poole records that in Cincinnati such a room was opened at the
+instance of the library directors. The result was that the ladies made it
+a kind of social rendezvous, where they talked over society matters, and
+exhibited the bargains made in their shopping excursions. Ladies who came
+to study preferred the general reading room, where they found every
+comfort among well conducted gentlemen, and the "ladies' reading-room"
+was abandoned, as not fulfilling its object. The same experiment in the
+Chicago Public Library had the same result.
+
+Some libraries in the larger towns provide a special reading-room for
+children; and this accomplishes a two-fold object, namely, to keep the
+public reading-room free from flocks of little people in pursuit of books
+under difficulties, and to furnish the boys and girls with
+accommodations of their own. It may be suggested as an objection, that
+the dividing line as to age is difficult to be drawn: but let each
+applicant be questioned, and if falling below twelve, or fifteen, or
+whatever the age limit may be, directed to the juvenile reading-room, and
+there need be no trouble. Of course there will be some quite young
+readers who are gifted with intelligence beyond their years, and who may
+dislike to be reckoned as children; but library rules are not made to
+suit exceptions, but for the average; and as no book need be refused to
+any applicant in the juvenile department, no just cause of complaint can
+arise.
+
+In some libraries, and those usually of the larger size, an art room is
+provided, where students of works on painting, sculpture, and the
+decorative arts can go, and have about them whatever treasures the
+library may contain in that attractive field. The advantages of this
+provision are, first, to save the necessity of handling and carrying so
+many heavy volumes of galleries of art and illustrated books to the
+general reading-room, and back again, and secondly, to enable those in
+charge of the art department to exercise more strict supervision in
+enforcing careful and cleanly treatment of the finest books in the
+library, than can be maintained in the miscellaneous crowd of readers in
+the main reading-room. The objections to it concern the general want of
+room to set apart for this purpose, and the desirability of concentrating
+the use of books in one main hall or reading-room. Circumstances and
+experience should determine the question for each library.
+
+Some public libraries, and especially those constructed in recent years,
+are provided with a lecture-hall, or a large room for public meetings,
+concerts, or occasionally, even an opera-house, in the same building with
+the library. There are some excellent arguments in favor of this; and
+especially where a public benefactor donates to a city a building which
+combines both uses. The building given by Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the
+Public Library of Washington will be provided with a small hall suited to
+meetings, &c. But in all cases, such a public hall should be so isolated
+from the library reading-room as not to annoy readers, to whom quiet is
+essential. This end can be effected by having the intervening walls and
+floors so constructed as completely to deaden sound. A wholly distinct
+entrance should also be provided, not communicating with the doors and
+passages leading to the library.
+
+Comparisons are sometimes made as to the relative cost of library
+buildings to the number of volumes they are designed to accommodate; but
+such estimates are misleading. The cost of an edifice in which
+architectural beauty and interior decoration concur to make it a
+permanent ornament to a city or town, need not be charged up at so much
+per volume. Buildings for libraries have cost all the way from
+twenty-five cents up to $4. for each volume stored. The Library of
+Congress, which cost six million dollars, and will ultimately accommodate
+4,500,000 volumes, cost about $1.36 per volume. But it contains besides
+books, some half a million musical compositions, works of graphic art,
+maps and charts, etc.
+
+The comparative cost of some library buildings erected in recent years,
+with ultimate capacity of each, may be of interest. Kansas City Public
+Library, 132+144, 125,000 vols., $200,000. Newark, N. J. Free Library,
+138+216, 400,000 vols., $188,000. Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.
+(granite), 107+137, 250,000 vols., $134,000. Fall River, Ms. Library,
+80+130, 250,000 vols., $100,000. Peoria, Ill. Public Library (brick),
+76+135, $70,000. Smiley Memorial Library, Redlands, Cal. (brick), 96+100,
+$50,000. Reuben Hoar Library, Littleton, Mass. (brick), 50+57, 25,000
+vols., $25,000. Rogers Memorial Library, Southworth, N. Y. 70+100, 20,000
+vols., $20,000. Belfast (Me.) Free Library (granite), 27+54, $10,000.
+Gail-Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill. (brick), 28+52, $9,000. Warwick,
+Mass. Public Library (wood), 45+60, 5,000 vols., $5,000.
+
+The largely increased number of public library buildings erected in
+recent years is a most cheering sign of the times. Since 1895, eleven
+extensive new library buildings have been opened: namely, the Library of
+Congress, the Boston Public Library, the Pratt Institute Library,
+Brooklyn, the Columbia University Library, New York, the Princeton, N. J.
+University Library, the Hart Memorial Library, of Troy, N. Y., the
+Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, the Chicago Public Library, the Peoria,
+Ill. Public Library, the Kansas City, Mo. Public Library, and the Omaha,
+Neb. Public Library.
+
+And there are provided for eight more public library buildings, costing
+more than $100,000 each; namely, the Providence, R. I. Public Library,
+the Lynn, Mass. Public Library, the Fall River, Mass. Public Library, the
+Newark, N. J. Free Public Library, the Milwaukee, Wis. Public Library and
+Museum, the Wisconsin State Historical Society Library, Madison, the New
+York Public Library, and the Jersey City Public Library.
+
+To these will be added within the year 1900, as is confidently expected,
+the Washington City Public Library, the gift of Andrew Carnegie, to cost
+$300,000.
+
+No philanthropist can ever find a nobler object for his fortune, or a
+more enduring monument to his memory, than the founding of a free public
+library. The year 1899 has witnessed a new gift by Mr. Carnegie of a one
+hundred thousand dollar library to Atlanta, the Capital of Georgia, on
+condition that the city will provide a site, and $5,000 a year for the
+maintenance of the library. Cities in the east are emulating one another
+in providing public library buildings of greater or less cost. If the
+town library cannot have magnificence, it need not have meanness. A
+competition among architects selected to submit plans is becoming the
+favorite method of preparing to build. Five of the more extensive
+libraries have secured competitive plans of late from which to
+select--namely, the New York Public Library, the Jersey City Public
+Library, the Newark Free Public Library, the Lynn Public Library, and the
+Phoebe Hearst building for the University of California, which is to be
+planned for a library of 750,000 volumes. It is gratifying to add that in
+several recent provisions made for erecting large and important
+structures, the librarian was made a member of the building
+committee--_i. e._, in the New York Public Library, the Newark Free
+Public Library, and the Lynn Public Library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17.
+
+LIBRARY MANAGERS OR TRUSTEES.
+
+
+We now come to consider the management of libraries as entrusted to
+boards of directors, trustees or library managers. These relations have a
+most intimate bearing upon the foundation, the progress and the
+consequent success of any library. Where a liberal intelligence and a
+hearty coöperation are found in those constituting the library board, the
+affairs of the institution will be managed with the best results. Where
+a narrow-minded and dictatorial spirit is manifested, even by a portion
+of those supervising a public library, it will require a large endowment
+both of patience and of tact in the librarian, to accomplish those aims
+which involve the highest usefulness.
+
+Boards of library trustees vary in number, usually from three to nine or
+more. A board of three or five is found in practice more active and
+efficient than a larger number. The zeal and responsibility felt is apt
+to diminish in direct proportion to the increased numbers of the board.
+An odd number is preferable, to avoid an equal division of opinion upon
+any question to be determined.
+
+In town or city libraries, the mode of selection of library trustees
+varies much. Sometimes the mayor appoints the library board, sometimes
+they are chosen by the city council, and sometimes elected by the people,
+at the annual selection of school or municipal officers. The term of
+service (most usually three years) should be so arranged that retirement
+of any members should always leave two at least who have had experience
+on the board. Library trustees serve without salary, the high honor of so
+serving the public counting for much.
+
+The librarian is often made secretary of the trustees, and then he keeps
+the record of their transactions. He should never be made treasurer of
+the library funds, which would involve labor and responsibility
+incompatible with the manifold duties of the superintendent of a library.
+In case of a library supported by municipal taxation, the town treasurer
+may well serve as library treasurer also, or the trustees can choose one
+from their own board. The librarian, however, should be empowered to
+collect book fines or other dues, to be deposited with the treasurer at
+regular intervals, and he should have a small fund at disposal for such
+petty library expenses as constantly arise. All bills for books and
+other purchases, and all salaries of persons employed in the library
+should be paid by the treasurer.
+
+The meetings of the trustees should be attended by the librarian, who
+must always be ready to supply all information as to the workings of the
+library, the needs for books, etc. Frequently the trustees divide up the
+business before them, appointing sub-committees on book selections, on
+library finances, on administration, furnishings, &c., with a view to
+prompt action.
+
+If a library receives endowments, money gifts or legacies, they are held
+and administered by the trustees as a body corporate, the same as the
+funds annually appropriated for library maintenance and increase. Their
+annual report to the council, or municipal authorities, should exhibit
+the amount of money received from all sources in detail, and the amount
+expended for all purposes, in detail; also, the number of books purchased
+in the year, the aggregate of volumes in the library, the number of
+readers, and other facts of general interest.
+
+All accounts against the library are first audited by the proper
+sub-committee, and payment ordered by the full board, by order on the
+treasurer. The accounts for all these expenditures should be kept by the
+treasurer, who should inform the librarian periodically as to balances.
+
+The selection of books for a public library is a delicate and responsible
+duty, involving wider literary and scientific knowledge than falls to the
+lot of most trustees of libraries. There are sometimes specially
+qualified professional men or widely read scholars on such boards, whose
+services in recruiting the library are of great value. More frequently
+there are one or more men with hobbies, who would spend the library funds
+much too freely upon a class of books of no general interest. Thus, one
+trustee who plays golf may urge the purchase of all the various books
+upon that game, when one or at most two of the best should supply all
+needful demands. Another may want to add to the library about all the
+published books on the horse; another, who is a physician, may recommend
+adding a lot of medical books to the collection, utterly useless to the
+general reader. Beware of the man who has a hobby, either as librarian or
+as library trustee; he will aim to expend too much money on books which
+suit his own taste, but which have little general utility. Two mischiefs
+result from such a course: the library gets books which very few people
+read, and its funds are diverted from buying many books that may be of
+prime importance.
+
+Trustees, although usually, (at least the majority of them) persons of
+culture and intelligence, cannot be expected to be bibliographers, nor to
+be familiar with the great range of new books that continually pour from
+the press. They have their own business or profession to engage them, and
+are commonly far too busy to study catalogues, or to follow the journals
+of the publishing world. So these busy men, charged with the oversight of
+the library interests, call to their aid an expert, and that expert is
+the librarian. It is his interest and his business to know far more than
+they do both of what the library already contains, and what it most
+needs. It is his to peruse the critical journals and reviews, as well as
+the literary notices of the select daily press, and to be prepared to
+recommend what works to purchase. He must always accompany his lists of
+wants with the prices, or at least the approximate cost of each, and the
+aggregate amount. If the trustees or book committee think the sum too
+large to be voted at any one time from the fund at their disposal, the
+librarian must know what can best be postponed, as well as what is most
+indispensable for the immediate wants of the library. If they object to
+any works on the list, he should be prepared to explain the quality and
+character of those called in question, and why the library, in his
+judgment, should possess them. If the list is largely cut down, and he
+considers himself hardly used, he should meet the disappointment with
+entire good humor, and try again when the members of the committee are in
+better mood, or funds in better supply.
+
+It is very customary for boards of library officers to assume the charge
+of the administration so far as regards the library staff, and to make
+appointments, promotions or removals at their own pleasure. In most
+libraries, however, this power is exercised mainly on the advice or
+selection of the librarian, his action being confirmed when there is no
+serious objection. In still other cases, the librarian is left wholly
+free to choose the assistants. This is perhaps the course most likely to
+secure efficient service, since his judgment, if he is a person of tried
+capacity and mature experience, will lead to the selection of the fittest
+candidates, for the work which he alone thoroughly knows. No library
+trustee can put himself fully in the place of a librarian, and see for
+himself the multitude of occasions arising in the daily work of the
+library, where promptness, tact, and wide knowledge of books will make a
+success, and the want of any of these qualities a failure. Still less can
+he judge the competency or incompetency of one who is to be employed in
+the difficult and exact work of cataloguing books. Besides, there is
+always the hazard that trustees, or some of them, may have personal
+favorites or relatives to prefer, and will use their influence to secure
+the appointment or promotion of utterly uninstructed persons, in place of
+such candidates as are known to the librarian to be best qualified. In no
+case should any person be employed without full examination as to fitness
+for library work, conducted either by the librarian, or by a committee
+of which the librarian is a member or chief examiner. A probationary
+trial should also follow before final appointment.
+
+The power of patronage, if unchecked by this safeguard, will result in
+filling any library with incompetents, to the serious detriment of the
+service on which its usefulness depends. The librarian cannot keep a
+training school for inexperts: he has no time for this, and he
+indispensably needs and should have assistants who are competent to their
+duties, from their first entrance upon them. As he is held responsible
+for all results, in the conduct of the library, both by the trustees and
+by the public, he should have the power, or at least the approximate
+power, to select the means by which those results are to be attained.
+
+In the Boston Public Library, all appointments are made by the trustees
+upon nomination by the librarian, after an examination somewhat similar
+to that of the civil service, but by a board of library experts. In the
+British Museum Library, the selection and promotion of members of the
+staff are passed upon by the trustees, having the recommendation of the
+principal librarian before them. In the Library of Congress, appointments
+are made directly by the librarian after a probationary trial, with
+previous examination as to education, former experience or employments,
+attainments, and fitness for library service.
+
+In smaller libraries, both in this country and abroad, a great diversity
+of usage prevails. Instances are rare in which the librarian has the
+uncontrolled power of appointment, promotion and removal. The requirement
+of examinations to test the fitness of candidates is extending, and since
+the establishment of five or six permanent schools of library science in
+the United States, with their graduates well equipped for library work,
+there is no longer any excuse for putting novices in charge of
+libraries--institutions where wide knowledge and thorough training are
+more indispensable than in any other profession whatever.
+
+In State libraries, no uniformity prevails as to control. In some States,
+the governor has the appointment of the librarian, while in others, he is
+an elective officer, the State Legislature being the electors. As
+governors rarely continue in office longer than two or three years, the
+tenure of a librarian under them is precarious, and a most valuable
+officer may at any time be superseded by another who would have to learn
+all that the other knows. The result is rarely favorable to the efficient
+administration of the library. In a business absolutely demanding the
+very largest compass of literary and scientific knowledge, frequent
+rotation in office is clearly out of place. In a public or State library,
+every added year of experience adds incalculably to the value of a
+librarian's services, provided he is of active habits, and full of zeal
+to make his acquired knowledge constantly useful to those who use the
+library. Partizan politics, with their frequent changes, if suffered to
+displace a tried librarian and staff, will be sure to defeat the highest
+usefulness of any library. What can a political appointee, a man totally
+without either library training or library experience, do with the tools
+of which he has never learned the use? It will take him years to learn,
+and by the time he has learned, some other political party coming
+uppermost will probably displace him, to make room for another novice, on
+the principle that "to the victors belong the spoils" of office.
+Meanwhile, "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed," as Milton
+sings--that is, readers are deprived of expert and intelligent guidance.
+
+This bane of political jobbery has not been confined to the libraries of
+States, but has invaded the management of many city and town libraries
+also. We have yet to learn of any benefit resulting to those who use the
+libraries.
+
+In the case of a few of the State libraries, trustees or library
+commissioners or boards of control have been provided by law, but in
+others, a joint library committee, composed of members of both houses of
+the Legislature, has charge of the library interests. This is also the
+case in the Library of Congress at Washington, where three Senators and
+three Representatives constitute the Joint Committee of both Houses of
+Congress on the Library. The membership of this committee, as of all
+others in Congress, is subject to change biennially. It has been proposed
+to secure a more permanent and careful supervision of this National
+Library by adding to the Joint Committee of Congress three or more
+trustees of eminent qualifications, elected by Congress, as the Regents
+of the Smithsonian Institution now are, for a longer term of years. The
+trustees of the British Museum are appointed by the Crown, their tenure
+of office being for life.
+
+In several States the librarian is appointed by the supreme court, as the
+State libraries are composed more largely of law books, than of
+miscellaneous literature, and special knowledge of case law, and the
+principles of jurisprudence, is demanded of the librarian.
+
+Where the trustees of a public library are elected by the people, they
+have in their own hands the power of choosing men who are far above party
+considerations, and they should exercise it. In no department of life is
+the maxim--"the tools to the hands that can use them," more important
+than in the case of librarians and boards of managers of libraries. The
+value of skilled labor over the unskilled is everywhere recognized in the
+business of the world, by more certain employment and larger
+compensation: and why should it not be so in libraries?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18.
+
+LIBRARY REGULATIONS.
+
+
+No feature in library administration is more important than the
+regulations under which the service of the library is conducted. Upon
+their propriety and regular enforcement depends very much of the utility
+of the collection.
+
+Rules are of two kinds, those which concern the librarian and assistants,
+and those which concern the public resorting to the library. Of the first
+class are the regulations as to hours, division of labor, leaves or
+vacations of employees, &c. The larger the library, and consequently the
+force employed, the more important is a careful adjustment of relative
+duties, and of the times and seasons to be devoted to them. The
+assignment of work to the various assistants will naturally depend upon
+their respective qualifications. Those who know Latin, and two or more of
+the modern languages, would probably be employed upon the catalogue.
+Those who are familiar with the range of books published, in literature
+and science, will be best qualified for the service of the reading-room,
+which involves the supply of books and information. In direct proportion
+to the breadth of information possessed by any one, will be his
+usefulness in promptly supplying the wants of readers. Nothing is so
+satisfactory to students in libraries, or to the casual seekers of
+information of any kind, as to find their wants immediately supplied. The
+reader whom an intelligent librarian or assistant answers at once is
+grateful to the whole establishment; while the reader who is required to
+wait ten to twenty minutes for what he wants, becomes impatient and
+sometimes querulous, or leaves the library unsatisfied.
+
+One rule of service at the library desk or counter should be that every
+assistant there employed should deem it his duty to aid immediately any
+one who is waiting, no matter what other concerns may engage his
+attention. In other words, the one primary rule of a public library
+should be that the service of the public is always paramount. All other
+considerations should be subordinate to that.
+
+It is desirable that assistants in every library should learn all
+departments of library work, cataloguing, supplying books and
+information, preparing books for the shelves, etc. This will enable each
+assistant to take the place of another in case of absence, a most
+important point. It will also help to qualify the more expert for
+promotion.
+
+A second rule for internal administration in any library should be that
+all books are to be distributed, or replaced upon their shelves, daily.
+If this is not systematically done, the library will tend to fall into
+chaos. And even a small number of volumes not in their places will
+embarrass the attendants seeking them, and often deprive readers of their
+use--a thing to be always sedulously avoided.
+
+In the Library of Congress, the replacement of books upon the shelves is
+carried out much more frequently than once daily. As fast as books come
+in at the central desk by the returns of readers, they are sent back
+through the book-carriers, to the proper floors, where the outside
+label-numbers indicate that they belong, and replaced by the attendant
+there on their proper shelves. These mechanical book-carriers run all
+day, by electric power, supplied by a dynamo in the basement, and, with
+their endless chain and attached boxes constantly revolving, they furnish
+a near approach to perpetual motion. Thus I have seen a set of Macaulay's
+England, called for by ticket from the reading-room, arrive in three
+minutes from the outlying book-repository or iron stack, several hundreds
+of feet distant on an upper floor, placed on the reader's table,
+referred to, and returned at once, then placed in the book-carrier by the
+desk attendant, received back on its proper floor, and distributed to its
+own shelf by the attendant there, all within half an hour after the
+reader's application. Another rule to be observed by the reading-room
+attendants is to examine all call-slips, or readers' tickets, remaining
+uncalled for at the close of each day's business, and see if the books on
+them are present in the library. This precaution is demanded by the
+security of the collection, as well as by the good order and arrangement
+of the library. Neglect of it may lead to losses or misplacements, which
+might be prevented by careful and unremitting observance of this rule.
+
+Another rule of eminent propriety is that librarians or assistants are
+not to read newspapers during library hours. When there happen to be no
+readers waiting to be helped, the time should be constantly occupied with
+other library work. There is no library large enough to be worthy of the
+name, that does not have arrears of work incessantly waiting to be done.
+And while this is the case, no library time should be wasted upon
+periodicals, which should be perused only outside of library hours. If
+one person employed in a library reads the newspaper or magazine, the bad
+example is likely to be followed by others. Thus serious inattention to
+the wants of readers, as well as neglect of library work postponed, will
+be sure to follow.
+
+A fourth rule, resting upon the same reason, should prevent any long
+sustained gossip or conversation during library hours. That time belongs
+explicitly to the public or to the work of the library. The rule of
+silence which is enforced upon the public in the interest of readers
+should not be broken by the library managers themselves. Such brief
+question and answer as emergency or the needful business of the library
+requires should be conducted in a low tone, and soon ended. Library
+administration is a business, and must be conducted in a business way. No
+library can properly be turned into a place of conversation.
+
+All differences or disputes between attendants as to the work to be done
+by each, or methods, or any other question leading to dissension, should
+be promptly and decisively settled by the librarian, and of course
+cheerfully submitted to by all. Good order and discipline require that
+there should be only one final authority in any library. Controversies
+are not only unseemly in themselves, but they are time-consuming, and are
+liable to be overheard by readers, to the prejudice of those who engage
+in them.
+
+Another rule to be observed is to examine all books returned, as
+carefully as a glance through the volume will permit, to detect any
+missing or started leaves, or injury to bindings. No volume bearing marks
+of dilapidation of any kind should be permitted to go back to the
+shelves, or be given to readers, but placed in a bindery reserve for
+needful repairs.
+
+It should hardly be necessary to say that all those connected with a
+public library should be carefully observant of hours, and be always in
+their places, unless excused. The discipline of every library should be
+firm in this respect, and dilatory or tardy assistants brought to regard
+the rule of prompt and regular service. "No absence without leave" should
+be mentally posted in the consciousness and the conscience of every one.
+
+Another rule should limit the time for mid-day refreshment, and so
+arrange it that the various persons employed go at different hours. As to
+time employed, half-an-hour for lunch, as allowed in the Washington
+departments, is long enough in any library.
+
+Furloughs or vacations should be regulated to suit the library service,
+and not allow several to be absent at the same time. As to length of
+vacation time, few libraries can afford the very liberal fashion of
+twelve months wages for eleven months work, as prevalent in the
+Washington Departments. The average vacation time of business
+houses--about two weeks--more nearly corresponds to that allowed in the
+smaller public libraries. Out of 173 libraries reporting in 1893, 61
+allowed four weeks or more vacation, 27 three weeks, 54 two weeks, and 31
+none. But in cases of actual illness, the rule of liberality should be
+followed, and no deduction of wages should follow temporary disability.
+
+Where many library attendants are employed, all should be required to
+enter on a daily record sheet or book, the hour of beginning work. Then
+the rule of no absence without special leave should be enforced as to all
+during the day.
+
+We now come to such rules of library administration as concern the
+readers, or the public. The rule of silence, or total abstinence from
+loud talking, should be laid down and enforced. This is essential for the
+protection of every reader from annoyance or interruption in his
+pursuits. The rule should be printed on all readers' tickets, and it is
+well also to post the word SILENCE, in large letters, in two or more
+conspicuous places in the reading-room. This will give a continual
+reminder to all of what is expected, and will usually prevent any loud
+conversation. While absolute silence is impossible in any public library,
+the inquiries and answers at the desk can always be made in a low and
+even tone, which need attract no attention from any readers, if removed
+only a few feet distant. As there are always persons among readers who
+will talk, notwithstanding rules, they should be checked by a courteous
+reminder from the librarian, rather than from any subordinate. This--for
+the obvious reason that admonition from the highest authority carries the
+greatest weight.
+
+Another rule, which should always be printed on the call-slips, or
+readers' tickets, is the requirement to return books and receive back
+their tickets always before leaving the library. This duty is very
+commonly neglected, from the utter carelessness of many readers, who do
+not realize that signing their ticket for any book holds them responsible
+for it until it is returned. Many are unwilling to spend a moment's time
+in waiting for a ticket to be returned to them. Many will leave their
+books on tables or seats where they were reading, and go away without
+reclaiming their receipts. While complete observance of this rule is of
+course hopeless of attainment in a country where free and easy manners
+prevail, every librarian should endeavor to secure at least an
+approximate compliance with a rule adopted alike for the security and
+good order of the library, and the efficient service of the reader.
+
+All readers should be privileged to reserve books from day to day which
+they have not completed the use of, and instructed always to give notice
+of such reservation before leaving the library. This saves much time,
+both to the reader and to the librarian in sending repeatedly for books
+put away needlessly.
+
+In a circulating library, a fixed rule limiting the time for which a book
+may be kept, is essential. This may be from three days to two weeks,
+according to the demand for the book, but it should not exceed the latter
+period. Still, a renewal term may be conceded, provided the book is not
+otherwise called for. A small fine of so much a day for each volume kept
+out beyond the time prescribed by the rule, will often secure prompt
+return, and is the usage in most libraries where books are lent out. In
+the Boston Public Library no renewals are allowed. A rule requiring the
+replacement or repair of books damaged while in the hands of a reader
+should be printed and enforced. It may properly be waived where the
+damage is slight or unavoidable.
+
+In public circulating libraries, a rule of registration is required, and
+in some libraries of reference also; but in the Library of Congress all
+readers over sixteen are admitted without any formality or registration
+whatever.
+
+In popular libraries, the need of a registry list of those entitled to
+borrow books, is obvious, to prevent the issue to improper or
+unauthorized persons; as, for example, residents of another town, or
+persons under the prescribed age of admission to library privileges. A
+printed library card should be issued to each person privileged to draw
+books; corresponding in number to the page or index-card of the library
+record. Each card should bear the full name and address of the applicant,
+and be signed with an obligation to obey the rules of the library. On
+this card all books drawn may be entered, always with month and day date,
+and credited with date of return, the parallel entries being at the same
+time made in the library charging record.
+
+Library cards of registration should be issued for a limited period, say
+twelve months, in order to bring all persons to a systematic review of
+their privilege, and should be renewed annually, so long as the holder is
+entitled to registration. No books should be issued except to those
+presenting registration cards, together with a call-slip or ticket for
+the book wanted.
+
+Another rule should fix a limit to the number of volumes to be drawn by
+any reader. Two volumes out at any one time would be a fair limit. If
+made more to all readers, there is likely to be sometimes a scarcity of
+books to be drawn upon; and if a few readers are permitted to draw more
+than others, the charge of undue favoritism will be justified.
+
+Another rule should be that any incivility or neglect on the part of any
+library attendant should be reported to the librarian. In such cases, the
+attendant should always be heard, before any admonition or censure is
+bestowed.
+
+An almost necessary rule in most libraries is that no book should be
+taken from the shelves by any person not employed in the library. The
+exceptions are of course, the books provided expressly for the free and
+open reference of the readers.
+
+Another essential rule is that no writing or marks may be made in any
+library book or periodical; nor is any turning down of leaves permitted.
+A printed warning is important to the effect that any cutting or defacing
+of library books or periodicals is a penal offense, and will be
+prosecuted according to law.
+
+The regulations for admission to library privileges are important. In
+this country the age limitation is more liberal than in Europe. The
+Boston Public Library, for example, is free to all persons over twelve
+years of age. In the Library of Congress, the age limit is sixteen years
+or upward, to entitle one to the privileges of a reader. In the Astor
+Library, none are admitted under nineteen, and in the British Museum
+Library none below twenty-one years.
+
+The hours during which the library is open should be printed as part of
+the regulations.
+
+All the library rules should be printed and furnished to the public. The
+most essential of them, if carefully expressed in few words, can be
+grouped in a single small sheet, of 16mo. size or less, and pasted in the
+inside cover of every book belonging to the library. Better still, (and
+it will save expense in printing) let the few simple rules, in small but
+legible type, form a part of the book plate, or library label, which goes
+on the left-hand inner cover of each volume. Thus every reader will have
+before him, in daily prominence, the regulations which he is to observe,
+and no excuse can be pleaded of ignorance of the rules.
+
+As no law is ever long respected unless it is enforced, so no regulations
+are likely to be observed unless adhered to in every library. Rules are a
+most essential part of library administration, and it should be a primary
+object of every librarian or assistant to see that they are observed by
+all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19.
+
+LIBRARY REPORTS AND ADVERTISING.
+
+
+We now come to consider the annual reports of librarians. These should be
+made to the trustees or board of library control, by whatever name it may
+be known, and should be addressed to the chairman, as the organ of the
+board. In the preparation of such reports, two conditions are equally
+essential--conciseness and comprehensiveness. Every item in the
+administration, frequentation, and increase of the library should be
+separately treated, but each should be condensed into the smallest
+compass consistent with clear statement. Very long reports are costly to
+publish, and moreover, have small chance of being read. In fact, the wide
+perusal of any report is in direct proportion to its brevity.
+
+This being premised, let us see what topics the librarian's report should
+deal with.
+
+1. The progress of the library during the year must be viewed as most
+important. A statistical statement of accessions, giving volumes of
+books, and number of pamphlets separately, added during the year, should
+be followed by a statement of the aggregate of volumes and pamphlets in
+the collection. This is ascertained by actual count of the books upon the
+shelves, adding the number of volumes charged out, or in the bindery, or
+in readers' hands at the time of the enumeration. This count is far from
+a difficult or time-consuming affair, as there is a short-hand method of
+counting by which one person can easily arrive at the aggregate of a
+library of 100,000 volumes, in a single day of eight to ten hours. This
+is done by counting by twos or threes the rows of books as they stand on
+the shelves, passing the finger rapidly along the backs, from left to
+right and from top to bottom of the shelves. As fast as one hundred
+volumes are counted, simply write down a figure one; then, at the end of
+the second hundred, a figure two, and so on, always jotting down one
+figure the more for each hundred books counted. The last figure in the
+counter's memorandum will represent the number of hundreds of volumes the
+library contains. Thus, if the last figure is 92, the library has just
+9,200 volumes. This rapid, and at the same time accurate method, by which
+any one of average quickness can easily count two hundred volumes a
+minute, saves all counting up by tallies of five or ten, and also all
+slow additions of figures, since one figure at the end multiplied by one
+hundred, expresses the whole.
+
+2. Any specially noteworthy additions to the library should be briefly
+specified.
+
+3. A list of donors of books during the year, with number of volumes
+given by each, should form part of the report. This may properly come at
+the end as an appendix.
+
+4. A brief of the money income of the year, with sources whence derived,
+and of all expenditures, for books, salaries, contingent expenses, etc.,
+should form a part of the report, unless reported separately by a
+treasurer of the library funds.
+
+5. The statistics of a librarian's report, if of a lending library,
+should give the aggregate number of volumes circulated during the year,
+also the number of borrowers recorded who have used and who have not used
+the privilege of borrowing. The number of volumes used by readers in the
+reference or reading-room department should be given, as well as the
+aggregate of readers. It is usual in some library reports to classify the
+books used by readers, as, so many in history, poetry, travels, natural
+science, etc., but this involves labor and time quite out of proportion
+to its utility. Still, a comparative statement of the aggregate volumes
+of fiction read or drawn out, as against all other books, may be highly
+useful as an object lesson, if embodied in the library report.
+
+6. A statement of the actual condition of the library, as to books,
+shelving accommodations, furniture, etc., with any needful suggestions
+for improvement, should be included in the annual report.
+
+7. A well-considered suggestion of the value of contributions to the
+library in books or funds to enrich the collection, should not be
+overlooked.
+
+8. The librarian should not forget a word of praise for his assistants,
+in the great and useful work of carrying on the library. This will tend
+to excite added zeal to excel, when the subordinates feel that their
+services are appreciated by their head, as well as by the public.
+
+The preparation of an annual report affords some test of the librarian's
+skill and judgment. It should aim at plain and careful statement, and all
+rhetoric should be dispensed with. Divided into proper heads, a condensed
+statement of facts or suggestions under each should be made, and all
+repetition avoided.
+
+Such a library report should never fail to set forth the great benefit to
+the community which a free use of its treasures implies, while urging the
+importance of building up the collection, through liberal gifts of books,
+periodicals, or money, thus enabling it to answer the wants of readers
+more fully, year by year. It will sometimes be a wise suggestion to be
+made in a librarian's report, that the library still lacks some specially
+important work, such as Larned's "History for Ready Reference," or the
+extensive "Dictionary of National Biography," or Brunet's _Manuel du
+Libraire_, or a set of Congressional Debates from the beginning; and such
+a suggestion may often bear fruit in leading some public-spirited citizen
+to supply the want by a timely contribution.
+
+Of course, the annual report of every public library should be printed,
+and as pamphlets are seldom read, and tend rapidly to disappear, its
+publication in the newspapers is vastly more important than in any other
+form. While a pamphlet report may reach a few people, the newspaper
+reaches nearly all; and as a means of diffusing information in any
+community, it stands absolutely without rival. Whether the library
+reports shall be printed in pamphlet form or not is a matter of
+expediency, to be determined by the managing board. Funds are rarely
+ample enough, in the smaller town libraries, to justify the expense, in
+view of the small circulation which such reports receive, and it is much
+better to put the money into printing library catalogues, which every
+body needs and will use, than into library reports, which comparatively
+few will make any use of. A judicious compromise may be usefully made, by
+inducing some newspaper, which would print a liberal share of the report
+free of charge, as news, for public information, to put the whole in type
+and strike off a few hundred copies in sheet form or pages, at a moderate
+charge.
+
+This would enable the library officers to distribute a goodly number, and
+to keep copies of each annual report for reference, without the expense
+of a pamphlet edition.
+
+In some of the larger and more enterprising of city libraries, reports
+are made quarterly or monthly by the librarian. These of course are much
+more nearly up to date, and if they publish lists of books added to the
+library, they are correspondingly useful. Frequently they contain special
+bibliographies of books on certain subjects. Among these, the monthly
+bulletins of the Boston Public Library, Harvard University Library, New
+York Public Library, Salem, Mass., Public Library, and the Providence
+Public Library are specially numerous and important.
+
+The relations of a public library to the local press of the city or town
+where it is situated will now be noticed. It is the interest of the
+librarian to extend the usefulness of the library by every means; and the
+most effective means is to make it widely known. In every place are found
+many who are quite ignorant of the stores of knowledge which lie at their
+doors in the free library. And among those who do know it and resort to
+it, are many who need to have their interest and attention aroused by
+frequent notices as to its progress, recent additions to its stores, etc.
+The more often the library is brought before the public by the press, the
+more interest will be taken in it by the community for whose information
+it exists.
+
+It is of the utmost importance that the library conductors should have
+the active good will of all the newspaper editors in its vicinity. This
+will be acquired both by aiding them in all researches which the daily or
+frequent wants of their profession render necessary; and also, by giving
+them freely and often items of intelligence about the library for
+publication. Enterprising journals are perpetually on the hunt for new
+and varied matter to fill their columns. They send their reporters to the
+library to make "a story," as it is called, out of something in it or
+about it. These reporters are very seldom persons versed in books, or
+able to write understandingly or attractively about them. Left to
+themselves to construct "a story" out of a half hour's conversation with
+the librarian, the chances are that an article will be produced which
+contains nearly as many errors as matters of fact, with the names of
+authors or the titles of their books mis-spelled or altered, and with
+matters manufactured out of the reporter's fancy which formed no part of
+the interview, while what did form important features in it are perhaps
+omitted. The remedy, or rather the preventive of such inadequate reports
+of what the librarian would say to the public is to become his own
+reporter. The papers will willingly take for publication short "library
+notes," as they may be called, containing information about the library
+or its books, carefully type-written. This course at once secures
+accurate and authentic statements, and saves the time of the press
+reporters for other work.
+
+Bear in mind always that the main object of such library notices is to
+attract attention, and encourage people to use the library. Thus there
+should be sought frequent opportunities of advertising the library by
+this best of all possible means, because it is the one which reaches the
+largest number. To do it well requires some skill and practice, and to do
+it often is quite as essential as to do it well. Keep the library
+continually before the public. What are the business houses which are
+most thronged with customers? They are those that advertise most
+persistently and attractively. So with the library; it will be more and
+more resorted to, in proportion as it keeps its name and its riches
+before the public eye.
+
+A certain timeliness in these library notices should be cultivated. The
+papers are eager to get anything that illustrates what is uppermost in
+the public mind. If a local fair is in progress or preparing, give them a
+list of the best books the library has in that field; the history of the
+Philadelphia Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair, the Paris Expositions,
+&c. On another day, set forth the books on manufactures, horses, cattle,
+domestic animals, decorative art, &c. If there is a poultry exhibition,
+or a dog show, call public attention to the books on poultry or dogs. If
+an art exhibition, bring forward the titles of books on painting,
+sculpture, drawing, and the history of art, ancient and modern.
+
+If some great man has died, as Bismarck or Gladstone, give the titles of
+any biographies or books about him, adding even references to notable
+magazine articles that have appeared. When the summer vacation is coming
+around, advertise your best books of travel, of summer resorts, of ocean
+voyages, of yachting, camping, fishing and shooting, golf and other
+out-door games, etc. If there is a Presidential campaign raging, make
+known the library's riches in political science, the history of
+administrations, and of nominating conventions, lives of the Presidents,
+books on elections, etc. If an international dispute or complication is
+on foot, publish the titles of your books on international law, and those
+on the history or resources of the country or countries involved; and
+when a war is in progress, books on military science, campaigns, battles,
+sieges, and the history of the contending nations will be timely and
+interesting.
+
+Whatever you do in this direction, make it short and attractive. Organize
+your material, describe a specially interesting work by a reference to
+its style, or its illustrations, or its reputation, etc. Distribute your
+library notes impartially; that is, if several papers are published, be
+careful not to slight any of them. Find out the proper days to suit their
+want of matter, and never send in your notes when the paper is
+overcrowded. Always read a proof-slip of each article; time spent in
+going to a newspaper office to correct proof is well spent, for misprints
+always await the unwary who trusts to the accuracy of types.
+
+If the library acquires any extensive or notable book, whether old or
+new, do not fail to make it known through the press. If any citizen gives
+a number of volumes to the library, let his good deeds have an
+appreciative notice, that others may go and do likewise.
+
+Another feature of library advertising is the publication in the press of
+the titles of new books added to the library. As this is merely catalogue
+printing, however abbreviated in form the titles may be, it will usually
+(and very properly) be charged for by the newspapers. But it will pay, in
+the direction of inducing a much larger use of the library, and as the
+sole object of the institution is to contribute to public intelligence,
+it becomes library managers not to spare any expense so conducive to that
+result.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20.
+
+THE FORMATION OF LIBRARIES.
+
+
+In the widely extended and growing public interest in libraries for the
+people, and in the ever increasing gatherings of books by private
+collectors, I may be pardoned for some suggestions pertaining specially
+to the formation of libraries. I do not refer to the selection of books,
+which is treated in the first chapter, nor to the housing and care of
+libraries, but to some important points involved in organizing the
+foundation, so to speak, of a library.
+
+The problem, of course, is a widely different one for the private
+collector of an individual or family library, and for the organizers of a
+public one. But in either case, it is important, first of all, to have a
+clearly defined and well considered plan. Without this, costly mistakes
+are apt to be made, and time, energy and money wasted, all of which might
+be saved by seeing the end from the beginning, and planning accordingly.
+
+Let us suppose that a resident in a community which has never enjoyed the
+benefit of a circulating library conceives the idea of using every means
+to secure one. The first question that arises is, what are those means?
+If the State in which his residence lies has a Library law, empowering
+any town or city to raise money by taxation for founding and maintaining
+a free library, the way is apparently easy, at first sight. But here
+comes in the problem--can the requisite authority to lay the tax be
+secured? This may involve difficulties unforeseen at first. If there is a
+city charter, does it empower the municipal authorities (city council or
+aldermen) to levy such a tax? If not, then appeal must be made to a
+popular vote, at some election of municipal officers, at which the
+ballots for or against a Library tax should determine the question. This
+will at once involve a campaign of education, in which should be enlisted
+(1) The editors of all the local papers. (2) The local clergymen, lawyers
+and physicians. (3) All literary men and citizens of wealth or influence
+in the community. (4) All teachers in the public schools and other
+institutions of learning. (5) The members of the city or town government.
+These last will be apt to feel any impulse of public sentiment more
+keenly than their own individual opinions on the subject. In any case,
+the public-spirited man who originates the movement should enlist as many
+able coadjutors as he can. If he is not himself gifted with a ready
+tongue, he should persuade some others who are ready and eloquent talkers
+to take up the cause, and should inspire them with his own zeal. A public
+meeting should be called, after a goodly number of well-known and
+influential people are enlisted (not before) and addresses should be
+made, setting forth the great advantage of a free library to every
+family. Its value to educate the people, to furnish entertainment that
+will go far to supplant idleness and intemperance, to help on the work of
+the public schools, and to elevate the taste, improve the morals, quicken
+the intellect and employ the leisure hours of all, should be set forth.
+
+With all these means of persuasion constantly in exercise, and
+unremitting diligence in pushing the good cause through the press and by
+every private opportunity, up to the very day of the election, the
+chances are heavily in favor of passing the library measure by a good
+majority. It must be a truly Boeotian community, far gone in stupidity
+or something worse, which would so stand in its own light as to vote down
+a measure conducing in the highest degree to the public intelligence.
+But even should it be defeated, its advocates should never be
+discouraged. Like all other reforms or improvements, its progress may be
+slow at first, but it is none the less sure to win in the end. One defeat
+has often led to a more complete victory when the conflict is renewed.
+The beaten party gathers wisdom by experience, finds out any weakness
+existing in its ranks or its management, and becomes sensible where its
+greatest strength should be put forth in a renewal of the contest. The
+promoters of the measure should at once begin a fresh agitation. They
+should pledge every friend of the library scheme to stand by it himself,
+and to secure at least one new convert to the cause. And the chances are
+that it will be carried triumphantly through at the next trial, or, if
+not then, at least within no long time.
+
+But we should consider also the case of those communities where no State
+Library law exists. These are unhappily not a few; and it is a remarkable
+fact that even so old, and rich, and well-developed a State as
+Pennsylvania had no such provision for public enlightenment until within
+three years. In the absence of a law empowering local governments or
+voters to lay a tax for such a purpose, the most obvious way of founding
+a library is by local subscription. This is of course a less desirable
+method than one by which all citizens should contribute to the object in
+proportion to their means. But it is better to avail of the means that
+exist in any place than to wait an indefinite period for a State
+Legislature to be educated up to the point of passing measures which
+would render the formation of libraries easy in all places.
+
+Let the experiment be tried of founding a library by individual effort
+and concert. With only two or three zealous and active promoters, even
+such a plan can be carried into successful operation in almost any
+community. A canvass should be made from house to house, with a short
+prospectus or agreement drawn up, pledging the subscribers to give a
+certain sum toward the foundation of a library. If a few residents with
+large property can be induced to head the list with liberal
+subscriptions, it will aid much in securing confidence in the success of
+the movement, and inducing others to subscribe. No contributions, however
+small, should fail to be welcomed, since they stand for a wider interest
+in the object. After a thorough canvass of the residents of the place, a
+meeting of those subscribing should be called, and a statement put before
+them of the amount subscribed. Then an executive committee, say of three
+or five members, should be chosen to take charge of the enterprise. This
+committee should appoint a chairman, a secretary, and a treasurer, the
+latter to receive and disburse the funds subscribed. The chairman should
+call and preside at meetings of the committee, of which the secretary
+should record the proceedings in a book kept for the purpose.
+
+The first business of the Library committee should be to confer and
+determine upon the ways and means of organizing the library. This
+involves a selection of books suitable for a beginning, a place of
+deposit for them, and a custodian or librarian to catalogue them and keep
+the record of the books drawn out and returned. Usually, a room can be
+had for library purposes in some public building or private house,
+centrally located, without other expense than that of warming and
+lighting. The services of a librarian, too, can often be secured by
+competent volunteer aid, there being usually highly intelligent persons
+with sufficient leisure to give their time for the common benefit, or to
+share that duty with others, thus saving all the funds for books to
+enrich the library.
+
+The chief trouble likely to be encountered by a Library committee will
+lie in the selection of books to form the nucleus or starting point of
+the collection. Without repeating anything heretofore suggested, it may
+be said that great care should be taken to have books known to be
+excellent, both interesting in substance and attractive in style. To so
+apportion the moderate amount of money at disposal as to give variety and
+interest to the collection, and attract readers from the start, is a
+problem requiring good judgment for its solution. Much depends upon the
+extent of the fund, but even with so small a sum as two or three hundred
+dollars, a collection of the very best historians, poets, essayists,
+travellers and voyagers, scientists, and novelists can be brought
+together, which will furnish a range of entertaining and instructive
+reading for several hundred borrowers. The costlier encyclopaedias and
+works of reference might be waited for until funds are recruited by a
+library fair, or lectures, or amateur concerts, plays, or other evening
+entertainments.
+
+Another way of recruiting the library which has often proved fruitful is
+to solicit contributions of books and magazines from families and
+individuals in the vicinity. This should be undertaken systematically
+some time after the subscriptions in money have been gathered in. It is
+not good policy to aim at such donations at the outset, since many might
+make them an excuse for not subscribing to the fund for founding the
+library, which it is to the interest of all to make as large as possible.
+But when once successfully established, appeals for books and periodicals
+will surely add largely to the collection, and although many of such
+accessions may be duplicates, they will none the less enlarge the
+facilities for supplying the demands of readers. Families who have read
+through all or nearly all the books they possess will gladly bestow them
+for so useful a purpose, especially when assured of reaping reciprocal
+benefit by the opportunity of freely perusing a great variety of choice
+books, new and old, which they have never read. Sometimes, too, a
+public-spirited citizen, when advised of the lack of a good cyclopaedia,
+or of the latest extensive dictionary, or collective biography, in the
+library, will be happy to supply it, thereby winning the gratitude and
+good will of all who frequent the library. All donations should have
+inserted in them a neat book-plate, with the name of the donor inscribed,
+in connection with the name of the Library.
+
+Many a useful library of circulation has been started with a beginning of
+fifty to a hundred volumes, and the little acorn of learning thus planted
+has grown up in the course of years to a great tree, full of fruitful and
+wide-spreading branches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21.
+
+CLASSIFICATION.
+
+
+If there is any subject which, more than all others, divides opinion and
+provokes endless controversy among librarians and scholars, it is the
+proper classification of books. From the beginning of literature this has
+been a well-nigh insoluble problem. Treatise after treatise has been
+written upon it, system has been piled upon system, learned men have
+theorised and wrangled about it all their lives, and successive
+generations have dropped into their graves, leaving the vexed question as
+unsettled as ever. Every now and then a body of _savans_ or a convention
+of librarians wrestles with it, and perhaps votes upon it,
+
+    "And by decision more embroils the fray"
+
+since the dissatisfied minority, nearly as numerous and quite as
+obstinate as the majority, always refuses to be bound by it. No sooner
+does some sapient librarian, with the sublime confidence of conviction,
+get his classification house of cards constructed to his mind, and stands
+rapt in admiration before it, when there comes along some wise man of the
+east, and demolishes the fair edifice at a blow, while the architect
+stands by with a melancholy smile, and sees all his household gods lying
+shivered around him.
+
+Meanwhile, systems of classification keep on growing, until, instead of
+the thirty-two systems so elaborately described in Edwards's Memoirs of
+Libraries, we have almost as many as there are libraries, if the endless
+modifications of them are taken into account. In fact, one begins to
+realise that the schemes for the classification of knowledge are becoming
+so numerous, that a classification of the systems themselves has fairly
+become a desideratum. The youthful neophyte, who is struggling after an
+education in library science, and thinks perhaps that it is or should be
+an exact science, is bewildered by the multitude of counsellors, gets a
+head-ache over their conflicting systems, and adds to it a heart-ache,
+perhaps, over the animosities and sarcasms which divide the warring
+schools of opinion.
+
+Perhaps there would be less trouble about classification, if the
+system-mongers would consent to admit at the outset that no infallible
+system is possible, and would endeavor, amid all their other learning, to
+learn a little of the saving grace of modesty. A writer upon this subject
+has well observed that there is no man who can work out a scheme of
+classification that will satisfy permanently even himself. Much less
+should he expect that others, all having their favorite ideas and
+systems, should be satisfied with his. As there is no royal road to
+learning, so there can be none to classification; and we democratic
+republicans, who stand upon the threshold of the twentieth century, may
+rest satisfied that in the Republic of Letters no autocrat can be
+allowed.
+
+The chief difficulty with most systems for distributing the books in a
+library appears to lie in the attempt to apply scientific minuteness in a
+region where it is largely inapplicable. One can divide and sub-divide
+the literature of any science indefinitely, in a list of subjects, but
+such exhaustive sub-divisions can never be made among the books on the
+shelves. Here, for example, is a "Treatise on diseases of the heart and
+lungs." This falls naturally into its two places in the subject
+catalogue, the one under "Heart," and the second under "Lungs;" but the
+attempt to classify it on the shelves must fail, as regards half its
+contents. You cannot tear the book to pieces to satisfy logical
+classification. Thousands of similar cases will occur, where the same
+book treats of several subjects. Nearly all periodicals and transactions
+of societies of every kind refuse to be classified, though they can be
+catalogued perfectly on paper by analysing their contents. To bring all
+the resources of the library on any subject together on the shelves is
+clearly impossible. They must be assembled for readers from various
+sections of the library, where the rule of analogy or of superior
+convenience has placed them.
+
+What is termed close classification, it will be found, fails by
+attempting too much. One of the chief obstacles to its general use is
+that it involves a too complicated notation. The many letters and figures
+that indicate position on the shelves are difficult to remember in the
+direct ratio of their number. The more minute the classification, the
+more signs of location are required. When they become very numerous, in
+any system of classification, the system breaks down by its own weight.
+Library attendants consume an undue amount of time in learning it, and
+library cataloguers and classifiers in affixing the requisite signs of
+designation to the labels, the shelves, and the catalogues. Memory, too,
+is unduly taxed to apply the system. While a superior memory may be found
+equal to any task imposed upon it, average memories are not so fortunate.
+The expert librarian, in whose accomplished head the whole world of
+science and literature lies coördinated, so that he can apply his
+classification unerringly to all the books in a vast library, must not
+presume that unskilled assistants can do the same.
+
+One of the mistakes made by the positivists in classification is the
+claim that their favorite system can be applied to all libraries alike.
+That this is a fallacy may be seen in an example or two. Take the case of
+a large and comprehensive Botanical library, in which an exact scientific
+distribution of the books may and should be made. It is classified not
+only in the grand divisions, such as scientific and economic botany,
+etc., but a close analytical treatment is extended over the whole
+vegetable kingdom. Books treating of every plant are relegated to their
+appropriate classes, genera, and species, until the whole library is
+organised on a strictly scientific basis. But in the case, even of what
+are called large libraries, so minute a classification would be not only
+unnecessary, but even obstructive to prompt service of the books. And the
+average town library, containing only a shelf or two of botanical works,
+clearly has no use for such a classification. The attempt to impose a
+universal law upon library arrangement, while the conditions of the
+collections are endlessly varied, is foredoomed to failure.
+
+The object of classification is to bring order out of confusion, and to
+arrange the great mass of books in science and literature of which every
+library is composed, so that those on related subjects should be as
+nearly as possible brought together. Let us suppose a collection of some
+hundred thousand volumes, in all branches of human knowledge, thrown
+together without any classification or catalogue, on the tables, the
+shelves, and the floor of an extensive reading-room. Suppose also an
+assemblage of scholars and other readers, ready and anxious to avail
+themselves of these literary treasures, this immense library without a
+key. Each wants some certain book, by some author whose name he knows, or
+upon some subject upon which he seeks to inform himself. But how vain and
+hopeless the effort to go through all this chaos of learning, to find the
+one volume which he needs! This illustration points the prime necessity
+of classification of some kind, before a collection of books can be used
+in an available way.
+
+Then comes in the skilled bibliographer, to convert this chaos into a
+cosmos, to illumine this darkness with the light of science. He
+distributes the whole mass, volume by volume, into a few great distinct
+classes; he creates families or sub-divisions in every class; he
+assembles together in groups all that treat of the same subject, or any
+of its branches; and thus the entire scattered multitude of volumes is at
+length coördinated into a clear and systematic collection, ready for use
+in every department. A great library is like a great army: when
+unorganized, your army is a mere undisciplined mob: but divide and
+sub-divide it into army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and
+companies, and you can put your finger upon every man.
+
+To make this complete organization of a library successful, one must have
+an organising mind, a wide acquaintance with literature, history, and the
+outlines, at least, of all the sciences; a knowledge of the ancient and
+of various modern languages; a quick intuition, a ripe judgment, a
+cultivated taste, a retentive memory, and a patience and perseverance
+that are inexhaustible.
+
+Even were all these qualities possessed, there will be in the arrangement
+elements of discord and of a failure. A multitude of uncertain points in
+classification, and many exceptions will arise; and these must of
+necessity be settled arbitrarily. The more conversant one becomes with
+systems of classification, when reduced to practice, the more he becomes
+assured that a perfect bibliographical system is impossible.
+
+Every system of classification must find its application fraught with
+doubts, complications, and difficulties; but the wise bibliographer will
+not pause in his work to resolve all these insoluble problems; he will
+classify the book in hand according to his best judgment at the moment it
+comes before him. He can no more afford to spend time over intricate
+questions of the preponderance of this, that, or the other subject in a
+book, than a man about to walk to a certain place can afford to debate
+whether he shall put his right foot forward or his left. The one thing
+needful is to go forward.
+
+Referring to the chapter on bibliography for other details, I may here
+say that the French claim to have reached a highly practical system of
+classification in that set forth in J. C. Brunet's _Manuel du Libraire_.
+This is now generally used in the arrangement of collections of books in
+France, with some modifications, and the book trade find it so well
+adapted to their wants, that classified sale and auction catalogues are
+mostly arranged on that system. It has only five grand divisions:
+Theology, Law, Arts and Sciences, Belles-lettres, and History. Each of
+these classes has numerous sub-divisions. For example, geography and
+voyages and travels form a division of history, between the philosophy of
+history and chronology, etc.
+
+The classification in use in the _Bibliothèque nationale_ of France
+places Theology first, followed by Law, History, Philosophy and
+Belles-lettres. The grand division of Philosophy includes all which is
+classified under Arts and Sciences in the system of Brunet.
+
+In the Library of the British Museum the classification starts with
+Theology, followed by 2. Jurisprudence; 3. Natural History (including
+Botany, Geology, Zoölogy, and Medicine); 4. Art (including Archaeology,
+Fine Arts, Architecture, Music, and Useful Arts); 5. Philosophy
+(including Politics, Economics, Sociology, Education, Ethics,
+Metaphysics, Mathematics, Military and Naval Science, and Chemistry); 6.
+History (including Heraldry and Genealogy); 7. Geography (including
+Ethnology); 8. Biography (including Epistles); 9. Belles-lettres
+(including Poetry, Drama, Rhetoric, Criticism, Bibliography, Collected
+Works, Encyclopaedias, Speeches, Proverbs, Anecdotes, Satirical and
+facetious works, Essays, Folklore and Fiction); 10. Philology.
+
+Sub-divisions by countries are introduced in nearly all the classes.
+
+In the Library of Congress the classification was originally based upon
+Lord Bacon's scheme for the division of knowledge into three great
+classes, according to the faculty of the mind employed in each. 1.
+History (based upon memory); 2. Philosophy (based upon reason); 3. Poetry
+(based upon imagination). This scheme was much better adapted to a
+classification of ideas than of books. Its failure to answer the ends of
+a practical classification of the library led to radical modifications of
+the plan, as applied to the books on the shelves, for reasons of logical
+arrangement, as well as of convenience. A more thorough and systematic
+re-arrangement is now in progress.
+
+Mr. C. A. Cutter has devised a system of "Expansive classification," now
+widely used in American libraries. In this, the classes are each
+indicated by a single letter, followed by numbers representing divisions
+by countries, and these in turn by letters indicating sub-divisions by
+subjects, etc. It is claimed that this method is not a rigid unchangeable
+system, but adaptable in a high degree, and capable of modification to
+suit the special wants of any library. In it the whole range of
+literature and science is divided into several grand classes, which, with
+their sub-classes, are indicated by the twenty-six letters of the
+alphabet. Thus Class A embraces Generalia; B to D, Spiritual sciences
+(including philosophy and religion); E to G, Historical sciences
+(including, besides history and biography, geography and travels); H to
+K, Social sciences (including law and political science and economics); L
+to P, Natural sciences; Q, Medicine; and R to Z, Arts (including not only
+mechanical, recreative and fine arts, but music, languages, literature,
+and bibliography).
+
+The sub-divisions of these principal classes are arranged with
+progressive fullness, to suit smaller or larger libraries. Thus, the
+first classification provides only eleven classes, suited to very small
+libraries: the second is expanded to fifteen classes, the third to thirty
+classes, and so on up to the seventh or final one, designed to provide
+for the arrangement of the very largest libraries.
+
+This is the most elaborate and far-reaching library classification yet
+put forth, claiming superior clearness, flexibility, brevity of notation,
+logical coördination, etc., while objections have been freely made to it
+on the score of over-refinement and aiming at the unattainable.
+
+What is known as the decimal or the Dewey system of classification was
+originally suggested by Mr. N. B. Shurtleff's "Decimal system for the
+arrangement and administration of libraries," published at Boston in
+1856. But in its present form it has been developed by Mr. Melvil Dewey
+into a most ingenious scheme for distributing the whole vast range of
+human knowledge into ten classes, marked from 0 to 9, each of which
+sub-divides into exactly ten sub-classes, all divisible in their turn
+into ten minor divisions, and so on until the material in hand, or the
+ingenuity of the classifier is exhausted. The notation of the books on
+the shelves corresponds to these divisions and sub-divisions. The claims
+of this system, which has been quite extensively followed in the smaller
+American libraries, and in many European ones, are economy, simplicity,
+brevity of notation, expansibility, unchanging call-numbers, etc. It has
+been criticised as too mechanical, as illogical in arrangement of
+classes, as presenting many incongruities in its divisions, as
+procrustean, as wholly inadequate in its classification of jurisprudence,
+etc. It is partially used by librarians who have had to introduce radical
+changes in portions of the classification, and in fact it is understood
+that the classification has been very largely made over both in Amherst
+College library and in that of Columbia University, N. Y., where it was
+fully established.
+
+This only adds to the cumulative proofs that library classification
+cannot be made an exact science, but is in its nature indefinitely
+progressive and improvable. Its main object is not to classify knowledge,
+but books. There being multitudes of books that do not belong absolutely
+to any one class, all classification of them is necessarily a compromise.
+Nearly all the classification schemers have made over their schemes--some
+of them many times. I am not arguing against classification, which is
+essential to the practical utility of any library. An imperfect
+classification is much better than none: but the tendency to erect
+classification into a fetish, and to lay down cast-iron rules for it,
+should be guarded against. In any library, reasons of convenience must
+often prevail over logical arrangement; and he who spends time due to
+prompt library service in worrying over errors in a catalogue, or vexing
+his soul at a faulty classification, is as mistaken as those fussy
+individuals who fancy that they are personally responsible for the
+obliquity of the earth's axis.
+
+It may be added that in the American Library Association's Catalogue of
+5,000 books for a popular library, Washington, 1893, the classification
+is given both on the Dewey (Decimal) system, and on the Cutter expansive
+system, so that all may take their choice.
+
+The fixed location system of arrangement, by which every book is assigned
+by its number to one definite shelf, is objectionable as preventing
+accessions from being placed with their cognate books. This is of such
+cardinal importance in every library, that a more elastic system of some
+kind should be adopted, to save continual re-numbering. No system which
+makes mere arithmetical progression a substitute for intrinsic qualities
+can long prove satisfactory.
+
+The relative or movable location on shelves is now more generally adopted
+than the old plan of numbering every shelf and assigning a fixed location
+to every volume on that shelf. The book-marks, if designating simply the
+relative order of the volumes, permit the books to be moved along, as
+accessions come in, from shelf to shelf, as the latter become crowded.
+This does not derange the numbers, since the order of succession is
+observed.
+
+For small town libraries no elaborate system of classification can
+properly be attempted. Here, the most convenient grouping is apt to prove
+the best, because books are most readily found by it. Mr. W. I. Fletcher
+has outlined a scheme for libraries of 10,000 volumes or less, as
+follows:
+
+A. Fiction (appended, J. Juvenile books); B. English and American
+literature; C. History; D. Biography; E. Travels; F. Science; G. Useful
+arts; H. Fine and recreative arts; I. Political and social science; K.
+Philosophy and religion; L. Works on language and in foreign languages;
+R. Reference books.
+
+Numerous sub-divisions would be required to make such a scheme (or indeed
+any other) fit any collection of books.
+
+In arranging the main classes, care should be taken to bring those most
+drawn upon near to the delivery desk, or charging system of the library.
+
+The alphabet is usefully applied in the arrangement of several of the
+great classes of books, and in many sub-divisions of other classes. Thus,
+all English and American fiction may be arranged in a single alphabet of
+authors, including English translations of foreign works. All collected
+works, or polygraphy, may form an alphabet, as well as poetry, dramatic
+works, collections of letters, and miscellanea, arranged by authors'
+names. In any of these classes, sub-divisions by languages may be made,
+if desired.
+
+The class biography may best be arranged in an alphabet of the subjects
+of the biographies, rather than of writers, for obvious reasons of
+convenience in finding at once the books about each person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22.
+
+CATALOGUES.
+
+
+Catalogues of libraries are useful to readers in direct proportion to
+their fulfilment of three conditions: (1) Quick and ready reference. (2)
+Arranging all authors' names in an alphabet, followed by titles of their
+works. (3) Subjects or titles in their alphabetical order in the same
+alphabet as the authors. This is what is known as a "Dictionary
+catalogue"; but why is it preferable to any other? Because it answers
+more questions in less time than any other.
+
+The more prevalent styles of catalogues have been, 1. A list of authors,
+with titles of their works under each. 2. A catalogue of subjects, in a
+classified topical or alphabetical order, the authors and their works
+being grouped under each head. 3. A catalogue attempting to combine these
+two, by appending to the author-catalogue a classed list of subjects,
+with a brief of authors under each, referring to the page on which the
+titles of their works may be found; or else, 4. Appending to the
+subject-catalogue an alphabet of authors, with similar references to
+pages under subjects.
+
+Each of these methods of catalogue-making, while very useful, contrives
+to miss the highest utility, which lies in enabling the reader to put his
+finger on the book he wants, at one glance of the eye. The catalogue of
+authors will not help him to subjects, nor will the catalogue of
+subjects, as a rule, give the authors and titles with the fullness that
+may be needed. In either case, a double reference becomes necessary,
+consuming just twice the time, and in a two-column catalogue, three
+times the time required in a dictionary catalogue.
+
+The reader who wants Darwin's "Origin of Species" finds it readily enough
+by the author-catalogue; but he wants, at the same time, to find other
+works on the same subject, and all the author-catalogues in the world
+will not help him to them. But give him a dictionary catalogue, and he
+has, in the same alphabet with his Darwin, (if the library is large)
+dozens of books discussing the theory of that great naturalist, under
+species, evolution, Darwinism, etc.
+
+Thus he finds that there is no key which so quickly unlocks the stores of
+knowledge which a library contains, as a dictionary catalogue.
+
+The objections to it are chiefly brought by minds schooled in systems,
+who look askance on all innovations, and instinctively prefer round-about
+methods to short-hand ones.
+
+Ask such an objector if he would prefer his dictionary of the English
+language arranged, not alphabetically, but subjectively, so that all
+medical terms should be defined only under medicine, all species of fish
+described only under fishes, etc., and he will probably say that there is
+no analogy in the case. But the analogy becomes apparent when we find, in
+what are called systematic catalogues, no two systems alike, and the
+finding of books complicated by endless varieties of classification, with
+no common alphabet to simplify the search. The authors of systems
+doubtless understand them themselves, but no one else does, until he
+devotes time to learn the key to them; and even when learned, the
+knowledge is not worth the time lost in acquiring it, since the field
+covered in any one catalogue is so small. Alphabetical arrangement, on
+the other hand, strictly adhered to, is a universal key to the authors
+and subjects and titles of all the books contained in the library it
+represents. The devotee of a bibliographical system may be as mistaken as
+the slave of a scientific terminology. He forgets that bibliography is
+not a school for teaching all departments of knowledge, but a brief and
+handy index to books that may contain that knowledge. A student who has
+once made a thorough comparative test of the merits, as aids to wide and
+rapid research, of the old-fashioned bibliographies and the best modern
+dictionary catalogues, will no more deny the superiority of the latter,
+than he will contest the maxim that a straight line is the nearest road
+between two points. Meantime, "while doctors disagree, disciples are
+free;" and the disciples who would follow the latest guides in the art
+"how to make and use a catalogue," must get rid of many formulas.
+
+The reader will find in the chapter on bibliography, notes on some
+classes of catalogues, with the more notable examples of them. We are
+here concerned with the true method of preparing catalogues, and such
+plain rules as brevity will permit to be given, will be equally adapted
+to private or public libraries. For more ample treatment, with reasons
+for and against many rules laid down, reference is made to the able and
+acute work, "Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue," by C. A. Cutter,
+published by the U. S. Bureau of Education, 3d ed. 1891.
+
+
+CONDENSED RULES FOR AN AUTHOR AND TITLE CATALOGUE.
+
+_Prepared by the Co-operation Committee of the American Library
+Association._
+
+                 ENTRY.
+
+     Books are to be entered under the:
+
+     Surnames of authors when ascertained, the abbreviation "_Anon._"
+     being added to the titles of anonymous works.
+
+     Initials of authors' names when these only are known, the last
+     initial being put first.
+
+     Pseudonyms of the writers when the real names are not
+     ascertained.
+
+     Names of editors of collections, each separate item to be at the
+     same time sufficiently catalogued under its own heading.
+
+     Names of countries, cities, societies, or other bodies which are
+     responsible for their publication.
+
+     First word (not an article or serial number) of the titles of
+     periodicals and of anonymous books, the names of whose authors
+     are not known. And a motto or the designation of a series may be
+     neglected when it begins a title, and the entry may be made under
+     the first word of the real title following.
+
+     Commentaries accompanying a text, and translations, are to be
+     entered under the heading of the original work; but commentaries
+     without the text under the name of the commentator. A book
+     entitled "Commentary on ...." and containing the text, should be
+     put under both.
+
+     The Bible, or any part of it (including the Apocrypha), in any
+     language, is to be entered under the word Bible.
+
+     The Talmud and Koran (and parts of them) are to be entered under
+     those words; the sacred books of other religions are to be
+     entered under the names by which they are generally known;
+     references to be given from the names of editors, translators,
+     etc.
+
+     The respondent or defender of an academical thesis is to be
+     considered as the author, unless the work unequivocally appears
+     to be the work of the _praeses_.
+
+     Books having more than one author to be entered under the one
+     first named in the title, with a reference from each of the
+     others.
+
+     Reports of civil actions are to be entered under the name of the
+     party to the suit which stands first on the title page. Reports
+     of crown and criminal proceedings are to be entered under the
+     name of the defendant. Admiralty proceedings relating to vessels
+     are to be put under the name of the vessel.
+
+     Noblemen are to be entered under their titles, unless the family
+     name is decidedly better known.
+
+     Ecclesiastical dignitaries, unless popes or sovereigns, are to be
+     entered under their surnames.
+
+     Sovereigns (other than Greek or Roman), ruling princes, Oriental
+     writers, popes, friars, persons canonized, and all other persons
+     known _only_ by their first name, are to be entered under this
+     first name.
+
+     Married women, and other persons who have changed their names,
+     are to be put under the last well-known form.
+
+     A pseudonym may be used instead of the surname (and only a
+     reference to the pseudonym made under the surname) when an author
+     is much more known by his false than by his real name. In case of
+     doubt, use the real name.
+
+     A society is to be entered under the first word, not an article,
+     of its corporate name, with references from any other name by
+     which it is known, especially from the name of the place where
+     its headquarters are established, if it is often called by that
+     name.
+
+
+                 REFERENCES.
+
+     When an author has been known by more than one name, references
+     should be inserted from the name or names not to be used as
+     headings to the one used.
+
+     References are also to be made to the headings chosen:
+       asked for by their titles;
+
+       from other striking titles;
+
+       from noticeable words in anonymous titles, especially from the
+       names of subjects of anonymous biographies;
+
+       from the names of editors of periodicals, when the periodicals are
+       generally called by the editor's name;
+
+       from the names of important translators (especially poetic
+       translators) and commentators;
+
+       from the title of an ecclesiastical dignitary, when that, and not
+       the family name, is used in the book catalogued;
+
+       and in other cases where a reference is needed to insure the ready
+       finding of the book.
+
+
+                 HEADINGS.
+
+     In the heading of titles, the names of authors are to be given in
+     full, and in their vernacular form, except that the Latin form
+     may be used when it is more generally known, the vernacular form
+     being added in parentheses; except, also, that sovereigns and
+     popes may be given in the English form.
+
+     English and French surnames beginning with a prefix (except the
+     French de and d') are to be recorded under the prefix; in other
+     languages under the word following.
+
+     English compound surnames are to be entered under the last part
+     of the name; foreign ones under the first part.
+
+     Designations are to be added to distinguish writers of the same
+     name from each other.
+
+     Prefixes indicating the rank or profession of writers may be
+     added in the heading, when they are part of the usual designation
+     of the writers.
+
+     Names of places to be given in the English form. When both an
+     English and a vernacular form are used in English works, prefer
+     the vernacular.
+
+
+                 TITLES.
+
+     The title is to be an exact transcript of the title-page, neither
+     amended, translated, nor in any way altered, except that mottos,
+     titles of authors, repetitions, and matter of any kind not
+     essential, are to be omitted. Where great accuracy is desirable,
+     omissions are to be indicated by three dots (...). The titles of
+     books especially valuable for antiquity or rarity may be given in
+     full, with all practicable precision. The phraseology and
+     spelling, but not necessarily the punctuation, of the title are
+     to be exactly copied.
+
+     Any additions needed to make the title clear are to be supplied,
+     and inclosed by brackets.
+
+     Initial capitals are to be given in English:
+       noted events, and periods (each separate word not an article,
+       conjunction, or preposition, may be capitalized in these cases);
+
+       to adjectives and other derivatives from proper names when they
+       have a direct reference to the person, place, etc., from which
+       they are derived;
+
+       to the first word of every sentence and of every quoted title;
+
+       to titles of honor when standing instead of a proper name
+       (_e. g._, the Earl of Derby, but John Stanley, earl of Derby);
+
+       In foreign languages, according to the local usage;
+
+       In doubtful cases capitals are to be avoided.
+
+     Foreign languages.--Titles in foreign characters may be
+     transliterated. The languages in which a book is written are to be
+     stated when there are several, and the fact is not apparent from the
+     title.
+
+
+                 IMPRINTS.
+
+     After the title are to be given, in the following order, those in
+     [ ] being optional:
+
+       the place of publication;
+
+       [and the publisher's name] (these three in the language of
+       the title);
+
+       the year as given on the title-page, but in Arabic figures;
+
+       [the year of copyright or actual publication, if known to be
+       different in brackets, and preceded by c. or p. as the case may be];
+
+       the number of volumes, or of pages if there is only one volume;
+
+       [the number of maps, portraits, or illustrations not included in the
+       text];
+
+       and either the approximate size designated by letter, or the
+       exact size in centimeters;
+
+       the name of the series to which the book belongs is to be given in
+       parentheses after the other imprint entries.
+
+     After the place of publication, the place of printing may be
+     given if different. This is desirable only in rare and old books.
+
+     The number of pages is to be indicated by giving the last number
+     of each paging, connecting the numbers by the sign +; the
+     addition of unpaged matter may be shown by a +, or the number of
+     pages ascertained by counting may be given in brackets. When
+     there are more than three pagings, it is better to add them
+     together and give the sum in brackets.
+
+     These imprint entries are to give the facts, whether ascertained
+     from the book or from other sources; those which are usually
+     taken from the title (edition, place, publisher's name, and
+     series) should be in the language of the title, corrections and
+     additions being inclosed in brackets. It is better to give the
+     words, "maps," "portraits," etc., and the abbreviations for
+     "volumes" and "pages," in English.
+
+
+                 CONTENTS, NOTES.
+
+     Notes (in English) and contents of volumes are to be given when
+     necessary to properly describe the works. Both notes and lists of
+     contents to be in a smaller type.
+
+
+                 MISCELLANEOUS.
+
+     A single dash or indent indicates the omission of the preceding
+     heading; a subsequent dash or indent indicates the omission of a
+     subordinate heading, or of a title.
+
+     A dash connecting numbers signifies to and including; following a
+     number it signifies continuation.
+
+     A ? following a word or entry signifies probably.
+
+     Brackets inclose words added to titles or imprints, or changed in
+     form.
+
+     Arabic figures are to be used rather than Roman; but small
+     capitals may be used after the names of sovereigns, princes, and
+     popes.
+
+     A list of abbreviations to be used was given in the Library
+     journal, Vol. 3: 16-20.
+
+
+                 ARRANGEMENT.
+
+     The surname when used alone precedes the same name used with
+     forenames; where the initials only of the forenames are given,
+     they are to precede fully written forenames beginning with the
+     same initials (_e. g._, Brown, Brown, J.; Brown, J. L.; Brown,
+     James).
+
+     The prefixes M and Mc, S., St., Ste., Messrs., Mr., and Mrs., are
+     to be arranged as if written in full, Mac, Sanctus, Saint,
+     Sainte, Messieurs, Mister, and Mistress.
+
+     The works of an author are to be arranged in the following order:
+
+       2. Partial collections.
+
+       3. Single works, alphabetically, by the first word of the title.
+
+     The order of alphabeting is to be that of the English alphabet.
+
+     The German ae, oe, ue, are always to be written as ä, ö, ü, and
+     arranged as a, o, u.
+
+     Names of persons are to precede similar names of places, which in turn
+     precede similar first words of titles.
+
+A few desirable modifications or additions to these rules may be
+suggested.
+
+1. In title-entries, let the year of publication stand last, instead of
+the indication of size.
+
+2. Noblemen to be entered under their family names, with reference from
+their titles.
+
+3. Instead of designations of title, profession, residence, or family, to
+distinguish authors, let every name be followed by the chronology, as--
+
+    James (Henry) 1811-82.
+    James (Henry) 1843-
+
+It is highly desirable to give this information as to the author's period
+in every title-heading, without exception, when ascertainable. If
+unknown, the approximate period to be given, with a query.
+
+4. All titles to be written in small letters, and printed in lower case,
+whether in English, German, or any other language, avoiding capitals
+except in cases named in the rule.
+
+5. Works without date, when the exact date is not found, are to be
+described conjecturally, thus:
+
+    [1690?] or [about 1840.]
+
+6. In expressing collations, use commas rather than the sign + between
+the pagings, as--xvi, 452, vii pp.--not xvi+452+vii pp.
+
+7. Forenames should be separated from the surnames which precede them by
+parenthesis rather than commas, as a clearer discrimination: as--
+
+    Alembert (Jean Baptiste le Rond d')--not
+    Alembert, Jean Baptiste le Rond d'.
+
+The printed catalogue of the British Museum Library follows this method,
+as well as that in the preceding paragraph.
+
+8. All books of history, travels, or voyages to have the period covered
+by them inserted in brackets, when not expressed in the title-page.
+
+9. All collected works of authors, and all libraries or collections of
+different works to be analysed by giving the contents of each volume,
+either in order of volumes, or alphabetically by authors' names.
+
+Of course there are multitudes of points in catalogue practice not
+provided for in the necessarily brief summary preceding: and, as books on
+the art abound, the writer gives only such space to it as justice to the
+wide range of library topics here treated permits.
+
+Probably the most important question in preparing catalogue titles, is
+what space to give to the author's frequently long-drawn-out verbiage in
+his title-page. There are two extremes to be considered: (1) Copying the
+title literally and in full, however prolix; and (2) reducing all
+title-pages, by a Procrustean rule, to what we may call "one-line
+titles." Take an example:
+
+"Jones (Richard T.) A theoretical and practical treatise on the benefits
+of agriculture to mankind. With an appendix containing many useful
+reflections derived from practical experience. iv, 389 pp. 8°. London,
+MDCCXLIV." As abridged to a short title, this would read: "Jones (Richard
+T.) Benefits of agriculture, iv, 389 pp. 8°. Lond. 1744." Who will say
+that the last form of title does not convey substantially all that is
+significant of the book, stripped of superfluous verbiage? But we need
+not insist upon titles crowded into a single line of the catalogue,
+whether written or printed. This would do violence to the actual scope of
+many books, by suppressing some significant or important part of their
+titles. The rule should be to give in the briefest words selected out of
+the title (never imported into it) the essential character of the book,
+so far as the author has expressed it. Take another example:
+
+"Bowman (Thomas) A new, easy, and complete Hebrew course; containing a
+Hebrew grammar, with copious Hebrew and English exercises, strictly
+graduated: also, a Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew lexicon. In two
+parts. Part I. Regular verbs. Edinburgh, 1879."
+
+This might be usefully condensed thus:
+
+     Bowman, (Thomas) Hebrew course: grammar, exercises, lexicon,
+     [&c.] Part I. Regular verbs. Edinburgh, 1879.
+
+One objection brought against the dictionary catalogue is that it widely
+separates subjects that belong together. In the Boston Athenaeum
+catalogue, for example, the topic Banks is found in Vol. 1, while Money
+is in Vol. 3; and for Wages, one must go to Vol. 5, while Labor is in
+Vol. 3. But there are two valid reasons for this. First, the reader who
+wants to know about banks or wages may care nothing about the larger
+topics of money or of labor; and secondly, if he does want them, he is
+sent to them at once by cross-reference, where they belong in the
+alphabet; whereas, if they were grouped under Political Economy, as in
+classed catalogues, he must hunt for them through a maze of unrelated
+books, without any alphabet at all.
+
+It is often forgotten by the advocates of systematic subject catalogues
+rather than alphabetical ones, that catalogues are for those who do not
+know, more than for those who do. The order of the alphabet is settled
+and familiar; but no classification by subjects is either familiar or
+settled. Catalogues should aim at the greatest convenience of the
+greatest number of readers.
+
+It is noteworthy that the English Catalogue (the one national
+bibliography of the current literature of that country) has adopted,
+since 1891, the dictionary form of recording authors, titles and subjects
+in one alphabet, distinguishing authors' names by antique type. It is
+hoped that the American Catalogue, an indispensable work in all
+libraries, will adopt in its annual and quinquennial issues the
+time-saving method of a single alphabet.
+
+It is not claimed that the dictionary catalogue possesses fully all the
+advantages in educating readers that the best classed catalogues embody.
+But the chief end of catalogues being to find books promptly, rather than
+to educate readers, the fact that the dictionary catalogue, though far
+from perfect, comes nearer to the true object than any other system,
+weighs heavily in its favor. Edward Edwards said--"Many a reader has
+spent whole days in book-hunting [in catalogues] which ought to have been
+spent in book-reading." It is to save this wasted time that catalogues
+should aim.
+
+Nothing can be easier than to make a poor catalogue, while nothing is
+more difficult than to make a good one. The most expert French
+bibliographers who have distinguished themselves by compiling catalogues
+have been most severely criticised by writers who no doubt would have
+been victimized in their turn if they had undertaken similar work. Byron
+says
+
+    "A man must serve his time to every trade,
+     Save censure;--critics all are ready made."
+
+When De Bure and Van Praet, most accomplished bibliographers, published
+the catalogue of the precious library of the duke de La Vallière, the
+abbé Rive boasted that he had discovered a blunder in every one of the
+five thousand titles of their catalogue. Barbier and Brunet have both
+been criticised for swarms of errors in the earlier editions of their
+famous catalogues. The task of the exact cataloguer is full of
+difficulty, constantly renewed, and demanding almost encyclopaedic
+knowledge, and incessant care of minute particulars.
+
+The liability to error is so great in a kind of work which, more than
+almost any other, demands the most scrupulous accuracy, lest a catalogue
+should record a book with such mistakes as to completely mislead a
+reader, that rules are imperatively necessary. And whatever rules are
+adopted, a rigid adherence to them is no less essential, to avoid
+misapprehension and confusion. A singular instance of imperfect and
+misleading catalogue work was unwittingly furnished by Mr. J. Payne
+Collier, a noted English critic, author, and librarian, who criticised
+the slow progress of the British Museum catalogue, saying that he could
+himself do "twenty-five titles an hour without trouble." His twenty-five
+titles when examined, were found to contain almost every possible error
+that can be made in cataloguing books. These included using names of
+translators or editors as headings, when the author's name was on the
+title-page; omitting christian names of authors; omitting to specify the
+edition; using English instead of foreign words to give the titles of
+foreign books; adopting titled instead of family names for authors (which
+would separate Stanhope's "England under Queen Anne" from the same
+writer's "History of England," published when he was Lord Mahon); errors
+in grammar, etc. These ridiculous blunders of a twenty-five-title-an-hour
+man exemplify the maxim "the more haste, the worse speed," in
+catalogue-making.
+
+That our British brethren are neither adapted nor inclined to pose as
+exemplars in the fine art of cataloguing, we need only cite their own
+self-criticisms to prove. Here are two confessions found in two authors
+of books on catalogue-making, both Englishmen. Says one: "We are
+deficient in good bibliographies. It is a standing disgrace to the
+country that we have no complete bibliography of English authors, much
+less of English literature generally." Says another: "The English are a
+supremely illogical people. The disposition to irregularity has made
+English bibliography, or work on catalogues, a by-word among those who
+give attention to these matters."
+
+An American may well add, "They do these things better in France and
+Germany," while declining to claim the meed of superiority for the United
+States.
+
+Too much prominence should not be given to place-numbers in library
+catalogues. The tendency to substitute mere numerical signs for authors
+and subjects has been carried so far in some libraries, that books are
+called for and charged by class-numbers only, instead of their
+distinctive names. An English librarian testifies that assistants trained
+in such libraries are generally the most ignorant of literature. When
+mechanical or mnemonical signs are wholly substituted for ideas and for
+authors, is it any wonder that persons incessantly using them become
+mechanical? Let catalogue and classification go hand in hand in bringing
+all related books together, and library assistants will not stunt their
+intellects by becoming bond-slaves to the nine digits, nor lose the power
+of thought and reflection by never growing out of their _a b c's_.
+
+There are two forms of catalogue not here discussed, which are adjuncts
+to the library catalogue proper. The accession catalogue, kept in a large
+volume, records the particulars regarding every volume, on its receipt by
+the library. It gives author, title, date, size, binding, whence
+acquired, cost, etc., and assigns it an accession number, which it ever
+after retains. The shelf catalogue (or shelf-list) is a portable one
+divided into sections representing the cases of shelves in the library.
+It gives the shelf classification number, author, brief title and number
+of volumes of each book, as arranged on the shelves; thus constituting an
+inventory of each case, or stack, throughout the library.
+
+To check a library over is to take an account of stock of all the books
+it should contain. This is done annually in some libraries, and the
+deficiencies reported. All libraries lose some books, however few, and
+these losses will be small or great according to the care exercised and
+the safe-guards provided. The method is to take one division of the
+library at a time, and check off all books on the shelves by their
+numbers on the shelf-list, supplemented by careful examination of all
+numbers drawn out, or at bindery, or in other parts of the library. Not a
+volume should be absent unaccounted for. Those found missing after a
+certain time should be noted on the shelf-list and accession book, and
+replaced, if important, after the loss is definitely assured.
+
+The reason for writing and printing all catalogue titles in small
+letters, without capitals (except for proper names) is two-fold. First,
+there can be no standard prescribing what words should or should not be
+capitalized, and the cataloguer will be constantly at a loss, or will use
+capitals in the most unprincipled way. He will write one day, perhaps,
+"The Dangers of great Cities," and the next, "The dangers of Great
+cities"--with no controlling reason for either form. Secondly, the
+symmetry of a title or a sentence, whether written or printed, is best
+attained by the uniform exclusion of capitals. That this should be
+applied to all languages, notwithstanding the habit of most German
+typographers of printing all nouns with capitals, is borne out by no less
+an authority than the new Grimm's _Deutsches Wörterbuch_, which prints
+all words in "lower case" type except proper names. Nothing can be more
+unsightly than the constant breaking up of the harmony of a line by the
+capricious use of capitals.
+
+To discriminate carefully the various editions of each work is part of
+the necessary duty of the cataloguer. Many books have passed through
+several editions, and as these are by no means always specified on the
+title-page, one should establish the sequence, if possible, by other
+means. The first edition is one which includes all copies printed from
+the plates or the type as first set; the second, one which is reprinted,
+with or without changes in the text or the title. First editions often
+acquire a greatly enhanced value, in the case of a noted author, by
+reason of changes made in the text in later issues of the work. For
+though the latest revision may and should be the author's best improved
+expression, his earliest furnishes food for the hunters of literary
+curiosities. Every catalogue should distinguish first editions thus [1st
+ed.] in brackets.
+
+In the arrangement of titles in catalogues, either of the various works
+of the same writer, or of many books on the same subject, some compilers
+follow the alphabetical order, while others prefer the chronological--or
+the order of years of publication of the various works. The latter has
+the advantage of showing the reader the earlier as distinguished from the
+recent literature, but in a long sequence of authors (in a
+subject-catalogue) it is more difficult to find a given writer's work, or
+to detect its absence.
+
+The task of accurately distributing the titles in a catalogue of subjects
+would be much simplified, if the books were all properly named. But it is
+an unhappy failing of many writers to give fanciful or far-fetched titles
+to their books, so that, instead of a descriptive name, they have names
+that describe nothing. This adds indefinitely to the labor of the
+cataloguer, who must spend time to analyse to some extent the contents of
+the book, before he can classify it. This must be done to avoid what may
+be gross errors in the catalogue. Familiar examples are Ruskin's Notes on
+Sheep-folds (an ecclesiastical criticism) classified under Agriculture;
+and Edgeworth's Irish Bulls under Domestic animals.
+
+The work of alphabeting a large number of title-cards is much simplified
+and abbreviated by observing certain obvious rules in the distribution.
+(1) Gather in the same pile all the cards in the first letter of the
+alphabet, A, followed in successive parallel rows by all the B's, and so
+on, to the letter Z. (2) Next, pursue the same course with all the
+titles, arranging under the second letter of the alphabet, Aa, Ab, Ac,
+etc., and so with all the cards under B. C. &c. for all the letters. (3)
+If there still remain a great many titles to distribute into a closer
+alphabetic sequence, the third operation will consist in arranging under
+the third letter of the alphabet, _e. g._, Abb, Abc, Abd, etc. The same
+method is pursued throughout the entire alphabet, until all the
+title-cards are arranged in strict order.
+
+Too much care cannot be taken to distinguish between books written by
+different authors, but bearing the same name. Many catalogues are full of
+errors in this respect, attributing, for example, works written by
+Jonathan Edwards, the younger, (1745-1801) to Jonathan Edwards the elder,
+(1703-58); or cataloguing under Henry James, Jr., the works of his
+father, Henry James. The abundant means of identification which exist
+should cause such errors to be avoided; and when the true authorship is
+fixed, every author's chronology should appear next after his name on
+every card-title: _e. g._ James (Henry, 1811-82) Moralism and
+Christianity, New York, 1850. James (Henry, 1843- ) Daisy Miller, N. Y.
+1879.
+
+The designation of book sizes is a vexed question in catalogues. The
+generally used descriptions of size, from folio down to 48mo. signify no
+accurate measurement whatever, the same book being described by different
+catalogues as 12mo. 8vo, crown 8vo. &c., according to fancy; while the
+same cataloguer who describes a volume as octavo to-day, is very likely
+to call it a duodecimo to-morrow. Library catalogues are full of these
+heterogeneous descriptions, and the size-notation is the _bête noir_ of
+the veteran bibliographer, and the despair of the infant librarian. Yet
+it is probable that the question has excited a discussion out of all
+proportion to its importance. Of what consequence is the size of a book
+to any one, except to the searcher who has to find it on the shelves?
+While the matter has been much exaggerated, some concert or uniformity in
+describing the sizes of books is highly desirable.
+
+A Committee of the American Library Association agreed to a
+size-notation, figured below, adopting the metric system as the standard,
+to which we add the approximate equivalents in inches.
+
+                                           _Centimetres_
+                            _Size_           _outside_
+_Sizes._               _abbreviations._      _height._    _Inches._
+
+Folio, F°.                     F                 40          16
+Quarto, 4°.                    Q                 30          12
+Octavo, 8°.                    O                 25          10
+Duodecimo, 12°.                D                 20           8
+Sixteen mo., 16°.              S                 17.5         7
+Twenty-four mo., 24°.          T                 15           6
+Thirty-two mo., 32°.          Tt                 12.3         5
+Forty-eight mo., 48°.         Fe                 10           4
+
+It will be understood that the figure against each size indicated
+represents the maximum measure: _e. g._ a volume is octavo when above 20
+and below 25 centimetres (8 to 10 inches high).
+
+As this question of sizes concerns publishers and booksellers, as well as
+librarians, and the metric system, though established in continental
+Europe, is in little use in the United States and England, it remains
+doubtful if any general adherence to this system of notation can be
+reached--or, indeed, to any other. The Publishers' Weekly (N. Y.) the
+organ of the book trade, has adopted it for the titles of new books
+actually in hand, but follows the publishers' descriptions of sizes as to
+others. Librarian J. Winter Jones, of the British Museum, recommended
+classing all books above twelve inches in height as folios, those
+between ten and twelve inches as quartos, those from seven to ten inches
+as octavos, and all measuring seven inches or under as 12mos. Mr. H. B.
+Wheatley, in his work, "How to Catalogue a Library," 1889, proposed to
+call all books small octavos which measure below the ordinary octavo
+size. As all sizes "run into each other," and the former classification
+by the fold of the sheets is quite obsolete, people appear to be left to
+their own devices in describing the sizes of books. While the metric
+notation would be exact, if the size of every book were expressed in
+centimetres, the size-notation in the table given is wholly wanting in
+precision, and has no more claim to be adopted than any other arbitrary
+plan. Still, it will serve ordinary wants, and the fact that we cannot
+reach an exact standard is no reason for refusing to be as nearly exact
+as we can.
+
+And while we are upon the subject of notation may be added a brief
+explanation of the method adopted in earlier ages, (and especially the
+years reckoned from the Christian era) to express numbers by Roman
+numerals. The one simple principle was, that each letter placed after a
+figure of greater equal value adds to it just the value which itself has;
+and, on the other hand, a letter of less value placed before (or on the
+left of) a larger figure, diminishes the value of that figure in the same
+proportion. For example:
+
+These letters--VI represent six; which is the same as saying V+I. On the
+contrary, these same letters reversed represent four; thus--IV: that is
+V-I=4. Nine is represented by IX, _i. e._, X-I, ten minus one. On the
+same principle, LX represents 60--or L+N: whereas XL means 40--being L-X.
+Proceeding on the same basis, we find that LXX=L+XX=70; and LXXX or L+XXX
+is 80. But when we come to ninety, instead of adding four X's to the L,
+they took a shorter method, and expressed it in two figures instead of
+five, thus, XC, _i. e._ 100 or C-X=90.
+
+The remarkable thing about this Roman notation is that only six letters
+sufficed to express all numbers up to one thousand, and even beyond, by
+skilful and simple combinations: namely the I, the V, the X, the L, the
+C, and the M, and by adding or subtracting some of these letters, when
+placed before or after another letter, they had a whole succession of
+numbers done to their hand--thus:
+
+   I,                1      XX,               20      CC,              200
+  II,                2     XXX,               30     CCC,              300
+ III,                3      XL,               40    CCCC,              400
+  IV,                4       L,               50       D,              500
+   V,                5      LX,               60      DC,              600
+  VI,                6     LXX,               70     DCC,              700
+ VII,                7    LXXX,               80    DCCC,              800
+VIII,                8      XC,               90      CM,              900
+  IX,                9       C (centum),     100       M, (mille),   1,000
+   X,               10
+
+Now, when the early printers came to apply dates of publication to the
+books they issued, (and here is where their methods of notation become
+most important to librarians) they used precisely these methods. For
+example, to express the year 1695, they printed it thus: MDCVC, that
+is--1000+500+100+100-5. But the printers of the 15th century and later,
+often used complications of letters, dictated by caprice rather than by
+any fixed principles, so that it is sometimes difficult to interpret
+certain dates in the colophons or title-pages of books, without
+collateral aid of some kind, usually supplied to the librarian by
+bibliographies. One of the simpler methods of departure from the regular
+notation as above explained, was to substitute for the letter D (500) two
+letters, thus--I[inverted C], an I and a C inverted, supposed to resemble
+the letter D in outline. Another fancy was to replace the M, standing for
+1,000, by the symbols CI[inverted C]--which present a faint approach to
+the outline of the letter M, for which they stand. Thus, to express the
+year 1610, we have this combination--CI[inverted C] I[inverted C] CX,
+which would be indecipherable to a modern reader, uninstructed in the
+numerical signs anciently used, and their values. In like manner, 1548 is
+expressed thus: MDXLIIX, meaning 1000+500+40+10-2. And for 1626, we have
+CI[inverted C] I[inverted C] C XXVI.
+
+As every considerable library has early printed books, a librarian must
+know these peculiarities of notation, in order to catalogue them
+properly, without mistake as to their dates. In some books, where a
+capricious combination of Roman numerals leaves him without a precedent
+to guide him to the true date, reference must be had to the
+bibliographies of the older literature, (as Hain, Panzer, etc.), which
+will commonly solve the doubt.
+
+As to the mechanics of catalogue-making, widely different usages and
+materials prevail. In America, the card or title-slip system is well nigh
+universal, while in England it is but slowly gaining ground, as against
+the ledger or blank book catalogue. Its obvious advantage lies in
+affording the only possible means of maintaining a strict alphabetical
+sequence in titles, whether of authors or subjects. The title-cards
+should be always of uniform size, and the measure most in vogue is five
+inches in length by three inches in breadth. They should not be too
+stiff, though of sufficient thickness, whether of paper or of thin card
+board, to stand upright without doubling at the edges. They may be ruled
+or plain, at pleasure, and kept in drawers, trays, or (in case of a small
+catalogue) in such paste-board boxes as letter envelopes come in.
+
+The many advantages of the card system, both for catalogues and indexes,
+should not lead us to overlook its palpable defects. These are (1) It
+obliges readers to manipulate many cards, to arrive at all the works of
+an author, or all the books on any subject, instead of having them under
+his eye at once, as in printed catalogues. (2) It can be used only in the
+library, and in only one place in the library, and by only one person at
+a time in the same spot, while a printed catalogue can be freely used
+anywhere, and by any numbers, copies being multiplied. (3) It entails
+frequent crowding of readers around the catalogue drawers, who need to
+consult the same subjects or authors at the same time. (4) It requires
+immeasurably more room than a printed catalogue, and in fact, exacts
+space which in some libraries can be ill afforded. (5) It obliges readers
+to search the title-cards at inconvenient angles of vision, and often
+with inadequate light. (6) It is cumbersome in itself, and doubly
+cumbersome to searchers, who must stand up instead of sitting to consult
+it, and travel from drawer to drawer, interfering with other searchers
+almost constantly, or losing time in waiting. (7) To this is added the
+inconvenience of constant insertion of new title-cards by members of the
+library staff, and the time-consuming process of working the rods which
+keep the cards in place, if they are used, and if not used, the risk of
+loss of titles, or misplacement equivalent to loss for a time.
+
+Says Mr. H. B. Wheatley: "I can scarcely imagine anything more maddening
+than a frequent reference to cards in a drawer." But it is to be
+considered that all systems have defects, and the problem of choosing the
+least defective is ever before us. Most of the suggested defects of the
+card catalogue, as concerns the readers, can be obviated by making a
+two-fold catalogue, the type-written titles being manifolded, and one set
+arranged in card-drawers for the use of the library staff, while another
+is mounted on large sheets in bound volumes for use of the public. This
+would secure the advantages of a printed catalogue, with no more expense
+than the manuscript titles would cost. If desired, a number of copies
+could be bound up for reading-room use. Accessions of new books could be
+incorporated from month to month, by leaving the right-hand pages blank
+for that purpose. This would be near enough to alphabetical order for
+most readers, with the immense advantage of opening at one glance before
+the eye, any author or subject. It would go far to solve the problem how
+to unite the flexibility and perfect alphabeting of the card system, with
+the superior comfort, safety, and ease of reference of the book. It would
+also be a safe-guard against the loss or displacement of titles, a danger
+inherent in the card system, as they could be replaced by copying missing
+titles from the catalogue volumes.
+
+While the undoubted merits of the card system have been much overrated,
+it would be as unwise to dispense with it as the complete official
+catalogue of the library, as it would be to tie down the public to its
+use, when there is a more excellent way, saving time and patience, and
+contributing to the comfort of all.
+
+To print or not to print? is a vital question for libraries, and it is in
+most cases decided to forego or to postpone printing, because of its
+great expense. Yet so manifest are the advantages of a printed catalogue,
+that all public libraries should make every effort to endow their readers
+with its benefits. These advantages are (1) Greater facility of reading
+titles. (2) Much more rapid turning from letter to letter of the
+catalogue alphabet. (3) Ability to consult it outside of the library. (4)
+Unlimited command of the catalogue by many readers at once, from the
+number of copies at hand, whereas card catalogues or manuscript volumes
+involve loss of time in waiting, or interfering with the researches of
+others. A part of these advantages may be realized by printing
+type-written copies of all titles in duplicate, or by carbon paper in
+manifold, thus furnishing the library with several copies of its
+catalogue: but why not extend this by multiplying copies through the
+ingenious processes now in use, by which the printing of titles can be
+effected far more cheaply than in any printing office? Might not every
+library become its own printer, thus saving it from the inconvenience and
+risk of sending its titles outside, or the great expense of copying them
+for the printer?
+
+The titles thus manifolded could be combined into volumes, by cutting
+away all superfluous margins and mounting the thin title-slips
+alphabetically on paper of uniform size, which, when bound, would be
+readily handled. All the titles of an author's works would be under the
+eye at a glance, instead of only one at a time, as in the card catalogue.
+And the titles of books on every subject would lie open, without slowly
+manipulating an infinite series of cards, one after another, to reveal
+them to the eye. The classification marks could be readily placed against
+each title, or even printed as a part of the manifold card titles.
+
+Not that the card catalogue system would be abolished: it would remain as
+the only complete catalogue of the library, always up to date, in a
+single alphabet. Daily accessions inserted in it would render it the
+standard of appeal as to all that the library contained, and it would
+thus supplement the printed catalogue.
+
+Of course, large and increasing accessions would require to be combined
+in occasional supplementary volumes of the catalogue; and in no long
+number of years the whole might be re-combined in a single alphabet,
+furnishing a printed dictionary catalogue up to its date.
+
+The experience of the great British Museum Library in this matter of
+catalogues is an instructive one. After printing various incomplete
+author-catalogues in the years from 1787 to 1841, the attempt to print
+came to a full stop. The extensive collection grew apace, and the
+management got along somehow with a manuscript catalogue, the titles of
+which (written in script with approximate fullness) were pasted in a
+series of unwieldy but alphabetically arranged volumes. To incorporate
+the accessions, these volumes had continually to be taken apart by the
+binder, and the new titles combined in alphabetical order, entailing a
+literally endless labor of transcribing, shifting, relaying and
+rebinding, to secure even an imperfect alphabetical sequence. In 1875,
+the catalogue had grown to over two thousand thick folio volumes, and it
+was foreseen, by a simple computation of the rate of growth of the
+library, that in a very few years its catalogue could no longer be
+contained in the reading-room. The bulky manuscript catalogue system
+broke down by its own weight, and the management was compelled to resort
+to printing in self defence. Before the printing had reached any where
+near the concluding letters of the alphabet, the MS. catalogue had grown
+to three thousand volumes, and was a daily and hourly incubus to
+librarians and readers.
+
+This printed catalogue of the largest library in the world, save one, is
+strictly a catalogue of authors, giving in alphabetical order the names,
+followed by the titles of all works by each writer which that library
+possesses. In addition, it refers in the case of biographies or comments
+upon any writer found in the index, to the authors of such works; and
+also from translators or editors to the authors of the translated or
+edited work. The titles of accessions to the library (between thirty and
+forty thousand volumes a year) were incorporated year by year as the
+printing went on. All claim to minute accuracy had to be ignored, and the
+titles greatly abridged by omitting superfluous words, otherwise its cost
+would have been prohibitory. The work was prosecuted with great energy
+and diligence by the staff of able scholars in the service of the Museum
+Library. As the catalogue embraces far more titles of books, pamphlets,
+and periodicals than any other ever printed, it is a great public boon,
+the aid it affords to all investigators being incalculable. And any
+library possessing it may find, with many titles of rare and unattainable
+works, multitudes of books now available by purchase in the market, to
+enrich its own collection. It is said to contain about 3,500,000 titles
+and cross-references. It is printed in large, clear type, double columns,
+well spaced, and its open page is a comfort to the eye. Issued in paper
+covers, the thin folios can be bound in volumes of any thickness desired
+by the possessor.
+
+It has several capital defects: (1) It fails to discriminate authors of
+the same name by printing the years or period of each; instead of which
+it gives designations like "the elder", "the younger", or the residence,
+or occupation, or title of the author. The years during which any writer
+flourished would have been easily added to the name in most cases, and
+the value of such information would have been great, solving at once many
+doubts as to many writers. (2) The catalogue fails to print the
+collations of all works, except as to a portion of those published since
+1882, or in the newer portions issued. This omission leaves a reader
+uncertain whether the book recorded is a pamphlet or an extensive work.
+(3) The letters I and J and U and V are run together in the alphabet,
+after the ancient fashion, thus placing Josephus before Irving, and Utah
+after Virginia; an arrangement highly perplexing, not to say
+exasperating, to every searcher. To follow an obsolete usage may be
+defended on the plea that it is a good one, but when it is bad as well as
+outworn, no excuse for it can satisfy a modern reader. (4) No analysis is
+given of the collected works of authors, nor of many libraries made up of
+monographs. One cannot find in it the contents of the volumes of any of
+Swift's Works, nor even of Milton's Prose Writings. (5) It fails to
+record the names of publishers, except in the case of some early or rare
+books.
+
+The printing of this monumental catalogue began in 1881, the volumes of
+MS. catalogue being set up by the printer without transcription, which
+would have delayed the work indefinitely, and it is now substantially
+completed. Its total cost will be not far from £50,000. There are about
+374 volumes or parts in all. Only 250 copies were printed, part of which
+were presented to large libraries, and others were offered for sale at
+£3.10 per annum, payable as issued, so that a complete set costs about
+£70. One learns with surprise that only about forty copies have been
+subscribed for. This furnishes another evidence of the low estate of
+bibliography in England, where, in a nation full of rich book-collectors
+and owners of fine libraries, almost no buyers are found for the most
+extensive bibliography ever published, a national work, furnishing so
+copious and useful a key to the literature of the world in every
+department of human knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23.
+
+COPYRIGHT AND LIBRARIES.
+
+
+The preservation of literature through public libraries has been and will
+ever be one of the most signal benefits which civilization has brought to
+mankind. When we consider the multitude of books which have perished from
+the earth, from the want of a preserving hand, a lively sense of regret
+comes over us that so few libraries have been charged with the duty of
+acquiring and keeping every publication that comes from the press. Yet we
+owe an immeasurable debt to the wisdom and far-sightedness of those who,
+centuries ago, provided by this means for the perpetuity of literature.
+
+The earliest step taken in this direction appears to have been in France.
+By an ordinance proclaimed in 1537, regulating the printing of books, it
+was required that a copy of each work issued from the press should be
+deposited in the royal library. And it was distinctly affirmed that the
+ground of this exaction was to preserve to posterity the literature of
+the time, which might otherwise disappear.[2] This edict of three
+centuries and a half ago was the seed-grain from which has grown the
+largest library yet gathered in the world--the _Bibliothèque Nationale_
+of France. It antedated by more than two hundred years, any similar
+provision in England for the preservation of the national literature.
+
+It is a notable fact that the United States of America was the first
+nation that ever embodied the principle of protection to the rights of
+authors in its fundamental law. "The Congress shall have power to promote
+the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to
+authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings
+and discoveries." Thus anchored in the Constitution itself, this
+principle has been further recognized by repeated acts of Congress, aimed
+in all cases at giving it full practical effect.
+
+If it is asked why the authors of the Constitution gave to Congress no
+plenary power, which might have authorized a grant of copyright in
+perpetuity, the answer is, that in this, British precedent had a great,
+if not a controlling influence. Copyright in England, by virtue of the
+statute of Anne, passed in 1710 (the first British copyright act), was
+limited to fourteen years, with right of renewal, by a living author, of
+only fourteen years more; and this was in full force in 1787, when our
+Constitution was framed. Prior to the British statute of 1710, authors
+had only what is called a common law right to their writings; and however
+good such a right might be, so long as they held them in manuscript, the
+protection to printed books was extremely uncertain and precarious.
+
+It has been held, indeed, that all copyright laws, so far from
+maintaining an exclusive property right to authors, do in effect deny it
+(at least in the sense of a natural right), by explicitly limiting the
+term of exclusive ownership, which might otherwise be held (as in other
+property) to be perpetual. But there is a radical distinction between the
+products of the brain, when put in the concrete form of books and
+multiplied by the art of printing, and the land or other property which
+is held by common law tenure. Society views the absolute or exclusive
+property in books or inventions as a monopoly. While a monopoly may be
+justified for a reasonable number of years, on the obvious ground of
+securing to their originators the pecuniary benefit of their own ideas, a
+perpetual monopoly is generally regarded as odious and unjust. Hence
+society says to the author or inventor: "Put your ideas into material
+form, and we will guarantee you the exclusive right to multiply and sell
+your books or your inventions for a term long enough to secure a fair
+reward to you and to your family; after that period we want your
+monopoly, with its individual benefits, to cease in favor of the greatest
+good of all." If this appears unfair to authors, who contribute so
+greatly to the instruction and the advancement of mankind, it is to be
+considered that a perpetual copyright would (1) largely increase the cost
+of books, which should be most widely diffused for the public benefit,
+prolonging the enhanced cost indefinitely beyond the author's lifetime;
+(2) it would benefit by a special privilege, prolonged without limit, a
+class of book manufacturers or publishers who act as middle-men between
+the author and the public, and who own, in most cases, the entire
+property in the works of authors deceased, and which they did not
+originate; (3) it would amount in a few centuries to so vast a sum, taxed
+upon the community who buy books, that the publishers of Shakespeare's
+works, for example, who under perpetual copyright could alone print the
+poet's writings, might have reaped colossal fortunes, perhaps unequalled
+by any private wealth yet amassed in the world.
+
+If it is said that copyright, thus limited, is a purely arbitrary right,
+it may be answered that all legal provisions are arbitrary. That which is
+an absolute or natural right, so long as held in idea or in manuscript,
+becomes, when given to the world in multiplied copies, the creature of
+law. The most that authors can fairly claim is a sufficiently prolonged
+exclusive right to guarantee them for a lifetime the just reward of their
+labors, with a reversion for their immediate heirs. That such exclusive
+rights should run to their remotest posterity, or, _a fortiori_, to mere
+merchants or artificers who had no hand whatever in the creation of the
+intellectual work thus protected, would be manifestly unjust. The
+judicial tribunals, both in England and America, have held that copyright
+laws do not affirm an existing right, but create a right, with special
+privileges not before existing, and also with special limitations.
+
+The earliest copyright enactment of 1790 granted the exclusive privilege
+of printing his work to the author or his assigns for 14 + 14, or
+twenty-eight years in all.
+
+The act further required entry of the title, before publication, in the
+office of the Clerk of the United States District Court in the State
+where the author or proprietor resided.
+
+This remained the law, with slight amendment, until 1831, when a new
+copyright act extended the duration of copyright from fourteen to
+twenty-eight years for the original, or first term, with right of renewal
+to the author (now first extended to his widow or children, in case of
+his decease) for fourteen additional years, making forty-two years in
+all.
+
+By the same act the privilege of copyright was extended to cover musical
+compositions, as it had been earlier extended (in 1802) to include
+designs, engravings, and etchings. Copyright was further extended in 1856
+to dramatic compositions, and in 1865 to photographs and negatives
+thereof. In 1870 a new copyright code, to take the place of all existing
+and scattered statutes, was enacted, and there were added to the lawful
+subjects of copyright, paintings, drawings, chromos, statues, statuary,
+and models or designs intended to be perfected as works of the fine
+arts. And finally, by act of March 3, 1891, the benefits of copyright
+were extended so as to embrace foreign authors. In 1897, Congress created
+the office of Register of Copyrights, but continued the Copyright office,
+with its records, in the Library of Congress.
+
+In 1846, the first enactment entitling the Library of the United States
+Government to a copy of every work protected by copyright was passed.
+This act, to establish the Smithsonian Institution, required that one
+copy of each copyright publication be deposited therein, and one copy in
+the Library of Congress. No penalties were provided, and in 1859, on
+complaint of the authorities of the Smithsonian Institution that the law
+brought in much trash in the shape of articles which were not books, the
+law was repealed, with the apparent concurrence of those in charge of the
+Congressional Library.
+
+This left that Library without any accessions of copyright books until
+1865, when, at the instance of the present writer, the Library Committee
+recommended, and Congress passed an act restoring the privilege to the
+Library of Congress. But it was found to require, in order to its
+enforcement, frequent visits to the records of the clerks of United
+States District Courts in many cities, with costly transcripts of records
+in more than thirty other offices, in order to ascertain what books had
+actually been copyrighted. To this was added the necessity of issuing
+demands upon delinquent authors or publishers for books not sent to the
+Library; no residence of the delinquents, however, being found in any of
+the records, which simply recorded those claiming copyright as "of the
+said District."
+
+It resulted that no complete, nor even approximate compliance with the
+law was secured, and after five years' trial, the Librarian was obliged
+to bring before the committees of Congress the plan of a copyright
+registry at the seat of government, as had been the requirement in the
+case of Patents from the beginning.
+
+The law of copyright, as codified by act of July 8, 1870, made an epoch
+in the copyright system of the United States. It transferred the entire
+registry of books and other publications, under copyright law, to the
+city of Washington, and made the Librarian of Congress sole register of
+copyrights, instead of the clerks of the District Courts of the United
+States. Manifold reasons existed for this radical change, and those which
+were most influential with Congress in making it were the following:
+
+1. The transfer of the copyright records to Washington it was foreseen
+would concentrate and simplify the business, and this was a cardinal
+point. Prior to 1870 there were between forty and fifty separate and
+distinct authorities for issuing copyrights. The American people were put
+to much trouble to find out where to apply, in the complicated system of
+District Courts, several of them frequently in a single State, to enter
+titles for publication. They were required to make entry in the district
+where the applicant resided, and this was frequently a matter of doubt.
+Moreover, they were required to go to the expense and trouble of
+transmitting a copy of the work, after publication, to the District
+clerk, and another copy to the Library of Congress. Were both copies
+mailed to Washington (post-free by law) this duty would be diminished by
+one-half.
+
+2. A copyright work is not an invention nor a patent; it is a
+contribution to literature. It is not material, but intellectual, and has
+no natural relation to a department which is charged with the care of the
+mechanic arts; and it belongs rather to a national library system than to
+any other department of the civil service. The responsibility of caring
+for it would be an incident to the similar labors already devolved upon
+the Librarian of Congress; and the receipts from copyright certificates
+would much more than pay its expense, thus leaving the treasury the
+gainer by the change.
+
+3. The advantage of securing to our national library a complete
+collection of all American copyright publications can scarcely be
+over-estimated. If such a law as that enacted in 1870 had been enforced
+since the beginning of the government, we should now have in the Library
+of Congress a complete representation of the product of the American mind
+in every department of science and literature. Many publications which
+are printed in small editions, or which become "out of print" from the
+many accidents which continually destroy books, would owe to such a
+library their sole chance of preservation. We ought to have one
+comprehensive library in the country, and that belonging to the nation,
+whose aim it should be to preserve the books which other libraries have
+not the room nor the means to procure.
+
+4. This consideration assumes additional weight when it is remembered
+that the Library of Congress is freely open to the public day and evening
+throughout the year, and is rapidly becoming the great reference library
+of the country, resorted to not only by Congress and the residents of
+Washington, but by students and writers from all parts of the Union, in
+search of references and authorities not elsewhere to be found. The
+advantage of having all American publications accessible upon inquiry
+would be to build up at Washington a truly national library,
+approximately complete and available to all the people.
+
+These considerations prevailed with Congress to effect the amendment in
+copyright registration referred to.
+
+By enactment of the statute of 1870 all the defects in the methods of
+registration and deposit of copies were obviated. The original records of
+copyright in all the States were thenceforward kept in the office of the
+Librarian of Congress. All questions as to literary property, involving a
+search of records to determine points of validity, such as priority of
+entry, names and residence of actual owners, transfers or assignments,
+timely deposit of the required copies, etc., could be determined upon
+inquiry at a single office of record. These inquiries are extremely
+numerous, and obviously very important, involving frequently large
+interests in valuable publications in which litigation to establish the
+rights of authors, publishers or infringers has been commenced or
+threatened. By the full records of copyright entries thus preserved,
+moreover, the Library of Congress (which is the property of the nation)
+has been enabled to secure what was before unattainable, namely, an
+approximately complete collection of all American books, etc., protected
+by copyright, since the legislation referred to went into effect. The
+system has been found in practice to give general satisfaction; the
+manner of securing copyright has been made plain and easy to all, the
+office of record being now a matter of public notoriety; and the test of
+experience during thirty years has established the system so thoroughly
+that none would be found to favor a return to the former methods.
+
+The Act of 1870 provided for the removal of the collection of copyright
+books and other publications from the over-crowded Patent Office to the
+Library of Congress. These publications were the accumulations of about
+eighty years, received from the United States District Clerks' offices
+under the old law. By request of the Commissioner of Patents all the law
+books and a large number of technical works were reserved at the
+Department of the Interior. The residue, when removed to the Capitol,
+were found to number 23,070 volumes, a much smaller number than had been
+anticipated, in view of the length of time during which the copy tax had
+been in operation. But the observance of the acts requiring deposits of
+copyright publications with the Clerks of the United States District
+Courts had been very defective (no penalty being provided for
+non-compliance), and, moreover, the Patent Office had failed to receive
+from the offices of original deposit large numbers of publications which
+should have been sent to Washington. From one of the oldest States in the
+Union not a single book had been sent in evidence of copyright. The
+books, however, which were added to the Congressional Library, although
+consisting largely of school books and the minor literature of the last
+half century, comprised many valuable additions to the collection of
+American books, which it should be the aim of a National Library to
+render complete. Among them were the earliest editions of the works of
+many well-known writers, now out of print and scarce.
+
+The first book ever entered for copyright privileges under the laws of
+the United States was "The Philadelphia Spelling Book," which was
+registered in the Clerk's Office of the District of Pennsylvania, June 9,
+1790, by John Barry as author. The spelling book was a fit introduction
+to the long series of books since produced to further the diffusion of
+knowledge among men. The second book entered was "The American
+Geography," by Jedediah Morse, entered in the District of Massachusetts
+on July 10, 1790, a copy of which is preserved in the Library of
+Congress. The earliest book entered in the State of New York was on the
+30th of April, 1791, and it was entitled "The Young Gentleman's and
+Lady's Assistant, by Donald Fraser, Schoolmaster."
+
+Objection has occasionally, though rarely, been made to what is known as
+the copy-tax, by which two copies of each publication must be deposited
+in the National Library. This requirement rests upon two valid grounds:
+(1) The preservation of copies of everything protected by copyright is
+necessary in the interest of authors and publishers, in evidence of
+copyright, and in aid of identification in connection with the record of
+title; (2) the library of the government (which is that of the whole
+people) should possess and permanently preserve a complete collection of
+the products of the American press, so far as secured by copyright. The
+government makes no unreasonable exaction in saying to authors and
+publishers: "The nation gives you exclusive right to make and sell your
+publication, without limit as to quantity, for forty-two years; give the
+nation in return two copies, one for the use and reference of Congress
+and the public in the National Library, the other for preservation in the
+copyright archives, in perpetual evidence of your right."
+
+In view of the valuable monopoly conceded by the public, does not the
+government in effect give far more than a _quid pro quo_ for the
+copy-tax? Of course it would not be equitable to exact even one copy of
+publications not secured by copyright, in which case the government gives
+nothing and gets nothing; but the exaction of actually protected
+publications, while it is almost unfelt by publishers, is so clearly in
+the interest of the public intelligence, as well as of authors and
+publishers themselves, that no valid objection to it appears to exist. In
+Great Britain five copies of every book protected by copyright are
+required for five different libraries, which appears somewhat
+unreasonable.
+
+Regarding the right of renewal of the term of copyright, it is a
+significant fact that it is availed of in comparatively few instances,
+compared with the whole body of publications. Multitudes of books are
+published which not only never reach a second edition, but the sale of
+which does not exhaust more than a small part of the copies printed of
+the first. In these cases the right of renewal is waived and suffered to
+lapse, from defect of commercial value in the work protected. In many
+other cases the right of renewal expires before the author or his assigns
+bethink them of the privilege secured to them under the law. It results
+that more than nine-tenths, probably, of all books published are free to
+any one to print, without reward or royalty to their authors, after a
+very few years have elapsed. On the other hand, the exclusive right in
+some publications of considerable commercial value is kept alive far
+beyond the forty-two years included in the original and the renewal term,
+by entry of new editions of the work, and securing copyright on the same.
+While this method may not protect any of the original work from
+republication by others, it enables the publishers of the copyright
+edition to advertise such unauthorized reprints as imperfect, and without
+the author's or editor's latest revision or additions.
+
+The whole number of entries of copyright in the United States since we
+became a nation considerably exceeds a million and a half. It may be of
+interest to give the aggregate number of titles of publications entered
+for copyright in each year since the transfer of the entire records to
+Washington in 1870.
+
+      COPYRIGHTS REGISTERED IN THE UNITED STATES,
+                   1870-1899.
+
+1870    5,600     1874   16,283     1878   15,798
+1871   12,688     1875   14,364     1879   18,125
+1872   14,164     1876   14,882     1880   20,686
+1873   15,352     1877   15,758     1881   21,075
+1882   22,918     1888   38,225     1894   62,762
+1883   25,273     1889   40,777     1895   67,572
+1884   26,893     1890   42,758     1896   72,470
+1885   28,410     1891   48,908     1897   74,321
+1886   31,241     1892   54,735     1898   76,874
+1887   35,083     1893   58,936     1899   86,492
+
+     Total, 30 years,                   1,079,445
+
+It will readily be seen that this great number of copyrights does not
+represent books alone. Many thousands of entries are daily and weekly
+periodicals claiming copyright protection, in which case they are
+required by law to make entry of every separate issue. These include a
+multitude of journals, literary, political, scientific, religious,
+pictorial, technical, commercial, agricultural, sporting, dramatic, etc.,
+among which are a number in foreign languages. These entries also embrace
+all the leading monthly and quarterly magazines and reviews, with many
+devoted to specialties--as metaphysics, sociology, law, theology, art,
+finance, education, and the arts and sciences generally. Another large
+class of copyright entries (and the largest next to books and
+periodicals) is musical compositions, numbering recently some 20,000
+publications yearly. Much of this property is valuable, and it is nearly
+all protected by entry of copyright, coming from all parts of the Union.
+There is also a large and constantly increasing number of works of
+graphic art, comprising engravings, photographs, photogravures, chromos,
+lithographs, etchings, prints, and drawings, for which copyright is
+entered. The steady accumulation of hundreds of thousands of these
+various pictorial illustrations will enable the government at no distant
+day, without a dollar of expense, to make an exhibit of the progress of
+the arts of design in America, which will be highly interesting and
+instructive. An art gallery of ample dimensions for this purpose is
+provided in the new National Library building.
+
+It remains to consider briefly the principles and practice of what is
+known as international copyright.
+
+Perhaps there is no argument for copyright at all in the productions of
+the intellect which is not good for its extension to all countries. The
+basis of copyright is that all useful labor is worthy of a recompense;
+but since all human thought when put into material or merchantable form
+becomes, in a certain sense, public property, the laws of all countries
+recognize and protect the original owners, or their assigns to whom they
+may convey the right, in an exclusive privilege for limited terms only.
+Literary property therefore is not a natural right, but a conventional
+one. The author's right to his manuscript is, indeed, absolute, and the
+law will protect him in it as fully as it will guard any other property.
+But when once put in type and multiplied through the printing-press, his
+claim to an exclusive right has to be guarded by a special statute,
+otherwise it is held to be abandoned (like the articles in a newspaper)
+to the public. This special protection is furnished in nearly all
+civilized countries by copyright law.
+
+What we call "copyright" is an exclusive right to multiply copies of any
+publication for sale. Domestic copyright, which is all we formerly had in
+this country, is limited to the United States. International copyright,
+which has now been enacted, extends the right of American authors to
+foreign countries, and recognizes a parallel right of foreign authors in
+our own. There is nothing in the constitutional provision which restrains
+Congress from granting copyright to other than American citizens. Patent
+right, coming under the same clause of the Constitution, has been
+extended to foreigners. Out of over 20,000 patents annually issued, about
+2,500 (or 12 per cent.) are issued to foreigners, while American patents
+are similarly protected abroad. If we have international patent right,
+why not international copyright? The grant of power is the same; both
+patent right and copyright are for a limited time; both rights during
+this time are exclusive; and both rest upon the broad ground of the
+promotion of science and the useful arts. If copyright is justifiable at
+all, if authors are to be secured a reward for their labors, they claim
+that all who use them should contribute equally to this result. The
+principle of copyright once admitted, it cannot logically be confined to
+State lines or national boundaries. There appears to be no middle ground
+between the doctrine of common property in all productions of the
+intellect--which leads us to communism by the shortest road--and the
+admission that copyright is due, while its limited term lasts, from all
+who use the works of an author, wherever found.
+
+Accordingly, international copyright has become the policy of nearly all
+civilized nations. The term of copyright is longer in most countries than
+in the United States, ranging from the life of the author and seven years
+beyond, in England, to a life term and fifty years additional in France
+and Russia. Copyright is thus made a life tenure and something more in
+all countries except our own, where its utmost limit is forty-two years.
+This may perhaps be held to represent a fair average lifetime, reckoned
+from the age of intellectual maturity. There have not been wanting
+advocates for a perpetual copyright, to run to the author and his heirs
+and assigns forever. This was urged before the British Copyright
+Commission in 1878 by leading British publishers, but the term of
+copyright is hitherto, in all nations, limited by law.
+
+Only brief allusion can be made to the most recent (and in some respects
+most important) advance step which has been taken in copyright
+legislation in the United States. This act of Congress is aimed at
+securing reciprocal protection to American and foreign authors in the
+respective countries which may comply with its provisions. There is here
+no room to sketch the hitherto vain attempt to secure to authors, here
+and abroad, an international protection to their writings. Suffice it to
+say that a union of interests was at last effected, whereby authors,
+publishers and manufacturers are supposed to have secured some measure of
+protection to their varied interests. The measure is largely
+experimental, and the satisfaction felt over its passage into law is
+tempered by doubt in various quarters as to the justice, or liberality,
+or actual benefit to authors of its provisions. What is to be said of a
+statute which was denounced by some Senators as a long step backward
+toward barbarism, and hailed by others as a great landmark in the
+progress of civilization?
+
+The main features added to the existing law of copyright by this act,
+which took effect July 1, 1891, are these:
+
+1. All limitation of the privilege of copyright to citizens and residents
+of the United States is repealed.
+
+2. Foreigners applying for copyright are to pay fees of $1 for record, or
+$1.50 for certificate of copyright.
+
+3. Importation of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs entered here
+for copyright is prohibited, except two copies of any book for use and
+not for sale.
+
+4. The two copies of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs deposited
+with the Librarian of Congress must be printed from type set, or plates,
+etc., made in the United States. It follows that all foreign works
+protected by American copyright must be wholly manufactured in this
+country.
+
+5. The copyright privilege is restricted to citizens or subjects of
+nations permitting the benefit of copyright to Americans on
+substantially the same terms as their own citizens, or of nations who
+have international agreements providing for reciprocity in the grant of
+copyright, to which the United States may at its pleasure become a party.
+
+6. The benefit of copyright in the United States is not to take effect as
+to any foreigner until the actual existence of either of the conditions
+just recited, in the case of the nation to which he belongs, shall have
+been made known by a proclamation of the President of the United States.
+
+One very material benefit has been secured through international
+copyright. Under it, authors are assured the control of their own text,
+both as to correctness and completeness. Formerly, republication was
+conducted on a "scramble" system, by which books were hastened through
+the press, to secure the earliest market, with little or no regard to a
+correct re-production. Moreover, it was in the power of the American
+publisher of an English book, or of a British publisher of an American
+one, to alter or omit passages in any work reprinted, at his pleasure.
+This license was formerly exercised, and imperfect, garbled, or truncated
+editions of an author's writings were issued without his consent, an
+outrage against which international copyright furnishes the only
+preventive.
+
+Another benefit of copyright between nations has been to check the
+relentless flood of cheap, unpaid-for fiction, which formerly poured from
+the press, submerging the better literature. The Seaside and other
+libraries, with their miserable type, flimsy paper, and ugly form, were
+an injury alike to the eyesight, to the taste, and in many cases, to the
+morals of the community. More than ninety per cent. of these wretched
+"Libraries" were foreign novels. An avalanche of English and translated
+French novels of the "bigamy school" of fiction swept over the land,
+until the cut-throat competition of publishers, after exhausting the
+stock of unwholesome foreign literature, led to the failure of many
+houses, and piled high the counters of book and other stores with
+bankrupt stock. Having at last got rid of this unclean brood, (it is
+hoped forever) we now have better books, produced on good paper and type,
+and worth preserving, at prices not much above those of the trash
+formerly offered us.
+
+At the same time, standard works of science and literature are being
+published in England at prices which tend steadily toward increased
+popular circulation. Even conservative publishers are reversing the rule
+of small editions at high prices, for larger editions at low prices. The
+old three-volume novel is nearly supplanted by the one volume,
+well-printed and bound book at five or six shillings. Many more
+reductions would follow in the higher class of books, were not the
+measure of reciprocal copyright thus far secured handicapped by the
+necessity of re-printing on this side at double cost, if a large American
+circulation is in view.
+
+The writers of America, with the steady and rapid progress of the art of
+making books, have come more and more to appreciate the value of their
+preservation, in complete and unbroken series, in the library of the
+government, the appropriate conservator of the nation's literature.
+Inclusive and not exclusive, as this library is wisely made by law, so
+far as copyright works are concerned, it preserves with impartial care
+the illustrious and the obscure. In its archives all sciences and all
+schools of opinion stand on equal ground. In the beautiful and ample
+repository, now erected and dedicated to literature and art through the
+liberal action of Congress, the intellectual wealth of the past and the
+present age will be handed down to the ages that are to follow.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] G. H. Putnam, "Books and their makers in the Middle Ages," N. Y.
+1897, vol. 2, p. 447.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24.
+
+POETRY OF THE LIBRARY.
+
+
+THE LIBRARIAN'S DREAM.
+
+                      1.
+    He sat at night by his lonely bed,
+      With an open book before him;
+    And slowly nodded his weary head,
+      As slumber came stealing o'er him.
+
+                      2.
+    And he saw in his dream a mighty host
+      Of the writers gone before,
+    And the shadowy form of many a ghost
+      Glided in at the open door.
+
+                      3.
+    Great Homer came first in a snow-white shroud,
+      And Virgil sang sweet by his side;
+    While Cicero thundered in accents loud,
+      And Caesar most gravely replied.
+
+                      4.
+    Anacreon, too, from his rhythmical lips
+      The honey of Hybla distilled,
+    And Herodotus suffered a partial eclipse,
+      While Horace with music was filled.
+
+                      5.
+    The procession of ancients was brilliant and long,
+      Aristotle and Plato were there,
+    Thucydides, too, and Tacitus strong,
+      And Plutarch, and Sappho the fair.
+
+                      6.
+    Aristophanes elbowed gay Ovid's white ghost,
+      And Euripides Xenophon led,
+    While Propertius laughed loud at Juvenal's jokes,
+      And Sophocles rose from the dead.
+
+                      7.
+    Then followed a throng to memory dear,
+      Of writers more modern in age,
+    Cervantes and Shakespeare, who died the same year,
+      And Chaucer, and Bacon the sage.
+
+                      8.
+    Immortal the laurels that decked the fair throng,
+      And Dante moved by with his lyre,
+    While Montaigne and Pascal stood rapt by his song,
+      And Boccaccio paused to admire.
+
+                      9.
+    Sweet Spenser and Calderon moved arm in arm,
+      While Milton and Sidney were there,
+    Pope, Dryden, and Molière added their charm,
+      And Bunyan, and Marlowe so rare.
+
+                     10.
+    Then Gibbon stalked by in classical guise,
+      And Hume, and Macaulay, and Froude,
+    While Darwin, and Huxley, and Tyndall looked wise,
+      And Humboldt and Comte near them stood.
+
+                     11.
+    Dean Swift looked sardonic on Addison's face,
+      And Johnson tipped Boswell a wink,
+    Walter Scott and Jane Austen hobnobbed o'er a glass,
+      And Goethe himself deigned to drink.
+
+                     12.
+    Robert Burns followed next with Thomas Carlyle,
+      Jean Paul paired with Coleridge, too,
+    While De Foe elbowed Goldsmith, the master of style,
+      And Fielding and Schiller made two.
+
+                     13.
+    Rousseau with his eloquent, marvellous style,
+      And Voltaire, with his keen, witty pen,
+    Victor Hugo so grand, though repellent the while,
+      And Dumas and Balzac again.
+
+                     14.
+    Dear Thackeray came in his happiest mood,
+      And stayed until midnight was done,
+    Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, and Kingsley and Hood,
+      And Dickens, the master of fun.
+
+                     15.
+    George Eliot, too, with her matter-full page,
+      And Byron, and Browning, and Keats,
+    While Shelley and Tennyson joined youth and age,
+      And Wordsworth the circle completes.
+
+                     16.
+    Then followed a group of America's best,
+      With Irving, and Bryant, and Holmes,
+    While Bancroft and Motley unite with the rest,
+      And Thoreau with Whittier comes.
+
+                     17.
+    With his Raven in hand dreamed on Edgar Poe,
+      And Longfellow sweet and serene,
+    While Prescott, and Ticknor, and Emerson too,
+      And Hawthorne and Lowell were seen.
+
+                     18.
+    While thus the assembly of witty and wise
+      Rejoiced the librarian's sight,
+    Ere the wonderful vision had fled from his eyes,
+      From above shone a heavenly light:
+
+                     19.
+    And solemn and sweet came a voice from the skies,
+      "All battles and conflicts are done,
+    The temple of Knowledge shall open all eyes,
+      And law, faith, and reason are one!"
+
+    When the radiant dawn of the morning broke,
+    From his glorious dream the librarian woke.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LIBRARY.
+
+    That place that does contain my books,
+    My books, the best companions, is to me,
+    A glorious court, where hourly I converse
+    With the old sages and philosophers;
+    And sometimes, for variety I confer
+    With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels.
+                                BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The bard of every age and clime,
+    Of genius fruitful and of soul sublime,
+    Who from the glowing mint of fancy pours
+    No spurious metal, fused from common ores,
+    But gold to matchless purity refined,
+    And stamped with all the Godhead in his mind.
+                                              JUVENAL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Books, we know,
+    Are a substantial world, both pure and good;
+    Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
+    Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
+                                           WORDSWORTH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+QUAINT LINES ON A BOOK-WORM.
+
+        The Bokeworme sitteth in his celle,
+    He studyethe all alone,
+    And burnethe oute the oile,
+    'Till ye midnight hour is gone
+    Then gethe he downe upon his bedde,
+    Ne mo watch will he a-keepe,
+    He layethe his heade on ye pillowe,
+    And eke he tryes to sleepe.
+    Then swyfte there cometh a vision grimme,
+    And greetythe him sleepynge fair,
+    And straighte he dreameth of grislie dreames,
+    And dreades fellowne and rayre.
+    Wherefore, if cravest life to eld
+    Ne rede longe uppe at night,
+    But go to bed at Curfew bell
+    And ryse wythe mornynge's lyte.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER.
+
+        In torrid heats of late July,
+        In March, beneath the bitter _bise_,
+        He book-hunts while the loungers fly,--
+        He book-hunts, though December freeze;
+        In breeches baggy at the knees,
+        And heedless of the public jeers,
+        For these, for these, he hoards his fees,--
+        Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.
+
+        No dismal stall escapes his eye,
+        He turns o'er tomes of low degrees,
+        There soiled romanticists may lie,
+        Or Restoration comedies;
+        Each tract that flutters in the breeze
+        For him is charged with hopes and fears,
+        In mouldy novels fancy sees
+        Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.
+
+        With restless eyes that peer and spy,
+        Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees,
+        In dismal nooks he loves to pry,
+        Whose motto evermore is _Spes_!
+        But ah! the fabled treasure flees;
+        Grown rarer with the fleeting years,
+        In rich men's shelves they take their ease,--
+        Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!
+
+    Prince, all the things that tease and please,--
+      Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, jeers and tears,
+    What are they but such toys as these--
+      Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs?         ANDREW LANG.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'Tis in books the chief
+    Of all perfections to be plain and brief.
+                                      SAMUEL BUTLER.
+
+    Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
+    Nature's chief master-piece is writing well.
+                                         BUCKINGHAM.
+
+    Books should to one of these four ends conduce:
+    For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
+                                      SIR JOHN DENHAM.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MY BOOKS.
+
+    Oh, happy he who, weary of the sound
+    Of throbbing life, can shut his study door,
+    Like Heinsius, on it all, to find a store
+    Of peace that otherwise is never found!
+    Such happiness is mine, when all around
+    My dear dumb friends in groups of three or four
+    Command my soul to linger on the shore
+    Of those fair realms where they reign monarchs crowned.
+    To-day the strivings of the world are naught,
+    For I am in a land that glows with God,
+    And I am in a path by angels trod.
+    Dost ask what book creates such heavenly thought?
+    Then know that I with Dante soar afar,
+    Till earth shrinks slowly to a tiny star.
+                                          J. WILLIAMS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THOUGHTS IN A LIBRARY.
+
+    Speak low! tread softly through these halls;
+      Here genius lives enshrined;
+    Here reign in silent majesty
+      The monarchs of the mind.
+
+    A mighty spirit host they come
+      From every age and clime;
+    Above the buried wrecks of years
+      They breast the tide of time.
+
+    Here shall the poets chant for thee
+      Their sweetest, loftiest lays,
+    And prophets wait to guide thy steps
+      In Wisdom's pleasant ways.
+
+    Come, with these God-anointed kings
+      Be thou companion here;
+    And in the mighty realm of mind
+      Thou shalt go forth a peer!
+                                  ANNE C. LYNCH BOTTA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VERSES IN A LIBRARY.
+
+    Give me that book whose power is such
+    That I forget the north wind's touch.
+
+    Give me that book that brings to me
+    Forgetfulness of what I be.
+
+    Give me that book that takes my life
+    In seeming far from all its strife.
+
+    Give me that book wherein each page
+    Destroys my sense of creeping age.
+                                  JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A BOOK BY THE BROOK.
+
+    Give me a nook and a book,
+    And let the proud world spin round;
+    Let it scramble by hook or by crook
+    For wealth or a name with a sound.
+    You are welcome to amble your ways,
+    Aspirers to place or to glory;
+    May big bells jangle your praise,
+    And golden pens blazon your story;
+    For me, let me dwell in my nook,
+    Here by the curve of this brook,
+    That croons to the tune of my book:
+    Whose melody wafts me forever
+    On the waves of an unseen river.
+                                     WILLIAM FREELAND.
+
+    The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
+    And all the sweet serenity of books.
+                                     H. W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+    Oh for a booke and a shady nooke
+      Eyther in door or out,
+    With the greene leaves whispering overhead,
+      Or the streete cryes all about:
+    Where I maie reade all at my ease
+      Both of the newe and olde,
+    For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke
+      Is better to me than golde!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO DANIEL ELZEVIR.
+
+(_From the Latin of Ménage._)
+
+    What do I see! Oh! gods divine
+    And Goddesses--this Book of mine--
+    This child of many hopes and fears,
+    Is published by the Elzevirs!
+    Oh Perfect publishers complete!
+    Oh dainty volume, new and neat!
+    The Paper doth outshine the snow,
+    The Print is blacker than the crow,
+    The Title-page, with crimson bright,
+    The vellum cover smooth and white,
+    All sorts of readers to invite;
+    Ay, and will keep them reading still,
+    Against their will, or with their will!
+    Thus what of grace the Rhymes may lack
+    The Publisher has given them back,
+    As Milliners adorn the fair
+    Whose charms are something skimp and spare.
+
+    Oh dulce decus, Elzevirs!
+    The pride of dead and dawning years,
+    How can a poet best repay
+    The debt he owes your House to-day?
+    May this round world, while aught endures,
+    Applaud, and buy, these books of yours.
+    May purchasers incessant pop,
+    My Elzevirs, within your shop,
+    And learned bards salute, with cheers,
+    The volumes of the Elzevirs,
+    Till your renown fills earth and sky,
+    Till men forget the Stephani,
+    And all that Aldus wrought, and all
+    Turnebus sold in shop or stall,
+    While still may Fate's (and Binders') shears
+    Respect, and spare, the Elzevirs!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
+    Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares!
+    The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
+    Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.
+                                           WORDSWORTH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COMPANIONS.
+
+    But books, old friends that are always new,
+    Of all good things that we know are best;
+    They never forsake us, as others do,
+    And never disturb our inward rest.
+    Here is truth in a world of lies,
+    And all that in man is great and wise!
+    Better than men and women, friend,
+    That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain,
+    Are the books their cunning hands have penned,
+    For they depart, but the books remain.
+                               RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PARADOX OF BOOKS.
+
+    I'm strange contradictions; I'm new and I'm old,
+    I'm often in tatters, and oft decked with gold.
+    Though I never could read, yet lettered I'm found;
+    Though blind, I enlighten; though loose, I am bound.
+    I'm always in black, and I'm always in white;
+    I am grave and I'm gay, I am heavy and light.
+    In form too I differ,--I'm thick and I'm thin;
+    I've no flesh and no bone, yet I'm covered with skin;
+    I've more points than the compass, more stops than the flute;
+    I sing without voice, without speaking confute;
+    I'm English, I'm German, I'm French, and I'm Dutch;
+    Some love me too fondly, some slight me too much;
+    I often die soon, though I sometimes live ages,
+    And no monarch alive has so many pages.
+                                          HANNAH MORE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    I love my books as drinkers love their wine;
+    The more I drink, the more they seem divine;
+    With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er,
+    And each fresh draught is sweeter than before:
+    Books bring me friends where'er on earth I be,--
+    Solace of solitude, bonds of society.
+
+    I love my books! they are companions dear,
+    Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere;
+    Here talk I with the wise in ages gone,
+    And with the nobly gifted in our own:
+    If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind,
+    Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find.
+                                      FRANCIS BENNOCH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MY LIBRARY.
+
+    All round the room my silent servants wait,--
+    My friends in every season, bright and dim
+    Angels and seraphim
+    Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low,
+    And spirits of the skies all come and go
+    Early and late;
+    From the old world's divine and distant date,
+    From the sublimer few,
+    Down to the poet who but yester-eve
+    Sang sweet and made us grieve,
+    All come, assembling here in order due.
+    And here I dwell with Poesy, my mate,
+    With Erato and all her vernal sighs,
+    Great Clio with her victories elate,
+    Or pale Urania's deep and starry eyes.
+    Oh friends, whom chance or change can never harm,
+    Whom Death the tyrant cannot doom to die,
+    Within whose folding soft eternal charm
+    I love to lie,
+    And meditate upon your verse that flows,
+    And fertilizes wheresoe'er it goes.
+                                 BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+RATIONAL MADNESS.
+
+_A Song, for the Lover of Curious and Rare Books._
+
+    Come, boys, fill your glasses, and fill to the brim,
+    Here's the essence of humor, the soul, too, of whim!
+    Attend and receive (and sure 'tis no vapour)
+    A "hap' worth of wit on a pennyworth of paper."
+
+    Those joys which the Bibliomania affords
+    Are felt and acknowledged by Dukes and by Lords!
+    And the finest estate would be offer'd in vain
+    For an exemplar bound by the famed Roger Payne!
+
+    To a proverb goes madness with love hand in hand,
+    But our senses we yield to a double command;
+    The dear frenzy in both is first rous'd by fair looks,--
+    Here's our sweethearts, my boys! not forgetting our books!
+
+    Thus our time may we pass with rare books and rare friends,
+    Growing wiser and better, till life itself ends:
+    And may those who delight not in black-letter lore,
+    By some obsolete act be sent from our shore!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM.
+
+    While others are asking for beauty or fame,
+    Or praying to know that for which they should pray,
+    Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame,
+    Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey,
+    The sage has found out a more excellent way--
+    To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,
+    And his humble petition puts up day by day,
+    For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+    Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,
+    And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray;
+    Philosophers kneel to the God without name,
+    Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;
+    The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,
+    The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours;
+    But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,
+    For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+    Oh grant me a life without pleasure or blame
+    (As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day
+    With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame)
+    O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,
+    Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play
+    With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!
+    And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,
+    For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+    Gods, grant or withhold it; your "yea" and your "nay"
+    Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours:
+    But life is worth living, and here we would stay
+    For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+                                          ANDREW LANG.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LIBRARY.
+
+    They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise,
+    Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise:
+    Their aid they yield to all: they never shun
+    The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:
+    Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud,
+    They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;
+    Nor tell to various people various things,
+    But show to subjects, what they show to kings.
+
+    Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind
+    To stamp a lasting image of the mind!
+
+    With awe, around these silent walks I tread;
+    These are the lasting mansions of the dead:--
+    "The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply;
+    "These are the tombs of such as cannot die!
+    Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime,
+    And laugh at all the little strife of time."
+
+    Lo, all in silence, all in order stand,
+    And mighty folios first, a lordly band;
+    Then quartos their well-order'd ranks maintain,
+    And light octavos fill a spacious plain:
+    See yonder, rangèd in more frequent rows,
+    A humbler band of duodecimos;
+    While undistinguished trifles swell the scene,
+    The last new play and fritter'd magazine.
+
+    Here all the rage of controversy ends,
+    And rival zealots rest like bosom friends:
+    An Athanasian here, in deep repose,
+    Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes;
+    Socinians here with Calvinists abide,
+    And thin partitions angry chiefs divide;
+    Here wily Jesuits simple Quakers meet,
+    And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet.
+                                        GEORGE CRABBE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ETERNITY OF POETRY.
+
+    For deeds doe die, however noblie donne,
+    And thoughts do as themselves decay;
+    But wise words, taught in numbers for to runne
+    Recorded by the Muses, live for ay;
+    Ne may with storming showers be washt away,
+    Ne bitter breathing windes with harmful blast,
+    Nor age, nor envie, shall them ever wast.
+                                              SPENSER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE OLD BOOKS.
+
+    The old books, the old books, the books of long ago!
+    Who ever felt Miss Austen tame, or called Sir Walter slow?
+    We did not care the worst to hear of human sty or den;
+    We liked to love a little bit, and trust our fellow-men.
+    The old books, the old books, as pure as summer breeze!
+    We read them under garden boughs, by fire-light on our knees,
+    They did not teach, they did not preach, or scold us into good;
+    A noble spirit from them breathed, the rest was understood.
+
+    The old books, the old books, the mother loves them best;
+    They leave no bitter taste behind to haunt the youthful breast:
+    They bid us hope, they bid us fill our hearts with visions fair;
+    They do not paralyze the will with problems of despair.
+    And as they lift from sloth and sense to follow loftier planes,
+    And stir the blood of indolence to bubble in the veins:
+    Inheritors of mighty things, who own a lineage high,
+    We feel within us budding wings that long to reach the sky:
+    To rise above the commonplace, and through the cloud to soar,
+    And join the loftier company of grander souls of yore.
+                                        THE SPECTATOR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25.
+
+HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY.[3]
+
+SOME THOUGHTS ON CLASSIFICATION.
+
+_By Librarian F. M. Crunden._
+
+    Classification is vexation,
+        Shelf-numbering is as bad;
+            The rule of D
+            Doth puzzle me;
+        Mnemonics drives me mad.
+
+_Air--The Lord Chancellor's Song._
+
+    When first I became a librarian,
+        Says I to myself, says I,
+    I'll learn all their systems as fast as I can,
+        Says I to myself, says I;
+    The Cutter, the Dewey, the Schwartz, and the Poole,
+    The alphabet, numeral, mnemonic rule,
+    The old, and the new, and the eclectic school,
+        Says I to myself, says I.
+
+    Class-numbers, shelf-numbers, book-numbers, too,
+        Says I to myself, says I,
+    I'll study them all, and I'll learn them clear thro',
+        Says I to myself, says I;
+    I'll find what is good, and what's better and best,
+    And I'll put two or three to a practical test;
+    And then--if I've time--I'll take a short rest,
+        Says I to myself, says I.
+
+    But art it is long and time it doth fly,
+        Says I to myself, says I,
+    And three or four years have already passed by,
+        Says I to myself, says I;
+    And yet on those systems I'm not at all clear,
+    While new combinations forever appear,
+    To master them all is a life-work, I fear,
+        Says I to myself, says I.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Classification in a Library in Western New York: Gail Hamilton's
+"Woolgathering," under Agriculture.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Book asked for. "An attack philosopher in Paris."
+
+A changed title. A young woman went into a library the other day and
+asked for the novel entitled "She combeth not her head," but she finally
+concluded to take "He cometh not, she said."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Labor-saving devices. The economical catalogue-maker who thus set down
+two titles--
+
+    "Mill on the Floss,
+      do. Political economy."
+
+has a sister who keeps a universal scrap-book into which everything goes,
+but which is carefully indexed. She, too, has a mind for saving, as
+witness:
+
+    "Patti, Adelina.
+      do. Oyster."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a New York auction catalogue:
+
+"267. Junius Stat Nominis Umbrii, with numerous splendid portraits."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the New York Free Circulating Library, a youth of twenty said
+Shakespeare made him tired. "Why couldn't he write English instead of
+indulging in that _thee_ and _thou_ business?" Miss Braddon he pronounced
+"a daisy". A pretty little blue-eyed fellow "liked American history best
+of all," but found the first volume of Justin Winsor's history too much
+for him. "The French and German and Hebrew in it are all right, but
+there's Spanish and Italian and Latin, and I don't know those."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A gentleman in Paris sent to the bookbinder two volumes of the French
+edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The title in French is "L'Oncle Tom," and
+the two volumes were returned to him marked on their backs:
+
+L'Oncle,               L'Oncle,
+Tome I.                Tome II.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW A BIBLIOMANIAC BINDS HIS BOOKS.
+
+    I'd like my favorite books to bind
+    So that their outward dress
+    To every bibliomaniac's mind
+    Their contents should express.
+
+    Napoleon's life should glare in red,
+    John Calvin's life in blue;
+    Thus they would typify bloodshed
+    And sour religion's hue.
+
+    The Popes in scarlet well may go;
+    In jealous green, Othello;
+    In gray, Old Age of Cicero,
+    And London Cries in yellow.
+
+    My Walton should his gentle art
+    In salmon best express,
+    And Penn and Fox the friendly heart
+    In quiet drab confess.
+
+    Crimea's warlike facts and dates
+    Of fragrant Russia smell;
+    The subjugated Barbary States
+    In crushed Morocco dwell.
+
+    But oh! that one I hold so dear
+    Should be arrayed so cheap
+    Gives me a qualm; I sadly fear
+    My Lamb must be half-sheep!
+                                        IRVING BROWNE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a Wisconsin library, a young lady asked for the "Life of National
+Harthorne" and the "Autograph on the breakfast table."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Have you a poem on the Victor of Manengo, by Anon?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Library inquiry--"I want the catalogue of temporary literature."
+
+Query--What did she want?
+
+A friend proposes to put Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundaries of Another
+World" in Travels. Shall we let him?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A poet, in Boston, filled out an application for a volume of Pope's
+works, an edition reserved from circulation, in the following tuneful
+manner:
+
+    "You ask me, dear sir, to a reason define
+    Why you should for a fortnight this volume resign
+    To my care.--_I am also a son of the nine._"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A worthy Deutscher, confident in his mastery of the English tongue, sent
+the following quaint document across the sea:
+
+"I send you with the Post six numbers, of our Allgemeine Militär-Zeitung,
+which is published in the next year to the fifty times. Excuse my bath
+english I learned in the school and I forgot so much. If you have
+interest to german Antiquariatskataloge I will send to you some. I remain
+however yours truly servant."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A gentlemanly stranger once asked the delivery clerk for "a genealogy."
+"What one?" she asked. "Oh! any," he said. "Well--Savage's?" "No; white
+men."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Said Melvil Dewey: "To my thinking, a great librarian must have a clear
+head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. Such shall be
+greatest among librarians; and, when I look into the future, I am
+inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve this greatness
+will be women."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A LIBRARY HYMN.
+
+_By an Assistant Librarian._
+
+I have endeavored to clothe the dull prose of the usual Library Rules
+with the mantle of poetry, that they may be more attractive, and more
+easily remembered by the great public whom we serve.
+
+    Gently, reader, gently moving,
+    Wipe your feet beside the door;
+    Hush your voice to whispers soothing,
+    Take your hat off, I implore!
+    Mark your number, plainly, rightly,
+    From the catalogue you see;
+    With the card projecting slightly,
+    Then your book bring unto me.
+        Quickly working,
+        With no shirking,
+    Soon another there will be.
+
+    If above two weeks you've left me,
+    Just two cents a day I'll take,
+    And, unless my mind's bereft me,
+    Payment you must straightway make.
+    Treat your books as if to-morrow,
+    Gabriel's trump would surely sound,
+    And all scribbling, to your sorrow,
+    'Gainst your credit would be found.
+        Therefore tear not,
+        Spot and wear not
+    All these books so neatly bound.
+
+    These few simple rules abiding,
+    We shall always on you smile:
+    There will be no room for chiding,
+    No one's temper will you rile.
+    And when Heaven's golden portals
+    For you on their hinges turn,
+    With the books for all immortals,
+    There will be no rules to learn.
+        Therefore heed them,
+        Often read them,
+    Lest your future weal you spurn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TITLES OF BOOKS ASKED FOR BY WRITTEN SLIPS IN A POPULAR LIBRARY.
+
+    Aristopholus translated by Buckley.
+    Alfreri Tragedus.
+    Bertall Lavie Hors De Ches Soi.
+    Cooke M. C. M. A. L. L. D. their nature and uses.
+        Edited by Rev. J. M. Berkeley M. A. F. R. S. (Fungi.)
+    Caralus Note Book (A Cavalier's).
+    Gobden Club-Essays.
+    Specie the origin of Darwin.
+    An Epistropal Prayer Book.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BLUNDERS IN CATALOGUING.
+
+    Gasparin. The uprising of a great many people.
+    Hughes, Tom. The scouring of the White House.
+    Mayhew. The pheasant boy.
+    Wind in the lower animals (Mind.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+RECENT CALLS FOR BOOKS AT A WESTERN LIBRARY.
+
+    Account of Monte Cristo.
+    Acrost the Kontinent by Boles.
+    Bula.
+    Count of Corpus Cristy.
+    Dant's Infernal comedy.
+    Darwin's Descent on man.
+    Feminine Cooper's works.
+    Infeleese.
+    Less Miserable.
+    Some of Macbeth's writings.
+    Something in the way of friction.
+    Squeal to a book.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Vol. 3 of Laporte's "Bibliographie contemporaine," Dibdin's famous
+book is entered thus: "Bibliomania, or boock, madnss: a bibliographical
+romance...ilustrated with cats."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A well-known librarian writes:
+
+"The Catalogue of the Indiana State Library for the year 1859 has long
+been my wonder and admiration. "Bank's History of the Popes" appears
+under the letter B. Strong in the historical department, it offers a
+choice between the "Life of John Tyler, by Harper & Brothers," "Memoirs
+of Moses Henderson, by Jewish Philosophers," "Memoirs and Correspondence
+of Viscount Castlereach, by the Marquis of Londonderry," and "Memoirs of
+Benvenuto, by Gellini." In fiction, you may find "Tales of My Landlord by
+Cleishbotham," and "The Pilot, by the Author of the Pioneers;" while, if
+your passion for plural authorship is otherwise unappeasable--if Beaumont
+and Fletcher or Erckman-Chatrian seem to you too feeble a combination of
+talents--you may well be captivated by the title "Small Arms, by the
+United States Army."
+
+"The State of Indiana has undoubtedly learned a good many things since
+1859; but whosoever its present librarian may be, it is hardly probable
+that its highest flight in bibliography has surpassed the catalogue from
+which the above are quoted."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Books demanded at a certain public library:
+
+    "The Stuck-up Minister"--(Stickit Minister.)
+    "From Jessie to Ernest" (Jest to Earnest).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A country order for books called for "The Thrown of David," "Echo of
+Hummo" (Ecce Homo) and "Echo of Deas" (Ecce Deus).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Nation mentions as an instance of "the havoc which types can make
+with the titles of books, that a single catalogue gives us 'Clara Reeve's
+Old English Barn,' 'Swinburne's Century of Scoundrels,' and 'Una and her
+Papuse.' But this is outdone by the bookseller who offered for sale
+"Balvatzky, Mrs. Izis unveiled." Another goddess is offended in "Transits
+of Venice, by R. A. Proctor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a certain city, an examination of applicants for employment in the
+public library was held. The following is an exact copy of the answer to
+a question, asking for the title of a work written by each of the authors
+named: "John Ruskin, 'The Bread Winners;' William H. Prescott, 'The
+Frozen Pirate;' Charles Darwin, 'The Missing Link;' Thomas Carlyle,
+'Caesar's Column.'" The same man is responsible for saying that "B. C."
+stands for the Creation, and "A. D." for the Deluge.
+
+Who wants this bright young man?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A STORY ABOUT STORIES.
+
+    "When A Man's Single," all "Vanity Fair"
+     Courts his favor and smiles,
+     And feminine "Moths" "In Silk Attire"
+     Try on him "A Woman's Wiles."
+
+    "The World, the Flesh and the Devil"
+     Were "Wormwood" and gall to me,
+     Weary and sick of "The Passing Show,"
+     No "Woman's Face" was "Fair to See."
+
+     I fled away to "The Mill on the Floss"
+     "Two Years Ago," "In an Evil Hour,"
+     For "The Miller's Daughter" there I met,
+     Who "Cometh Up as a Flower."
+
+     She was a simple "Rose in June,"
+     And I was "An Average Man;"
+     "We Two" were "Far From the Madding Crowd"
+     When our "Love and Life" began.
+
+     It was but "A Modern Instance"
+     Of true "Love's Random Shot,"
+     And I, "The Heir of Redclyffe"
+     Was "Kidnapped": and "Why Not"?
+
+     We cannot escape the hand of "Fate,"
+     And few are "Fated to be Free,"
+     But beware of "A Social Departure"--
+     You'll live "Under the Ban," like me.
+
+     I tried to force the "Gates Ajar"
+     For my "Queen of Curds and Cream,"
+     But "The Pillars of Society"
+     Shook with horror at my "Dream."
+
+     I am no more "A Happy Man,"
+     Though blessed with "Heavenly Twins,"
+     Because "The Wicked World" maintains
+     "A Low Marriage" the worst of sins.
+
+    "Pride and Prejudice" rule the world,
+    "A Marriage for Love" is "A Capital Crime,"
+     Beware of "A Country Neighborhood"
+     And shun "Mad Love" in time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Says the Nation:
+
+A Philadelphia catalogue, whose compiler must have been more interested
+in current events than in his task, offers for sale "Intrigues of the
+Queen of Spain with McKinley, the Prince of Peace, Boston, 1809." How
+Godoy should become McKinley, or McKinley should become the Prince of
+Peace, is a problem for psychologists.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CONFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.
+
+The following are some specimens of answers to Examinations of candidates
+for Library employment, given within the past five years:
+
+"A sonnet is a poem which is adapted to music, as Petrarch's sonnets"; "a
+sonnet is a short poem sometimes and sometimes a long one and generally a
+reflection, or thoughts upon some inanimate thing, as Young's 'Night
+thoughts.'" "An epic is a critical writing, as 'Criticism on man'"; "an
+epic is a literary form written in verse, and which teaches us some
+lesson not necessarily of a moral nature"; "an epic is a dramatic poem."
+
+Epigrammatic writing is very clearly defined as "critical in a
+grammatical way." "Allegory is writing highly colored, as Pope's works";
+"allegory is writing of something that never happened, but it is purely
+imaginary, often a wandering from the main point." A common mistake
+regarding the meaning of the word bibliography results in such answers as
+"bibliography--a study of the Bible;" or "gives the lives of the people
+in the Bible." An encyclopaedia was aptly defined as "a storehouse of
+knowledge for the enlightenment of the public," while another answer
+reads "Book of Books, giving the life of famous persons, life and habits
+of animals and plants, and some medical knowledge." A collection of works
+of any author is termed "an anthropology." "Anthology is the study of
+insects." Folklore is defined as "giving to animals and things human
+sense"; an elegy means "a eulogy," oratory, "the deliverance of words."
+Belles-lettres is to one applicant "beautiful ideas," to another "the
+title of a book," to another "short stories"; again "are the letters of
+French writers," and still another writes "French for prominent
+literature and light literature." A concordance "is the explication or
+definition of something told in a simpler form," is the extremely lucid
+answer to one question, which was answered by another candidate as "a
+table of reference at back of book."
+
+The titles of books are too seldom associated with their authors' names,
+resulting in such answers as "Homer is the author of the Aeneid"; "Lalla
+Rookh" was written by James Blackmore; "Children of the Abbey," by Walter
+Besant (while another attributed it to Jane Porter); "Bow of orange
+Ribbon," by George Meredith; "Hon. Peter Stirling," by Fielding; "Quo
+Vadis," by Browning; "Pamela," by Frank Stockton (according to another by
+Marie Edgworth); "Love's Labour's Lost," by Bryant (another gives Thomas
+Reade as the author, while still another guesses Schiller); "Descent of
+Man," by Alexander Pope (another gives Dryden); "The Essay on Man," by
+Francis Bacon.
+
+One candidate believes "Hudibras" to be an early Saxon poem; another that
+"Victor Hugo's best known work is William Tell"; another that "Aesop's
+Fables is a famous allegory." Charlotte Brontë is described as an
+"American--nineteenth century--children's book." Cicero was "known for
+Latin poetry." "Dante is an exceedingly bitter writer; he takes you into
+hell and describes Satan and his angels. He wrote his play for the
+stage." Another's idea of the Divine Comedy is "a play which could be
+acted by the priests on the steps of a church for the benefit of the
+poorer class."
+
+Civil service in the mind of one young woman was "the service done by the
+government in a country, domesticly."
+
+A Christian socialist is "an advocate of Christian science." "A limited
+monarchy is a kingdom whose ruler is under the ruler of another country."
+Legal tender is "the legal rate of interest"; another considers it "Paper
+money." In economics, some of the answers were "profit-sharing, a term
+used in socialism, the rich to divide among the poor." "Monopolies is the
+money gained by selling church properties"; while "a trust is usually a
+place where a person puts some money where it will be safe to keep it."
+
+About noted personages and historic events and places the answers are
+equally startling. "Molière was a French essayist and critic" (also "a
+French writer of the nineteenth century,") Cecil Rhodes, "the founder of
+Bryn Mawr College"; "Seth Low--England, eighteenth century;" Attila "a
+woman mentioned in the Bible for her great cruelty to her child;" Warren
+Hastings "was a German soldier" (also "was a discoverer; died about
+1870"); "Nero was a Roman emperor B. C. 450." Perhaps the most unique
+guess in this line was "Richard Wagner invented the Wagner cars;"
+Abbotsford is "the title of a book by Sir Walter Scott;" "Vassar College
+is a dream, high-up and unattainable;" "Tammany Hall is a political
+meeting place in London;" "the Parthenon, an art gallery in Athens."
+
+Pedagogy seemed one of the most perplexing of words. It was defined by
+one as "the science of religion," by another as "learned pomposity;" but
+the most remarkable of all was "pedagogy is the study of feet."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SONG OF SOME LIBRARY SCHOOL SCHOLARS.
+
+              Three little maids from school are we,
+              Filled to the brim with economy--
+              Not of the house but library,
+              Learnt in the Library School.
+
+    _1st Maid_--I range my books from number one.
+    _2nd Maid_--Alphabetically I've begun.
+    _3rd Maid_--In regular classes mine do run.
+         _All_--Three maids from the Library School.
+
+         _All_--Three little maidens all unwary,
+              Each in charge of a library,
+              Each with a system quite contrary
+                  To every other school.
+
+              Our catalogues, we quite agree,
+              From faults and errors must be free,
+              If only we our way can see
+                  To find the proper rule.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Boy's remark on returning a certain juvenile book to the library: "I
+don't want any more of them books. The girls is all too holy."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Half the books in this library are not worth reading," said a
+sour-visaged, hypercritical, novel-satiated woman.--"Read the other half,
+then," advised a bystander.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WOES OF A LIBRARIAN.
+
+    Let us give a brief rehearsal
+    Of the learning universal,
+    Which men expect to find
+    In Librarians to their mind.
+
+    He must undergo probation,
+    Before he gets a situation;
+    Must begin at the creation,
+    When the world was in formation,
+    And come down to its cremation,
+    In the final consummation
+    Of the old world's final spasm:
+    He must study protoplasm,
+    And bridge over every chasm
+    In the origin of species,
+    Ere the monkey wore the breeches,
+    Or the Simian tribe began
+    To ascend from ape to man.
+
+    He must master the cosmology,
+    And know all about psychology,
+    And the wonders of biology,
+    And be deep in ornithology,
+    And develop ideology,
+    With the aid of craniology.
+    He must learn to teach zoölogy,
+    And be skilled in etymology,
+    And the science of philology,
+    And calculate chronology,
+    While he digs into geology,
+    And treats of entomology,
+    And hunts up old mythology,
+    And dips into theology,
+    And grows wise in sociology,
+    And expert in anthropology.
+
+    He must also know geography,
+    And the best works on photography,
+    And the science of stenography,
+    And be well up on cosmography,
+    And the secrets of cryptography.
+    Must interpret blind chirography,
+    Know by heart all mens' biography,
+    And the black art of typography,
+    And every book in bibliography.
+
+    These things are all essential
+    And highly consequential.
+
+    If he's haunted by ambition
+    For a library position,
+    And esteems it a high mission,
+    To aspire to erudition;
+    He will find some politician
+    Of an envious disposition,
+    Getting up a coalition
+    To secure his non-admission,
+    And send him to perdition,
+    Before he's reached fruition.
+
+    If he gets the situation,
+    And is full of proud elation
+    And of fond anticipation,
+    And has in contemplation
+    To enlighten half the nation,
+    He may write a dissertation
+    For the public information
+    On the laws of observation,
+    And the art of conversation.
+
+    He must know each famed oration,
+    And poetical quotation,
+    And master derivation,
+    And the science of translation,
+    And complex pagination,
+    And perfect punctuation,
+    And binomial equation,
+    And accurate computation,
+    And boundless permutation,
+    And infinite gradation,
+    And the craft of divination,
+    And Scripture revelation,
+    And the secret of salvation.
+
+    He must know the population
+    Of every separate nation,
+    The amount of immigration,
+    And be wise in arbitration,
+    And the art of navigation,
+    And colonial annexation,
+    And problems Australasian.
+
+    He must take his daily ration
+    Of catalogue vexation,
+    And endless botheration
+    With ceaseless complication
+    Of decimal notation,
+    Or Cutter combination.
+
+    To complete his education,
+    He must know the valuation
+    Of all the publications
+    Of many generations,
+    With their endless variations,
+    And true interpretations.
+
+    When he's spent a life in learning,
+    If his lamp continues burning,
+    When he's mastered all philosophy,
+    And the science of theosophy,
+    Grown as learned as Mezzofanti,
+    As poetical as Dante,
+    As wise as Magliabecchi,
+    As profound as Mr. Lecky--
+    Has absorbed more kinds of knowledge
+    Than are found in any college;
+    He may take his full degree
+    Of Ph. or LL. D.
+    And prepare to pass the portal
+    That leads to life immortal.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Mostly from the Library Journal, New York.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26.
+
+RARE BOOKS.
+
+
+There is perhaps no field of inquiry concerning literature in which so
+large an amount of actual mis-information or of ignorance exists as that
+of the rarity of many books. The makers of second-hand catalogues are
+responsible for much of this, in describing the books which they wish to
+sell as "rare," "very scarce," etc., but more of it proceeds from
+absolute ignorance of the book-markets of the world. I have had
+multitudes of volumes offered for sale whose commercial value was hardly
+as many cents as was demanded in dollars by their ill-informed owners,
+who fancied the commonest book valuable because they "had never seen
+another copy." No one's ideas of the money value of any book are worth
+anything, unless he has had long experimental knowledge of the market for
+books both in America and in Europe.
+
+What constitutes rarity in books is a question that involves many
+particulars. Thus, a given book may be rare in the United States which is
+abundant in London; or rare in London, when common enough in Germany. So
+books may be rare in one age which were easily found in another: and
+again, books on certain subjects may be so absorbed by public demand when
+events excite interest in that subject, as to take up most of the copies
+in market, and enhance the price of the remainder. Thus, Napoleon's
+conquering career in Egypt created a great demand for all books on Egypt
+and Africa. The scheme for founding a great French colony in Louisiana
+raised the price of all books and pamphlets on that region, which soon
+after fell into the possession of the United States. President Lincoln's
+assassination caused a demand for all accounts of the murder of the heads
+of nations. Latterly, all books on Cuba, the West Indies, and the
+Philippines have been in unprecedented demand, and dealers have raised
+the prices, which will again decline after the recent public interest in
+them has been supplanted by future events.
+
+There is a broad distinction to be drawn between books which are
+absolutely rare, and those which are only relatively scarce, or which
+become temporarily rare, as just explained. Thus, a large share of the
+books published in the infancy of printing are _rare_; nearly all which
+appeared in the quarter century after printing began are _very_ rare; and
+several among these last are _superlatively_ rare. I may instance the
+Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg and Schoeffer (1455?) of which only
+twenty-four copies are known, nearly all in public libraries, where they
+ought to be; the Mentz Psalter of the same printers, 1457, the first book
+ever printed with a date; and the first edition of Livy, Rome [1469] the
+only copy of which printed on vellum is in the British Museum Library.
+
+One reason of the scarcity of books emanating from the presses of the
+fifteenth century is that of many of them the editions consisted of only
+two hundred to three hundred copies, of which the large number absorbed
+in public libraries, or destroyed by use, fire or decay, left very few in
+the hands of booksellers or private persons. Still, it is a great mistake
+to infer that all books printed before A. D. 1500 are rare. The editions
+of many were large, especially after about 1480, many were reprinted in
+several editions, and of such incunabula copies can even now be picked up
+on the continent at very low prices.
+
+Contrary to a wide-spread belief, mere age adds very little to the value
+of any book, and oft-times nothing at all. All librarians are pestered
+to buy "hundred year old" treatises on theology or philosophy, as dry as
+the desert of Sahara, on the ground that they are both old and rare,
+whereas such books, two hundred and even three hundred years old, swarm
+in unsalable masses on the shelves of London and provincial booksellers
+at a few pence per volume. The reason that they are comparatively rare in
+this country is that nobody wants them, and so they do not get imported.
+
+A rare book is, strictly speaking, only one which is found with
+difficulty, taking into view all the principal book markets of various
+countries. Very few books printed since 1650 have any peculiar value on
+account of their age. Of many books, both old and new, the reason of
+scarcity is that only a few copies actually remain, outside of public
+libraries, and these last, of course, are not for sale. This scarcity of
+copies is produced by a great variety of causes, most of which are here
+noted.
+
+(1) The small number of the books originally printed leads to rarity.
+This is by no means peculiar to early impressions of the press: on the
+contrary, of some books printed only last year not one tenth as many
+exist as of a multitude of books printed four centuries ago. Not only
+privately printed books, not designed for publication, but some family or
+personal memoirs, or original works circulated only among friends, and
+many other publications belong to this class of rarities. The books
+printed at private presses are mostly rare. Horace Walpole's Strawberry
+Hill press produced some thirty works from 1757 to 1789, in editions
+varying from fifty to six hundred copies. The Lee Priory press of Sir E.
+Brydges printed many literary curiosities, none of which had more than
+one hundred impressions. Most of the editions of the Shakespearean and
+other critical essays of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps were limited to forty
+copies, or even less. The genealogical and heraldic imprints of Sir
+Thomas Phillipps, at the Middle Hill press, 1819-59, numbering some
+hundreds of different works, were mostly confined to twenty copies each,
+and some to only six copies. Some of them are as rare as many
+manuscripts, of which several copies have been made, and sell at prices
+dictated by their scarcity. Most of them are in the Library of Congress.
+The Kelmscott press of William Morris printed in sumptuous style,
+improved upon the finest models of antique typography, a number of
+literary works, which now bring enhanced prices. Of the many historical
+and literary publications of the Roxburghe Club, the Percy Society, the
+Maitland, the Abbotsford, and the Bannatyne Clubs abroad, only thirty to
+one hundred copies were printed. Of those of the Prince Society, the
+Grolier Club, and others in America, only from 150 to 300 copies were
+printed, being for subscribers only. Rarity and enhanced prices
+necessarily result in all these cases. Of some books, only five to ten
+copies have been printed, or else, out of fifty or more printed, all but
+a very few have been ruthlessly destroyed, in order to give a fanciful
+value to the remainder. In these extreme instances, the rarity commonly
+constitutes almost the sole value of the work.
+
+(2) Even where many copies have been printed, the destruction of the
+greater part of the edition has rendered the book very rare. Printing
+offices and book binderies are peculiarly subject to fires, and many
+editions have thus been consumed before more than a few copies have been
+issued. The great theological libraries edited by the Abbé J. P. Migne,
+the _Patrologie Grecque, et Latine_, owe their scarcity and advanced
+prices to a fire which consumed the entire remainder of the edition. All
+the copies of a large edition of "Twenty years among our savage Indians,"
+by J. L. Humfreville, were destroyed by fire in a Hartford printing
+office in 1899, except two, which had been deposited in the Library of
+Congress, to secure the copyright. The whole edition of the _Machina
+coelestis_ of Hevelius was burned, except the few copies which the author
+had presented to friends before the fire occurred. The earlier issues in
+Spanish of the Mexican and Peruvian presses prior to 1600 are exceedingly
+rare. And editions of books printed at places in the United States where
+no books are now published are sought for their imprint alone and seldom
+found.
+
+(3) Many books have become rare because proscribed and in part destroyed
+by governmental or ecclesiastical authority. This applies more especially
+to the ages that succeeded the application of printing to the art of
+multiplying books. The freedom of many writers upon politics and popular
+rights led to the suppression of their books by kings, emperors or
+parliaments. At the same time, books of church history or doctrinal
+theology which departed, in however slight a degree, from the standard of
+faith proclaimed by the church, were put in the Index Expurgatorius, or
+list of works condemned in whole or in part as heretical and unlawful to
+be read. A long and melancholy record of such proscriptions, civil and
+ecclesiastical, is found in Gabriel Peignot's two volumes--_Dictionnaire
+des livres condamnés au feu, supprimés, ou censurés_, etc. Works of
+writers of genius and versatile ability were thus proscribed, until it
+gave rise to the sarcasm among the scholars of Europe, that if one wanted
+to find what were the books best worth reading, he should look in the
+Index Expurgatorius. It appears to have been quite forgotten by those in
+authority that persecution commonly helps the cause persecuted, and that
+the best way to promote the circulation of a book is to undertake to
+suppress it. This age finds itself endowed with so many heretics that it
+is no longer possible to find purchasers at high prices for books once
+deemed unholy. Suppressed passages in later editions lead to a demand for
+the uncastrated copies which adds an element of enhanced cost in the
+market.
+
+(4) Another source of rarity is the great extent and cost of many works,
+outrunning the ability of most collectors to buy or to accommodate them
+on their shelves. These costly possessions have been commonly printed in
+limited numbers for subscribers, or for distribution by governments under
+whose patronage they were produced. Such are some of the notable
+collections of early voyages, the great folios of many illustrated
+scientific works on natural history, local geography, etc. That great
+scholar, Baron von Humboldt, used jocosely to say that he could not
+afford to own a set of his own works, most of which are folios
+sumptuously printed, with finely engraved illustrations. The collection
+known as the "_Grands et petits Voyages_" of De Bry, the former in 13
+volumes, relating to America, and finely illustrated with copper-plates
+produced in the highest style of that art, are among the rarest sets of
+books to find complete. The collection of voyages by Hulsius is equally
+difficult to procure. A really perfect set of Piranesi's great
+illustrated work on the art and architecture of ancient Rome is very
+difficult to acquire. The _Acta Sanctorum_, in the original edition, is
+very seldom found. But there is no room to multiply examples.
+
+(5) What adds to the rarity and cost of certain books is the peculiarly
+expensive style or condition in which they are produced or preserved.
+Some few copies of an edition, for example, are printed on vellum, or on
+China or India or other choice paper, in colored ink or bronze, on
+colored paper, (rose-tinted, or green, blue or yellow,) on large paper,
+with broad margins, etc. Uncut copies always fetch a higher price than
+those whose edges are trimmed down in binding. To some book-collecting
+amateurs cut edges are an abomination. They will pay more for a book "in
+sheets," which they can bind after their own taste, than for the finest
+copy in calf or morocco with gilt edges. Some books, also, are
+exceptionally costly because bound in a style of superior elegance and
+beauty, or as having belonged to a crowned head or a noble person,
+("books with a pedigree") or an eminent author, or having autographs of
+notable characters on the fly-leaves or title-pages, or original letters
+inserted in the volume. Others still are "extra-illustrated" works, in
+which one volume is swelled to several by the insertion of a multitude of
+portraits, autographs, and engravings, more or less illustrative of the
+contents of the book. This is called "Grangerising," from its origin in
+the practice of thus illustrating Granger's Biographical History of
+England. Book amateurs of expensive tastes are by no means rare,
+especially in England, France, and America, and the great commercial
+value placed upon uncut and rarely beautiful books, on which the highest
+arts of the printer and book-binder have been lavished, evinces the fact.
+
+(6) The books emanating from the presses of famous printers are more
+sought for by collectors and libraries than other publications, because
+of their superior excellence. Sometimes this is found in the beauty of
+the type, or the clear and elegant press-work; sometimes in the printers'
+marks, monograms, engraved initial letters, head and tail-pieces, or
+other illustrations; and sometimes in the fine quality of the choice
+paper on which the books are printed. Thus, the productions of the
+presses of Aldus, Giunta, Bodoni, Etienne, Elzevir, Froben, Gutenberg,
+Fust and Schoeffer, Plantin, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Bulmer, Didot,
+Baskerville, Pickering, Whittingham, and others, are always in demand,
+and some of the choicer specimens of their art, if in fine condition,
+bring great prices in the second-hand book-shops, or the auction room. An
+example of Caxton's press is now almost unattainable, except in
+fragmentary copies. There are known to be only about 560 examples of
+Caxtons in the world, four-fifths of which are in England, and thirty-one
+of these are unique. His "King Arthur" (1485) brought £1950 at auction in
+1885, and the Polychronicon (1482) was sold at the Ives sale (N. Y.) in
+1891, for $1,500.
+
+(7) In the case of all finely illustrated works, the earlier impressions
+taken, both of text and plates, are more rare, and hence more valuable,
+than the bulk of the edition. Thus, copies with "proofs before letters"
+of the steel engravings or etchings, sometimes command more than double
+the price of copies having only the ordinary plates. Each added
+impression deteriorates a little the sharp, clear outlines and brilliant
+impressions which are peculiar to the first copies printed.
+
+(8) Of some books, certain volumes only are rare, and very costly in
+consequence. Thus, Burk's History of Virginia is common enough in three
+volumes, but volume 4 of the set, by Jones and Girardin, (1816,) is
+exceedingly rare, and seldom found with the others. The fifth and last
+volume of Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History is very scarce,
+while the others are readily procured. Of De Bry's Voyages, the 13th or
+final part of the American voyages is so rare as to be quite
+unattainable, unless after long years of search, and at an unconscionable
+price.
+
+(9) The condition of any book is an unfailing factor in its price. Many,
+if not most books offered by second-hand dealers are shop-worn, soiled,
+or with broken bindings, or some other defect. A pure, clean copy, in
+handsome condition without and within, commands invariably an extra
+price. Thus the noted Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, a huge portly folio,
+with 2,250 wood-cuts in the text, many of them by Albert Dürer or other
+early artists, is priced in London catalogues all the way from £7.15 up
+to £35, for identically the same edition. The difference is dependent
+wholly on the condition of the copies offered. Here is part of a
+description of the best copy: "Nuremberg Chronicle, by Schedel, printed
+by Koberger, first edition, 1493, royal folio, with fine original
+impressions of the 2,250 large wood-cuts of towns, historical events,
+portraits, etc., very tall copy, measuring 18½ inches by 12½, beautifully
+bound in morocco super extra, full gilt edges, by Riviere, £35. All the
+cuts are brilliant impressions, large and spirited. The book is genuine
+and perfect throughout; _no washed leaves_, and all the large capitals
+filled in by the rubricator by different colored inks: it has the six
+additional leaves at end, which Brunet says are nearly always wanting."
+
+(10) The first editions printed of many books always command high prices.
+Not only is this true of the _editio princeps_ of Homer, Virgil, Tacitus
+and other Greek and Roman writers, published in the infancy of printing,
+but of every noted author, of ancient or modern date. The edition printed
+during the life of the writer has had his own oversight and correction.
+And when more than one issue of his book has thus appeared, one sees how
+his maturer judgment has altered the substance or the style of his work.
+First editions of any very successful work always tend to become scarce,
+since the number printed is smaller, as a rule, and a large part of the
+issue is absorbed by public libraries. The earliest published writings of
+Tennyson, now found with difficulty, show how much of emendation and
+omission this great poet thought proper to make in his poems in after
+years. A first edition of Ivanhoe, 3 vols., 1820, brings £7 or more, in
+the original boards, but if rebound in any style, the first Waverley
+novels can be had at much less, though collectors are many.
+
+(11) Another class of rare books is found in many local histories, both
+among the county histories of Great Britain, and those of towns and
+counties in the United States. Jay Gould's History of Delaware County, N.
+Y., published in 1856, and sought after in later times because of his
+note as a financier, is seldom found. Of family genealogies, too, printed
+in small editions, there are many which cannot be had at all, and many
+more which have risen to double or even quadruple price. The market value
+of these books, always dependent on demand, is enhanced by the wants of
+public libraries which are making or completing collections of these much
+sought sources of information.
+
+(12) There is a class of books rarely found in any reputable book shop,
+and which ought to be much rarer than they are--namely, those that belong
+to the domain of indecent literature. Booksellers who deal in such wares
+often put them in catalogues under the head of _facetiae_, thus making a
+vile use of what should be characteristic only of books of wit or humor.
+Men of prurient tastes become collectors of such books, many of which are
+not without some literary merit, while many more are neither fit to be
+written, nor printed, nor read.
+
+(13) There is a large variety of books that are sought mainly on account,
+not of their authors, nor for their value as literature, but for their
+illustrators. Many eminent artists (in fact most of those of any period)
+have made designs for certain books of their day. The reputation of an
+artist sometimes rests more upon his work given to the public in
+engravings, etchings, wood-cuts, etc., that illustrate books, than upon
+his works on canvas or in marble. Many finely illustrated works bear
+prices enhanced by the eagerness of collectors, who are bent upon
+possessing the designs of some favorite artist, while some amateurs covet
+a collection of far wider scope. This demand, although fitful, and
+sometimes evanescent, (though more frequently recurrent,) lessens the
+supply of illustrated books, and with the constant drafts of new
+libraries, raises prices. Turner's exquisite pictures in Rogers's Italy
+and Poems (1830-34) have floated into fame books of verse which find very
+few readers. Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz") designed those immortal Wellers in
+Pickwick, which have delighted two whole generations of readers. The
+"Cruikshankiana" are sought with avidity, in whatever numerous volumes
+they adorn. Books illustrated with the designs of Bartolozzi, Marillier,
+Eisen, Gravelot, Moreau, Johannot, Grandville, Rowlandson, Bewick,
+William Blake, Stothard, Stanfield, Harvey, Martin, Cattermole, Birket
+Foster, Mulready, Tenniel, Maclise, Gilbert, Dalziel, Leighton, Holman
+Hunt, Doyle, Leech, Millais, Rossetti, Linton, Du Maurier, Sambourne,
+Caldecott, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Haden, Hamerton, Whistler, Doré,
+Anderson, Darley, Matt Morgan, Thos. Nast, Vedder, and others, are in
+constant demand, especially for the early impressions of books in which
+their designs appear.
+
+(14) Finally, that extensive class of books known as early _Americana_
+have been steadily growing rarer, and rising in commercial value, since
+about the middle of the nineteenth century. Books and pamphlets relating
+to any part of the American continent or islands, the first voyages,
+discoveries, narratives or histories of those regions, which were hardly
+noted or cared for a century ago, are now eagerly sought by collectors
+for libraries both public and private. In this field, the keen
+competition of American Historical Societies, and of several great
+libraries, besides the ever increasing number of private collectors with
+large means, has notably enhanced the prices of all desirable and rare
+books. Nor do the many reprints which have appeared much affect the
+market value of the originals, or first editions.
+
+This rise in prices, while far from uniform, and furnishing many examples
+of isolated extravagance, has been marked. Witness some examples. The
+"Bay Psalm Book," Cambridge, Mass., A. D. 1640, is the Caxton of New
+England, so rare that no perfect copy has been found for many years. In
+1855, Henry Stevens had the singular good fortune to find this
+typographical gem sandwiched in an odd bundle of old hymn books, unknown
+to the auctioneers or catalogue, at a London book sale. Keeping his own
+counsel, he bid off the lot at nine shillings, completed an imperfection
+in the book, from another imperfect copy, had it bound in Bedford's best,
+and sold it to Mr. Lenox's library at £80. In 1868, Stevens sold another
+copy to George Brinley for 150 guineas, which was bought for $1,200 in
+1878, by C. Vanderbilt, at the Brinley sale.
+
+John Smith's folio "Historie of Virginia," 1st ed., 1624, large paper,
+was sold to Brinley in 1874 at $1,275, and re-sold in 1878 for $1,800 to
+Mr. Lenox. In 1884 a copy on large paper brought £605 at the Hamilton
+Library sale in London. In 1899, a perfect copy of the large paper
+edition was presented to the Library of Congress by Gen. W. B. Franklin.
+Perfect copies of Smith's Virginia of 1624 on small paper have sold for
+$1,000, and those wanting some maps at $70 to $150.
+
+The earlier English tracts relating to Virginia and New England, printed
+between 1608 and 1700, command large prices: _e. g._, Lescarbot's New
+France, [Canada,] 1609, $50 to $150; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635,
+$50 to $320; Hubbard's Present State of New England, Boston, 1677, $180
+to $316.
+
+It is curious to note, in contrast, the following record of prices at the
+sale of Dr. Bernard's Library in London, in 1686:
+
+T. Morton's New England, 1615, eight pence; Lescarbot's New France, 1609,
+ten pence; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635, and three others, 5 s. 8
+d.; nine Eliot Tracts, &c., 5 s. 2 d.; Hubbard's Present State of New
+England, 1677, 1 s.; Smith's Historie of Virginia, 1624, 4 s. 2 d.
+
+The numerous and now rare works of Increase and Cotton Mather, printed
+from 1667 to 1728, though mostly sermons, are collected by a sufficient
+number of libraries to maintain prices at from $4 to $25 each, according
+to condition. They number over 470 volumes.
+
+Several collections have been attempted of Frankliniana, or works printed
+at Benjamin Franklin's press, and of the many editions of his writings,
+with all books concerning the illustrious printer-statesman of America.
+His "Poor Richard's Almanacs," printed by him from 1733 to 1758, and by
+successors to 1798, are so rare that Mr. P. L. Ford found a visit to
+three cities requisite to see all of them. The Library of Congress
+possesses thirty-five years of these issues.
+
+A word may be added as to early newspapers, of some special numbers of
+which prices that are literally "fabulous" are recorded. There are many
+reprints afloat of the first American newspaper, and most librarians have
+frequent offers of the Ulster County, (N. Y.) Gazette of Jan. 10, 1800,
+in mourning for the death of Washington, a genuine copy of which is worth
+money, but the many spurious reprints (which include all those offered)
+are worth nothing.
+
+Of many rare early books reprints or facsimiles are rife in the market,
+especially of those having but few leaves; these, however, are easily
+detected by an expert eye, and need deceive no one.
+
+Of some scarce books, it may be said that they are as rare as the
+individuals who want them: and of a very few, that they are as rare as
+the extinct dodo. In fact, volumes have been written concerning extinct
+books, not without interest to the bibliomaniac who is fired with the
+passion for possessing something which no one else has got. Some books
+are quite as worthless as they are rare. But books deemed worthless by
+the common or even by the enlightened mind are cherished as treasures by
+many collectors. The cook-book, entitled _Le Pastissier françois_, an
+Elzevir of 1655, is so rare as to have brought several times its weight
+in gold. Nearly all the copies of some books have been worn to rags by
+anglers, devout women, cooks, or children.
+
+When a book is sold at a great price as "very rare," it often happens
+that several copies come into the market soon after, and, there being no
+demand, the commercial value is correspondingly depressed. The books most
+sure of maintaining full prices are first editions of master-pieces in
+literature. Fitzgerald's version of Omar Khayyam was bought by nobody
+when Quaritch first published it in 1859. After eight years, he put the
+remainder of the edition,--a paper-covered volume--down to a penny each.
+When the book had grown into fame, and the many variations in later
+issues were discovered, this first edition, no longer procurable, rose to
+£21, the price actually paid by Mr. Quaritch himself at a book auction in
+1898!
+
+Auction sales of libraries having many rare books have been frequent in
+London and Paris. The largest price yet obtained for any library was
+reached in 1882-3, when that of Mr. Wm. Beckford brought £73,551, being
+an average of nearly $40 a volume. But W. C. Hazlitt says of this sale,
+"the Beckford books realized perfectly insane prices, and were afterwards
+re-sold for a sixth or even tenth of the amount, to the serious loss of
+somebody, when the barometer had fallen."
+
+The second-hand bookseller, having the whole range of printed literature
+for his field, has a great advantage in dealing with book collectors over
+the average dealer, who has to offer only new books, or such as are "in
+print."
+
+It may be owned that the love of rare books is chiefly sentimental. He
+who delights to spend his days or his nights in the contemplation of
+black-letter volumes, quaint title-pages, fine old bindings, and curious
+early illustrations, may not add to the knowledge or the happiness of
+mankind, but he makes sure of his own.
+
+The passion for rare books, merely because of their rarity, is a low
+order of the taste for books. But the desire to possess and read wise old
+books which have been touched by the hoar frost of time is of a higher
+mood. The first impression of Paradise Lost (1667) with its quarto page
+and antique orthography, is it not more redolent of the author's age than
+the elegant Pickering edition, or the one illustrated by John Martin or
+Gustave Doré? When you hold in your hand Shakespeare's "Midsommer Night's
+Dream" (A. D. 1600) and read with fresh admiration and delight the
+exquisite speeches of Oberon and Titania, may not the thought that
+perhaps that very copy may once have been held in the immortal bard's own
+hand send a thrill through your own?
+
+When you turn over the classic pages of Homer illustrated by Flaxman,
+that "dear sculptor of eternity," as William Blake called him, or drink
+in the beauty of those delicious landscapes of Turner, that astonishing
+man, who shall wonder at your desire to possess them?
+
+The genuine book lover is he who reads books; who values them for what
+they contain, not for their rarity, nor for the preposterous prices which
+have been paid for them. To him, book-hunting is an ever-enduring
+delight. Of all the pleasures tasted here below, that of the book lover
+in finding a precious and long sought volume is one of the purest and
+most innocent. In books, he becomes master of all the kingdoms of the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+To the book collector and the Librarian, books of bibliography are the
+tools of the profession. Without them he would be lost in a maze of
+literature without a clue. With them, his path is plain, and, in exact
+proportion to his acquaintance with them, will his knowledge and
+usefulness extend. Bibliography may be defined as the science which
+treats of books, of their authors, subjects, history, classification,
+cataloguing, typography, materials (including paper, printing and
+binding) dates, editions, etc. This compound word, derived from two Greek
+roots, _Biblion_, book, and _graphein_, to write, has many analogous
+words, some of which, ignorantly used to express a bibliographer, may be
+set down for distinction: as, for example--Bibliopole--a seller of books,
+often erroneously applied to a librarian, who buys but never sells:
+Bibliophile, a lover of books, a title which he should always exemplify:
+Bibliopegist, a book-binder: Bibliolater, a worshipper of books:
+Bibliophobe, a hater of books: Bibliotaph, a burier of books--one who
+hides or conceals them: Bibliomaniac, or bibliomane, one who has a mania
+or passion for collecting books. (Bibliomania, some one has said, is a
+disease: Bibliophily is a science: The first is a parody of the second.)
+Bibliophage, or bibliophagist, a book-eater, or devourer of books.
+Bibliognost, one versed in the science of books. Biblioklept, a book
+thief. (This, you perceive, is from the same Greek root as kleptomaniac.)
+Bibliogist, one learned about books, (the same nearly as bibliographer);
+and finally, Bibliothecary, a librarian.
+
+This brings me to say, in supplementing this elementary list (needless
+for some readers) that _Bibliotheca_ is Latin for a library;
+_Bibliothèque_ is French for the same; _Bibliothécaire_ is French for
+Librarian, while the French word _Libraire_ means book seller or
+publisher, though often mistaken by otherwise intelligent persons, for
+librarian, or library.
+
+The word "bibliotechny" is not found in any English dictionary known to
+me, although long in use in its equivalent forms in France and Germany.
+It means all that belongs to the knowledge of the book, to its handling,
+cataloguing, and its arrangement upon the shelves of a library. It is
+also applied to the science of the formation of libraries, and their
+complete organization. It is employed in the widest and most extended
+sense of what may be termed material or physical bibliography.
+Bibliotechny applies, that is to say, to the technics of the librarian's
+work--to the outside of the books rather than the inside--to the
+mechanics, not the metaphysics of the profession. The French word
+"_Bibliothéconomie_," much in use of late years, signifies much the same
+thing as _Bibliotechnie_, and we translate it, not into one word, but
+two, calling it "library economy." This word "economy" is not used in the
+most current sense--as significant of saving--but in the broad, modern
+sense of systematic order, or arrangement.
+
+There are two other words which have found their way into Murray's Oxford
+Dictionary, the most copious repository of English words, with
+illustrations of their origin and history, ever published, namely,
+Biblioclast--a destroyer of books (from the same final root as
+iconoclast) and Bibliogony, the production of books. I will add that out
+of the fifteen or more words cited as analogous to Bibliography, only
+three are found used earlier than the last quarter century, the first use
+of most having been this side of 1880. This is a striking instance of the
+phenomenal growth of new words in our already rich and flexible English
+tongue. Carlyle even has the word "Bibliopoesy," the making of
+books,--from _Biblion_, and _poiein_--to make.
+
+Public libraries are useful to readers in proportion to the extent and
+ready supply of the helps they furnish to facilitate researches of every
+kind. Among these helps a wisely selected collection of books of
+reference stands foremost. Considering the vast extent and opulence of
+the world of letters, and the want of experience of the majority of
+readers in exploring this almost boundless field, the importance of every
+key which can unlock its hidden stores becomes apparent. The printed
+catalogue of no single library is at all adequate to supply full
+references, even to its own stores of knowledge; while these catalogues
+are, of course, comparatively useless as to other stores of information,
+elsewhere existing. Even the completest and most extensive catalogue in
+the world, that of the British Museum Library, although now extended to
+more than 370 folio volumes in print, representing 3,000 volumes in
+manuscript, is not completed so as to embrace the entire contents of that
+rich repository of knowledge.
+
+From lack of information of the aid furnished by adequate books of
+reference in a special field, many a reader goes groping in pursuit of
+references or information which might be found in some one of the many
+volumes which may be designated as works of bibliography. The diffidence
+and reserve of many students in libraries, and the mistaken fear of
+giving trouble to librarians, frequently deprives them of even those aids
+which a few words of inquiry might bring forth from the ready knowledge
+of the custodians in charge.
+
+That is the best library, and he is the most useful librarian, by whose
+aid every reader is enabled to put his finger on the fact he wants, just
+when it is wanted. In attaining this end it is essential that the more
+recent, important, and valuable aids to research in general science, as
+well as in special departments of each, should form a part of the
+library. In order to make a fit selection of books (and all libraries are
+practically reduced to a selection, from want of means to possess the
+whole) it is indispensable to know the relative value of the books
+concerned. Many works of reference of great fame, and once of great
+value, have become almost obsolete, through the issue of more extensive
+and carefully edited works in the same field. While a great and
+comprehensive library should possess every work of reference, old or new,
+which has aided or may aid the researches of scholars, (not forgetting
+even the earlier editions of works often reprinted), the smaller
+libraries, on the other hand, are compelled to exercise a close economy
+of selection. The most valuable works of reference, among which the more
+copious and extensive bibliographies stand first, are frequently
+expensive treasures, and it is important to the librarian furnishing a
+limited and select library to know what books he can best afford to do
+without. If he cannot buy both the _Manuel du libraire_ by Brunet, in
+five volumes, and the _Trésor des livres rares et précieux_ of Graesse,
+seven volumes, both of which are dictionaries of the choicer portions of
+literature, it is important to know that Brunet is the more indispensable
+of the two. From the 20,000 reference books lying open to the
+consultation of all readers in the great rotunda of the British Museum
+reading room, to the small and select case of dictionaries, catalogues,
+cyclopaedias, and other works of reference in a town or subscription
+library, the interval is wide indeed. But where we cannot have all, it
+becomes the more important to have the best; and the reader who has at
+hand for ready reference the latest and most copious dictionary of each
+of the leading languages of the world, two or three of the best general
+bibliographies, the most copious catalogue raisonné of the literature in
+each great department of science, the best biographical dictionaries, and
+the latest and most copious encyclopaedias issued from the press, is
+tolerably well equipped for the prosecution of his researches.
+
+Next in importance to the possession in any library of a good selection
+of the most useful books of reference, is the convenient accessibility of
+these works to the reading public. Just in proportion to the
+indispensability and frequency of use of any work should be the facility
+to the reader of availing himself of its aid. The leading encyclopaedias,
+bibliographies, dictionaries, annuals, and other books of reference
+should never be locked up in cases, nor placed on high or remote shelves.
+There should be in every library what may be termed a central bureau of
+reference. Here should be assembled, whether on circular cases made to
+revolve on a pivot, or on a rectangular case, with volumes covering both
+sides, or in a central alcove forming a portion of the shelves of the
+main library, all those books of reference, and volumes incessantly
+needed by students in pursuit of their various inquiries. It is important
+that the custodians of all libraries should remember that this ready and
+convenient supply of the reference books most constantly wanted, serves
+the double object of economizing the time of the librarian and assistants
+for other labor, and of accommodating in the highest degree the readers,
+whose time is also economized. The misplacement of volumes which will
+thus occur is easily rectified, while the possibility of loss through
+abstraction is so extremely small that it should not be permitted to
+weigh for a moment in comparison with the great advantages resulting from
+the rule of liberality in aiding the wants of readers.
+
+Bibliography, in its most intimate sense, is the proper science of the
+librarian. To many it is a study--to some, it is a passion. While the
+best works in bibliography have not always been written by librarians,
+but by scholars enamored of the science of books, and devotees of
+learning, it is safe to say that the great catalogues which afford such
+inestimable aid to research, have nearly all been prepared in libraries,
+and not one of the books worthy of the name of bibliography, could have
+been written without their aid.
+
+In viewing the extensive field of bibliographies, regard for systematic
+treatment requires that they be divided into classes. Beginning first
+with general bibliographies, or those claiming to be universal, we should
+afterwards consider the numerous bibliographies of countries, or those
+devoted to national literature; following that by the still more numerous
+special bibliographies, or those embracing works on specially designated
+subjects. The two classes last named are by far the most numerous.
+
+Although what may be termed a "universal catalogue" has been the dream of
+scholars for many ages, it is as far as ever from being realized--and in
+fact much farther than ever before, since each year that is added to the
+long roll of the past increases enormously the number of books to be
+dealt with, and consequently the difficulties of the problem. We may set
+down the publication of a work which should contain the titles of all
+books ever printed, as a practical impossibility. The world's literature
+is too vast and complex to be completely catalogued, whether on the
+coöperative plan, or any other. Meanwhile the many thousands of volumes,
+each of which has been devoted to some portion of the vast and
+ever-increasing stores of literature and science which human brains have
+put in print, will serve to aid the researches of the student, when
+rightly guided by an intelligent librarian.
+
+Notwithstanding the hopeless nature of the quest, it is true that some
+men of learning have essayed what have been termed universal
+bibliographies. The earliest attempt in this direction was published at
+Zürich in 1545, under the title of "Bibliotheca Universalis," by Conrad
+Gesner, a Swiss scholar whose acquisition of knowledge was so extensive
+that he was styled "a miracle of learning." This great work gave the
+titles of all books of which its author could find trace, and was
+illustrated by a mass of bibliographical notes and criticism. It long
+held a high place in the world of letters, though it is now seldom
+referred to in the plethora of more modern works of bibliography. In
+1625, the bookseller B. Ostern put forth at Frankfort, his _Bibliothèque
+Universelle_, a catalogue of all books from 1500 to 1624. In 1742, Th.
+Georgi issued in eleven folio volumes, his _Allgemeines Europäisches_
+_Bücher-lexikon_, claiming to represent the works of nearly all writers
+from 1500 down to 1739. This formidable catalogue may perhaps be said to
+embrace more forgotten books than any other in the literary history of
+the world.
+
+Almost equally formidable, however, is the bibliography of that erudite
+scholar, Christian G. Jöcher, who put forth in 1750, at Leipzig, his
+_Allgemeines Gelehrten-lexicon_, in which, says the title page, "the
+learned men of all classes who have lived from the beginning of the world
+up to the present time, are described." This book, with its supplement,
+by Adelung and Rotermund, (completed only to letter R), makes ten
+ponderous quarto volumes, and may fairly be styled a thesaurus of the
+birth and death of ancient scholars and their works. It is still largely
+used in great libraries, to identify the period and the full names of
+many obscure writers of books, who are not commemorated in the catalogues
+of universal bibliography, compiled on a more restrictive plan.
+
+We come now to the notable catalogues of early-printed books, which aim
+to cover all the issues of the press from the first invention of
+printing, up to a certain period. One of the most carefully edited and
+most readily useful of these is Hain, (L.) _Repertorium Bibliographicum_,
+in four small and portable octavo volumes, published at Stuttgart in
+1826-38. This gives, in an alphabet of authors, all the publications
+found printed (with their variations and new editions), from A. D. 1450
+to A. D. 1500.
+
+More extensive is the great catalogue of G. W. Panzer, entitled _Annales
+Typographici_, in eleven quarto volumes, published at Nuremberg from 1793
+to 1803. This work, which covers the period from 1457 (the period of the
+first book ever printed with a date) up to A. D. 1536, is not arranged
+alphabetically (as in Hain's Repertorium) by the names of authors, but in
+the order of the cities or places where the books catalogued were
+printed. The bibliography thus brings together in one view, the
+typographical product of each city or town for about eighty years after
+the earliest dated issues of the press, arranged in chronological order
+of the years when printed. This system has undeniable advantages, but
+equally obvious defects, which are sought to be remedied by many copious
+indexes of authors and printers.
+
+Next in importance comes M. Maittaire's _Annales Typographici, ab artis
+inventae origine ad annum 1664_, printed at The Hague (Hagae Comitum) and
+completed at London, from 1722-89, in eleven volumes, quarto, often bound
+in five volumes. There is besides, devoted to the early printed
+literature of the world, the useful three volume bibliography by La Serna
+de Santander, published at Brussels in 1805, entitled _Dictionnaire
+bibliographique choisie du quinzième siècle_, Bruxelles, 1803, embracing
+a selection of what its compiler deemed the more important books
+published from the beginning of printing up to A. D. 1500. All the four
+works last named contain the titles and descriptions of what are known as
+_incunabula_, or cradle-books (from Latin _cunabula_, a cradle) a term
+applied to all works produced in the infancy of printing, and most
+commonly to those appearing before 1500. These books are also sometimes
+called fifteeners, or 15th century books.
+
+Of general bibliographies of later date, only a few of the most useful
+and important can here be named. At the head of these stands, deservedly,
+the great work of J. C. Brunet, entitled _Manuel du Libraire et de
+l'amateur des livres_, the last or 5th edition of which appeared at Paris
+in 1860-64, in five thick octavo volumes. The first edition of Brunet
+appeared in 1810, and every issue since has exhibited not only an
+extensive enlargement, but great improvement in careful, critical
+editorship. It embraces most of the choicest books that have appeared in
+the principal languages of Europe, and a supplement in two volumes, by P.
+Deschamps and G. Brunet, appeared in 1878.
+
+Next to Brunet in importance to the librarian, is J. G. T. Graesse's
+_Trésor des Livres rares et précieux_, which is more full than Brunet in
+works in the Teutonic languages, and was published at Dresden in six
+quarto volumes, with a supplement, in 1861-69. Both of these
+bibliographies aim at a universal range, though they make a selection of
+the best authors and editions, ancient and modern, omitting however, the
+most recent writers. The arrangement of both is strictly alphabetical, or
+a dictionary of authors' names, while Brunet gives in a final volume a
+classification by subjects. Both catalogues are rendered additionally
+valuable by the citation of prices at which many of the works catalogued
+have been sold at book auctions in the present century.
+
+In 1857 was published at Paris a kind of universal bibliography, on the
+plan of a _catalogue raisonné_, or dictionary of subjects, by Messrs. F.
+Denis, Pinçon, and De Martonne, two of whom were librarians by
+profession. This work of over 700 pages, though printed in almost
+microscopic type, and now about forty years in arrears, has much value as
+a ready key to the best books then known on nearly every subject in
+science and literature. It is arranged in a complete index of topics, the
+books under each being described in chronological order, instead of the
+alphabetical. The preponderance is given to the French in the works cited
+on most subjects, but the literature of other nations is by no means
+neglected. It is entitled _Nouveau Manuel de Bibliographie universelle_,
+and being a subjective index, while Brunet and Graesse are arranged by
+authors' names, it may be used to advantage in connection with these
+standard bibliographies.
+
+While on this subject, let me name the books specially devoted to lists
+of bibliographical works--general and special. These may be termed the
+catalogues of catalogues,--and are highly useful aids, indeed
+indispensable to the librarian, who seeks to know what lists of books
+have appeared that are devoted to the titles of publications covering any
+period, or country, or special subject in the whole circle of sciences or
+literatures. The first notably important book of reference in this field,
+was the work of that most industrious bibliographer, Gabriel Peignot, who
+published at Paris, in 1812, his _Repertoire bibliographique
+universelle_, in one volume. This work contains the titles of most
+special bibliographies, of whatever subject or country, published up to
+1812, and of many works bibliographical in character, devoted to literary
+history.
+
+Dr. Julius Petzholdt, one of the most learned and laborious of
+librarians, issued at Leipzig in 1866, a _Bibliotheca bibliographica_,
+the fuller title of which was "a critical catalogue, exhibiting in
+systematic order, the entire field of bibliography covering the
+literature of Germany and other countries." The rather ambitious promise
+of this title is well redeemed in the contents: for very few catalogues
+of importance issued before 1866, are omitted in this elaborate book of
+931 closely printed pages. Most titles of the bibliographies given are
+followed by critical and explanatory notes, of much value to the
+unskilled reader. These notes are in German, while all the titles cited
+are in the language of the books themselves. After giving full titles of
+all the books in general bibliography, he takes up the national
+bibliographies by countries, citing both systematic catalogues and
+periodicals devoted to the literature of each in any period. This is
+followed by a distributive list of scientific bibliographies, so full as
+to leave little to be desired, except for later issues of the press. One
+of the curiosities of this work is its catalogue of all the issues of the
+"Index Librorum Prohibitorum", or books forbidden to be read, including
+185 separate catalogues, from A. D. 1510 to A. D. 1862.
+
+The next bibliographical work claiming to cover this field was in the
+French language, being the _Bibliographie des bibliographies_ of Léon
+Vallée, published in 1883 at Paris. This book, though beautifully
+printed, is so full of errors, and still fuller of omissions, that it is
+regarded by competent scholars as a failure, though still having its uses
+to the librarian. It is amazing that any writer should put forth a book
+seventeen years after the great and successful work of Petzholdt,
+purporting to be a catalogue of bibliographies, and yet fail to record
+such a multitude of printed contributions to the science of sciences as
+Vallée has overlooked.
+
+Some ten years later, or in 1897, there came from the French press, a far
+better bibliographical work, covering the modern issues of books of
+bibliography more especially, with greater fullness and superior plan.
+This is the _Manuel de Bibliographie générale_, by Henri Stein. This work
+contains, in 915 well-printed pages, 1st. a list of universal
+bibliographies: 2d. a catalogue of national bibliographies, in
+alphabetical order of countries: 3d. a list of classified bibliographies
+of subjects, divided into seventeen classes, namely, religious sciences,
+philosophical sciences, juridical, economic, social, and educational
+sciences, pure and applied sciences, medical sciences, philology and
+belles lettres, geographical and historical sciences, sciences auxiliary
+to history, archaeology and fine arts, music, and biography. Besides
+these extremely useful categories of bibliographical aids, in which the
+freshest publications of catalogues and lists of books in each field are
+set forth, M. Stein gives us a complete geographical bibliography of
+printing, on a new plan. This he entitles "_Géographie bibliographique_,"
+or systematic lists of localities in every part of the world which
+possessed a printing press prior to the 19th century. It gives, after the
+modern or current name of each place, the Latin, or ancient name, the
+country in which located, the year in which the first printed publication
+appeared in each place, and finally, the authority for the statement.
+This handy-list of information alone, is worth the cost of the work,
+since it will save much time of the inquirer, in hunting over many
+volumes of Panzer, Maittaire, Hain, Dibdin, Thomas, or other authors on
+printing, to find the origin of the art, or early name of the place where
+it was introduced. The work contains, in addition, a general table of the
+periodicals of all countries, (of course not exhaustive) divided into
+classes, and filling seventy-five pages. It closes with a "repertory of
+the principal libraries of the entire world," and with an index to the
+whole work, in which the early names in Latin, of all places where books
+were printed, are interspersed in the alphabet, distinguished by italic
+type, and with the modern name of each town or city affixed. This
+admirable feature will render unnecessary any reference to the _Orbis
+Latinus_ of Graesse, or to any other vocabulary of geography, to identify
+the place in which early-printed books appeared. Stein is by no means
+free from errors, and some surprising omissions. One cardinal defect is
+the absence of any full index of authors whose books are cited.
+
+There are also quite brief catalogues of works on bibliography in J.
+Power's Handy Book about Books, London, 1870, and in J. Sabin's
+Bibliography: a handy book about books which relate to books, N. Y.,
+1877. The latter work is an expansion of the first-named.
+
+We come now to the second class of our bibliographies, _viz._: those of
+various countries. Here the reader must be on his guard not to be misled
+into too general an interpretation of geographical terms. Thus, he will
+find many books and pamphlets ambitiously styled "_Catalogue
+Américaine_", which are so far from being general bibliographies of books
+relating to America, that they are merely lists of a few books for sale
+by some book-dealer, which have something American in their subject. To
+know what catalogues are comprehensive, and what period they cover, as
+well as the limitations of nearly all of them, is a necessary part of the
+training of a bibliographer, and is essential to the librarian who would
+economize his time and enlarge his usefulness.
+
+Let us begin with our own country. Here we are met at the outset by the
+great paucity of general catalogues of American literature, and the utter
+impossibility of finding any really comprehensive lists of the books
+published in the United States, during certain periods. We can get along
+tolerably well for the publications within the last thirty years, which
+nearly represent the time since systematic weekly bibliographical
+journals have been published, containing lists of the current issues of
+books. But for the period just before the Civil War, back to the year
+1775, or for very nearly a century, we are without any systematic
+bibliography of the product of the American press. The fragmentary
+attempts which have been made toward supplying an account of what books
+have been published in the United States from the beginning, will
+hereafter be briefly noted. At the outset, you are to observe the wide
+distinction that exists between books treating of America, or any part of
+it, and books printed in America. The former may have been printed
+anywhere, at any time since 1492, and in any language: and to such books,
+the broad significant term "_Americana_" may properly be applied, as
+implying books relating to America. But this class of works is wholly
+different from that of books written or produced by Americans, or printed
+in America. It is these latter that we mean when we lament the want of a
+comprehensive American catalogue. There have been published in the United
+States alone (to go no farther into America at present) thousands of
+books, whose titles are not found anywhere, except widely scattered in
+the catalogues of libraries, public and private, in which they exist.
+Nay, there are multitudes of publications which have been issued in this
+country during the last two hundred years, whose titles cannot be found
+anywhere in print. This is not, generally, because the books have
+perished utterly,--though this is unquestionably true of some, but
+because multitudes of books that have appeared, and do appear, wholly
+escape the eye of the literary, or critical, or bibliographical
+chronicler. It is, beyond doubt true even now, that what are commonly
+accepted as complete catalogues of the issues of the press of any year,
+are wofully incomplete, and that too, through no fault of their
+compilers. Many works are printed in obscure towns, or in newspaper
+offices, which never reach the great eastern cities, where our principal
+bibliographies, both periodical and permanent, are prepared. Many books,
+too, are "privately printed," to gratify the pride or the taste of their
+authors, and a few copies distributed to friends, or sometimes to
+selected libraries, or public men. In these cases, not only are the
+public chroniclers of new issues of the press in ignorance of the
+printing of many books, but they are purposely kept in ignorance. Charles
+Lamb, of humorous and perhaps immortal memory, used to complain of the
+multitudes of books which are no books; and we of to-day may complain, if
+we choose, of the vast number of publications that are not published.
+
+Take a single example of the failure of even large and imposing volumes
+to be included in the "American Catalogue," for whose aid, librarians are
+so immeasurably indebted to the enterprise of its publishers. A single
+publishing house west of New York, printed and circulated in about four
+years time, no less than thirty-two elaborate and costly histories, of
+western counties and towns, not one of which was ever recorded by title
+in our only comprehensive American bibliography. Why was this? Simply
+because the works referred to were published only as subscription books,
+circulated by agents, carefully kept out of booksellers' hands, and never
+sent to the Eastern press for notice or review. When circumstances like
+these exist as to even very recent American publications (and they are
+continually happening) is it any wonder that our bibliographies are
+incomplete?
+
+Perhaps some will suggest that there must be one record of American
+publications which is complete, namely, the office of Copyright at
+Washington. It is true that the titles of all copyright publications are
+required by law to be there registered, and copies deposited as soon as
+printed. It is also true that a weekly catalogue of all books and other
+copyright publications is printed, and distributed by the Treasury, to
+all our custom-houses, to intercept piratical re-prints which might be
+imported. But the books just referred to were not entered for copyright
+at all, the publishers apparently preferring the risk of any rival's
+reprinting them, rather than to incur the cost of the small copyright
+fee, and the deposit of copies. In such cases, there is no law requiring
+publishers to furnish copies of their books. The government guarantees no
+monopoly of publication, and so cannot exact a _quid pro quo._, however
+much it might inure to the interest of publisher and author to have the
+work seen and noticed, and preserved beyond risk of perishing (unless
+printed on wood-pulp paper) in the Library of the United States.
+
+If such extensive omissions of the titles of books sometimes important,
+can now continually occur in our accepted standards of national
+bibliography, what shall we say of times when we had no critical
+journals, no publishers' trade organs, and no weekly, nor annual, nor
+quinquennial catalogues of American books issued? Must we not allow, in
+the absence of any catalogues worthy of the name, to represent such
+periods, that all our reference books are from the very necessity of the
+case deplorably incomplete? Only by the most devoted, indefatigable and
+unrewarded industry have we got such aids to research as to the existence
+of American publications, as Haven's Catalogue of American publications
+prior to 1776, Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, and the American Catalogues
+of Leypoldt, Bowker, and their coadjutors.
+
+These illustrations are cited to guard against the too common error of
+supposing that we have in the numerous American catalogues that exist,
+even putting them all together, any full bibliography of the titles of
+American books. While it cannot be said that the _lacunae_ or omissions
+approach the actual entries in number, it must be allowed that books are
+turning up every day, both new and old, whose titles are not found in any
+catalogue. The most important books--those which deserve a name as
+literature, are found recorded somewhere--although even as to many of
+these, one has to search many alphabets, in a large number of volumes,
+before tracing them, or some editions of them.
+
+One principal source of the great number of titles of books found
+wanting in American catalogues, is that many books were printed at places
+remote from the great cities, and were never announced in the columns of
+the press at all. This is especially true as to books printed toward the
+close of the 18th century, and during the first quarter of the 19th. Not
+only have we no bibliography whatever of American issues of the press,
+specially devoted to covering the long period between 1775 and 1820, but
+multitudes of books printed during that neglected half-century, have
+failed to get into the printed catalogues of our libraries. As
+illustrations we might give a long catalogue of places where
+book-publication was long carried on, and many books of more or less
+importance printed or reprinted, but in which towns not a book has been
+produced for more than three-quarters of a century past. One of these
+towns was Winchester, and another Williamsburg, in Virginia; another was
+Exeter, New Hampshire, and a fourth was Carlisle, Pa. In the last-named
+place, one Archibald Loudon printed many books, between A. D. 1798, and
+1813, which have nearly all escaped the chroniclers of American
+book-titles. Notable among the productions of his press, was his own
+book, A History of Indian Wars, or as he styled it in the title page, "A
+selection of some of the most interesting narratives of outrages
+committed by the Indians in their wars with the white people." This
+history appeared in two volumes from the press of A. Loudon, Carlisle,
+Pa., in 1808 and 1811. It is so rare that I have failed to find its title
+anywhere except in Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, Field's Indian
+Bibliography, and the Catalogue of the Library of Congress. Not even the
+British Museum Library, so rich in Americana, has a copy. Sabin states
+that only six copies are known, and Field styles it, "this rarest of
+books on America," adding that he could learn of only three perfect
+copies in the world. A Harrisburg reprint of 1888 (100 copies to
+subscribers) is also quite rare.
+
+Continuing the subject of American bibliography, and still lamenting the
+want of any comprehensive or finished work in that field which is worthy
+of the name, let us see what catalogues do exist, even approximating
+completeness for any period. The earlier years of the production of
+American books have been partially covered by the "Catalogue of
+publications in what is now the United States, prior to 1776." This list
+was compiled by an indefatigable librarian, the late Samuel F. Haven, who
+was at the head of the Library of the American Antiquarian Society, at
+Worcester, Mass. It gives all titles by sequence of years of publication,
+instead of alphabetical order, from 1639 (the epoch of the earliest
+printing in the United States) to the end of 1775. The titles of books
+and pamphlets are described with provoking brevity, being generally
+limited to a single line for each, and usually without publishers' names,
+(though the places of publication and sometimes the number of pages are
+given) so that it leaves much to be desired. Notwithstanding this, Mr.
+Haven's catalogue is an invaluable aid to the searcher after titles of
+the early printed literature of our country. It appeared at Albany, N.
+Y., in 1874, as an appendix [in Vol 2] to a new (or second) edition of
+Isaiah Thomas's History of Printing in America, which was first published
+in 1810. In using it, the librarian will find no difficulty, if he knows
+the year when the publication he looks for appeared, as all books of each
+year are arranged in alphabetical order. But if he knows only the
+author's name, he may have a long search to trace the title, there being
+no general alphabet or index of authors. This chronological arrangement
+has certain advantages to the literary inquirer or historian, while for
+ready reference, its disadvantages are obvious.
+
+While there were several earlier undertakings of an American bibliography
+than Haven's catalogue of publications before the American revolution,
+yet the long period which that list covers, and its importance, entitled
+it to first mention here. There had, however, appeared, as early as the
+year 1804, in Boston, "A Catalogue of all books, printed in the United
+States, with the prices, and places where published, annexed." This large
+promise is hardly redeemed by the contents of this thin pamphlet of 91
+pages, all told. Yet the editor goes on to assure us--
+
+     "This Catalogue is intended to include all books of general sale
+     printed in the United States, whether original, or reprinted;
+     that the public may see the rapid progress of book-printing in a
+     country, where, twenty years since, scarcely a book was
+     published. Local and occasional tracts are generally omitted.
+     Some of the books in the Catalogue are now out of print, and
+     others are scarce. It is contemplated to publish a new edition of
+     this Catalogue, every two years, and to make the necessary
+     additions and corrections; and it is hoped the time is not far
+     distant, when useful Libraries may be formed of American editions
+     of Books, well printed, and handsomely bound.
+
+     Printed at Boston, for the Book sellers, Jan., 1804."
+
+The really remarkable thing about this catalogue is that it was the very
+first bibliographical attempt at a general catalogue, in separate form,
+in America. It is quite interesting as an early booksellers' list of
+American publications, as well as for its classification, which is as
+follows: "Law, Physic, Divinity, Bibles, Miscellanies, School Books,
+Singing Books, Omissions."
+
+The fact that no subsequent issues of the catalogue appeared, evinces the
+very small interest taken in bibliographic knowledge in those early days.
+
+This curiosity of early American bibliography gives the titles of 1338
+books, all of American publication, with prices in 1804. Here are
+samples: Bingham's Columbian Orator, 75 cts.: Burney's Cecilia, 3 vols.
+$3: Memoirs of Pious Women, $1.12: Belknap's New Hampshire, 3 vols. $5:
+Mrs. Coghlan's Memoirs, 62½ cts.: Brockden Brown's Wieland, $1:
+Federalist, 2 vols. $4.50: Dilworth's Spelling Book, 12½ cts.: Pike's
+Arithmetic, $2.25.
+
+The number of out-of-the-way places in which books were published in
+those days is remarkable. Thus, in Connecticut, we have as issuing books,
+Litchfield, New London and Fairhaven: in Massachusetts, Leominster,
+Dedham, Greenfield, Brookfield, and Wrentham: in New Hampshire, Dover,
+Walpole, Portsmouth, and Exeter: in Pennsylvania, Washington, Carlisle,
+and Chambersburg: in New Jersey, Morristown, Elizabethtown, and
+Burlington. At Alexandria, Va., eight books are recorded as published.
+
+This historical nugget of the Boston bookmongers of a century ago is so
+rare, that only two copies are known in public libraries, namely, in the
+Library of Congress, and in that of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
+It was reprinted in 1898, for the Dibdin Club of New York, by Mr. A.
+Growoll, of the Publishers' Weekly, to whose curious and valuable notes
+on "Booktrade Bibliography in the United States in the 19th century," it
+forms a supplement.
+
+The next catalogue of note claiming to be an American catalogue, or of
+books published in America, was put forth in 1847, at Claremont, N. H.,
+by Alexander V. Blake. This was entitled, "The American Bookseller's
+complete reference trade-list, and alphabetical catalogue of books,
+published in this country, with the publishers' and authors' names, and
+prices." This quarto volume, making 351 pages (with its supplement issued
+in 1848) was the precursor of the now current "Trade List Annual,"
+containing the lists of books published by all publishers whose lists
+could be secured. The titles are very brief, and are arranged in the
+catalogue under the names of the respective publishers, with an
+alphabetical index of authors and of anonymous titles at the end. It
+served well its purpose of a book-trade catalogue fifty years ago, being
+the pioneer in that important field. It is now, like the catalogue of
+1804, just noticed, chiefly interesting as a bibliographical curiosity,
+although both lists do contain the titles of some books not elsewhere
+found.
+
+Mr. Orville A. Roorbach, a New York bookseller, was the next compiler of
+an American bibliography. His first issue of 1849 was enlarged and
+published in 1852, under this title: "Bibliotheca Americana: a catalogue
+of American publications, including reprints and original works, from
+1820 to 1852, inclusive." This octavo volume of 663 pages, in large,
+clear type, closely abbreviates nearly all titles, though giving in one
+comprehensive alphabet, the authors' names, and the titles of the books
+under the first word, with year and place of publication, publisher's
+name, and price at which issued. No collation of the books is given, but
+the catalogue supplies sufficient portions of each title to identify the
+book. It is followed in an appendix by a catalogue of law books, in a
+separate alphabet, and a list of periodicals published in the United
+States in 1852.
+
+Roorbach continued his catalogue to the year 1861, by the issue of three
+successive supplements: (1) covering the American publications of 1853 to
+1855: (2) from 1855 to 1858: (3) from 1858 to 1861. These four
+catalogues, aiming to cover, in four different alphabets, the issues of
+the American press for forty years, or from 1820 to 1861, are extremely
+useful lists to the librarian, as finding lists, although the rigorously
+abbreviated titles leave very much to be desired by the bibliographer,
+and the omissions are exceedingly numerous of books published within the
+years named, but whose titles escaped the compiler.
+
+Following close upon Roorbach's Bibliotheca Americana in chronological
+order, we have next two bibliographies covering American book issues
+from 1861 to 1871. These were compiled by a New York book dealer named
+James Kelly, and were entitled The American Catalogue of Books, (original
+and reprint) published in the United States from Jan., 1861, to Jan.,
+1866, [and from Jan., 1866, to Jan., 1871] with date of publication,
+size, price, and publisher's name. The first volume contained a
+supplement, with list of pamphlets on the civil war, and also a list of
+the publications of learned societies. These very useful and important
+catalogues cover ten years of American publishing activity, adding also
+to their own period many titles omitted by Roorbach in earlier years.
+Kelly's catalogues number 307 and 444 pages respectively, and, like
+Roorbach's, they give both author and title in a single alphabet. Names
+of publishers are given, with place and year of publication, and retail
+price, but without number of pages, and with no alphabet of subjects.
+
+Next after Kelly's catalogue came the first issue of the "American
+Catalogue," which, with its successive volumes (all published in quarto
+form) ably represents the bibliography of our country during the past
+twenty-five years. The title of the first volume, issued in 1880, reads
+"American Catalogue of books in print and for sale (including reprints
+and importations) July 1, 1876. Compiled under direction of F. Leypoldt,
+by L. E. Jones." This copious repository of book-titles was in two parts:
+(1) Authors, and (2) Subject-index. Both are of course in alphabetical
+order, and the titles of books are given with considerable abbreviation.
+The fact that its plan includes many titles of books imported from Great
+Britain, (as supplying information to book-dealers and book-buyers)
+prevents it from being considered as a bibliography of strictly American
+publications. Still, it is the only approximately full American
+bibliography of the publications current twenty-five years ago. As such,
+its volumes are indispensable in every library, and should be in its
+earliest purchase of works of reference. The limitation of the catalogue
+to books still in print--_i. e._, to be had of the publishers at the time
+of its issue, of course precludes it from being ranked as a universal
+American bibliography.
+
+The first issue in 1880 was followed, in 1885, by the "American
+Catalogue, 1876-1884: books recorded (including reprints and
+importations), under editorial direction of R. R. Bowker, by Miss A. I.
+Appleton." This appeared in one volume, but with two alphabets; one being
+authors and titles, and the other an alphabet of subjects. As this volume
+included eight years issues of the American press, the next bibliography
+published covered the next ensuing six years, and included the books
+recorded from July, 1884 to July, 1890. This appeared in 1891, edited
+with care by Miss Appleton and others.
+
+In 1896 appeared its successor, the "American Catalogue, 1890-95.
+Compiled under the editorial direction of R. R. Bowker." This catalogue
+records in its first volume, or alphabet of authors: (1) author; (2) size
+of book; (3) year of issue; (4) price; (5) publisher's name. The names of
+places where published are not given with the title, being rendered
+unnecessary by the full alphabetical list of publishers which precedes,
+and fixes the city or town where each published his books. This same
+usage is followed in succeeding issues of the American Catalogue.
+
+This indispensable bibliography of recent American books, in addition to
+its regular alphabets of authors and titles (the latter under first words
+and in the same alphabet with the authors) and the succeeding alphabet of
+subjects, prints a full list of the publications of the United States
+government, arranged by departments and bureaus; also a list of the
+publications of State governments, of Societies, and of books published
+in series.
+
+This last issue has 939 pages. Its only defects (aside from its
+inevitable omissions of many unrecorded books) are the double alphabet,
+and the want of collation, or an indication of the number of pages in
+each work, which should follow every title. Its cost in bound form is
+$15, at which the two preceding American catalogues 1876-84, and 1884 to
+1890 can also be had, while the catalogue of books in print in 1876,
+published in 1880, is quite out of print, though a copy turns up
+occasionally from some book-dealer's stock.
+
+The American Catalogue has now become a quinquennial issue, gathering the
+publications of five years into one alphabet; and it is supplemented at
+the end of every year by the "Annual American Catalogue," started in
+1886, which gives, in about 400 pages, in its first alphabet, collations
+of the books of the year (a most important feature, unfortunately absent
+from the quinquennial American Catalogue.) Its second alphabet gives
+authors, titles, and sometimes subject-matters, but without the
+distribution into subject-divisions found in the quinquennial catalogue;
+and the titles are greatly abridged from the full record of its first
+alphabet. Its price is $3.50 each year.
+
+And this annual, in turn, is made up from the catalogues of titles of all
+publications, which appear in the _Publishers' Weekly_, the carefully
+edited organ of the book publishing interests in the United States. This
+periodical, which will be found a prime necessity in every library,
+originated in New York, in 1855, as the "American Publishers' Circular,"
+and has developed into the recognized authority in American publications,
+under the able management of R. R. Bowker and A. Growoll. For three
+dollars a year, it supplies weekly and monthly alphabetical lists of
+whatever comes from the press, in book form, as completely as the titles
+can be gathered from every source. It gives valuable notes after most
+titles, defining the scope and idea of the work, with collations,
+features which are copied into the Annual American Catalogue.
+
+I must not omit to mention among American bibliographies, although
+published in London, and edited by a foreigner, Mr. N. Trübner's
+"Bibliographical Guide to American literature: a classed list of books
+published in the United States during the last forty years." This book
+appeared in 1859, and is a carefully edited bibliography, arranged
+systematically in thirty-two divisions of subjects, filling 714 pages
+octavo. It gives under each topic, an alphabet of authors, followed by
+titles of the works, given with approximate fullness, followed by place
+and year of publication, but without publishers' names. The number of
+pages is also given where ascertained, and the price of the work quoted
+in sterling English money. This work, by a competent German-English
+book-publisher of London, is preceded by a brief history of American
+literature, and closes with a full index of authors whose works are
+catalogued in it.
+
+We come now to by far the most comprehensive and ambitious attempt to
+cover not only the wide field of American publications, but the still
+more extensive field of books relating to America, which has ever yet
+been made. I refer to the "Bibliotheca Americana; a dictionary of books
+relating to America," by Joseph Sabin, begun more than thirty years ago,
+in 1868, and still unfinished, its indefatigable compiler having died in
+1881, at the age of sixty. This vast bibliographical undertaking was
+originated by a variously-gifted and most energetic man, not a scholar,
+but a bookseller and auctioneer, born in England. Mr. Sabin is said to
+have compiled more catalogues of private libraries that have been
+brought to the auctioneer's hammer, than any man who ever lived in
+America. He bought and sold, during nearly twenty years, old and rare
+books, in a shop in Nassau street, New York, which was the resort of book
+collectors and bibliophiles without number. He made a specialty of
+Americana, and of early printed books in English literature, crossing the
+Atlantic twenty-five times to gather fresh stores with which to feed his
+hungry American customers. During all these years, he worked steadily at
+his _magnum opus_, the bibliography of America, carrying with him in his
+many journeys and voyages, in cars or on ocean steamships, copy and
+proofs of some part of the work. There have been completed about ninety
+parts, or eighteen thick volumes of nearly 600 pages each; and since his
+death the catalogue has been brought down to the letter S, mainly by Mr.
+Wilberforce Eames, librarian of the Lenox Library, New York. Though its
+ultimate completion must be regarded as uncertain, the great value to all
+librarians, and students of American bibliography or history, of the work
+so far as issued, can hardly be over-estimated. Mr. Sabin had the benefit
+in revising the proofs of most of the work, of the critical knowledge and
+large experience of Mr. Charles A. Cutter, the librarian of the Boston
+Athenaeum Library, whose catalogue of the books in that institution, in
+five goodly volumes, is a monument of bibliographical learning and
+industry. Sabin's Dictionary is well printed, in large, clear type, the
+titles being frequently annotated, and prices at auction sales of the
+rarer and earlier books noted. Every known edition of each work is given,
+and the initials of public libraries in the United States, to the number
+of thirteen, in which the more important works are found, are appended.
+In not a few cases, where no copy was known to the compiler in a public
+collection, but was found in a private library, the initials of its owner
+were given instead.
+
+This extensive bibliography was published solely by subscription, only
+635 copies being printed at $2.50 a part, so that its cost to those
+subscribing was about $225 unbound, up to the time of its suspension. The
+first part appeared January 1, 1867, although Vol. I. bears date New
+York, 1868. It records most important titles in full, with (usually)
+marks denoting omissions where such are made. In the case of many rare
+books relating to America (and especially those published prior to the
+18th century) the collations are printed so as to show what each line of
+the original title embraces, _i. e._ with vertical marks or dashes
+between the matter of the respective lines. This careful description is
+invaluable to the bibliographical student, frequently enabling him to
+identify editions, or to solve doubts as to the genuineness of a
+book-title in hand. The collation by number of pages is given in all
+cases where the book has been seen, or reported fully to the editor. The
+order of description as to each title is as follows: (1) Place of
+publication (2) publisher (3) year (4) collation and size of book. Notes
+in a smaller type frequently convey information of other editions, of
+prices in various sales, of minor works by the same writer, etc.
+
+The fullness which has been aimed at in Sabin's American bibliography is
+seen in the great number of sermons and other specimens of pamphlet
+literature which it chronicles. It gives also the titles of most early
+American magazines, reviews, and other periodicals, except newspapers,
+which are generally omitted, as are maps also. As an example of the often
+minute cataloguing of the work, I may mention that no less than eight
+pages are occupied with a list of the various publications and editions
+of books by Dr. Jedediah Morse, an author of whom few of the present
+generation of Americans have ever heard. He was the earliest American
+geographer who published any comprehensive books upon the subject, and
+his numerous Gazetteers and Geographies, published from 1784 to 1826,
+were constantly reprinted, until supplanted by more full, if not more
+accurate works.
+
+Upon the whole, Sabin's great work, although so far from being finished,
+is invaluable as containing immeasurably more and fuller titles than any
+other American bibliography. It is also the only extensive work on the
+subject which covers all periods, although the books of the last thirty
+years must chiefly be excepted as not represented. As a work of
+reference, while its cost and scarcity may prevent the smaller public
+libraries from possessing it, it is always accessible in the libraries of
+the larger cities, where it is among the foremost works to be consulted
+in any research involving American publications, or books of any period
+or country relating to America, or its numerous sub-divisions.
+
+I may now mention, much more cursorily, some other bibliographies
+pertaining to our country. The late Henry Stevens, who died in 1886,
+compiled a "Catalogue of the American Books in the Library of the British
+Museum." This was printed by the Museum authorities in 1856, and fills
+754 octavo pages. Its editor was a highly accomplished bibliographer and
+book-merchant, born in Vermont, but during the last forty years of his
+life resided in London, where he devoted himself to his profession with
+great learning and assiduity. He published many catalogues of various
+stocks of books collected by him, under such titles as "Bibliotheca
+historica," "Bibliotheca Americana," etc., in which the books were
+carefully described, often with notes illustrating their history or their
+value. He became an authority upon rare books and early editions, and
+made a valuable catalogue of the Bibles in the Caxton exhibition at
+London, in 1877, with bibliographical commentary. He was for years chief
+purveyor of the British Museum Library for its American book purchases,
+and aided the late James Lenox in building up that rich collection of
+Americana and editions of the Scriptures which is now a part of the New
+York Public Library. His catalogue of the American books in the British
+Museum, though now over forty years old, and supplanted by the full
+alphabetical catalogue of that entire library since published, is a
+valuable contribution to American bibliography.
+
+Mr. Stevens was one of the most acute and learned bibliographers I have
+known. He was a man of marked individuality and independent views; with a
+spice of eccentricity and humor, which crept into all his catalogues, and
+made his notes highly entertaining reading. Besides his services to the
+British Museum Library, in building up its noble collection of Americana,
+and in whose rooms he labored for many years, with the aid of Panizzi and
+his successors, whom he aided in return, Stevens collected multitudes of
+the books which now form the choice treasures of the Lenox library, the
+Carter Brown library, at Providence, the Library of Congress, and many
+more American collections. To go with him through any lot of Americana,
+in one of his enterprising visits to New York, where he sometimes came to
+market his overflowing stores picked up in London and on the continent,
+was a rare treat. Every book, almost, brought out some verbal criticism,
+anecdote or reminiscence of his book-hunting experiences, which began in
+America, and extended all over Europe.
+
+He was not only an indefatigable collector, but a most industrious and
+accurate bibliographer, doing more work in that field, probably, than any
+other American. He wrote a singularly careful, though rapid hand, as
+plain and condensed as print, and in days before modern devices for
+manifolding writing were known, he copied out his invoices in duplicate
+or triplicate in his own hand, with titles in full, and frequent
+descriptive notes attached. His many catalogues are notable for the
+varied learning embodied. He was a most intelligent and vigilant book
+collector for more than forty years, his early labors embracing towns in
+New York and New England, as purveyor for material for Peter Force, of
+Washington, whose American Archives were then in course of preparation.
+Among the library collectors who absorbed large portions of his gathered
+treasures, were James Lenox, Jared Sparks, George Livermore, John Carter
+Brown, Henry C. Murphy, George Brinley, the American Geographical
+Society, and many historical societies. He was an authority on all the
+early voyages, and wrote much upon them. No one knew more about early
+Bibles than Henry Stevens.
+
+His enterprise and ambition for success led him to bold and sometimes
+extensive purchases. He bought about 1865, the library of Baron von
+Humboldt, and this and other large ventures embarrassed him much in later
+years. He became the owner of the Franklin manuscripts, left in London by
+the great man's grandson, and collected during many years a library of
+Frankliniana, which came to the Library of Congress when the Franklin
+manuscripts were purchased for the State Department in 1881.
+
+He was proud of his country and his State, always signing himself "Henry
+Stevens, of Vermont." His book-plate had engraved beneath his name, the
+titles, "G. M. B.: F. S. A." The last, of course, designated him as
+Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, but the first puzzled
+even his friends, until it was interpreted as signifying "Green Mountain
+Boy." His brother used jocosely to assure me that it really meant
+"Grubber of Musty Books."
+
+As to his prices for books, while some collectors complained of them as
+"very stiff," they appear, when compared with recent sales of Americana,
+at auction and in sale catalogues, to be quite moderate. The late
+historian Motley told me that Mr. Stevens charged more than any one for
+Dutch books relating to America; but Mr. Motley's measure of values was
+gauged by the low prices of Dutch booksellers which prevailed during his
+residence in the Netherlands, for years before the keen demand from
+America had rendered the numerous Dutch tracts of the West India Company,
+etc., more scarce and of greater commercial value than they bore at the
+middle of this century.
+
+As treating of books by American authors, though not so much a complete
+bibliography of their works, as a critical history, with specimens
+selected from each writer, Duyckinck's "Cyclopaedia of American
+Literature" deserves special mention. The last edition appeared at
+Philadelphia, in 1875, in two large quarto volumes. Equally worthy of
+note is the compilation by E. C. Stedman and Ellen M. Hutchinson, in
+eleven volumes, entitled "Library of American Literature," New York,
+1887-90. A most convenient hand-book of bibliographical reference is
+Oscar F. Adams's "Dictionary of American Authors," Boston, 1897, which
+gives in a compact duodecimo volume, the name and period of nearly every
+American writer, with a brief list of his principal works, and their date
+of publication, in one alphabet.
+
+Of notable catalogues of books relating to America, rather than of
+American publications, should be named White Kennet's "Bibliotheca
+Americana primordia," the earliest known catalogue devoted to American
+bibliography, London, 1713; O. Rich, Catalogue of Books relating to
+America, 1500-1700, London, 1832; Rich, "Bibliotheca Americana nova,"
+books printed between 1700 and 1844, two volumes, London, 1835-46; H.
+Harrisse, "Bibliotheca Americana vetustissima," New York, 1866, and its
+supplement, Paris, 1872, both embracing rare early Americana, published
+from 1492 to 1551. This is a critically edited bibliography of the rarest
+books concerning America that appeared in the first half century after
+its discovery.
+
+The important field of American local history has given birth to many
+bibliographies. The earliest to be noted is H. E. Ludewig's "Literature
+of American Local History," New York, 1846. Thirty years later came F. B.
+Perkins's "Check List for American Local History," Boston, 1876; followed
+by A. P. C. Griffin's "Index of articles upon American Local History in
+historical collections," Boston, 1889, and by his "Index of the
+literature of American local history in collections published in
+1890-95," Boston, 1896. Closely allied to the catalogues of city, town,
+and county histories, come the bibliographies of genealogies and family
+histories, of which the last or 4th edition of D. S. Durrie's
+"Bibliographia genealogica Americana; an alphabetical index to American
+genealogies in county and town histories, printed genealogies, and
+kindred works," Albany, 1895, is the most comprehensive and
+indispensable. This work gives us an alphabet of family names, under each
+of which are grouped the titles of books in which that special name is
+treated, with citation of the page. It also gives the name and date of
+publication of the special family genealogies which are separately
+printed, whether book or pamphlet, with number of pages in each. The
+work is by a librarian, to whose laborious diligence Americans are deeply
+indebted.
+
+Among other bibliographies of genealogy are Munsell's "American
+Genealogist: a catalogue of family histories," Albany, 1897. This work
+aims to give the titles of all separately printed American genealogies,
+in an alphabet of family names, giving titles in full, with place and
+year of publication, name of publisher, and collation, or number of
+pages.
+
+For the multitudinous public documents of the United States, consult B.
+P. Poore's "Descriptive catalogue of the government publications of the
+United States, 1775-1881," Washington, 1885, and F. A. Crandall, Check
+list of public documents, debates and proceedings from 1st to 53d
+Congress (1789-1895), Washington, 1895; also,
+
+Comprehensive index to the publications of the United States government,
+1889-1893. The same--United States Catalogue of Public Documents, 1893 to
+1895, Washington, 1896. Several biennial or annual lists of United States
+Documents have followed.
+
+As supplementing these extensive catalogues, we have in the Appendix to
+the "American Catalogue" of 1885 a List of United States Government
+publications from 1880 to 1884; in that of 1891 a List from 1884 to 1890;
+and in that of 1896 a List covering the years 1891 to 1895.
+
+A most important recent bibliography is found in H. C. Bolton's
+"Catalogue of Scientific and Technical Periodicals, 1665-1895,"
+Washington, 1897.
+
+There are also many sale catalogues of American books, with prices, some
+of which may be noted, _e. g._ J. R. Smith, Bibliotheca Americana,
+London, 1865; F. Müller, Catalogue of books and pamphlets relating to
+America, Amsterdam, 1877, and later years. Ternaux-Compans, "Bibliothèque
+Américaine;" books printed before 1700, Paris, 1837: P. Trömel,
+"Bibliothèque Américaine," Leipzig, 1861: D. B. Warden, "Bibliothèque
+Américaine," Paris, 1840: R. Clarke & Co., "Bibliotheca Americana,"
+Cincinnati, 1874, 1878, 1887, 1891, and 1893.
+
+There are, besides, important catalogues of some private libraries,
+devoted wholly or chiefly to books relating to America. Among these, the
+most extensive and costly is John R. Bartlett's catalogue of the library
+of J. Carter Brown, of Providence, in four sumptuous volumes, with
+fac-similes of early title-pages, of which bibliography only fifty copies
+were printed. It is entitled, "Bibliotheca Americana: a catalogue of
+books relating to North and South America," 1482-1800, 4 vols. large
+8vo., Providence, 1870-82. The Carter Brown Library is now the richest
+collection of Americana in any private library in the world.
+
+Among catalogues of libraries sold by auction, and composed largely of
+American books, are those of John A. Rice, New York, 1870: W. Menzies,
+New York, 1875: George Brinley, in five volumes, sold 1878 to 1886: Henry
+C. Murphy, New York, 1884: S. L. M. Barlow, New York, 1889: and Brayton
+Ives, New York, 1891.
+
+The wide field of bibliography of English literature has given birth to
+many books. Only the more comprehensive can here be noted.
+
+R. Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, in four quarto volumes, Edinburgh,
+1824, although now old, is still an indispensable work of reference,
+giving multitudes of titles of English books and pamphlets not found in
+any other bibliography. It of course abounds in errors, most of which
+have been copied in Allibone's Dictionary of English literature. This
+extensive work is a monument of labor, to which the industrious compiler
+devoted many years, dying of too intense study, at Glasgow, at the early
+age of forty-five, in the year 1819. The issue of the work in 1824, being
+thus posthumous, its errors and omissions are largely accounted for by
+the author's inability to correct the press. The plan of the work is
+unique. Vols. 1 and 2 contain the alphabet of authors and titles, with
+dates and publishers' prices when known. Vols. 3 and 4 contain an
+alphabet of subjects, in which the titles re-appear, with a key alphabet
+in italic letters attached to each title, by which reference is made to
+the author-catalogue, at a fixed place, where all the works of the author
+are recorded.
+
+The work is printed in small type, with two crowded columns on a page,
+thus containing an enormous amount of matter. The key is quickly learned,
+and by its aid, and the alphabet of subjects, the librarian can find out
+the authors of many anonymous books. Watt is the only general
+bibliography of English literature which gives most of the obscure
+writers and their works.
+
+Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, in its second
+edition, enlarged by H. G. Bohn, is a most indispensable bibliography.
+This work is arranged alphabetically by authors' names, and aims to
+record all important books published in Great Britain, from the earliest
+times to about A. D. 1834. It is in eleven parts, or 6 vols. 16 mo. of
+very portable size, Lond., 1857-65. While it gives collations of the more
+important works, with publishers and dates, it fails to record many
+editions of the same work. Its quoted prices represent the original
+publisher's price, with very frequent additions of the sale prices
+obtained at book auctions. The chief defect of Lowndes' Manual is its
+total lack of any index of subjects.
+
+S. Austin Allibone's "Critical Dictionary of English literature,"
+Philadelphia, 1858-71, 3 volumes, with supplement by John F. Kirk, in 2
+vols., Philadelphia, 1891, is a copious reference book, which, in spite
+of its many errors and crudities, should be in all libraries. It contains
+in abbreviated form most of the titles in Watt and Lowndes, with the
+addition of American authors, and of British books published since the
+period covered by Lowndes. The three volumes of Allibone accompany the
+titles of works by noted authors with many critical remarks, copied
+mostly from reviews and literary journals. This feature of the book,
+which makes it rather a work of literary history and criticism than a
+bibliography pure and simple, has been dropped in Mr. Kirk's supplement,
+which thus becomes properly a bibliography. The publications of England
+and America, from about 1850 to 1890, are more fully chronicled in this
+work of Kirk than in any other bibliography.
+
+The important "English Catalogue of Books," from A. D. 1835 to 1897, in 5
+vols., with its valuable Index of Subjects, in 4 vols., from 1857 up to
+1889, is so constantly useful as to be almost indispensable in a public
+library. It records, in provokingly brief one-line titles, with
+publisher's name, year of issue, and price, all books published in Great
+Britain whose titles could be secured. It thus subserves the same purpose
+for English publications, which the American Catalogue fulfills for those
+of the United States. Both are in effect greatly condensed
+bibliographies, enabling the librarian to locate most of the published
+literature in the English language for many years back. The English
+catalogue, from 1897 to date, is supplemented by its annual issues,
+entitled "the English Catalogue of Books for 1898," etc.
+
+I have said that accuracy should be one of the cardinal aims of the
+librarian: and this because in that profession it is peculiarly
+important. Bibliography is a study which approaches very nearly to the
+rank of an exact science; and the practice of it, in application to the
+daily work of the librarian, is at once a school of accuracy, and a test
+of ability. A habit of analytical methods should be assiduously
+cultivated, without which much time will be lost in fruitless searches in
+the wrong books to find what one wants. As a single illustration of this
+need of method, suppose that you want to find the title of a certain book
+with its full description, a want likely to occur every hour in the day,
+and sometimes many times an hour. The book is perhaps Sir Walter Scott's
+Life of Napoleon,--9 vols., London, 1827, and your object is to trace its
+title, published price, etc., among the numerous bibliographies of
+literature. You begin by a simple act of analysis--thus. This is a
+London, not an American book--hence it is useless to look in any American
+catalogue. It is written in English, so you are dispensed from looking
+for it in any French or other foreign bibliography. Its date is 1827,
+London. Therefore among the three leading English reference books in
+bibliography, which are Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, Lowndes'
+Bibliographer's Manual, and the English Catalogue, you at once eliminate
+the former as not containing the book. Why do you do this? Because Watt's
+great work, in four huge quartos, though invaluable for the early English
+literature, stops with books published before the date of its issue,
+1824. Your book is published in 1827, and of course could not appear in a
+catalogue of 1824. Shall you refer then to the English Catalogue for its
+title? No, because the five volumes of that useful work (though some
+imperfect book lists were published earlier), begin with the year 1835,
+and the book you seek bears date of 1827. You are then reduced, by this
+simple process of analyzing in your mind the various sources of
+information, and rejecting all except one, namely Lowndes'
+Bibliographer's Manual, to a search in a single catalogue for your title.
+This simplifies matters greatly, and saves all the time which might
+otherwise have been lost in hunting fruitlessly through several works of
+reference. Lowndes' invaluable Manual was published in 1834, and though a
+second edition, edited by Bohn, appeared thirty years later, it does not
+contain books published after that date, unless they are later editions
+of works issued earlier. You find in it your Scott's Napoleon, date 1827,
+with its published price, £4. 14. 6, and an account of other later
+editions of the book. Of course you will observe that it is necessary to
+know what period of years is covered by the various bibliographies, and
+to carry those dates perpetually in your memory, in order thus to
+simplify searches, and save time. Once learned, you will have the comfort
+of knowing where to turn for light upon any book, and the faculty of
+accurate memory will reward the pains taken to acquire it.
+
+I must not omit to include, in noting the more useful and important
+English bibliographies, the very copious list of works appended to each
+biography of British writers, in the new "Dictionary of National
+Biography," Lond., 1885-1900. This extensive work is nearly finished in
+about 65 volumes, and constitutes a rich thesaurus of information about
+all British authors, except living ones.
+
+Living characters, considered notable, and brief note of their books, are
+recorded in "Men and Women of the Time," 15th ed. London, 1899--but this
+book, although highly useful, is far from being a bibliography.
+
+I should not omit to mention among useful librarians' aids, the "Book
+Prices Current; record of prices at which books have been sold at
+auction." This London publication began with the year 1887. No sales are
+reported of books bringing less than one pound sterling. The book-sales
+of 1898 were reported in 1899 of this issue, and the book is published in
+each case the next year. The similar catalogue entitled "American Book
+Prices Current" was begun with 1895, being compiled from the sale
+catalogues of American auctioneers, for that year, and the prices brought
+at auction in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, are recorded
+for all notable books, but limited to works bringing as much as $3 or
+upward. Five years' reports, in as many volumes, have now been issued,
+and the publication is to be continued. Its utility of course consists in
+informing librarians or collectors of the most recent auction values of
+books. At the same time, a word of caution is required, since it is not
+safe to judge of average commercial values, from any isolated bid at an
+auction sale.
+
+A very useful classed catalogue, published by the British Museum library,
+and edited by G. K. Fortescue, an assistant librarian, is the so-called
+"Subject-index to modern works," of which three volumes have appeared,
+beginning with the accessions of 1880-85, each covering five years
+additions of new works, in all European languages, to that library. The
+third volume embraces the years 1890 to 1895, and appeared in 1896. As
+this is not confined to works in English, it should be classed with
+universal bibliography. As containing most of the latest books of any
+note, all three volumes are important aids to research. They are printed
+in large type, in which it is a refreshment to the eye to read titles,
+after the small and obscure print of Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, and
+the but little better type of Lowndes' Manual, and of the English
+Catalogue. A collation of pages is also added in most cases, and the
+importance of this can hardly be overrated. These catalogues of the
+British Museum Library abound in pamphlets, English, French, German,
+Italian, etc., evincing how large a share of attention is given to the
+minor literature coming from the press in the more recent years.
+
+W. H. D. Adams's "Dictionary of English Literature," London, 1880, and
+later, in a compact volume, gives authors and titles of the more
+important English and American books. Also, in the same alphabet, an
+index to the titles, as well as authors, by the first word, and to many
+sayings or quotations, with their original sources. It is a highly useful
+book, although its small bulk leaves it far from being a comprehensive
+one.
+
+Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature, in 2 vols., London, 1876,
+has an account of the most notable British writers, with specimens of
+their works, and forms what may be termed an essential part of the
+equipment of every public library.
+
+The Library Association of the United Kingdom, since 1888, the date of
+its organization, has published Transactions and Proceedings; also, since
+1889, "The Library," a periodical with bibliographical information.
+
+It may be noted, without undue expression of pride, that America first
+set the example of an organized national association of Librarians
+(founded in 1876) followed the same year by a journal devoted to Library
+interests. That extremely useful periodical, the _Library Journal_, is
+now in its twenty-fourth volume. Its successive issues have contained
+lists of nearly all new bibliographical works and catalogues published,
+in whatever language.
+
+The London Publisher's Circular, first established in 1838, is a weekly
+organ of the book-publishing trade, aiming to record the titles of all
+British publications as they appear from the press. It gives, in an
+alphabet by authors' names, the titles in much abbreviated form, with
+publisher, size in inches, collation, price, and date, with a fairly good
+index of titles or subjects, in the same alphabet. Covering much the same
+ground, as a publishers' periodical, is "The Bookseller," issued monthly
+since 1858, with lists of the new issues of the British press, and
+critical notices. In addition to the English catalogue, there is the
+extensive Whitaker's "Reference catalogue of current literature,"
+published every year, which now makes two large volumes, and embraces the
+trade catalogues of English publishers, bound up in alphabetical order,
+with a copious index, by authors and titles, in one alphabet, prefixed.
+
+While on English bibliographies, I must note the important work on local
+history, by J. P. Anderson, "Book of British Topography," London, 1881.
+This gives, in an alphabet of counties, titles of all county histories or
+descriptive works of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, followed in
+each county by a list of town histories or topographical works. The
+arrangement under each town is chronological. Its only want is a
+collation of the books. British genealogy, or the history of families, is
+treated bibliographically in G. W. Marshall's "The Genealogist's Guide,"
+London, 1893, which gives an alphabet of family names, with references in
+great detail to county and town histories, pedigrees, heralds'
+visitations, genealogies, etc., all over Great Britain, in which any
+family is treated.
+
+The wide field of foreign bibliography, by countries, cannot here be
+entered upon, nor can I now treat of the still more extensive range of
+works devoted to the bibliography of various subjects.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+    Access to shelves, 215-225
+    Accuracy, rarity of, 254-257
+    Adams (O. F.) Dictionary of American authors, 490
+    Adams (W. H. D.) Dictionary of English literature, 499
+    Administration, faculty of, 249
+    Advertising, library, 353-356
+    Aids to readers, 190-214
+    Alexandrian library, 107, 289
+    Allibone (S. A.) Critical dictionary of English literature, 494-495
+    Alphabeting titles, 380, 388-389
+    American book prices, current, 1895-99, 498
+    American catalogue, 1876-1899, 481-484
+    American Library Association
+        catalogue of 5,000 books, 25, 371
+        foundation of, 499
+        list of novelists, 22
+        on open shelves, 223
+        on size-notation, 390
+    Americana,
+        bibliographies of, 472-493
+        rare, 454-456
+        what are, 473
+    Anderson (J. P.) book of British topography, 500
+    Arabic figures, 81
+    Art of reading, 171-189
+    Art, lesson from, 24
+    Assistants in libraries
+        appointment of, 337-339
+        qualifications of, 242-274
+        regulations for, 341-345
+    Astor library, N. Y., 35, 306
+        mutilation in, 137, 140
+    Auction sales, 38-40, 45-47, 457
+    Authorship, 271-2
+
+    Bad books, 20-24, 281-2
+    Bartlett (J. R.) catalogue of J. Carter Brown library, 493
+    Bay Psalm book, 455
+    Beckford library sale, 74, 457-8
+    Beecher (H. W.) on books, 15
+    Bibliography, 459-500
+        accessibility of, 463-464
+        bibliographies of, 469-471
+        classification of, 464-5
+        definition of, 459
+        earliest American, 478
+        early works in, 465
+        no full American, 475
+        of American publications, 472-493
+        selection of works in, 462
+    Binding of books, 50-87, 93-94
+        colors in, 57
+        desiderata in, 52
+        how a bibliomaniac binds, 432
+        importance of, 87
+        lettering titles, 72, 78-83
+        machine methods, 62-3
+        marbling and gilding, 68-69, 73
+        materials for, 53
+        rebinding methods, 64
+    Biography, 4-7, 17
+        discrepancies in, 210-212
+        living characters, 197
+    Blake (A. V.) American booksellers' trade-list catalogue, 479
+    Boccaccio of 1471, sale of, 46
+    Bolton (H. C.) catalogue of scientific and technical periodicals, 492
+    Book binding, 50-87, 93-94
+    Book buying, 33-49
+    Book covering, 97
+    Book-marks, 115
+    Book plates, 90-93, 97-100
+    Book prices
+        current, 1887-99, 497-498
+        American, 1895-99, 498
+    Book shops, second hand, 42-45, 458
+    Book supports, 96, 110
+    Book worms, 108
+    Books, cheap and poor editions of, 30
+    Books, choice of, 3-32
+    Books for public libraries, selection of, 15-32, 361
+    Books of reference, 16, 462-463
+    Books, three classes of, 182
+    Books which have helped me, 183
+    Books,--_see_ Reading
+    Bores, how to treat, 259
+    Boston Athenaeum library, 305, 485
+        early pamphlets in, 149
+    Boston public library, 315
+        appointments in, 338
+        languages demanded, 247
+    Bowker (R. R.)
+        American catalogue, 482-483
+        Publishers' weekly, 483
+    British Museum library
+        appointments in, 338
+        catalogue of, 396-399, 498
+            its defects, 398
+        classification, 367
+        mutilation in, 137-138
+        trustees of, 340
+    Brown (J. Carter) library of Americana, 493
+    Brunet (J. C.) Manuel du libraire, 467
+    Bry (De) Voyages, 449, 451
+    Buildings, library, 321-333
+        cost of, 331
+        light in, 325
+        location of, 323-324
+        many mistakes in, 321
+        materials for, 324
+        periodical room, 328
+        shelving, 325
+    Bulwer-Lytton (E. L.) writings of, 23, 174
+    Burnham (T. O. H. P.), 44
+    Bury, Richard de, 292
+    Buying of books, 33-49
+        methods of, 36-37
+
+    Calf binding, 55
+    Campbell (John), 45
+    Capitals, how to be used in catalogues, 378, 387
+    Card catalogue system, 393
+        its defects, 393-394
+        how obviated, 394-396
+    Cards, for catalogues, 393
+    Carlyle (Thomas)
+        life of Cromwell, 148
+        on librarians, 249
+        on reading, 171
+    Carnegie (Andrew) gifts to libraries, 315
+    Catalogue of all books printed in the U. S. 1804, 478-479
+    Catalogues, 373-399
+        abridging titles, 382-383
+        accession, 386
+        auction, 38-39
+        card system for, 393
+        chronology of authors, 381, 389, 398
+        classed, 374-5, 383
+        collations in, 379
+        cross references, 377
+        Cutter's rules for, 375
+        deficiencies of American, 473-476
+        dictionary, 373-5, 383-384
+        English, 383, 495
+        errors in, 384-385, 388
+        imprints, how given, 379
+        kinds of, 373
+        of British Museum library, 396-399, 498
+        printing, advantages of, 395-396
+        rules for, 375-381
+        sale, value of, 33-34, 37
+        shelf, 386
+        size-notation in, 389-391
+        use of capitals in, 378, 387
+    Caxton's press, books, 451
+    Census of wealth, futility of, 194-196
+    Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English literature, 499
+    Children's books, 276, 278
+        reading-rooms, 329-330
+    Choice of books, 3-32, 277, 335
+    Chronology of authors, 381, 398
+    Classic authors, 30
+    Classification of books, 362-372
+        application of, 366
+        Bibliothèque nationale, system of, 368
+        British museum, system of, 368
+        Brunet's system of, 367
+        close classification, 364-365
+        conflict of systems, 362-363
+        Crunden's verses on, 430
+        Cutter, system of, 369
+        Dewey, system of, 370
+        Fletcher, system of, 372
+        fixed shelf location, 371
+        Library of Congress, system of, 368
+    Cleaning books, 103-104, 127-130
+    Clergymen, some book-abusing, 138, 140
+    Cleveland public library
+        fiction experience, 27
+        methods of selections, 31
+    Cogswell (J. G.), 35
+    Collation, 61, 379
+    Collier, J. Payne, as a cataloguer, 385
+    Congressional library--_see_ Library of Congress
+    Copy tax,
+        origin of, 400
+        rationale of, 406, 409
+    Copyright
+        and libraries, 400-416
+        aggregate copyrights entered, 410
+        and Library of Congress, 404-411
+        books not entered, 474
+        duration of, 413
+        foundation of, 402, 412
+        history of, 403
+        in the Constitution, 401
+        international, why, 412-413
+        origin of, 401
+        perpetual, 402, 413
+        provisions of, 414
+    Counting a library, 350, 386
+    Courtesy, in libraries, 250, 261
+    Croton bug, 109
+    Crowding of books on shelves, 116-117
+    Crunden (F. M.) verses on classification, 430
+    Cutter (C. A.) Boston Athenaeum catalogue, 485
+        classification, 430
+        rules for catalogue, 375
+        Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, 485
+    Cutting edges, 60-61, 67
+
+    Damage to books, _see_ Injuries
+    Damp, an enemy of books, 104
+    Dates, errors in, 210-212
+    Dates of books, ancient expression of, 391-393
+    Decimal system, 370, 390
+    Denis (F.) Nouveau manuel de bibliographie, 468-469
+    Dewey (Melvil)
+        classification, 370
+        remark by, 433
+    Dictionary catalogues, 373-375, 383-384
+    Dictionary of national biography, 197, 497
+    Dime novels, 21, 281
+    Documents (U. S. public) catalogues, 492
+    Dogs-earing books, 114
+    "Dont's," list of proper warnings, 134
+    Duplicates in libraries, 31, 167-168
+    Durrie (D. S.) Bibliographia genealogica Americana, 491
+    Dust,
+        in libraries, 101-103
+        to remove from books, 103
+    Duyckink's Cyclopaedia of American literature, 490
+
+    Eames (W.) continuation of Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, 485
+    Editions,
+        to be always noted, 387
+        first, 46, 388, 452
+    Education, 245, 282-283
+    Egypt, libraries of, 287-289
+    Elzevirs, 424, 457
+    Emerson (R. W.) cited, 172, 185
+    Encyclopaedia Britannica, scope and limitations of, 14, 197-199, 245
+    Enemies of books, 101-118
+    English catalogue,
+        1835-1899, 383, 495
+        uses dictionary form, 383
+    Errors
+        in books, 210-212, 255
+        in librarians, 256-257
+    Essays, 9, 17
+
+    Facsimile reproduction, 132-134
+    Fiction, 12, 18-28, 179
+    Fires,
+        in libraries, 106-108, 131, 297
+        destruction of books by, 448-449
+    First editions, 46, 388, 452
+    Fletcher (W. I.),
+        classification, 372
+        index to periodicals, 169
+    Force (Peter) historical library of, 304
+        rich in pamphlets, 150
+    Formation of libraries, 357-362
+    Franklin (B.)
+        collections of Frankliniana, 456
+        his manuscripts, 489
+        on Philadelphia library, 299
+    French language, need of, 246-248, 257
+    Furnishings of libraries, 326
+
+    Gas, an enemy of books, 105
+    Genealogy, bibliographies of, 491-492, 500
+    George IV, library of, 212
+    Georgi (T.) Allgemeines Europäisches bücher-lexikon, 465
+    Gesner (C.) Bibliotheca universalis, 465
+    Gould (Jay) History of Delaware county, N. Y., 453
+    Gowans (William), 43
+    Graesse, Trésor des livres rares et précieux, 468
+    Grangerising, 450
+    Greece, libraries of, 288-289
+    Griffin (A. P. C.) indexes of American local history, 491
+    Grolier bindings, 73, 75
+    Grolier club, N. Y., 85, 447
+    Growoll (A.)
+        Book trade bibliography in the U. S., 479
+        Publishers' weekly, 483
+
+    Hain (L.) Repertorium bibliographicum, 466
+    Halliwell-Phillipps (J. O.), privately printed books, 446
+    Harris (W. T.) experience with memory, 239
+    Harrisse (H.) Bibliotheca Americana, 491
+    Harvard university library, 296
+    Haven (S. F.) Catalogue of American publications, 1639-1775, 477
+    Heat, an enemy of books, 104
+    Heber library, 34
+    Helps to readers, 191-214
+    History, 7-8, 17
+        of libraries, 287-320
+        (local) bibliography, 491, 500
+    Homer, 173, 184, 458
+    Horace, perfection of his odes, 184
+    Humboldt (Baron von), 449
+    Humors of the library, 430-443
+    Hurst (J. F.) on choice books, 15
+
+    Illustrated books, 279, 450, 451, 453-454
+    Immoral books, 20, 22, 453
+    Index expurgatorius, 448, 470
+    Indexes,
+        use of, 205-206
+        how to make, 388-389
+        substitutes for, 207
+    Injuries to books, _See_ Crowding, Cutting, Dogs-earing, Enemies,
+            Ink, Margins, Mutilations, Soiling, Tracing, Torn leaves
+    Ink,
+        use of, 113
+        how removed, 128-129
+    Inquiries, innumerable, 191-201
+    International copyright, 412-416
+    Iron construction, 106
+
+    Jöcher (C. G.) Allgemeines gelehrten-lexikon, 466
+    Juvenile books, 276, 278, 279
+
+    Kelly (J.) American catalogue, 1861-1871, 481
+    Khayyam (Omar), 457
+    Kirk (J. F.) Supplement to Allibone, 1850-1890, 495
+
+    La Bedoyère, French revolution collection, 149
+    Labelling books, 90-93
+    Ladies' reading-rooms, 329
+    Languages, foreign, 246-248
+    La Serna de Santander, Dictionnaire bibliographique, 467
+    Law books, binding, 76
+    Letters, 8-9
+    Leypoldt (F.) Books of all time, 481
+    Librarian
+        a constant aid, 200
+        ancient idea of, 273
+        as an author, 271-272
+        as preserver and restorer of books, 120-121
+        benefits to, of inquiries, 202
+        high standard for, 272
+        indispensable, how to become, 200, 203
+        intercourse with readers, 199
+        librarian's dream, 417
+        qualifications of, 242-274
+            accuracy, 254
+            business habits, 249, 258
+            courtesy, 250, 261
+            energy and industry, 262
+            foreign languages, 246-248
+            good temper, 250
+            habits of order, 257-260
+            health, 251
+            impartial liberality, 264-265
+            knowledge of books, 248
+            love of his work, 253
+            patience inexhaustible, 261
+            sound common sense, 252
+            tact unfailing, 262
+        reserve in recommending books, 213
+        "who reads is lost," 242, 274
+        woes of a, 441-443
+    Librarianship,
+        attractions of, 193, 268-271
+        drawbacks attending, 266-268
+        opens avenues to growth, 269
+        school of human nature, 270
+
+    Libraries,
+        ancient, of clay, 287-288
+        and copyright, 400-416
+        and schools, 275, 282
+        and universities, 282, 293
+        annual reports of, 349-356
+        catalogues of, 373-399
+        classification of, 362-372
+        exaggeration of volumes in, 212-213
+        formation of, 357-362
+        founded by individual gift, 311-313
+        history of, 287-320
+        historical, 319
+        list of, over 100,000 vols., 309-310
+        mercantile, 319
+        monastic, 290-292
+        picture of ancient, 273
+        poetry of, 417-430
+        professional, 319
+        prompt service in, 341-342
+        readers in, 186, 285-286
+        special report on, 1876, 309
+        state libraries, 316-317
+        statistics of American, 308
+        subscription libraries, 360
+        ten largest, 293
+        travelling libraries, 319-320
+        uses of, 275-286
+    Library, how to count a, 350, 386
+    Library, humors of the, 430
+    Library, poetry of the, 417
+    Library advertising, 353-356
+    Library association of United Kingdom, 499
+    Library buildings and furnishings, 321-333
+        _See_ Buildings
+    Library bulletins, 353
+    Library commissioners, 345
+    Library committees, 333-340, 360
+    Library donations, 361
+    Library Journal, N. Y., 1876-99, 499
+    Library laws (State), 357, 359
+    Library of Congress
+        and copyright books, 404-411, 416
+        appointments in, 338
+        joint committee on, 340
+        our national conservatory of books, 181-182
+        restriction of MSS. and rare books, 225
+        sketch of its history, 303-305
+    Library regulations, 341-349, 433-434
+    Library reports, 349
+    Library science schools, 338
+    Library trustees or boards of managers, 333-340
+    Literature, history of, 12-14
+    Loudon (A.) History of Indian wars, 476
+    Lowndes (W. T.) Bibliographer's Manual, 494
+
+    Macaulay (T. B.) memory, 229
+    Maittaire (M.) Annales typographici, 467
+    Marbling, 68
+    Margins, writing or marking on, 114, 124-125, 136
+    Mazarin Bible, 46, 445
+    Memory,
+        the faculty of, 226-241
+        attention and association, its corner-stones, 236-237
+        cardinal qualification of a librarian, 226-227
+        discursive reading impairs it, 240-241
+        improvement of, 236-240
+        intuitive memory, 230
+        local memory, 229
+        verbal memory, 228
+    Migne (J. P. _abbé_) Patrologie, 447
+    Milton, 11, 147, 184, 187, 458
+    Mnemonic systems, 234-236
+    Morocco binding, 56
+    Morris (William) Kelmscott press, 447
+    Mutilation of books, 111, 124-126
+        penal laws for, 135-136
+        posting offenders, 138
+
+    New Hampshire library law, 314
+    Newspapers, _see_ Periodicals
+    New York Mercantile Library, selections for, 32
+    New York Public library, 307
+    Notation
+        of book sizes, 390
+        of book dates, 381, 391
+    Novels, _see_ Fiction
+    Nuremberg chronicle, 452
+
+    Omar (Caliph) sentence imputed to, 107, 171, 289
+    Omniscience, no human, 172
+    Open shelves, 215-225
+        American library association on, 223
+        an open question, 222
+        benefits of, 215-222, 224
+        evils of, 216-224
+        international library conference on, 220-221
+    Opinions on books, 27
+    Ostend manifesto, 196-197
+
+    Pamphlets,
+        literature of, 145-156
+        binding of, 153-155
+        British museum, wealth in, 149, 499
+        classification of, 152, 155
+        definitions of, 145
+        dignity and power of, 148
+        embarrassments of, 146
+        great works printed as, 147
+        how to acquire, 151
+        La Bedoyère collection of, 149
+        Peter Force, collection of, 150
+        swift disappearance of, 151
+        Thomason collection of, 148
+    Panzer (G. W.) Annales typographici, 466
+    Parchment, 54
+    Peignot (G.)
+        Repertoire bibliographique universelle, 469
+        Dictionnaire des livres condamnés, 448
+    Periodicals,
+        literature of, 157-170
+        binding of, 84-85
+        cardinal importance of, 153-154, 157, 161, 285
+        check list for, 168
+        compared with books, 164
+        completeness of, 158-159
+        continuous reading of impairs the memory, 241
+        indexes to, 169-170
+        lettering by Poole index, 84
+        limited library circulation, 167-168
+        newspapers
+            abuses of, 180
+            destruction of, 62
+            filing for readers' use, 166
+            library notices in, 353-356
+            mutilation of, 112
+            number of, 157, 160
+            over-reading of, 180, 241
+            percentage of, to books, 157
+            syndicate publication, 165
+            value of, 301-302
+    Perkins (F. B.) check-list for American local history, 491
+    Petzholdt (J.) Bibliotheca bibliographica, 469
+    Philadelphia library company's library, 299-302
+    Philadelphia Mercantile Library fire, 131-132
+    Phillipps (Sir T.) privately printed books, 447
+    Plato, reading of, 172, 178
+    Plutarch's lives, 3, 184
+    Poetical quotations, 193, 204-205
+    Poetry, 9-11, 18
+    Poetry of the library, 417-429
+    Politics in libraries, 265
+    Poole (W. F.)
+        plan of library building, 327
+        on ladies' reading-rooms, 329
+    Poole's indexes to periodical literature, 169
+    Poor Richard's almanac, 456
+    Pratt Institute library, thefts in, 144
+    Preparation for the shelves, 88-97
+    Press, the, and the library, 353-356
+    Prices of books, 36, 46-48, 444-451, 455-456, 497-498
+    Privately printed books, 446-447, 473
+    Problems, insoluble, 194-196
+    Pseudonyms, 376-377
+    Publishers' Circular (London), 499
+    Publishers' Weekly, N. Y., 483
+
+    Qualifications of librarians, 242-274
+    Questions asked, innumerable, 191, 204, 206-209
+    Quotations, search for, 193, 204
+
+    Rare books, 113, 114, 224, 444-459
+        causes of rarity, 445-457
+        mere age not a cause, 446
+    Readers,
+        aids to, 190-214
+        classification of, 186-187, 190-191, 206, 285-286
+        favoritism among, 217
+        limitations of aid, 204, 208
+    Reading,
+        art of, 171-189
+        best, not the latest, 178-179
+        choice of, 3-32, 181-2, 277-278
+        formative power of, 183-185
+        passion for, 458-459
+        inspiration of, 183-185
+        librarian's, 121, 243-244, 248
+        methods of, 175-178, 186-187
+            the literal, 175
+            the intuitive, 176
+        novel reading, 179
+        over-much reading of newspapers, 180, 241
+        perils of too great absorption in, 185-186
+        pleasures of, 182-189
+        reading aloud, 177-178, 280
+        taste in, 181
+        time to read, 173
+    Reading rooms, 326
+    Reclamation of books, 119-144
+    Recommending books, 32
+        to be done sparingly, 213, 244
+    Reference, books of, 16, 461-463
+    Religion, questions about, 201, 265
+    Reports, librarians', 349-356
+        comprehensive, 349
+        printing of, 352
+    Reserved books, 224-245
+    Restoration and reclamation of books, 119-144
+    Rich (O.) Bibliotheca Americana, 491
+    Roman libraries, 290
+    Roman numerals, 81, 391-392
+    Roorbach (O. A.) Bibliotheca Americana, 1820-1861, 480
+    Rubber bands, untrustworthy, 155
+    Rules, library, 341-349
+        call slips or tickets, 346
+        circulation, limit, 346-347
+        done into verse, 433-434
+        hours, 344
+        prompt service, 341-342
+        registration, 347
+        vacations, 345
+    Rush (James) bequest to Philadelphia Library Co., 301-302
+    Ruskin on collecting books, 14
+    Russia binding, 56
+
+    Sabin (J.) Bibliotheca Americana, 484-487
+    School district libraries a failure, 317-319
+    Schools and libraries, 275-282
+    Science, books of, 11, 18
+    Scott's Napoleon, bibliographical object-lesson, 496-497
+    Second-hand book shops, 42-45
+    Selection of books, 3-32, 277
+        _See_ Choice of books
+    Shakespeare, 10, 46, 184, 188, 458
+    Sheep binding, 55
+    Shelves, library, 325
+        access to, 215
+        preparation of books for, 88
+    Shelves, open, 215-225
+    Signatures, 65
+    Size-notation of books, 389-391
+    Sizing paper, 128
+    Smith's Historie of Virginia, 455
+    Smithsonian Institution
+        collection in Library of Congress, 304
+        copyright privilege of, 404
+    Soiling of books, 116
+        how removed, 127
+    Spelling, facility in, 232
+    Stack system, 216, 325
+    Stamps in books, 88-90, 114
+    State libraries, 316-317
+        appointments in, 339
+    Stealing of books, 111
+        _See_ thefts
+    Stedman (E. C.) Library of American literature, 490
+    Stein (H.) Manuel de bibliographie, 470-471
+    Stevens (Henry) characteristics of, 487, 489
+    Story (A) about stories, 436-437
+    Style,
+        importance of, 175-176, 226
+        sample of prose run mad, 26
+    Sunday-school books, 276
+    Syndicate publishing, 165-166
+
+    Teaching, 269
+    Tennyson (Alfred) early editions of poems, 452
+    Thackeray (W. M.) curious question of, 205
+    Thefts,
+        book, 111, 136-144
+        leniency in case of, 142-144
+        methods of reclamation, 141-144
+    Time, use of, 173-174, 258-259
+    Titles,
+        abridgment of, 382-383
+        alphabeting of, 388-389
+        entry of, in catalogues, 375-377
+        headings of, 377
+        lettering of, 72-73, 78-83
+        use of capitals in, 378, 381, 387
+    Titles of novels, done into verse, 436-437
+    Torn leaves, how repaired, 122
+    Tracing of maps or plates, 113
+    Travels, 11, 18
+    Tree calf binding, 74
+    Trübner (N.) Bibliographical guide to American literature, 484
+    Trustees, boards of library, 268, 333-340
+    Turner's illustrations, 454, 458
+
+    Ulster Co. Gazette, 1800, 456
+    Universal catalogue, 465
+    Universities, use of the library to, 282-285
+    University libraries, 294
+    Uses of libraries, 275-286
+
+    Vallée (L.) Bibliographie des bibliographies, 470
+    Vellum binding, 54
+    Voyages, 11, 18
+
+    Walpole (Horace) Strawberry hill press, 446
+    Washing soiled books, 127, 129
+    Watt (R.) Bibliotheca Britannica, 493-494
+    Wealth, all estimates of, futile, 194-196
+    Winsor (Justin)
+        a prolific author, 272
+        on librarians' instructions, 284
+    Woes of a librarian, 441-443
+    Worcester, Massachusetts, public library
+        methods of selection, 31
+        theft in, 143
+        use of by schools, 281
+
+    Yale university library, 298
+
+
+
+
+Books for Authors
+
+
+AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS
+
+[Sidenote: Authors and Publishers]
+
+A MANUAL OF SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS IN LITERATURE
+
+Comprising a description of publishing methods and arrangements,
+directions for the preparation of MSS. for the press, explanations of the
+details of book-manufacturing, instructions for proof-reading, specimens
+of typography, the text of the United States Copyright Law, and
+information concerning International Copyrights, together with general
+hints for authors. By G. H. P. and J. B. P.
+
+_Seventh Edition, re-written with additional material._
+_8°, gilt top_              _net, $1.75_
+
+CHIEF CONTENTS
+
+  PART I.--Publishing arrangements--Books published at the risk and
+  expense of the publisher--Books published for the account of the
+  author, _i. e._, at the author's risk and expense, or in which he
+  assumes a portion of the investment--Publishing arrangements for
+  productions first printed in periodicals or cyclopædias--The
+  literary agent--Authors' associations--Advertising--On securing
+  copyright.
+
+  PART II.--The Making of
+  Books--Composition--Electrotyping--Presswork--Bookbinding--Illustrations.
+
+  "Full of valuable information for authors and writers. . . . A
+  most instructive and excellent manual."--GEORGE WM. CURTIS in
+  _Harper's Magazine_.
+
+  "This handy and useful book is written with perfect fairness and
+  abounds in hints which writers will do well to 'make a note of.'
+  . . . There is a host of other matters treated succinctly and
+  lucidly which it behoves beginners in literature to know, and we
+  can recommend it most heartily to them."--_London Spectator._
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+BY GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES
+
+A Sketch of Literary Conditions and of the Relations with the
+Public of Literary Producers, from the Earliest Times to the Fall
+of the Roman Empire.
+
+Second edition, revised, 12°, gilt top, $1.50.
+
+The book abounds in information, is written in a delightfully succinct
+and agreeable manner, with apt comparisons that are often humorous, and
+with scrupulous exactness to statement, and without a sign of partiality
+either from an author's or a publisher's point of view.--_New York
+Times._
+
+
+BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
+
+A Study of the Conditions of the Production and Distribution of
+Literature from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Close of the
+Seventeenth Century.
+
+In two volumes, 8°, cloth extra (sold separately), each $2.50
+Vol. I., 476-1600--Vol. II., 1500-1709.
+
+It is seldom that such wide learning, such historical grasp and insight,
+have been employed in their service.--_Atlantic Monthly._
+
+It is a book to be studied rather than merely praised. . . . That its
+literary style is perfect is acceptable as a matter of course, and
+equally of course is it that the information it contains bears the stamp
+of historical verification.--_N. Y. Sun._
+
+
+THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT
+
+Comprising the text of the Copyright Law of the United States,
+and a summary of the Copyright laws at present in force in
+the chief countries of the world; together with a report of the
+legislation now pending in Great Britain, a sketch of the contest
+in the United States, 1837-1891, in behalf of International
+Copyright, and certain papers on the development of the
+conception of literary property and on the results of the
+American law of 1891.
+
+Second edition, revised, with additions, and with the record of
+legislation brought down to March, 1896. 8°, gilt top, $1.75.
+
+A perfect arsenal of facts and arguments, carefully elaborated and very
+effectively presented. . . . Altogether it constitutes an extremely
+valuable history of the development of a very intricate right of
+property, and it is as interesting as it is valuable.--_N. Y. Nation._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+NEW YORK: 27 West 23rd Street.     LONDON: 24 Bedford St., Strand.
+
+
+BY MOSES COIT TYLER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE DURING THE COLONIAL TIME
+
+New Edition, revised, in two volumes.
+Volume I.--1607-1676. Volume II.--1676-1765. Each $2.50.
+Agawam edition, 2 vols. in one. 8°, half leather, $3.00.
+
+"In the execution of his work thus far, Professor Tyler has evinced a
+skill in the arrangement of his materials, and a masterly power of
+combination, which will at once place it in a very eminent rank among
+American historical compositions. It is not so much the history of a
+special development of literature, as a series of profound and brilliant
+studies on the character and genius of a people of whom that literature
+was the natural product. The work betrays acute philosophical insight, a
+rare power of historical research, and a cultivated literary habit, which
+was perhaps no less essential than the two former conditions, to its
+successful accomplishment. The style of the author is marked by vigor,
+originality, comprehensiveness, and a curious instinct in the selection
+of words. In this latter respect, though not in the moulding of
+sentences, the reader may perhaps be reminded of the choice and fragrant
+vocabulary of Washington Irving, whose words alone often leave an
+exquisite odor like the perfume of sweet-brier and arbutus."--GEORGE
+RIPLEY, in _The Tribune_.
+
+
+THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
+
+1763-1783
+
+Two volumes, large octavo. Sold separately.
+Volume I.--1763-1776. Volume II.--1776-1783. Each $3.00.
+
+This work is the result of an altogether new and original treatment of
+the American Revolution. The outward history of that period has been many
+times written, and is now, by a new school of American historians, being
+freshly re-written in the light of larger evidence, and after a more
+disinterested and judicial method. In the present work, for the first
+time in a systematic and complete way, is set forth the inward history of
+our Revolution,--the history of its ideas, its spiritual moods, its
+passions, as these uttered themselves at the time in the writings of the
+two parties of Americans who either promoted or resisted that great
+movement.
+
+
+THREE MEN OF LETTERS
+
+Chapters in Literary Biography and Criticism devoted to
+George Berkeley, Timothy Dwight, and Joel Barlow.
+
+12°, gilt top, $1.25.
+
+"Though more lengthy than most of the sketches in Professor Tyler's
+well-known 'History,' these monographs have much of the brevity of their
+original purpose; and they are marked by the same picturesqueness of
+treatment, the same vivacity of expression, and the same felicity of
+statement, that characterize the author's larger volumes."--_The Nation._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON.
+
+
+LANGUAGE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SOME COMMON ERRORS OF SPEECH.
+
+Suggestions for the Avoiding of Certain Classes of Errors, together with
+Examples of Bad and of Good Usage. By ALFRED G. COMPTON,
+Professor in College of the City of New York. 12°     $ .75
+
+"The book calls up many interesting, not to say fascinating, lapses from
+strict grammar, and is very valuable. In its index expurgatorius will be
+found many surprises by the self-supposed learned."--_Chicago
+Times-Herald._
+
+
+A SIMPLE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH NOW IN USE.
+
+By JOHN EARLE, A.M., LL.D., Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University
+of Oxford, author of "English Prose: Its Elements, History, and
+Usage." 12°         $1.50
+
+"The book is a clear, careful, and scholarly treatise on the English
+Language and its use, rather than a work of science. It is a book that
+will be valuable to teachers and to students of language
+everywhere."--_Washington Times._
+
+
+THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
+
+An Historical Study of the Sources, Development, and Analogies of the
+Language, and of the Principles Covering its Usages. Illustrated
+by Copious Examples by Writers of all Periods. By SAMUEL
+RAMSEY. 8°      $2.00
+
+"Mr. Ramsey's work will appeal especially to those that desire to know
+something more about the history and philology, the growth and
+mistakes of their native tongue than is given in the ordinary
+text-books."--_Baltimore Sun._
+
+
+ORTHOMETRY.
+
+A Treatise on the Art of Versification and the Technicalities of Poetry,
+with a New and Complete Rhyming Dictionary. By R. F. BREWER,
+B.A. 12°, pp. xv. + 376        $2.00
+
+"It is a good book for its purpose, lucid, compact, and well arranged. It
+lays bare, we believe, the complete anatomy of poetry. It affords
+interesting quotations, in the way of example, and interesting comments
+by distinguished critics upon certain passages from the distinguished
+poets."--_N. Y. Sun._
+
+
+MANUAL OF LINGUISTICS.
+
+An Account of General and English Phonology. By JOHN CLARK, A.M.
+8°, pp. lxiii. + 314        $2.00
+
+"Mr. Clark has traced the English language back to its foundations in his
+work 'Manual of Linguistics.' It is an interesting theme, and his book
+will prove very useful for reference, for he has culled from many sources
+and gone over a wide territory."--_Detroit Free Press._
+
+
+COMPOSITION IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.
+
+A Practical Treatise. By E. GALBRAITH. 16°, cloth      $1.00
+
+"The author has drawn fully from the best writers on the subject, and her
+book is an epitome of the best thought of all."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+1. Punctuation for abbreviations such as per cent., viz. has been
+standardised.
+
+2. There are spelling inconsistencies in proper and place names as well
+as within accented characters and hyphenated words. These have been left
+as printed.
+
+3. Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected.
+
+4. The remaining corrections are:
+
+Page 36, "Edinburg" changed to "Edinburgh"
+Page 153, "faciliate" changed to "facilitate"
+Page 202, "conspiciously" changed to "conspicuously"
+Page 258, "responsibile" changed to "responsible"
+Page 269, "reasearches" changed to "researches"
+Page 342, "adminstration" changed to "administration"
+Page 392, "substracting" changed to "subtracting"
+Page 393, "univeral" changed to "universal"
+Page 404, "ieft" changed to "left"
+Page 441, "pyschology" changed to "psychology"
+Page 452, "polittics" changed to "politics"
+Page 457, "at" changed to "as"
+Page 470, "Thus" changed to "This"
+Page 471, "vocabularly" changed to "vocabulary"
+Page 478, "Columbiau" changed to "Columbian"
+Page 481, "approxmiately" changed to "approximately"
+Page 490, "guaged" changed to "gauged"
+Page 490, "Duyckincks" changed to "Duyckinck's"
+Page 493, "Meuzies" changed to "Menzies"
+Page 494, "I" changed to "1"
+Page 497, "pubished" changed to "published"
+Page 504, "Allgemeinas" changed to "Allgemeines"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Book for All Readers, by Ainsworth Rand Spofford
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+Project Gutenberg's A Book for All Readers, by Ainsworth Rand Spofford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Book for All Readers
+       An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books
+              and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries
+
+Author: Ainsworth Rand Spofford
+
+Release Date: September 15, 2007 [EBook #22608]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK FOR ALL READERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Ciesielski and the booksmiths at
+http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
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+
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+
+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_i" id="Pg_i"></a>[<a href="./images/i.png">i</a>]</span></p>
+<h1><span class="smcap">A Book for All Readers</span></h1>
+
+<h4>DESIGNED AS AN AID TO THE</h4>
+
+<h2>COLLECTION, USE, AND PRESERVATION</h2>
+
+<h2>OF BOOKS</h2>
+
+<h4>AND THE</h4>
+
+<h2>FORMATION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES</h2>
+
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Ainsworth Rand Spofford</span></h3>
+
+<h4>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br />
+NEW YORK &amp; LONDON<br />
+1900</h4>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_ii" id="Pg_ii"></a>[<a href="./images/ii.png">ii</a>]</span></p>
+
+<hr />
+<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright 1900</span></h4>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">by</span></h4>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">A R Spofford</span></h3>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_1" id="Pg_1"></a>[<a href="./images/1.png">1</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr><th align='right'>Chapter</th><th align='left'>Chapter Description</th><th align='right'>Page</th></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_1">1.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Choice of Books</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_3">3</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_2">2.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Book Buying</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_33">33</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_3">3.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Art of Book Binding</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_50">50</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_4">4.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Preparation for the Shelves: Book Plates, &amp;c.</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_88">88</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_5">5.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Enemies of Books</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_101">101</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_6">6.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Restoration and Reclamation of Books</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_119">119</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_7">7.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pamphlet Literature</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_145">145</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_8">8.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Periodical Literature</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_157">157</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_9">9.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Art of Reading</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_171">171</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_10">10.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Aids to Readers</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_190">190</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_11">11.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Access to Library Shelves</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_215">215</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_12">12.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Faculty of Memory</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_226">226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_13">13.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Qualifications of Librarians</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_242">242</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_14">14.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Some of the Uses of Libraries</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_275">275</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_15">15.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The History of Libraries</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_287">287</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_16">16.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Library Buildings and Furnishings</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_321">321</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_17">17.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Library Managers or Trustees</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_333">333</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_18">18.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Library Regulations</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_341">341</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_19">19.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Library Reports and Advertising</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_349">349</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_20">20.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Formation of Libraries</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_357">357</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_21">21.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Classification</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_362">362</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_22">22.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Catalogues</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_373">373</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_23">23.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Copyright and Libraries</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_400">400</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_24">24.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Poetry of the Library</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_417">417</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_25">25.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Humors of the Library</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_430">430</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_26">26.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Rare Books</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_444">444</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_27">27.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bibliography</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_459">459</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#INDEX">Index</a></span>,</td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_501">501</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_2" id="Pg_2"></a>[<a href="./images/2.png">2</a>]</span></p>
+<h2>A BOOK FOR ALL READERS</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_3" id="Pg_3"></a>[<a href="./images/3.png">3</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_1" id="CHAPTER_1"></a>CHAPTER 1.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Choice of Books.</span></h3>
+
+<p>When we survey the really illimitable field of human
+knowledge, the vast accumulation of works already printed,
+and the ever-increasing flood of new books poured out
+by the modern press, the first feeling which is apt to arise
+in the mind is one of dismay, if not of despair. We ask&mdash;who
+is sufficient for these things? What life is long
+enough&mdash;what intellect strong enough, to master even a
+tithe of the learning which all these books contain? But
+the reflection comes to our aid that, after all, the really important
+books bear but a small proportion to the mass.
+Most books are but repetitions, in a different form, of what
+has already been many times written and printed. The
+rarest of literary qualities is originality. Most writers are
+mere echoes, and the greater part of literature is the pouring
+out of one bottle into another. If you can get hold of
+the few really best books, you can well afford to be ignorant
+of all the rest. The reader who has mastered Kames's
+"Elements of Criticism," need not spend his time over the
+multitudinous treatises upon rhetoric. He who has read
+Plutarch's Lives thoroughly has before him a gallery of
+heroes which will go farther to instruct him in the elements
+of character than a whole library of modern biographies.
+The student of the best plays of Shakespeare
+may save his time by letting other and inferior dramatists
+alone. He whose imagination has been fed upon Homer,
+Dante, Milton, Burns, and Tennyson, with a few of the
+world's master-pieces in single poems like Gray's Elegy,
+may dispense with the whole race of poetasters. Until you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_4" id="Pg_4"></a>[<a href="./images/4.png">4</a>]</span>
+have read the best fictions of Scott, Thackeray, Dickens,
+Hawthorne, George Eliot, and Victor Hugo, you should
+not be hungry after the last new novel,&mdash;sure to be forgotten
+in a year, while the former are perennial. The taste
+which is once formed upon models such as have been
+named, will not be satisfied with the trashy book, or the
+spasmodic school of writing.</p>
+
+<p>What kind of books should form the predominant part
+in the selection of our reading, is a question admitting of
+widely differing opinions. Rigid utilitarians may hold that
+only books of fact, of history and science, works crammed
+full of knowledge, should be encouraged. Others will plead
+in behalf of lighter reading, or for a universal range. It
+must be admitted that the most attractive reading to the
+mass of people is not scientific or philosophical. But there
+are many very attractive books outside the field of science,
+and outside the realm of fiction, books capable of yielding
+pleasure as well as instruction. There are few books that
+render a more substantial benefit to readers of any age
+than good biographies. In them we find those personal
+experiences and adventures, those traits of character, that
+environment of social and domestic life, which form the
+chief interest in works of fiction. In fact, the novel, in its
+best estate, is only biography amplified by imagination, and
+enlivened by dialogue. And the novel is successful only
+when it succeeds in depicting the most truly the scenes,
+circumstances, and characters of real life. A well written
+biography, like that of Dr. Johnson, by Boswell, Walter
+Scott, by Lockhart, or Charles Dickens, by Forster, gives
+the reader an insight into the history of the times they
+lived in, the social, political, and literary environment, and
+the impress of their famous writings upon their contemporaries.
+In the autobiography of Dr. Franklin, one of the
+most charming narratives ever written, we are taken into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_5" id="Pg_5"></a>[<a href="./images/5.png">5</a>]</span>
+the writer's confidence, sympathize with his early struggles,
+mistakes, and successes, and learn how he made himself,
+from a poor boy selling ballads on Boston streets, into
+a leader among men, whom two worlds have delighted to
+honor. Another most interesting book of biography is that
+of the brothers William and Robert Chambers, the famous
+publishers of Edinburgh, who did more to diffuse useful
+knowledge, and to educate the people, by their manifold
+cheap issues of improving and entertaining literature, than
+was ever done by the British Useful Knowledge Society itself.</p>
+
+<p>The French nation has, of all others, the greatest genius
+for personal memoirs, and the past two centuries are
+brought far more vividly before us in these free-spoken and
+often amusing chronicles, than in all the formal histories.
+Among the most readable of these (comparatively few having
+been translated into English) are the Memoirs of Marmontel,
+Rousseau, Madame R&eacute;musat, Amiel, and Madame
+De Sta&euml;l. The recently published memoirs by Imbert de
+St. Amand, of court life in France in the times of Marie
+Antoinette, Josephine, Marie Louise, and other periods,
+while hastily written and not always accurate, are lively
+and entertaining.</p>
+
+<p>The English people fall far behind the French in biographic
+skill, and many of their memoirs are as heavy and
+dull as the persons whom they commemorate. But there
+are bright exceptions, in the lives of literary men and women,
+and in some of those of noted public men in church
+and state. Thus, there are few books more enjoyable than
+Sydney Smith's Memoirs and Letters, or Greville's Journals
+covering the period including George IV to Victoria,
+or the Life and Letters of Macaulay, or Mrs. Gaskell's
+Charlotte Bront&euml;, or the memoirs of Harriet Martineau, or
+Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson. Among the briefer biog<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_6" id="Pg_6"></a>[<a href="./images/6.png">6</a>]</span>raphies
+worthy of special mention are the series of English
+Men of Letters, edited by John Morley, and written by
+some of the best of contemporary British writers. They
+embrace memoirs of Chaucer, Spenser, Bacon, Sidney, Milton,
+De Foe, Swift, Sterne, Fielding, Locke, Dryden, Pope,
+Johnson, Gray, Addison, Goldsmith, Burke, Hume, Gibbon,
+Bunyan, Bentley, Sheridan, Burns, Cowper, Southey,
+Scott, Byron, Lamb, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth,
+De Quincey, Macaulay, Landor, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne,
+and Carlyle. These biographies, being quite compendious,
+and in the main very well written, afford to busy
+readers a short-hand method of acquainting themselves
+with most of the notable writers of Britain, their personal
+characteristics, their relation to their contemporaries, and
+the quality and influence of their works. Americans have
+not as yet illustrated the field of biographic literature by
+many notably skilful examples. We are especially deficient
+in good autobiographies, so that Dr. Franklin's stands
+almost alone in singular merit in that class. We have an
+abundance of lives of notable generals, professional men,
+and politicians, in which indiscriminate eulogy and partisanship
+too often usurp the place of actual facts, and the
+truth of history is distorted to glorify the merits of the
+subject of the biography. The great success of General
+Grant's own Memoirs, too, has led publishers to tempt
+many public men in military or civil life, into the field of
+personal memoirs, not as yet with distinguished success.</p>
+
+<p>It were to be wished that more writers possessed of some
+literary skill, who have borne a part in the wonderful
+drama involving men and events enacted in this country
+during the century now drawing to a close, had given us
+their sincere personal impressions in autobiographic form.
+Such narratives, in proportion as they are truthful, are far
+more trustworthy than history written long after the event<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_7" id="Pg_7"></a>[<a href="./images/7.png">7</a>]</span>
+by authors who were neither observers nor participants in
+the scenes which they describe.</p>
+
+<p>Among American biographies which will help the reader
+to gain a tolerably wide acquaintance with the men and affairs
+of the past century in this country, are the series of
+Lives of American Statesmen, of which thirty volumes
+have been published. These include Washington, the
+Adamses, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, Madison,
+Marshall, Monroe, Henry, Gallatin, Morris, Randolph,
+Jackson, Van Buren, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Cass, Benton,
+Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Stevens, and Sumner. While
+these Memoirs are of very unequal merit, they are sufficiently
+instructive to be valuable to all students of our national
+history.</p>
+
+<p>Another very useful series is that of American Men of
+Letters, edited by Charles Dudley Warner, in fifteen volumes,
+which already includes Franklin, Bryant, Cooper,
+Irving, Noah Webster, Simms, Poe, Emerson, Ripley, Margaret
+Fuller, Willis, Thoreau, Taylor, and Curtis.</p>
+
+<p>In the department of history, the best books for learners
+are not always the most famous. Any mere synopsis of
+universal history is necessarily dry reading, but for a constant
+help in reference, guiding one to the best original
+sources, under each country, and with very readable extracts
+from the best writers treating on each period, the
+late work of J. N. Larned, "History for Ready Reference,"
+five volumes, will be found invaluable. Brewer's Historic
+Note Book, in a single volume, answers many historic
+queries in a single glance at the alphabet. For the History
+of the United States, either John Fiske's or Eggleston's is
+an excellent compend, while for the fullest treatment, Bancroft's
+covers the period from the discovery of America up
+to the adoption of the constitution in 1789, in a style at
+once full, classical, and picturesque. For continuations,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_8" id="Pg_8"></a>[<a href="./images/8.png">8</a>]</span>
+McMaster's History of the People of the United States
+covers the period from 1789 to 1824, and is being continued.
+James Schouler has written a History of the
+United States from 1789 to 1861, in five volumes, while J.
+F. Rhodes ably covers the years 1850 to the Civil War with
+a much more copious narrative.</p>
+
+<p>For the annals of England, the Short History of England
+by J. R. Green is a most excellent compend. For
+more elaborate works, the histories of Hume and Macaulay
+bring the story of the British Empire down to about 1700.
+For the more modern period, Lecky's History of England
+in the 18th century is excellent, and for the present century,
+McCarthy's History of Our Own Time, and Miss Martineau's
+History of England, 1815-52, are well written
+works. French history is briefly treated in the Student's
+History of France, while Guizot's complete History, in
+eight volumes, gives a much fuller account, from the beginnings
+of France in the Roman period, to the year 1848.
+Carlyle's French Revolution is a splendid picture of that
+wonderful epoch, and Sloane's History of Napoleon gives
+very full details of the later period.</p>
+
+<p>For the history of Germany, Austria, Russia, France,
+Spain, Italy, Holland, and other countries, the various
+works in the "Story of the Nations" series, are excellent
+brief histories.</p>
+
+<p>Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic and his United
+Netherlands are highly important and well written historical
+works.</p>
+
+<p>The annals of the ancient world are elaborately and ably
+set forth in Grote's History of Greece, Merivale's Rome,
+and Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Another class of books closely allied to biography and
+history, is the correspondence of public men, and men of
+letters, with friends and contemporaries. These familiar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_9" id="Pg_9"></a>[<a href="./images/9.png">9</a>]</span>
+letters frequently give us views of social, public, and professional
+life which are of absorbing interest. Among the
+best letters of this class may be reckoned the correspondence
+of Horace Walpole, Madame de S&eacute;vign&eacute;, the poets
+Gray and Cowper, Lord Macaulay, Lord Byron, and Charles
+Dickens. Written for the most part with unstudied ease
+and unreserve, they entertain the reader with constant variety
+of incident and character, while at the same time
+they throw innumerable side-lights upon the society and
+the history of the time.</p>
+
+<p>Next, we may come to the master-pieces of the essay-writers.
+You will often find that the best treatise on any
+subject is the briefest, because the writer is put upon condensation
+and pointed statement, by the very form and
+limitations of the essay, or the review or magazine article.
+Book-writers are apt to be diffuse and episodical, having
+so extensive a canvas to cover with their literary designs.
+Among the finest of the essayists are Montaigne, Lord
+Bacon, Addison, Goldsmith, Macaulay, Sir James Stephen,
+Cardinal Newman, De Quincey, Charles Lamb, Washington
+Irving, Emerson, Froude, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell
+Holmes. You may spend many a delightful hour in the
+perusal of any one of these authors.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to poetry, which some people consider
+very unsubstantial pabulum, but which forms one of the
+most precious and inspiring portions of the literature of
+the world. In all ages, the true poet has exercised an influence
+upon men's minds that is unsurpassed by that of
+any other class of writers. And the reason is not far to
+seek. Poetry deals with the highest thoughts, in the most
+expressive language. It gives utterance to all the sentiments
+and passions of humanity in rhythmic and harmonious
+verse. The poet's lines are remembered long after the
+finest compositions of the writers of prose are forgotten.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_10" id="Pg_10"></a>[<a href="./images/10.png">10</a>]</span>
+They fasten themselves in the memory by the very flow
+and cadence of the verse, and they minister to that sense
+of melody that dwells in every human brain. What the
+world owes to its great poets can never be fully measured.
+But some faint idea of it may be gained from the wondrous
+stimulus given through them to the imaginative power,
+and from the fact that those sentiments of human sympathy,
+justice, virtue, and freedom, which inspire the best
+poetry of all nations, become sooner or later incarnated in
+their institutions. This is the real significance of the oft-quoted
+saying of Andrew Fletcher, that stout Scotch republican
+of two centuries ago, that if one were permitted
+to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who
+should make the laws.</p>
+
+<p>In the best poetry, the felicity of its expressions of
+thought, joined with their rhythmical form, makes it easy
+for the reader to lay up almost unconsciously a store in
+the memory of the noblest poetic sentiments, to comfort
+or to divert him in many a weary or troubled hour. Hence
+time is well spent in reading over and over again the great
+poems of the world. Far better and wiser is this, than to
+waste it upon the newest trash that captivates the popular
+fancy, for the last will only tickle the intellectual palate
+for an hour, or a day, and be then forgotten, while the
+former will make one better and wiser for all time.</p>
+
+<p>Nor need one seek to read the works of very many writers
+in order to fill his mind with images of truth and
+beauty which will dwell with him forever. The really
+great poets in the English tongue may be counted upon
+the fingers. Shakespeare fitly heads the list&mdash;a world's
+classic, unsurpassed for reach of imagination, variety of
+scenes and characters, profound insight, ideal power, lofty
+eloquence, moral purpose, the most moving pathos, alternating
+with the finest humor, and diction unequalled for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_11" id="Pg_11"></a>[<a href="./images/11.png">11</a>]</span>
+strength and beauty of expression. Milton, too, in his
+minor poems, has given us some of the noblest verse in the
+language. There is poetry enough in his L'Allegro and Il
+Penseroso to furnish forth a whole galaxy of poets.</p>
+
+<p>Spenser and Pope, Gray and Campbell, Goldsmith and
+Burns, Wordsworth and the Brownings, Tennyson and
+Longfellow,&mdash;these are among the other foremost names
+in the catalogue of poets which none can afford to neglect.
+Add to these the best translations of Homer, Virgil, Horace,
+Dante, and Goethe, and one need not want for intellectual
+company and solace in youth or age.</p>
+
+<p>Among the books which combine entertainment with information,
+the best narratives of travellers and voyagers
+hold an eminent place. In them the reader enlarges the
+bounds of his horizon, and travels in companionship with
+his author all over the globe. While many, if not the
+most, of the books of modern travellers are filled with
+petty incidents and personal observations of no importance,
+there are some wonderfully good books of this attractive
+class. Such are Kinglake's "Eothen, or traces of
+travel in the East," Helen Hunt Jackson's "Bits of
+Travel," a volume of keen and amusing sketches of German
+and French experiences, the books of De Amicus on
+Holland, Constantinople, and Paris, those on England by
+Emerson, Hawthorne, William Winter, and Richard Grant
+White, Curtis's Nile Notes, Howell's "Venetian Life," and
+Taine's "Italy, Rome and Naples."</p>
+
+<p>The wide domain of science can be but cursorily touched
+upon. Many readers get so thorough a distaste for science
+in early life&mdash;mainly from the fearfully and wonderfully
+dry text-books in which our schools and colleges have
+abounded&mdash;that they never open a scientific book in later
+years. This is a profound mistake, since no one can afford
+to remain ignorant of the world in which we live, with its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_12" id="Pg_12"></a>[<a href="./images/12.png">12</a>]</span>
+myriad wonders, its inexhaustible beauties, and its unsolved
+problems. And there are now works produced in
+every department of scientific research which give in a
+popular and often in a fascinating style, the revelations of
+nature which have come through the study and investigation
+of man. Such books are "The Stars and the Earth,"
+Kingsley's "Glaucus, or Wonders of the Shore," Clodd's
+"Story of Creation," (a clear account of the evolution
+theory) Figuier's "Vegetable World," and Professor Langley's
+"New Astronomy." There are wise specialists whose
+published labors have illuminated for the uninformed
+reader every nook and province of the mysteries of creation,
+from the wing of a beetle to the orbits of the planetary
+worlds. There are few pursuits more fascinating than
+those that bring us acquainted with the secrets of nature,
+whether dragged up from the depths of the sea, or demonstrated
+in the substance and garniture of the green earth,
+or wrung from the far-off worlds in the shining heavens.</p>
+
+<p>A word only can be spared to the wide and attractive
+realm of fiction. In this field, those are the best books
+which have longest kept their hold upon the public mind.
+It is a wise plan to neglect the novels of the year, and to
+read (or to re-read in many cases) the master-pieces which
+have stood the test of time, and criticism, and changing
+fashions, by the sure verdict of a call for continually new
+editions. Ouida and Trilby may endure for a day, but
+Thackeray and Walter Scott are perennial. It is better to
+read a fine old book through three times, than to read
+three new books through once.</p>
+
+<p>Of books more especially devoted to the history of literature,
+in times ancient and modern, and in various nations,
+the name is legion. I count up, of histories of English literature
+alone (leaving out the American) no less than one
+hundred and thirty authors on this great field or some por<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_13" id="Pg_13"></a>[<a href="./images/13.png">13</a>]</span>tion
+of it. To know what ones of these to study, and what
+to leave alone, would require critical judgment and time
+not at my command. I can only suggest a few known by
+me to be good. For a succinct yet most skilfully written
+summary of English writers, there is no book that can compare
+with Stopford A. Brooke's Primer of English Literature.
+For more full and detailed treatment, Taine's History
+of English Literature, or Chambers' Cyclopaedia of
+English Literature, two volumes, with specimens of the
+writers of every period, are the best. E. C. Stedman's Victorian
+Poets is admirable, as is also his Poets of America.
+For a bird's eye view of American authors and their works,
+C. F. Richardson's Primer of American Literature can be
+studied to advantage, while for more full reference to our
+authors, with specimens of each, Stedman's Library of
+American Literature in eleven volumes, should be consulted.
+M. C. Tyler's very interesting critical History of the
+Early American Literature, so little known, comes down
+in its fourth volume only to the close of the revolution in
+1783.</p>
+
+<p>For classical literature, the importance of a good general
+knowledge of which can hardly be overrated, J. P. Mahaffy's
+History of Greek Literature, two volumes, and G.
+A. Simcox's Latin Literature, two volumes, may be commended.
+On the literature of modern languages, to refer
+only to works written in English, Saintsbury's Primer of
+French Literature is good, and R. Garnett's History of
+Italian Literature is admirable (by the former Keeper of
+Printed Books in the British Museum Library). Lublin's
+Primer of German Literature is excellent for a condensed
+survey of the writers of Germany, while W. Scherer's History
+of German Literature, two volumes, covers a far wider
+field. For Spanish Literature in its full extent, there is
+no work at all equal to George Ticknor's three volumes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_14" id="Pg_14"></a>[<a href="./images/14.png">14</a>]</span>
+but for a briefer history, H. B. Clark's Hand-book of
+Spanish Literature, London, 1893, may be used.</p>
+
+<p>I make no allusion here to the many works of reference
+in the form of catalogues and bibliographical works, which
+may be hereafter noted. My aim has been only to indicate
+the best and latest treatises covering the leading literatures
+of the world, having no space for the Scandinavian, Dutch,
+Portuguese, Russian, or any of the Slavonic or oriental
+tongues.</p>
+
+<p>Those who find no time for studying the more extended
+works named, will find much profit in devoting their hours
+to the articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica upon the
+literatures of the various countries. These are within
+reach of everyone.</p>
+
+<p>The select list of books named in this chapter does not
+by any means aim to cover those which are well worth
+reading; but only to indicate a few, a very few, of the best.
+It is based on the supposition that intelligent readers will
+give far less time to fiction than to the more solid food of
+history, biography, essays, travels, literary history, and applied
+science. The select list of books in the fields already
+named is designed to include only the most improving and
+well-executed works. Many will not find their favorites
+in the list, which is purposely kept within narrow limits,
+as a suggestion only of a few of the best books for a home
+library or for general reading. You will find it wise to
+own, as early in life as possible, a few of the choicest productions
+of the great writers of the world. Those who can
+afford only a selection from a selection, can begin with
+never so few of the authors most desired, or which they
+have not already, putting in practice the advice of Shakespeare:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In brief, sir, study what you most affect."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Says John Ruskin: "I would urge upon every young man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_15" id="Pg_15"></a>[<a href="./images/15.png">15</a>]</span>
+to obtain as soon as he can, by the severest economy, a restricted
+and steadily increasing series of books, for use
+through life; making his little library, of all his furniture,
+the most studied and decorative piece." And Henry Ward
+Beecher urged it as the most important early ambition for
+clerks, working men and women, and all who are struggling
+up in life, to form gradually a library of good books.
+"It is a man's duty," says he, "to have books. A library
+is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."</p>
+
+<p>And says Bishop Hurst, urging the vital importance of
+wise selection in choosing our reading: "If two-thirds of
+the shelves of the typical domestic library were emptied of
+their burden, and choice books put in their stead, there
+would be reformation in intelligence and thought throughout
+the civilized world."</p>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Selection of Books for Public Libraries.</span></h4>
+
+<p>Let us now consider the subject of books fitted for public
+libraries. At the outset, it is most important that each
+selection should be made on a well considered plan. No
+hap-hazard, or fitfully, or hastily made collection can answer
+the two ends constantly to be aimed at&mdash;namely, first,
+to select the best and most useful books, and, secondly, to
+economize the funds of the library. No money should be
+wasted upon whims and experiments, but every dollar
+should be devoted to the acquisition of improving books.</p>
+
+<p>As to the principles that should govern and the limitations
+to be laid down, these will depend much upon the
+scope of the library, and the amount of its funds. No library
+of the limited and moderate class commonly found
+in our public town libraries can afford to aim at the universal
+range of a national library, nor even at the broad
+selections proper to a liberally endowed city library.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_16" id="Pg_16"></a>[<a href="./images/16.png">16</a>]</span>But its aims, while modest, should be comprehensive
+enough to provide a complete selection of what may be
+termed standard literature, for the reading public. If the
+funds are inadequate to do this in the beginning, it should
+be kept constantly in view, as the months and years go on.
+Every great and notable book should be in the library
+sooner or later, and if possible at its foundation. Thus
+will its utility and attractiveness both be well secured.</p>
+
+<p>Taking first the case of a small public library about to
+be started, let us see in a few leading outlines what it will
+need.</p>
+
+<p>1. A selection of the best works of reference should be
+the corner-stone of every library collection. In choosing
+these, regard must be had to secure the latest as well as
+the best. Never buy the first edition of Soule's Synonymes
+because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and
+enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated
+Lempriere's or Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some
+venerable library director, who used it in his boyhood, suggests
+it, when you can get Professor H. T. Peck's "Dictionary
+of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897. Never
+be tempted to buy an old edition of an encyclopaedia at
+half or quarter price, for it will be sure to lack the populations
+of the last census, besides being a quarter of a century
+or more in arrears in its other information. When
+consulting sale catalogues to select reference books, look
+closely at the dates of publication, and make sure by your
+American or English catalogues that no later edition has
+appeared. It goes without saying that you will have these
+essential bibliographies, as well as Lowndes' Manual of
+English Literature first of all, whether you are able to buy
+Watt and Brunet or not.</p>
+
+<p>2. Without here stopping to treat of books of reference
+in detail, which will appear in another place, let me refer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_17" id="Pg_17"></a>[<a href="./images/17.png">17</a>]</span>
+to some other great classes of literature in which every library
+should be strong. History stands fairly at the head,
+and while a newly established library cannot hope to possess
+at once all the noted writers, it should begin by securing
+a fine selection, embracing general history, ancient and
+modern, and the history of each country, at least of the
+important nations. For compendious short histories, the
+"Story of the Nations" series, by various writers, should
+be secured, and the more extensive works of Gibbon, Grote,
+Mommsen, Duruy, Fyffe, Green, Macaulay, Froude, McCarthy,
+Carlyle, Thiers, Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Fiske,
+Schouler, McMaster, Buckle, Guizot, etc., should be acquired.
+The copious lists of historical works appended to
+Larned's "History for Ready Reference" will be useful
+here.</p>
+
+<p>3. Biography stands close to history in interest and importance.
+For general reference, or the biography of all
+nations, Lippincott's Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of
+Biography is essential, as well as Appleton's Cyclopaedia of
+American Biography, for our own country. For Great
+Britain, the "Dictionary of National Biography" is a mine
+of information, and should be added if funds are sufficient.
+Certain sets of collective biographies which are important
+are American Statesmen, 26 vols., Englishmen of Letters, &mdash; vols.,
+Autobiography, 33 vols., Famous Women series,
+21 vols., Heroes of the Nation series, 24 vols., American
+Pioneers and Patriots, 12 vols., and Plutarch's Lives.
+Then of indispensable single biographies there are Boswell's
+Johnson, Lockhart's Scott, Froude's Carlyle, Trevelyan's
+Macaulay, Froude's Caesar, Lewes' Goethe, etc.</p>
+
+<p>4. Of notable essays, a high class of literature in which
+there are many names, may be named Addison, Montaigne,
+Bacon, Goldsmith, Emerson, Lamb, De Quincey, Holmes,
+Lowell, etc.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_18" id="Pg_18"></a>[<a href="./images/18.png">18</a>]</span>5. Poetry stands at the head of all the literature of imagination.
+Some people of highly utilitarian views decry
+poetry, and desire to feed all readers upon facts. But that
+this is a great mistake will be apparent when we consider
+that the highest expressions of moral and intellectual truth
+and the most finely wrought examples of literature in every
+nation are in poetic form. Take out of the world's literature
+the works of its great poets, and you would leave it
+poor indeed. Poetry is the only great source for the nurture
+of imagination, and without imagination man is a
+poor creature. I read the other day a dictum of a certain
+writer, alleging that Dickens's Christmas Carol is far more
+effective as a piece of writing than Milton's noble ode "On
+the Morning of Christ's Nativity." Such comparisons are
+of small value. In point of fact, no library can spare
+either of them. I need not repeat the familiar names of
+the great poets; they are found in all styles of production,
+and some of the best are among the least expensive.</p>
+
+<p>6. Travels and voyages form a very entertaining as well
+as highly instructive part of a library. A good selection
+of the more notable will prove a valuable resource to readers
+of nearly every age.</p>
+
+<p>7. The wide field of science should be carefully gleaned
+for a good range of approved text-books in each department.
+So progressive is the modern world that the latest
+books are apt to be the best in each science, something
+which is by no means true in literature.</p>
+
+<p>8. In law, medicine, theology, political science, sociology,
+economics, art, architecture, music, eloquence, and
+language, the library should be provided with the leading
+modern works.</p>
+
+<p>9. We come now to fiction, which the experience of all
+libraries shows is the favorite pabulum of about three readers
+out of four. The great demand for this class of read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_19" id="Pg_19"></a>[<a href="./images/19.png">19</a>]</span>ing
+renders it all the more important to make a wise and
+improving selection of that which forms the minds of multitudes,
+and especially of the young. This selection presents
+to every librarian and library director or trustee some
+perplexing problems. To buy indiscriminately the new
+novels of the day, good, bad, and indifferent (the last
+named greatly predominating) would be a very poor discharge
+of the duty devolving upon those who are the responsible
+choosers of the reading of any community. Conceding,
+as we must, the vast influence and untold value of
+fiction as a vehicle of entertainment and instruction, the
+question arises&mdash;where can the line be drawn between the
+good and improving novels, and novels which are neither
+good nor improving? This involves something more than
+the moral tone and influence of the fictions: it involves
+their merits and demerits as literature also. I hold it to
+be the bounden duty of those who select the reading of a
+community to maintain a standard of good taste, as well as
+of good morals. They have no business to fill the library
+with wretched models of writing, when there are thousand
+of good models ready, in numbers far greater than
+they have money to purchase. Weak and flabby and silly
+books tend to make weak and flabby and silly brains. Why
+should library guides put in circulation such stuff as the
+dime novels, or "Old Sleuth" stories, or the slip-slop
+novels of "The Duchess," when the great masters of romantic
+fiction have endowed us with so many books replete
+with intellectual and moral power? To furnish immature
+minds with the miserable trash which does not deserve
+the name of literature, is as blameworthy as to put
+before them books full of feverish excitement, or stories of
+successful crime.</p>
+
+<p>We are told, indeed (and some librarians even have said
+it) that for unformed readers to read a bad book is better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_20" id="Pg_20"></a>[<a href="./images/20.png">20</a>]</span>
+than to read none at all. I do not believe it. You might
+as well say that it is better for one to swallow poison than
+not to swallow any thing at all. I hold that library providers
+are as much bound to furnish wholesome food for
+the minds of the young who resort to them for guidance,
+as their parents are to provide wholesome food for their
+bodies.</p>
+
+<p>But the question returns upon us&mdash;what is wholesome
+food? In the first place, it is that great body of fiction
+which has borne the test, both of critical judgment, and of
+popularity with successive generations of readers. It is
+the novels of Scott, Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, George
+Eliot, Cooper, Hawthorne, Kingsley, Mulock-Craik, and
+many more, such as no parents need blush to put into the
+hands of their daughters. In the next place, it is such a
+selection from the myriads of stories that have poured
+from the press of this generation as have been approved by
+the best readers, and the critical judgment of a responsible
+press.</p>
+
+<p>As to books of questionable morality, I am aware that
+contrary opinions prevail on the question whether any
+such books should be allowed in a public library, or not.
+The question is a different one for the small town libraries
+and for the great reference libraries of the world. The
+former are really educational institutions, supported at the
+people's expense, like the free schools, and should be held
+to a responsibility from which the extensive reference libraries
+in the city are free. The latter may and ought to
+preserve every form of literature, and, if national libraries,
+they would be derelict in their duty to posterity if they did
+not acquire and preserve the whole literature of the country,
+and hand it down complete to future generations.
+The function of the public town library is different. It
+must indispensably make a selection, since its means are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_21" id="Pg_21"></a>[<a href="./images/21.png">21</a>]</span>
+not adequate to buy one-tenth of the annual product of
+the press, which amounts in only four nations (England,
+France, Germany, and the United States) to more than
+thirty-five thousand new volumes a year. Its selection,
+mainly of American and English books, must be small, and
+the smaller it is, the greater is the need of care in buying.
+In fact, it is in most cases, compelled to be a selection from
+a selection. Therefore, in the many cases of doubt arising
+as to the fit character of a book, let the doubt be resolved
+in favor of the fund, thus preserving the chance of getting
+a better book for the money.</p>
+
+<p>With this careful and limited selection of the best, out
+of the multitude of novels that swarm from the press, the
+reading public will have every reason to be satisfied. No
+excuse can be alleged for filling up our libraries with poor
+books, while there is no dearth whatever of good ones. It
+is not the business of a public library to compete with the
+news stands or the daily press in furnishing the latest short
+stories for popular consumption; a class of literature whose
+survival is likely to be quite as short as the stories themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Take an object lesson as to the mischiefs of reading the
+wretched stuff which some people pretend is "better than
+no reading at all" from the boy Jesse Pomeroy, who perpetrated
+a murder of peculiar atrocity in Boston. "Pomeroy
+confessed that he had always been a great reader of
+'blood and thunder' stories, having read probably sixty
+dime novels, all treating of scalping and deeds of violence.
+The boy said that he had no doubt that the reading of
+those books had a great deal to do with his course, and he
+would advise all boys to leave them alone."</p>
+
+<p>In some libraries, where the pernicious effect of the
+lower class of fiction has been observed, the directors have
+withdrawn from circulation a large proportion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_22" id="Pg_22"></a>[<a href="./images/22.png">22</a>]</span>
+novels, which had been bought by reason of their popularity.
+In other newly started libraries only fiction of the
+highest grade has been placed in the library from the start,
+and this is by far the best course. If readers inquire for
+inferior or immoral books, and are told that the library
+does not have them, although they will express surprise
+and disappointment, they will take other and improving
+reading, thus fulfilling the true function of the library as
+an educator. Librarians and library boards cannot be too
+careful about what constitutes the collection which is to
+form the pabulum of so many of the rising generation.</p>
+
+<p>This does not imply that they are to be censors, or
+prudes, but with the vast field of literature before them
+from which to choose, they are bound to choose the best.</p>
+
+<p>The American Library Association has had this subject
+under discussion repeatedly, and while much difference of
+opinion has arisen from the difficulty of finding any absolute
+standard of excellence, nearly all have agreed that as
+to certain books, readers should look elsewhere than to the
+public free library for them. At one time a list of authors
+was made out, many of whose works were deemed objectionable,
+either from their highly sensational character, or
+their bad style, or their highly wrought and morbid pictures
+of human passions, or their immoral tendency. This
+list no doubt will surprise many, as including writers
+whose books everybody, almost, has read, or has been accustomed
+to think well of. It embraces the following popular
+authors, many of whose novels have had a wide circulation,
+and that principally through popular libraries.</p>
+
+<p>Here follow the names:</p>
+
+<p>Mary J. Holmes, Mrs. Henry Wood, C. L. Hentz, M. P.
+Finley, Mrs. A. S. Stephens, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mrs.
+Forrester, Rhoda Broughton, Helen Mathers, Jessie Fothergill,
+M. E. Braddon, Florence Marryat, Ouida, Horatio<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_23" id="Pg_23"></a>[<a href="./images/23.png">23</a>]</span>
+Alger, Mayne Reid, Oliver Optic, W. H. S. Kingston, E.
+Kellogg, G. W. M. Reynolds, C. Fosdick, Edmund Yates,
+G. A. Lawrence, Grenville Murray, W. H. Ainsworth,
+Wilkie Collins, E. L. Bulwer-Lytton, W. H. Thomes, and
+Augusta Evans Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>Bear in mind, that only English and American novels
+are included, and those only of the present century: also,
+that as to many which are included, no imputation of immorality
+was made. Such a "black list" is obviously open
+to the charge of doing great injustice to the good repute
+of writers named, since only a part of the works written by
+some of them can properly be objected to, and these are
+not specially named. Bulwer-Lytton, for example, whose
+"Paul Clifford" is a very improper book to go into the
+hands of young people, has written at least a dozen other
+fictions of noble moral purpose, and high literary merit.</p>
+
+<p>Out of seventy public libraries to which the list was sent,
+with inquiry whether the authors named were admitted as
+books of circulation, thirty libraries replied. All of them
+admitted Bulwer-Lytton and Wilkie Collins, all but two
+Oliver Optic's books, and all but six Augusta Evans Wilson's.
+Reynolds' novels were excluded by twenty libraries,
+Mrs. Southworth's by eleven, "Ouida's" by nine, and Mrs.
+Stephens's and Mrs. Henry Wood's by eight. Other details
+cannot find space for notice here.</p>
+
+<p>This instance is one among many of endeavors constantly
+being made by associated librarians to stem the
+ever increasing flood of poor fiction which threatens to submerge
+the better class of books in our public libraries.</p>
+
+<p>That no such wholesome attempt can be wholly successful
+is evident enough. The passion for reading fiction is
+both epidemic and chronic; and in saying this, do not infer
+that I reckon it as a disease. A librarian has no right to
+banish fiction because the appetite for it is abused. He is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_24" id="Pg_24"></a>[<a href="./images/24.png">24</a>]</span>
+not to set up any ideal and impossible standard of selection.
+His most useful and beneficent function is to turn
+into better channels the universal hunger for reading
+which is entertaining. Do readers want an exciting novel?
+What can be more exciting than "Les Miserables" of Victor
+Hugo, a book of exceptional literary excellence and
+power? Literature is full of fascinating stories, admirably
+told, and there is no excuse for loading our libraries with
+trash, going into the slums for models, or feeding young
+minds upon the unclean brood of pessimistic novels. If it
+is said that people will have trash, let them buy it, and let
+the libraries wash their hands of it, and refuse to circulate
+the stuff which no boy nor girl can touch without being
+contaminated.</p>
+
+<p>Those who claim that we might as well let the libraries
+down to the level of the poorest books, because unformed
+and ignorant minds are capable of nothing better, should
+be told that people are never raised by giving them nothing
+to look up to. To devour infinite trash is not the road to
+learn wisdom, or virtue, or even to attain genuine amusement.
+To those who are afraid that if the libraries are
+purified, the masses will get nothing that they can read,
+the answer is, have they not got the entire world of magazines,
+the weekly, daily, and Sunday newspapers, which supply
+a whole library of fiction almost daily? Add to these
+plenty of imaginative literature in fiction and in poetry,
+on every library's shelves, which all who can read can comprehend,
+and what excuse remains for buying what is
+neither decent nor improving?</p>
+
+<p>Take an example of the boundless capacity for improvement
+that exists in the human mind and human taste, from
+the spread of the fine arts among the people. Thirty
+years ago, their houses, if having any decoration at all,
+exhibited those fearful and wonderful colored lithographs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_25" id="Pg_25"></a>[<a href="./images/25.png">25</a>]</span>
+and chromos in which bad drawing, bad portraiture, and
+bad coloring vied with each other to produce pictures
+which it would be a mild use of terms to call detestable.
+Then came the two great international art expositions at
+Philadelphia and Chicago, each greatly advancing by the
+finest models, the standard of taste in art, and by new economies
+of reproduction placing the most beautiful statues
+and pictures within the reach of the most moderate purse.
+What has been the result? An incalculable improvement
+in the public taste, educated by the diffusion of the best
+models, until even the poor farmer of the backwoods will
+no longer tolerate the cheap and nasty horrors that once
+disfigured his walls.</p>
+
+<p>The lesson in art is good in literature also. Give the
+common people good models, and there is no danger but
+they will appreciate and understand them. Never stoop
+to pander to a depraved taste, no matter what specious
+pleas you may hear for tolerating the low in order to lead
+to the high, or for making your library contribute to the
+survival of the unfittest.</p>
+
+<p>Is it asked, how can the librarian find out, among the
+world of novels from which he is to select, what is pure and
+what is not, what is wholesome and what unhealthy, what
+is improving and what is trash? The answer is&mdash;there are
+some lists which will be most useful in this discrimination,
+while there is no list which is infallible. Mr. F. Leypoldt's
+little catalogue of "Books for all Time" has nothing
+that any library need do without. Another compendious
+list is published by the American Library Association.
+And the more extensive catalogue prepared for the World's
+Fair in 1893, and embracing about 5,000 volumes, entitled
+"Catalogue of A. L. A. Library: 5,000 vols. for a popular
+library," while it has many mistakes and omissions, is a tolerably
+safe guide in making up a popular library. I may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_26" id="Pg_26"></a>[<a href="./images/26.png">26</a>]</span>
+note that the list of novels in this large catalogue put forth
+by the American Library Association has the names of five
+only out of the twenty-eight writers of fiction heretofore
+pronounced objectionable, and names a select few only of
+the books of these five.</p>
+
+<p>As for the later issues of the press, and especially the
+new novels, let him skim them for himself, unless in cases
+where trustworthy critical judgments are found in journals.
+Running through a book to test its style and moral
+drift is no difficult task for the practiced eye.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose that you are cursorily perusing a novel
+which has made a great sensation, and you come upon the
+following sentence: "Eighteen millions of years would
+level all in one huge, common, shapeless ruin. Perish the
+microcosm in the limitless macrocosm! and sink this
+feeble earthly segregate in the boundless rushing choral
+aggregation!" This is in Augusta J. Evans Wilson's story
+"Macaria", and many equally extraordinary examples of
+"prose run mad" are found in the novels of this once noted
+writer. What kind of a model is that to form the style of
+the youthful neophyte, to whom one book is as good as another,
+since it was found on the shelves of the public library?</p>
+
+<p>I am not insisting that all books admitted should be
+models of style; even a purist must admit that one of the
+greatest charms of literature is its infinite variety. But
+when book after book is filled with such specimens of literary
+lunacy as this, one is tempted to believe that Homer
+and Shakespeare, to say nothing of Thackeray and Hawthorne,
+have lived in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Never fear criticism of those who find fault with the absence
+from your library of books that you know to be nearly
+worthless; their absence will be a silent but eloquent
+protest against them, sure to be vindicated by the utter ob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_27" id="Pg_27"></a>[<a href="./images/27.png">27</a>]</span>livion
+into which they will fall. Many a flaming reputation
+has been extinguished after dazzling callow admirers
+for six months, or even less. Do not dread the empty sarcasm,
+that may grow out of the exclusion of freshly printed
+trash, that your library is a "back number." To some
+poor souls every thing that is great and good in the world's
+literature is a "back number"; and the Bible itself, with
+its immortal poetry and sublimity, is the oldest back number
+of all. It is no part of your business as a librarian to
+cater to the tastes of those who act as if the reading of endless
+novels of sensation were the chief end of man. As
+one fed on highly spiced viands and stimulating drinks
+surely loses the appetite for wholesome and nourishing
+food, so one who reads only exciting and highly wrought
+fictions loses the taste for the master-pieces of prose and
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Let not the fear of making many mistakes be a bug-bear
+in your path. If you are told that your library is too exclusive,
+reply that it has not means enough to buy all the
+good books that are wanted, and cannot afford to spend
+money on bad or even on doubtful ones. If you have excluded
+any highly-sought-for book on insufficient evidence,
+never fail to revise the judgment. All that can be expected
+of any library is approximately just and wise selection,
+having regard to merit, interest, and moral tone, more
+than to novelty or popularity.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of choice, individual opinions are of small
+value. Never buy a book simply because some reader extols
+it as very fine, or "splendid," or "perfectly lovely."
+Such praises are commonly to be distrusted in direct proportion
+to their extravagance.</p>
+
+<p>A good lesson to libraries is furnished in the experience
+of the Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library. In 1878, out of
+16,000 volumes in that library, no less than 6,000 were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_28" id="Pg_28"></a>[<a href="./images/28.png">28</a>]</span>
+novels. The governing board, on the plea of giving people
+what they wanted, bought nearly all new books of fiction,
+and went so far, even, as to buy of Pinkerton's Detective
+stories, fifteen copies each, fifteen of all Mrs. Southworth's
+novels, etc. But a change took place in the board, and the
+librarian was permitted to stop the growing flood of worthless
+fiction, and as fast as the books were worn out, they
+were replaced by useful reading. It resulted that four
+years later, with 40,000 volumes in the library, only 7,000
+were novels, or less than one-fifth, instead of more than
+one-third of the whole collection, as formerly. In the
+same time, the percentage of fiction drawn out was reduced
+from 69 per cent. of the aggregate books read, to 50 per
+cent.</p>
+
+<p>Libraries are always complaining that they cannot buy
+many valuable books from lack of funds. Yet some of
+them buy a great many that are valueless in spite of this
+lack. Can any thing be conceived more valueless than a
+set of Sylvanus Cobb's novels, reprinted to the number of
+thirty-five to forty, from the New York Ledger? Yet
+these have been bought for scores of libraries, which could
+not afford the latest books in science and art, or biography,
+history, or travel. There are libraries in which the latest
+books on electricity, or sewerage, or sanitary plumbing,
+might have saved many lives, but which must go without
+them, because the money has been squandered on vapid
+and pernicious literature.</p>
+
+<p>In almost every library, while some branches of knowledge
+are fairly represented, others are not represented at
+all. Nearly all present glaring deficiencies, and these are
+often caused by want of systematic plan in building up the
+collection. Boards of managers are frequently changed,
+and the policy of the library with them. All the more important
+is it that the librarian should be so well equipped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_29" id="Pg_29"></a>[<a href="./images/29.png">29</a>]</span>
+with a definite aim, and with knowledge and skill competent
+to urge that aim consistently, as to preserve some
+unity of plan.</p>
+
+<p>I need not add that a librarian should be always wide
+awake to the needs of his library in every direction. It
+should be taken for granted that its general aim is to include
+the best books in the whole range of human knowledge.
+With the vast area of book production before him,
+he should strengthen every year some department, taking
+them in order of importance.</p>
+
+<p>Some scholarly writers tell us that very few books are
+essential to a good education. James Russell Lowell
+named five, which in his view embraced all the essentials;
+namely, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and
+Goethe's Faust. Prof. Charles E. Norton of Harvard remarked
+that this list might even be abridged so as to embrace
+only Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. I can only
+regard such exclusiveness as misleading, though conceding
+the many-sidedness of these great writers. To extend the
+list is the function of all public libraries, as well as of most
+of the private ones. Next after the really essential books,
+that library will be doing its public good service which acquires
+all the important works that record the history of
+man. This will include biography, travels and voyages,
+science, and much besides, as well as history.</p>
+
+<p>Special pains should be taken in every library to have
+every thing produced in its own town, county, and State.
+Not only books, but all pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers,
+and even broadsides or circulars, should be sought for and
+stored up as memorials of the present age, tending in large
+part rapidly to disappear.</p>
+
+<p>In selecting editions of standard authors, one should
+always discriminate, so as to secure for the library, if not
+the best, at least good, clear type, sound, thick paper, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_30" id="Pg_30"></a>[<a href="./images/30.png">30</a>]</span>
+durable binding. Cheap and poor editions wear out quickly,
+and have to be thrown away for better ones, which wise
+economy should have selected in the first place. For example,
+a widely circulated edition of Scott's novels, found
+in most libraries, has the type so worn and battered by the
+many large editions printed from the plates, that many
+letters and words are wanting, thus spoiling not only the
+pleasure but abridging the profit of the reader in perusing
+the novels. The same is true of one edition of Cooper.
+Then there are many cheap reprints of English novels in
+the Seaside and other libraries which abound in typographical
+errors. A close examination of a cheap edition of
+a leading English novelist's works revealed more than
+3,000 typographical errors in the one set of books! It
+would be unpardonable carelessness to buy such books for
+general reading because they are cheap.</p>
+
+<p>Librarians should avoid what are known as subscription
+books, as a rule, though some valid exceptions exist. Most
+of such books are profusely illustrated and in gaudy bindings,
+gotten up to dazzle the eye. If works of merit, it is
+better to wait for them, than to subscribe for an unfinished
+work, which perhaps may never reach completion.</p>
+
+<p>A librarian or book collector should be ever observant of
+what he may find to enrich his collection. When in a
+book-store, or a private or public library, he should make
+notes of such works seen as are new to him, with any characteristics
+which their custodian may remark upon. Such
+personal examination is more informing than any catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>I think each public library should possess, besides
+a complete set of the English translations of the Greek and
+Latin classics, a full set of the originals, for the benefit of
+scholarly readers. These classic texts can be had complete
+in modern editions for a very moderate price.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_31" id="Pg_31"></a>[<a href="./images/31.png">31</a>]</span>How far duplicate volumes should be bought should depend
+upon demand, and the views of the purchasing
+powers. There is a real need of more than one copy of
+almost every standard work, else it will be perpetually out,
+giving occasion for numerous complaints from those who
+use the library. It would be a good rule to keep one copy
+always in, and at the service of readers, of every leading
+history, standard poet, or popular novel. Then the duplicate
+copies for circulation may be one or more, as experience
+and ability to provide may determine. A library
+which caters to the novel-reading habit as extensively as
+the New York Mercantile (a subscription library) has to
+buy fifty to one hundred copies of "Trilby," for example,
+to keep up with the demand. No such obligation exists
+for the free public libraries. They, however, often buy
+half a dozen to a dozen copies of a very popular story, when
+new, and sell them out after the demand has slackened or
+died away.</p>
+
+<p>The methods of selection and purchase in public libraries
+are very various. In the Worcester (Mass.) Public
+Library, the librarian makes a list of desiderata, has it
+manifolded, and sends a copy to each of the thirteen members
+of the Board of directors. This list is reported on by
+the members at the next monthly meeting of the Board,
+and generally, in the main, approved. Novels and stories
+are not bought until time has shown of what value they
+may be. The aim is mainly educational at the Worcester
+library, very special pains being taken to aid all the pupils
+and teachers in the public schools, by careful selection, and
+providing duplicate or more copies of important works.</p>
+
+<p>In the Public Library of Cleveland, Ohio, there is appointed
+out of the governing Board a book-committee of
+three. To one of these are referred English books wanted,
+to another French, and to the third German books. This
+sub-committee approves or amends the Librarian's recom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_32" id="Pg_32"></a>[<a href="./images/32.png">32</a>]</span>mendations,
+at its discretion; but expensive works are referred
+to the whole board for determination.</p>
+
+<p>In the New York Mercantile Library, which must keep
+continually up to date in its supply of new books, the announcements
+in all the morning papers are daily scanned,
+and books just out secured by immediate order. Many
+publishers send in books on approval, which are frequently
+bought. An agent in London is required to send on the
+day of publication all new books on certain subjects.</p>
+
+<p>The library boards of management meet weekly in New
+York and Philadelphia, but monthly in most country libraries.
+The selection of books made by committees introduces
+often an element of chance, not quite favorable to
+the unity of plan in developing the resources of the library.
+But with a librarian of large information, discretion, and
+skill, there need seldom be any difficulty in securing approval
+of his selections, or of most of them. In some libraries
+the librarian is authorized to buy at discretion additions
+of books in certain lines, to be reported at the next
+meeting of the board; and to fill up all deficiencies in
+periodicals that are taken. This is an important concession
+to his judgment, made in the interest of completeness
+in the library, saving a delay of days and sometimes weeks
+in waiting for the board of directors.</p>
+
+<p>All orders sent out for accessions should previously
+be compared with the alphabeted order-card list, as well
+as with the general catalogue of the library, to avoid duplication.
+After this the titles are to be incorporated in the
+alphabet of all outstanding orders, to be withdrawn only
+on receipt of the books.</p>
+
+<p>The library should invite suggestions from all frequenting
+it, of books recommended and not found in the collection.
+A blank record-book for this purpose, or an equivalent
+in order-cards, should be always kept on the counter
+of the library.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_33" id="Pg_33"></a>[<a href="./images/33.png">33</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_2" id="CHAPTER_2"></a>CHAPTER 2.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Book Buying.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>The buying of books is to some men a pastime; to
+others it is a passion; but to the librarian and the intelligent
+book collector it is both a business and a pleasure.
+The man who is endowed with a zeal for knowledge is eager
+to be continually adding to the stores which will enable
+him to acquire and to dispense that knowledge. Hence
+the perusal of catalogues is to him an ever fresh and fascinating
+pursuit. However hampered he may be by the lack
+of funds, the zest of being continually in quest of some
+coveted volumes gives him an interest in every sale catalogue,
+whether of bookseller or of auctioneer. He is led
+on by the perennial hope that he may find one or more of
+the long-wished for and waited-for <i>desiderata</i> in the thin
+pamphlet whose solid columns bristle with book-titles in
+every variety of abbreviation and arrangement. It is a
+good plan, if one can possibly command the time, to read
+every catalogue of the book auctions, and of the second-hand
+book dealers, which comes to hand. You will thus
+find a world of books chronicled and offered which you do
+not want, because you have got them already: you will
+find many, also, which you want, but which you know you
+cannot have; and you may find some of the very volumes
+which you have sought through many years in vain. In
+any case, you will have acquired valuable information&mdash;whether
+you acquire any books or not; since there is hardly
+a priced catalogue, of any considerable extent, from which
+you cannot reap knowledge of some kind&mdash;knowledge of
+editions, knowledge of prices, and knowledge of the com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_34" id="Pg_34"></a>[<a href="./images/34.png">34</a>]</span>parative
+scarcity or full supply of many books, with a
+glimpse of titles which you may never have met before.
+The value of the study of catalogues as an education in
+bibliography can never be over-estimated.</p>
+
+<p>The large number of active and discriminating book-buyers
+from America has for years past awakened the interest
+and jealousy of collectors abroad, where it has very
+largely enhanced the price of all first-class editions, and
+rare works.</p>
+
+<p>No longer, as in the early days of Dibdin and Heber, is
+the competition for the curiosities of old English literature
+confined to a half-score of native amateurs. True, we have
+no such omnivorous gatherers of literary rubbish as that
+magnificent <i>helluo librorum</i>, Richard Heber, who amassed
+what was claimed to be the largest collection of books ever
+formed by a single individual. Endowed with a princely
+fortune, and an undying passion for the possession of
+books, he spent nearly a million dollars in their acquisition.
+His library, variously stated at from 105,000 volumes
+(by Dr. Dibdin) to 146,000 volumes (by Dr. Allibone)
+was brought to the hammer in 1834. The catalogue filled
+13 octavo volumes, and the sale occupied 216 days. The
+insatiable owner (who was a brother of Reginald Heber,
+Bishop of Calcutta) died while still collecting, at the age
+of sixty, leaving his enormous library, which no single
+house of ordinary size could hold, scattered in half a dozen
+mansions in London, Oxford, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels and
+Ghent.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the owner of this vast mass of mingled nonsense and
+erudition, this library of the curiosities of literature, was
+as generous in imparting as in acquiring his literary treasures.
+No English scholar but was freely welcome to the
+loan of his volumes; and his own taste and critical knowledge
+are said to have been of the first order.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_35" id="Pg_35"></a>[<a href="./images/35.png">35</a>]</span>From this, probably the most extensive private library
+ever gathered, let us turn to the largest single purchase, in
+number of volumes, made at one time for a public library.
+When Dr. J. G. Cogswell went abroad in 1848, to lay the
+foundations of the Astor Library, he took with him credentials
+for the expenditure of $100,000; and, what was of
+even greater importance, a thoroughly digested catalogue
+of <i>desiderata</i>, embracing the most important books in every
+department of literature and science. No such opportunity
+of buying the finest books at the lowest prices is
+likely ever to occur again, as the fortuitous concourse of
+events brought to Dr. Cogswell. It was the year of revolutions&mdash;the
+year when the thrones were tottering or falling
+all over Europe, when the wealthy and privileged classes
+were trembling for their possessions, and anxious to turn
+them into ready money. In every time of panic, political
+or financial, the prices of books, as well as of all articles of
+luxury, are the first to fall. Many of the choicest collections
+came to the hammer; multitudes were eager to sell&mdash;but
+there were few buyers except the book merchants, who
+were all ready to sell again. The result was that some 80,000
+volumes were gathered for the Astor Library, embracing
+a very large share of the best editions and the most expensive
+works, with many books strictly denominated rare,
+and nearly all bound in superior style, at an average cost
+of about $1.40 per volume. This extraordinary good fortune
+enabled the Astor Library to be opened on a very
+small endowment, more splendidly equipped for a library
+of reference than any new institution could be today with
+four or five times the money.</p>
+
+<p>Compared with such opportunities as these, you may
+consider the experiences of the little libraries, and the narrow
+means of recruitment generally found, as very literally
+the day of small things. But a wise apportionment of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_36" id="Pg_36"></a>[<a href="./images/36.png">36</a>]</span>
+small funds, combined with a good knowledge of the commercial
+value of books, and perpetual vigilance in using opportunities,
+will go very far toward enlarging any collection
+in the most desirable directions.</p>
+
+<p>Compare for a moment with the results stated of the Astor
+Library's early purchases, the average prices paid by
+British Libraries for books purchased from 1826 to 1854,
+as published in a parliamentary return. The average cost
+per volume varied from 16<i>s</i> or about $4 a volume, for the
+University Library of <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Edinburg'">Edinburgh</ins>, to 4<i>s</i> 6<i>d</i>, or $1.10 a volume
+for the Manchester Free Library. The latter, however,
+were chiefly popular new books, published at low
+prices, while the former included many costly old works,
+law books, etc. The British Museum Library's average
+was 8<i>s</i> 5<i>d</i> or about $2.00 per volume. Those figures represent
+cloth binding, while the Astor's purchases were
+mostly in permanent leather bindings.</p>
+
+<p>Averages are very uncertain standards of comparison, as
+a single book rarity often costs more than a hundred volumes
+of the new books of the day; but in a library filled
+with the best editions of classical and scientific works, and
+reference books, I presume that two dollars a volume is not
+too high an estimate of average cost, in these days represented
+by the last twenty years. For a circulating library,
+on the other hand, composed chiefly of what the public
+most seek to read, half that average would perhaps express
+the full commercial value of the collection. Of its intrinsic
+value I will not here pause to speak.</p>
+
+<p>There are many methods of book buying, of which we
+may indicate the principal as follows:</p>
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>1. By direct orders from book dealers.</li>
+<li>2. By competition on select lists of wants.</li>
+<li>3. By order from priced catalogues.</li>
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_37" id="Pg_37"></a>[<a href="./images/37.png">37</a>]</span>4. By purchase at auction sales.</li>
+<li>5. By personal research among book stocks.</li>
+<li>6. By lists and samples of books sent on approval.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Each of these methods has its advantages&mdash;and, I may
+add, its disadvantages likewise. The collector who combines
+them, as opportunity presents, is most likely to make
+his funds go the farthest, and to enrich his collection the
+most. Direct orders for purchase are necessary for most
+new books wanted, except in the case of the one government
+library, which in most countries, receives them
+under copyright provision. An advantageous arrangement
+can usually be made with one or more book-dealers,
+to supply all new books at a fairly liberal discount from retail
+prices. And it is wise management to distribute purchases
+where good terms are made, as thereby the trade
+will feel an interest in the library, and a mutuality of interest
+will secure more opportunities and better bargains.</p>
+
+<p>The submission of lists of books wanted, to houses having
+large stocks or good facilities, helps to make funds go
+as far as possible through competition. By the typewriter
+such lists can now be manifolded much more cheaply than
+they can be written or printed.</p>
+
+<p>Selection from priced catalogues presents a constantly
+recurring opportunity of buying volumes of the greatest
+consequence, to fill gaps in any collection, and often at surprisingly
+low prices. Much as book values have been enhanced
+of late years, there are yet catalogues issued by
+American, English and continental dealers which quote
+books both of the standard and secondary class at very
+cheap rates. Even now English books are sold by the
+Mudie and the W. H. Smith lending libraries in London,
+after a very few months, at one-half to one-fourth their
+original publishing price. These must usually be rebound,
+but by instructing your agent to select copies which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_38" id="Pg_38"></a>[<a href="./images/38.png">38</a>]</span>
+are clean within, all the soil of the edges will disappear
+with the light trimming of the binder.</p>
+
+<p>Purchase at auction supplies a means of recruiting libraries
+both public and private with many rare works, and
+with the best editions of the standard authors, often finely
+bound. The choice private libraries of the country, as well
+as the poor ones, tend to pour themselves sooner or later
+into public auctions. The collectors of books, whose early
+avidity to amass libraries of fine editions was phenomenal,
+rarely persist in cultivating the passion through life.
+Sometimes they are overtaken by misfortune&mdash;sometimes
+by indifference&mdash;the bibliomania not being a perennial inspiration,
+but often an acute and fiery attack, which in a
+few years burns out. Even if the library gathered with so
+much money and pains descends to the heirs of the collector,
+the passion for books is very seldom an inherited
+one. Thus the public libraries are constantly recruited by
+the opportunities of selection furnished by the forced sale
+of the private ones. Here, public competition frequently
+runs up the price of certain books to an exorbitant degree,
+while those not wanted often sell for the merest trifle.
+One should have a pretty clear idea of the approximate
+commercial value of books, before competing for them at
+public sale. He may, however, if well persuaded in his
+own mind as to the importance or the relative unimportance
+to his own collection of any work, regulate his bids by
+that standard, regardless of commercial value, except as a
+limit beyond which he will not go. Few librarians can
+personally attend auction sales&mdash;nor is it needful, when
+limits can so easily be set to orders. It is never safe to
+send an unlimited bid, as there may be others without
+limit, in which case the book is commonly awarded to the
+most remote bidder.</p>
+
+<p>There are many curiosities of the auction room, one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_39" id="Pg_39"></a>[<a href="./images/39.png">39</a>]</span>
+them being the frequent re-appearance of book rarities
+which have been through several auctions, sometimes at
+intervals of years, keenly competed for by rival bibliophiles,
+and carried off in triumph by some ardent collector,
+who little thought at the time how soon his own collection
+would come to the hammer.</p>
+
+<p>There are also many curiosities of compilation in auction
+catalogues. Not to name errors of commission, like giving
+the authorship of books to the wrong name, and errors
+of omission, like giving no author's name at all, some
+catalogues are thickly strewn with the epithets <i>rare</i>&mdash;and
+<i>very rare</i>, when the books are sufficiently common in one
+or the other market. Do not be misled by these surface
+indications. Books are often attributed in catalogues to
+their editor or translator, and the unwary buyer may thus
+find himself saddled with a duplicate already in his own
+collection. There has been much improvement in late
+years in the care with which auction catalogues are edited,
+and no important collection at least is offered, without
+having first passed through the hands of an expert, familiar
+with bibliography. It is the minor book sales where
+the catalogues receive no careful editing, and where the
+dates and editions are frequently omitted, that it is necessary
+to guard against. It is well to refrain from sending
+any bids out of such lists, because they furnish no certain
+identification of the books, and if all would do the same,
+thus diminishing the competition and the profit of the
+auctioneer, he might learn never to print a catalogue without
+date, place of publication, and full name of author of
+every book offered.</p>
+
+<p>Never be too eager to acquire an auction book, unless
+you are very thoroughly assured that it is one of the kind
+truly designated <i>rarissimus</i>. An eminent and thoroughly
+informed book collector, with an experience of forty years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_40" id="Pg_40"></a>[<a href="./images/40.png">40</a>]</span>
+devoted to book auctions and book catalogues, assured me
+that it was his experience that almost every book would
+turn up on the average about every seven years. Of course
+there are notable exceptions&mdash;and especially among the
+class of books known as <i>incunabula</i>, (or cradle-books
+printed in the infancy of printing) and of early Americana:
+but it is not these which the majority of libraries are
+most in search of. Remember always, if you lose a coveted
+volume, that there will be another chance&mdash;perhaps many
+of them. The private collector, who carries it off against
+you, has had no former opportunity to get the rare volume,
+and may never have another. He is therefore justified in
+paying what is to ordinary judgment an extraordinary
+price. Individual collectors die, but public libraries are
+immortal.</p>
+
+<p>If you become thoroughly conversant with priced catalogues,
+you will make fewer mistakes than most private
+buyers. Not only catalogues of notable collections, with
+the prices obtained at auction, but the large and very
+copious catalogues of such London book-dealers as Quaritch
+and Sotheran, are accessible in the great city libraries.
+These are of the highest use in suggesting the proximate
+prices at which important books have been or may
+be acquired. Since 1895, annual volumes entitled "American
+Book Prices Current" have been issued, giving the
+figures at which books have been sold at all the principal
+auction sales of the year.</p>
+
+<p>There is no word so much abused as the term <i>rare</i>, when
+applied to books. Librarians know well the unsophisticated
+citizen who wants to sell at a high price a "rare"
+volume of divinity "a hundred and fifty years old" (worth
+possibly twenty-five cents to half a dollar,) and the persistent
+woman who has the rarest old bible in the country,
+which she values anywhere from fifty to five hundred dol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_41" id="Pg_41"></a>[<a href="./images/41.png">41</a>]</span>lars,
+and which turns out on inspection to be an imperfect
+copy of one of Barker's multitudinous editions of 1612 to
+'18, which may be picked up at five to eight shillings in any
+old London book-shop. The confident assertions so often
+paraded, even in catalogues, "only three copies known,"
+and the like, are to be received with absolute incredulity,
+and the claims of ignorant owners of books who
+fancy that their little pet goose is a fine swan, because they
+never saw another, are as ridiculous as the laudation bestowed
+by a sapient collector upon two of his most valued
+nuggets. "This, sir, is unique, but not so unique as the
+other."</p>
+
+<p>Buying books by actual inspection at the book-shops is
+even more fascinating employment than buying them
+through catalogues. You thus come upon the most unexpected
+volumes unawares. You open the covers, scan the
+title-pages, get a glimpse of the plates, and flit from book
+to book, like a bee gathering honey for its hive. It is a
+good way to recruit your library economically, to run
+through the stock of a book-dealer systematically&mdash;neglecting
+no shelf, but selecting throughout the whole
+stock, and laying aside what you think you may want.
+When this is done, you will have quite a pile of literature
+upon which to negotiate with the proprietor. It is cheaper
+to buy thus at wholesale than by piecemeal, because the
+bookseller will make you a larger discount on a round lot
+of which you relieve his shelves.</p>
+
+<p>Another method of recruiting your library is the examination
+of books "on approval." Most book-dealers will be
+so obliging as to send in parcels of books for the inspection
+of a librarian or collector, who can thus examine them
+leisurely and with more thoroughness than in a book store,
+without leaving his business.</p>
+
+<p>All books, by whatever course they may be purchased,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_42" id="Pg_42"></a>[<a href="./images/42.png">42</a>]</span>
+are indispensably to be collated before they are accepted
+and paid for. Neglect of this will fill any library with imperfections,
+since second-hand books are liable to have
+missing leaves, or plates, or maps, while new books may
+lack signatures or plates, or be wrongly bound together.
+In the case of new books, or books still in print, the publisher
+is bound to make good an imperfection.</p>
+
+<p>In old books, this is usually impossible, and the only
+remedy is to return the imperfect books upon the seller's
+hands, unless there may be a reason, such as the rarity of
+the volume, or its comparative little cost, or the trifling
+nature of the imperfection, for retaining it. The equities
+in these cases are in favor of the buyer, who is presumed
+to have purchased a perfect copy. But the right of
+reclamation must be exercised promptly, or it may be forfeited
+by lapse of time. If an imperfection in any book
+you order is noted in the catalogue, it is not subject to return.
+I have ever found the book auctioneers most courteous
+and considerate in their dealings&mdash;and the same can
+be said of the book trade generally, among whom instances
+of liberality to libraries are by no means rare.</p>
+
+<p>One of the choicest pleasures of the book collector,
+whether private student or librarian, is to visit the second-hand
+book-shops of any city, and examine the stock with
+care. While he may find but few notable treasures in one
+collection, a search through several shops will be almost
+sure to reward him. Here are found many of the outpourings
+of the private libraries, formed by specialists or
+amateurs, and either purchased by the second-hand dealer
+<i>en bloc</i>, or bid off by him at some auction sale. Even rare
+books are picked up in this way, no copies of which can be
+had by order, because long since "out of print." The
+stock in these shops is constantly changing, thus adding a
+piquant and sometimes exciting element to the book<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_43" id="Pg_43"></a>[<a href="./images/43.png">43</a>]</span>-hunter,
+who is wise in proportion as he seizes quickly upon
+all opportunities of new "finds" by frequent visits. To
+mourn over a lost chance in rare books is often more grievous
+to the zealous collector, than to lose a large share out
+of his fortune; while to exult over a literary nugget long
+sought and at length found is a pleasure to which few
+others can be compared.</p>
+
+<p>Of the many <i>bouquinistes</i> whose open-air shops line the
+quays of Paris along the Seine, numbering once as many
+as a hundred and fifty dealers in second-hand books, I have
+no room to treat; books have been written about them,
+and the <i>litt&eacute;rateurs</i> of France, of Europe, and of America
+have profited by countless bargains in their learned wares.
+Nor can I dwell upon the literary wealth of London book-shops,
+dark and dingy, but ever attractive to the hungry
+scholar, or the devotee of bibliomania.</p>
+
+<p>Of the many second-hand booksellers (or rather sellers
+of second-hand books) in American cities, the more notable
+have passed from the stage of action in the last quarter of
+a century. Old William Gowans, a quaint, intelligent
+Scotchman, in shabby clothes and a strong face deeply
+marked with small pox, was for many years the dean of this
+fraternity in New York. His extensive book-shop in Nassau
+street, with its dark cellar, was crowded and packed
+with books on shelves, on stairways and on the floors,
+heaped and piled in enormous masses, amid which the
+visitor could hardly find room to move. On one of the
+piles you might find the proprietor seated&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Books to the right of him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Books to the left of him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Books behind him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Volleyed and tumbled,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>while he answered inquiries for books from clergymen and
+students, or gruffly bargained with a boy or an old woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_44" id="Pg_44"></a>[<a href="./images/44.png">44</a>]</span>
+for a dilapidated lot of old books. He had a curious quizzical
+way with strangers, who at once set him down as an
+oddity, and his impatience with ignoramuses and bores
+gave him the repute of crustiness, which was redeemed by
+suavity enough whenever he met with people of intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>Gowans issued scores of catalogues of his stock, in which
+titles were often illustrated by notes, always curious and
+often amusing, credited to "Western Memorabilia," a work
+which no bookseller or man of letters had ever heard of,
+but which was shrewdly suspected to have been a projected
+scrap-book of the observations and opinions of William
+Gowans.</p>
+
+<p>There was another eccentric book-dealer's shop in Nassau
+street kept by one John Doyle, who aimed so high in
+his profession as to post over his door a sign reading "The
+Moral Centre of the Intellectual Universe." This establishment
+was notably full of old editions of books of English
+history and controversial theology.</p>
+
+<p>The most famous second-hand book-shop in Boston was
+Burnham's, whose fore-name was Thomas Oliver Hazard
+Perry, shortened into "Perry Burnham" by his familiars.
+He was a little, pale-faced, wiry, nervous man, with piercing
+black eyes and very brusque manners. In old and
+musty books he lived and moved and had his being, for
+more than a generation. He exchanged a stuffy, narrow
+shop in Cornhill for more spacious quarters in Washington
+street, near School street, where he bought and sold books
+with an assiduous devotion to business, never trusting to
+others what he could do himself. He was proud of his
+collection and its extent. He bought books and pamphlets
+at auction literally by the cart-load, every thing that
+nobody else wanted being bid off to Burnham at an insignificant
+price, almost nominal. He got a wide reputation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_45" id="Pg_45"></a>[<a href="./images/45.png">45</a>]</span>
+for selling cheaply, but he always knew when to charge a
+stiff price for a book, and to stick to it. Once when I was
+pricing a lot of miscellaneous books picked out for purchase,
+mostly under a dollar a volume, we came to a copy
+of "The Constitutions of the Several Independent States
+of America," 1st edition, Philadelphia, 1781, of which two
+hundred copies only were printed, by order of Congress.
+This copy was in the original boards, uncut, and with the
+autograph of Timothy Pickering on the title page. "If
+the Congress Library wants that book," said Mr. Burnham,
+"it will have to pay eight dollars for it." I took it, well
+pleased to secure what years of search had failed to bring.
+The next year my satisfaction was enhanced when an inferior
+copy of the same book was offered at twenty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Burnham died a wealthy man, having amassed a million
+dollars in trade and by rise in real estate, as he owned the
+land on which the Parker House stands in Boston.</p>
+
+<p>Among Philadelphia dealers in second-hand books, one
+John Penington was recognized as most intelligent and
+honorable. He was a book-lover and a scholar, and one
+instinctively ranked him not as a bookseller, but as a gentleman
+who dealt in books. On his shelves one always
+found books of science and volumes in foreign languages.</p>
+
+<p>Another notable dealer was John Campbell, a jolly,
+hearty Irish-American, with a taste for good books, and an
+antipathy to negroes, as keen as the proverbial hatred of
+the devil for holy water. Campbell wrote a book entitled
+"Negromania," published in 1851, in which his creed was
+set forth in strong language. He was a regular bidder at
+book auctions, where his burly form and loud voice made
+him a prominent figure.</p>
+
+<p>Of notable auction sales of books, and of the extravagant
+prices obtained for certain editions by ambitious and eager
+competition, there is little room to treat. The oft-told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_46" id="Pg_46"></a>[<a href="./images/46.png">46</a>]</span>
+story of the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471, carried off at the
+Roxburghe sale in 1812, at &pound;2,260 from Earl Spencer by
+the Marquis of Blandford, and re-purchased seven years
+after at another auction for &pound;918, has been far surpassed in
+modern bibliomania. "The sound of that hammer," wrote
+the melodramatic Dibdin, "echoed through Europe:" but
+what would he have said of the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg
+and Fust (1450-55) sold in 1897, at the Ashburnham
+sale, for four thousand pounds, or of the Latin Psalter of
+Fust and Schoeffer, 2d ed. 1459, which brought &pound;4,950 at
+the Syston Park sale in 1884? This last sum (about twenty-four
+thousand dollars) is the largest price ever yet recorded
+as received for a single volume. Among books of
+less rarity, though always eagerly sought, is the first folio
+Shakespeare of 1623, a very fine and perfect copy of which
+brought &pound;716.2 at Daniel's sale in 1864. Copies warranted
+perfect have since been sold in London for &pound;415 to &pound;470.
+In New York, a perfect but not "tall" copy brought $4,200
+in 1891 at auction. Walton's "Compleat Angler,"
+London, 1st ed. 1653, a little book of only 250 pages, sold
+for &pound;310 in 1891. It was published for one shilling and
+sixpence. The first edition of Robinson Crusoe brought
+&pound;75 at the Crampton sale in 1896.</p>
+
+<p>The rage for first editions of very modern books reached
+what might be called high-water mark some time since,
+and has been on the decline. Shelley's "Queen Mab," 1st
+ed. 1813, was sold at London for &pound;22.10, and his "Refutation
+of Deism," 1814, was sold at &pound;33, at a London sale in
+1887. In New York, many first editions of Shelley's
+poems brought the following enormous prices in 1897.</p>
+
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, Italy, 1821, $335.</li>
+<li>Alastor, London, 1816, $130.</li>
+<li>The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $65.</li>
+<li>Hellas, London, 1822, $13.</li>
+</ul>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_47" id="Pg_47"></a>[<a href="./images/47.png">47</a>]</span></p>
+<p>But these were purely adventitious prices, as was clearly
+shown in the sale at the same auction rooms, a year or two
+earlier, of the following:</p>
+
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, 1821, $19.</li>
+<li>Alastor, London, 1816, $32.</li>
+<li>The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $21.</li>
+<li>Hellas, London, 1822, $2.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>The sales occasionally made at auction of certain books
+at extraordinary prices, prove nothing whatever as to the
+real market value, for these reasons: (1) The auctioneer
+often has an unlimited bid, and the price is carried up to
+an inordinate height. (2) Two or more bidders present,
+infatuated by the idea of extreme rarity, bid against one
+another until all but one succumb, when the price has
+reached a figure which it is a mild use of terms to call absurd.
+(3) Descriptions in sale catalogues, though often
+entirely unfounded, characterising a book as "excessively
+rare;" "only &mdash; copies known," "very scarce," "never before
+offered at our sales," etc., may carry the bidding on a
+book up to an unheard-of price.</p>
+
+<p>The appeal always lies to the years against the hours;
+and many a poor book-mad enthusiast has had to rue his
+too easy credulity in giving an extravagant sum for books
+which he discovers later that he could have bought for as
+many shillings as he has paid dollars. Not that the <i>rarissimi</i>
+of early printed books can ever be purchased for
+a trifle; but it should ever be remembered that even at the
+sales where a few&mdash;a very few&mdash;bring the enormous prices
+that are bruited abroad, the mass of the books offered are
+knocked down at very moderate figures, or are even sacrificed
+at rates very far below their cost. The possessor of
+one of the books so advertised as sold at some auction for a
+hundred dollars or upwards, if he expects to realise a tithe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_48" id="Pg_48"></a>[<a href="./images/48.png">48</a>]</span>
+of the figure quoted, will speedily find himself in the vocative.</p>
+
+<p>While there are almost priceless rarities not to be found
+in the market by any buyer, let the book collector be consoled
+by the knowledge that good books, in good editions,
+were never so easy to come by as now. A fine library can
+be gathered by any one with very moderate means, supplemented
+by a fair amount of sagacity and common sense.
+The buyer with a carefully digested list of books wanted
+will find that to buy them wisely takes more time and less
+money than he had anticipated. The time is required to
+acquaint himself with the many competing editions, with
+their respective merits and demerits. This involves a comparison
+of type, paper, and binding, as well as the comparative
+prices of various dealers for the same books. No one
+who is himself gifted with good perceptions and good taste,
+should trust to other hands the selection of his library.
+His enjoyment of it will be proportioned to the extent to
+which it is his own creation. The passion for nobly written
+books, handsomely printed, and clothed in a fitting
+garb, when it has once dawned, is not to be defrauded of its
+satisfaction by hiring a commission merchant to appease
+it. What we do for ourselves, in the acquirement of any
+knowledge, is apt to be well done: what is done for us by
+others is of little value.</p>
+
+<p>We have heard of some uninformed <i>parvenus</i>, grown
+suddenly rich, who have first ordered a magnificent library
+room fitted with rose-wood, marble and gilded trappings,
+and then ordered it to be filled with splendidly bound volumes
+at so much per volume. And it is an authentic fact,
+that a bookseller to the Czar of Russia one Klostermann,
+actually sold books at fifty to one hundred roubles by the
+yard, according to the binding. The force of folly could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_49" id="Pg_49"></a>[<a href="./images/49.png">49</a>]</span>
+no farther go, to debase the aims and degrade the intellect
+of man.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapter upon rare books, the reader will find instances
+in great variety of the causes that contribute to the
+scarcity and enhancement of prices of certain books, without
+at all affecting their intrinsic value, which may be of
+the smallest.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_50" id="Pg_50"></a>[<a href="./images/50.png">50</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_3" id="CHAPTER_3"></a>CHAPTER 3.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Art of Book Binding.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>In these suggestions upon the important question of the
+binding of books, I shall have nothing to say of the history
+of the art, and very little of its aesthetics. The plainest
+and most practical hints will be aimed at, and if my experience
+shall prove of value to any, I shall be well rewarded
+for giving it here. For other matters readers will naturally
+consult some of the numerous manuals of book-binding
+in English, French and German. The sumptuous
+bindings executed in the sixteenth century, under the patronage
+and the eyes of Grolier, the famous tooled masterpieces
+of Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup, Trautz and other
+French artists, and the beautiful gems of the binder's art
+from the hands of Roger Payne, Lewis, Mackenzie, Hayday
+and Bedford, are they not celebrated in the pages of
+Dibdin, Lacroix, Fournier, Wheatley, and Robert Hoe?</p>
+
+<p>There are some professed lovers of books who affect
+either indifference or contempt for the style in which their
+favorites are dressed. A well known epigram of Burns is
+sometimes quoted against the fondness for fine bindings
+which widely prevails in the present day, as it did in that
+of the Scottish Poet. A certain Scottish nobleman, endowed
+with more wealth than brains, was vain of his
+splendidly bound Shakespeare, which, however, he never
+read. Burns, on opening the folio, found the leaves sadly
+worm-eaten, and wrote these lines on the fly-leaf:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Through and through th' inspired leaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye maggots make your windings;<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">But O respect his lordship's taste,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spare the golden bindings!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_51" id="Pg_51"></a>[<a href="./images/51.png">51</a>]</span>Yet no real book-lover fails to appreciate the neatness
+and beauty of a tasteful binding, any more than he is indifferent
+to the same qualities in literary style. Slovenly
+binding is almost as offensive to a cultivated eye as slovenly
+composition. No doubt both are "mere externals," as we
+are told, and so are the splendors of scenery, the beauty of
+flowers, and the comeliness of the human form, or features,
+or costume. Talk as men will of the insignificance of
+dress, it constitutes a large share of the attractiveness of
+the world in which we live.</p>
+
+<p>The two prime requisites of good binding for libraries
+are neatness and solidity. It is pleasant to note the steady
+improvement in American bindings of late years. As the
+old style of "Half cloth boards," of half a century ago, with
+paper titles pasted on the backs, has given way to the neat,
+embossed, full muslin gilt, so the clumsy and homely sheep-skin
+binding has been supplanted by the half-roan or morocco,
+with marble or muslin sides. Few books are issued,
+however, either here or abroad, in what may be
+called permanent bindings. The cheapness demanded by
+buyers of popular books forbids this, while it leaves to the
+taste and fancy of every one the selection of the "library
+style" in which he will have his collection permanently
+dressed.</p>
+
+<p>What is the best style of binding for a select or a public
+library? is a question often discussed, with wide discrepancies
+of opinion. The so universally prevalent cloth
+binding is too flimsy for books subjected to much use&mdash;as
+most volumes in public collections and many in private libraries
+are likely to be. The choice of the more substantial
+bindings lies between calf and morocco, and between
+half or full bindings of either. For nearly all books, half
+binding, if well executed, and with cloth sides, is quite as
+elegant, and very nearly as solid and lasting as full leather;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_52" id="Pg_52"></a>[<a href="./images/52.png">52</a>]</span>
+for if a book is so worn as to need rebinding, it is generally
+in a part where the full binding wears out quite as fast as
+the other. That is, it gets worn at the hinges and on the
+back, whether full or half-bound. The exceptions are the
+heavy dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and other works of reference,
+which are subjected to much wear and tear at the
+sides, as well as at the back and corners. Full leather is
+much more expensive than half binding, though not
+doubly so.</p>
+
+<p>Every librarian or book collector should understand
+something of book-binding and its terms, so that he may
+be able to give clear directions as to every item involved in
+binding, repairing, or re-lettering, and to detect imperfect
+or slighted work.</p>
+
+<p>The qualities that we always expect to find in a well-bound
+book are solidity, flexibility, and elegance. Special
+examination should be directed toward each of these points
+in revising any lot of books returned from a binder. Look
+at each book with regard to:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>1. Flexibility in opening.</li>
+
+<li>2. Evenness of the cover, which should lie flat and
+smooth&mdash;each edge being just parallel with the others
+throughout.</li>
+
+<li>3. Compactness&mdash;see that the volumes are thoroughly
+pressed&mdash;solid, and not loose or spongy.</li>
+
+<li>4. Correct and even lettering of titles, and other tooling.</li>
+
+<li>5. Good wide margins.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>A well-bound book always opens out flat, and stays open.
+It also shuts up completely, and when closed stays shut.
+But how many books do we see always bulging open at the
+sides, or stiffly resisting being opened by too great tightness
+in the back? If the books you have had bound do not
+meet all these requirements, it is time to look for another
+binder.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_53" id="Pg_53"></a>[<a href="./images/53.png">53</a>]</span>The different styles of dressing books may all be summed
+up in the following materials: Boards, cloth, vellum, sheep,
+bock, pig-skin, calf, Russia, and morocco&mdash;to which may be
+added of recent years, buckram, duck, linoleum, and the
+imitations of leather, such as leatherette and morocco
+paper, and of parchment. I take no account here of obsolete
+styles&mdash;as ivory, wood, brass, silver and other metals,
+nor of velvet, satin, and other occasional luxuries of the
+binder's art. These belong to the domain of the amateur,
+the antiquary, or the book-fancier&mdash;not to that of the librarian
+or the ordinary book-collector.</p>
+
+<p>Roan leather is nothing but sheep-skin, stained or colored;
+basil or basan is sheepskin tanned in bark, while roan
+is tanned in sumac, and most of the so called moroccos are
+also sheep, ingeniously grained by a mechanical process.
+As all the manufactures in the world are full of "shoddy,"
+or sham materials, the bookbinder's art affords no exception.
+But if the librarian or collector patronises shams,
+he should at least do it with his eyes open, and with due
+counting of the cost.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the relative merits and demerits of materials
+for binding. No one will choose boards covered with
+paper for any book which is to be subjected to perusal, and
+cloth is too flimsy and shaky in its attachment to the book,
+however cheap, for any library volumes which are to be
+constantly in use. It is true that since the bulk of the
+new books coming into any library are bound in cloth, they
+may be safely left in it until well worn; and by this rule,
+all the books which nobody ever reads may be expected to
+last many years, if not for generations. Cloth is a very
+durable material, and will outlast some of the leathers, but
+any wetting destroys its beauty, and all colors but the darkest
+soon become soiled and repulsive, if in constant use.
+In most libraries, I hold that every cloth-bound book<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_54" id="Pg_54"></a>[<a href="./images/54.png">54</a>]</span>
+which is read, must sooner or later come to have a stout
+leather jacket. It may go for years, especially if the book
+is well sewed, but to rebinding it must come at last; and
+the larger the volume, the sooner it becomes shaky, or
+broken at some weak spot.</p>
+
+<p>The many beautiful new forms of cloth binding should
+have a word of praise, but the many more which we see of
+gaudy, fantastic, and meretricious bindings, and frightful
+combinations of colors must be viewed with a shudder.</p>
+
+<p>Vellum, formerly much used for book-bindings, is the
+modern name for parchment. Parchment was the only
+known writing material up to the 12th century, when paper
+was first invented. There are two kinds&mdash;animal and vegetable.
+The vegetable is made from cotton fibre or paper,
+by dipping it in a solution of sulphuric acid and [sometimes]
+gelatine, then removing the acid by a weak solution
+of ammonia, and smooth finishing by rolling the sheets
+over a heated cylinder. Vegetable parchment is used to
+bind many booklets which it is desired to dress in an elegant
+or dainty style, but is highly unsuitable for library
+books. Vellum proper is a much thicker material, made
+from the skins of calves, sheep, or lambs, soaked in lime-water,
+and smoothed and hardened by burnishing with a
+hard instrument, or pumice-stone. The common vellum
+is made from sheep-skin splits, or skivers, but the best
+from whole calf-skins. The hard, strong texture of vellum
+is in its favor, but its white color and tendency to
+warp are fatal objections to it as a binding material.</p>
+
+<p>Vellum is wholly unfit for the shelves of a library; the
+elegant white binding soils with dust, or the use of the
+hands, more quickly than any other; and the vellum warps
+in a dry climate, or curls up in a heated room, so as to be
+unmanageable upon the shelves, and a nuisance in the eyes
+of librarian and reader alike. The thin vegetable parch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_55" id="Pg_55"></a>[<a href="./images/55.png">55</a>]</span>ment
+lately in vogue for some books and booklets is too unsubstantial
+for anything but a lady's boudoir, where it may
+have its little day&mdash;"a thing of beauty," but by no means
+"a joy forever."</p>
+
+<p>Sheepskin&mdash;once the full binding for most school-books,
+and for a large share of law and miscellaneous works for
+libraries, is now but little used, except in its disguised
+forms. It is too soft a leather for hard wear and tear, and
+what with abrasion and breaking at the hinges (termed by
+binders the joints), it will give little satisfaction in the
+long run. Under the effect of gas and heated atmospheres
+sheep crumbles and turns to powder. Its cheapness is
+about its only merit, and even this is doubtful economy,
+since no binding can be called cheap that has to be rebound
+or repaired every few years. In the form of half-roan or
+bock, colored sheep presents a handsome appearance on the
+shelf, and in volumes or sets which are reasonably secure
+from frequent handling, one is sometimes justified in
+adopting it, as it is far less expensive than morocco. Pig-skin
+has been recently revived as a binding material, but
+though extremely hard and durable, it is found to warp
+badly on the shelves.</p>
+
+<p>Calf bindings have always been great favorites with
+book-lovers, and there are few things more beautiful&mdash;<i>prima
+facie</i>, than a volume daintily bound in light French
+calf, as smooth as glass, as fine as silk, with elegant gold
+tooling without and within, gilt edges, and fly-leaves of
+finest satin. I said beautiful, <i>prima facie</i>&mdash;and this calls
+to mind the definition of that law term by a learned Vermont
+jurist, who said: "Gentlemen of the jury, I must explain
+to you that a <i>prima facie</i> case is a case that is very
+good in front, but may be very bad in the rear." So of our
+so much lauded and really lovely calf bindings: they develop
+qualities in use which give us pause. Calf is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_56" id="Pg_56"></a>[<a href="./images/56.png">56</a>]</span>
+most brittle of the leathers&mdash;hence it is always breaking
+at the hinges; it is a very smooth leather&mdash;hence it shows
+every scratch instantly; it is a light and delicate leather&mdash;hence
+it shows soils and stains more quickly than any other.
+Out of every hundred calf-bound volumes in any well-used
+library, there will not remain ten which have not had to
+be re-bound or repaired at the end of twenty or thirty
+years. Heavy volumes bound in calf or half-calf leather
+will break by their own weight on the shelves, without any
+use at all; and smaller volumes are sure to have their brittle
+joints snapped asunder by handling sooner or later&mdash;it
+is only a question of time.</p>
+
+<p>Next comes Russia leather, which is very thick and
+strong, being made of the hides of cattle, colored, and perfumed
+by the oil of birch, and made chiefly in Russia. The
+objections to this leather are its great cost, its stiffness and
+want of elasticity, and its tendency to desiccate and lose all
+its tenacity in the dry or heated atmosphere of our libraries.
+It will break at the hinges&mdash;though not so readily as
+calf.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, we have the morocco leather, so called because it
+was brought from Morocco, in Africa, and still we get the
+best from thence, and from the Mediterranean ports of the
+Levant&mdash;whence comes another name for the best of this
+favorite leather, "Levant morocco," which is the skin of
+the mountain goat, and reckoned superior to all other
+leathers. The characteristics of the genuine morocco,
+sometimes called Turkey morocco, having a pebbled grain,
+distinguishing it from the smooth morocco, are its toughness
+and durability, combined with softness and flexibility.
+It has a very tenacious fibre, and I have never found a real
+morocco binding broken at the hinges. The old proverb&mdash;"there
+is nothing like leather"&mdash;is pregnant with meaning,
+and especially applies to the best morocco. As no ma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_57" id="Pg_57"></a>[<a href="./images/57.png">57</a>]</span>terial
+yet discovered in so many ages can take the place of
+leather for foot-wear and for harness, such is its tenacity
+and elasticity&mdash;so for book coverings, to withstand wear
+and tear, good leather is indispensable. There are thoroughly-bound
+books existing which are five centuries old&mdash;representing
+about the time when leather began to replace
+wood and metals for binding. The three great enemies
+of books are too great heat, too much moisture, and
+coal gas, which produces a sulphurous acid very destructive
+to bindings, and should never be used in libraries.
+From the dangers which destroy calf and Russia leather,
+morocco is measurably free.</p>
+
+<p>As to color, I usually choose red for books which come
+to binding or rebinding, for these reasons. The bulk of
+every library is of dark and sombre color, being composed
+of the old-fashioned calf bindings, which grow darker with
+age, mingled with the cloth bindings of our own day, in
+which dark colors predominate. Now the intermixture
+of red morocco, in all or most of the newly bound books,
+relieves the monotony of so much blackness, lights up the
+shelves, and gives a more cheerful aspect to the whole library.
+Some there are who insist upon varying the colors
+of bindings with the subjects of the books&mdash;and the British
+Museum Library actually once bound all works on botany
+in green, poetry in yellow, history in red, and theology
+in blue; but this is more fanciful than important. A second
+reason for preferring red in moroccos is that, being
+dyed with cochineal, it holds its color more permanently
+than any other&mdash;the moroccos not colored red turning to
+a dingy, disagreeable brown after forty or fifty years, while
+the red are found to be fast colors. This was first discovered
+in the National Library of France, and ever since
+most books in that great collection have been bound in red.
+A celebrated binder having recommended this color to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_58" id="Pg_58"></a>[<a href="./images/58.png">58</a>]</span>
+connoisseur who was having fine morocco binding done,
+instanced the example of the Paris Library, whose books,
+said he, are "mostly red," to which the amateur replied
+that he hoped they were.</p>
+
+<p>Add to the merits of morocco leather the fact that it is
+not easily scratched nor stained, that it is very tough in
+wear, and resists better than any other the moisture and
+soiling of the hands&mdash;and we have a material worthy of all
+acceptance.</p>
+
+<p>In half-binding chosen for the great majority of books
+because it is much cheaper than full leather, the sides are
+covered with muslin or with some kind of colored paper&mdash;usually
+marble. The four corners of every book, however,
+should always be protected by leather or, better still,
+by vellum, which is a firmer material&mdash;otherwise they will
+rapidly wear off, and the boards will break easily at their
+corners. As to the relative merits of cloth and paper for
+the sides of books, cloth is far more durable, though it
+costs more. Paper becomes quickly frayed at the edges,
+or is liable to peel where pasted on, though it may be renewed
+at small expense, and may properly be used except
+upon the much-read portion of the library. The cloth or
+paper should always harmonize in color with the leather to
+which it is attached. They need not be the same, but they
+should be of similar shade.</p>
+
+<p>One more reason for preferring morocco to other
+leathers is that you can always dispense with lettering-pieces
+or patches in gilding the titles on the back. All
+light-colored bindings (including law calf) are open to the
+objection that gold lettering is hardly legible upon them.
+Hence the necessity of stamping the titles upon darker
+pieces of leather, which are fastened to the backs. These
+lettering-pieces become loose in over-heated libraries, and
+tend continually to peel off, entailing the expense of re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_59" id="Pg_59"></a>[<a href="./images/59.png">59</a>]</span>pairing
+or re-lettering. Every morocco bound book can
+be lettered directly upon the leather. Bock is made of the
+skin of the Persian sheep, and is called Persian in London.
+It is a partially unsuccessful imitation of morocco, becoming
+easily abraded, like all the sheep-skin leathers, and although
+it is to be had in all colors, and looks fairly handsome
+for a time, and is tougher than skiver (or split sheep-skin),
+the books that are bound in it will sooner or later
+become an eyesore upon the shelves. A skin of Persian
+leather costs about one-third the price of genuine morocco,
+or goat. But the actual saving in binding is in a far less
+ratio&mdash;the difference being only six to eight cents per volume.
+It is really much cheaper to use morocco in the first
+place, than to undergo all the risks of deterioration and
+re-binding.</p>
+
+<p>Of the various imitations of leather, or substitutes for it,
+we have leatherette, leather-cloth, duck, fibrette, feltine,
+and buckram. Buckram and duck are strong cotton or
+linen fabricks, made of different colors, and sometimes figured
+or embossed to give them somewhat the look of
+leather. Hitherto, they are made mostly in England, and
+I have learned of no American experience in their favor
+except the use of stout duck for covering blank books and
+binding newspapers. The use of buckram has been mostly
+abandoned by the libraries. Morocco cloth is American,
+but has no advantage over plain muslin or book cloth, that
+I am aware of. Leatherette, made principally of paper,
+colored and embossed to simulate morocco leather, appears
+to have dropped out of use almost as fast as it came in, having
+no quality of permanence, elegance, or even of great
+cheapness to commend it. Leatherette tears easily, and
+lacks both tenacity and smoothness.</p>
+
+<p>Both feltine and fibrette are made of paper&mdash;tear quickly,
+and are unfit for use on any book that is ever likely to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_60" id="Pg_60"></a>[<a href="./images/60.png">60</a>]</span>
+be read. All these imitations of leather are made of paper
+as their basis, and hence can never be proper substitutes
+for leather.</p>
+
+<p>All torn leaves or plates in books should be at once
+mended by pasting a very thin onion-skin paper on both
+sides of the torn leaf, and pressing gently between leaves
+of sized paper until dry.</p>
+
+<p>Corners made of vellum or parchment are more durable
+than any leather. When dry, the parchment becomes as
+hard almost as iron and resists falls or abrasion. To use
+it on books where the backs are of leather is a departure
+from the uniformity or harmony of style insisted upon by
+many, but in binding books that are to be greatly worn, use
+should come before beauty.</p>
+
+<p>In rebinding, all maps or folded plates should be mounted
+on thin canvas, linen, or muslin, strong and fine, to protect
+them from inevitable tearing by long use. If a coarse
+or thick cloth is used, the maps will not fold or open easily
+and smoothly.</p>
+
+<p>The cutting or trimming of the edges of books needs to
+be watched with jealous care. Few have reflected that the
+more margin a binder cuts off, the greater his profit on any
+job, white paper shavings having a very appreciable price
+by the pound. A strictly uncut book is in many American
+libraries a rarity. And of the books which go a second
+time to the binder, although at first uncut, how many retain
+their fair proportions of margin when they come back?
+You have all seen books in which the text has been cut
+into by the ruthless knife-machine of the binder. This is
+called "bleeding" a book, and there are no words strong
+enough to denounce this murderous and cold-blooded atrocity.
+The trimming of all books should be held within
+the narrowest limits&mdash;for the life of a book depends largely
+upon its preserving a good margin. Its only chance of be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_61" id="Pg_61"></a>[<a href="./images/61.png">61</a>]</span>ing
+able to stand a second rebinding may depend upon its
+being very little trimmed at its first. If it must be cut at
+all, charge your binder to take off the merest shaving from
+either edge.</p>
+
+<p>Every new book or magazine added to the library, if uncut,
+should be carefully cut with a paper-knife before it
+goes into the hands of any reader. Spoiled or torn or ragged
+edges will be the penalty of neglecting this. You
+have seen people tear open the leaves of books and magazines
+with their fingers&mdash;a barbarism which renders him
+who would be guilty of it worthy of banishment from the
+resorts of civilization. In cutting books, the leaves should
+always be held firmly down&mdash;and the knife pressed evenly
+through the uncut leaves to the farthest verge of the back.
+Books which are cut in the loose fashion which many use
+are left with rough or ragged edges always, and often a
+slice is gouged out of the margin by the mis-directed knife.
+Never trust a book to a novice to be cut, without showing
+him how to do it, and how not to do it.</p>
+
+<p>The collation of new books in cloth or <i>broch&eacute;</i> should be
+done before cutting, provided they are issued to readers
+untrimmed. In collating books in two or more volumes
+double watchfulness is needed to guard against a missing
+signature, which may have its place filled by the same
+pages belonging to another volume&mdash;a mixture sometimes
+made in binderies, in "gathering" the sheets, and which
+makes it necessary to see that the signatures are right as
+well as the pages. The collator should check off all plates
+and maps called for by the table of contents to make sure
+that the copy is perfect. Books without pagination are of
+course to have their leaves counted, which is done first in
+detail, one by one, and then verified by a rapid counting in
+sections, in the manner used by printers and binders in
+counting paper by the quire.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_62" id="Pg_62"></a>[<a href="./images/62.png">62</a>]</span>The binding of books may be divided into two styles or
+methods, namely, machine-made book-bindings, and hand-made
+bindings. Binding by machinery is wholly a modern
+art, and is applied to all or nearly all new books coming
+from the press. As these are, in more than nine cases out
+of ten, bound in cloth covers, and these covers, or cases, are
+cut out and stamped by machinery, such books are called
+"case-made." The distinction between this method of
+binding and the hand method is that in the former the
+case is made separately from the book, which is then put
+into it. After the sheets of any book come pressed and
+dried from the printing office, the first step is to fold them
+from the large flat sheets into book form. This is sometimes
+done by hand-folders of bone or some other hard material,
+but in large establishments for making books, it is
+done by a folding machine. This will fold ten thousand
+or more sheets in a day. The folded sheets are next
+placed in piles or rows, in their numerical sequence, and
+"gathered" by hand, <i>i. e.</i>: a bindery hand picks up the
+sheets one by one, with great rapidity, until one whole
+book is gathered and collated, and the process is repeated
+so long as any sheets remain. Next, the books are thoroughly
+pressed or "smashed" as it is called, in a powerful
+smashing-machine, giving solidity to the book, which before
+pressing was loose and spongy. Then the books are
+sawed or grooved in the back by another machine, operating
+a swiftly moving saw, and sewed on cords by still another
+machine, at about half the cost of hand-sewing.
+Next, they are cut or trimmed on the three edges in a cutting-machine.
+The backs of the books are made round by
+a rounding-machine, leaving the back convex and the front
+concave in form, as seen in all finished books. The books
+are now ready for the covers. These consist of binders'
+board or mill-board, cut out of large sheets into proper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_63" id="Pg_63"></a>[<a href="./images/63.png">63</a>]</span>
+size, with lightning-like rapidity, by another machine called
+a rotary board-cutter. The cloth which is to form the
+back and sides of the book is cut out, of proper size for the
+boards, from great rolls of stamped or ribbed or embossed
+muslin, by another machine. The use of cloth, now so
+universal for book-binding, dates back little more than half
+a century. About 1825, Mr. Leighton, of London, introduced
+it as a substitute for the drab-colored paper then
+used on the sides, and for the printed titles on the backs.
+The boards are firmly glued to the cloth, the edges of
+which are turned over the boards, and fastened on the inside
+of the covers. The ornamental stamps or figures seen
+on the covers, both at the back and sides are stamped in
+with a heated die of brass, or other metal, worked by machinery.
+The lettering of the title is done in the same
+way, only that gold-leaf is applied before the die falls.
+Lastly, the book is pasted by its fly leaves or end-leaves,
+(sometimes with the addition of a cloth guard) to the inside
+of the cloth case or cover, and the book is done, after
+a final pressing. By these rapid machine methods a single
+book-manufacturing house can turn out ten thousand volumes
+in a day, with a rapidity which almost takes the
+breath away from the beholder.</p>
+
+<p>There is a kind of binding which dispenses entirely with
+sewing the sheets of a book. The backs are soaked with a
+solution of india-rubber, and each sheet must be thoroughly
+agglutinated to the backs, so as to adhere firmly to its
+fellows. This requires that all the sheets shall be folded
+as single leaves or folios, otherwise the inner leaves of the
+sheets, having no sewing, would drop out. This method
+is employed on volumes of plates, music, or any books made
+up of large separate sheets.</p>
+
+<p>In notable contrast to these rapid methods of binding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_64" id="Pg_64"></a>[<a href="./images/64.png">64</a>]</span>
+what are termed case-made books, comes the hand-made
+process, where only partial use of machinery is possible.</p>
+
+<p>The rebinding process is divided into three branches:
+preparing, forwarding, and finishing. The most vital distinction
+between a machine-made and a hand-made binding,
+is that the cloth or case-made book is not fastened into
+its cover in a firm and permanent way, as in leather-backed
+books. It is simply pasted or glued to its boards&mdash;not interlaced
+by the cords or bands on which it is sewed. Hence
+one can easily tear off the whole cover of a cloth-bound
+book, by a slight effort, and such volumes tend to come to
+pieces early, under constant wear and tear of library service.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now turn to the practical steps pursued in the
+treatment of books for library use. In re-binding a book,
+the first step is to take the book apart, or, as it is sometimes
+called, to take it to pieces. This is done by first
+stripping off its cover, if it has one. Cloth covers easily
+come off, as their boards are not tied to the cords on which
+the book is sewed, but are simply fastened by paste or glue
+to the boards by a muslin guard, or else the cloth is glued
+to the back of the book. If the book is leather-covered,
+or half-bound, <i>i. e.</i>: with a leather back and (usually)
+leather on its four corners, taking it to pieces is a somewhat
+slower process. The binder's knife is used to cut the
+leather at the joints or hinges of the volume, so that the
+boards may be removed. The cords that tie the boards to
+the volume are cut at the same time. If the book has a
+loose or flexible back, the whole cover comes easily off: if
+bound with a tight back, the glued leather back must be
+soaked with a sponge full of water, till it is soft enough to
+peel off, and let the sheets be easily separated.</p>
+
+<p>The book is now stripped of its former binding, and the
+next step is to take it apart, signature by signature. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_65" id="Pg_65"></a>[<a href="./images/65.png">65</a>]</span>
+signature is that number of leaves which make up one sheet
+of the book in hand. Thus, an octavo volume, or a volume
+printed in eights, as it is called, has eight leaves, or sixteen
+pages to a signature; a quarto four leaves; a duodecimo,
+or 12 mo. twelve leaves. The term signature (from Lat.
+<i>signare</i>, a sign) is also applied to a letter or figure printed
+at the foot of the first page of each sheet or section of the
+book. If the letters are used, the signatures begin with
+A. and follow in regular sequence of the alphabet. If the
+book is a very thick one, (or more than twenty-six signatures)
+then after signature Z, it is customary to duplicate
+the letters&mdash;A. A.&mdash;etc., for the remaining signatures. If
+figures are used instead of letters, the signatures run on to
+the last, in order of numbers. These letters, indicating
+signatures are an aid to the binder, in folding, "gathering,"
+and collating the consecutive sheets of any book, saving
+constant reference to the "pagination," as it is termed, or
+the paging of the volume, which would take much more
+time. In many books, you find the signature repeated in
+the "inset," or the inner leaves of the sheet, with a star or
+a figure to mark the sequence. Many books, however, are
+now printed without any signature marks whatever.</p>
+
+<p>To return: in taking apart the sheets or signatures,
+where they are stuck together at the back by adhesive glue
+or paste, the knife is first used to cut the thread in the
+grooves, where the book is sewed on cords or tape. Then
+the back is again soaked, the sheets are carefully separated,
+and the adhering substance removed by the knife or
+fingers. Care has to be taken to lay the signatures in strict
+order or sequence of pages, or the book may be bound up
+wrongly. The threads are next to be removed from the
+inside of every sheet. The sheets being all separated, the
+book is next pressed, to render all the leaves smooth, and
+the book solid for binding. Formerly, books were beaten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_66" id="Pg_66"></a>[<a href="./images/66.png">66</a>]</span>
+by a powerful hammer, to accomplish this, but it is much
+more quickly and effectively done in most binderies by the
+ordinary screw press. Every pressing of books should
+leave them under pressure at least eight hours.</p>
+
+<p>After pressing, the next step is to sew the sheets on to
+cords or twine, set vertically at proper distances in a frame,
+called a "sewing bench," for this purpose. No book can
+be thoroughly well bound if the sewing is slighted in any
+degree. Insist upon strong, honest linen thread&mdash;if it
+breaks with a slight pull it is not fit to be used in a book.
+The book is prepared for the sewer by sawing several
+grooves across the back with a common saw. The two end
+grooves are light and narrow, the central ones wider and
+deeper. Into these inner grooves, the cords fit easily, and
+the book being taken, sheet by sheet, is firmly sewed
+around the cords, by alternate movements of the needle
+and thread, always along the middle of the sheet, the
+thread making a firm knot at each end (called the "kettle-stitch")
+as it is returned for sewing on the next sheet.
+Sometimes the backs are not sawed at all, but the sheets of
+the book are sewed around the cords, which thus project a
+little from the back, and form the "bands," seen in raised
+form on the backs of some books. Books should be sewed
+on three to six cords, according to their size. This raised-band
+sewing is reckoned by some a feature of excellent
+binding. The sunken-band style is apt to give a stiff back,
+while the raised bands are usually treated with a flexible
+back. When sewed, the book is detached from its fellows,
+which may have been sewed on the same bench, by slipping
+it along the cords, then cutting them apart, so as to leave
+some two inches of each cord projecting, as ends to be fastened
+later to the board. In careful binding, the thread is
+sewed "all along," <i>i. e.</i>: each sheet by itself, instead of
+"two on," as it is called.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_67" id="Pg_67"></a>[<a href="./images/67.png">67</a>]</span>The next process is termed "lining up," and consists of
+putting on the proper fly-leaves or end-leaves, at the beginning
+and end of the volume. These usually consist of
+four leaves of ordinary white printing paper at each end,
+sometimes finished out with two leaves of colored or marbled
+paper, to add a touch of beauty to the book when
+opened. Marbled paper is more durable in color than the
+tinted, and does not stain so easily. One of these end-leaves
+is pasted down to the inside cover, while the other is
+left flying&mdash;whence "fly-leaf."</p>
+
+<p>After this comes the cutting of the book at the edges.
+This is done by screwing it firmly in a cutting-machine,
+which works a sharp knife rapidly, shaving off the edges
+successively of the head, front and end, or "tail" as it is
+called in book-binding parlance. This trimming used to
+be done by hand, with a sharp cutting knife called by binders
+a "plough." Now, there are many forms of cutting
+machines, some of which are called "guillotines" for an
+obvious reason. In binding some books, which it is desired
+to preserve with wide margins, only a mere shaving is
+taken off the head, so as to leave it smooth at the top, letting
+the front and tail leaves remain uncut. But in case
+of re-binding much-used books, the edges are commonly so
+much soiled that trimming all around may be required, in
+order that they may present a decent appearance. Yet in
+no case should the binder be allowed to cut any book
+deeply, so as to destroy a good, fair margin. Care must
+also be taken to cut the margins evenly, at right angles,
+avoiding any crooked lines.</p>
+
+<p>After cutting the book comes "rounding," or giving the
+back of the book a curved instead of its flat shape. This
+process is done with the hand, by a hammer, or in a rounding
+press, with a metallic roller. Before rounding, the
+back of the book is glued up, that is, receives a coating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_68" id="Pg_68"></a>[<a href="./images/68.png">68</a>]</span>
+of melted glue with a glueing brush, to hold the sections
+together, and render the back firm, and a thorough rubbing
+of the back with hot glue between the sections gives
+strength to the volume.</p>
+
+<p>Next comes the treatment of the edges of the book,
+hitherto all white, in order to protect them from showing
+soil in long use. Sometimes (and this is the cheaper process)
+the books are simply sprinkled at the edges with a
+brush dipped in a dark fluid made of burnt umber or red
+ochre, and shaken with a quick concussion near the edges
+until they receive a sprinkle of color from the brush.
+Other books receive what is called a solid color on the
+edges, the books being screwed into a press, and the color
+applied with a sponge or brush.</p>
+
+<p>But a marbled edge presents a far more handsome appearance,
+and should harmonize in color and figure with
+the marbled paper of the end leaves. Marbling, so called
+from its imitation of richly veined colored marble, is staining
+paper or book edges with variegated colors. The process
+of marbling is highly curious, both chemically and aesthetically,
+and may be briefly described. A large shallow
+trough or vat is filled with prepared gum water (gum-tragacanth
+being used); on the surface of this gum-water bright
+colors, mixed with a little ox-gall, to be used in producing
+the composite effect aimed at in the marbling are thrown
+or sprinkled in liquid form. Then they are deftly stirred
+or agitated on the surface of the water, with an implement
+shaped to produce a certain pattern. The most commonly
+used one is a long metallic comb, which is drawn across the
+surface of the combined liquids, leaving its pattern impressed
+upon the ductile fluid. The edges of the book to
+be marbled are then touched or dipped on the top of the
+water, on which the coloring matter floats, and at once
+withdrawn, exhibiting on the edge the precise pattern of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_69" id="Pg_69"></a>[<a href="./images/69.png">69</a>]</span>
+"combed marble" desired, since the various colors&mdash;red,
+yellow, blue, white, etc., have adhered to the surface of the
+book-edges. The serrated and diversified effect of most
+comb-marbling is due to stroking the comb in waved lines
+over the surface. The spotted effect so much admired in
+other forms, is produced by throwing the colors on with a
+brush, at the fancy of the skilled workman, or artist, as
+you may call him. Marbled paper is made in the same
+way, by dipping one surface of the white sheet, held in a
+curved form, with great care on the surface of the coloring
+vat. This is termed shell and wave marbling, as distinguished
+from comb-marbling. The paper or the book
+edges are next finished by sizing and burnishing, which
+gives them a bright glistening appearance.</p>
+
+<p>A still more ornate effect in a book is attained by gilding
+the edges. Frequently the head of a book is gilt, leaving
+the front and tail of an uncut book without ornament,
+and this is esteemed a very elegant style by book connoisseurs,
+who are, or should be solicitous of wide margins.
+The gilding of the top edge is a partial protection from
+dust falling inside, to which the other edges are not so
+liable. To gild a book edge, it is placed in a press, the
+edges scraped or smoothed, and coated with a red-colored
+fluid, which serves to heighten the effect of the gold.
+Then a sizing is applied by a camel's-hair brush, being a
+sticky substance, usually the white of an egg, mixed with
+water (termed by binders "glaire") and the gold-leaf is laid
+smoothly over it. When the sizing is dry, the gold is burnished
+with a tool, tipped with an agate or blood-stone,
+drawn forcibly over the edge until it assumes a glistening
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>After the edges have been treated by whatever process,
+there follows what is termed the "backing" of the book.
+The volume is pressed between iron clamps, and the back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_70" id="Pg_70"></a>[<a href="./images/70.png">70</a>]</span>
+is hammered or rolled where it joins the sides, so as to form
+a groove to hold the boards forming the solid portion of
+the cover of every book. A backing-machine is sometimes
+used for this process, making by pressure the joint or
+groove for the boards. Then the "head-band" is glued on,
+being a silk braid or colored muslin, fastened around a
+cord, which projects a little above the head and the tail, at
+the back of the book, giving it a more finished appearance.
+At the same time, a book-mark for keeping the place is
+sometimes inserted and fastened like the head-band. This
+is often a narrow ribbon of colored silk, or satin, and helps
+to give a finish to the book, as well as to furnish the reader
+a trustworthy guide to keep a place&mdash;as it will not fall out
+like bits of paper inserted for that purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Next, the mill-boards are applied, cut so as to project
+about an eighth to a quarter of an inch from the edges of
+the book on three sides. The book is held to the boards
+by the ends of its cords being interlaced, <i>i. e.</i>: passed twice
+through holes pierced in the boards, the loose ends of the
+cords being then wet with paste and hammered down flat
+to the surface of the boards. The best tar-boards should
+be used, which are made of old rope; no board made of
+straw is fit to be used on any book. Straw boards are an
+abomination&mdash;a cheap expedient which costs dearly in the
+end. The binder should use heavy boards on the larger
+and thicker volumes, but thin ones on all duodecimos and
+smaller sizes.</p>
+
+<p>Next, the books are subjected to a second pressing, after
+which the lining of the back is in order. Good thick
+brown paper is generally used for this, cut to the length of
+the book, and is firmly glued to the back, and rubbed down
+closely with a bone folder. A cloth "joint," or piece of
+linen (termed "muslin super,") is often glued to the back,
+with two narrow flaps to be pasted to the boards, on each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_71" id="Pg_71"></a>[<a href="./images/71.png">71</a>]</span>
+side, thus giving greater tenacity to the covering. If the
+book is to be backed so as to open freely, that is, to have a
+spring back or elastic back, two thicknesses of a firm,
+strong paper, or thin card-board are used, one thickness of
+the paper being glued to the back of the book, while the
+other&mdash;open in the middle, but fastened at the edges, is to
+be glued to the leather of which the back is to be made.</p>
+
+<p>After this, comes putting the book in leather. If full
+bound a piece of leather cut full size of the volume, with
+about half an inch over, is firmly glued or pasted to the
+boards and the back, the leather being turned over the
+edges of the boards, and nicely glued on their inside margin.
+It is of great importance that the edges of the leather
+should be smoothly pared down with a sharp knife, so as to
+present an even edge where the leather joins the boards,
+not a protuberance&mdash;which makes an ugly and clumsy
+piece of work, instead of a neat one.</p>
+
+<p>For half-binding, a piece of leather is taken large enough
+to cover the back lengthwise, and turn in at the head and
+tail, while the width should be such as to allow from one to
+one and a half inches of the leather to be firmly glued to
+the boards next the back. The four corners of the boards
+are next to be leathered, the edges of the leather being
+carefully pared down, to give a smooth surface, even with
+the boards, when turned in. The leather is usually wet,
+preparatory to being manipulated thus, which renders it
+more flexible and ductile than in its dry state. The cloth
+or marbled paper is afterwards pasted or glued to the sides
+of the book, and turned neatly over the edge of the boards.</p>
+
+<p>It may be added, that the edges of the boards, in binding
+nice books, are sometimes ground off on a swiftly revolving
+emery-wheel, giving the book a beveled edge, which
+is regarded as handsomer and more finished than a straight
+rectangular edge.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_72" id="Pg_72"></a>[<a href="./images/72.png">72</a>]</span>All the processes hitherto described are called "forwarding"
+the book: we now come to what is denominated "finishing."
+This includes the lettering of the title, and the
+embellishing of the back and sides, with or without gilding,
+as the case may be. Before this is taken in hand, the
+leather of the book must be perfectly dry. For the lettering,
+copper-faced types are used to set up the desired sequence
+of letters and words, and care and taste should be
+exercised to have (1) Types neither too large, which present
+a clumsy appearance, nor too small, which are difficult
+to read. (2) Proper spacing of the words and lines,
+and "balancing" the component parts of the lettering on
+the back, so as to present a neat and harmonious effect to
+the eye. A word should never be divided or hyphenated
+in lettering, when it can be avoided. In the case of quite
+thin volumes, the title may be lettered lengthwise along
+the back, in plain, legible type, instead of in very small
+letters across the back, which are often illegible. The
+method of applying gold lettering is as follows: the back
+of the book where the title is to go, is first moistened with
+a sticky substance, as albumen or glaire, heretofore mentioned,
+laid on with a camel's hair brush. The type (or the
+die as the case may be) is heated in a binder's charcoal furnace,
+or gas stove, to insure the adhesion of the gold leaf.
+The thin gold leaf (which comes packed in little square
+"books," one sheet between every two leaves) is then cut
+the proper size by the broad thin knife of the "finisher,"
+and carefully laid over the sized spot to receive the lettering.
+Usually, two thicknesses of gold leaf are laid one
+above another, which ensures a brighter and more decided
+effect in the lettering. The type metal or die is then
+pressed firmly and evenly down upon the gold-leaf, and the
+surplus shavings of the gold carefully brushed off and husbanded,
+for this leaf is worth money. The gold leaf gener<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_73" id="Pg_73"></a>[<a href="./images/73.png">73</a>]</span>ally
+in use costs about $6.50 for 500 little squares or sheets.
+It is almost inconceivably thin, the thickness of one gold
+leaf being estimated at about 1/280000 of an inch.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the lettering, many books receive gold ornamentation
+on the back or side of a more or less elaborate
+character. Designs of great artistic beauty, and in countless
+variety, have been devised for book ornaments, and
+French and English book-binders have vied with each
+other for generations in the production of decorative borders,
+fillets, centre-pieces, rolls, and the most exquisite
+gold-tooling, of which the art is capable.</p>
+
+<p>These varied patterns of book ornamentation are cut in
+brass or steel, and applied by the embossing press with a
+rapidity far exceeding that of the hand-work formerly executed
+by the gilders of books. But for choice books and
+select jobs, only the hands are employed, with such fillets,
+stamps, pallets, rolls, and polishing irons as may aid in the
+nice execution of the work. If a book is to be bound in
+what is called "morocco antique," it is to be "blind-tooled,"
+<i>i. e.</i>: the hot iron wheels which impress the fillets or rolls,
+are to be worked in blank, or without gold-leaf ornamentation.
+This is a rich and tasteful binding, especially with
+carefully beveled boards, and gilded edges.</p>
+
+<p>On some books, money has been lavished on the binding
+to an amount exceeding by many fold the cost of the book
+itself. Elegant book-binding has come to be reckoned as
+a fine art, and why should not "the art preservative of
+all other arts"&mdash;printing&mdash;be preserved in permanent and
+sumptuous, if not splendid style, in its environment?
+Specimens of French artistic binding from the library of
+Grolier, that celebrated and munificent patron of art, who
+died in 1565, have passed through the hands of many eager
+connoisseurs, always at advancing prices. The Grolier
+binding was notable for the elegant finish of its interlaced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_74" id="Pg_74"></a>[<a href="./images/74.png">74</a>]</span>
+ornaments in gold-leaf, a delicacy of touch, and an inimitable
+flowing grace, which modern binders have struggled
+after in vain. At the Beckford Library sale in London, in
+1884, there was a great array of fine French bindings of
+early date. A book from Grolier's library, the "Toison
+d'Or," 1563, brought &pound;405, or over $2,000, and a Heptameron,
+which had belonged to Louis XIV, in beautiful
+brown morocco, with crown, fleur-de-lys, a stag, a cock, and
+stars, as ornaments, all exquisitely worked in gold, lined
+with vellum, was sold for &pound;400. Following the Grolier
+patterns, came another highly decorative style, by the
+French binders, which was notable for the very delicate
+gold tooling, covering the whole sides of the book with exquisite
+scroll-work, and branches of laurel.</p>
+
+<p>The most celebrated of English book-binders was Roger
+Payne, who was notable for the careful labor bestowed on
+the forwarding and finishing of his books, specimens of
+which are still reckoned among the <i>chefs-d'oeuvre</i> of the
+art. His favorite style was a roughly-grained red morocco,
+always full-bound, and he kept in view what many binders
+forget, that the leather is the main thing in a finely executed
+binding, not to be overlaid by too much gilding and
+decoration. He charged twelve guineas each (over $60)
+for binding some small volumes in his best style. Payne's
+most notable successors have been Lewis, Hayday, Bedford,
+and Zaehnsdorf, the latter of whom is the author of a treatise
+on book-binding. At the art exhibition of 1862, a
+book bound by Bedford was exhibited, which took two
+months merely to finish, and the binding cost forty
+guineas; and a Dor&eacute;'s Dante, exquisitely bound by Zaehnsdorf,
+in Grolier style, cost one hundred guineas.</p>
+
+<p>A decorative treatment not yet mentioned is applied to
+the covers of some books, which are bound in elegant full
+calf. To give to this leather the elegant finish known as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_75" id="Pg_75"></a>[<a href="./images/75.png">75</a>]</span>
+"tree-calf binding", it is first washed with glaire or albumen.
+The boards of the book are then bent to a convex
+shape, and water sprinkled over, until it runs down from
+the centre in many little branches or rivulets. While running,
+a solution of copperas is sprinkled on, and carried
+along the branches which radiate from the central trunk,
+producing the dark-mottled colored effect which resembles,
+more or less nearly, a tree with its spreading branches.</p>
+
+<p>To make the book beautiful should be the united aim of
+all who are concerned in its manufacture&mdash;the paper-maker,
+the printer, and the book-binder. While utility
+comes first in the art of book-making for libraries, yet neatness
+and even elegance should always be united with it.
+An ill-forwarded book, or a badly finished one, presents a
+clumsy, unattractive look to the eye; while an evenly
+made piece of work, and a careful and tasteful ornamentation
+in the gilding, attract every discerning reader by their
+beauty. One writer upon book-binding terms the forwarder
+of the book an artizan, and the finisher an artist;
+but both should have the true artist's taste, in order to produce
+the work that shall commend itself by intrinsic excellence.
+The form and shape of the book depend wholly,
+indeed, on the forwarder.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that the great beauty of the Grolier bindings
+lay in the lavish and tasteful adornment of the sides.
+In fact, much depends upon the design, in every piece of
+decorative work. The pretty scroll patterns, the interlaced
+figures, the delicate tracery, the circles, rosettes, and
+stars, the lovely arabesques, the flowers and leaves borrowed
+from the floral kingdom, the geometric lines, the
+embroidered borders, like fine lace-work,&mdash;all these lend
+their separate individual charms to the finish of the varied
+specimens of the binder's art. There are some books that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_76" id="Pg_76"></a>[<a href="./images/76.png">76</a>]</span>
+look as brilliant as jewels in their rich, lustrous adornment,
+the design sometimes powdered with gold points and stars.
+Some gems of art are lined with rich colored leather in the
+inside covers, which are stamped and figured in gold. This
+is termed "<i>doubl&eacute;</i>" by the French. Some have their edges
+gilded over marbling, a refinement of beauty which adds
+richness to the work, the marble design showing through
+the brilliant gold, when the edge is turned. Others have
+pictorial designs drawn on the edges, which are then gilded
+over the pictures. This complex style of gilding, the
+French term <i>gaufr&eacute;</i>. It was formerly much in vogue, but
+is latterly out of fashion. Many gems of binding are
+adorned with fly-leaves of moire silk, or rich colored satin.
+Color, interspersed with gold in the finish of a book covering,
+heightens the effect. The morocco of the side-cover
+is sometimes cut, and inlaid with leather of a different
+color. Inlaying with morocco or kid is the richest style of
+decoration which the art has yet reached. Beautiful bindings
+have been in greater request during the past twenty
+years than ever before. There was a renaissance of the
+ancient styles of decoration in France, and the choice
+Grolier and Maioli patterns were revived with the general
+applause of the lovers of fine books.</p>
+
+<p>In vivid contrast to these lovely specimens of the binder's
+art, are found innumerable bibliopegic horrors, on the
+shelves of countless libraries, public and private. Among
+these are to be reckoned most law books, clad in that dead
+monotony of ugliness, which Charles Dickens has described
+as "that <i>under-done pie-crust</i> cover, which is technically
+known as law calf." There are other uncouth and
+unwholesome specimens everywhere abroad, "whom Satan
+hath bound", to borrow Mr. Henry Stevens's witty application
+of a well-known Scripture text. Such repellant bind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_77" id="Pg_77"></a>[<a href="./images/77.png">77</a>]</span>ings
+are only fit to serve as models to be avoided by the
+librarian.</p>
+
+<p>The binding that is executed by machinery is sometimes
+called "commercial binding". It is also known as "edition
+binding", because the whole edition of a book is bound in
+uniform style of cover. While the modern figured cloth
+binding originated in England, it has had its fullest development
+in the United States. Here, those ingenious
+and powerful machines which execute every branch of the
+folding and forwarding of a book, and even the finishing
+of the covers, with almost lightning speed, were mostly
+invented and applied. Very vivid is the contrast between
+the quiet, humdrum air of the old-fashioned bindery hand-work,
+and the ceaseless clang and roar of the machinery
+which turns out thousands of volumes in a day.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Not as ours the books of old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Things that steam can stamp and fold."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I believe that I failed to notice, among the varieties of
+material for book-bindings heretofore enumerated, some of
+the rarer and more singular styles. Thus, books have been
+bound in enamel, (richly variegated in color) in Persian
+silk, in seal-skin, in the skin of the rabbit, white-bear,
+crocodile, cat, dog, mole, tiger, otter, buffalo, wolf, and
+even rattle-snake. A favorite modern leather for purses
+and satchels, alligator-skin, has been also applied to the
+clothing of books. Many eccentric fancies have been exemplified
+in book-binding, but the acme of gruesome oddity
+has been reached by binding books in human skin, of
+which many examples are on record. It is perhaps three
+centuries old, but the first considerable instance of its use
+grew out of the horrors of the French Revolution. In
+England, the Bristol law library has several volumes bound
+in the skin of local criminals, flayed after execution, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_78" id="Pg_78"></a>[<a href="./images/78.png">78</a>]</span>
+specially tanned for the purpose. It is described as rather
+darker than vellum. A Russian poet is said to have bound
+his sonnets in human leather&mdash;his own skin&mdash;taken from
+a broken thigh&mdash;and the book he presented to the lady of
+his affections! Such ghoulish incidents as these afford
+curious though repulsive glimpses of the endless vagaries
+of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that the invention of half-binding originated
+among the economists of Germany; and some wealthy
+bibliophiles have stigmatized this style of dressing books
+as "genteel poverty." But its utility and economy have
+been demonstrated too long to admit of any doubt that
+half-binding has come to stay; while, as we have seen, it
+is also capable of attractive aesthetic features. Mr. William
+Matthews, perhaps the foremost of American binders,
+said that "a book when neatly forwarded, and cleanly
+covered, is in a very satisfactory condition without any
+finishing or decorating." It was this same binder who exhibited
+at the New York World's Fair Exhibition of 1853,
+a copy of Owen Jones's Alhambra, bound by him in full
+Russia, inlaid with blue and red morocco, with gold tooling
+all executed by hand, taking six months to complete,
+and costing the binder no less than five hundred dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Book lettering, or stamping the proper title on the back
+of the book, is a matter of the first importance. As the
+titles of most books are much too long to go on the back,
+a careful selection of the most distinctive words becomes
+necessary. Here the taste and judgment of the librarian
+come indispensably into play. To select the lettering of
+a book should never be left to the binder, because it is not
+his business, and because, in most cases, he will make a mistake
+somewhere in the matter. From want of care on this
+point, many libraries are filled with wrongly lettered books,
+misleading titles, and blunders as ludicrous as they are dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_79" id="Pg_79"></a>[<a href="./images/79.png">79</a>]</span>tressing.
+I have had to have thousands of volumes in the
+Library of Congress re-lettered. A copy of Lord Bacon's
+"Sylva Sylvarum", for example, was lettered "Verlum's
+Sylva"&mdash;because the sapient binder read on the title-page
+"By Baron Verulam", and it was not his business to find
+out that this was the title of honor which Bacon bore; so,
+by a compound blunder, he converted Verulam into Verlum,
+and gave the book to an unknown writer. This is
+perhaps an extreme case, but you will find many to match
+it. Another folio, Rochefort's History of the Caribby Islands,
+was lettered "Davies' Carriby Islands," because the
+title bore the statement "Rendered into English by John
+Davies." In another library, the great work of the naturalist,
+Buffon, was actually lettered "Buffoon's Natural
+History." Neither of these blunders was as bad as that
+of the owner of an elegant black-letter edition of a Latin
+classic, which was printed without title-page, like most
+fifteenth century books, and began at the top of the first
+leaf, in large letters&mdash;"HOC INCIPIT," signifying "This
+begins", followed by the title or subject of the book. The
+wiseacre who owned it had the book richly bound, and directed
+it to be lettered on the back&mdash;"Works of Hoc Incipit,
+Rome, 1490." This is a true story, and the hero of it
+might perhaps, on the strength of owning so many learned
+works, have passed for a philosopher, if he had not taken
+the pains to advertise himself as a blockhead.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the commonest blunders are stamping on the
+back the translator's or the editor's name, instead of that
+of the author of the book; putting on adjectives instead
+of substantives for titles; modernizing ancient and characteristic
+spelling, found in the title, (the exact orthography
+of which should always be followed); mixing up the number
+and the case of Latin titles, and those in other foreign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_80" id="Pg_80"></a>[<a href="./images/80.png">80</a>]</span>
+languages; leaving off entirely the name of the writer;
+and lettering periodicals by putting on the volume without
+the year, or the year, without the number of the volume.
+"No one but an idiot", said Mr. C. Walford to the London
+Librarians' Conference, "would send his books to the
+binder, without indicating the lettering he desires on the
+backs." The only safe-guard is for the librarian or owner
+to prescribe on a written slip in each volume, a title for
+every book, before it goes to the binder, who will be only
+too glad to have his own time saved&mdash;since time is money
+to him. I would not underrate the book-binders, who are
+a most worthy and intelligent class, numbering in their
+ranks men who are scholars as well as artists; but they are
+concerned chiefly with the mechanics and not with the
+metaphysics of their art, and moreover, they are not bound
+by that rigid rule which should govern the librarian&mdash;namely&mdash;to
+have no ignoramus about the premises.</p>
+
+<p>In writing letterings (for I take it that no one would
+be guilty of defacing his title-pages by marking them up
+with directions to the binder) you should definitely write
+out the parts of the title as they are to run on the back of
+the book, spaced line upon line, and not "run together."
+I think that the name of the author should always stand
+first at the head of the lettering, because it affords the
+quickest guide to the eye in finding any book, as well as
+in replacing it upon the shelves. Especially useful and
+time-saving is this, where classes of books are arranged in
+alphabetical sequence. Is not the name of the author
+commonly uppermost in the mind of the searcher? Then,
+let it be uppermost on the book sought also. Follow the
+name of the author by the briefest possible words selected
+from the title which will suffice to characterize the subject
+of the work. Thus, the title&mdash;"On the Origin of Species<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_81" id="Pg_81"></a>[<a href="./images/81.png">81</a>]</span>
+by means of Natural Selection", by Charles Darwin, should
+be abbreviated into</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter">Darwin<br />
+&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<br />
+Origin of Species.</p>
+
+<p>Here are no superfluous words, to consume the binder's
+time and gold-leaf, and to be charged in the bill; or to
+consume the time of the book-searcher, in stopping to
+read a lot of surplusage on the back of the book, before
+seizing it for immediate use. Books in several volumes
+should have the number of each volume plainly marked in
+Arabic (not Roman) numerals on the back. The old-fashioned
+method of expressing numerals by letters, instead
+of figures, is too cumbrous and time-consuming to be
+tolerated. You want to letter, we will say, vol. 88 of
+Blackwood's Magazine. If you follow the title-page of
+that book, as printed, you have to write</p>
+
+<p>"Volume LXXXVIII," eight letters, for the number of
+the volume, instead of two simple figures&mdash;thus&mdash;88.</p>
+
+<p>Now can any one give a valid reason for the awkward and
+tedious method of notation exhibited in the Roman numerals?
+If it were only the lost time of the person who writes
+it, or the binder's finisher who letters it, it would be comparatively
+insignificant. But think of the time wasted by
+the whole world of readers, who must go through a more or
+less troublesome process of notation before they get a clear
+notion of what all this superfluous stuff stands for instead
+of the quick intuition with which they take in the
+Arabic figures; and who must moreover, by the antiquated
+method, take valuable time to write out LXXXVIII,
+eight figures instead of two, to say nothing of the added
+liability to error, which increases in the exact ratio of the
+number of figures to be written. Which of these two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_82" id="Pg_82"></a>[<a href="./images/82.png">82</a>]</span>
+forms of expression is more quickly written, or stamped,
+or read? By which method of notation will the library
+messenger boys or girls soonest find the book? This leads
+me to say what cannot be too strongly insisted upon; all
+library methods should be time-saving methods, and so
+devised for the benefit alike of the librarian, the assistants,
+and the readers. Until one has learned the supreme value
+of moments, he will not be fit for a librarian. The same
+method by Arabic numerals only, should be used in all
+references to books; and it would be well if the legal
+fashion of citing authorities by volume and page, now
+adopted in most law books, were extended to all literature&mdash;thus:</p>
+
+<p>"3 Macaulay's England, 481. N. Y. 1854," instead of
+"Macaulay's England, N. Y. ed. 1854. vol. 3, page 481."
+It is a matter of congratulation to all librarians, as well as
+to the reading public, that Poole's Indexes to Periodical
+Literature have wisely adopted Arabic figures only, both
+for volume and page. The valuable time thus saved to all
+is quite incalculable.</p>
+
+<p>Every book which is leather-bound has its back divided
+off into panels or sections, by the band across the back or
+by the gold or plain fillet or roll forming part of the finish
+of the book. These panels are usually five or six in number,
+the former being the more common. Now it is the
+librarian's function to prescribe in which of these panels
+the lettering of the book&mdash;especially where there is double
+lettering&mdash;shall go. Thus</p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="6" summary="Lettering on backs of books">
+<tr><td style='border-right: 1px solid black;' align='center'>
+2nd<br />
+panel
+</td>
+<td style='border-right: 1px solid black;' align='center'>
+<span class="smcap">Cousin<br /></span>
+----<br />
+<span class="smcap">History<br />
+of<br />
+Modern<br />
+Philosophy.</span>
+</td>
+<td style='border-right: 1px solid black;' align='center'>
+4th<br />
+panel
+</td>
+<td style='border-right: 1px solid black;' align='center'>
+<span class="smcap">Wight</span>
+</td>
+<td style='border-right: 1px solid black;' align='center'>
+End
+</td>
+<td style='border-right: 1px solid black;' align='center'>
+<span class="smcap">New<br />
+York,<br />
+1852.</span>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Many books, especially dramatic works, and the collected
+works of authors require the contents of the various vol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_83" id="Pg_83"></a>[<a href="./images/83.png">83</a>]</span>umes
+to be briefed on the back. Here is a Shakespeare,
+for example, in 10 volumes, or a Swift in 19, or Carlyle in
+33, and you want to find <i>King Lear</i>, or <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>,
+or <i>Heroes and Hero Worship</i>. The other volumes concern
+you not&mdash;but you want the shortest road to these. If the
+name of each play is briefed by the first word upon the
+different volumes of your Shakespeare, or the contents of
+each volume upon the Swift and the Carlyle,&mdash;as they
+should be&mdash;you find instantly what you want, with one
+glance of the eye along the backs. If put to the trouble
+of opening every volume to find the contents, or of hunting
+it in the index, or the library catalogue, you lose precious
+time, while readers wait, thus making the needless
+delay cumulative, and as it must be often repeated, indefinite.</p>
+
+<p>Each volume should have its date and place of publication
+plainly lettered at the lower end, or what binders
+term the tail of the book. This often saves time, as you
+may not want an edition of old date, or <i>vice versa</i>, while the
+place and date enable readers' tickets to be filled out quickly
+without the book. The name of the library might well be
+lettered also on the back, being more obvious as a permanent
+means of identification than the book-plate or inside
+stamp.</p>
+
+<p>Books should never be used when fresh from the binder's
+hands. The covers are then always damp, and warp on
+exposure to air and heat. Unless pressed firmly in shelves,
+or in piles, for at least two weeks, they may become incurably
+warped out of shape. Many an otherwise handsomely
+bound book is ruined by neglect of this caution, for
+once thoroughly dried in its warped condition, there is no
+remedy save the costly one of rebinding.</p>
+
+<p>Books are frequently lettered so carelessly that the
+titles instead of aligning, or being in straight horizontal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_84" id="Pg_84"></a>[<a href="./images/84.png">84</a>]</span>
+lines, run obliquely upward or downward, thus defacing
+the volume. Errors in spelling words are also liable to
+occur. All crooked lettering and all mistakes in spelling
+should at once be rejected, and the faulty books returned
+to the binder, to be corrected at his own expense. This
+severe revision of all books when newly bound, before they
+are placed upon the shelves, should be done by the librarian's
+or owner's own eye&mdash;not entrusted to subordinates,
+unless to one thoroughly skilled.</p>
+
+<p>One should never receive back books from a binder without
+collating them, to see if all are perfect as to pages, and
+if all plates or maps are in place. If deficiencies are found,
+the binder, and not the library is responsible, provided the
+book was known to be perfect when sent for binding.</p>
+
+<p>In the Congressional Library I had the periodicals which
+are analyzed in Poole's Index of Periodical Literature
+thoroughly compared and re-lettered, wherever necessary,
+to make the series of volumes correspond with the references
+in that invaluable and labor-saving index. For instance,
+the Eclectic Review, as published in London, had
+eight distinct and successive series (thus confusing reference
+by making eight different volumes called 1, 2, 3, etc.)
+each with a different numbering, "First series, 2d series,"
+etc., which Poole's Index very properly consolidated into
+one, for convenient reference. By adding the figures as
+scheduled in that work&mdash;prefixed by the words <i>Poole's Index
+No.</i> &mdash;&mdash; or simply <i>Poole</i>, in small letters, followed by
+the figure of the volume as given in that index, you will
+find a saving of time in hunting and supplying references
+that is almost incalculable. If you cannot afford to have
+this re-numbering done by a binder in gilt letters, it will
+many times repay the cost and time of doing it on thin
+manila paper titles, written or printed by a numbering
+machine and pasted on the backs of the volumes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_85" id="Pg_85"></a>[<a href="./images/85.png">85</a>]</span>In all periodicals,&mdash;magazines and serials of every kind,&mdash;the
+covers and their advertisements should be bound in
+their proper place, with each month or number of the
+periodical, though it may interrupt the continuity of the
+paging. Thus will be preserved valuable contemporary
+records respecting prices, bibliographical information, etc.,
+which should never be destroyed, as it is illustrative
+of the life and history of the period. The covers of the
+magazines, too, frequently contain the table of contents of
+the number, which of course must be prefixed to it, in order
+to be of any use. If advertising pages are very numerous
+and bulky, (as in many popular periodicals of late
+years) they may well be bound at the end of the volume, or,
+if so many as to make the volume excessively thick, they
+might be bound in a supplementary volume. In all books,
+half-titles or bastard titles, as they are called, should be
+bound in, as they are a part of the book.</p>
+
+<p>With each lot of books to be bound, there should always
+be sent a sample volume of good work as a pattern, that
+the binder may have no excuse for hasty or inferior workmanship.</p>
+
+<p>The Grolier Club was founded in New York in 1884,
+having for its objects to promote the literary study and
+progress of the arts pertaining to the production of books.
+It has published more than twenty books in sumptuous
+style, and mostly in quarto form, the editions being limited
+to 150 copies at first, since increased to 300, under the
+rapidly enlarging membership of the Club. Most of these
+books relate to fine binding, fine printing, or fine illustration
+of books, or are intended to exemplify them, and by
+their means, by lectures, and exhibitions of fine book-work,
+this society has contributed much toward the diffusion of
+correct taste. More care has been bestowed upon fine
+binding in New York than in London itself. In fact, ele<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_86" id="Pg_86"></a>[<a href="./images/86.png">86</a>]</span>gant
+book-binding is coming to be recognized as one of the
+foremost of the decorative arts.</p>
+
+<p>The art of designing book-covers and patterns for gilding
+books has engaged the talents of many artists, among
+whom may be named Edwin A. Abbey, Howard Pyle, Stanford
+White, and Elihu Vedder. Nor have skilful designs
+been wanting among women, as witness Mrs. Whitman's
+elegant tea-leaf border for the cover of Dr. O. W. Holmes's
+"Over the Tea-cups," and Miss Alice Morse's arabesques
+and medallions for Lafcadio Hearn's "Two Years in the
+French West Indies." Miss May Morris designed many
+tasteful letters for the fine bindings executed by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson
+of London, and Kate Greenaway's many
+exquisite little books for little people have become widely
+known for their quaint and curious cover designs. A new
+field thus opens for skilled cultivators of the beautiful who
+have an eye for the art of drawing.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. William Matthews, the accomplished New York
+binder, in an address before the Grolier Club in 1895, said:
+"I have been astonished that so few women&mdash;in America,
+I know none&mdash;are encouragers of the art; they certainly
+could not bestow their taste on anything that would do
+them more credit, or as a study, give them more satisfaction."
+It is but fair to add that since this judgment was
+put forth, its implied reproach is no longer applicable: a
+number of American women have interested themselves in
+the study of binding as a fine art; and some few in practical
+work as binders of books.</p>
+
+<p>There is no question that readers take a greater interest
+in books that are neatly and attractively bound, than in
+volumes dressed in a mean garb. No book owner or librarian
+with any knowledge of the incurable defects of calf,
+sheep, or roan leather, if he has any regard for the usefulness
+or the economies of his library, will use them in bind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_87" id="Pg_87"></a>[<a href="./images/87.png">87</a>]</span>ing
+books that are to possess permanent value in personal
+or public use. True economy lies in employing the best
+description of binding in the first instance.</p>
+
+<p>When it is considered that the purposed object of book-binding
+is to preserve in a shape at once attractive and permanent,
+the best and noblest thoughts of man, it rises to a
+high rank among the arts. Side by side with printing, it
+strives after that perfection which shall ensure the perpetuity
+of human thought. Thus a book, clothed in morocco,
+is not a mere piece of mechanism, but a vehicle in
+which the intellectual life of writers no longer on earth is
+transmitted from age to age. And it is the art of book-binding
+which renders libraries possible. What the
+author, the printer, and the binder create, the library takes
+charge of and preserves. It is thus that the material and
+the practical link themselves indissolubly with the ideal.
+And the ideal of every true librarian should be so to care
+for the embodiments of intelligence entrusted to his guardianship,
+that they may become in the highest degree useful
+to mankind. In this sense, the care bestowed upon
+thorough and enduring binding can hardly be overrated,
+since the life of the book depends upon it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_88" id="Pg_88"></a>[<a href="./images/88.png">88</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_4" id="CHAPTER_4"></a>CHAPTER 4.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Preparation for the Shelves: Book Plates, etc.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>When any lot of books is acquired, whether by purchase
+from book-dealers or from auction, or by presentation, the
+first step to be taken, after seeing that they agree with the
+bill, and have been collated, in accordance with methods
+elsewhere given, should be to stamp and label each volume,
+as the property of the library. These two processes are
+quite distinct, and may be performed by one or two persons,
+according to convenience, or to the library force employed.
+The stamp may be the ordinary rubber one, inked
+by striking on a pad, and ink of any color may be used,
+although black or blue ink has the neatest appearance.
+The stamp should bear the name of the library, in clear,
+legible, plain type, with year of acquisition of the book in
+the centre, followed by the month and day if desired. A
+more permanent kind of stamp is the embossing stamp,
+which is a steel die, the letters cut in relief, but it is very
+expensive and slow, requiring the leaf to be inserted between
+the two parts of the stamp, though the impression,
+once made, is practically indelible.</p>
+
+<p>The size of the stamp (which is preferably oval in shape)
+should not exceed 1&frac14; to 1&frac12; inches in diameter, as a large,
+coarse stamp never presents a neat appearance on a book.
+Indeed, many books are too small to admit any but a stamp
+of very moderate dimensions. The books should be stamped
+on the verso (reverse) of the title page, or if preferred,
+on the widest unprinted portion of the title-page, preferably
+on the right hand of the centre, or just below the centre
+on the right. This, because its impression is far more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_89" id="Pg_89"></a>[<a href="./images/89.png">89</a>]</span>
+legible on the plain white surface than on any part of the
+printed title. In a circulating library, the stamps should
+be impressed on one or more pages in the body of the book,
+as well as on the last page, as a means of identification
+if the book is stolen or otherwise lost; as it is very easy to
+erase the impression of a rubber stamp from the title-page,
+and thereby commit a fraud by appropriating or selling the
+book. In such a case, the duplicate or triplicate impression
+of the stamp on some subsequent page (say page 5 or
+16, many books having but few pages) as fixed upon by the
+librarian, is quite likely to escape notice of the thief, while
+it remains a safe-guard, enabling the librarian to reclaim
+the book, wherever found. The law will enforce this right
+of free reclamation in favor of a public library, in the case
+of stolen books, no matter in what hands found, and even
+though the last holder may be an innocent purchaser. All
+libraries are victimized at some time by unscrupulous or
+dishonest readers, who will appropriate books, thinking
+themselves safe from detection, and sometimes easing their
+consciences, (if they have any) by the plea that the book is
+in a measure public property.</p>
+
+<p>In these cases, there is no absolute safe-guard, as it is
+easy to carry off a book under one's coat, and the librarian
+and his few aids are far too busy to act as detectives in
+watching readers. Still, a vigilant librarian will almost
+always find out, by some suspicious circumstance&mdash;such as
+the hiding of books away, or a certain furtive action observed
+in a reader&mdash;who are the persons that should be
+watched, and when it is advisable to call in the policeman.</p>
+
+<p>The British Museum Library, which has no circulation
+or book lending, enforces a rule that no one making his
+exit can have a book with him, unless checked as his own
+property, all overcoats and other wraps being of course
+checked at the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_90" id="Pg_90"></a>[<a href="./images/90.png">90</a>]</span>It is a melancholy fact, duly recorded in a Massachusetts
+paper, that no less than two hundred and fifty volumes,
+duly labeled and stamped as public library books, were
+stolen from a single library in a single year, and sold to
+second-hand booksellers.</p>
+
+<p>The impression of the stamp in the middle of a certain
+page, known to the librarian, renders it less liable to detection
+by others, while if stamped on the lower unprinted
+margin, it might be cut out by a designing person.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the stamping, comes the labeling of the books
+to be added to the library. This is a mechanical process,
+and yet one of much importance. Upon its being done
+neatly and properly, depends the good or bad appearance
+of the library books, as labels with rough or ragged edges,
+or put on askew, or trimmed irregularly at their margins,
+present an ugly and unfinished aspect, offensive to the eye
+of good taste, and reflecting discredit on the management.
+A librarian should take pride in seeing all details of his
+work carefully and neatly carried out. If he cannot have
+perfection, from want of time, he should always aim at it,
+at least, and then only will he come near to achieving it.</p>
+
+<p>The label, or book-plate (for they are one and the same
+thing) should be of convenient size to go into books both
+small and large; and a good size is approximately 2&frac14; inches
+wide by 1&frac12; inches high when trimmed. As comparatively
+few libraries care to go to the expense, which is about ten
+times that of printing, of an engraved label (although such
+work adds to the attractiveness of the books containing it)
+it should be printed in clear, not ornamental type, with
+the name of the library, that of the city or town in which
+it is located (unless forming a part of the title) and the
+abbreviation No. for number, with such other spaces for
+section marks or divisions, shelf-marks, etc., as the classification
+adopted may require. The whole should be en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_91" id="Pg_91"></a>[<a href="./images/91.png">91</a>]</span>closed
+in an ornamental border&mdash;not too ornate for good
+taste.</p>
+
+<p>The labels, nicely trimmed to uniform size by a cutting
+machine, (if that is not in the library equipment, any
+binder will do it for you) are next to be pasted or gummed,
+as preferred. This process is a nice one, requiring
+patience, care, and practice. Most libraries are full of
+books imperfectly labelled, pasted on in crooked fashion, or
+perhaps damaging the end-leaves by an over-use of paste,
+causing the leaves to adhere to the page labelled&mdash;which
+should always be the inside left hand cover of the book.
+This slovenly work is unworthy of a skilled librarian, who
+should not suffer torn waste leaves, nor daubs of over-running
+paste in any of his books. To prevent both these
+blunders in library economy, it is only needful to instruct
+any intelligent assistant thoroughly, by practical example
+how to do it&mdash;accompanied by a counter-example how not
+to do it. The way to do it is to have your paste as thin as
+that used by binders in pasting their fly-leaves, or their
+leather, or about the consistency of porridge or pea soup.
+Then lay the label or book-plate face downward on a board
+or table covered with blotting paper, dip your paste brush
+(a half inch bristle brush is the best) in the paste, stroke it
+(to remove too much adhering matter) on the inner side of
+your paste cup, then apply it across the whole surface of
+the label, with light, even strokes of the brush, until you
+see that it is all moistened with paste. Next, take up the
+label and lay it evenly in the middle of the left inner cover
+page of the book to be labelled, and with a small piece of
+paper (not with the naked fingers) laid over it, stroke it
+down firmly in its place, by rubbing over a few times the
+incumbent paper. This being properly done (and it is
+done by an expert, once learned, very rapidly) your book-plate
+will be firmly and smoothly pasted in, with no exud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_92" id="Pg_92"></a>[<a href="./images/92.png">92</a>]</span>ing
+of paste at the edges, to spoil the fly-leaves, and no
+curling up of edges because insufficiently pasted down.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the book-plate&mdash;for the inside of the volumes;
+now let us turn attention to the outside label. This
+is necessarily very much smaller than the book-plate: in
+fact, it should not be larger than three-quarters or seven-eighths
+of an inch in diameter, and even smaller for the
+thinner volumes, while in the case of the very smallest, or
+thinnest of books, it becomes necessary to paste the labels
+on the side, instead of on the back. This label is to contain
+the section and shelf-mark of the book, marked by
+plain figures, according to the plan of classification adopted.
+When well done, it is an inexpressible comfort to any
+librarian, because it shows at one glance of the eye, and
+without opening the book at all, just where in the wide
+range of the miscellaneous library it is to go. Thus the
+book service of every day is incalculably aided, and the
+books are both found when sought on the shelves, and replaced
+there, with no trouble of opening them.</p>
+
+<p>This outer-label system once established, in strict correspondence
+with the catalogue, the only part of the librarian's
+work remaining to be prescribed in this field, concerns
+the kind of label to be selected, and the method of
+affixing them to the books. The adhesive gummed labels
+furnished by the Library Bureau, or those manufactured
+by the Dennison Company of New York have the requisite
+qualities for practical use. They may be purchased in
+sheets, or cut apart, as convenient handling may dictate.
+Having first written in ink in plain figures, as large as the
+labels will bear, the proper locality marks, take a label
+moistener (a hollow tube filled with water, provided with a
+bit of sponge at the end and sold by stationers) and wet
+the label throughout its surface, then fix it on the back of
+the book, on the smooth part of the binding near the lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_93" id="Pg_93"></a>[<a href="./images/93.png">93</a>]</span>
+end, and with a piece of paper (not the fingers) press it
+down firmly to its place by repeated rubbings. If thoroughly
+done, the labels will not peel off nor curl up at the
+edges for a long time. Under much usage of the volumes,
+however, they must occasionally be renewed.</p>
+
+<p>When the books being prepared for the shelves have all
+been duly collated, labelled and stamped, processes which
+should precede cataloguing them, they are next ready for
+the cataloguer. His functions having been elsewhere described,
+it need only be said that the books when catalogued
+and handed over to the reviser, (or whoever is to
+scrutinize the titles and assign them their proper places in
+the library classification) are to have the shelf-marks of
+the card-titles written on the inside labels, as well as upon
+the outside.</p>
+
+<p>When this is done, the title-cards can be withdrawn and
+alphabeted in the catalogue drawers. Next, all the books
+thus catalogued, labelled, and supposed to be ready for the
+shelves, should be examined with reference to three points:</p>
+
+<p>1st. Whether any of the volumes need re-lettering.</p>
+
+<p>2nd. Whether any of them require re-binding.</p>
+
+<p>3rd. If any of the bindings are in need of repair.</p>
+
+<p>In any lot of books purchased or presented, are almost
+always to be found some that are wrongly or imperfectly
+lettered on the back. Before these are ready for the
+shelves, they should be carefully gone through with, and
+all errors or shortcomings corrected. It is needful to send
+to the binder</p>
+
+<p>1st. All books which lack the name of the author on the
+back. This should be stamped by the binder at the head,
+if there is room&mdash;if not, in the middle panel on the back
+of the book.</p>
+
+<p>2nd. All books lettered with mis-spelled words.</p>
+
+<p>3rd. All volumes in sets, embracing several distinct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_94" id="Pg_94"></a>[<a href="./images/94.png">94</a>]</span>
+works&mdash;to have the name of each book in the contents
+plainly stamped on the outside.</p>
+
+<p>4th. All books wholly without titles on the back, of
+which many are published&mdash;the title being frequently
+given on the side only, or in the interior alone.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 furbishing 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.</p>
+
+<p>All books coming into a library which contain autographs,
+book-plates of former owners, coats of arms, presentation
+inscriptions from the author, monograms, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_95" id="Pg_95"></a>[<a href="./images/95.png">95</a>]</span>
+other distinguishing features, should preserve them as of
+interest to the present or the future.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Whoever receives back any books which have been out in
+circulation, whether it be the librarian or assistant, 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 accumulated.</p>
+
+<p>If you find other injury to a book returned, than the
+natural wear and tear that the library must assume, 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_96" id="Pg_96"></a>[<a href="./images/96.png">96</a>]</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Some libraries of circulation make it a rule to cover all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_97" id="Pg_97"></a>[<a href="./images/97.png">97</a>]</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 title,
+suggesting to the uninitiated the illustrations or plates
+which embellish the text of a book. The name <i>Ex libris</i>,
+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 ownership,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 fashion of collecting these owners'
+marks, as such, irrespective of the books containing
+them, is a recent and very possibly a passing mania. Still,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_98" id="Pg_98"></a>[<a href="./images/98.png">98</a>]</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>A book of George Washington'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
+"<i>exitus acta probat</i>"&mdash;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 Washington in 1863, this
+counterfeit plate had been placed in many books to give a
+fictitious 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 Washington, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 "<i>inter folia fructus</i>."
+Eleven of the signers of the Declaration of Independence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_99" id="Pg_99"></a>[<a href="./images/99.png">99</a>]</span>
+are known to have had these signs of gentle birth&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 workmanship and elaboration
+of ornament to the best European ones.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;as
+a reminder that the works containing the rubricated
+book-plates were not to be drawn out by students.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"Antonius Magliabecchius Florentinus."</p>
+
+<p>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 "<i>Eis phaos</i>," toward the light.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_100" id="Pg_100"></a>[<a href="./images/100.png">100</a>]</span>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 illustrate the
+character and taste of those selecting them.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_101" id="Pg_101"></a>[<a href="./images/101.png">101</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_5" id="CHAPTER_5"></a>CHAPTER 5.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Enemies of Books.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>We have seen in former chapters how the books of a
+library are acquired, how they are prepared for the shelves,
+or for use, and how they are or should be bound. Let us
+now consider the important questions which involve the
+care, the protection, and the preservation of the books.</p>
+
+<p>Every librarian or book owner should be something more
+than a custodian of the books in his collection. He should
+also exercise perpetual vigilance with regard to their safety
+and condition. The books of every library are beset by
+dangers and by enemies. Some of these are open and palpable;
+others are secret, illusive, little suspected, and liable
+to come unlooked for and without warning. Some of
+these enemies are impersonal and immaterial, but none the
+less deadly; others are personally human in form, but most
+inhuman in their careless and brutal treatment of books.
+How far and how fatally the books of many libraries have
+been injured by these ever active and persistent enemies
+can never be adequately told. But we may point out what
+the several dangers are which beset them, and how far the
+watchful care of the librarian and his assistants may fore-stall
+or prevent them.</p>
+
+<p>One of the foremost of the inanimate enemies of books is
+dust. In some libraries the atmosphere is dust-laden, to a
+degree which seems incredible until you witness its results
+in the deposits upon books, which soil your fingers, and
+contaminate the air you breathe, as you brush or blow it
+away. Peculiarly liable to dust are library rooms located
+in populous towns, or in business streets, and built close to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_102" id="Pg_102"></a>[<a href="./images/102.png">102</a>]</span>
+the avenues of traffic. Here, the dust is driven in at the
+windows and doors by every breeze that blows. It is an
+omnipresent evil, that cannot be escaped or very largely
+remedied. As preventive measures, care should be taken
+not to build libraries too near the street, but to have ample
+front and side yards to isolate the books as far as may be
+consistent with convenient access. Where the library is
+already located immediately on the street, a subscription
+for sprinkling the thoroughfare with water, the year
+round, would be true economy.</p>
+
+<p>In some cities, the evils of street dust are supplemented
+by the mischiefs of coal smoke, to an aggravated degree.
+Wherever soft coal is burned as the principal fuel, a black,
+fuliginous substance goes floating through the air, and
+soils every thing it touches. It penetrates into houses and
+public buildings, often intensified by their own interior use
+of the same generator of dirt, and covers the books of the
+library with its foul deposits. You may see, in the public
+libraries of some western cities, how this perpetual curse
+of coal smoke has penetrated the leaves of all the books,
+resisting all efforts to keep it out, and slowly but surely deteriorating
+both paper and bindings. Here, preventive
+measures are impossible, unless some device for consuming
+the coal smoke of chimneys and factories were made compulsory,
+or the evil somewhat mitigated by using a less
+dangerous fuel within the library.</p>
+
+<p>But, aside from these afflictions of dust, in its most aggravated
+form, every library and every room in any building
+is subject to its persistent visitations. Wherever carpets
+or rugs cover the floors, there dust has an assured
+abiding-place, and it is diffused throughout the apartment
+in impalpable clouds, at every sweeping of the floors.
+Hence it would be wise to adopt in public libraries a floor-covering
+like linoleum, or some substance other than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_103" id="Pg_103"></a>[<a href="./images/103.png">103</a>]</span>
+woolen, which would be measurably free from dust, while
+soft enough to deaden the sound of feet upon the floors.
+Even with this preventive precaution, there will always be
+dust enough, and too much for comfort, or for the health
+of the books. Only a thorough dusting, carried on if possible
+daily, can prevent an accumulation of dust, at once
+deleterious to the durability of the books, and to the comfort
+both of librarians and readers. Dust is an insidious
+foe, stealing on its march silently and unobserved, yet,
+however impalpable in the atmosphere of a library, it will
+settle upon the tops of every shelf of books, it will penetrate
+their inner leaves, it will lodge upon the bindings,
+soiling books and readers, and constituting a perpetual
+annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>It is not enough to dust the tops of the books periodically;
+a more full and radical remedy is required, to render
+library books presentable. At no long intervals, there
+should be a thorough library cleaning, as drastic and complete
+as the house-cleaning which neat housewives institute
+twice a year, with such wholesome results. The books are
+to be taken down from the shelves, and subjected to a shaking-up
+process, which will remove more of the dust they
+have absorbed than any brush can reach. To do this effectually,
+take them, if of moderate thickness, by the half-dozen
+at a time from the shelf, hold them loosely on a
+table, their fronts downward, backs uppermost, then with
+a hand at either side of the little pile, strike them smartly
+together a few times, until the dust, which will fly from
+them in a very palpable cloud, ceases to fall. Then lay
+them on their ends, with the tops uppermost on the table,
+and repeat the concussion in that posture, when you will
+eliminate a fresh crop of dust, though not so thick as the
+first. After this, let each volume of the lot be brushed
+over at the sides and back with a soft (never stiff) brush,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_104" id="Pg_104"></a>[<a href="./images/104.png">104</a>]</span>
+or else with a piece of cotton or woolen cloth, and so restored
+clean to the shelves. While this thorough method
+of cleansing will take time and pains, it will pay in the long
+run. It will not eliminate all the dust (which in a large
+collection is a physical impossibility) but it will reduce it
+to a minimum. Faithfully carried out, as a periodical supplement
+to a daily dusting of the books as they stand on
+the shelves, it will immensely relieve the librarian or book-owner,
+who can then, (and then only) feel that he has done
+his whole duty by his books.</p>
+
+<p>Another dangerous enemy of the library book is damp,
+already briefly referred to. Books kept in any basement
+room, or near any wall, absorb moisture with avidity; both
+paper and bindings becoming mildewed, and often covered
+with blue mould. If long left in this perilous condition,
+sure destruction follows; the glue or paste which fastens
+the cover softens, the leather loses its tenacity, and the
+leaves slowly rot, until the worthless volumes smell to
+heaven. Books thus injured may be partially recovered,
+before the advanced stage of decomposition, by removal to
+a dry atmosphere, and by taking the volumes apart, drying
+the sheets, and rebinding&mdash;a very expensive, but necessary
+remedy, provided the books are deemed worth preserving.</p>
+
+<p>But a true remedy is the preventive one. No library
+should ever be kept, even in part, in a basement story, nor
+should any books ever be located near the wall of a building.
+All walls absorb, retain, and give out moisture, and
+are dangerous and oft-times fatal neighbors to books. Let
+the shelves be located at right angles to every wall&mdash;with
+the end nearest to it at least twelve to eighteen inches removed,
+and the danger will be obviated.</p>
+
+<p>A third enemy of the book is heat. Most libraries are
+unfortunately over-heated,&mdash;sometimes from defective
+means of controlling the temperature, and sometimes from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_105" id="Pg_105"></a>[<a href="./images/105.png">105</a>]</span>
+carelessness or want of thought in the attendant. A high
+temperature is very destructive to books. It warps their
+covers, so that volumes unprotected by their fellows, or by
+a book support, tend to curl up, and stay warped until they
+become a nuisance. It also injures the paper of the volumes
+by over-heating, and weakening the tenacity of the
+leaves held together by the glue on the back, besides drying
+to an extreme the leather, till it cracks or crumbles
+under the heat. The upper shelves or galleries of any library
+are most seriously affected by over-heating, because
+the natural law causes the heat to rise toward the ceiling.
+If you put your hand on some books occupying the highest
+places in some library rooms, in mid-winter, when the fires
+are kept at their maximum, the heat of the volume will almost
+burn your fingers. If these books were sentient beings,
+and could speak, would they not say&mdash;"our sufferings
+are intolerable?"</p>
+
+<p>The remedy is of course a preventive one; never to suffer
+the library to become over-heated, and to have proper
+ventilation on every floor, communicating with the air outside.
+Seventy degrees Fahrenheit is a safe and proper
+maximum temperature for books and librarian.</p>
+
+<p>The mischief arising from gas exhalations is another
+serious source of danger to books. In many well-lighted
+libraries, the heat itself from the numerous gas-burners is
+sufficient to injure them, and there is besides a sulphuric
+acid escaping from the coal-gas fluid, in combustion, which
+is most deleterious to bindings. The only remedy appears
+to be, where libraries are open evenings, to furnish them
+with electric lights. This improved mode of illumination
+is now so perfected, and so widely diffused, that it may be
+reckoned a positive boon to public libraries, in saving their
+books from one of their worst and most destructive enemies.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_106" id="Pg_106"></a>[<a href="./images/106.png">106</a>]</span>Another of the potent enemies of books is fire. I refer,
+not to over-heating the rooms they occupy, but to the risk
+they continually run, in most libraries, of total destruction.
+The chronicle of burned libraries would make a long and
+melancholy record, on which there is no space here to enter.
+Irreparable losses of manuscripts and early printed
+books, and precious volumes printed in small editions, have
+arisen from men's neglect of building our book-repositories
+fire-proof. In all libraries not provided with iron or steel
+shelves, there is perpetual danger. Books do not burn
+easily, unless surrounded with combustibles, but these are
+furnished in nearly all libraries, by surrounding the books
+on three sides with wooden shelves, which need only to be
+ignited at any point to put the whole collection in a blaze.
+Then follows the usual abortive endeavor to save the library
+by the aid of fire engines, which flood the building,
+until the water spoils nearly all which the fire does not
+consume. The incalculable losses which the cause of learning
+has sustained from the burning of public, university
+and ecclesiastical libraries are far greater than the cost
+which the provision of fire-proof repositories would have
+entailed.</p>
+
+<p>Of late years, there has been a partial reform in library
+construction. Some have been built fire-proof throughout,
+with only stone, brick, concrete and iron material,
+even to the floors and window casings. Many more have
+had iron shelves and iron stacks to hold the shelves constructed,
+and there are now several competing manufacturers
+of these invaluable safeguards to books. The first
+library interior constructed wholly of iron was that of the
+Library of Congress at Washington, which had been twice
+consumed, first when the Capitol was burned by the British
+army in 1814, and again in 1851, through a defective flue,
+when only 20,000 volumes were saved from the flames, out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_107" id="Pg_107"></a>[<a href="./images/107.png">107</a>]</span>
+of a total of 55,000. The example of iron construction
+has been slowly followed, until now the large cities have
+most of their newly-constructed libraries approximately
+fire-proof, although many are exposed to fire in parts,
+owing to a niggardly and false economy. The lesson that
+what is worth doing at all is worth doing well, and that
+every neglect of security brings sooner or later irreparable
+loss, is very slowly learned. Whole hecatombs of books
+have been sacrificed to the spirit of commercial greed,
+blind or short-sighted enough not to see that secure protection
+to public property, though costlier at first, is far
+cheaper in the end. You may speak of insurance against
+library losses by fire, but what insurance could restore the
+rare and costly Shakespearean treasures of the Birmingham
+Free Library, or the unique and priceless manuscripts
+that went up in flames in the city library of Strasburg, in
+1870, or the many precious and irreplaceable manuscript
+archives of so many of our States, burned in the conflagration
+of their capitols?</p>
+
+<p>One would think that the civilized world had had lessons
+enough, ever since that seventh century burning of the
+Alexandrian library by the Caliph Omar, with that famous
+but apocryphal rhetorical dilemma, put in his mouth perhaps
+by some nimble-witted reporter:&mdash;"If these books
+agree with the Koran, they are useless, and should be
+burned: if not, they are pernicious, and must not be
+spared." But the heedless world goes carelessly on, deaf
+to the voice of reason, and the lessons of history, amid the
+holocausts of literature and the wreck of blazing libraries,
+uttering loud newspaper wails at each new instance of destruction,
+forgotten in a week, then cheerfully renewing
+the business of building libraries that invite the flames.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing here said should be interpreted as advice not to
+insure any library, in all cases where it is not provided with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_108" id="Pg_108"></a>[<a href="./images/108.png">108</a>]</span>
+iron cases for the books, or a fire-proof building. On the
+contrary, the menaced destruction of books or manuscripts
+that cannot be replaced should lead to securing means in
+advance for replacing all the rest in case of loss by fire.
+And the experience of the past points the wisdom of locating
+every library in an isolated building, where risks of
+fire from other buildings are reduced to a minimum, instead
+of in a block whose buildings (as in most commercial
+structures) are lined with wood.</p>
+
+<p>You will perhaps attach but small importance at first
+thought, to the next insidious foe to library books that I
+shall name&mdash;that is, wetting by rain. Yet most buildings
+leak at the roof, sometime, and some old buildings are subject
+to leaks all the time. Even under the roof of the Capitol
+at Washington, at every melting of a heavy snow-fall,
+and on occasion of violent and protracted rains, there have
+been leaks pouring down water into the libraries located
+in the old part of the building. Each of these saturated
+and injured its quota of books, some of which could only
+be restored to available use by re-binding, and even then
+the leaves were left water-stained in part. See to it that
+your library roof is water-tight, or the contents of your
+library will be constantly exposed to damage against which
+there is no insurance.</p>
+
+<p>Another besetting danger to the books of our libraries
+arises from insects and vermin. These animated foes appear
+chiefly in the form of book-worms, cockroaches, and
+mice. The first-named is rare in American libraries,
+though its ravages have extended far and wide among the
+old European ones. This minute little insect, whose scientific
+name is the <i>anobium paniceum</i>, bores through the
+leaves of old volumes, making sometimes holes which deface
+and mutilate the text. All our public libraries,
+doubtless, have on their shelves old folios in vellum or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_109" id="Pg_109"></a>[<a href="./images/109.png">109</a>]</span>
+leather bindings, which present upon opening the disagreeable
+vision of leaves eaten through (usually before they
+crossed the sea) by these pernicious little borers. It is
+comforting to add, that I have never known of any book-worm
+in the Congressional Library&mdash;except the human variety,
+which is frequently in evidence. Georgetown College
+library once sent me a specimen of the insect, which
+was found alive in one of its volumes, but the united testimony
+of librarians is that this pest is rare in the United
+States. As to remedies, the preventive one of sprinkling
+the shelves twice a year with a mixture of powdered camphor
+and snuff, or the vapor of benzine or carbolic acid, or
+other repellant chemicals, is resorted to abroad, but I have
+not heard of any similar practice in this country. I may
+remark in passing, that the term "book-worm" is a misnomer,
+since it is not a worm at all, but an insect. A more
+serious insect menace is the cockroach, a hungry, unclean
+little beast, which frequents a good many libraries, and devours
+bindings (especially fresh ones) to get at the paste
+or savory parts of the binding. The remedy for this evil,
+when once found to exist, is to scatter the most effective
+roach poison that can be found, which may arrest further
+ravages.</p>
+
+<p>Another insect pest is the Croton bug, (<i>Blatta Germanica</i>)
+which eats into cloth bindings to get at the sizing or
+albumen. The late eminent entomologist, Dr. C. V. Riley,
+pronounced them the worst pest known in libraries, but
+observed that they do not attack books bound in leather,
+and confine their ravages to the outside of cloth-bound
+books, never troubling the leaves. The remedy prescribed
+is a powder in which pyrethrum is the chief ingredient,
+sprinkled about the shelves.</p>
+
+<p>Among the rodents, mice are apt to be busy and mischievous
+infesters of libraries. They are extremely fond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_110" id="Pg_110"></a>[<a href="./images/110.png">110</a>]</span>
+of paste, and being in a chronic state of hunger, they watch
+opportunities of getting at any library receptacle of it.
+They will gnaw any fresh binding, whether of cloth, board,
+or leather, to get at the coveted food. They will also gnaw
+some books, and even pamphlets, without any apparent
+temptation of a succulent nature. A good library cat or
+a series of mouse traps, skilfully baited, may rid you of this
+evil.</p>
+
+<p>The injury that comes to library books from insufficient
+care in protecting them on the shelves is great and incalculable.
+There are to be seen in every library, volumes all
+twisted out of shape by the sagging or leaning, to which
+the end-book is subjected, and which is often shared by all
+its neighbors on the shelf. The inevitable result is that
+the book is not only spoiled in its good looks, but (which is
+vastly more important) it is injured in its binding, which
+is strained and weakened just in proportion to the length
+of time in which it is subjected to such risks. The plain
+remedy is to take care that every volume is supported upright
+upon the shelf, in some way. When the shelf is full,
+the books will support one another. But when volumes
+are withdrawn, or when a shelf is only partly filled with
+books, the unsupported volumes tumble by force of gravitation,
+and those next them sag and lean, or fall like a row
+of bricks, pushing one another over. No shelf of books
+can safely be left in this condition. Some one of the numerous
+book-supports that have been contrived should be
+always ready, to hold up the volumes which are liable to
+lean and fall.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to the active human enemies of books, and
+these are unhappily found among some of the readers who
+frequent our libraries. These abuses are manifold and
+far-reaching. Most of them are committed through ignorance,
+and can be corrected by the courteous but firm in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_111" id="Pg_111"></a>[<a href="./images/111.png">111</a>]</span>terposition
+of the librarian, instructing the delinquent
+how to treat a book in hand. Others are wilful and unpardonable
+offences against property rights and public
+morals, even if not made penal offences by law. One of
+these is book mutilation, very widely practiced, but rarely
+detected until the mischief is done, and the culprit gone.
+I have found whole pages torn out of translations, in the
+volumes of Bohn's Classical Library, doubtless by students
+wanting the translated text as a "crib" in their study of
+the original tongue. Some readers will watch their opportunity,
+and mutilate a book by cutting out plates or a
+map, to please their fancy, or perhaps to make up a defective
+copy of the same work. Those consulting bound files
+of newspapers will ruthlessly despoil them by cutting out
+articles or correspondence, or advertisements, and carrying
+off the stolen extracts, to save themselves the trouble of
+copying. Others, bolder still, if not more unscrupulous,
+will deliberately carry off a library book under a coat, or
+in a pocket, perhaps signing a false name to a reader's
+ticket to hide the theft, or escape detection. Against
+these scandalous practices, there is no absolute safeguard
+in any library. Even where a police watch is kept, thefts
+are perpetrated, and in most libraries where no watchman
+is employed, the librarian and his assistants are commonly
+far too busy to exercise close scrutiny of all readers. As
+one safeguard, no rare or specially costly book should be
+entrusted to a reader except under the immediate eye of
+the librarian or assistant. Ordinary books can be replaced
+if carried off, and by watching the rarities, risk of theft
+can be reduced to a minimum.</p>
+
+<p>When newspapers are given out to readers, it should always
+be in a part of the library where those using them are
+conscious of a surveillance exercised over their movements.
+The penalty of neglecting this may at any time be the mu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_112" id="Pg_112"></a>[<a href="./images/112.png">112</a>]</span>tilation
+of an important file, and it must be remembered
+that such damage, once done, cannot be repaired. You
+can replace a mutilated book usually by buying a new one,
+but a newspaper can almost never be replaced. Even in
+the city of Boston, the librarian of the Athenaeum library
+records the disgraceful fact, that "the temptation to avoid
+the trouble of copying, by cutting out articles from newspapers
+is too strong for the honesty of a considerable part
+of the public." And it was recorded by the custodian of
+a public library in Albany that all the plates were missing
+from certain books, that the poetry and best illustrations
+were cut from magazines before they had lain on the tables
+a week, and strange to say, that many of these depredations
+were committed by women.</p>
+
+<p>It is a difficult problem how to prevent such outrages to
+decency, and such irreparable depredations on the books in
+our libraries as destroy, in great part, their value. A
+posted notice, reminding readers that mutilation of books
+or periodicals is a penal offence, will warn off many, if not
+all, from such acts of vandalism. If there is no law punishing
+the offence, agitate until you get one. Expose
+through the press such thefts and mutilations as are discovered.
+Interest readers whom you know, to be watchful
+of those you do not know, and to quietly report any observed
+violation of rules. When a culprit is detected, push
+the case to prompt legal hearing, and let the penalty of
+the law be enforced. Let it be known that the public
+property in books is too sacred a right to be violated with
+impunity. Inculcate by every means and on every opportunity
+the sentiment that readers who freely benefit by the
+books supplied should themselves feel personal concern in
+their cleanliness and preservation, and that the interest of
+the library is really the interest of all.</p>
+
+<p>A daily abuse practiced by many readers in libraries,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_113" id="Pg_113"></a>[<a href="./images/113.png">113</a>]</span>
+though without wrongful intent, is the piling of one book
+on top of another while open. This is inexcusable ill-treatment,
+for it subjects the open book thus burdened, to
+injury, besides probably soiling its pages with dust. Especially
+harmful is such careless treatment of large volumes
+of newspapers or illustrated works.</p>
+
+<p>Careless use of ink is the cause of much injury to library
+books. As a rule (to which the very fewest exceptions
+should be made) pencils only should be allowed to readers,
+who must forego the use of ink, with the inevitable risk of
+dropping it upon the book to its irreparable injury. The
+use of ink in fountain pens is less objectionable. Tracing
+of maps or plates should not be allowed, unless with a soft
+pencil. Under no circumstances should tracing with a
+pen or other hard instrument be permitted to any reader.
+Failure to enforce this rule may result in ruin of valuable
+engravings or maps.</p>
+
+<p>There is one class of books which demand special and
+watchful care at the hands of the librarian. These are the
+fine illustrated works, mostly in large folio, which include
+the engravings of the art galleries of Europe, and many
+other specially rare or costly publications. These should
+be carefully shelved in cases where they can lie on their
+sides, not placed upright, as in some collections, to lean
+over, and, sooner or later to break their backs, and necessitate
+rebinding. When supplied to readers, there should
+not be more than one volume at a time given out, to avoid
+the risk, always threatening, of careless handling or of
+opening one volume on top of another that is open. There
+should also be a printed notice or label affixed to the side
+cover of every illustrated work reading, "Never touch an
+engraving," or an equivalent warning. This will go far,
+by its plain reminder, to prevent soiling the pages by the
+fingers, a practice which rapidly deteriorates fine books,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_114" id="Pg_114"></a>[<a href="./images/114.png">114</a>]</span>
+and if long continued, renders them unfit to be exhibited
+to clean-handed readers.</p>
+
+<p>All plates should be stamped at some portion of their
+surface (it is often done on the back) with the embossing
+stamp of the library, as a means of identification if abstracted
+from the volume to which they belong.</p>
+
+<p>Such books should, moreover, be consulted on a large
+table, or better an adjustable stand (to avoid frequent lifting
+or shifting of the position of the volume when inspecting
+the plates) and always under the eye of the librarian
+or an assistant not far removed. These precautions will
+insure far more careful treatment, and will result in handing
+down to a new generation of readers many a rare and
+precious volume, which would otherwise be destroyed or
+irretrievably injured in a very few years. The library
+treasures which cost so much to bring together should
+never be permitted to suffer from want of care to preserve
+them.</p>
+
+<p>All writing upon the margins of books should be prohibited&mdash;other
+than simple pencil corrections of the text, as
+to an erroneous date, name, etc., which corrections of errors
+should not only be permitted, but welcomed, upon due
+verification. The marking of passages for copying or citation
+should be tolerated only upon the rigid condition that
+every user of the book rubs out his own pencil marks before
+returning it. I have seen lawyers and others thoughtless
+enough of right and wrong to mark long passages in
+pen and ink in books belonging to public libraries. This
+is a practice to be sternly repressed, even at the cost of denying
+further library privileges to the offender.</p>
+
+<p>Turning down leaves in a book to keep the place is one of
+the easily besetting sins of too many readers. Those who
+thus dogs-ear a volume should be taught that the vile practice
+weakens and wears out the leaves thus folded down,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_115" id="Pg_115"></a>[<a href="./images/115.png">115</a>]</span>
+and makes the book a more easy prey to dust and disintegration.
+However busy I may be, I instinctively turn
+back every turned-down leaf I notice in any book, before
+using it, or handing it to another. A good safe-guard
+would be to provide a supply of little narrow strips of
+paper, in the ticket boxes at the library tables to serve as
+the book-markers so frequently needed by readers. For
+this purpose, no thick or smooth calendered paper should
+be used, which falls out of any loosely bound book too readily&mdash;but
+a thin soft paper un-sized, which will be apt to retain
+its place. I have lost valuable time (which I shall
+never see again) in trying to find the pages marked for me
+by a searcher who had thoughtlessly inserted bits of card-board
+as markers&mdash;which kept falling out by their own
+weight. The book-marks should be at least two inches
+long, and not more than half an inch wide; and rough
+edges are better than smooth ones, for they will adhere
+better to the head of the volume where placed. Better
+still it is, to provide paper book-marks forked at the lower
+end by slitting, then doubled so that the mark will go on
+both sides of the leaf at once. This is the only sure safe-guard
+against these bits of paper falling out, and thus losing
+the place. Never put cards, or letters, or documents,
+or any solid substance into a book. It weakens the binding,
+and if continued, often breaks the back. The fact
+that most of the injuries to which books are exposed are
+unintentional injuries does not alter the fact that they are
+none the less injuries to be guarded against. Wilful perpetration
+of the many abuses referred to may be rare, but
+the unconscious perpetrators should be instructed how to
+use books by a vigilant librarian. And they who have thus
+been taught to be careful of the books in a public library
+will learn to be more careful of their own, which is a great
+step in the education of any one.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_116" id="Pg_116"></a>[<a href="./images/116.png">116</a>]</span>It ought not to be needful to charge any one never to
+wet the finger to turn over the leaves of a book&mdash;a childish
+habit, akin to running out the tongue when writing, or
+moving the lips when reading to one's self. The only
+proper way to turn the leaf is at the upper right-hand corner,
+and the index-finger of the right hand will always be
+found competent to that duty.</p>
+
+<p>Still less should it be needful to insist upon the importance
+to every reader of books, of coming to their perusal
+clean-handed. When you reflect that nine-tenths of the
+soiling and spoiling which books undergo comes from the
+dirty hands of many readers, this becomes a vital point.
+Fouquet, a learned book collector of France, used to keep
+a pile of white gloves in the ante-room of his library, and
+no visitor was allowed to cross the threshold, or to handle
+a book without putting on a pair, lest he should soil the
+precious volumes with naked hands. Such a refinement
+of care to keep books immaculate is not to be expected in
+this age of the world; and yet, a librarian who respects his
+calling is often tempted to wish that there were some
+means of compelling people to be more careful about books
+than they are.</p>
+
+<p>It ought not ever to be true that an enemy to the welfare
+of library books is found in the librarian himself, or in
+any of his assistants, yet there have been those employed in
+the care of books who have abused their positions and the
+volumes entrusted to their charge, not only by neglect of
+care, (which is a negative injury) but by positive and continual
+ill treatment. This may arise from ignorance of
+better methods, but ignorance is a poor excuse for one
+credited with the intelligence of a librarian. In some libraries,
+books are treated with positive indignity, and are
+permanently injured by tightly wedging them together.
+Never crowd books by main force into shelves too short or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_117" id="Pg_117"></a>[<a href="./images/117.png">117</a>]</span>
+too small for them. It strains the backs, and seriously injures
+the bindings. Every book should slip easily past its
+fellows on the shelf. If a volume is too tall to go in its
+place, it should be relegated to lower shelves for larger
+books, never letting its head be crowded against the shelf
+above it.</p>
+
+<p>One should never pull books out from the shelf by their
+head-bands, or by pulling at the binding, but place the
+finger firmly on the top of the book, next to the binding,
+and press down while drawing out the volume. From failure
+to observe this simple precaution, you will find in all
+libraries multitudes of torn or broken bindings at the top&mdash;a
+wholly needless defacement and waste.</p>
+
+<p>Never permit a book to be turned down on its face to
+keep the place. This easily besetting habit weakens the
+book, and frequently soils its leaves by contact with a dusty
+table. For the same reason, one volume should not be
+placed within the leaves of another to keep the place where
+a book-mark of paper, so easily supplied, should always be
+used. Books should not be turned down on the fore-edges
+or fronts on the library tables, as practiced in most book-stores,
+in order to better display the stock. The same
+habit prevails in many libraries, from careless inattention.
+When necessary, in order to better read the titles, they
+should never be left long in such position. This treatment
+weakens the back infallibly, and if long continued breaks
+it. Librarians, of all persons in the world, should learn,
+and should lead others to learn, never to treat a book with
+indignity, and how truly the life of a book depends upon
+proper treatment, as well as that of an animated being.</p>
+
+<p>These things, and others of my suggestions, may seem
+trifles to some; but to those who consider how much success
+in life depends upon attention to what are called
+trifles&mdash;nay, how much both human taste and human hap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_118" id="Pg_118"></a>[<a href="./images/118.png">118</a>]</span>piness
+are promoted by care regarding trifles, they will not
+appear unimportant. The existence of schools to teach
+library science, and of manuals devoted to similar laudable
+aims, is an auspicious omen of the new reign of refined
+taste in those nobler arts of life which connect themselves
+with literature, and are to be hailed as authentic evidences
+of the onward progress of civilization.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_119" id="Pg_119"></a>[<a href="./images/119.png">119</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_6" id="CHAPTER_6"></a>CHAPTER 6.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Restoration and Reclamation of Books.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>We are now to consider carefully the restoration and
+the reclamation of the books of a library, whether public
+or private.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can be more important than the means of restoring
+or reclaiming library books that are lost or injured,
+since every such restoration will save the funds of
+the library or collector from replacing them with fresh or
+newly bought copies, and will enable it to furnish its stores
+with as many new books as the money thus saved represents.
+The cardinal thing to be kept always in view is a
+wise economy of means. An every-day prudence is the
+price of successful administration. A management which
+permits any of the enemies of books to destroy or damage
+them, thereby wasting the substance of the library without
+repair, is a fatally defective management, which should be
+changed as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>This consideration assumes added importance when it
+is remembered that the means of nearly all our libraries
+are very limited and inadequate to the drafts upon them,
+year by year. A great many libraries are compelled to let
+their books needing rebinding accumulate, from the mere
+want of money to pay for reclothing the nearly worn-out
+volumes, thus depriving the readers for a considerable time,
+of the use of many coveted books. And even with those
+which have large means, I have never yet heard of a library
+that had enough, either to satisfy the eager desire of
+the librarian to fill up deficiencies, or to meet fully the
+manifold wants of readers. So much the more important,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_120" id="Pg_120"></a>[<a href="./images/120.png">120</a>]</span>
+then, is it to husband every dollar that can be saved, to
+keep the books in such good condition that they will not
+need frequent rebinding, and to reduce to a minimum all
+the evils which beset them, menacing their safety, or injuring
+their condition.</p>
+
+<p>To attain these great ends, the librarian who is qualified
+for his responsible position, must be both a preserver and
+a restorer of books. If not personally able to go through
+the mechanical processes which belong to the art of restoration,
+(and this is the case in all libraries except the
+smallest) he should at least learn all about them, so as to
+be able to teach them thoroughly and intelligently to an
+assistant. It is frequently made an excuse for the soiled
+and slovenly and even torn condition of books and bindings
+in a much used public library, that neither the librarian
+nor his aids have any time to look into the condition
+of the books, much less to repair any of the numerous damages
+they sustain. But it should be remembered that in
+most libraries, even the busiest, there are seasons of the
+day, or periods of very stormy weather, when the frequentation
+of readers is quite small. Those times should
+always be seized upon to take hold of volumes which have
+had to be laid aside as damaged, in the hurry of business.
+To arrest such damages at the threshold is the duty and
+the interest of the library. A torn leaf can be quickly
+mended, a slightly broken binding can be pasted or glued,
+turned-down leaves can be restored where they belong, a
+plate or map that is started can be fastened in, by devoting
+a few minutes at the proper time, and with the proper appliances
+ready at hand. Multitudes of volumes can be
+so treated in the course of the year, thus saving the
+heavy cost of rebinding. It is the proverbial stitch in
+time that saves nine. Never wait, in such matters, for the
+leisure day that never comes, but seize the golden moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_121" id="Pg_121"></a>[<a href="./images/121.png">121</a>]</span>
+as it flies, when no reader is interrupting you, and clear
+off at least one of the little jobs that are awaiting your attention.
+No one who does not know how to use the odd
+moments is qualified for the duties of a librarian. I have
+seen, in country libraries, the librarian and his lady assistant
+absorbed in reading newspapers, with no other readers
+in the room. This is a use of valuable time never to be
+indulged in during library hours. If they had given those
+moments to proper care of the books under their charge,
+their shelves would not have been found filled with neglected
+volumes, many of which had been plainly badly
+treated and injured, but not beyond reclamation by timely
+and provident care.</p>
+
+<p>It is amazing how any one can expect long employment
+as a librarian, who takes no interest in the condition of the
+books under his charge. The way to build up a library,
+and to establish the reputation of a librarian at the same
+time, is to devote every energy and intelligence to the great
+work in hand. Convince the library directors, by incessant
+care of the condition of the books, that you are not
+only a fit, but an indispensable custodian of them. Let
+them see your methods of preserving and restoring, and
+they will be induced to give you every facility of which
+you stand in need. Show them how the cost of binding or
+re-buying many books can be saved by timely repair within
+the library, and then ask for another assistant to be always
+employed on such work at very moderate cost. Library
+directors and trustees are commonly intensely practical
+men, and quick to see into the heart of good management.
+They do not want a librarian who has a great reputation
+as a linguist, or an educator, or a book-worm, but one who
+knows and cares about making their funds go as far as possible,
+and can show them how he has saved by restoring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_122" id="Pg_122"></a>[<a href="./images/122.png">122</a>]</span>
+old books, enough money to pay for a great many new
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more common in public lending libraries
+than to find torn leaves in some of the books. If the leaf
+is simply broken, without being absolutely detached, or if
+part is torn off, and remains on hand, the volume may be
+restored by a very simple process. Keep always at hand
+in some drawer, a few sheets of thin "onion-skin" paper,
+or the transparent adhesive paper supplied by the Library
+Bureau. Paste this on either side of the torn leaf, seeing
+that it laps over all the points of juncture where the tear
+occurred, and that the fitting of the text or reading matter
+is complete and perfect. The paper being transparent,
+there will be no difficulty in reading the torn page through
+it.</p>
+
+<p>This little piece of restoration should always be effected
+immediately on discovery, both that the torn piece or fragment
+may be saved, and that the volume may be restored
+to use.</p>
+
+<p>In case of absolute loss of a leaf or a part of a page,
+there are only three remedies known to me.</p>
+
+<p>1. The book may be condemned as imperfect, and a new
+copy purchased.</p>
+
+<p>2. The missing part may be restored from a perfect copy
+of the same work, by copying the portions of the text wanting,
+and inserting them where they belong. This can be
+done with a pen, and the written deficiency neatly inserted,
+in fac-simile of the type, or in ordinary script hand; or
+else the part wanting may be photographed or heliotyped
+by the best modern process from a duplicate copy of the
+book.</p>
+
+<p>3. If the book is of very recent issue, the publishers may
+furnish a signature or sheet which would make good the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_123" id="Pg_123"></a>[<a href="./images/123.png">123</a>]</span>
+deficiency, from the "imperfections" left in the bindery,
+after making up the edition of the work.</p>
+
+<p>In most cases, the last named means of replacement will
+not be found available. The first, or buying a fresh copy,
+may entail a greater expense than the library authorities
+would deem proper at the time, and it might be preferred
+to continue the book in use, with a slight imperfection.</p>
+
+<p>The second method, more or less troublesome according
+to circumstances, or the extent of the matter to be copied
+is sometimes the most economical. Of course, it is subject
+to the drawback of not being, when done, a <i>bona fide</i>
+or genuine copy of the book as published. This diminishes
+the commercial value of even the rarest book, although
+so fully restored as to text that the reader has it all
+before him, so that it supplies every requisite of a perfect
+copy for the purposes of a public library, or a private
+owner who is not a connoisseur in books.</p>
+
+<p>When the corners of a book are found to be broken (as
+often happens by falling to the floor or severe handling)
+the book may be restored by a treatment which will give it
+new leather corners. With paste or glue well rubbed in,
+apply thick brown paper on the corners, which, when dry,
+will be as hard as desired, and ready to receive the leather.
+Then the sides may be covered with marbled paper or
+cloth, and the volume is restored.</p>
+
+<p>When the back of a book becomes loose, the remedy is
+to take it out of the cover, re-sew it, and glue it firmly into
+the former back. This will of course render the back of
+the volume more rigid, but, in compensation, it will be
+more durable.</p>
+
+<p>In these cases of loose or broken backs, the study should
+be to save the leather cover and the boards or sides of the
+book intact, so as to diminish by more than one-half the
+cost of repair. As the volume cannot be restored to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_124" id="Pg_124"></a>[<a href="./images/124.png">124</a>]</span>
+solid and safe condition without being re-sewed, it may be
+carefully separated from the cover by cutting the cords or
+bands at their junction with the boards, then slowly stripping
+the book out of its cover, little by little, and treating
+the sheets when separated as already indicated in the chapter
+on rebinding.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most common defacements which library
+books undergo is marking up the margins with comments
+or references in pencil. Of course no thoughtful reader
+would be guilty of this practice, but thoughtless readers
+are often in the majority, and the books they read or fancy
+that they read, get such silly commentaries on the margins
+as these: "beautiful," "very sad," "perfectly splendid," "I
+think Becky is horrid," or, "this book ends badly." Such
+vile practices or defacements are not always traceable to
+the true offender, especially in a circulating library, where
+the hours are so busy as to prevent the librarian from looking
+through the volumes as they come in from the readers.
+But if detected, as they may be after a few trials of suspected
+parties, by giving them out books known to be clean
+and free from pencil marks when issued to them, the
+reader should be required always to rub out his own marks,
+as a wholesome object-lesson for the future. The same
+course should be pursued with any reader detected in scribbling
+on the margin of any book which is being read within
+the library. Incorrigible cases, amounting to malicious
+marking up of books, should be visited by severe penalties&mdash;even
+to the denial of further library privileges to the
+offender.</p>
+
+<p>Not long ago, I bought at an auction sale a copy of the
+first edition of Tennyson's "In Memoriam," which was
+found on receipt to be defaced by marking dozens of verses
+in the margin with black lines drawn along them, absolutely
+with pen and ink! The owner of that book, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_125" id="Pg_125"></a>[<a href="./images/125.png">125</a>]</span>
+did the ruthless deed, never reflected that it might fall into
+hands where his indelible folly would be sharply denounced.</p>
+
+<p>The librarian or assistant librarian who will instinctively
+rub out all pencil marks observed in a library book
+deserves well of his countrymen. It is time well spent.</p>
+
+<p>The writing on book-margins is so common a practice,
+and so destructive of the comfort and satisfaction which
+readers of taste should find in their perusal of books, that
+no legitimate means of arresting it or repairing it should
+be neglected. In a public library in Massachusetts, a
+young woman of eighteen who was detected as having
+marked a library copy of "Middlemarch" with gushing effusions,
+was required to read the statute prescribing fine
+and imprisonment for such offenses, with very tearful effect,
+and undoubtedly with a wholesome and permanent
+improvement in her relations to books and libraries.</p>
+
+<p>In some libraries, a warning notice is posted up like this:
+"Readers finding a book injured or defaced, are required to
+report it at once to the librarian, otherwise they will be
+held responsible for the damage done." This rule, while
+its object is highly commendable, may lead in practice to
+injustice to some readers. So long as the reader uses the
+book inside of the library walls, he should of course report
+such defects as meet his eye in reading, whether missing
+pages, plates, or maps, or serious internal soiling, torn
+leaves, etc. But in the case of drawing out books for home
+reading, the rule might embarrass any reader, however well
+disposed, if too strictly construed. A reader finding any
+serious defect in a library volume used at home, should
+simply place a mark or slip in the proper place with the
+word "damaged," or "defective" written on it. Then, on
+returning the book to the library, his simple statement of
+finding it damaged or defective when he came to read it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_126" id="Pg_126"></a>[<a href="./images/126.png">126</a>]</span>
+should be accepted by the librarian as exonerating him
+from blame for any damage. And this gives point to the
+importance of examining every book, at least by cursory
+inspection, before it is handed out for use. A volume can
+be run through quickly by a practiced hand, so as to show
+in a moment or two any leaves started or torn, or, usually,
+any other important injury. If any such is found, the
+volume should under no circumstances be given out, but
+at once subjected to repair or restoration. This degree of
+care will not only save the books of the library from rapid
+deterioration, but will also save the feelings of readers, who
+might be anxious lest they be unjustly charged with damaging
+while in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>The treatment of their imperfect books (which tend perpetually
+to accumulate) is very different in different libraries.
+Some libraries, where funds are ample enough to enable
+them to do it, condemn any book that has so much as
+a sentence torn out, and replace it on the shelves with a
+new copy. The imperfect volumes are sold for waste
+paper, or put into some sale of duplicate books, marked as
+imperfect, with note of the damage upon a slip inserted at
+the proper place in the book, and also in the catalogue, if
+sold at auction or in a printed list of duplicates offered by
+the library. This notice of what imperfection exists is
+necessary, so that no incautious purchaser may think that
+he is securing a perfect copy of the work.</p>
+
+<p>Other libraries not blessed with means to pursue this
+course, do as best they can afford, supplying what is deficient
+when possible without much cost of time or money,
+or else continuing the damaged book in use "with all its
+imperfections on its head."</p>
+
+<p>The loss of a single plate does not destroy the value of
+the book for readers, however to be regretted as diminishing
+the satisfaction to be derived from the volume. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_127" id="Pg_127"></a>[<a href="./images/127.png">127</a>]</span>
+one can sometimes pardon the loss of a part of a page in a
+mutilated book, especially when he is made aware of the
+fact that the library which welcomes him to the free enjoyment
+of its treasures cannot well afford to buy another.</p>
+
+<p>It is disheartening to read, in an annual report of a public
+library of circulation in Massachusetts, that many of its
+popular books are so soiled and defaced, after a few readings,
+as to be unfit for further service; that books of poetry
+are despoiled by the scissors to save trouble of copying
+verses wanted; that plates are often abstracted, and that
+many magazines "seem to be taken from the library for no
+other reason than that private scrap-books may be enriched
+or restless children amused." The only remedy suggested
+is to examine each book before again giving it out, and, if
+returned defaced, to hold the borrower responsible.</p>
+
+<p>The art of cleaning books that are stained or dirty, is a
+matter not widely known, and in this country there are
+few experts at it. Some of these keep closely guarded the
+methods they use to cleanse a book. Comparatively few
+libraries avail themselves of the practice of washing their
+soiled volumes, as the process is too expensive for most of
+them, and so they are accustomed to let the library books
+remain in use and re-issue them again and again, until
+they become so filthy as to be quite unfit to be seen&mdash;much
+less handled by any reader.</p>
+
+<p>But there are often valuable or rare works which have
+sustained interior injury, and which it is desired to restore
+to a clean condition. The best method is to take the book
+apart as the first step. When separated into sheets, those
+leaves which are merely dirty should be placed in a bath
+composed of about four ounces of chloride of lime, dissolved
+in a quart of water. They should soak until all
+stains are removed, and the paper is restored to its proper
+color. Then the pages should be washed in cold water<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_128" id="Pg_128"></a>[<a href="./images/128.png">128</a>]</span>&mdash;running
+water is preferable&mdash;and allowed to soak about six
+hours. This removes all traces of the lime, which would
+otherwise tend to rot or injure the book. After this, the
+sheets are to be "sized," <i>i. e.</i>, dipped in a bath of size and
+water, and laid out to dry. This process gives firmness
+and consistency to the paper, which would otherwise remain
+too soft to handle. The sheets should be pressed a
+few hours between glazed paste-boards, as used in printing
+offices. A cheap and simple size for this purpose may be
+made by mixing white gelatine with water, and this may
+be kept in a bottle, so as to be always conveniently at hand.
+The art of restoring and rendering fit for handling books
+and rare early pamphlets by sizing all the leaves is in constant
+use in Europe. By this means, and by piecing out
+margins, the most rotten paper, ready to drop apart in
+turning the leaves, may be restored to use, if not quite to
+its pristine condition.</p>
+
+<p>Ink-spots or mildew stains may be wholly removed, when
+freshly made, by applying a solution of oxalic or citric acid,
+and then washing the leaf with a wet sponge. It is more
+effectual to follow the bath of oxalic acid by applying a
+solution of one part hydrochloric acid to six parts of water,
+after which bathe in cold water, and dry slowly. Or an
+infusion of hypochlorite of potash in twice its volume of
+water may be used instead of the preceding.</p>
+
+<p>If a leather-bound book has grease on its cover, it can be
+removed by scraping French chalk or magnesia over the
+place, and ironing with a warm (not hot) iron. A simpler
+method is to apply benzine to the grease spots, (which dissolves
+the fatty material) and then dry the spot quickly
+with a fine cloth. This operation may be repeated, if not
+effectual at the first trial. The same method of applying
+benzine to oily spots upon plates or engravings, will remove
+the stains.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_129" id="Pg_129"></a>[<a href="./images/129.png">129</a>]</span>Ink-stains may also be taken off from the leather covers
+of books bound in calf or morocco by the use of oxalic acid.
+Care should be taken first to try the acid on a piece of similar
+leather or on a discarded book of the same color. If
+the leather is discolored after removing the black spot, one
+may apply, after taking out the traces of oxalic acid by
+some alkali, a coloring matter similar to the tint of the
+leather.</p>
+
+<p>Spots or stains of grease or oil are often found in books.
+They may be wholly removed by applying carbonate of
+magnesia on both sides of the leaf stained, backed by
+paper, and pressing with a hot iron, after which the sheets
+should be washed and left under pressure over night. Another
+method is to dilute spirits of salts with five times its
+bulk of water, then let the stained leaves lie in the liquid
+four minutes, after which they are to be washed. Still another
+method is to make a mixture of one pound of soap,
+half a pound of clay and two ounces of lime, dissolved in
+water to a proper consistency; apply it to the spots; fifteen
+minutes after, dip the leaf in a bath of warm water for half
+an hour, after which dry and press until smooth.</p>
+
+<p>Stains left by mud on the leaves of a book (a not uncommon
+fate of volumes falling in a wet street) can be removed
+thus: spread over the spots a jelly composed of
+white soap and water, letting it remain about half an hour.
+Then dip the leaf in clear water, and remove the soap with
+a fine sponge dipped in warm water; all the mud stains
+will disappear at the same time. To remove the last traces
+of the soap, dip a second time in clear water, place the leaf
+between two sheets of blotting paper, and dry slowly in a
+cool and shady place.</p>
+
+<p>The same process, of washing in soap and water, will remove
+what are doubtless the most common of all the soil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_130" id="Pg_130"></a>[<a href="./images/130.png">130</a>]</span>ings
+that library books undergo, namely, the soil that
+comes from the dirty hands and fingers of readers.</p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes necessary to color the sheets that have
+been washed white, so as to correspond in tint with the
+rest of the volume, which has not needed that treatment.
+An infusion of cheap tobacco leaves, or a bath of brown
+stout will effect this.</p>
+
+<p>In all these methods of removing soil from the pages of
+books, it is absolutely necessary to give attention to thorough
+washing after the chemicals are used. Otherwise
+there will remain an element of destruction which will
+sooner or later spoil the book, to restore which so much
+pains may have been expended.</p>
+
+<p>And one can readily learn how to restore a valuable
+book by these methods. He should, however, first practice
+on the restoration of a volume of little worth&mdash;and venture
+upon the treatment of a precious volume only after
+practice has made him an expert.</p>
+
+<p>To restore a fresher look to volumes whose bindings are
+much rubbed or "scuffed" as it is sometimes called, one
+may spread over their surface a little wet starch pretty
+thick, with a little alum added, applied with an old leather
+glove. With this the back of the book, and the sides and
+edges of the boards should be smartly rubbed, after which,
+with a fine rag rub off the thicker part of the starch, and
+the book will present a much brighter appearance, besides
+being rid of dust and soil.</p>
+
+<p>There will remain on the volume a very slight deposit
+of gelatine or gluten; before it dries completely, the palm
+of the hand may be passed over it at all points, and the
+leather, which may have assumed a dull color from the
+starch, will resume a bright brown or other tint. If this
+fails to appear, a bit of flannel, impregnated with a few
+drops of varnish, should be rubbed over the leather, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_131" id="Pg_131"></a>[<a href="./images/131.png">131</a>]</span>
+when nearly dry, rub with a white rag slightly touched
+with olive oil, and a brilliant appearance will be given to
+the binding.</p>
+
+<p>When leaves are started, or a signature becomes loose in
+any volume, it should be at once withdrawn from circulation,
+or the loss of an important part of the book may result.
+The remedy commonly resorted to, of patching up
+the book by pasting in the loose leaves, is a mere makeshift
+which will not last. The cause of a loose signature
+is generally to be found in a broken thread in the sewing,
+and the only permanent cure is to take the book out of its
+cover, and re-sew it, when it may usually be re-inserted in
+the same binding. This is for cloth-bound books. When
+bound in leather, it is best to take out the loose sheet,
+"overcast" it, that is, secure all the leaves by sewing, then
+carefully lay some paste along the outer edge or back of
+the sheet, insert the sheet in its place, pressing it firmly
+with a paper knife along the middle of the sheet, and the
+volume will be restored ready for use after a few days drying
+under weight.</p>
+
+<p>On occasion of a fire next to the Mercantile Library
+rooms in Philadelphia, in 1877, great damage was done,
+from water thrown by the fire-engines, to many thousands
+of books. The library authorities tried various methods
+of restoring the volumes, and among others, drying them
+in ovens was resorted to. This was found, however, to dry
+the books so rapidly, that the bindings cracked, and in
+many cases came off, while many volumes were much
+warped. The most advantageous method that was adopted
+was to prepare a large number of frames on which many
+wires were strung horizontally across a large room. The
+wet books (many of which were soaked through) were suspended
+on these wires in such a way as to dry them by de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_132" id="Pg_132"></a>[<a href="./images/132.png">132</a>]</span>grees,
+the temperature of the room being raised considerably
+by furnace heat.</p>
+
+<p>The condition in which the books were found after the
+wetting varied greatly. Nearly all that were printed on
+soft paper were wet through, while those next to them
+printed on thick paper, and with solid leather bindings,
+were scarcely damaged at all. The water stains constituted
+the most serious injury to the volumes, and multitudes of
+fine books that were wet will always bear the marks of the
+stain. Some of the more costly books were restored by
+taking them apart, washing them thoroughly, then placing
+them in a heated press, and drying them, so that the water-stains
+were removed. All the books, however different the
+degree of damage from the water, retained their legibility,
+and were put to the same uses in the library as before the
+fire occurred. None were burned, the actual fire being
+confined to the neighboring buildings of the block in the
+midst of which the library was unfortunately located.</p>
+
+<p>The whole number of volumes damaged was about 55,000,
+and the insurance, which was assessed by referees at
+the amount of $42,000, would nearly have replaced the
+books by new ones. Many of the volumes had to be rebound
+as the damage by wetting the glue and paste which
+are such important elements in binding securely, led to
+the falling apart of the covers.</p>
+
+<p>There are multitudes of books restored by some one of
+the processes which have been ingeniously contrived to
+make an old book as good as new, or an imperfect volume
+perfect. The art of reproducing in facsimile, by mere
+manual dexterity with the pen, letters, words, and whole
+pages, has been carried to a high degree of perfection, notably
+in London. A celebrated book restorer named Harris,
+gained a great reputation among book lovers and librarians
+by his consummate skill in the reproduction of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_133" id="Pg_133"></a>[<a href="./images/133.png">133</a>]</span>
+text of black-letter rarities and early-printed books of
+every kind. To such perfection did he carry the art of
+imitating an original that in many cases one could not distinguish
+the original from the imitation, and even experts
+have announced a Harris facsimile in a Shakespeare folio
+to be the printed original. The art has even been extended
+to engravings, with such success that the famous Droeshout
+portrait of Shakespeare, which illustrates the title-page
+of the first folio of 1623, has been multiplied in pen-made
+facsimile, so as to deceive the most careful scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p>This nice and difficult art is not widely pursued in this
+country, though there are some experts among New York
+and Philadelphia book-binders, who practice it. The British
+Museum Library has a corps of workers engaged in the
+restoration both of books and of manuscripts (as well as engravings)
+who are men of the highest training and skill.</p>
+
+<p>The process is necessarily quite expensive, because of the
+time required and of the small number of competing artists
+in this field. It is chiefly confined to the restoration
+of imperfect copies of early printed and rare books, which
+are so frequently found in imperfect condition, often wanting
+title-pages or the final leaves, or parts of pages in any
+part of the volume.</p>
+
+<p>So costly, indeed, is this skilful hand-restoration of imperfect
+books, that it has been a great boon to the collectors
+of libraries and rare works, to see the arts of photography
+so developed in recent years, as to reproduce with almost
+exact fidelity printed matter of any kind from the
+pages of books. The cost of such facsimiles of course
+varies with the locality, the work, the skill, or the competition
+involved. But it may be said in general that the
+average cost of book-page facsimiles by photographic process
+need not exceed one dollar a page.</p>
+
+<p>An entire edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_134" id="Pg_134"></a>[<a href="./images/134.png">134</a>]</span>
+been printed from plates made in replica from photographs
+of the original text of the Edinburgh edition. The reproduction
+in this case can hardly be commended, as it is trying
+to the eyes to read, when compared with the original,
+presenting a somewhat blurred and irregular aspect to
+the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It is very difficult to lay down rules which shall be effective
+in checking the abuse of books which compels exercise
+of the means of restoration. Writing upon margins
+(already referred to) may sometimes be checked by putting
+a printed slip in every library book bearing the warning&mdash;"Never
+write in a library book." To this may be added&mdash;"Never
+turn down leaves," an equally important injunction.
+Indeed, a whole list of "Dont's" might be inserted,
+but for the chance that too many warnings might operate
+to warn off a reader from absorbing any of them. Thus&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>"Don't soil any book</li>
+<li>Don't write on margins</li>
+<li>Don't turn down leaves</li>
+<li>Don't lay a book on its face open</li>
+<li>Don't wet fingers to turn leaves</li>
+<li>Don't fail to use the book-mark</li>
+<li>Don't read with unclean hands."</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>As a loose slip is liable to fall out, some such reminder
+should be pasted into the fly-leaf of every book, next the
+book-plate.</p>
+
+<p>A self-respecting reader will generally heed such hints,
+which a moment's reflection will teach him are meant to
+preserve the library book clean and presentable for his
+own use, as well as for that of others. But there will always
+be some rude, boorish people who will persist in their
+brutal and destructive treatment of books, in the face of
+whatever warnings. How to deal with such unwelcome
+persons is an ever-present problem with the librarian. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_135" id="Pg_135"></a>[<a href="./images/135.png">135</a>]</span>
+sustained by the other library authorities, a really effectual
+remedy is to deny the further use of the library to any offender
+clearly proven to have subjected library books to
+damage while in his hands. Some librarians go so far as
+to post the names of such offenders in the library hall, stating
+that they are denied the privileges of the library by
+the authorities, for mutilating books.</p>
+
+<p>In any case, great care must be taken to have the clearest
+proof, before proceeding to fasten the offense upon a
+particular individual. This involves, where the injury is
+not committed in the presence of any library officer, so as
+to be observed, but has been done while the book was
+drawn out, an examination of each volume before giving it
+out. If this rule were to be observed as to all, it would entail
+an expense that few libraries could afford. In a large
+circulating library in a city, it might require the entire
+time of two assistants to collate the books before re-issuing
+them. The circumstances of each library must determine
+how to deal with this matter. Probably the majority will
+limit the close examination of books before giving them
+out, to cases where there is reason to suspect wilful continued
+soiling, scribbling, or dog's-earing. A few such
+cases once detected and dealt with will have a most salutary
+restraining influence upon others, especially if re-enforced
+by frequent and judicious paragraphs in the local
+press, setting forth the offense and the remedy.</p>
+
+<p>But all in vain will be the endeavor to abate these defacements
+and consequent waste of the library books, unless
+it is enforced by a positive law, with penal provisions,
+to punish offenders who mutilate or deface books that are
+public property. A good model of such a statute is the
+following, slightly abridged as to verbiage, from an act of
+Congress, of which we procured the enactment in the year
+1878:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_136" id="Pg_136"></a>[<a href="./images/136.png">136</a>]</span>"Any person who steals, defaces, injures, mutilates,
+tears, or destroys any book, pamphlet, work of art, or manuscript,
+belonging to any public library, or to the United
+States, in the District of Columbia, shall be fined ten dollars
+to one hundred dollars, and punished by imprisonment
+from one to twelve months, for every such offense."</p>
+
+<p>This act will be found in the United States Statutes at
+Large, Vol. 20, p. 171. It would be well if the term "periodical"
+were added to the list of objects to be protected,
+to avoid all risk of a failure to punish the mutilation of
+newspapers and magazines, by pleading technical points,
+of which lawyers are prone to avail themselves in aiding offenders
+to escape conviction.</p>
+
+<p>It will be observed, that the word "deface," employed in
+this statute, actually covers the marking of margins by any
+reader, all such marking constituting a defacement within
+the meaning of the law.</p>
+
+<p>While the great multitude of readers who frequent our
+public libraries are honest and trustworthy, there are always
+some who are conspicuously the reverse. It is rarely
+safe in a large public library to admit readers to the
+shelves, without the company or the surveillance of an attendant.
+And it is not alone the uncultivated reader who
+cannot be trusted; the experience of librarians is almost
+uniform to the effect that literary men, and special scholars,
+as well as the collectors of rare books, are among those
+who watch the opportunity to purloin what they wish to
+save themselves the cost of buying. Sometimes, you may
+find your most valuable work on coins mutilated by the abstraction
+of a plate, carried off by some student of numismatics.
+Sometimes, you may discover a fine picture or
+portrait abstracted from a book by some lover of art or collector
+of portraits. Again, you may be horrified by finding
+a whole sermon torn out of a volume of theology by a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_137" id="Pg_137"></a>[<a href="./images/137.png">137</a>]</span>
+theological student or even a clergyman. All these things
+have happened, and are liable to happen again. No library
+is safe that is not closely watched and guarded. In
+the Astor library a literary man actually tore out sixty
+pages of the <i>Revue de Paris</i>, and added to the theft the
+fraud of plagiarism, by translating from the stolen leaves
+an article which he sold to Appleton's Journal as an original
+production!</p>
+
+<p>In this case, the culprit, though detected, could not be
+punished, the law of New York requiring the posting in
+the library of the statute prohibiting mutilation or other
+injury to the books, and this posting had not been done.
+The law has since been amended, to make the penalties absolute
+and unconditional.</p>
+
+<p>In the Astor Library, over six hundred volumes were
+discovered to have been mutilated, including art works,
+Patent office reports, magazines, newspapers, and even encyclopaedias.
+The books stolen from that library had been
+many, until several exposures and punishment of thieves
+inspired a wholesome dread of a similar fate.</p>
+
+<p>At a meeting of the American Library Association, one
+member inquired whether there was any effectual way to
+prevent the abstraction of books. He was answered by
+another librarian (from Cincinnati) who replied that he
+knew of only one effectual method, and that was to keep a
+man standing over each book with a club. Of course this
+was a humorous paradox, not to be taken literally, but it
+points a moral.</p>
+
+<p>Seriously, however, the evil may be greatly curtailed,
+(though we may be hopeless of absolute prevention) by
+adopting the precautions already referred to. In the Library
+of the British Museum, a great library of reference,
+from which no book is permitted to be taken under any circumstances,
+the evil of mutilation was much reduced by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_138" id="Pg_138"></a>[<a href="./images/138.png">138</a>]</span>
+prosecuting and posting the offenders publicly. After a
+few years, the obnoxious practice had so far ceased, that
+the placards, having an unpleasant aspect, were taken
+down. But on renewal of such depredations and defacements
+of books by readers, the placards were renewed, and
+some of the mutilated books, suitably labelled, were posted
+in the great reading room before the eyes of all. The authorities
+of the British Museum are convinced of the salutary
+effects of such warnings, though books are sometimes
+stolen or mutilated under the liberal management which
+leaves several thousand volumes open for reference, without
+tickets.</p>
+
+<p>The late Dr. Wm. F. Poole, the Chicago librarian, recorded
+his experience in dealing with some clergymen,
+who, said he, seem to have as regards books, an imperfect
+appreciation of the laws of <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i>. He had
+found ministers more remiss in returning books than any
+other class of men. He would by no means reflect on a
+noble and sacred profession by charging the derelictions of
+a few upon the many. But he had had unpleasant experiences
+with men of that profession, who had absolutely purloined
+books from the Public Library, removed the book-plates
+and library stamp, and covered the volumes with
+paper carefully pasted down inside of the covers.</p>
+
+<p>A librarian in Massachusetts testified that it was common
+experience that clergymen and professional men gave
+the most trouble. Second-hand book-dealers in Boston
+had found a judge of the court purloining rare pamphlets,
+and ministers making away with pamphlet sermons under
+their coats. Without insisting here upon any such extenuations
+of such practices as the prevalence of kleptomania,
+it has been made abundantly manifest that theft and mutilation
+of books are sufficiently common to demonstrate the
+weakness of human nature, and the necessity of every safe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_139" id="Pg_139"></a>[<a href="./images/139.png">139</a>]</span>guard
+which public libraries can provide against such
+abuses of their treasures.</p>
+
+<p>A Boston librarian stated that the thieves or mutilators
+of books included school-boys, clerks, students, teachers,
+soldiers, physicians, lawyers, clergymen, etc. In only one
+case was the crime committed through want or suffering.
+Yet, though the offenders had been proven guilty in every
+instance, only two cases were known in which the penalty
+of the law had been enforced. Does not this bespeak laxity
+of public morals in Boston in regard to such abuses of
+library property?</p>
+
+<p>The Union Theological Seminary at New York recorded
+its experience with ministers and theological students, to
+the effect that its library had lost more than a thousand
+volumes, taken and not returned. This of course included
+what were charged out, but could not be recovered.</p>
+
+<p>A librarian in Auburn, N. Y., returning from vacation,
+found that the American Architect, an important illustrated
+weekly, had been mutilated in seven different volumes,
+and that 130 pages in all had been stolen. Fortunately,
+she was able to trace the reader who had been using
+the work, and succeeded in recovering the abstracted
+plates. The offender was prosecuted to conviction, and
+had to pay a fine of fifty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>It often happens that books which disappear mysteriously
+from a public library re-appear quite as mysteriously.
+Those taking them, finding that the rules do not allow certain
+books to leave the library, make a law unto themselves,
+carry off the book wanted, keep it until read, and
+then return it surreptitiously, by replacing it on some shelf
+or table, when no one is looking. This is where no intention
+of stealing the book exists, and the borrower wilfully
+makes his own convenience override the library regulations,
+in the belief that he will not be found out. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_140" id="Pg_140"></a>[<a href="./images/140.png">140</a>]</span>
+Buffalo Young Men's Library reported in one year eighteen
+illustrated works on the fine arts, reserved from being
+taken out by its by-laws, as disappearing for weeks, but
+brought back in this underhanded manner. In other
+cases of such return, it is likely that the purpose was to
+keep the book, but that conscience or better thoughts, or
+fear of detection prevailed, and secured its return.</p>
+
+<p>Some instances where leniency has been exercised to
+save book thieves from penalties may be instructive. One
+man who had carried off and sold two volumes from the
+Astor Library was traced and arrested, when he pleaded
+that absolute want had driven him to the act. He had a
+wife ill and starving at his home, and this on investigation
+proving true, he was pardoned and saved further misery.</p>
+
+<p>In another case, a poor German had stolen a volume of
+the classics which he pawned for a small sum to get bread
+for himself, being long out of work, and in a condition
+bordering closely upon starvation. He was released, the
+book reclaimed, and the offender turned over to the agencies
+of public charity.</p>
+
+<p>A librarian of New York gave it as his experience that
+some ministers are not to be trusted any more than other
+people. Some of them like to write their opinions on the
+margins of the books. He found one of the library books
+written on in thirty pages, recognized the hand-writing,
+and wrote to the reverend gentleman asking an interview.
+He came, admitted the fact, and said that his notes made
+the book more valuable. This ingenious excuse did not
+satisfy the librarian, who said, "others do not think so, sir;
+so if you will get us a new book, you may keep the more
+valuable one." He soon brought in a new copy, and the
+matter ended.</p>
+
+<p>At the New York Mercantile Library, a young lady,
+amply able to buy all the books she could want, was dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_141" id="Pg_141"></a>[<a href="./images/141.png">141</a>]</span>covered
+going out of the library with one book in her hand
+which she was entitled to, it being charged, and with five
+others hidden under her cloak, without permission.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Melvil Dewey has truly said that it is very hard
+to tell a library thief at sight. Well-dressed, gentlemanly,
+even sanctimonious looking men are among them, and the
+wife of a well-known college professor, detected in purloining
+books, begged so hard not to be exposed, that she
+was reluctantly pardoned, and even restored to library
+privileges.</p>
+
+<p>A prominent lawyer of Brooklyn, of distinguished appearance
+and fine manners, did not steal books, but his
+specialty was magazines and newspapers, which he carried
+off frequently. Being caught at it one day, and accused
+by the librarian, he put on an air of dignity, declared he
+was insulted, and walked out. The librarian found the
+periodical he had taken thrown down in the entry, and he
+never after frequented that library.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious and instructive to know the experience of
+some libraries regarding the theft or mutilation of books.
+Thus, in the public library of Woburn, Mass., a case of
+mutilation occurred by the cutting out of a picture from
+"Drake's Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex
+County." On discovery of the loss, a reward of $10 was offered
+for information leading to detection of the culprit.
+This was published in the town paper, and an article was
+printed calling attention to these library thefts and abuses,
+followed by citing the State law making such depredations
+a penal offense. Within a week the missing plate came
+back to the librarian through the mail&mdash;anonymously of
+course, the person who had abstracted it finding that it
+was rather an unsafe picture to keep or exhibit, and so
+choosing to make his best policy honesty, though rather
+tardy in coming to that wise conclusion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_142" id="Pg_142"></a>[<a href="./images/142.png">142</a>]</span>This experience, and others here cited, may serve as a
+hint what course to pursue under similar circumstances,
+in the reclamation of library books.</p>
+
+<p>In the Library of the London Institution, continuous
+thefts of valuable editions of the classics had occurred.
+Putting a detective in the library, a young man of suspicious
+demeanor was soon identified as the thief, and was followed
+and arrested in the very act of selling a library book.
+He proved to be a young man of good family, education
+and previous good character; but the library had suffered
+such losses from his depredations, that no mercy was
+shown, and he received and underwent the sentence to two
+months imprisonment.</p>
+
+<p>It may be added as an instance of methods availed of in
+London to trace missing books, that the librarian, knowing
+from the vacancies on the shelves what books had been abstracted,
+printed a list of them, sent it to every second-hand
+book-dealer in London, at the same time supplying
+it to the police, who circulate daily a list of missing property
+among all the pawn-brokers' shops in the city, and
+recovered all the books within twenty-four hours.</p>
+
+<p>The Mercantile Library of Philadelphia missed a number
+of valuable books from its shelves, and on a watch
+being set, a physician in the most respectable rank in society
+was detected as the purloiner, and more than fifty volumes
+recovered from him.</p>
+
+<p>A library at Lancaster, Pa., reported the almost incredible
+incident of a thief having hidden under his coat, and
+carried off, a Webster's Unabridged Dictionary!</p>
+
+<p>In most cases of detected theft or mutilation of books,
+strong appeals are made by the culprit or his friends to
+save exposure by public prosecution. These are commonly,
+in the case of persons in very respectable circumstances
+in life, not so much to avoid paying fines imposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_143" id="Pg_143"></a>[<a href="./images/143.png">143</a>]</span>
+by law as to avoid the disgrace attached to publicity, and
+the consequent damage done to the character of the individual.
+It is probably true that in a majority of cases,
+such influences have been strong enough to overcome the
+determination of the librarian or library authorities to let
+the law take its course. Now, while it must be admitted
+that there is no rule without some valid exception that may
+be made, it is nevertheless to be insisted upon that due protection
+to public property in libraries demands the enforcement
+of the laws enacted to that end. The consequence
+of leniency to the majority of book thieves would be not
+only an indirect encouragement to the culprits to continue
+their depredations, but it would also lead to a lax and dangerous
+notion of the obligations of readers, and the sacredness
+of such property, in the public mind. Enforcement
+of the penalties of wrong-doing, on the other hand, tends
+unquestionably to deter others, both by the fear of publicity
+which must follow detection, and by terror of the
+penalty which is or may be imprisonment for a considerable
+term, besides the imposing of a fine.</p>
+
+<p>At the Worcester, Mass., Public Library, a young man
+of twenty-two was detected in stealing a book, obliged to
+confess, and prosecuted. Much pressure was brought to
+bear by his family and friends, very respectable people, to
+save him from the penalty. The Court, however, imposed
+a fine of thirty dollars, and it being represented that his
+relatives would have to pay the amount, though innocent
+parties, the judge suspended the sentence until the young
+man should pay it in instalments from his own earnings,
+one of the family giving bail. The valuable lesson was in
+this way not lost, either to the offender or to the community;
+the law was enforced, and the young man perhaps
+saved from a life of wrong-doing, while if he had been let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_144" id="Pg_144"></a>[<a href="./images/144.png">144</a>]</span>
+off scot-free, in deference to the influence exerted to that
+end, he might have gone from bad to worse.</p>
+
+<p>At the Pratt Institute Free Library in Brooklyn, books
+had been disappearing from the reference department at
+intervals of about a week, and a watch was instituted. After
+some weeks' fruitless watching, a young man who came
+frequently to consult books was singled out as the probable
+offender, and the eyes of the library staff were centered
+upon him. The janitor watched his movements for some
+days, from a concealed post of observation, as the young
+man walked back and forth between the book stacks, and
+one day caught him in the act of slipping a book into his
+pocket, and arrested him as he was leaving the building.
+He had stolen a dozen books from the library, all but three
+of which were recovered. He claimed to be a theological
+student, and that he had taken the books merely for the
+purposes of study. Much sympathy was expressed for him
+by people who believed that this was his motive, and that
+it was some partial atonement for his offense. The grief
+of his relatives at his disgrace was intense. The Court
+sentenced him to eight years in the penitentiary, but suspended
+the sentence in view of the fact that it was a first
+offense, by a youth of twenty-one years. He was put under
+police surveillance for his good behavior (equivalent to
+being paroled) but the sentence becomes active upon any
+further transgression of the law on his part.</p>
+
+<p>It may be gathered from these many cases of library
+depredations, that they are very common, that perpetual
+vigilance is the price of safety, that punishment in nearly
+all cases is wiser than pardon, and that the few exceptions
+made should be mostly confined to offenders who steal
+books under desperate necessity or actual want.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_145" id="Pg_145"></a>[<a href="./images/145.png">145</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_7" id="CHAPTER_7"></a>CHAPTER 7.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Pamphlet Literature.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>What is a pamphlet? is a question which is by no means
+capable of being scientifically answered. Yet, to the librarian
+dealing continually with a mass of pamphlets, books,
+and periodicals, it becomes important to define somewhere,
+the boundary line between the pamphlet and the book.
+The dictionaries will not aid us, for they all call the pamphlet
+"a few sheets of printed paper stitched together, but not
+bound." Suppose (as often happens) that you bind your
+pamphlet, does it then cease to be a pamphlet, and become
+a book? Again, most pamphlets now published are not
+stitched at all, but stabbed and wired to fasten the leaves
+together. The origin of the word "pamphlet," is in great
+doubt. A plausible derivation is from two French words,
+"<i>paume</i>," and "<i>feuillet</i>," literally a hand-leaf; and another
+derives the word from a corruption of Latin&mdash;"<i>papyrus</i>,"
+paper, into <i>pampilus</i>, or <i>panfletus</i>, whence pamphlet. The
+word is in Shakespeare:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Comest thou with deep premeditated lines,<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">With written pamphlets studiously devised?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But we also find "pamphlets and bookys," in a work
+printed by Caxton in 1490, a hundred years before Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the origin, the common acceptation of the
+word is plain, signifying a little book, though where the
+pamphlet ends, and the book begins, is uncertain. The
+rule of the British Museum Library calls every printed
+publication of one hundred pages or less, a pamphlet.
+This is arbitrary, and so would any other rule be. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_146" id="Pg_146"></a>[<a href="./images/146.png">146</a>]</span>
+that library binds its pamphlets separately, and counts
+them in its aggregate of volumes, the reason for any distinction
+in the matter is not plain. Some of the government
+libraries in Europe are greatly overrated numerically
+by reckoning pamphlets as volumes. Thus, the Royal Library
+at Munich, in Bavaria, has been ranked fourth among
+the libraries of the world, claiming over a million volumes,
+but as it reckons every university thesis, or discussion of
+some special topic by candidates for degrees, as a volume,
+and has perhaps 400,000 of this prolific class of publications,
+it is actually not so large as some American libraries,
+which count their pamphlets as distinct from books in
+their returns.</p>
+
+<p>The pamphlet, or thin book, or tract (as some prefer to
+call it) is reckoned by some librarians as a nuisance, and
+by others as a treasure. That it forms rather a troublesome
+asset in the wealth of a library cannot be doubted.
+Pamphlets taken singly, will not stand upon the shelves;
+they will curl up, become dogs-eared, accumulate dust, and
+get in the way of the books. If kept in piles, as is most
+frequent, it is very hard to get at any one that is wanted
+in the mass. Then it is objected to them, that the majority
+of them are worthless, that they cost altogether too
+much money, and time, and pains, to catalogue them, and
+that they are useless if not catalogued; that if kept bound,
+they cost the library a sum out of all proportion to their
+value; that they accumulate so rapidly (much faster, in
+fact, than books) as to outrun the means at the disposal of
+any library to deal with them; in short, that they cost more
+than they come to, if bound, and if unbound, they vex the
+soul of the librarian day by day.</p>
+
+<p>This is one side of the pamphlet question; and it may
+be candidly admitted, that in most libraries, the accumulation
+of uncatalogued and unbound pamphlets is one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_147" id="Pg_147"></a>[<a href="./images/147.png">147</a>]</span>
+chief among those arrears which form the skeleton in the
+closet of the librarian. But there is another side to the
+matter. It is always possible to divide your pamphlets
+into two classes&mdash;the important, and the insignificant.
+Some of them have great historical, or economic, or intellectual
+value; others are as nearly worthless as it is possible
+for any printed matter to be. Why should you treat a
+pamphlet upon Pears's soap, or a quack medicine, or advertising
+the Columbia bicycle, with the same attention
+which you would naturally give to an essay on international
+politics by Gladstone, or a review of the Cuban
+question by a prominent Spaniard, or a tract on Chinese
+immigration by Minister Seward, or the pamphlet genealogy
+of an American family? Take out of the mass of
+pamphlets, as they come in, what appear to you the more
+valuable, or the more liable to be called for; catalogue and
+bind them, or file them away, according to the use which
+they are likely to have: relegate the rest, assorted always
+by subject-matters or classes, to marked piles, or to pamphlet
+cases, according to your means; and the problem is approximately
+solved.</p>
+
+<p>To condemn any pamphlet to "innocuous desuetude,"
+or to permanent banishment from among the intellectual
+stores of a library, merely because it is innocent of a stiff
+cover, is to despoil the temple of learning and reject the
+good things of Providence. What great and influential
+publications have appeared in the world in the guise of
+pamphlets! Milton's immortal "Areopagitica, or Plea for
+Unlicenced Printing," was a pamphlet of only forty pages;
+Webster's speech for the Union, in reply to Hayne, was a
+pamphlet; every play of Shakespeare, that was printed in
+his life-time, was a pamphlet; Charles Sumner's discourse
+on "The True Grandeur of Nations" was a pamphlet; the
+"Crisis" and "Common Sense" of Thomas Paine, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_148" id="Pg_148"></a>[<a href="./images/148.png">148</a>]</span>
+fired the American heart in the Revolution, were pamphlets.
+Strike out of literature, ancient and modern, what
+was first published in pamphlets, and you would leave it
+the poorer and weaker to an incalculable degree.</p>
+
+<p>Pamphlets are not only vehicles of thought and opinion,
+and propagandists of new ideas; they are often also store-houses
+of facts, repositories of history, annals of biography,
+records of genealogy, treasuries of statistics, chronicles of
+invention and discovery. They sometimes throw an unexpected
+light upon obscure questions where all books are
+silent. Being published for the most part upon some subject
+that was interesting the public mind when written,
+they reflect, as in a mirror, the social, political, and religious
+spirit and life of the time. As much as newspapers,
+they illustrate the civilization (or want of it) of an
+epoch, and multitudes of them, preserved in great libraries,
+exhibit this at those early periods when no newspapers existed
+as vehicles of public opinion. Many of the government
+libraries of Europe have been buying up for many
+years past, the rare, early-printed pamphlets of their respective
+countries, paying enormous prices for what, a century
+ago, they would have slighted, even as a gift.</p>
+
+<p>When Thomas Carlyle undertook to write the life of
+Oliver Cromwell, and to resurrect from the dust-bins of
+two centuries, the letters and speeches of the great Protector,
+he found his richest quarry in a collection of
+pamphlets in the British Museum Library. An indefatigable
+patriot and bookseller, named Thomason, had carefully
+gathered and kept every pamphlet, book, periodical,
+or broadside that appeared from the British press, during
+the whole time from A. D. 1649 to 1660, the period of the
+interregnum in the English monarchy, represented by
+Cromwell and the Commonwealth. This vast collection,
+numbering over 20,000 pamphlets, bound in 2,000 vol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_149" id="Pg_149"></a>[<a href="./images/149.png">149</a>]</span>umes,
+after escaping the perils of fire, and of both hostile
+armies, was finally purchased by the King, and afterward
+presented to the British Museum Library. Its completeness
+is one great source of its value, furnishing, as it does,
+to the historical student of that exceedingly interesting
+revolution, the most precious memorials of the spirit of the
+times, many of which have been utterly lost, except the
+single copy preserved in this collection.</p>
+
+<p>Several great European libraries number as many
+pamphlets as books in their collections. The printed catalogue
+of the British Museum Library is widely sought by
+historical students, because of the enormous amount of
+pamphlet literature it contains, that is described nowhere
+else. And the Librarian of the Boston Athenaeum said
+that some readers found the great interest in his catalogue
+of that collection lay in its early American pamphlets.</p>
+
+<p>As another instance of the value to the historical stores
+of a public library of this ephemeral literature, it may be
+noted that the great collection of printed matter, mostly
+of a fugitive character, relating to the French Revolutionary
+period, gathered by the late M. de La Bedoy&egrave;re,
+amounted to 15,000 volumes and pamphlets. Fifty years
+of the life of the wealthy and enthusiastic collector, besides
+a very large sum of money, were spent in amassing
+this collection. With an avidity almost incredible, he ransacked
+every book-store, quay, and private shelf that might
+contribute a fresh morsel to his stores; and when Paris
+was exhausted, had his agents and purveyors busy in executing
+his orders all over Europe. Rival collectors, and
+particularly M. Deschiens, who had been a contemporary
+in the Revolution, and had laid aside everything that appeared
+in his day, only contributed at their decease, to
+swell the precious stores of M. de La Bedoy&egrave;re. This vast
+collection, so precious for the history of France at its most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_150" id="Pg_150"></a>[<a href="./images/150.png">150</a>]</span>
+memorable period, contained several thousands of volumes
+of newspapers and ephemeral journals, and was acquired
+in the year 1863, for the National Library of France,
+where it will ever remain a monument to the enlightened
+and far-sighted spirit of its projector.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, the late Peter Force, Mayor of Washington
+City, and historiographer of the "American Archives,"
+devoted forty years to amassing an extensive collection of
+<i>Americana</i>, or books, pamphlets, newspapers, manuscripts,
+and maps, relating to the discovery, history, topography,
+natural history, and biography of America. He carried
+off at auction sales, from all competitors, six great collections
+of early American pamphlets, formed by Ebenezer
+Hazard, William Duane, Oliver Wolcott, etc., representing
+the copious literature of all schools of political opinion.
+He sedulously laid aside and preserved every pamphlet that
+appeared at the capital or elsewhere, on which he could lay
+hands, and his rich historical collection, purchased by the
+government in 1866, thirty-three years ago, now forms an
+invaluable portion of the Congressional Library.</p>
+
+<p>Of the multitudinous literature of pamphlets it is not
+necessary to speak at length. Suffice it to say that the library
+which neglects the acquisition and proper preservation
+and binding of these publications is far behind its
+duty, both to those of its own generation, and to those
+which are to follow. The pamphlet literature of every
+period often furnishes the most precious material to illustrate
+the history and development of that period. The
+new ideas, the critical sagacity, the political controversies,
+the mechanical and industrial development, the religious
+thought, and the social character of many epochs, find
+their best expression in the pamphlets that swarmed from
+the press while those agencies were operating. The fact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_151" id="Pg_151"></a>[<a href="./images/151.png">151</a>]</span>
+that multitudes of these productions are anonymous, does
+not detract from their value as materials for students.</p>
+
+<p>Pamphlets, from their peculiar style of publication, and
+the difficulty of preserving them, tend to disappear more
+quickly than any class of publications except newspapers,
+and broad-sides, and hand-bills. They are far less likely
+to be preserved in the hands of private holders than even
+reviews and magazines. It is the common experience of
+librarians that a pamphlet is far more difficult to procure
+than a book. Multitudes of pamphlets are annually lost
+to the world, from the want of any preserving hand to
+gather them and deposit them permanently in some library.
+So much the more important is it that the custodians
+of all our public libraries should form as complete
+collections as possible of all pamphlets, at least, that appear
+in their own city or neighborhood. How to do this
+is a problem not unattended with difficulty. Pamphlets
+are rarely furnished for sale in the same manner as books,
+and when they are, book-sellers treat them with such indignity
+that they are commonly thrust aside as waste
+paper, almost as soon as they have appeared from the press.
+If all the writers of pamphlets would take pains to present
+them to the public libraries of the country, and especially
+to those in their own neighborhood, they would at once
+enrich these collections, and provide for the perpetuity of
+their own thought. A vigilant librarian should invite and
+collect from private libraries all the pamphlets which their
+owners will part with. It would also be a wise practice to
+engage the printing-offices where these fugitive leaves of
+literature are put in type, to lay aside one copy of each for
+the library making the collection.</p>
+
+<p>Our local libraries should each and all make it a settled
+object to preserve not only full sets of the reports of all
+societies, corporations, charity organizations, churches,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_152" id="Pg_152"></a>[<a href="./images/152.png">152</a>]</span>
+railroads, etc., in their own neighborhood, but all catalogues
+of educational institutions, all sermons or memorial
+addresses, and in short, every fugitive publication which
+helps to a knowledge of the people or the region in which
+the library is situated.</p>
+
+<p>The binding of pamphlets is a mooted point in all libraries.
+While the British Museum and the Library of Congress
+treat the pamphlets as a book, binding all separately,
+this is deemed in some quarters too vexatious and troublesome,
+as well as needlessly expensive. It must be considered,
+however, that the crowding together of a heterogenous
+mass of a dozen or twenty pamphlets, by different
+authors, and on various subjects, into a single cover, is just
+as objectionable as binding books on unrelated subjects together.
+Much time is consumed in finding the pamphlet
+wanted, among the dozen or more that precede or follow
+it, and, if valuable or much sought-for pamphlets are thus
+bound, many readers may be kept waiting for some of
+them, while one reader engrosses the volume containing
+all. Besides, if separately bound, a single pamphlet can be
+far more easily replaced in case of loss than can a whole
+volume of them. Pamphlets may be lightly bound in
+paste-board, stitched, with cloth backs, at a small cost; and
+the compensating advantage of being able to classify them
+like books upon the shelves, should weigh materially in the
+decision of the question. If many are bound together,
+they should invariably be assorted into classes, and those
+only on the same general topic should be embraced in the
+same cover. The long series of annual reports of societies
+and institutions, corporations, annual catalogues, etc.,
+need not be bound separately, but should be bound in
+chronological series, with five to ten years in a volume,
+according to thickness. So may several pamphlets, by the
+same writer, if preferred, be bound together. Libraries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_153" id="Pg_153"></a>[<a href="./images/153.png">153</a>]</span>
+which acquire many bound volumes of pamphlets should
+divide them into series, and number them throughout
+with strict reference to the catalogue. There will thus
+be accumulated a constantly increasing series of theological,
+political, agricultural, medical, educational, scientific,
+and other pamphlets, while the remaining mass, which cannot
+be thus classified, may be designated in a consecutive
+series of volumes, as "Miscellaneous Pamphlets." When
+catalogued, the title-page or beginning of each pamphlet in
+the volume, should be marked by a thin slip of unsized
+paper, projected above the top of the book, to <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'faciliate'">facilitate</ins>
+quick reference in finding each one without turning many
+leaves to get at the titles. In all cases, the contents of each
+volume of pamphlets should be briefed in numerical order
+upon the fly-leaf of the volume, and its corresponding number,
+or sequence in the volumes written in pencil on the
+title page of each pamphlet, to correspond with the figures
+of this brief list. Then the catalogue of each should indicate
+its exact location, thus: Wilkeson (Samuel) How our
+National Debt may become a National Blessing, 21 pp.
+8vo. Phila., 1863 [Miscellaneous pamphlets, v. 347:3],
+meaning that this is the third pamphlet bound in vol. 347.</p>
+
+<p>The only objection to separate binding of each pamphlet,
+is the increased expense. The advantage of distinct
+treatment may or may not outweigh this, according to the
+importance of the pamphlet, the circumstances of the library,
+and the funds at its command. If bound substantially
+in good half-leather, with leather corners, the
+cost is reckoned at 1<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> each, in London. Here, they
+cost about thirty cents with cloth sides, which may be reduced
+by the use of marble or Manila paper, to twenty
+cents each. Black roan is perhaps the best leather for
+pamphlets, as it brings out the lettering on the backs more
+distinctly&mdash;always a cardinal point in a library.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_154" id="Pg_154"></a>[<a href="./images/154.png">154</a>]</span>But there is a more economical method, which dispenses
+with leather entirely. As no patent is claimed for the invention,
+or rather the modification of well-known methods,
+it may be briefly described. The thinnest tar-board is
+used for the sides, which, <i>i. e.</i>, the boards, are cut down to
+nearly the size of the pamphlet to be bound. The latter is
+prepared for the boards by adding two or more waste leaves
+to the front and back, and backing it with a strip of common
+muslin, which is firmly pasted the full length of the
+back, and overlaps the sides to the width of an inch or
+more. The pamphlet has to be stitched through, or
+stabbed and fastened with wire, in the manner commonly
+practiced with thin books; after which it is ready to receive
+the boards. These are glued to a strip of book muslin,
+which constitutes the ultimate back of the book, being
+turned in neatly at each end, so as to form, with the
+boards, a skeleton cover, into which the pamphlet is inserted,
+and held in its place by the inner strip of muslin before
+described, which is pasted or glued to the inside of the
+boards. The boards are then covered with marbled paper,
+turned in at each edge, and the waste leaves pasted
+smoothly down to the boards on the inside. The only remaining
+process is the lettering, which is done by printing
+the titles in bronze upon glazed colored paper, which is
+pasted lengthwise on the back. A small font of type, with
+a hand-press, will suffice for this, and a stabbing machine,
+with a small pair of binding shears, constitutes the only
+other apparatus required. The cost of binding pamphlets
+in this style varies from seven to twelve cents each, according
+to the material employed, and the amount of labor
+paid for. The advantages of the method are too obvious
+to all acquainted with books to require exemplification.</p>
+
+<p>Two still cheaper methods of binding may be named.
+What is known as the Harvard binder, employed in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_155" id="Pg_155"></a>[<a href="./images/155.png">155</a>]</span>
+library at Cambridge, Mass., consists simply of thin board
+sides with muslin back, and stubs also of cloth on the inside.
+The pamphlet is inserted and held in place by paste
+or glue. The cost of each binding is stated at six cents.</p>
+
+<p>The cheapest style of separate treatment for pamphlets
+yet suggested is of stiff Manila paper, with cloth back, costing
+about three cents each.</p>
+
+<p>I think that the rule of never mixing incongruous subjects
+within the same cover should be adhered to. The expense,
+by the cheaper method of binding referred to, is but
+slightly greater than must be incurred by binding several
+in a volume, in solid half morocco style. But, whenever
+pamphlets are bound together, the original printed paper
+covers should never be destroyed, but should be bound in.</p>
+
+<p>Another method of preserving pamphlets is to file them
+away in selected lots, placed inside of cloth covers, of considerable
+thickness. These may be had from any book-binder,
+being the rejected covers in which books sent for
+re-binding were originally bound. If kept in this way,
+each volume, or case of pamphlets, should be firmly tied
+with cord (or better with tape) fastened to the front edge
+of the cloth cover. Never use rubber or elastic bands for
+this, or any other purpose where time and security of fastening
+are involved, because the rubber will surely rot in
+a few weeks or months, and be useless as a means of holding
+together any objects whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Still another means of assorting and keeping pamphlets
+is to use Woodruff's file-holders, one of which holds from
+ten to thirty pamphlets according to their thickness.
+They should be arranged in classes, placing in each file case
+only pamphlets on similar subjects, in order of the authors'
+names, arranged alphabetically. Each pamphlet should be
+plainly numbered at its head by colored pencil, with the
+figure of its place in the volume, and the number of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_156" id="Pg_156"></a>[<a href="./images/156.png">156</a>]</span>
+case, containing it, which should also be volumed, and assigned
+to shelves containing books on related subjects. I
+need not add that all these numbers should correspond
+with the catalogue-title of each pamphlet. Then, when
+any one pamphlet is wanted, send for the case containing
+it, find it and withdraw it at once by its number, place it
+in one of the Koch spring-back binders, and give it to the
+reader precisely like any book that is served at the library
+counter.</p>
+
+<p>A more economical plan still, for libraries which cannot
+afford the expense of the Woodruff file-holders, is to cut
+out cases for the pamphlets, of suitable size, from tough
+Manila board, which need not cost more than about three
+cents each case.</p>
+
+<p>In whatever way the unbound pamphlets are treated,
+you should always mark them as such on the left-hand
+margin of each catalogue-card, by the designation "ub."
+(unbound) in pencil. If you decide later, to bind any of
+them, this pencil-mark should be erased from the cards,
+on the return of the pamphlets from the bindery.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_157" id="Pg_157"></a>[<a href="./images/157.png">157</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_8" id="CHAPTER_8"></a>CHAPTER 8.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Periodical Literature.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>The librarian who desires to make the management of
+his library in the highest degree successful, must give
+special attention to the important field of periodical literature.
+More and more, as the years roll on, the periodical
+becomes the successful rival of the book in the claim for
+public attention. Indeed, we hear now and then, denunciations
+of the ever-swelling flood of magazines and newspapers,
+as tending to drive out the book. Readers, we are
+told, are seduced from solid and improving reading, by the
+mass of daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals which lie in
+wait for them on every hand. But no indiscriminate censure
+of periodicals or of their reading, can blind us to the
+fact of their great value. Because some persons devote an
+inordinate amount of time to them, is no reason why we
+should fail to use them judiciously ourselves, or to aid
+others in doing so. And because many periodicals (and
+even the vast majority) are of little importance, and are
+filled with trifling and ephemeral matter, that fact does
+not discredit the meritorious ones. Counterfeit currency
+does not diminish the value of the true coin; it is very sure
+to find its own just level at last; and so the wretched or
+the sensational periodical, however pretentious, will fall
+into inevitable neglect and failure in the long run.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that the figures as to the relative issues of
+books and periodicals in the publishing world are startling
+enough to give us pause. It has been computed that of
+the annual product of the American press, eighty-two per
+cent. consists of newspapers, ten per cent. of magazines and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_158" id="Pg_158"></a>[<a href="./images/158.png">158</a>]</span>
+reviews, and only eight per cent. of books. Yet this vast
+redundancy of periodical literature is by no means such
+a menace to our permanent literature as it appears at
+first sight;&mdash;and that for three reasons: (1) a large share
+of the books actually published, appear in the first instance
+in the periodicals in serial or casual form; (2) the
+periodicals contain very much matter of permanent value;
+(3) the steady increase of carefully prepared books in the
+publishing world, while it may not keep pace with the
+rapid increase of periodicals, evinces a growth in the right
+direction. It is no longer so easy to get a crude or a poor
+book published, as it was a generation ago. The standard
+of critical taste has risen, and far more readers are judges
+of what constitutes a really good book than ever before.
+While it is true that our periodical product has so grown,
+that whereas there were twenty years ago, in 1878, only
+7,958 different newspapers and magazines published in the
+United States, there are now, in 1899, over 20,500 issued,
+it can also be stated that the annual product of books has
+increased in the same twenty years from less than two
+thousand to more than five thousand volumes of new issues
+in a year. Whatever may be the future of our American
+literature, it can hardly be doubted that the tendency is
+steadily toward the production of more books, and better
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>Whether a public library be large or small, its value to
+students will depend greatly upon the care and completeness
+with which its selection of periodical works is made,
+and kept up from year to year. Nothing is more common
+in all libraries, public and private, than imperfect and partially
+bound sets of serials, whether newspapers, reviews,
+magazines or the proceedings and reports of scientific and
+other societies. Nothing can be more annoying than to
+find the sets of such publications broken at the very point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_159" id="Pg_159"></a>[<a href="./images/159.png">159</a>]</span>
+where the reference or the wants of those consulting them
+require satisfaction. In these matters, perpetual vigilance
+is the price of completeness; and the librarian who is not
+willing or able to devote the time and means requisite to
+complete the files of periodical publications under his
+charge is to be censured or commiserated, according to the
+causes of the failure. The first essential in keeping up the
+completeness of files of ephemeral publications, next to
+vigilance on the part of their custodian, is room for the
+arrangement of the various parts, and means for binding
+with promptitude. Some libraries, and among them a
+few of the largest, are so hampered for want of room, that
+their serials are piled in heaps without order or arrangement,
+and are thus comparatively useless until bound. In
+the more fortunate institutions, which possess adequate
+space for the orderly arrangement of all their stores, there
+can be no excuse for failing to supply any periodical,
+whether bound or unbound, at the moment it is called for.
+It is simply necessary to devote sufficient time each day to
+the systematic arrangement of all receipts: to keep each
+file together in chronological order; to supply them for the
+perusal of readers, with a proper check or receipt, and to
+make sure of binding each new volume as fast as the publication
+of titles and index enables it to be done properly.
+While some libraries receive several thousands of serials,
+the periodical publications taken by others amount to a
+very small number; but in either case, the importance of
+prompt collation and immediate supply of missing parts
+or numbers is equally imperative. While deficiencies in
+daily newspapers can rarely be made up after the week, and
+sometimes not after the day of their appearance, the missing
+parts of official and other publications, as well as of
+reviews and magazines appearing at less frequent intervals,
+can usually be supplied within the year, although a more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_160" id="Pg_160"></a>[<a href="./images/160.png">160</a>]</span>
+prompt securing of them is often necessary. In these
+publications, as in the acquisition of books for any library,
+the collation of each part or number is imperative, in order
+to avoid imperfections which may be irreparable.</p>
+
+<p>First in the ranks of these ephemeral publications, in
+order of number, if not of importance, come the journals
+of all classes, daily and weekly, political, illustrated, literary,
+scientific, mechanical, professional, agricultural, financial,
+etc. From the obscure and fugitive beginnings of
+journalism in the sixteenth century to the establishment
+of the first continuous newspaper&mdash;the London Weekly
+News, in 1622, and Renaudot's Gazette (afterwards the
+<i>Gazette de France</i>) in 1631, followed by the issue of the first
+daily newspaper, the London Daily Courant, in 1702, and
+the Boston Weekly News-letter in 1704, (the first American
+journal)&mdash;to the wonderful fecundity of the modern
+periodical press, which scatters the leaves of more than
+thirty thousand different journals broadcast over the
+world, there is a long and interesting history of the trials
+and triumphs of a free press. In whatever respect American
+libraries may fall behind those of older lands (and their
+deficiencies are vast, and, in many directions permanent)
+it may be said with confidence, that in the United States
+the newspaper has received its widest and most complete
+development. Numerically, the fullest approximate return
+of the newspaper and periodical press gives a total
+number of 21,500 periodical publications, regularly appearing
+within the limits of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>While no one library, however large and comprehensive,
+has either the space or the means to accumulate a tithe of
+the periodicals that swarm from a productive press, there
+are valid reasons why more attention should be paid by the
+librarian to a careful preservation of a wise selection of the
+best of all this current literature. The modern newspaper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_161" id="Pg_161"></a>[<a href="./images/161.png">161</a>]</span>
+and other periodical publications afford the fullest and
+truest, and on the whole, the most impartial image of the
+age we live in, that can be derived from a single source.
+Taken together, they afford the richest material for the
+historian, or the student of politics, of society, of literature,
+and of civilization in all its varied aspects. What
+precious memorials of the day, even the advertisements
+and brief paragraphs of the newspapers of a century ago
+afford us! While in a field so vast, it is impossible for any
+one library to be more than a gleaner, no such institution
+can afford to neglect the collection and preservation of at
+least some of the more important newspapers from year to
+year. A public library is not for one generation only, but
+it is for all time. Opportunities once neglected of securing
+the current periodicals of any age in continuous and
+complete form seldom or never recur. The principle of
+selection will of course vary in different libraries and localities.
+While the safest general rule is to secure the best
+and most representative of all the journals, reviews, and
+magazines within the limit of the funds which can be devoted
+to that purpose, there is another principle which
+should largely guide the selection. In each locality, it
+should be one leading object of the principal library to
+gather within its walls the fullest representation possible,
+of the literature relating to its own State and neighborhood.
+In every city and large town, the local journals and
+other periodicals should form an indispensable part of a
+public library collection. Where the means are wanting
+to purchase these, the proprietors will frequently furnish
+them free of expense, for public use; but no occasion
+should be lost of securing, immediately on its issue from
+the press, every publication, large or small, which relates
+to the local history or interests of the place where the
+library is maintained.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_162" id="Pg_162"></a>[<a href="./images/162.png">162</a>]</span>While the files of the journals of any period furnish unquestionably
+the best instruments for the history of that
+epoch, it is lamentable to reflect that so little care has ever
+been taken to preserve a fair representation of those of any
+age. The destiny of nearly all newspapers is swift destruction;
+and even those which are preserved, commonly survive
+in a lamentably fragmentary state. The obvious
+causes of the rapid disappearance of periodical literature,
+are its great volume, necessarily increasing with every year,
+the difficulty of lodging the files of any long period in our
+narrow apartments, and the continual demand for paper
+for the uses of trade. To these must be added the great
+cost of binding files of journals, increasing in the direct
+ratio of the size of the volume. As so formidable an expense
+can be incurred by very few private subscribers to
+periodicals, so much the more important is it that the public
+libraries should not neglect a duty which they owe to
+their generation, as well as to those that are to follow.
+These poor journals of to-day, which everybody is willing
+to stigmatize as trash, not worth the room to store or the
+money to bind, are the very materials which the man of the
+future will search for with eagerness, and for some of
+which he will be ready to pay their weight in gold. These
+representatives of the commercial, industrial, inventive,
+social, literary, political, moral and religious life of the
+times, should be preserved and handed down to posterity
+with sedulous care. No historian or other writer on any
+subject who would write conscientiously or with full information,
+can afford to neglect this fruitful mine of the journals,
+where his richest materials are frequently to be
+found.</p>
+
+<p>In the absence of any great library of journals, or of that
+universal library which every nation should possess, it becomes
+the more important to assemble in the various local<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_163" id="Pg_163"></a>[<a href="./images/163.png">163</a>]</span>
+libraries all those ephemeral publications, which, if not
+thus preserved contemporaneously with their issue, will
+disappear utterly, and elude the search of future historical
+inquirers. And that library which shall most sedulously
+gather and preserve such fugitive memorials of the life of
+the people among which it is situated will be found to have
+best subserved its purpose to the succeeding generations of
+men.</p>
+
+<p>Not less important than the preservation of newspapers
+is that of reviews and magazines. In fact, the latter are
+almost universally recognized as far more important than
+the more fugitive literature of the daily and weekly press.
+Though inferior to the journals as historical and statistical
+materials, reviews and magazines supply the largest fund
+of discussion concerning such topics of scientific, social,
+literary, and religious interest as occupy the public mind
+during the time in which they appear. More and more
+the best thought of the times gets reflected in the pages
+of this portion of the periodical press. No investigator in
+any department can afford to overlook the rich stores contributed
+to thought in reviews and magazines. These articles
+are commonly more condensed and full of matter
+than the average books of the period. While every library,
+therefore, should possess for the current use and
+ultimate reference of its readers a selection of the best,
+as large as its means will permit, a great and comprehensive
+library, in order to be representative of the national
+literature, should possess them all.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The salient fact that the periodical press absorbs, year
+by year, more of the talent which might otherwise be expended
+upon literature of more permanent form is abundantly
+obvious. This tendency has both its good and its
+evil results. On the one hand, the best writing ability is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_164" id="Pg_164"></a>[<a href="./images/164.png">164</a>]</span>
+often drawn out by magazines and journals, which are keen
+competitors for attractive matter, and for known reputations,
+and sometimes they secure both in combination.
+On the other hand, it is a notable fact that writers capable
+of excellent work often do great injustice to their reputations
+by producing too hastily articles written to order, instead
+of the well-considered, ripe fruits of their literary
+skill. Whether the brief article answering the limits of
+a magazine or a review is apt to be more or less superficial
+than a book treating the same topic, is a question admitting
+of different views. If the writer is capable of skilful
+condensation, without loss of grace of composition, or of
+graphic power, then the article, measured by its influence
+upon the public mind, must be preferred to the more diffuse
+treatise of the book. It has the immense advantage
+of demanding far less of the reader's time; and whenever
+its conclusions are stated in a masterly way, its impression
+should be quite as lasting as that of any book treating a
+similar theme. Such is doubtless the effect of the abler
+articles written for periodicals, which are more condensed
+and full of matter in speedily available form, than the
+average book of the period. In this sense it is a misuse of
+terms to call the review article ephemeral, or to treat the
+periodicals containing them as perishable literary commodities,
+which serve their term with the month or year that
+produced them. On the contrary, the experience of librarians
+shows that the most sought-for, and the most useful
+contributions to any subject are frequently found, not in
+the books written upon it, but in the files of current periodicals,
+or in those of former years. It is especially to be
+noted that the book may frequently lose its adaptation and
+usefulness by lapse of time, and the onward march of science,
+while the article is apt to reflect the latest light which
+can help to illustrate the subject.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_165" id="Pg_165"></a>[<a href="./images/165.png">165</a>]</span>While, therefore, there is always a liability of finding
+many crude and sketchy contributions in the literature of
+the periodical press, its conductors are ever on the alert
+to reduce to a minimum the weak or unworthy offerings,
+and to secure a maximum of articles embodying mature
+thought and fit expression. The pronounced tendency toward
+short methods in every channel of human activity, is
+reflected in the constantly multiplying series of periodical
+publications.</p>
+
+<p>The publishing activities of the times are taking on
+a certain co&ouml;perative element, which was not formerly
+known. Thus, the "literary syndicate" has been developed
+by degrees into one of the most far-reaching agencies for
+popular entertainment. The taste for short stories, in
+place of the ancient three volume novel, has been cultivated
+even in conservative England, and has become so
+wide-spread in the United States, that very few periodicals
+which deal in fiction at all, are without their stories begun
+and finished in a single issue. The talent required to produce
+a fascinating and successful fiction in this narrow
+compass is a peculiar one, and while there are numerous
+failures, there are also a surprising number of successes.
+Well written descriptive articles, too, are in demand, and
+special cravings for personal gossip and lively sketches of
+notable living characters are manifest. That perennial interest
+which mankind and womankind evince in every individual
+whose name, for whatever reason, has become
+familiar, supplies a basis for an inexhaustible series of light
+paragraphic articles. Another fruitful field for the syndicate
+composition is brief essays upon any topic of the times,
+the fashions, notable events, or new inventions, public
+charities, education, governmental doings, current political
+movements, etc. These appear almost simultaneously,
+in many different periodicals, scattered throughout the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_166" id="Pg_166"></a>[<a href="./images/166.png">166</a>]</span>
+country, under the copyright <i>imprimatur</i>, which warns off
+all journals from republishing, which have not subscribed
+to the special "syndicate" engaging them. Thus each
+periodical secures, at extremely moderate rates, contributions
+which are frequently written by the most noted and
+popular living writers, who, in their turn, are much better
+remunerated for their work than they would be for the
+same amount of writing if published in book form.
+Whether this now popular method of attaining a wide and
+remunerative circulation for their productions will prove
+permanent, is less certain than that many authors now find
+it the surest road to profitable employment of their pens.
+The fact that it rarely serves to introduce unknown writers
+of talent to the reading world, may be laid to the account
+of the eagerness of the syndicates to secure names that already
+enjoy notoriety.</p>
+
+<p>The best method for filing newspapers for current reading
+is a vexed question in libraries. In the large ones,
+where room enough exists, large reading-stands with sloping
+sides furnish the most convenient access, provided with
+movable metal rods to keep the papers in place. Where
+no room exists for these stands, some of the numerous portable
+newspaper-file inventions, or racks, may be substituted,
+allowing one to each paper received at the library.</p>
+
+<p>For filing current magazines, reviews, and the smaller
+newspapers, like the literary and technical journals, various
+plans are in use. All of these have advantages, while
+none is free from objection. Some libraries use the ordinary
+pamphlet case, in which the successive numbers are
+kept until a volume is accumulated for binding. This requires
+a separate case for each periodical, and where many
+are taken, is expensive, though by this method the magazines
+are kept neat and in order. Others use small newspaper
+files or tapes for periodicals. Others still arrange<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_167" id="Pg_167"></a>[<a href="./images/167.png">167</a>]</span>
+them alphabetically on shelves, in which case the latest issues
+are found on top, if the chronology is preserved. In
+serving periodicals to readers, tickets should be required
+(as for books) with title and date, as a precaution against
+loss, or careless leaving upon tables.</p>
+
+<p>Whether current periodicals are ever allowed to be
+drawn out, must depend upon several weighty considerations.
+When only one copy is taken, no circulation should
+be permitted, so that the magazines and journals may be
+always in, at the service of readers frequenting the library.
+But in some large public libraries, where several copies of
+each of the more popular serials are subscribed to, it is the
+custom to keep one copy (sometimes two) always in, and to
+allow the duplicate copies to be drawn out. This circulation
+should be limited to a period much shorter than is allowed
+for keeping books.</p>
+
+<p>In no case, should the bound volumes of magazines, reviews,
+and journals of whatever kind be allowed to leave
+the library. This is a rule which should be enforced for
+the common benefit of all the readers, since to lend to one
+reader any periodical or work of general reference is to deprive
+all the rest of its use just so long as it is out of the
+library. This has become all the more important since the
+publication of Poole's Indexes to periodical literature has
+put the whole reading community on the quest for information
+to be found only (in condensed form, or in the
+latest treatment) in the volumes of the periodical press.
+And it is really no hardship to any quick, intelligent
+reader, to require that these valuable serials should be used
+within the library only. An article is not like a book;&mdash;a
+long and perhaps serious study, requiring many hours or
+days to master it. The magazine or review article, whatever
+other virtues it may lack, has the supreme merit of
+brevity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_168" id="Pg_168"></a>[<a href="./images/168.png">168</a>]</span>The only valid exception which will justify loaning the
+serial volumes of periodicals outside the library, is when
+there are duplicate sets of any of them. Some large libraries
+having a wide popular circulation are able to buy two
+or more sets of the magazines most in demand, and so to
+lend one out, while another is kept constantly in for use
+and reference. And even a library of small means might
+secure for its shelves duplicate sets of many periodicals, by
+simply making known that it would be glad to receive from
+any families or other owners, all the numbers of their
+magazines, etc., which they no longer need for use. This
+would bring in, in any large town or city, a copious supply
+of periodicals which house-keepers, tired of keeping, storing
+and dusting such unsightly property, would be glad to
+bestow where they would do the most good.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever periodicals are taken, it is essential to watch
+over their completeness by keeping a faithfully revised
+check-list. This should be ruled to furnish blank spaces
+for each issue of all serials taken, whether quarterly,
+monthly, weekly, or daily, and no week should elapse without
+complete scrutiny of the list, and ordering all missing
+numbers from the publishers. Mail failures are common,
+and unceasing vigilance is the price that must be paid for
+completeness. The same check-list, by other spaces,
+should show the time of expiration of subscriptions, and
+the price paid per year. And where a large number of
+periodicals are received, covering many parts of the country,
+they should be listed, not only by an alphabet of titles,
+but by another alphabet of places where published, as well.</p>
+
+<p>If a new library is to be formed, having no sets of periodicals
+on which to build, effort should be made to secure full
+sets from the beginning of as many of the prominent magazines
+and reviews, American and foreign, as the funds will
+permit. It is expedient to wait a little, rather than to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_169" id="Pg_169"></a>[<a href="./images/169.png">169</a>]</span>
+up with incomplete sets, as full ones are pretty sure to turn
+up, and competition between the many dealers should
+bring down prices to a fair medium. In fact, many old
+sets of magazines are offered surprisingly cheap, and usually
+well-bound. But vigilant care must be exercised
+to secure perfect sets, as numbers are often mutilated, or
+deficient in some pages or illustrations. This object can
+only be secured by collation of every volume, page by page,
+with due attention to the list of illustrations, if any are
+published.</p>
+
+<p>In the absence of British bibliographical enterprise (a
+want much to be deplored) it has fallen to the lot of American
+librarians to produce the only general index of subjects
+to English periodical literature which exists. Poole's
+Index to Periodical Literature is called by the name of its
+senior editor, the late Dr. Wm. F. Poole, and was contributed
+to by many librarians on a co&ouml;perative division of
+labor, in indexing, under direction of Mr. Wm. I. Fletcher,
+librarian of Amherst College. This index to leading periodicals
+is literally invaluable, and indispensable as an aid
+to research. Its first volume indexes in one alphabet the
+periodicals embraced, from their first issues up to 1882.
+The second volume runs from 1882 to 1887, and the third
+covers the period from 1887 to 1891, while a fourth volume
+indexes the periodicals from 1892 to 1896, inclusive.
+For 1897, and each year after, an annual index to the publications
+of the year is issued.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, the <i>Review of Reviews</i> publishes monthly an
+index to one month's leading periodicals, and also an annual
+index, very full, in a single alphabet. And the
+"Cumulative Index," issued both monthly and quarterly,
+by W. H. Brett, the Cleveland, Ohio, librarian, is an admirably
+full means of keeping our keys to periodical literature
+up to date. There are other indexes to periodicals,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_170" id="Pg_170"></a>[<a href="./images/170.png">170</a>]</span>
+published monthly or quarterly, too numerous to be noticed
+here. The annual <i>New York Tribune</i> Index (the
+only daily journal, except the <i>London Times</i>, which prints
+an index) is highly useful, and may be used for other newspapers
+as well, for the most important events or discussions,
+enabling one to search the dailies for himself, the
+date once being fixed by aid of the index.</p>
+
+<p>Mention should also be made here of the admirably comprehensive
+annual "<i>Rowell's Newspaper Directory</i>," which
+should rather be called the "American Periodical Directory,"
+since it has a classified catalogue of all periodicals
+published in the United States and Canada.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_171" id="Pg_171"></a>[<a href="./images/171.png">171</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_9" id="CHAPTER_9"></a>CHAPTER 9.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Art of Reading.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>"The true University of these days," says a great scholar
+of our century, Thomas Carlyle, "is a collection of books,
+and all education is to teach us how to read."</p>
+
+<p>If there were any volume, out of the multitude of books
+about books that have been written, which could illuminate
+the pathway of the unskilled reader, so as to guide him into
+all knowledge by the shortest road, what a boon that book
+would be!</p>
+
+<p>When we survey the vast and rapidly growing product of
+the modern press,&mdash;when we see these hosts of poets without
+imagination, historians without accuracy, critics without
+discernment, and novelists without invention or style,
+in short, the whole prolific brood of writers who do not
+know how to write,&mdash;we are tempted to echo the sentiment
+of Wordsworth:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The intellectual power, through words and things,<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">Goes sounding on a dim and perilous way."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The most that any one can hope to do for others is to
+suggest to them a clue which, however feeble, has helped
+to guide his uncertain footsteps through the labyrinthian
+maze of folly and wisdom which we call literature.</p>
+
+<p>The knowledge acquired by a Librarian, while it may be
+very wide and very varied, runs much risk of being as
+superficial as it is diversified. There is a very prevalent,
+but very erroneous notion which conceives of a librarian
+as a kind of animated encyclopaedia, who, if you tap him
+in any direction, from A to Z, will straightway pour forth a
+flood of knowledge upon any subject in history, science, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_172" id="Pg_172"></a>[<a href="./images/172.png">172</a>]</span>
+literature. This popular ideal, however fine in theory, has
+to undergo what commercial men call a heavy discount
+when reduced to practice. The librarian is a constant
+and busy worker in far other fields than exploring the contents
+of books. His day is filled with cataloguing, arranging
+and classifying them, searching catalogues, selecting
+new books, correspondence, directing assistants, keeping
+library records, adjusting accounts, etc., in the midst of
+which he is constantly at the call of the public for books
+and information. What time has he, wearied by the day's
+multifarious and exacting labors, for any thorough study
+of books? So, when anyone begins an inquiry with, "You
+know everything; can you tell me,"&mdash;I say: "Stop a moment;
+omniscience is not a human quality; I really know
+very few things, and am not quite sure of some of them."
+There are many men, and women, too, in almost every
+community, whose range of knowledge is more extended
+than that of most librarians.</p>
+
+<p>The idea, then, that because one lives perpetually among
+books, he absorbs all the learning that they contain, must
+be abandoned as a popular delusion. To know a little
+upon many subjects is quite compatible with not knowing
+much about any one. "Beware of the man of one book,"
+is an ancient proverb, pregnant with meaning. The man
+of one book, if it is wisely chosen, and if he knows it all,
+can sometimes confound a whole assembly of scholars. An
+American poet once declared to me that all leisure time is
+lost that is not spent in reading Shakespeare. And we remember
+Emerson's panegyric upon Plato's writings, borrowing
+from the Caliph Omar his famous (but apocryphal)
+sentence against all books but the Koran: "Burn all the
+libraries, for their value is in this book." So Sheffield,
+duke of Buckingham:</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_173" id="Pg_173"></a>[<a href="./images/173.png">173</a>]</span></p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Read Homer once, and you can read no more,<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">For all books else appear so tame, so poor,<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">Verse will seem prose, but still persist to read,<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">And Homer will be all the books you need."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Of course I am far from designing to say anything
+against the widest study, which great libraries exist to
+supply and to encourage; and all utterances of a half-truth,
+like the maxim I have quoted, are exaggerations.
+But the saying points a moral&mdash;and that is, the supreme
+importance of thoroughness in all that we undertake. The
+poetical wiseacre who endowed the world with the maxim,
+"A little learning is a dangerous thing," does not appear
+to have reflected upon the logical sequence of the dictum,
+namely: that if a little learning upon any subject is dangerous,
+then less must be still more dangerous.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The art of reading to the best advantage implies the
+command of adequate time to read. The art of having
+time to read depends upon knowing how to make the best
+use of our days. Days are short, and time is fleeting, but
+no one's day ever holds less than 24 hours. Engrossing
+as one's occupation may be, it need never consume all
+the time remaining from sleep, refreshment and social intercourse.
+The half hour before breakfast, the fifteen
+minutes waiting for dinner, given to the book you wish to
+read, will soon finish it, and make room for another. The
+busiest men I have known have often been the most intelligent,
+and the widest readers. The idle person never
+knows how to make use of odd moments; the busy one
+always knows how. Yet the vast majority of people go
+through life without ever learning the great lesson of the
+supreme value of moments.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose that you determine to devote two hours
+every day to reading. That is equivalent to more than
+seven hundred hours a year, or to three months of work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_174" id="Pg_174"></a>[<a href="./images/174.png">174</a>]</span>ing
+time of eight hours a day. What could you not do in
+three months, if you had all the time to yourself? You
+could almost learn a new language, or master a new science;
+yet this two hours a day, which would give you three
+months of free time every year, is frittered away, you
+scarcely know how, in aimless matters that lead to nothing.</p>
+
+<p>A famous writer of our century, some of whose books
+you have read,&mdash;Edward Bulwer Lytton,&mdash;devoted only
+four hours a day to writing; yet he produced more than
+sixty volumes of fiction, poetry, drama and criticism, of
+singular literary merit. The great naturalist, Darwin, a
+chronic sufferer from a depressing malady, counted two
+hours a fortunate day's work for him; yet he accomplished
+results in the world of science which render his name immortal.</p>
+
+<p>Be not over particular as to hours, or the time of day,
+and you will soon find that all hours are good for the muse.
+Have a purpose, and adhere to it with good-humored pertinacity.
+Be independent of the advice and opinions of
+others; the world of books, like the world of nature, was
+made for you; possess it in your own way. If you find no
+good in ancient history or in metaphysics, let them alone
+and read books of art, or poetry, or biography, or voyages
+and travels. The wide domain of knowledge and the
+world of books are so related, that all roads cross and converge,
+like the paths that carry us over the surface of the
+globe on which we live. Many a reader has learned more
+of past times from good biographies, than from any formal
+history; and it is a fact that many owe to the plays of
+Shakespeare and the novels of Walter Scott nearly all the
+knowledge which they possess of the history of England
+and Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>It is unhappily true that books do not teach the use of
+books. The art of extracting what is important or in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_175" id="Pg_175"></a>[<a href="./images/175.png">175</a>]</span>structive
+in any book, from the mass of verbiage that commonly
+overlays it, cannot be learned by theory. Invaluable
+as the art of reading is, as a means of enlightenment,
+its highest uses can only be obtained by a certain method
+of reading, which will separate the wheat from the chaff.
+Different readers will, of course, possess different capacities
+for doing this. Young or undisciplined minds can read
+only in one way,&mdash;and that way is, to mentally pronounce
+every word, and dwell equally upon all the parts of every
+sentence. This comes naturally in the first instance, from
+the mere method of learning to read, in which every word
+is a spoken symbol, and has to be sounded, whether it is essential
+to the sense, or not. This habit of reading, which
+may be termed the literal method, goes with most persons
+through life. Once learned, it is very hard to unlearn.
+There are multitudes who cannot read a newspaper, even,
+without dwelling upon every word, and coming to a full
+stop at the end of every sentence. Now this method of
+reading, while it may be indispensable to all readers at
+some time, and to some readers at all times, is too slow and
+fruitless for the student who aims to absorb the largest
+amount of knowledge in the briefest space of time. Life
+is too short to be wasted over the rhetoric or the periods
+of an author whose knowledge we want as all that concerns
+us.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless there are classes of literature in which form
+or expression predominates, and we cannot read poetry,
+for example, or the drama, or even the higher class of fiction,
+without lingering upon the finer passages, to get the
+full impression of their beauty. In reading works of the
+imagination, we read not for ideas alone, but for expression
+also, and to enjoy the rhythm and melody of the verse,
+if it be poetry, or, if prose, the finished rhetoric, and the
+pleasing cadence of the style. It is here that the literary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_176" id="Pg_176"></a>[<a href="./images/176.png">176</a>]</span>
+skill of an accomplished writer, and all that we understand
+by rhetoric, becomes important, while in reading for information
+only, we may either ignore words and phrases
+entirely, or subordinate them to the ideas which they convey.
+In reading any book for the knowledge it contains,
+I should as soon think of spelling out all the words, as of
+reading out all the sentences. Just as, in listening to a
+slow speaker, you divine the whole meaning of what he is
+about to say, before he has got half through his sentence,
+so, in reading, you can gather the full sense of the ideas
+which any sentence contains, without stopping to accentuate
+the words.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving aside the purely literary works, in which form
+or style is a predominant element, let us come to books of
+science, history, biography, voyages, travels, etc. In these,
+the primal aim is to convey information, and thus the style
+of expression is little or nothing&mdash;the thought or the fact
+is all. Yet most writers envelop the thought or the fact
+in so much verbiage, complicate it with so many episodes,
+beat it out thin, by so much iteration and reiteration, that
+the student must needs learn the art of skipping, in self-defense.
+To one in zealous pursuit of knowledge, to read
+most books through is paying them too extravagant a compliment.
+He has to read between the lines, as it were, to
+note down a fact here, or a thought there, or an illustration
+elsewhere, and leaves alone all that contributes nothing
+to his special purpose. As the quick, practiced eye
+glances over the visible signs of thought, page after page
+is rapidly absorbed, and a book which would occupy an
+ordinary reader many days in reading, is mastered in a few
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>The habit of reading which I have outlined, and which
+may be termed the intuitive method, or, if you prefer it,
+the short-hand method, will more than double the working<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_177" id="Pg_177"></a>[<a href="./images/177.png">177</a>]</span>
+power of the reader. It is not difficult to practice, especially
+to a busy man, who does with all his might what he
+has got to do. But it should be learned early in life, when
+the faculties are fresh, the mind full of zeal for knowledge,
+and the mental habits are ductile, not fixed. With
+it one's capacity for acquiring knowledge, and consequently
+his accomplishment, whether as writer, teacher,
+librarian, or private student, will be immeasureably increased.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless it is true that some native or intuitive gifts
+must be conjoined with much mental discipline and perseverance,
+in order to reach the highest result, in this
+method of reading, as in any other study. "<i>Non omnia
+possumus omnes</i>," Virgil says; and there are intellects who
+could no more master such a method, than they could understand
+the binomial theorem, or calculate the orbit of
+Uranus. If it be true, as has been epigramatically said,
+that "a great book is a great evil," let it be reduced to a
+small one by the skilful use of the art of skipping. Then,
+"he that runs may read" as he runs&mdash;while, without this
+refuge, he that reads will often assuredly be tempted to
+run.</p>
+
+<p>What I said, just now, in deprecation of set courses of
+reading, was designed for private students only, who so
+often find a stereotyped sequence of books barren or uninteresting.
+It was not intended to discourage the pursuit
+of a special course of study in the school, or the society, or
+the reading class. This is, in fact, one of the best means
+of intellectual progress. Here, there is the opportunity
+to discuss the style, the merits, and the characteristics of
+the author in hand, and by the attrition of mind with
+mind, to inform and entertain the whole circle of readers.
+In an association of this kind, embracing one or two acute
+minds, the excellent practice of reading aloud finds its best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_178" id="Pg_178"></a>[<a href="./images/178.png">178</a>]</span>
+results. Here, too, the art of expression becomes important,
+how to adapt the sound to the sense, by a just emphasis,
+intonation, and modulation of the voice. In short, the
+value of a book thus read and discussed, in an appreciative
+circle, may be more than doubled to each reader.</p>
+
+<p>It is almost literally true that no book, undertaken
+merely as task work, ever helped the reader to knowledge
+of permanent or material value. How many persons,
+struck by Mr. Emerson's exalted praise of the writings of
+Plato, have undertaken to go through the Dialogues.
+Alas! for the vain ambition to be or to seem learned! After
+trying to understand the Phaedo, or falling asleep over
+the Gorgias, the book has been dropped as hastily as it was
+taken up. It was not perceived that in order to enjoy or
+comprehend a philosopher, one must have a capacity for
+ideas. It requires almost as much intelligence to appreciate
+an idea as to conceive one. One will bring nothing
+home from the most persistent cruise after knowledge, unless
+he carries something out. In the realm of learning,
+we recognize the full meaning of that Scripture, that to
+him that hath, shall be given; and he that hath not,
+though never so anxious to read and understand Plato, will
+quickly return to the perusal of his daily newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>It were easier, perhaps, in one sense, to tell what not
+to read, than to recommend what is best worth reading.
+In the publishing world, this is the age of compilation,
+not of creation. If we seek for great original works, if
+we must go to the wholesale merchants to buy knowledge,
+since retail geniuses are worth but little, one must go
+back many years for his main selection of books. It would
+not be a bad rule for those who can read but little, to read
+no book until it has been published at least a year or two.
+This fever for the newest books is not a wholesome condition
+of the mind. And since a selection must indispensa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_179" id="Pg_179"></a>[<a href="./images/179.png">179</a>]</span>bly
+be made, and that selection must be, for the great mass
+of readers, so rigid and so small, why should precious time
+be wasted upon the ephemeral productions of the hour?
+What business, for example, has one to be reading Rider
+Haggard, or Am&eacute;lie Rives, or Ian Maclaren, who has never
+read Homer, or Dante, or even so much as half-a-dozen
+plays of Shakespeare?</p>
+
+<p>One hears with dismay that about three-fourths of the
+books drawn from our popular libraries are novels. Now,
+while such aimless reading, merely to be amused, is doubtless
+better than no reading at all, it is unquestionably true
+that over-much reading of fiction, especially at an early
+age, enervates the mind, weakens the will, makes dreamers
+instead of thinkers and workers, and fills the imagination
+with morbid and unreal views of life. Yet the vast consumption
+of novels is due more to the cheapness and wide
+diffusion of such works, and the want of wise direction in
+other fields, than to any original tendency on the part of
+the young. People will always read the most, that which
+is most put before them, if only the style be attractive.
+The mischief that is done by improper books is literally
+immeasureable. The superabundance of cheap fictions in
+the markets creates and supplies an appetite which should
+be directed by wise guidance into more improving fields.
+A two-fold evil follows upon the reading of every unworthy
+book; in the first place, it absorbs the time which
+should be bestowed upon a worthy one; and secondly, it
+leaves the mind and heart unimproved, instead of conducing
+to the benefit of both. As there are few books more
+elevating than a really good novel, so there are none more
+fruitful of evil than a bad one.</p>
+
+<p>And what of the newspaper? it may be asked. When I
+consider for how much really good literature we are beholden
+to the daily and weekly press, how indispensable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_180" id="Pg_180"></a>[<a href="./images/180.png">180</a>]</span>
+is its function as purveyor of the news of the world, how
+widely it has been improved in recent years, I cannot advise
+quarreling with the bridge that brings so many across
+the gulf of ignorance. Yet the newspaper, like the book,
+is to be read sparingly, and with judgment. It is to be
+used, not abused. I call that an abuse which squanders
+the precious and unreturning hours over long chronicles
+of depravity. The murders, the suicides, the executions,
+the divorces, the criminal trials, are each and all so like
+one another that it is only a wanton waste of time to read
+them. The morbid style in which social disorders of all
+kinds are written up in the sensational press, with staring
+headlines to attract attention, ought to warn off every
+healthy mind from their perusal. Every scandal in society
+that can be brought to the surface is eagerly caught
+up and paraded, while the millions of people who lead
+blameless lives of course go unnoticed and unchronicled.
+Such journals thus inculcate the vilest pessimism, instead
+of a wholesome and honest belief in the average decency
+of human nature. The prolixity of the narrative,
+too, is always in monstrous disproportion to its importance.
+"Does not the burning of a metropolitan theatre," says a
+great writer, "take above a million times as much telling as
+the creation of a world?" Here is where the art of skipping
+is to be rigorously applied. Read the newspaper by
+headlines only,&mdash;skipping all the murders, all the fires, all
+the executions, all the crimes, all the news, except the most
+important and immediately interesting,&mdash;and you will
+spend perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes upon what would
+otherwise occupy hours. It is no exaggeration to say that
+most persons have spent time enough over the newspapers,
+to have given them a liberal education.</p>
+
+<p>As all readers cannot have the same gifts, so all cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_181" id="Pg_181"></a>[<a href="./images/181.png">181</a>]</span>
+enjoy the same books. There are those who can see no
+greatness in Shakespeare, but who think Tupper's Proverbial
+Philosophy sublime. Some will eagerly devour
+every novel of Miss Braddon's, or "The Duchess," or the
+woman calling herself "Ouida," but they cannot appreciate
+the masterly fictions of Thackeray. I have known very
+good people who could not, for the life of them, find any
+humor in Dickens, but who actually enjoyed the strained
+wit of Mrs. Partington and Bill Nye. Readers who could
+not get through a volume of Gibbon will read with admiration
+a so-called History of Napoleon by Abbott. And I
+fear that you will find many a young lady of to-day, who is
+content to be ignorant of Homer and Shakespeare, but who
+is ravished by the charms of "Trilby" or the "Heavenly
+Twins." But taste in literature, as in art, or in anything
+else, can be cultivated. Lay down the rule, and adhere
+to it, to read none but the best books, and you will soon
+lose all relish for the poor ones. You can educate readers
+into good judges, in no long time, by feeding them on the
+masterpieces of English prose and poetry. Surely, we all
+have cause to deprecate the remorseless flood of fictitious
+literature in which better books are drowned.</p>
+
+<p>Be not dismayed at the vast multitude of books, nor fear
+that, with your small leisure, you will never be able to
+master any appreciable share of them. Few and far between
+are the great books of the world. The works which
+it is necessary to know, may be comprised in a comparatively
+small compass. The rest are to be preserved in the
+great literary conservatories, some as records of the past,
+others as chronicles of the times, and not a few as models
+to be avoided. The Congressional Library at Washington
+is our great National conservatory of books. As the library
+of the government&mdash;that is, of the whole people,&mdash;it
+is inclusive of all the literature which the country pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_182" id="Pg_182"></a>[<a href="./images/182.png">182</a>]</span>duces,
+while all the other libraries are and must be more
+or less exclusive. No National Library can ever be too
+large. In order that the completeness of the collection
+shall not fail, and to preserve the whole of our literature,
+it is put into the Statute of Copyright, as a condition precedent
+of the exclusive right to multiply copies of any book,
+that it shall be deposited in the Library of Congress. Apprehension
+is sometimes expressed that our National Library
+will become overloaded with trash, and so fail of its
+usefulness. 'Tis a lost fear. There is no act of Congress
+requiring all the books to be read. The public sense is
+continually winnowing and sifting the literature of every
+period, and to books and their authors, every day is the day
+of judgment. Nowhere in the world is the inexorable law
+of the survival of the fittest more rigidly applied than in
+the world of books. The works which are the most frequently
+re-printed in successive ages are the ones which it
+is safe to stand by.</p>
+
+<p>Books may be divided into three classes: 1st, acquaintances;
+2d, friends; and 3d, intimates.</p>
+
+<p>It is well enough to have an acquaintance with a multitude
+of books, as with many people; though in either case
+much time should not be given to merely pleasant intercourse,
+that leads to no result. With our literary friends,
+we can spend more time, for they awaken keen interest,
+and are to be read with zest, and consequently with profit.
+But for our chosen intimates, our heart-companions, we
+reserve our highest regard, and our best hours. Choice
+and sacred is the book that makes an era in the life of the
+reader; the book which first rouses his higher nature, and
+awakens the reason or the imagination. Such a volume
+will many a one remember; the book which first excited
+his own thought, made him conscious of untried powers,
+and opened to his charmed vision a new world.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_183" id="Pg_183"></a>[<a href="./images/183.png">183</a>]</span>Such a book has Carlyle's Sartor Resartus been to many;
+or the play of Hamlet, read for the first time; or the Faust
+of Goethe; or the Confessions of St. Augustine; or an essay
+of Emerson; or John Ruskin; or the Divine Comedy of
+Dante; or even an exquisite work of fiction, like John Halifax,
+or Henry Esmond. What the book is that works such
+miracles is never of so much importance as the epoch in
+the mind of the reader which it signalizes. It were vain
+to single out any one writer, and say to all readers&mdash;"Here
+is the book that must indispensably be read;" for the same
+book will have totally different effects upon different
+minds, or even upon the same mind, at different stages of
+development.</p>
+
+<p>When I have been asked to contribute to the once popular
+<i>symposia</i> upon "Books which have helped me,"&mdash;I have
+declined, for such catalogues of intellectual aids are liable
+to be very misleading. Thus, if I were to name the book
+which did more than most others for my own mind, I
+should say that it was the Emile of Rousseau, read at about
+the age of seventeen. This work, written with that marvellous
+eloquence which characterises all the best productions
+of Jean Jacques, first brought me acquainted with
+those advanced ideas of education which have penetrated
+the whole modern world. Yet the Emile would probably
+appear to most of my readers trite and common-place, as
+it would now to me, for the reason that we have long
+passed the period of development when its ideas were new
+to us.</p>
+
+<p>But the formative power of books can never be over-rated:
+their subtle mastery to stimulate all the germs of intellectual
+and moral life that lie enfolded in the mind. As
+the poet sings&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Books are not seldom talismans and spells."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Why should they not be so? They furnish us the means,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_184" id="Pg_184"></a>[<a href="./images/184.png">184</a>]</span>
+and the only means, whereby we may hold communion
+with the master-spirits of all ages. They bring us acquainted
+with the best thoughts which the human mind
+has produced, expressed in the noblest language. Books
+create for us the many-sided world, carry us abroad, out
+of our narrow provincial horizons, and reveal to us new
+scenery, new men, new languages, and new modes of life.
+As we read, the mind expands with the horizon, and becomes
+broad as the blue heaven above us. With Homer,
+we breathe the fresh air of the pristine world, when the
+light of poetry gilded every mountain top, and peopled the
+earth with heroes and demigods. With Plutarch, we walk
+in company with sages, warriors, and statesmen, and kindle
+with admiration of their virtues, or are roused to indignation
+at their crimes. With Sophocles, we sound the depths
+of human passion, and learn the sublime lesson of endurance.
+We are charmed with an ode of Horace, perfect in
+rhythm, perfect in sentiment, perfect in diction, and perfect
+in moral; the condensed essence of volumes in a single
+page. We walk with Dante through the nether world,
+awed by the tremendous power with which he depicts for
+us the secrets of the prison house. With Milton, we
+mount heaven-ward, and in the immortal verse of his minor
+poems, finer even than the stately march of Paradise Lost,
+we hear celestial music, and breathe diviner air. With
+that sovereign artist, Shakespeare, full equally of delight
+and of majesty, we sweep the horizon of this complex human
+life, and become comprehensive scholars and citizens
+of the world. The masters of fiction enthrall us with
+their fascinating pages, one moment shaking us with uncontrollable
+laughter, and the next, dissolving us in tears.
+In the presence of all these emanations of genius, the wise
+reader may feed on nectar and ambrosia, and forget the
+petty cares and vexations of to-day.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_185" id="Pg_185"></a>[<a href="./images/185.png">185</a>]</span>There are some books that charm us by their wit or their
+sweetness, others that surprise and captivate us by their
+strength: books that refresh us when weary: books that
+comfort us when afflicted: books that stimulate us by their
+robust health: books that exalt and refine our natures, as
+it were, to a finer mould: books that rouse us like the sound
+of a trumpet: books that illumine the darkest hours, and
+fill all our day with delight.</p>
+
+<p>It is books that record the advance and the decline of
+nations, the experience of the world, the achievements and
+the possibilities of mankind. It is books that reveal to us
+ideas and images almost above ourselves, and go far to open
+for us the gates of the invisible. "A river of thought,"
+says Emerson, "is continually flowing out of the invisible
+world into the mind of man:" and we may add that books
+contain the most fruitful and permanent of the currents
+of that mighty river.</p>
+
+<p>I am not disposed to celebrate the praises of all books,
+nor to recommend to readers of any age a habit of indiscriminate
+reading: but for the books which are true helpers
+and teachers, the thoughts of the best poets, historians,
+publicists, philosophers, orators,&mdash;if their value is not real,
+then there are no realities in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Very true is it, nevertheless, that the many-sided man
+cannot be cultivated by books alone. One may learn by
+heart whole libraries, and yet be profoundly unacquainted
+with the face of nature, or the life of man. The pale student
+who gives himself wholly to books pays the penalty by
+losing that robust energy of character, that sympathy with
+his kind, that keen sense of the charms of earth and sky,
+that are essential to complete development. "The world's
+great men," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, "have not commonly
+been great scholars, nor its scholars great men."
+To know what other men have said about things is not al<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_186" id="Pg_186"></a>[<a href="./images/186.png">186</a>]</span>ways
+the most important part of knowledge. There is
+nothing that can dispense us from the independent use of
+our own faculties. Meditation and observation are more
+valuable than mere absorption; and knowledge itself is not
+wisdom. The true way to use books is to make them our
+servants&mdash;not our masters. Very helpful, cheering, and
+profitable will they become, when they fall naturally into
+our daily life and growth&mdash;when they tally with the moods
+of the mind.</p>
+
+<p>The habits and methods of readers are as various as those
+of authors. Thus, there are some readers who gobble a
+book, as Boswell tells us Dr. Johnson used to gobble his
+dinner&mdash;eagerly, and with a furious appetite, suggestive of
+dyspepsia, and the non-assimilation of food. Then there
+are slow readers, who plod along through a book, sentence
+by sentence, putting in a mark conscientiously where they
+left off to-day, so as to begin at the self-same spot to-morrow;
+fast readers, who gallop through a book, as you would
+ride a flying bicycle on a race; drowsy readers, to whom a
+book is only a covert apology for a nap, and who pretend
+to be reading Macaulay or Herbert Spencer only to dream
+between the leaves; sensitive readers, who cannot abide the
+least noise or interruption when reading, and to whose
+nerves a foot-fall or a conversation is an exquisite torture;
+absorbed readers, who are so pre-occupied with their pursuit
+that they forget all their surroundings&mdash;the time of
+day, the presence or the voices of others, the hour for dinner,
+and even their own existence; credulous readers, who
+believe everything they read because it is printed in a
+book, and swallow without winking the most colossal lying;
+critical and captious readers, who quarrel with the
+blunders or the beliefs of their author, and who cannot refrain
+from calling him an idiot or an ass&mdash;and perhaps
+even writing him down so on his own pages; admiring and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_187" id="Pg_187"></a>[<a href="./images/187.png">187</a>]</span>
+receptive readers, who find fresh beauties in a favorite
+author every time they peruse him, and even discover beautiful
+swans in the stupidest geese that ever cackled along
+the flowery meads of literature; reverent readers, who treat
+a book as they would treat a great and good man, considerately
+and politely, carefully brushing the dust from a beloved
+volume with the sleeve, or tenderly lifting a book
+fallen to the floor, as if they thought it suffered, or felt
+harm; careless and rough readers, who will turn down
+books on their faces to keep the place, tumble them over
+in heaps, cram them into shelves never meant for them,
+scribble upon the margins, dogs-ear the leaves, or even cut
+them with their fingers&mdash;all brutal and intolerable practices,
+totally unworthy of any one pretending to civilization.</p>
+
+<p>To those who have well learned the art of reading, what
+inexhaustible delights does the world of books contain!
+With Milton, "to behold the bright countenance of truth,
+in the quiet and still air of delightful studies;" to journey
+through far countries with Marco Polo; to steer across an
+unknown sea with Columbus, or to brave the dangers of
+the frozen ocean with Nansen or Dr. Kane; to study the
+manners of ancient nations with Herodotus; to live over
+again the life of Greece and Rome with Plutarch's heroes;
+to trace the decline of empires with Gibbon and Mommsen;
+to pursue the story of the modern world in the pages of
+Hume, Macaulay, Thiers and Sismondi, and our own Prescott,
+Motley, and Bancroft; to enjoy afresh the eloquence
+of Demosthenes, and the polished and splendid diction of
+Cicero; to drink in the wisdom of philosophers, and to
+walk with Socrates, Plato and the stoics through the
+groves of Academia; to be kindled by the saintly utterances
+of prophets and apostles, St. Paul's high reasoning of
+immortality, or the seraphic visions of St. John; to study<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_188" id="Pg_188"></a>[<a href="./images/188.png">188</a>]</span>
+the laws that govern communities with the great publicists,
+or the economy of nations with Adam Smith and
+Stuart Mill; with the naturalists, to sound the depths of
+the argument as to the origin of species and the genesis of
+man; with the astronomers, to leave the narrow bounds of
+earth, and explore the illimitable spaces of the universe,
+in which our solar system is but a speck; with the mathematicians,
+to quit the uncertain realm of speculation and
+assumption, and plant our feet firmly on the rock of exact
+science:&mdash;to come back anon to lighter themes, and to
+revel in the grotesque humor of Dickens, the philosophic
+page of Bulwer, the chivalric romances of Walter Scott,
+the ideal creations of Hawthorne, the finished life-pictures
+of George Eliot, the powerful imagination of Victor Hugo,
+and the masterly delineations of Thackeray; to hang over
+the absorbing biographies of Dr. Franklin, Walter Scott
+and Dr. Johnson; to peruse with fresh delight the masterpieces
+of Irving and Goldsmith, and the best essays of Hazlitt,
+De Quincey, Charles Lamb, and Montaigne; to feel
+the inspiration of the great poets of all ages, from Homer
+down to Tennyson; to read Shakespeare&mdash;a book that is in
+itself almost a university:&mdash;is not all this satisfaction
+enough for human appetite, however craving, solace
+enough for trouble, however bitter, occupation enough for
+life, however long?</p>
+
+<p>There are pleasures that perish in the using; but the
+pleasure which the art of reading carries with it is perennial.
+He who can feast on the intellectual spoils of centuries
+need fear neither poverty nor hunger. In the society
+of those immortals who still rule our spirits from
+their urns, we become assured that though heaven and
+earth may pass away, no true thought shall ever pass away.</p>
+
+<p>The great orator, on whose lips once hung multitudes,
+dies and is forgotten; the great actor passes swiftly off the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_189" id="Pg_189"></a>[<a href="./images/189.png">189</a>]</span>
+stage, and is seen no more; the great singer, whose voice
+charmed listening crowds by its melody, is hushed in the
+grave; the great preacher survives but a single generation
+in the memory of men; all we who now live and act must
+be, in a little while, with yesterday's seven thousand years:&mdash;but
+the book of the great writer lives on and on, inspiring
+age after age of readers, and has in it more of the seeds
+of immortality than anything upon earth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_190" id="Pg_190"></a>[<a href="./images/190.png">190</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_10" id="CHAPTER_10"></a>CHAPTER 10.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Aids to Readers.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>There is one venerable Latin proverb which deserves a
+wider recognition than it has yet received. It is to the
+effect that "the best part of learning is to know where to
+find things." From lack of this knowledge, an unskilled
+reader will often spend hours in vainly searching for what
+a skilled reader can find in less than five minutes. Now,
+librarians are presumed to be skilled readers, although it
+would not be quite safe to apply this designation to all of
+that profession, since there are those among librarians, or
+their assistants, who are mere novices in the art of reading
+to advantage. Manifestly, one cannot teach what he does
+not know: and so the librarian who has not previously travelled
+the same road, will not be able to guide the inquiring
+reader who asks him to point out the way. But if the way
+has once been found, the librarian, with only a fairly good
+memory, kept in constant exercise by his vocation, can find
+it again. Still more surely, if he has been through it many
+times, will he know it intuitively, the moment any question
+is asked about it.</p>
+
+<p>It is true of the great majority of readers resorting to
+a library, that they have a most imperfect idea, both of
+what they want, and of the proper way to find it. The
+world of knowledge, they know, is vast, and they are quite
+bewildered by the many paths that lead to some part or
+other of it, crossing each other in all directions. And
+among the would-be readers may be found every shade of
+intelligence, and every degree of ignorance. There is the
+timid variety, too modest or diffident to ask for any help at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_191" id="Pg_191"></a>[<a href="./images/191.png">191</a>]</span>
+all, and so feeling about among the catalogues or other
+reference-books in a baffled search for information. There
+is the sciolist variety, who knows it all, or imagines that
+he does, and who asks for proof of impossible facts, with
+an assurance born of the profoundest ignorance. Then,
+too, there is the half-informed reader, who is in search of
+a book he once read, but has clean forgotten, which had a
+remarkable description of a tornado in the West, or a
+storm and ship-wreck at sea, or a wonderful tropical garden,
+or a thrilling escape from prison, or a descent into the
+bowels of the earth, or a tremendous snow-storm, or a
+swarming flight of migratory birds, or a mausoleum of departed
+kings, or a haunted chamber hung with tapestry,
+or the fatal caving-in of a coal-mine, or a widely destructive
+flood, or a hair-breadth escape from cannibals, or a
+race for life, pursued by wolves, or a wondrous sub-marine
+grotto, or a terrible forest fire, or any one of a hundred
+scenes or descriptions, all of which the librarian is presumed,
+not only to have read, but to have retained in his
+memory the author, the title, and the very chapter of the
+book which contained it.</p>
+
+<p>To give some idea of the extent and variety of information
+which a librarian is supposed to possess, I have been
+asked, almost at the same time, to refer a reader to the
+origin of Candlemas day, to define the Pragmatic Sanction,
+to give, out of hand, the aggregate wealth of Great
+Britain, compared with that of half-a-dozen other nations,
+to define the limits of neutrality or belligerent rights, to
+explain what is meant by the Gresham law, to tell what ship
+has made the quickest voyage to Europe, when she made
+it, and what the time was, to elucidate the meaning of the
+Carolina doctrine, to explain the character and objects of
+the Knights of the Golden Circle, to tell how large are the
+endowments of the British Universities, to give the origin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_192" id="Pg_192"></a>[<a href="./images/192.png">192</a>]</span>
+of the custom of egg-rolling, to tell the meaning of the
+cipher dispatches, to explain who was "Extra Billy Smith,"
+to tell the aggregate number killed on all sides during the
+Napoleonic wars, to certify who wrote the "Vestiges of
+Creation," or, finally, to give the author of one of those
+innumerable ancient proverbs, which float about the world
+without a father.</p>
+
+<p>The great number and variety of such inquiries as are
+propounded by readers should not appal one. Nor should
+one too readily take refuge from a troublesome reader by
+the plea, however convenient, that the library contains
+nothing on that subject. While this may unquestionably
+be true, especially as regards a small public library, it
+should never be put forward as a certainty, until one has
+looked. Most inquiring readers are very patient, and
+being fully sensible how much they owe to the free enjoyment
+of the library treasures, and to the aid of the superintendent
+of them, they are willing to wait for information.
+However busy you may be at the moment, the reader
+can be asked to wait, or to call at a less busy time, when
+you will be prepared with a more satisfactory answer than
+can be given on the spur of the moment. What cannot
+be done to-day, may often be done to-morrow. Remember
+always, that readers are entitled to the best and most careful
+service, for a librarian is not only the keeper, but the
+interpreter of the intellectual stores of the library. It
+is a good and a safe rule to let no opportunity of aiding a
+reader escape. One should be particularly careful to
+volunteer help to those who are too new or too timid to
+ask: and it is they who will be most grateful for any assistance.
+The librarian has only to put himself in their
+place&mdash;(the golden rule for a librarian, as for all the world
+besides), and to consider how often, in his own searches in
+libraries, in the continual, never-ending quest of knowl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_193" id="Pg_193"></a>[<a href="./images/193.png">193</a>]</span>edge,
+he would have been thankful for a hint from some
+one who knew, or had been over the ground of his search
+before; and then he will feel the full value to the novice,
+of such knowledge as he can impart.</p>
+
+<p>He is not to forget that his superior opportunities for
+learning all about things, with a whole library at command,
+and within elbow-reach every hour of the day,
+should impose upon him a higher standard of attainment
+than most readers are supposed to have reached. In the
+intervals of library work, I am accustomed to consider the
+looking up of subjects or authorities as one of my very
+best recreations. It is as interesting as a game of whist,
+and much more profitable. It is more welcome than routine
+labor, for it rests or diverts the mind, by its very
+variety, while, to note the different views or expressions of
+writers on the same subject, affords almost endless entertainment.
+In tracing down a quotation also, or the half-remembered
+line of some verse in poetry, you encounter a
+host of parallel poetic images or expressions, which contribute
+to aid the memory, or to feed the imagination. Or,
+in pursuing a sought-for fact in history, through many
+volumes, you learn collaterally much that may never have
+met your eye before. Full, as all libraries are, of what
+we call trash, there is almost no book which will not give
+us something,&mdash;even though it be only the negative virtue
+of a model to be avoided. One may not, indeed, always
+find what he seeks, because it may not exist at all,
+or it may not be found in the limited range of his small
+library, but he is almost sure to find something which
+gives food for thought, or for memory to note. And this
+is one of the foremost attractions, let me add, of the librarian's
+calling; it is more full of intellectual variety, of wide-open
+avenues to knowledge, than any other vocation whatever.
+His daily quests in pursuit of information to lay be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_194" id="Pg_194"></a>[<a href="./images/194.png">194</a>]</span>fore
+others, bring him acquainted with passages that are
+full of endless suggestion for himself. He may not be able
+to pursue any of these avenues at the moment; but he
+should make a mental or a written note of them, for future
+benefit. His daily business being learning, why should he
+not in time, become learned? There are, of course, among
+the infinitude of questions, that come before the librarian,
+some that are really insoluble problems. One of these is
+to be found among the topics of inquiry I just now suggested;
+namely: what is the aggregate wealth of Great
+Britain, or that of other nations? This is a question frequently
+asked by inquiring Congressmen, who imagine that
+an answer may readily be had from one of those gifted
+librarians who is invested with that apocryphal attribute,
+commonly called omniscience. But the inquirer is suddenly
+confronted by the fact (and a very stubborn fact it
+is) that not a single foreign nation has ever taken any
+census of wealth whatever. In Great Britain (about which
+country inquiry as to the national resources more largely
+centres) the government wisely lets alone the attempt to
+tabulate the value of private wealth, knowing that such an
+object is utterly impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>But, while the British census makes no attempt at estimating
+the property of the people, the independent estimates
+of statistical writers vary hopelessly and irreconcilably.
+Mr. J. R. McCulloch, one of the foremost accredited
+writers on economic science, lays it down as a
+dictum, that "sixty years is the shortest time in which the
+capital of an old and densely-peopled country can be expected
+to be doubled." Yet Joseph Lowe assumes the
+wealth of the United Kingdom to have doubled in eighteen
+years, from 1823 to 1841; while George R. Porter,
+in his widely-accredited book on the "Progress of the Nation,"
+and Leoni Levi, a publicist of high reputation, make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_195" id="Pg_195"></a>[<a href="./images/195.png">195</a>]</span>
+out, (by combining their estimates) that the private wealth
+of England increased fifty per cent. in seventeen years, at
+which rate it would double in about twenty-nine years, instead
+of sixty, as laid down by Mr. McCulloch. Mr. Levi
+calculates the aggregate private wealth of Great Britain in
+1858, at $29,178,000,000, being a fraction less than the
+guesses of the census enumerators at the national wealth of
+the United States, twelve years later, in 1870. Can one
+guess be said to be any nearer the fact than the other?
+May we not be pardoned for treating all estimates as utterly
+fallacious that are not based upon known facts and figures?
+Why do we hear so much of the "approximate correctness"
+of so many statistical tables, when, in point of
+fact, the primary data are incapable of proof, and the averages
+and conclusions built upon them are all assumed?
+"Statisticians," says one of the fraternity, "are generally
+held to be eminently practical people; on the contrary,
+they are more given to theorizing than any other class of
+writers; and are generally less expert in it."</p>
+
+<p>In the presence of such gross discrepancies as these, by
+statisticians of the highest repute, and among such a
+practical people as the English, what value can be attached
+to the mere estimates of wealth which have been attempted
+in the census of the United States? The careful Superintendent
+of the Census of 1870 and 1880, the late Francis
+A. Walker, writes concerning it:</p>
+
+<p>"At the best, these figures represent but the opinion of
+one man, or of a body of men, in the collection of material,
+and in the calculation of the several elements of the public
+wealth." And in the last Census Report for 1890, the
+results of the so-called "census of wealth," are cautiously
+submitted, "as showing in a general way a continuous increase
+in the wealth of the nation, the exact proportions
+of which cannot be measured."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_196" id="Pg_196"></a>[<a href="./images/196.png">196</a>]</span>Now, what are we to conclude regarding the attempt to
+elevate to a rank in statistical science, mere estimates of
+private wealth, for a large portion of which, by the statements
+of those who make them, no actual statistical data
+exist? And when this is confessedly the case in our own
+country, the only one attempting the impossible task of
+tabulating the wealth of the people, what shall we say of
+the demand that is made upon our credulity of accepting
+the guesses of Mr. Giffen, or Mr. Mulhall, as to British
+wealth? Are we not justified in applying the old Latin
+maxim&mdash;"<i>De non apparentibus, et de non existentibus,
+eadem est ratio</i>," and replying to those who demand of us
+to know how much any nation is worth, that it is sometimes
+an important part of knowledge to know that nothing
+can be known?</p>
+
+<p>Among the literally innumerable inquiries liable to be
+made of a librarian, here is one which may give him more
+than a moment's pause, unless he is uncommonly well
+versed in American political history&mdash;namely, "What was
+the Ostend Manifesto?" To a mind not previously instructed
+these two words "Ostend Manifesto", convey
+absolutely no meaning. You turn to the standard encyclopaedias,
+Appleton's, Johnson's Universal, and the Britannica,
+and you find an account of Ostend, a little Belgian
+city, its locality, commerce, and population, but absolutely
+nothing about an Ostend manifesto. But in J. N.
+Larned's "History for Ready Reference", a useful book
+in five volumes, arranged in alphabetical order, you get
+a clue. It refers you from Ostend, under letter O, to
+Cuba, where you learn that this formidable Ostend manifesto
+was nothing more nor less than a paper drawn up and
+signed by Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Slidell, Ministers
+of the United States to Great Britain, France, and
+Spain, respectively, when at the watering-place of Ostend,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_197" id="Pg_197"></a>[<a href="./images/197.png">197</a>]</span>
+in 1854, importing that the island of Cuba ought to, and
+under certain circumstances, must belong to the United
+States. Looking a little farther, as the manifesto is not
+published in Larned, you find the text of the document itself
+in Cluskey's "Political Text-Book", of 1860, and in
+some of the American newspapers of 1854. This is a case
+of pursuing a once notorious, but more recently obscure
+topic, through many works of reference until found.</p>
+
+<p>In many searches for names of persons, it becomes
+highly important to know before-hand where to look, and
+equally important where not to look, for certain biographies.
+Thus, if you seek for the name of any living character,
+it is necessary to know that it would be useless to
+look in the Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica, because the rule of
+compilation of that work purposely confined its sketches
+of notable persons to those who were already deceased
+when its volumes appeared. So you save the time of hunting
+in at least one conspicuous work of reference, before
+you begin, by simply knowing its plan.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, you should know that it is useless to
+search for two classes of names in the "Dictionary of National
+Biography," the most copious biographical dictionary
+of British personages ever published, begun in 1885,
+under Leslie Stephen, and reaching its sixty-first volume,
+and letter W in 1899, under the editorship of Sidney Lee.
+These two classes of names are first, all persons not British,
+that is, not either English, Scottish or Irish; and secondly,
+names of British persons now living. This is because
+this great work, like the Britannica, purposely confines
+itself to the names of notables deceased; and, unlike
+the Britannica, it further limits its biographies to persons
+connected by birth or long residence with the British
+kingdom. Knowing this fact before-hand, will save any
+time wasted in searching the Dictionary of National Biog<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_198" id="Pg_198"></a>[<a href="./images/198.png">198</a>]</span>raphy
+for any persons now living, or for any American or
+European names.</p>
+
+<p>Another caveat may properly be interposed as regards
+searches for information in that most widely advertised
+and circulated of all works of reference,&mdash;the Encyclopaedia
+Britannica. The plan of that work was to furnish
+the reading public with the very best treatises upon leading
+topics in science, history, and literature, by eminent
+scholars and specialists in various fields. Pursuant to this
+general scheme, each great subject has a most elaborate,
+and sometimes almost exhaustive article&mdash;as, for example,
+chemistry, geology, etc., while the minor divisions of each
+topic do not appear in the alphabet at all, or appear only
+by cross-reference to the generic name under which they
+are treated. It results, that while you find, for example,
+a most extensive article upon "Anatomy", filling a large
+part of a volume of the Britannica, you look in vain in
+the alphabet for such subjects as "blood, brain, cartilage,
+sinew, tissue," etc., which are described only in the article
+"Anatomy." This method has to be well comprehended in
+order for any reader to make use of this great Cyclopaedia
+understandingly. Even by the aid of the English index
+to the work, issued by its foreign publishers, the reader
+who is in hasty quest of information in the Britannica,
+will most frequently be baffled by not finding any minor
+subject in the index. The English nation, judged by most
+of the productions of its literary and scientific men in that
+field, has small genius for indexing. It was reserved to
+an American to prepare and print a thorough index, at
+once alphabetical and analytical, to this great English
+thesaurus of information&mdash;an index ten times more copious,
+and therefore more useful to the student, than the
+meagre one issued in England. This index fills 3,900
+closely printed columns, forming the whole of volume 25<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_199" id="Pg_199"></a>[<a href="./images/199.png">199</a>]</span>
+of the Philadelphia edition of the work. By its aid, every
+name and every topic, treated anywhere in this vast repository
+of human knowledge can be traced out and appropriated;
+while without it, the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
+with all its great merits, must remain very much in
+the nature of a sealed book to the reader who stands in
+need of immediate use and reference. We have to take
+it for what it is&mdash;a collection of masterly treatises, rather
+than a handy dictionary of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>The usefulness and success of any library will depend
+very largely upon the sympathy, so to speak, between the
+readers and the librarian. When this is well established,
+the rest is very easy. The librarian should not seclude
+himself so as to be practically inaccessible to readers, nor
+trust wholly to assistants to answer their inquiries. This
+may be necessary in some large libraries, where great and
+diversified interests connected with the building up of the
+collection, the catalogue system, and the library management
+and administration are all concerned. In the British
+Museum Library, no one ever sees the Principal Librarian;
+even the next officer, who is called the keeper of the
+printed books, is not usually visible in the reading-room at
+all.</p>
+
+<p>A librarian who is really desirous of doing the greatest
+good to the greatest number of people, will be not only
+willing, but anxious to answer inquiries, even though they
+may appear to him trivial and unimportant. Still, he
+should also economise time by cultivating the habit of
+putting his answers into the fewest and plainest words.</p>
+
+<p>How far the librarian should place himself in direct
+communication with readers, must depend largely upon
+the extent of the library, the labor required in managing
+its various departments, the amount and value of assistance
+at his command, and upon various other circum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_200" id="Pg_200"></a>[<a href="./images/200.png">200</a>]</span>stances,
+depending upon the different conditions with different
+librarians. But it may be laid down as a safe general
+rule, that the librarian should hold himself perpetually
+as a public servant, ready and anxious to answer in
+some way, all inquiries that may come to him. Thus,
+and thus only, can he make himself, and the collection of
+books under his charge, useful in the highest degree to
+the public. He will not indeed, in any extensive library,
+find it convenient, or even possible, to answer all inquiries
+in person; but he should always be ready to enable his
+assistants to answer them, by his superior knowledge as to
+the best sources of information, whenever they fail to trace
+out what is wanted. In any small library, he should be
+always accessible, at or near the place where people are
+accustomed to have their wants for books or information
+supplied: and the public resorting to the library will thus
+come not only to rely upon him for aid in their intellectual
+researches, but to appreciate and respect him for the wide
+extent of his knowledge, and to consider him, in time, an
+indispensable guide, if not leader, in the community. His
+reputation, in fact, will depend upon the extent to which
+he has been able to help others, as well as upon the number
+of people whom he has thus aided.</p>
+
+<p>In a very high sense, the true librarian is an educator;
+his school is as large as the town in which his library is
+situated. Very few people in that town know what he is
+always presumed to know,&mdash;namely&mdash;to what books to go
+to get answers to the questions they want answered. In
+supplying continually the means of answering these countless
+questions, the library becomes actually a popular university,
+in which the librarian is the professor, the tuition
+is free, and the course is optional, both as to study and as
+to time.</p>
+
+<p>Most persons who come to make any investigation in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_201" id="Pg_201"></a>[<a href="./images/201.png">201</a>]</span>
+public library require a good deal of assistance. For example,
+a reader is in need of the latest information as to
+the amount of steel and iron made in this country, and
+what State produces these important manufactures. He
+has not the faintest idea where to look for the information,
+except that it may be in the census, but the census is nine
+years old, and he wants recent facts. It is vain to turn
+him over to the cyclopaedias, for there is not one whose
+information upon such statistics comes anywhere near up
+to date. You have to put before him a pamphlet annual,
+published by the American Iron and Steel Association,
+which contains exactly what he wants; and no other source
+of information does contain it.</p>
+
+<p>Another inquirer seeks to know how to treat some disease.
+In such cases, of course, the librarian should not
+go farther than to put before the reader a work on domestic
+medicine, for it is not his function to deal in recommendations
+of this, that, or the other method of treatment,
+any more than it is to give legal opinions, if asked&mdash;although
+he may have studied law. So, if the reader
+wants to know about the religious tenets of the Presbyterians,
+or the Mormons, or the Buddhists, or the doctrines
+of the Catholic Church, and asks the librarian's opinion
+about any controverted question of belief, he is to be
+answered only by the statement that the library is there
+to supply information, not opinions, and then pointed to
+the religious cyclopaedias, which give full summaries of all
+the sects.</p>
+
+<p>He may frequently be asked for information on a subject
+which he knows nothing about; and I have heard a
+librarian declare, that he often found himself able to give
+fuller and better information on a subject of which he was
+previously ignorant, than upon one he had long been
+familiar with. The reason was that in the one case he had
+freshly looked up all the authorities, and put them before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_202" id="Pg_202"></a>[<a href="./images/202.png">202</a>]</span>
+the reader, while in the other, giving the references from
+a memory, more or less imperfect, he had overlooked some
+of the most important means of information.</p>
+
+<p>The constant exercise of the habit of supplying helps
+to readers is a splendid intellectual school for the librarian
+himself. Through it, his memory is quickened and consequently
+improved, (as every faculty is by use) his habits
+of mental classification and analysis are formed or
+strengthened, and his mind is kept on the alert to utilize
+the whole arsenal of the knowledge he has already acquired,
+or to acquire new knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>Another very important benefit derived by the librarian
+from his constantly recurring attention to the calls of
+readers for aid, is the suggestion thereby furnished of the
+deficiencies in the collection in his charge. This will be
+a continual reminder to him, of what he most needs,
+namely, how to equip the library with the best and most
+recent sources of information in every field of inquiry.
+Whether the library be a large or a small one, its deficiencies
+in some directions are sure to be very considerable:
+and these gaps are more <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'conspiciously'">conspicuously</ins> revealed in trying
+to supply readers with the means of making what may be
+termed an exhaustive research upon a given subject, than
+in any other way. You find, for example, in looking up
+your authorities in what has come to be called Egyptology,
+that while you have Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt, and Lane's
+Modern Egyptians, both of which are very valuable works,
+you have not the more modern books of Brugsch-Bey, or
+of A. H. Sayce, or of Maspero. You may also find out, by
+mingling freely with a good part of the readers, what subjects
+are most frequently looked into or inquired about,
+and you can thus secure valuable information as to the
+directions in which the library most needs strengthening.
+Thus, in a community largely made up of people connected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_203" id="Pg_203"></a>[<a href="./images/203.png">203</a>]</span>
+with manufacturing interests, the inquiries are liable to be
+much concerned with the mechanic arts; and you would
+therefore naturally seek to acquire a liberal selection of
+the best and latest works in technical science, or the useful
+arts. If you have, on the other hand, very few inquiries,
+indeed, for theological works, you take it as some
+evidence that that department of the collection needs little
+enlargement, and you may devote your funds in other directions.
+Then too, the great value of popularising the
+library by the hearty interest shown by the librarian in
+the wants of the people can hardly be over-rated. This
+interest, being a perennial one, and continued through a
+series of years, the number of citizens and their families
+assisted will be constantly on the increase, and the public
+opinion of the town will come in time, to regard the library
+as a great popular necessity. Hence, if it is an institution
+supported in whole or in part by town or municipal funds,
+its claims to liberal consideration will be immeasurably
+strengthened. If an enlargement of room for the books,
+or even a new library building comes to be needed, its
+chances for securing the funds requisite will be excellent.
+If a more liberal supply of new books, or an extended range
+of older ones of great value is reported by the librarian
+as wanted to increase the usefulness of the library, the
+authorities will more cheerfully consider the claim. And
+if it is proposed that additional and competent assistance
+shall be given to the librarian, or that he should be more
+liberally compensated for his highly useful and important
+labors, that, too, may be accomplished&mdash;especially if it has
+come to be recognized that by his wide knowledge, and
+skilful management, and helpful devotion to the service of
+the reading public, he has rendered himself indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>In the supply of information desired by readers, it is better
+to leave them to their own search, once you have put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_204" id="Pg_204"></a>[<a href="./images/204.png">204</a>]</span>
+before them the proper authorities, than to spend your
+time in turning for them to the volume and page. This,
+for two reasons&mdash;first, it leaves your own time free to help
+other readers, or to attend to the ever-waiting library
+work; and, secondly, it induces habits of research and
+self-help on the part of the reader. It is enough for the
+librarian to act as an intelligent guide-post, to point the
+way; to travel the road is the business of the reader himself.
+Therefore, let the visitor in quest of a quotation,
+look it out in the index of the volumes you put before him.
+If he fails to find it, it will then be time for you to intervene,
+and lend the aid of your more practiced eye, and
+superior knowledge of how to search; or else, let the
+reader look for it in some more copious anthology, which
+you may put before him. There are multitudes of inquiries
+for the authors of poems, which are in no sense
+"familiar quotations," nor even select quotations, but
+which are merely common-place sentiments expressed in
+language quite unpoetic,&mdash;and not the work of any notable
+writer at all. They are either the production of some
+utterly obscure author of a volume of verse, quite unknown
+to fame, or, still more probably, the half-remembered
+verses of some anonymous contributor to the poet's corner
+of the newspaper or magazine. In such cases, where you
+see no poetic beauty or imaginative power in the lines, it
+is well to inform the inquirer at once that you do not
+think them the production of any noted writer, and thus
+end the fruitless search for memorizing what is not at all
+memorable. What may strike uncultivated readers as
+beautiful, may be set down as trash, by a mind that has
+been fed upon the masterpieces of poetry. Not that the
+librarian is to assume the air of an oracle or a censor,
+(something to be in all circumstances avoided) or to pronounce
+positive judgment upon what is submitted: he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_205" id="Pg_205"></a>[<a href="./images/205.png">205</a>]</span>
+should inform any admiring reader of a passage not
+referred to in any of the anthologies, and not possessing
+apparent poetic merit, that he believes the author is unknown
+to fame. That should be sufficient for any reasonably
+disposed reader, who, after search duly completed,
+will go away answered, if not satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>I gave some instances of the singular variety of questions
+asked of a librarian. Let me add one, reported by
+Mr. Robert Harrison, of the London Library, as asked of
+him by William M. Thackeray. The distinguished author
+of Esmond and The Virginians wanted a book that would
+tell of General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. "I don't want to
+know about his battles", said the novelist. "I can get
+all that from the histories. I want something that will
+tell me the color of the breeches he wore." After due
+search, the librarian was obliged to confess that there was
+no such book.</p>
+
+<p>A librarian is likely to be constantly in a position to aid
+the uninformed reader how to use the books of reference
+which every public library contains. The young person
+who is new to the habit of investigation, or the adult who
+has never learned the method of finding things, needs to
+be shown how to use even so simple a thing as an index.
+Do not be impatient with his ignorance, although you may
+find him fumbling over the pages in the body of the book
+in vain, to find what you, with your acquired knowledge
+of indexes and their use, can find in half a minute or less.
+Practice alone can make one perfect in the art of search
+and speedy finding. The tyro who tries your patience this
+year, will very likely become an expert reader the next.
+Wide as is the domain of ignorance, there are few among
+those intelligent enough to resort to a library at all, who
+cannot learn. You will find some who come to the library
+so unskilled, that they will turn over the leaves even of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_206" id="Pg_206"></a>[<a href="./images/206.png">206</a>]</span>
+an index, in a blind, hap-hazard way, evidently at a loss
+how to use it. These must be instructed first, that the index
+is arranged just like a dictionary, in the alphabetical
+order of the names or subjects treated, and secondly, that
+after finding the word they seek in it, they must turn to
+the page indicated by the figure attached to that word.
+This is the very primer of learning in the use of a library,
+but the library in any town, used as it is by many boys
+and girls of all ages, has to be a primary school for beginners,
+as well as a university for advanced students.
+Despise not the day of small things, however you may find
+it more agreeable to be occupied with great ones.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, you will find at the other extreme
+of intelligence, among your clientage of readers, those who
+are completely familiar with books and their uses. There
+are some readers frequenting public libraries, who not only
+do not need assistance themselves, but who are fully competent
+to instruct the librarian. In meeting the calls of
+such skilled readers, who always know what they require,
+it is never good policy to obtrude advice or suggestion,
+but simply to supply what they call for. You will readily
+recognize and discriminate such experts from the mass of
+readers, if you have good discernment. Sometimes they
+are quite as sensitive as they are intelligent, and it may
+annoy them to have offered them books they do not want,
+in the absence of what they require. An officious, or
+super-serviceable librarian or assistant, may sometimes
+prejudice such a reader by proffering help which he does
+not want, instead of waiting for his own call or occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Let us look at a few examples of the numerous calls at
+a popular library. For example, a reader asks to see a
+book, giving an account of the marriage of the Adriatic.
+You know that this concerns the history of Venice and its
+Doges, and you turn to various books on Venice, and its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_207" id="Pg_207"></a>[<a href="./images/207.png">207</a>]</span>
+history, until you find a description of the strange festival.
+It may be, and probably is the case, that the books, like
+most descriptive works and narratives of travellers, are
+without index. This is a disability in the use of books
+which you must continually encounter, since multitudes
+of volumes, old and new, are sent out without a vestige of
+an index to their contents. Some writers have urged that
+a law should be made refusing copyright to the author of
+any book who failed to provide it with an index; a requirement
+highly desirable, but also highly impracticable.
+Yet you will find in most books, a division of the contents
+into chapters, and in the beginning of the volume a table
+of the contents of each chapter, giving its leading topics.
+This is a substitute for an index, although (not being arranged
+in alphabetical order) it is far less useful than that
+time-saving aid to research. But you have to learn to
+take advantage of even poor and inferior helps, when you
+cannot have the best, (as a poor guide is better than no
+guide at all, unless it misguides,) and so you run your eye
+quickly through the table of contents to find what you
+seek. In the case supposed, of the ceremony at Venice,
+you will be aided in the search by having in mind that
+the catch-words involved are "Adriatic," and "Doge," and
+as these begin with capital letters, which stand out, as it
+were, from the monotonous "lower case" type (as printers
+call all the letters that are not capitals) your search will
+be much abridged by omitting to read through all the
+sentences of your table of contents, and seizing only the
+passage or passages where "Doge," or "Adriatic," may
+occur.</p>
+
+<p>This remark will apply as well to numerous other
+searches which you will have to make in books. The table
+of contents will commonly take note of all the more salient
+topics that are treated in the book, whether of persons, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_208" id="Pg_208"></a>[<a href="./images/208.png">208</a>]</span>
+places, of notable scenes, historic events, etc., and so will
+aid you in finding what you seek. In the last resort only,
+in the books whose table of contents fails you, will you
+have to turn the leaves page by page, which, while not
+equivalent to reading the book through, is a time-consuming
+business.</p>
+
+<p>Of course no librarian can devote hours of his precious
+time to searches in such detail for readers. They are to
+be supplied with the books likely to contain what they are
+in search of, and left to seek it in their own way, with
+such hints and cautions as to saving time by taking the
+shortest road, as the experience of the librarian enables
+him to supply. The suggestions here given are not needed
+by scholarly readers, but are the fruits of long experience
+in searching books for what they contain.</p>
+
+<p>Again, let us take the case of a call by a reader who happens
+to be a decorative painter, for patterns which may
+furnish him hints in finishing an interior of a house. Of
+course he wants color&mdash;that is, not theory only, but illustration,
+or practical examples. So you put before him
+Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament, or Racinet's <i>L'Ornement
+polychrome</i>, both illustrated with many beautiful designs
+in color, which he is delighted to find.</p>
+
+<p>Another reader is anxious to see a picture of "St. George
+and the Dragon." If you have the "Museum of Painting
+and Sculpture," in 17 volumes, or Champlin's "Cyclopaedia
+of Painters and Painting," a dictionary of art in four volumes,
+you find it in either work, in the alphabet, under
+"St. George," and his want is satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>A youngster wants to know how to build a boat, and
+you find him Folkard on Boats, or Frazar's Sail-boats,
+which describe and figure various styles of water-craft.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps an inquisitive reader wants to find out all about
+the families of the various languages, and what is known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_209" id="Pg_209"></a>[<a href="./images/209.png">209</a>]</span>
+of their origin, and you supply him with W. D. Whitney's
+"Life and Growth of Language," or Max M&uuml;ller's "Science
+of Language," either of which furnishes full information.</p>
+
+<p>Another inquirer seeks for information about the aggregate
+debts of nations. You give him the great quarto
+volume of the last Census on Wealth and Indebtedness, or
+for still later information the Statesman's Year Book for
+1899, or the Almanach de Gotha for the current year, both
+of which contain the comparative debts of nations at the
+latest dates.</p>
+
+<p>The inquirer who seeks to know the rates of wages paid
+for all kinds of labor in a series of several years, can be
+supplied with the elaborate Report on Labor and Wages
+for fifty-two years, published by the U. S. Government in
+1893, in four volumes.</p>
+
+<p>Another reader wishes, we will suppose, to hunt up the
+drawings of all patents that have been issued on type-writers,
+and type-writing inventions. You put before
+him the many indexes to the Patent Specifications and
+Patent Office Gazette; he makes out from these his list of
+volumes wanted, which are at once supplied, and he falls
+to work on his long, but to him interesting job.</p>
+
+<p>A reader who has seen in the library or elsewhere a book
+he would much like to own, but cannot find a copy in town,
+wants to know what it will cost: you turn to your American
+or foreign catalogue, covering the year of publication,
+and give him not only the price, but the publisher's name
+from whom he can order it, and he goes on his way rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>An artist engaged upon a painting in which he wishes
+to introduce a deer, or a group of rabbits, or an American
+eagle, or a peacock, asks for an accurate picture of the
+bird or animal wanted. You put before him J. S. Kings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_210" id="Pg_210"></a>[<a href="./images/210.png">210</a>]</span>ley's
+Riverside Natural History, in six volumes, and his desire
+is satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>In dealing with books of reference, there will often be
+found very important discrepancies of statement, different
+works giving different dates, for example, for the same
+event in history or biography.</p>
+
+<p>Next to a bible and a dictionary of language, there is no
+book, perhaps, more common than a biographical dictionary.
+Our interest in our fellow-men is perennial; and we
+seek to know not only their characteristics, and the distinguishing
+events of their lives, but also the time of their
+birth into the world and their exit from it. This is a
+species of statistics upon which one naturally expects certainty,
+since no person eminent enough to be recorded at
+all is likely to have the epoch of his death, at least, unremarked.
+Yet the seeker after exact information in the
+biographical dictionaries will find, if he extends his quest
+among various authorities, that he is afloat on a sea of uncertainties.
+Not only can he not find out the date of decease
+of some famous navigators, like Sir John Franklin
+and La Perouse, who sailed into unexplored regions of the
+globe, and were never heard of more, but the men who
+died at home, in the midst of friends and families, are frequently
+recorded as deceased at dates so discrepant that no
+ingenuity can reconcile them.</p>
+
+<p>In Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, Sir Henry Havelock was
+said to have died November 25th, 1857, while Maunder's
+Treasury of Biography gives November 21st, the London
+Almanac, November 27th, and the Life of Havelock, by
+his brother-in-law, November 24th. Here are four distinct
+dates of death given, by authorities apparently equally
+accredited, to a celebrated general, who died within
+forty years of our own time. Of the death of the notorious
+Robespierre, guillotined in 1794, we find in Chalmers'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_211" id="Pg_211"></a>[<a href="./images/211.png">211</a>]</span>
+Biographical Dictionary that he died July 10th, in Rees's
+Cyclopaedia, July 28th, and in Alison's History of Europe,
+July 29th. Doubtless it is some comfort to reflect, in
+view of his many crimes, that the bloody tyrant of the
+Jacobins is really dead, irrespective of the date, about
+which biographers may dispute. Of the English mechanician
+Joseph Bramah, inventor of the Bramah lock, we
+learn from the English Cyclopaedia, that he died in 1814,
+and from Rose's Biographical Dictionary, that he died in
+1815.</p>
+
+<p>Now, although a large share of the errors and discrepancies
+that abound in biographical dictionaries and other
+books of reference may be accounted for by misprints,
+others by reckoning old style instead of new, and many
+more by carelessness of writers and transcribers, it is plain
+that all the variations cannot be thus accounted for.
+Nothing is more common in printing offices than to find a
+figure 6 inverted serving as a 9, a 5 for a 3, or a 3 for an
+8, while 8, 9, and O, are frequently interchanged. In such
+cases, a keen-eyed proof-reader may not always be present
+to prevent the falsification of history; and it is a fact, not
+sufficiently recognized, that to the untiring vigilance, intelligence,
+and hard, conscientious labors of proof-readers,
+the world owes a deeper debt of gratitude than it does to
+many a famous maker of books. It is easy enough to make
+books, Heaven knows, but to make them correct, "<i>Hic
+labor, hoc opus est</i>."</p>
+
+<p>A high authority in encyclopaedical lore tells us that
+the best accredited authorities are at odds with regard to
+the birth or death of individuals in the enormous ratio of
+from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of the whole number
+in the biographical dictionaries. The Portuguese poet
+Camoens is said by some authorities to have been born in
+1517, and by others in 1525; a discrepancy of eight years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_212" id="Pg_212"></a>[<a href="./images/212.png">212</a>]</span>
+Chateaubriand is declared by the English Cyclopaedia to
+have been born September 4th, 1768; September 14th,
+1768, by the Nouvelle Biographie g&eacute;n&eacute;rale of Dr. Hoefer;
+and September 4th, 1769, by the Conversations-Lexicon.
+Of course it is clear that all these authorities cannot be
+right; but which of the three is so, is matter of extreme
+doubt, leaving the student of facts perplexed and uncertain
+at the very point where certainty is not only most
+important, but most confidently expected.</p>
+
+<p>Of another kind are the errors that sometimes creep
+into works of reference of high credit, by accepting too
+confidently statements publicly made. In one edition of
+the Dictionary of Congress a certain honorable member
+from Pennsylvania, in uncommonly robust health, was
+astonished to find himself recorded as having died of the
+National Hotel disease, contracted at Washington in 1856.
+In this case, the editor of the work was a victim of too
+much confidence in the newspapers. In the Congressional
+Directory, where brief biographies of Congressmen are
+given, one distinguished member was printed as having
+been elected to Congress at a time which, taken in connection
+with his birth-date in the same paragraph, made him
+precisely one year old when he took his seat in Congress.</p>
+
+<p>Even in reporting the contents of public and private
+libraries, exaggeration holds sway. The library of George
+the Fourth, inherited by that graceless ignoramus from a
+book-collecting father, and presented to the British nation
+with ostentatious liberality only after he had failed to sell
+it to Russia, was said in the publications of those times to
+contain about 120,000 volumes. But an actual enumeration
+when the books were lodged in the King's library at
+the British Museum, where they have ever since remained,
+showed that there were only 65,250 volumes, being but
+little more than half the reported number. Many libra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_213" id="Pg_213"></a>[<a href="./images/213.png">213</a>]</span>ries,
+public and private, are equally over-estimated. It is
+so much easier to guess than to count, and the stern test
+of arithmetic is too seldom applied, notwithstanding the
+fact that 100,000 volumes can easily be counted in a day
+by a single person, and so on in the same proportion.
+Here, as in the statistics of population, the same proverb
+holds good, that the unknown is always the magnificent,
+and on the surface of the globe we inhabit, the unexplored
+country is always the most marvellous, since the world began.</p>
+
+<p>These discrepancies in authorities, and exaggerations of
+writers, are not referred to for the purpose of casting doubt
+upon all published history, but only to point out that we
+cannot trust implicitly to what we find in books. Bearing
+in mind always, that accuracy is perhaps the rarest of
+human qualities, we should hold our judgment in reserve
+upon controverted statements, trusting no writer implicitly,
+unless sustained by original authorities. When asked
+to recommend the best book upon any subject, do not too
+confidently assert the merits of the one you may think the
+best, but say simply that it is well accredited, or very
+popular. It is not always safe to recommend books, and
+the librarian does well to speak with proper reservations as
+to most of them, and to recommend only what are well
+known to him to be good, by his own intimate acquaintance
+with them, or, which is the surest test of all, by the
+verdicts of critical reviews, or by the constant reprinting
+of them in many successive years.</p>
+
+<p>It was the well-nigh unanimous report at a Conference
+of American librarians, upon the subject of "aids to readers",
+that "nothing can take the place of an intelligent and
+obliging assistant at the desk." This was after a thorough
+canvass of the relative merits of the various reference books
+and helps to readers in book form. Not only the casual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_214" id="Pg_214"></a>[<a href="./images/214.png">214</a>]</span>
+reader, and the reader with a purpose may be constantly
+aided by the librarian's knowledge, and larger experience
+in the art of finding things, but teachers in the schools,
+clergymen preparing discourses, and every one seeking to
+know anything, should find the librarian a living catalogue.
+There is nothing so effective in the world as individual
+effort.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_215" id="Pg_215"></a>[<a href="./images/215.png">215</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_11" id="CHAPTER_11"></a>CHAPTER 11.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Access to Library Shelves.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>The matter of free or unrestricted access to the books
+on the shelves is a vexed question in libraries. Open and
+unprotected shelves, either in alcoves or the main reading
+room, while they appear to be a boon to readers, who can
+thus browse at will through the literary pastures, and turn
+over volumes at their pleasure, furnish by no means good
+security for the books. Some of the smaller public libraries
+protect their books from access by glass doors in front
+of the shelves, which form also a partial protection against
+dust. Others again, use wire screen doors, opened, like
+the others, by lock and key when books are wanted. Both
+of these arrangements give to readers the advantage of
+reading the titles on the backs of most of the books in the
+library, while protecting them from being handled, disarranged,
+or removed. But they are also open to the objection
+that they obstruct the prompt service of the books,
+by just the amount of time it takes to open the doors or
+screens, and close them again. This trouble and delay
+may overbalance the supposed advantages. Certainly they
+must do so in all large libraries, where the frequentation
+is great, and where every moment's delay in the book service
+works disadvantage to numerous readers. While private
+libraries, or quite small public ones, can indulge in
+the luxury of glass cases, no extensive collection can be
+managed with the requisite promptitude under their obstructions.</p>
+
+<p>But how to avoid the indiscriminate and usually careless
+handling of the books on shelves, by the people fre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_216" id="Pg_216"></a>[<a href="./images/216.png">216</a>]</span>quenting
+the library, and still extend to readers prompt
+and full service of all the books they wish to consult on any
+subject, is a problem. In a few of the great libraries,
+where that modern improvement, the stack system, prevails,
+the difficulty is solved by the storing of the books in
+the outside repositories, or iron book-stacks to which readers
+are not admitted. In this case the reading room is
+only for books in use by those frequenting it, or is supplied
+with a selection of reference books simply, the stacks being
+drawn upon for all the rest. This of course secures the
+books both from misplacement and from pillage.</p>
+
+<p>In smaller libraries which have no stack system (and
+this includes by far the greater number) a variety of treatment
+prevails. Most of them are unprovided with any effective
+means of guarding the books on the shelves from
+handling. The result is great insecurity, and inevitable
+misplacement of books, amounting often to confusion and
+chaos on the shelves, unless corrected by much daily re-arrangement
+by the librarian or assistants. This consumes
+much valuable time, which ought to be devoted to
+other pressing duties.</p>
+
+<p>One remedy is to guard the shelves by a railing of some
+kind, which cannot be passed, except at the gates or passage-ways
+provided for the attendants. This simple provision
+will protect the orderly arrangement as well as the
+safety of the library&mdash;two objects both of cardinal importance.
+Absolutely free access to all the shelves means,
+sooner or later, loss to the library. And the books most
+certain to be taken or mutilated are those which it is costly,
+or difficult, or in some cases, impossible to replace.
+The chances of abstracting engravings from books are
+much greater in the shadow of the shelves, than in the
+open reading-room, under the eyes of many. In any library
+but the smaller ones, the difficulties and dangers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_217" id="Pg_217"></a>[<a href="./images/217.png">217</a>]</span>
+unrestricted handling of all the books by the public will
+be developed in the direct ratio of the size of the library.
+Nor will it do to admit one class of readers to the shelves,
+and exclude others. It often happens that persons claiming
+to have special literary or scientific objects, and who
+profess that they cannot get along at all by having books
+brought to them, are favored in their wish to go to the
+shelves, while others are disfavored. This raises at once
+the just complaint that invidious distinctions are made.
+The only safe rule to follow is that of universal free access,
+or impartial and uniform exclusion from the shelves. In
+the latter case, no one can complain, especially when made
+aware that he can have all the works on a given subject
+brought to his seat in a brief time, and can work upon
+them to much greater comfort and advantage, seated where
+there is good light and ample room, than if standing up in
+the shadow of the shelves to pursue his researches.</p>
+
+<p>It is also to be considered that such disarrangement of
+books as inevitably follows free admission to the shelves
+deprives the very persons who claim this privilege, of finding
+what they seek, until a complete replacement takes
+place, throughout the library, and this is necessarily a work
+of time. That it involves much more time and consequent
+delay than is occasioned by the re-shelving of books used
+in a day, is apparent when we consider that in the latter
+case, only the number of volumes actually withdrawn from
+shelves by the library attendants have to be replaced, and
+that these are in conveniently assorted piles all ready to go
+to their respective shelves; while in the other case, the displacement
+is made by many hands, most of them careless
+of any convenience but their own, and moreover, the disarranged
+books are, or are liable to be, scattered on the
+wrong shelves, thus throwing the entire library into dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_218" id="Pg_218"></a>[<a href="./images/218.png">218</a>]</span>order,
+requiring great pains, knowledge, and time to repair.</p>
+
+<p>In any well-regulated library, the absence of any book
+from its place can almost always be accounted for. Thus
+it is either&mdash;1. In the reading room, in use; or 2. Charged
+out to a borrower; or 3. Sent to the binder for rebinding,
+or repair; or 4. Reserved for some reader's use; or 5. In
+temporary use by a cataloguer, or some other library assistant;
+or 6. Among the books not yet re-shelved from
+recent use.</p>
+
+<p>Now each of these is a legitimate reason for the absence
+of any book not found in its place. By search under each
+of these heads, <i>seriatim</i>, aided by the memory of librarian
+and assistants, the missing volume should be readily located,
+and soon availed of for use.</p>
+
+<p>But in the case of books misplaced by readers, no such
+tracing out of the whereabouts of any volume is effectual,
+for the reason that the book may have been (and probably
+is) put on some shelf where it does not belong. And the
+question, where in an extensive collection, a book-hunter
+admitted to freely range over all the shelves, and a
+stranger to the minute classification of books, has misplaced
+the missing volumes, is an insoluble problem, except
+by hunting over or handling the entire library.</p>
+
+<p>In this close practical view of the case we have to add to
+the long list of the enemies of books, formerly enumerated,
+those who demand a right to browse (as they term it)
+among the shelves of a public library, and who displace the
+books they take down to gratify, it may be, only an idle
+curiosity. Their offence consists, not in being anxious to
+see the books, but in preventing others from seeing them,
+by segregating them where neither librarian nor assistants
+may be able to find them, when called for. The whole
+question is summed up in the statement that the ability to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_219" id="Pg_219"></a>[<a href="./images/219.png">219</a>]</span>
+produce library books when called for, depends strictly
+upon keeping them in their proper place: and this is quite
+incompatible with promiscuous handling upon the shelves.</p>
+
+<p>The preservation of order is alike in the interest of the
+reading public, of the librarian and his assistants, and of
+the very persons who complain of it as depriving them of
+library facilities. If library facilities consist in rendering
+the books in it unfindable, and therefore unavailable to
+any reader, then the argument for free range of the shelves
+arrives at a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>. The true library facilities
+consist in a classification and a catalogue which arrange
+the books in systematic order, and keep them there,
+save when called into use. Thus, and thus only, can those
+who resort to a public library for actual research, be assured
+of finding what they want, just when they want it.
+The time saved to all readers by the sure and steady preservation
+of an orderly arrangement of the books, is simply
+incalculable. Multiply the number of volumes out of
+place by the number of readers who call for them, and you
+have some idea of the mischief that may be done through
+the carelessness of a few favored readers, to the whole community
+of scholars. Of course the considerations here set
+forth pre-suppose an active and intelligent librarian, and
+zealous and willing attendants, all ever ready to aid the
+researches of readers by the most prompt and helpful suggestions,
+and by dispatch in placing before them what they
+most need. The one cardinal design of a library&mdash;to supply
+the largest amount of information in the shortest time,
+is subverted by any disorganizing scheme. If the library
+be administered on the just principle of "the greatest good
+to the greatest number," then such individual favoritism
+should never be allowed.</p>
+
+<p>It may, indeed, be claimed that there is no rule without
+some valid exceptions; but these exceptions should never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_220" id="Pg_220"></a>[<a href="./images/220.png">220</a>]</span>
+be permitted to defeat the cardinal object of the rule&mdash;which
+is to keep every book strictly in its own place. Let
+the exception be confined to allowing an occasional inspection
+of the shelves in the company of a library attendant,
+and there will be no trouble.</p>
+
+<p>But there is another danger, aside from the misplacement
+of books. Experience has shown that thefts or
+mutilations of books have been numerous, in direct proportion
+to the extension of freedom and opportunity to
+those frequenting the library. Literary men and book-lovers
+are frequently book-collectors also; and the temptation
+to take what is often too loosely considered public
+property is sometimes yielded to by persons whose character
+and standing may render them the least suspected.
+In one of the largest lending libraries in this country, the
+purloining of books had been carried so far, that the authorities
+had to provide a wire fence all around the reading
+room, to keep the readers from access to the shelves.
+The result was soon seen in the reduction of the number
+of books stolen from 700 volumes to 300 volumes a year.</p>
+
+<p>After several years' experience of the Astor Library in
+opening its alcoves to readers (amounting to practical free
+admission to the shelves to all calling themselves special
+students) the losses and mutilations of books became so
+serious, that alcove admissions have been greatly curtailed.</p>
+
+<p>At the Conference of Librarians in London, in 1877,
+the subject of admission or non-admission to the shelves
+was discussed with the result that opinions were preponderantly
+adverse to the free range of the library by readers.
+It was pointed out that libraries are established and maintained
+at great cost for serious purposes of reading and
+study, and that these ends are best subserved by systematic
+service at a common centre&mdash;not by letting the readers
+scatter themselves about the library shelves. To one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_221" id="Pg_221"></a>[<a href="./images/221.png">221</a>]</span>
+speaker who held that every one in a free public library
+had the right to go to the shelves, and choose his books for
+himself, it was answered that this was equivalent to saying
+that it is the idler's right to stroll about in every place
+devoted to a special business, and interrupt that business
+at his pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>At the International Conference of 1897, an able defence
+of open shelves was presented, claiming that it saves
+much librarians' time in finding books, if readers are allowed
+to find them for themselves; that thefts and mutilations
+are inconsiderable; that it makes an appeal to the
+honor of people to respect the books; that the open shelf
+system does better educational work; that it is economical
+by requiring fewer library attendants; that it has grown
+steadily in favor in America, and that it gives the people
+the same right in the library which is their own, as the
+individual has in his own.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, it was urged that the arguments for
+open shelves were all arguments for anarchy; that the
+readers who want to rummage about for what they want
+lack proper discipline of the mind; that the number of
+books lost under it has been very large; that librarians are
+custodians and conservers, as well as dispensers of books;
+that all books misplaced are practically lost to the library
+for the time being; that the open shelf system requires far
+more space, and is more expensive; and that, however desirable,
+its general adoption is utterly impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of libraries in this particular of administration
+differs widely, as do the opinions of librarians regarding
+it. In most colleges and universities free access
+is allowed; and in some public free libraries, both east and
+west, the readers are allowed to handle the books on the
+shelves. This is comparatively safe in the smaller town
+libraries, where the books are in compact shape, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_222" id="Pg_222"></a>[<a href="./images/222.png">222</a>]</span>
+unavoidable misplacement can be corrected daily in no
+long time. The experience of "open shelves" in such collections
+has been so favorable that their librarians have
+testified that the losses were insignificant when compared
+with the great public convenience resulting. But the difficulty
+and confusion arising from free handling of the
+books on shelves increases in the direct ratio of the size of
+the library, until, in an extensive collection, it reaches an
+intolerable result.</p>
+
+<p>What is encountered continually in enforcing the rule
+of exclusion from shelves is the almost universal conceit
+that some reader is entitled to exemption from such a rule.
+Explain to him never so courteously that experience has
+proved that a library is thrown into confusion by such admission;
+that while he may be careful to replace every book
+handled in the same spot, nearly all readers are careless,
+and he will insist that he is the exception, and that he is
+always careful. That is human nature, the world over&mdash;to
+believe that one can do things better than any one else.
+But if such importunities prevail, the chances are that
+books will be misplaced by the very literary expert who
+has solemnly asserted his infallibility.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, open shelves may be viewed as an open
+question. It may be best for small libraries, as to all the
+books, and for all libraries as to some classes of books.
+But make it general, and order and arrangement are at an
+end, while chaos takes the place of cosmos. The real student
+is better served by the knowledge and aid of the librarian,
+thus saving his time for study, than he can be by
+ranging about dark shelves to find, among multitudes of
+books he does not want, the ones that he actually does
+want. The business of the librarian, and his highest use,
+is to bring the resources of the library to the reader. If
+this takes a hundred or more volumes a day, he is to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_223" id="Pg_223"></a>[<a href="./images/223.png">223</a>]</span>
+them; but to give him the right to throw a library into
+confusion by "browsing around," is to sacrifice the rights
+of the public to prompt service, to the whim of one man.
+Those who think that "browsing" is an education should
+reflect that it is like any other wandering employment,
+fatal to fixity of purpose. Like desultory reading of infinite
+periodicals, it tends rather to dissipate the time and
+the attention than to inform and strengthen the mind.</p>
+
+<p>In libraries of wide circulation in America, many have
+open shelves, and many more free access to certain classes
+of books. The Newark Free Library opens all departments
+except fiction; others open fiction and current literature
+only. Some libraries, notably in England, have a
+"safe-guarded" open-shelf system, by which the public are
+given free range inside the library, while the librarians
+take post at the outside railing, to charge books drawn,
+and check off depredations. This method may be styled
+"every one his own librarian," and is claimed by its originators
+to work well.</p>
+
+<p>At the Conference of the American Library Association
+in 1899, after discussion, votes were taken, showing 50 librarians
+in favor of free access to shelves for small libraries,
+as against only 10 for unrestricted access in large
+libraries.</p>
+
+<p>The debate brought out curious and instructive facts as
+to losses of books where free range is allowed. The Denver
+Public Library lost in one year 955 volumes; the Buffalo
+Public Library 700 books in seventeen months; the Minneapolis,
+300 in a year; and the St. Louis Public Library
+1,062 volumes in two years, out of "a very limited open
+shelf collection." One librarian, estimating the loss of
+books at $1,000 worth in two years, said the library board
+were perfectly satisfied, and that "unless we lose $2,500
+worth of books a year, the open-shelf system pays in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_224" id="Pg_224"></a>[<a href="./images/224.png">224</a>]</span>
+saving of the expenses of attendance." It does not appear
+to have occurred to them that a public library owes anything
+to the public morality, nor that a library losing its
+books by the thousand, to save the cost of proper management,
+may be holding out a premium to wholesale robbery.</p>
+
+<p>There is another precaution essential to be observed regarding
+the more costly and rare possessions of the library.
+Such books should not be placed upon the shelves with the
+ordinary books of the collection, but provided for in a repository
+under lock and key. In a large library, where
+many hundred volumes of books of especial rarity and
+value are to be found, a separate room should always exist
+for this class of books. They will properly include (1) Incunabula,
+or early printed books; (2) Manuscripts, or
+unique specimens, such as collections of autographs of notable
+people; (3) Illuminated books, usually written on
+vellum, or printed in color; (4) Early and rare Americana,
+or books of American discovery, history, etc., which are
+scarce and difficult to replace; (5) Any books known to be
+out of print; and (6) Many costly illustrated works which
+should be kept apart for only occasional inspection by readers.
+Where no separate room exists for safe custody of
+such treasures, they should be provided with a locked book-case
+or cases, according to their number. When any of
+these reserved books are called for, they should be supplied
+to readers under special injunctions of careful handling.
+Neglect of precaution may at any time be the means
+of losing to the library a precious volume. It is easy for
+an unknown reader who calls for such a rare or costly
+work, to sign his ticket with a false name, and slip the book
+under his coat when unobserved, and so leave the library
+unchallenged. But the librarian or assistant who supplies
+the book, if put on his guard by having to fetch it from a
+locked repository, should keep the reader under observa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_225" id="Pg_225"></a>[<a href="./images/225.png">225</a>]</span>tion,
+unless well known, until the volume is safely returned.
+Designing and dishonest persons are ever hovering
+about public libraries, and some of the most dangerous
+among them are men who know the value of books.</p>
+
+<p>This class of reserved books should not be given out in
+circulation, under any circumstances. Not only are they
+subject to injury by being handled in households where
+there are children or careless persons, who soil or deface
+them, but they are exposed to the continual peril of fire,
+and consequent loss to the library. There are often books
+among these rarities, which money cannot replace, because
+no copies can be found when wanted. In the Library of
+Congress, there is a very salutary safe-guard thrown
+around the most valuable books in the form of a library
+regulation which provides that no manuscript whatever,
+and no printed book of special rarity and value shall be
+taken out of the library by any person. This restriction
+of course applies to Members of Congress, as well as to
+those officials who have the legal right to draw books from
+the library.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_226" id="Pg_226"></a>[<a href="./images/226.png">226</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_12" id="CHAPTER_12"></a>CHAPTER 12.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Faculty of Memory.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>To every reader nothing can be more important than
+that faculty of the mind which we call memory. The
+retentive memory instinctively stores up the facts, ideas,
+imagery, and often the very language found in books, so
+clearly that they become available at any moment in after
+life. The tenacity of this hold upon the intellectual
+treasures which books contain depends largely upon the
+strength of the impression made upon the mind when
+reading. And this, in turn, depends much upon the force,
+clearness and beauty of the author's style or expression.
+A crude, or feeble, or wordy, redundant statement makes
+little impression, while a terse, clear, well-balanced sentence
+fixes the attention, and so fastens itself in the
+memory. Hence the books which are best remembered
+will be those which are the best written. Great as is the
+power of thought, we are often obliged to confess that
+the power of expression is greater still. When the substance
+and the style of any writing concur to make a harmonious
+and strong impression on the reader's mind, the
+writer has achieved success. All our study of literature
+tends to confirm the conviction of the supreme importance
+of an effective style.</p>
+
+<p>We must set down a good memory as a cardinal qualification
+of the librarian. This faculty of the mind, in fact,
+is more important to him than to the members of any
+other profession whatever, because it is more incessantly
+drawn upon. Every hour in the day, and sometimes every
+minute in the hour, he has to recall the names of certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_227" id="Pg_227"></a>[<a href="./images/227.png">227</a>]</span>
+books, the authors of the same, including both their surnames
+and Christian or forenames, the subjects principally
+treated in them, the words of some proverb or quotation,
+or elegant extract in poetry or prose, the period of time
+of an author or other noted person, the standard measurements
+and weights in use, with their equivalents, the
+moneys of foreign nations and their American values, the
+time of certain notable events in history, whether foreign
+or American, ancient or modern, the names and succession
+of rulers, the prices of many books, the rules observed in
+the catalogue, both of authors and subjects, the names
+and schools of great artists, with their period, the meaning
+in various foreign languages of certain words, the geographical
+location of any place on the earth's surface, the
+region of the library in which any book is located&mdash;and,
+in short, an infinitude of items of information which he
+wants to know out of hand, for his own use, or in aid of
+Library readers or assistants. The immense variety of
+these drafts upon his memory seldom perplexes one who is
+well endowed with a natural gift in that direction. In
+fact, it seems actually true of such minds, that the more
+numerous the calls upon the memory, the more ready is
+the response.</p>
+
+<p>The metaphysicians have spent many words in attempting
+to define the various qualities of the mind,
+and to account for a strong or a weak memory; but after
+all is said, we find that the surprising difference between
+different memories is unaccounted for; as unaccountable,
+indeed, as what differences the man of genius from the
+mere plodder. The principle of association of ideas is
+doubtless the leading element in a memory which is not
+merely verbal. We associate in our minds, almost instinctively,
+ideas of time, or space, or persons, or events,
+and these connect or compare one with another, so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_228" id="Pg_228"></a>[<a href="./images/228.png">228</a>]</span>
+what we want is called up or recalled in memory, by a train
+of endless suggestion. We all have this kind of memory,
+which may be termed the rational or ideal, as distinguished
+from the verbal and the local memory. The verbal memory
+is that which retains in the mind, and reproduces at
+will what has been said in our hearing by others, or what
+we have read which has made a marked impression upon
+us. Thus, some persons can repeat with almost exact
+accuracy, every word of a long conversation held with
+another. Others can repeat whole poems, or long passages
+in prose from favorite authors, after reading them over
+two or three times, and can retain them perfectly in memory
+for half a century or more. There have even been
+persons to whom one single reading of any production was
+sufficient to enable them to repeat it <i>verbatim</i>. These instances
+of a great verbal memory are by no means rare,
+although some of them appear almost incredible. John
+Locke tells us of the French philosopher Pascal, that he
+never forgot anything of what he had done, said, or
+thought, in any part of his natural life. And the same
+thing is recorded of that great scholar of Holland, Hugo
+Grotius.</p>
+
+<p>The mathematician Euler could repeat the Aeneid of
+Virgil from beginning to end, containing nearly nine
+thousand lines. Mozart, upon hearing the <i>Miserere</i> of
+Allegri played in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, only once,
+went to his hotel, and wrote it all down from memory, note
+for note.</p>
+
+<p>Cardinal Mezzofanti both wrote and spoke thirty languages,
+and was quite familiar with more than a hundred.
+He said that if he once heard the meaning of a word in any
+language, he never forgot it. Yet he was of the opinion,
+that although he had twenty words for one idea, it was
+better to have twenty ideas for one word; which is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_229" id="Pg_229"></a>[<a href="./images/229.png">229</a>]</span>
+doubt true, so far as real intellectual culture is concerned.
+Lord Macaulay, who had a phenomenal memory, said that
+if all the copies of Milton's Paradise Lost were to be destroyed,
+he could reproduce the book complete, from memory.
+In early life he was a great admirer of Walter Scott's
+poetry, and especially the "Lay of the Last Minstrel", and
+could repeat the whole of that long poem, more than six
+hundred lines, from memory. And at the age of fifty-seven
+he records&mdash;"I walked in the portico, and learned
+by heart the noble fourth act of the Merchant of Venice.
+There are four hundred lines. I made myself perfect master
+of the whole in two hours." It was said of him that
+every incident he heard of, and every page he read, "assumed
+in his mind a concrete spectral form."</p>
+
+<p>But the memory for names and words has been sometimes
+called the lowest form of memory. Persons of defective
+or impaired intellect frequently have strong and
+retentive verbal memories. Mrs. Somerville records the
+case of an idiot who could repeat a whole sermon <i>verbatim</i>,
+after once hearing it, but who was stupid and ignorant as
+to every thing else. And there are many instances in the
+books to the same effect.</p>
+
+<p>Another kind of memory may be called, for want of a
+better name, the local memory. A person who has this
+strongly developed, if he once goes to a place, whether a
+room, or a street in a city, or a road in any part of the
+country, knows the way again, and can find it by instinct
+ever after. In the same way any one gifted with this
+almost unerring sense of locality, can find any book on any
+shelf in any part of a library where he has once been. He
+knows, in like manner, on which side of the page he saw
+any given passage in a book, which impressed him at the
+time, although he may never have had the volume in his
+hand more than once. He may not remember the num<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_230" id="Pg_230"></a>[<a href="./images/230.png">230</a>]</span>ber
+of the page, but he is sure of his recollection that it
+was the left or the right hand one, as the case may be, and
+this knowledge will abridge his labor and time in finding
+it again by just one half. This local memory is invaluable
+to a librarian or an assistant in shortening the labor of
+finding things. If you have a good local memory, you can,
+in no long time, come to dispense with the catalogue and
+its shelf-marks or classification marks, almost entirely,
+in finding your books. Although this special gift of memory&mdash;the
+sense of locality&mdash;is unquestionably a lower
+faculty of the mind than some others named, and although
+there are illiterate persons who can readily find and produce
+any books in a library which have often passed
+through their hands, yet it is a faculty by no means to be
+despised. It is one of the labor-saving, time-saving gifts,
+which should be welcomed by every librarian. The time
+saved from searching the catalogues for location-marks
+of the outside of books, will enable him to make many a research
+in their inside. This faculty, of course, is indefinitely
+strengthened and improved by use&mdash;and the same is
+true of the other branches of the sense which we call memory.
+The oftener you have been to any place, the better
+you know the way. The more frequently you have found
+and produced a given book from its proper receptacle, the
+easier and the quicker will be your finding it again.</p>
+
+<p>Another faculty or phase of memory is found in the
+ability to call up the impression made by any object once
+seen by the eye, so as to reproduce it accurately in speech
+or writing. This may be termed the intuitive memory.
+There are many applications or illustrations of this faculty.
+Thus, for example, you see a book on some shelf in your
+library. You take in its size, its binding, both the material
+and the color, and its title as lettered on the back.
+All this you absorb with one glance of the eye. You re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_231" id="Pg_231"></a>[<a href="./images/231.png">231</a>]</span>member
+it by the principle of association&mdash;that is, you
+associate with that particular book, in connection with
+its title, a certain dimension, color, and style of binding.
+Now, when you have occasion to look up that special volume
+again, you not only go, aided by your memory of locality,
+to the very section and shelf of the library where it belongs,
+but you take with you instinctively, your memory or
+mental image of the book's appearance. Thus, you perhaps
+distinctly remember (1) that it was an octavo, and
+your eye in glancing along the shelf where it belongs, rejects
+intuitively all the duodecimos or books of lesser size,
+to come to the octavos. (2) Then you also remember that
+it was bound in leather, consequently you pass quickly by
+all the cloth bound volumes on the shelf. (3) in the third
+place you know that its color was red; and you pay no attention
+whatever to books of any other color, but quickly
+seize your red leather-bound octavo, and bear it off to the
+reading-room in triumph. Of course there are circumstances
+where this quick operation of the faculties of memory
+and intuition combined, would not be so easy. For
+example, all the books (or nearly all) on a given shelf might
+be octavos; or they might all be leather-bound; or a majority
+of them with red backs; and the presence of one or
+more of these conditions would eliminate one or more of
+the facilities for most rapidly picking out the book wanted.
+But take a pile of books, we will say returned by many
+readers, on the library counter. You are searching among
+them for a particular volume that is again wanted. There
+is no order or arrangement of the volumes, but you distinctly
+remember, from having handled it, its size both as
+to height and thickness, its color, and how it was bound.
+You know it was a thin 12mo. in green cloth binding. Do
+you, in your search, take up every book in that mass, to
+scrutinize its title, and see if it is the one you seek? By no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_232" id="Pg_232"></a>[<a href="./images/232.png">232</a>]</span>
+means. You quickly thrust aside, one by one, or by the
+half-dozen, all the volumes which are not green, cloth-bound,
+thin duodecimos, without so much as glancing at
+them. Your special volume is quickly found among hundreds
+of volumes, and your faculty of memory and intuition
+has saved you perhaps a quarter of an hour of valuable
+time, which, without that faculty, might have been
+wasted in search.</p>
+
+<p>Again, another circumstance which might intervene to
+diminish the frequency of application of the memory referred
+to, as to the physical features or appearance of a
+book sought for, is where the shelf-arrangement is alphabetical,
+by authors' names, or by the names of the subjects
+of the books, if it is an alphabet of biographies.
+Here, the surest and the quickest guide to the book is of
+course the alphabetical order, in which it must necessarily
+be found.</p>
+
+<p>This memory of the aspect of any object once looked at,
+is further well illustrated in the very varied facilities for
+the spelling of words found in different persons. Thus,
+there are people who, when they once see any word (we
+will say a proper name) written or printed, can always
+afterwards spell that word unerringly, no matter how uncommon
+it may be. The mental retina, so to speak, receives
+so clear and exact an impression of the form of that
+word from the eye, that it retains and reproduces it at
+will.</p>
+
+<p>But there are others, (and among them persons of much
+learning in some directions) upon whom the form or orthography
+of a word makes little or no impression, however
+frequently it meets the eye in reading. I have known
+several fine scholars, and among them the head of an institution
+of learning, who could not for the life of them
+spell correctly; and this infirmity extended even to some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_233" id="Pg_233"></a>[<a href="./images/233.png">233</a>]</span>
+of the commonest words in the language. Why this inaptitude
+on the part of many, and this extraordinary
+facility on the part of others, in the memorizing faculty,
+is a phenomenon which may be noted down, but not solved.
+That vivid mental picture which is seen by the inward eye
+of the person favored with a good memory, is wholly wanting,
+or seen only dimly and rarely in the case of one who
+easily forgets.</p>
+
+<p>So vital and important is memory, that it has been justly
+denominated by the German philosopher, Kant, "the most
+wonderful of our faculties." Without it, the words of a
+book would be unintelligible to us, since it is memory alone
+which furnishes us with the several meanings to be attached
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>Some writers on the science of mind assert that there
+is no such thing with any of us as absolutely forgetting
+anything that has once been in the mind. All mental
+activities, all knowledge which ever existed, persists. We
+never wholly lose them, but they become faint and obscure.
+One mental image effaces another. But those which have
+thus disappeared may be recalled by an act of reminiscence.
+While it may sometimes be impossible to recover one of
+them at the moment when wanted, by an act of voluntary
+recollection, some association may bring it unexpectedly
+and vividly before us. Memory plays us many strange
+tricks, both when we wake and when we dream. It revives,
+by an involuntary process, an infinite variety of past
+scenes, faces, events, ideas, emotions, passions, conversations,
+and written or printed pages, all of which we may
+have fancied had passed forever from our consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>The aids to memory supposed to be furnished by the
+various mnemonic systems may now be briefly considered.
+These methods of supplying the defects of a naturally weak
+memory, or of strengthening a fairly good one, are one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_234" id="Pg_234"></a>[<a href="./images/234.png">234</a>]</span>
+and all artificial. This might not be a conclusive objection
+to them, were they really effective and permanent
+helps, enabling one who has learned them to recall with
+certainty ideas, names, dates, and events which he is unable
+to recall by other means. Theory apart, it is conceded
+that a system of memorizing which had proved
+widely or generally successful in making a good memory
+out of a poor one, would deserve much credit. But experience
+with these systems has as yet failed to show, by the
+stern test of practical utility, that they can give substantial
+(and still less permanent) aid in curing the defects
+of memory. Most of the systems of mnemonics that have
+been invented are constructed on the principle of locality,
+or of utilizing objects which appeal to the sight. There
+is nothing new in these methods, for the principle is as
+old as Simonides, who lived in the fifth century before
+Christ, and who devised a system of memorizing by locality.
+One of the most prevalent systems now taught is to
+select a number of rooms in a house (in the mind's eye,
+of course) and divide the walls and the floors of each room
+into nine equal parts or squares, three in a row. Then</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"On the front wall&mdash;that opposite the entrance of the
+first room&mdash;are the units, on the right-hand wall the tens,
+on the left hand the twenties, on the fourth wall the thirties,
+and on the floor the forties. Numbers 10, 20, 30, and
+40, each find a place on the roof above their respective
+walls. One room will thus furnish 50 places, and ten
+rooms as many as 500, while 50 occupies the centre of the
+roof. Having fixed these clearly in the mind, so as to be
+able readily and at once to tell the exact position of each
+place or number, it is then necessary to associate with each
+of them some familiar object (or symbol) so that the object
+being suggested, its place may be instantly remembered,
+or when the place is before the mind, its object may immediately
+spring up. When this has been done thoroughly,
+the objects can be run over in any order from beginning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_235" id="Pg_235"></a>[<a href="./images/235.png">235</a>]</span>
+to end, or from end to beginning, or the place of any particular
+one can at once be given. All that is further necessary
+is to associate the ideas we wish to remember with the
+objects in the various places, by which means they are readily
+remembered, and can be gone over in any order. In
+this way, one may learn to repeat several hundred disconnected
+words or ideas in any order, after hearing them only
+once."</p></div>
+
+<p>This rather complicated machinery for aiding the memory
+is quite too mechanical to commend itself to any one
+accustomed to reflect or to take note of his own mental processes.
+Such an elaborate system crowds the mind with
+a lot of useless furniture, and hinders rather than helps a
+rational and straightforward habit of memorizing. It too
+much resembles the feat of trying to jump over a wall by
+running back a hundred or more yards to acquire a good
+start or momentum. The very complication of the system
+is fitted to puzzle rather than to aid the memory. It
+is based on mechanical or arithmetical associations&mdash;not
+founded on nature, and is of very small practical utility.
+It does not strengthen or improve the habit of memorizing,
+which should always be based upon close attention, and a
+logical method of classifying, associating, and analyzing
+facts or ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Bacon, more than two centuries ago, wisely characterized
+mnemonic systems as "barren and useless." He
+wrote, "For immediately to repeat a multitude of names
+or words once repeated before, I esteem no more than rope-dancing,
+antic postures, and feats of activity; and, indeed,
+they are nearly the same thing, the one being the abuse of
+the bodily, as the other is of mental powers; and though
+they may cause admiration, they cannot be highly esteemed."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, these mnemonical systems are only a kind of
+crutches, sometimes useful to people who cannot walk, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_236" id="Pg_236"></a>[<a href="./images/236.png">236</a>]</span>
+actual impediments to those having the use of their limbs,
+and who by proper exercise can maintain their healthy and
+natural use indefinitely.</p>
+
+<p>I have given you an account of one of these artificial
+systems of memory, or systems of artificial memory, as you
+may choose to call them. There have been invented more
+than one hundred different systems of mnemonics, all professing
+to be invaluable, and some claiming to be infallible.
+It appears to be a fatal objection to these memory-systems
+that they substitute a wholly artificial association of ideas
+for a natural one. The habit of looking for accidental or
+arbitrary relations of names and things is cultivated, and
+the power of logical, spontaneous thought is injured by
+neglecting essential for unessential relations. These artificial
+associations of ideas work endless mischief by crowding
+out the natural ones.</p>
+
+<p>How then, you may ask, is a weak memory to be strengthened,
+or a fairly good memory to be cultivated into a better
+one? The answer is, by constant practice, and for this
+the vocation of a librarian furnishes far more opportunities
+than any other. At the basis of this practice of the
+memory, lies the habit of attention. All memory depends
+upon the strength or vividness of the impression made
+upon the mind, by the object, the name, the word, the date,
+which is sought to be remembered. And this, in turn, depends
+on the degree of attention with which it was first regarded.
+If the attention was so fixed that a clear mental
+image was formed, there will be no difficulty in remembering
+it again. If, on the other hand, you were inattentive,
+or listless, or pre-occupied with other thoughts, when you
+encountered the object, your impression of it would be
+hazy and indistinct, and no effort of memory would be likely
+to recall it.</p>
+
+<p>Attention has been defined as the fixing of the mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_237" id="Pg_237"></a>[<a href="./images/237.png">237</a>]</span>
+intently upon one particular object, to the exclusion for a
+time, of all other objects soliciting notice. It is essential
+to those who would have a good memory, to cultivate assiduously
+the habit of concentration of thought. As the scattering
+shot hits no mark, so the scattering and random
+thoughts that sweep through an unoccupied brain lead to
+no memorable result, simply from want of attention or of
+fixation upon some one mental vision or idea. With your
+attention fastened upon any subject or object, you see it
+more clearly, and it impresses itself more vividly in the
+memory, as a natural consequence. Not only so, but its
+related objects or ideas are brought up by the principle of
+association, and they too make a deeper impression and are
+more closely remembered. In fact, one thing carefully
+observed and memorized, leads almost insensibly to another
+that is related to it, and thus the faculty of association is
+strengthened, the memory is stimulated, and the seeds of
+knowledge are deeply planted in that complex organism
+which we call the mind. This power of attention, of keeping
+an object or a subject steadily in view until it is absorbed
+or mastered, is held by some to be the most distinctive
+element in genius. Most people have not this habit
+of concentration of the mind, but allow it to wander aimlessly
+on, flitting from subject to subject, without mastering
+any; but then, most people are not geniuses. The
+habit to be cultivated is that of thinking persistently of
+only one thing at a time, sternly preventing the attention
+from wandering.</p>
+
+<p>It may be laid down as an axiom that the two corner-stones
+of memory are attention and association. And both
+of these must act in harmony, the habit of fixed attention
+being formed or guided by the will, before a normal or retentive
+memory becomes possible. What is called cultivating
+the memory, therefore, does not mean anything more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_238" id="Pg_238"></a>[<a href="./images/238.png">238</a>]</span>
+than close attention to whatever we wish to remember,
+with whatever associations naturally cling to it, until it is
+actually mastered. If one has not an instinctive or naturally
+strong memory, he should not rest satisfied with letting
+the days go by until he has improved it. The way to
+improve it, is to begin at the foundation, and by the constant
+exercise of the will-power, to take up every subject
+with fixed attention, and one at a time, excluding every
+other for the time being. There is no doubt whatever that
+the memory is capable of indefinite improvement; and
+though one's first efforts in that direction may prove a
+disappointment, because only partially successful, he should
+try, and try again, until he is rewarded with the full fruits
+of earnest intellectual effort, in whatever field. He may
+have, at the start, instead of a fine memory, what a learned
+professor called, "a fine forgettery," but let him persevere
+to the end. None of us were made to sit down in despair
+because we are not endowed with an all-embracing memory,
+or because we cannot "speak with the tongues of men and
+of angels," and do not know "all mysteries and all knowledge."
+It rather becomes us to make the best and highest
+use, day by day, of the talents that are bestowed upon us,
+remembering that however short of perfection they may
+be, we are yet far more gifted than myriads of our fellow-creatures
+in this very imperfect world.</p>
+
+<p>There is no question that the proper cultivation of the
+memory is, or ought to be, the chief aim of education. All
+else is so dependent upon this, that it may be truly affirmed
+that, without memory, knowledge itself would be impossible.
+By giving up oneself with fixed attention to what
+one seeks to remember, and trusting the memory, though
+it may often fail, any person can increase his powers of
+memory and consequently of learning, to an indefinite degree.
+To improve and strengthen the memory, it must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_239" id="Pg_239"></a>[<a href="./images/239.png">239</a>]</span>
+constantly exercised. Let it be supplied with new knowledge
+frequently, and called on daily to reproduce it. If
+remembered only imperfectly or in part, refresh it by reference
+to the source whence the knowledge came; and repeat
+this carefully and thoroughly, until memory becomes
+actually the store-house of what you know on that subject.
+If there are certain kinds of facts and ideas which you
+more easily forget than others, it is a good way to practice
+upon them, taking up a few daily, and adding to them by
+degrees. Dr. W. T. Harris, the United States Commissioner
+of Education, gave his personal experience to the
+effect that he always found it hard to remember dates. He
+resolved to improve a feeble memory in this respect by
+learning the succession of English Kings, from William
+the Conqueror, down to Victoria. With his characteristic
+thoroughness, he began by learning three or four dates of
+accession only, the first day; two new ones were added
+the second day; then one new king added the third day;
+and thereafter even less frequency was observed in learning
+the chronology. By this method he had the whole
+table of thirty-six sovereigns learned, and made familiar by
+constant review. It had to be learned anew one year after,
+and once again after years of neglect. But his memory for
+dates steadily grew, and without conscious effort, dates and
+numbers soon came to be seized with a firmer grasp than
+before. This kind of memory, he adds, now improves or
+increases with him from year to year. Here is an instance
+of cultivation of memory by a notable scholar, who adds a
+monition to learners with weak memories, not to undertake
+to memorize too much at once. Learning a succession of
+fifty names slowly, he says, will so discipline the memory
+for names, as to partially or even permanently remove all
+embarrassment from that source. I may add that a long
+table of names or dates, or any prolonged extract in verse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_240" id="Pg_240"></a>[<a href="./images/240.png">240</a>]</span>
+or prose, if learned by repeating it over and over as a
+whole, will be less tenaciously retained in memory, than if
+committed in parts.</p>
+
+<p>The highest form of memory is actually unconscious,
+<i>i. e.</i>, that in which what we would recall comes to us spontaneously,
+without effort or lapse of time in thinking about
+it. It is this kind of memory that has been possessed by
+all the notable persons who have been credited with knowing
+everything, or with never forgetting anything. It is
+not to be reckoned to their credit, so much as to their good
+fortune. What merit is there in having a good memory,
+when one cannot help remembering?</p>
+
+<p>There is one caution to be given to those who are learning
+to improve a memory naturally weak. When such a
+one tries to recall a date, or name, or place, or idea, or
+book, it frequently happens that the endeavor fails utterly.
+The more he tries, the more obstinately the desired object
+fails to respond. As the poet Pope wrote about the witless
+author:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">Knock as you please, there's nobody at home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In these cases, no attempt to force the memory should be
+made, nor should the attention be kept long on the subject,
+for this course only injures the faculty, and leads to confusion
+of mind. To persist in a constantly baffled effort
+to recover a word, or other forgotten link in memory, is a
+laborious attempt which is itself likely to cause failure, and
+induce a distrust of the memory which is far from rational.
+The forgotten object will probably recur in no long time
+after, when least expected.</p>
+
+<p>Much discursive reading is not only injurious to the
+faculty of memory, but may be positively destructive of it.
+The vast extent of our modern world of reviews, magazines
+and newspapers, with their immense variety of subjects,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_241" id="Pg_241"></a>[<a href="./images/241.png">241</a>]</span>
+dissipates the attention instead of concentrating it, and
+becomes fatal to systematic thought, tenacious memory,
+and the acquirement of real knowledge. The mind that is
+fed upon a diet of morning and evening newspapers, mainly
+or solely, will become flabby, uncertain, illogical, frivolous,
+and, in fact, little better than a scatterbrains. As one who
+listens to an endless dribble of small talk lays up nothing
+out of all the palaver, which, to use a common phrase,
+"goes in at one ear, and out at the other," so the reader
+who continuously absorbs all the stuff which the daily
+press, under the pretext of "printing the news," inflicts
+upon us, is nothing benefited in intellectual gifts or permanent
+knowledge. What does he learn by his assiduous
+pursuit of these ephemeral will o' the wisps, that only
+"lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind?" He absorbs an incredible
+amount of empty gossip, doubtful assertions,
+trifling descriptions, apocryphal news, and some useful,
+but more useless knowledge. The only visible object of
+spending valuable time over these papers appears to be to
+satisfy a momentary curiosity, and then the mass of material
+read passes almost wholly out of the mind, and is
+never more thought of. Says Coleridge, one of the foremost
+of English thinkers: "I believe the habit of perusing
+periodical works may be properly added to the catalogue
+of anti-mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory."</p>
+
+<p>If read sparingly, and for actual events, newspapers have
+a value which is all their own; but to spend hours upon
+them, as many do, is mere mental dissipation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_242" id="Pg_242"></a>[<a href="./images/242.png">242</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_13" id="CHAPTER_13"></a>CHAPTER 13.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Qualifications of a Librarian.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>In directing attention to some of the more important
+elements which should enter into the character and acquirements
+of a librarian, I shall perhaps not treat them
+in the order of their relative importance. Thus, some
+persons might consider the foremost qualification for one
+aspiring to the position of a librarian to be wide knowledge
+in literature and science: others would say that the
+possession of sound common sense is above all things
+essential; others an excellent and retentive memory; still
+others might insist that business habits and administrative
+faculty are all-important; and others again, a zeal for
+learning and for communicating it to others.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not venture to pronounce what, among the multitude
+of talents that are requisite to constitute a good
+librarian is the most requisite. Suffice it to say, that all
+of them which I shall notice are important, and that the
+order of their treatment determines nothing as to which
+are more and which are less important. So much is expected
+of librarians that it actually appears as if a large
+portion of the public were of the opinion that it is the
+duty of him who has a library in charge to possess himself,
+in some occult or mysterious way, unknown to the common
+mind, of all the knowledge which all the books combine.</p>
+
+<p>The Librarian of the British Museum, speaking to a
+conference of librarians in London, quoted a remark of
+Pattison, in his "Life of Casaubon," that "the librarian
+who reads is lost." This was certainly true of that great
+scholar Casaubon, who in his love for the contents of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_243" id="Pg_243"></a>[<a href="./images/243.png">243</a>]</span>
+books under his charge, forgot his duties as a librarian.
+And it is to a large degree true of librarians in general,
+that those who pursue their own personal reading or study
+during library hours do it at the expense of their usefulness
+as librarians. They must be content with such
+snatches of reading as come in the definite pursuit of some
+object of research incident to their library work, supplemented
+by such reading time as unoccupied evenings, Sundays,
+and annual vacations may give them.</p>
+
+<p>Yet nothing is more common than for applicants for the
+position of librarians or assistant librarians to base their
+aspiration upon the foolish plea that they are "so fond of
+reading", or that they "have always been in love with
+books." So far from this being a qualification, it may become
+a disqualification. Unless combined with habits of
+practical, serious, unremitting application to labor, the
+taste for reading may seduce its possessor into spending
+the minutes and the hours which belong to the public, in
+his own private gratification. The conscientious, the useful
+librarian, living amid the rich intellectual treasures of
+centuries, the vast majority of which he has never read,
+must be content daily to enact the part of Tantalus, in the
+presence of a tempting and appetizing banquet which is
+virtually beyond his reach.</p>
+
+<p>But he may console himself by the reflection that comparatively
+few of the books upon his shelves are so far
+worth reading as to be essential. "If I had read as many
+books as other men," said Hobbes of Malmesbury, "I
+should have been as ignorant as they."</p>
+
+<p>If the librarian, in the precious time which is indisputably
+his, reads a wise selection of the best books, the masterpieces
+of the literature of all lands, which have been consecrated
+by time and the suffrages of successive generations
+of readers, he can well afford to apply to the rest, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_244" id="Pg_244"></a>[<a href="./images/244.png">244</a>]</span>
+short-hand method recommended in a former chapter, and
+skim them in the intervals of his daily work, instead of
+reading them. Thus he will become sufficiently familiar
+with the new books of the day (together with the information
+about their contents and merits furnished by the literary
+reviews, which he must read, however sparingly, in
+order to keep up with his profession) to be able to furnish
+readers with some word of comment as to most books coming
+into the Library. This course, or as close an approximation
+to it as his multifarious duties will permit, will go
+far to solve the problem that confronts every librarian who
+is expected to be an exponent of universal knowledge.
+Always refraining from unqualified praise of books (especially
+of new ones) always maintaining that impartial attitude
+toward men and opinions which becomes the librarian,
+he should act the part of a liberal, eclectic, catholic
+guide to inquirers of every kind.</p>
+
+<p>And here let me emphasize the great importance to every
+librarian or assistant of early learning to make the most
+of his working faculties. He cannot afford to plod along
+through a book, sentence by sentence, like an ordinary
+reader. He must learn to read a sentence at a glance.
+The moment his eye lights upon a title-page he should be
+able to take it all in by a comprehensive and intuitive
+mental process. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the
+every-day habit or method of reading. It makes all the
+difference between time saved, and time wasted; between
+efficiency and inefficiency; between rapid progress and
+standing still, in one's daily work. No pains should be
+spared, before entering upon the all-engrossing work of a
+library, to acquire the habit of rapid reading. An eminent
+librarian of one of the largest libraries was asked whether
+he did not find a great deal of time to read? His reply
+was&mdash;"I wish that I could ever get as much as one hour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_245" id="Pg_245"></a>[<a href="./images/245.png">245</a>]</span>
+a day for reading&mdash;but I have never been able to do it."
+Of course every librarian must spend much time in special
+researches; and in this way a good deal of some of his days
+will be spent in acquainting himself with the resources of
+his library; but this is incidental and not systematic reading.</p>
+
+<p>In viewing the essential qualifications of a librarian, it
+is necessary to say at the outset that a library is no place
+for uneducated people. The requirements of the position
+are such as to demand not only native talent above the
+average, but also intellectual acquirements above the average.
+The more a librarian knows, the more he is worth,
+and the converse of the proposition is equally true, that the
+less he knows the less he is worth. Before undertaking
+the arduous task of guiding others in their intellectual pursuits,
+one should make sure that he is himself so well-grounded
+in learning that he can find the way in which to
+guide them. To do this, he must indispensably have something
+more than a smattering of the knowledge that lies at
+the foundation of his profession. He must be, if not widely
+read, at least carefully grounded in history, science, literature,
+and art. While he may not, like Lord Bacon, take
+all knowledge to be his province, because he is not a Lord
+Bacon, nor if he were, could he begin to grasp the illimitable
+domain of books of science and literature which have
+been added to human knowledge in the two centuries and
+a half since Bacon wrote, he can at least, by wise selection,
+master enough of the leading works in each field, to make
+him a well-informed scholar. That great treasury of information
+on the whole circle of the sciences, and the
+entire range of literature, the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
+judiciously studied, will alone give what would appear to
+the average mind, a very liberal education.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most common and most inconsiderate ques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_246" id="Pg_246"></a>[<a href="./images/246.png">246</a>]</span>tions
+propounded to a librarian is this: "Do you ever expect
+to read all these books through?" and it is well answered
+by propounding another question, namely&mdash;"Did
+<i>you</i> ever read your dictionary through?" A great library
+is the scholar's dictionary&mdash;not to be read through, but to
+enable him to put his finger on the fact he wants, just
+when it is wanted.</p>
+
+<p>A knowledge of some at least of the foreign languages
+is indispensable to the skilled librarian. In fact, any one
+aspiring to become an assistant in any large library, or the
+head of any small one, should first acquire at least an elementary
+knowledge of French and Latin. Aside from
+books in other languages than English which necessarily
+form part of every considerable library, there are innumerable
+quotations or words in foreign tongues scattered
+through books and periodicals in English, which a librarian,
+appealed to by readers who are not scholars, would be mortified
+if found unable to interpret them. The librarian
+who does not understand several languages will be continually
+at a loss in his daily work. A great many important
+catalogues, and bibliographies, essential parts of
+the equipment of a library, will be lost to him as aids, and
+he can neither select foreign books intelligently nor catalogue
+them properly. If he depends upon the aid of
+others more expert, his position will be far from agreeable
+or satisfactory. How many and what foreign languages
+should be learned may be matter for wide difference of
+opinion. But so far-reaching is the prevalence of the
+Latin, as one of the principal sources of our own language,
+and of other modern tongues, that a knowledge of it is
+most important. And so rich is the literature of France,
+to say nothing of the vast number of French words constantly
+found in current English and American books and
+periodicals, that at least a fairly thorough mastery of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_247" id="Pg_247"></a>[<a href="./images/247.png">247</a>]</span>
+language should be acquired. The same may be said of
+the German, which is even more important in some parts
+of the United States, and which has a literature most
+copious and valuable in every varied department of knowledge.
+With these three tongues once familiar, the Italian,
+Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages
+may be, through the aid of dictionaries, so far utilized as
+to enable one to read titles and catalogue books in any of
+them, although a knowledge of all, so as to be able to read
+books in them, is highly desirable.</p>
+
+<p>In the Boston Public Library, the assistants are required
+to possess an adequate knowledge of Latin, French,
+and German. And all candidates for positions in the
+reading-room of the British Museum Library must undergo
+a thorough test examination as to their knowledge of
+the Latin language. Opportunities for acquiring foreign
+languages are now so abundant that there is small excuse
+for any one who wants to know French, Latin or German,
+and yet goes through life without learning them. There
+are even ways of learning these languages with sufficient
+thoroughness for reading purposes without a teacher, and
+sometimes without a text-book. Two assistant librarians
+taught themselves French and German in their evenings,
+by setting out to read familiar works of English fiction
+in translations into those languages, and soon acquired a
+good working knowledge of both, so as to be able to read
+any work in either, with only occasional aid from the dictionary
+for the less common words. It is surprising how
+soon one can acquire a sufficient vocabulary in any language,
+by reading any of its great writers. A good way
+for a beginner to learn French without a master is to take
+a French New Testament, and read the four Gospels
+through. After doing this three or four times, almost any
+one who is at all familiar with the Scriptures, will be able<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_248" id="Pg_248"></a>[<a href="./images/248.png">248</a>]</span>
+to read most books in the French language with facility.
+In the great art of learning, all doors are easily unlocked&mdash;by
+those who have the key.</p>
+
+<p>It should go without saying that the librarian should
+possess a wide knowledge of books. This knowledge should
+include (1) an acquaintance with ancient and modern literature,
+so as to be able to characterize the notable writers
+in each of the leading languages of the world; (2) a knowledge
+of history extensive enough to enable him to locate
+all the great characters, including authors, in their proper
+century and country; (3) a knowledge of editions, so as to
+discriminate between the old and the new, the full and
+the abridged, the best edited, best printed, etc.; (4) an
+acquaintance with the intrinsic value or the subject and
+scope of most of the great books of the world; (5) a knowledge
+of commercial values, so as to be able to bid or to buy
+understandingly, and with proper economy; (6) a familiarity
+with what constitutes condition in library books, and
+with binding and repairing processes, for the restoration
+of imperfect volumes for use.</p>
+
+<p>The librarian should be one who has had the benefit of
+thorough preliminary training, for no novice is qualified to
+undertake the role of an expert, and any attempt to do so
+can result only in disappointment and failure. No one
+who has read little or nothing but novels since leaving
+school need ever hope to succeed.</p>
+
+<p>No librarian can know too much, since his work brings
+him into relation with the boundless domain of human
+knowledge. He should not be a specialist in science (except
+in the one science of bibliography) but must be content
+with knowing a little about a great many things, rather
+than knowing everything about one thing. Much converse
+with books must fill him with a sense of his own ignorance.
+The more he comes to know, the wider will open before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_249" id="Pg_249"></a>[<a href="./images/249.png">249</a>]</span>
+him the illimitable realm of what is yet to be known. In
+the lowest deep which research the most profound can
+reach, there is a lower deep still unattained&mdash;perhaps, even,
+unattainable. But the fact that he cannot by any possibility
+master all human knowledge should not deter the
+student from making ever advancing inroads upon that domain.
+The vast extent of the world of books only emphasizes
+the need of making a wise selection from the mass.
+We are brought inevitably back to that precept by every
+excursion that we make into whatever field of literature.</p>
+
+<p>The librarian should possess, besides a wide acquaintance
+with books, a faculty of administration, and this rests
+upon careful business habits. He should have a system in
+all the library work. Every assistant should have a prescribed
+task, and be required to learn and to practice all
+the methods peculiar to library economy, including the
+economy of time. Each day's business should be so organized
+as to show an advance at the end. The library must
+of course have rules, and every rule should be so simple
+and so reasonable that it will commend itself to every considerate
+reader or library assistant. All questions of doubt
+or dispute as to the observance of any regulation, should
+be decided at once, courteously but firmly, and in a few
+words. Nothing can be more unseemly than a wrangle
+in a public library over some rule or its application, disturbing
+readers who are entitled to silence, and consuming
+time that should be given to the service of the public.</p>
+
+<p>When Thomas Carlyle, one of the great scholars of modern
+times, testified in 1848 before a Parliamentary Commission
+upon the British Museum Library, he thus spoke
+of the qualifications of a librarian:</p>
+
+<p>"All must depend upon the kind of management you get
+within the library itself. You must get a good pilot to
+steer the ship, or you will never get into the harbor. You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_250" id="Pg_250"></a>[<a href="./images/250.png">250</a>]</span>
+must have a man to direct who knows well what the duty
+is that he has to do, and who is determined to go through
+that, in spite of all clamor raised against him; and who
+is not anxious to obtain approbation, but is satisfied that
+he will obtain it by and by, provided he acts ingenuously
+and faithfully."</p>
+
+<p>Another quality most important in a librarian is an even
+temper. He should be always and unfailingly courteous,
+not only to scholars and visitors of high consideration, but
+to every reader, however humble or ignorant, and to every
+employee, however subordinate in position. There is
+nothing which more detracts from one's usefulness than
+a querulous temper. Its possessor is seldom happy himself,
+and is the frequent cause of unhappiness in others.
+Visitors and questions should never be met with a clouded
+brow. A cheerful "good-morning" goes a great way oftentimes.
+Many library visitors come in a complaining mood&mdash;it
+may be from long waiting to be served, or from mistake
+in supplying them with the wrong books, or from
+errors in charging their accounts, or from some fancied
+neglect or slight, or from any other cause. The way to
+meet such ill-humored or offended readers is to gently
+explain the matter, with that "soft answer which turneth
+away wrath." Many a foolish and useless altercation may
+thus be avoided, and the complainant restored to cheerfulness,
+if not to courtesy; whereas, if the librarian were to
+meet the case with a sharp or haughty answer, it would
+probably end without satisfaction on either side. Whatever
+you do, never permit yourself to be irritable, and resolve
+never to be irritated. It will make you unhappy,
+and will breed irritation in others. Cheerfulness under
+all circumstances, however difficult, is the duty and the
+interest of the librarian. Thus he will cultivate successfully
+an obliging disposition, which is a prime requisite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_251" id="Pg_251"></a>[<a href="./images/251.png">251</a>]</span>
+to his success with the public and his usefulness as a librarian.</p>
+
+<p>It ought not to be requisite to insist upon good health
+as a condition precedent for any one aspiring to be a librarian.
+So very much depends upon this, that it should
+form a part of the conscientious duty of every one to
+acquire and maintain a sound condition of physical health,
+as a most important adjunct of a thoroughly sound and
+healthy condition of the mind. This is easier than most
+persons are aware. If we except inherited constitutional
+weaknesses, or maladies of a serious character, there is
+almost no one who is not able by proper diet, regimen, and
+daily exercise, to maintain a degree of health which will
+enable him to use his brain to its full working capacity.
+It demands an intelligent and watchful care of the daily
+regimen, so that only simple and wholesome food and drink
+may be taken into the system, and what is equally important,
+adequate sleep, and habitual moderate exercise. No
+one can maintain perfect health without breathing good
+unadulterated air, and exercising in it with great frequency.
+One's walks to and from the library may be sufficient
+to give this, and it is well to have the motive of such
+a walk, since exercise taken for the mere purpose of it is of
+far less value. The habit of taking drugs, or going to a
+doctor for every little malady, is most pernicious. Every
+one, and especially a librarian, who is supposed (however
+erroneously) to know everything, should know more of his
+own constitution than any physician. With a few judicious
+experiments in daily regimen, and a little abstinence
+now and then, he can subdue head-aches, catarrhs and digestive
+troubles, and by exercising an intelligent will, can
+generally prevent their recurrence. If one finds himself
+in the morning in a state of languor and lassitude, be sure
+he has abused some physical function, and apply a remedy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_252" id="Pg_252"></a>[<a href="./images/252.png">252</a>]</span>
+An invalid will make a poorly equipped librarian. How
+can a dyspeptic who dwells in the darkness of a disease, be
+a guiding light to the multitudes who beset him every
+hour? There are few callings demanding as much mental
+and physical soundness and alertness as the care of a public
+library.</p>
+
+<p>Sound common sense is as essential to the librarian
+as sound health. He should always take the practical
+straightforward view of every item of library business and
+management, remembering that the straight road is always
+the shortest way between two points. While he may be full
+of ideas, he should be neither an idealist nor a dreamer.
+In library methods, the cardinal requisites to be aimed
+at, are utility and convenience. A person of the most perfect
+education, and the highest literary attainments, but
+destitute of common sense, will not succeed in the conduct
+of a library. That intuitive judgment, which sees the
+reason of everything at a glance, and applies the proper
+agencies to the case in hand, is wanting in his composition.
+Multitudes of emergencies arise in library service,
+where the prompt and practical sense of the librarian is
+required to settle a dispute, adjust a difficulty, or to direct
+what is to be done in some arrangement or re-arrangement
+of books, or some library appliance or repair. In such
+cases, the unpractical or impracticable man will be very
+likely to decide wrongly, choosing the inconvenient method
+instead of the convenient, the more costly instead of the
+more economical, the laborious in place of the obvious and
+easy; in short, some way of doing the work or settling the
+difficulty which will not permit it to stay settled, or will
+require the work to be done over again. The man of
+common-sense methods, on the other hand, will at once
+see the end from the beginning, anticipate every difficulty,
+and decide upon the proper course without trouble or hesi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_253" id="Pg_253"></a>[<a href="./images/253.png">253</a>]</span>tation,
+finding his judgment fully vindicated by the result.</p>
+
+<p>The librarian in whom the quality of common sense is
+well developed will be ever ready to devise or to accept
+improvements in library methods. Never a slave to "red
+tape," he will promptly cut it wherever and whenever it
+stands in the way of the readiest service of books and information
+to all comers.</p>
+
+<p>Another quality which every librarian or assistant in a
+library should possess is a thorough love of his work. He
+should cherish a noble enthusiasm for the success and usefulness
+of the institution with which he has chosen to be
+associated. Nor should this spirit be by any means limited
+to the literary and scientific aid which he is enabled to
+extend to others, nor to the acquisition of the knowledge
+requisite to meet the endless inquiries that are made of
+him. He should take as much interest in restoring a
+broken binding, or in seeing that a torn leaf is repaired,
+as in informing a great scholar what the library contains
+upon any subject.</p>
+
+<p>No one who is listless or indifferent in the discharge of
+daily duties is fit for a place in a public library. There
+should be an <i>esprit de corps</i>, a zeal for his profession, which
+will lead him to make almost any sacrifice of outside interests
+to become proficient in it. Thus only will he render
+himself indispensable in his place, and do the greatest
+amount of service to the greatest number of readers. I
+have seen employees in libraries so utterly careless of what
+belongs to their vocation, as to let books, totally unfit for
+use, ragged or broken, or with plates loosened, ready to
+drop out and disappear, go back to the shelves unrepaired,
+to pursue the downward road toward destruction. And I
+have been in many libraries in which the books upon the
+shelves exhibited such utter want of care, such disarrangement,
+such tumbling about and upside-down chaos, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_254" id="Pg_254"></a>[<a href="./images/254.png">254</a>]</span>
+such want of cleanliness, as fairly to make one's heart
+ache. In some cases this may have been due in great part
+to unwise free admission of the public to the shelves, and
+consequent inevitable disorder; in others, it may be partially
+excused by the librarian's absolute want of the needful
+help or time, to keep the library in order; but in others,
+it was too apparent that the librarian in charge took no interest
+in the condition of the books. Too many librarians
+(at least of the past, however it may now be) have been of
+the class described by Dr. Poole, the Chicago librarian.
+He said that library trustees too often appeared to think
+that anybody almost would do for a librarian; men who
+have failed in everything else, broken-down clergymen, or
+unsuccessful teachers, and the like.</p>
+
+<p>Passing now to other needful qualifications of librarians
+and library assistants, let me say that one of the foremost
+is accuracy. Perhaps I have before this remarked that
+exact accuracy is one of the rarest of human qualities.
+Even an approximation to it is rare, and absolute accuracy
+is still rarer. Beware of the person who is sure of every
+thing&mdash;who retails to you a conversation he has heard,
+affecting to give the exact words of a third person, or who
+quotes passages in verse or in prose, with glib assurance,
+as the production of some well-known writer. The chances
+are ten to one that the conversation is mainly manufactured
+in the brain of the narrator, and that the quotation
+is either not written by the author to whom it is attributed,
+or else is a travesty of his real language. It is Lord Byron
+who tells of that numerous class of sciolists whom one finds
+everywhere&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"With just enough of learning to misquote."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The books one reads abound in erroneous dates, mistaken
+names, garbled extracts, and blundering quotations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_255" id="Pg_255"></a>[<a href="./images/255.png">255</a>]</span>
+So much the more important is it to the librarian, who is
+so continually drawn upon for correct information upon
+every subject, to make sure of his facts, before communicating
+them. When (as frequently happens) he has no
+way of verifying them, he should report them, not as his
+own conclusions, but on the authority of the book or periodical
+where found. This will relieve him of all responsibility,
+if they turn out to be erroneous. Whenever I
+find a wrong date or name in a printed book, or an erroneous
+reference in the index, or a mis-spelled word, I always
+pencil the correct date, or name, or page of reference in
+the margin. This I do as a matter of instinct, as well as
+of duty, for the benefit of future inquirers, so that they
+may not be misled. I speak here of errors which are palpable,
+or of the inaccuracy of which I have positive knowledge;
+if in doubt, I either let the matter go entirely,
+or write a query in pencil at the place, with the presumed
+correct substitute appended.</p>
+
+<p>Never be too sure of what you find in books; but prove
+all things and hold fast to those only which you find to be
+beyond dispute. Thus will you save yourself from falling
+into many errors, and from recanting many opinions. It
+is the method of ordinary education to take everything for
+granted; it is the method of science to take nothing for
+granted.</p>
+
+<p>I may refer here to another rule always to be observed,
+and pertaining to the theme of strict accuracy in your daily
+work. That is, the necessity of carefully examining every
+piece of work you may have done, before it leaves your
+hands, for the purpose of correcting errors. All of us are
+not only liable to make mistakes, but all of us do make
+them; and if any one has a conceit of his own accuracy, the
+surest way to take it out of him is to let him serve an ap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_256" id="Pg_256"></a>[<a href="./images/256.png">256</a>]</span>prenticeship
+in some library, where there is competent revision
+of all the labor performed. There are multitudes of
+assistants in libraries who cannot write a letter, even,
+without making one or more errors. How often do
+you leave out a word in your writing experience, which
+may change the meaning of a whole sentence? So, in
+writing titles, whether for the catalogue, or for a library
+order, or for the information of some inquirer, you
+are liable to make errors of date, or edition, or place of
+publication, or size, or to misplace or omit or substitute
+some word in the description of the book. There is nothing
+in the world quite so easy as to be mistaken: and
+the only remedy (and it is an all-essential one) is to go
+over every line and every word of what you have written,
+before it leaves your hands. As second thoughts are proverbially
+best, so a second careful glance over a piece
+of writing will almost always reveal some error or omission
+to be corrected. Think of the mortification you
+must feel at finding an unverified piece of work returned
+upon your hands, with several glaring mistakes marked
+by the reviser! Think, on the other hand, of the inward
+satisfaction experienced when you have done your
+best, written and revised your own work, and found it always
+passed as perfect. I have tried many persons by
+many tests, and while I have found a great number who
+were industrious, intelligent, zealous, conscientious, good-tempered,
+and expeditious, I have found scarcely one who
+was always accurate. One of the rarest things in a library
+is to find an assistant who has an unerring sense of the
+French accents. This knowledge, to one expert in that
+language, even if he does not speak it, should be as intuitive
+as the art of spelling correctly, either in English
+or French. He should write the proper accent over a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_257" id="Pg_257"></a>[<a href="./images/257.png">257</a>]</span>
+letter just as infallibly as he writes the proper letters in a
+word. But, strange to say, it is very common, even with
+good French scholars (in the book-sense or literary sense
+of scholarship) to find them putting the acute accent for
+the grave over a vowel, or the grave instead of the acute,
+or omitting the circumflex accent entirely, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Every one commits errors, but the wise man is he who
+learns by his mistakes, and applies the remedy. The best
+remedy (as I said in the case of memory in another chapter,)
+is to cultivate a habit of trained attention in whatever
+we do. Yet many people (and I am afraid we must
+say most people) go on through life, making the same
+blunders, and repeating them. It appears as if the habit
+of inaccuracy were innate in the human race, and only to
+be reformed by the utmost painstaking, and even with the
+aid of that, only by a few. I have had to observe and
+correct such numberless errors in the work of well-educated,
+adult, and otherwise accomplished persons, as
+filled me with despair. Yet there is no more doubt of the
+improvability of the average mind, however inaccurate
+at the start, than of the power of the will to correct other
+bad habits into which people unconsciously fall.</p>
+
+<p>One of the requisites of a successful librarian is a faculty
+of order and system, applied throughout all the details of
+library administration. Without these, the work will be
+performed in a hap-hazard, slovenly manner, and the library
+itself will tend to become a chaos. Bear in mind the
+great extent and variety of the objects which come under
+the care of the librarian, all of which are to be classified
+and reduced to order. These include not only books upon
+every earthly subject (and very many upon unearthly ones)
+but a possibly wide range of newspapers and periodicals, a
+great mass of miscellaneous pamphlets, sometimes of maps
+and charts, of manuscripts and broadsides, and frequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_258" id="Pg_258"></a>[<a href="./images/258.png">258</a>]</span>
+collections of engravings, photographs, and other pictures,
+all of which come in to form a part of most libraries. This
+great complexity of material, too, exhibits only the physical
+aspect of the librarian's labors. There are, besides, the
+preparation, arrangement and continuation of the catalogue,
+in its three or more forms, the charging and crediting
+of the books in circulation, the searching of many book
+lists for purchases, the library bills and accounts, the supervision
+and revision of the work of assistants, the library
+correspondence, often requiring wide researches to answer
+inquiries, the continual aid to readers, and a multitude of
+minor objects of attention quite too numerous to name.
+Is it any over-statement of the case to say that the librarian
+who has to organize and provide for all this physical and
+intellectual labor, should be systematic and orderly in a
+high degree?</p>
+
+<p>That portion of his <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'responsibile'">responsible</ins> task which pertains to
+the arrangement and classification of books has been elsewhere
+treated. But there is required in addition, a faculty
+of arranging his time, so as to meet seasonably the
+multifarious drafts upon it. He should early learn not
+only the supreme value of moments, but how to make all
+the library hours fruitful of results. To this end the time
+should be apportioned with careful reference to each department
+of library service. One hour may be set for revising
+one kind of work of assistants; another for a different
+one; another for perusing sale catalogues, and marking
+<i>desiderata</i> to be looked up in the library catalogue; another
+for researches in aid of readers or correspondents; still another
+for answering letters on the many subjects about
+which librarians are constantly addressed; and still another
+for a survey of all the varied interests of the library and its
+frequenters, to see what features of the service need
+strengthening, what improvements can be made, what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_259" id="Pg_259"></a>[<a href="./images/259.png">259</a>]</span>
+errors corrected, and how its general usefulness can be increased.
+So to apportion one's time as to get out of the
+day (which is all too short for what is to be done in it) the
+utmost of accomplishment is a problem requiring much
+skill, as well as the ability to profit by experience. One has
+always to be subject to interruptions&mdash;and these must be
+allowed for, and in some way made up for. Remember,
+when you have lost valuable time with some visitor whose
+claims to your attention are paramount, that when to-morrow
+comes one should take up early the arrears of work
+postponed, and make progress with them, even though unable
+to finish them.</p>
+
+<p>Another suggestion; proper system in the management
+and control of one's time demands that none of it be absorbed
+by trifles or triflers; and so every librarian must indispensably
+know how to get rid of bores. One may almost
+always manage to effect this without giving offense,
+and at the same time without wasting any time upon them,
+which is the one thing needful. The bore is commonly one
+who, having little or nothing to do, inflicts himself upon
+the busy persons of his acquaintance, and especially upon
+the ones whom he credits with knowing the most&mdash;to wit,
+the librarians. Receive him courteously, but keep on
+steadily at the work you are doing when he enters. If you
+are skilful, you can easily do two things at once, for example,
+answer your idler friend or your bore, and revise title-cards,
+or mark a catalogue, or collate a book, or look up a
+quotation, or write a letter, at the same time. Never lose
+your good humor, never say that your time is valuable, or
+that you are very busy; never hint at his going away; but
+never quit your work, answer questions cheerfully, and
+keep on, allowing nothing to take your eyes off your business.
+By and by he will take the hint, if not wholly
+pachydermatous, and go away of his own accord. By pur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_260" id="Pg_260"></a>[<a href="./images/260.png">260</a>]</span>suing
+this course I have saved infinite time, and got rid of
+infinite bores, by one and the same process.</p>
+
+<p>The faculty of organizing one's work is essential, in order
+to efficiency and accomplishment. If you do not have
+a plan and adhere to it, if you let this, that, and the other
+person interrupt you with trifling gossip, or unnecessary
+requests, you will never get ahead of your work; on the
+contrary, your work will always get ahead of you. The
+same result will follow if you interrupt yourself, by yielding
+to the temptation of reading just a page or a paragraph
+of something that attracts your eye while at work. This
+dissipation of time, to say nothing of its unfair appropriation
+of what belongs to the library, defeats the prompt accomplishment
+of the work in hand, and fosters the evil
+habit of scattering your forces, in idleness and procrastination.</p>
+
+<p>It ought not to be needful to urge habits of neatness and
+the love of order upon candidates for places in libraries.
+How much a neat and carefully arranged shelf of books appeals
+to one's taste, I need not say, nor urge the point how
+much an orderly and neatly kept room, or desk, or table
+adds to one's comfort. The librarian who has the proper
+spirit of his calling should take pains to make the whole
+library look neat and attractive, to have a place for everything,
+and everything in its place. This, with adequate
+space existing, will be found easier than to have the books
+and other material scattered about in confusion, thus requiring
+much more time to find them when wanted. A
+slovenly-kept library is certain to provoke public criticism,
+and this always tells to the disadvantage of the librarian;
+while a neatly kept, carefully arranged collection of books
+is not only pleasing to the eye, but elicits favorable judgment
+from all visitors.</p>
+
+<p>Among the qualities that should enter into the compo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_261" id="Pg_261"></a>[<a href="./images/261.png">261</a>]</span>sition
+of a successful librarian must be reckoned an inexhaustible
+patience. He will be sorely tried in his endeavors
+to satisfy his own ideals, and sometimes still more
+sorely in his efforts to satisfy the public. Against the
+mistakes and short-comings of assistants, the ignorance of
+many readers, and the unreasonable expectations of others,
+the hamperings of library authorities, and the frequently
+unfounded criticisms of the press, he should arm himself
+with a patience and equanimity that are unfailing. When
+he knows he is right, he should never be disturbed at complaint,
+nor suffer a too sensitive mood to ruffle his feelings.
+When there is any foundation for censure, however slight,
+he should learn by it and apply the remedy. The many
+and varied characters who come within the comprehensive
+sphere of the librarian necessarily include people of all
+tempers and dispositions, as well as of every degree of culture.
+To be gracious and courteous to all is his interest
+as well as his duty. With the ignorant he will often have
+to exercise a vast amount of patience, but he should never
+betray a supercilious air, as though looking down upon
+them from the height of his own superior intelligence. To
+be always amiable toward inferiors, superiors, and equals,
+is to conciliate the regard of all. Courtesy costs so little,
+and makes so large a return in proportion to the investment,
+that it is surprising not to find it universal. Yet
+it is so far from being so that we hear people praising one
+whose manners are always affable, as if he were deserving
+of special credit for it, as an exception to the general rule.
+It is frequently observed that a person of brusque address
+or crusty speech begets crustiness in others. There are
+subtle currents of feeling in human intercourse, not easy
+to define, but none the less potent in effect. A person of
+marked suavity of speech and bearing radiates about him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_262" id="Pg_262"></a>[<a href="./images/262.png">262</a>]</span>
+an atmosphere of good humor, which insensibly influences
+the manners and the speech of others.</p>
+
+<p>There will often come into a public library a man whose
+whole manner is aggressive and over-bearing, who acts and
+talks as if he had a right to the whole place, including the
+librarian. No doubt, being a citizen, he has every right, except
+the right to violate the rules&mdash;or to make himself disagreeable.
+The way to meet him is to be neither aggressive,
+nor submissive and deferential, but with a cool and
+pleasant courtesy, ignoring any idea of unpleasant feeling
+on your part. You will thus at least teach a lesson in good
+manners, which may or may not be learned, according to
+circumstances and the hopeful or hopeless character of the
+pupil.</p>
+
+<p>Closely allied to the virtue of patience, is that of unfailing
+tact. This will be found an important adjunct in the
+administration of a public library. How to meet the innumerable
+inquiries made of him with just the proper answer,
+saying neither too much, nor too little, to be civil to
+all, without needless multiplication of words, this requires
+one to hold his faculties well in hand, never to forget himself,
+and to show that no demand whatever can vex or fluster
+him. The librarian should know how, or learn how to
+adapt himself to all readers, and how to aid their researches
+without devoting much time to each. This requires a fine
+quality of tact, of adapting one's self quickly to the varied
+circumstances of the case in hand. One who has it well
+developed will go through the manifold labors and interviews
+and annoyances of the day without friction, while
+one who is without tact will be worried and fretted until
+life seems to him a burden.</p>
+
+<p>Need I mention, after all that has been said of the exacting
+labors that continually wait upon the librarian, that
+he should be possessed both of energy and untiring indus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_263" id="Pg_263"></a>[<a href="./images/263.png">263</a>]</span>try?
+By the very nature of the calling to which he is dedicated,
+he is pledged to earnest and thorough work in it.
+He cannot afford to be a trifler or a loiterer on the way, but
+must push on continually. He should find time for play,
+it is true, and for reading for his own recreation and instruction,
+but that time should be out of library hours.
+And a vigilant and determined economy of time in library
+hours will be found a prime necessity. I have dwelt elsewhere
+upon the importance of choosing the shortest methods
+in every piece of work to be accomplished. Equally
+important is it to cultivate economy of speech, or the habit
+of condensing instructions to assistants, and answers to inquiries
+into the fewest words. A library should never be
+a circumlocution office. The faculty of condensed expression,
+though somewhat rare, can be cultivated.</p>
+
+<p>In the relations existing between librarian and assistants
+there should be mutual confidence and support. All are
+equally interested in the credit and success of the institution
+which engages their services, and all should labor harmoniously
+to that end. Loyalty to one's employers is both
+the duty and the interest of the employed: and the reciprocal
+duty of faithfulness to those employed, and interest
+in their improvement and success should mark the intercourse
+of the librarian with his assistants. He should
+never be too old nor too wise to learn, and should welcome
+suggestions from every intelligent aid. I have suggested
+the importance of an even temper in the relations between
+librarians and readers; and it is equally important as between
+all those associated in the administration of a library.
+Every one has faults and weaknesses; and those
+encountered in others will be viewed with the most charity
+by those who are duly conscious of their own. Every one
+makes mistakes, and these are often provoking or irritating
+to one who knows better; but a mild and pleasant ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_264" id="Pg_264"></a>[<a href="./images/264.png">264</a>]</span>planation
+of the error is far more likely to lead to amendment,
+than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness
+behind. Under no circumstances is peevishness or
+passion justifiable. Library assistants in their bearing toward
+each other, should suppress all feelings of censoriousness,
+fault-finding or jealousy, if they have them, in favor
+of civility and good manners, if not of good fellowship.
+They are all public servants engaged in a common cause,
+aiming at the enlightenment and improvement of the community;
+they should cherish a just pride in being selected
+for this great service, and to help one another in every step
+of the work, should be their golden rule. Everything
+should be done for the success and usefulness of the library,
+and all personal considerations should be merged in
+public ones.</p>
+
+<p>Turning now to what remains of suggestion regarding
+the qualities which should enter into the character, or form
+a part of the equipment of a librarian, let me urge the importance
+of his possessing a truly liberal and impartial
+mind. It is due to all who frequent a public library to
+find all those in charge ready and willing to aid their researches
+in whatever direction they may lie. Their attitude
+should be one of constant and sincere open-mindedness.
+They are to remember that it is the function of the
+library to supply the writings of all kinds of authors, on all
+sides of all questions. In doing this, it is no part of a
+librarian's function to interpose any judgments of his own
+upon the authors asked for. He has no right as a librarian
+to be an advocate of any theories, or a propagandist of any
+opinions. His attitude should be one of strict and absolute
+impartiality. A public library is the one common
+property of all, the one neutral ground where all varieties
+of character, and all schools of opinion meet and mingle.
+Within its hallowed precincts, sacred to literature and sci<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_265" id="Pg_265"></a>[<a href="./images/265.png">265</a>]</span>ence,
+the voice of controversy should be hushed. While
+the librarian may and should hold his own private opinions
+with firmness and entire independence, he should keep
+them private&mdash;as regards the frequenters of the library.
+He may, for example, be profoundly convinced of the truth
+of the Christian religion; and he is called on, we will suppose,
+for books attacking Christianity, like Thomas Paine's
+"Age of Reason," or Robert G. Ingersoll's lectures on "Myth
+and Miracle." It is his simple duty to supply the writers
+asked for, without comment, for in a public library, Christian
+and Jew, Mahometan and Agnostic, stand on the same
+level of absolute equality. The library has the Koran, and
+the Book of Mormon, as well as the Scriptures of the Old
+and New Testament, and one is to be as freely supplied as
+the other. A library is an institution of universal range&mdash;of
+encyclopaedic knowledge, which gathers in and dispenses
+to all comers, the various and conflicting opinions
+of all writers upon religion, science, politics, philosophy,
+and sociology. The librarian may chance to be an ardent
+Republican or a zealous Democrat; but in either case, he
+should show as much alacrity in furnishing readers with
+W. J. Bryan's book "The First Battle," as with McKinley's
+speeches, or the Republican Hand-Book. A library is no
+place for dogmatism; the librarian is pledged, by the very
+nature of his profession, which is that of a dispenser of all
+knowledge&mdash;not of a part of it&mdash;to entire liberality, and
+absolute impartiality. Remembering the axiom that all
+errors may be safely tolerated, while reason is left free
+to combat them, he should be ever ready to furnish out of
+the intellectual arsenal under his charge, the best and
+strongest weapons to either side in any conflict of opinion.</p>
+
+<p>It will have been gathered from what has gone before,
+in recapitulation of the duties and responsibilities of the
+librarian's calling, that it is one demanding a high order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_266" id="Pg_266"></a>[<a href="./images/266.png">266</a>]</span>
+of talent. The business of successfully conducting a public
+library is complex and difficult. It is full of never-ending
+detail, and the work accomplished does not show
+for what it is really worth, except in the eyes of the more
+thoughtful and discerning observers.</p>
+
+<p>I may here bring into view some of the drawbacks and
+discouragements incident to the librarian's vocation, together
+with an outline of the advantages which belong
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, there is little money in it. No one
+who looks upon the acquisition of money as one of the chief
+aims of life, should think for a moment of entering on a
+librarian's career. The prizes in the profession are few&mdash;so
+few indeed, as to be quite out of the question for most
+aspirants. The salaries paid in subordinate positions are
+very low in most libraries, and even those of head-librarians
+are not such that one can lay up money on them. A lady
+assistant librarian in one city said she had found that one
+of a librarian's proper qualifications was to be able to live
+on two meals a day. This doubtless was a humorous exaggeration,
+but it is true that the average salaries hitherto
+paid in our public libraries, with few exceptions, do not
+quite come up to those of public school teachers, taking the
+various grades into account. Most of the newly formed libraries
+are poor, and have to be economical. But there is
+some reason to hope that as libraries multiply and their
+unspeakable advantages become more fully appreciated,
+the standard of compensation for all skilled librarians will
+rise. I say skilled, because training and experience are the
+leading elements which command the better salaries, in
+this, as in other professions.</p>
+
+<p>Another drawback to be recognized in the librarian's
+calling, is that there are peculiar trials and vexations connected
+with it. There are almost no limits to the demands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_267" id="Pg_267"></a>[<a href="./images/267.png">267</a>]</span>
+made upon the knowledge and the time of the librarian.
+In other professions, teaching for example, there are prescribed
+and well-defined routines of the instruction to be
+given, and the teacher who thoroughly masters this course,
+and brings the pupils through it creditably, has nothing to
+do beyond. The librarian, on the other hand, must be, as
+it were, a teacher of all sciences and literatures at once.
+The field to be covered by the wants of readers, and the
+inquiries that he is expected to answer, are literally illimitable.
+He cannot rest satisfied with what he has already
+learned, however expert or learned he may have become;
+but he must keep on learning forevermore. The new
+books that are continually flooding him, the new sciences
+or new developments of old ones that arise, must be so far
+assimilated that he can give some account of the scope of
+all of them to inquiring readers.</p>
+
+<p>In the third place, there are special annoyances in the
+service of a public, which includes always some inconsiderate
+and many ignorant persons, and these will frequently
+try one's patience, however angelic and forbearing. So,
+too, the short-comings of library assistants or associates
+may often annoy him, but as all these trials have been before
+referred to, it may be added that they are not peculiar
+to library service, but are liable to occur in the profession
+of teaching or in any other.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, the peculiar variety and great number
+of the calls incessantly made upon the librarian's knowledge,
+constitute a formidable draft upon any but the
+strongest brain. There is no escape from these continual
+drafts upon his nervous energy for one who has deliberately
+chosen to serve in a public library. And he will
+sometimes find, wearied as he often must be with many
+cares and a perfect flood of questions, that the most welcome
+hour of the day is the hour of closing the library.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_268" id="Pg_268"></a>[<a href="./images/268.png">268</a>]</span>Another of the librarian's vexations is frequently the
+interference with his proper work by the library authorities.
+Committees or trustees to oversee the management
+and supervise expenditures are necessary to any public library.
+Sometimes they are quick-sighted and intelligent
+persons, and recognize the importance of letting the librarian
+work out everything in his own way, when once
+satisfied that they have got a competent head in charge.
+But there are sometimes men on a board of library control
+who are self-conceited and pragmatical, thinking that they
+know everything about how a library should be managed,
+when in fact, they are profoundly ignorant of the first
+rudiments of library science. Such men will sometimes
+overbear their fellows, who may be more intelligent, but not
+so self-asserting, and so manage as to overrule the best
+and wisest plans, or the most expedient methods, and vex
+the very soul of the librarian. In such cases the only
+remedy is patience and tact. Some day, what has been
+decided wrongly may be reversed, or what has been denied
+the librarian may be granted, through the conversion of a
+minority of the trustees into a majority, by the gentle
+suasion and skilful reasoning of the librarian.</p>
+
+<p>There are other drawbacks and discomforts in the course
+of a librarian's duties which have been referred to in dealing
+with the daily work under his charge. There remains
+the fact that the profession is no bed of roses, but a laborious
+and exacting calling, the price of success in which
+is an unremitting industry, and energy inexhaustible.
+But these will not appear very formidable requisites to
+those who have a native love of work, and it is a fact not to
+be doubted that work of some kind is the only salvation
+of every human creature.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, if the calling of the librarian involves
+many trials and vexations, it has also many notable com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_269" id="Pg_269"></a>[<a href="./images/269.png">269</a>]</span>pensations.
+Foremost among these is to be reckoned the
+fact that it opens more and wider avenues to intellectual
+culture than any other profession whatever. This comes
+in a two-fold way: first, through the stimulus to research
+given by the incessant inquiries of readers, and by the very
+necessity of his being, as a librarian; and secondly, by the
+rare facilities for investigation and improvement supplied
+by the ample and varied stores of the library always immediately
+at hand. Other scholars can commonly command
+but few books, unless able to possess a large private library:
+their <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'reasearches'">researches</ins> in the public one are hampered by the
+rule that no works of reference can be withdrawn, and
+that constitutes a very large and essential class, constantly
+needed by every scholar and writer. The librarian, on the
+other hand, has them all at his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, there are few professions which are
+in themselves so attractive as librarianship. Its tendency
+is both to absorb and to satisfy the intellectual faculties.
+No where else is the sense of continual growth so palpable;
+in no other field of labor is such an enlargement of the
+bounds of one's horizon likely to be found. Compare it
+with the profession of teaching. In that, the mind is
+chained down to a rigorous course of imparting instruction
+in a narrow and limited field. One must perforce go on
+rehearsing the same rudiments of learning, grinding over
+the same Latin gerunds, hearing the same monotonous recitations,
+month after month, and year after year. This
+continual threshing over of old straw has its uses, but to an
+ardent and active mind, it is liable to become very depressing.
+Such a mind would rather be kept on the <i>qui vive</i>
+of activity by a volley of questions fired at him every hour
+in a library, than to grind forever in an intellectual tread-mill,
+with no hope of change and very little of relief. The
+very variety of the employments which fill up the library<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_270" id="Pg_270"></a>[<a href="./images/270.png">270</a>]</span>
+hours, the versatility required in the service, contributes
+to it a certain zest which other professions lack.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the labors of the librarian bring him into an intimate
+knowledge of a wide range of books, or at least an
+acquaintance with authors and titles far more extensive
+than can be acquired by most persons. The reading of
+book catalogues is a great and never-ending fascination to
+one who has a love for books. The information thus acquired
+of the mighty range of the world's literature and
+science is of inestimable value. Most of it, if retained in
+a retentive memory, will enable its possessor to answer
+multitudes of the questions continually put to the librarian.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, the service of a public library is a valuable
+school for the study of human nature. One comes in contact
+with scholars, men of business, authors, bright young
+people, journalists, professional men and cultured women,
+to an extent unequaled by the opportunities of any other
+calling. This variety of intercourse tends to broaden one's
+sympathies, to strengthen his powers of observation, to cultivate
+habits of courtesy, to develop the faculty of adapting
+himself to all persons&mdash;qualities which contribute much
+to social interest and success. The discipline of such an
+intercourse may sometimes make out of a silent and bashful
+recluse, a ready and engaging adept in conversation,
+able to command the attention and conciliate the regard
+of all. Farther than this, one brought into so wide a
+circle of communication with others, cannot fail to learn
+something from at least some among them, and so to receive
+knowledge as well as to impart it. The curious and
+diverse elements of character brought out in such intercourse
+will make their impress, and may have their value.
+All these many facilities for intellectual intercourse both
+with books and with men, contribute directly to keep the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_271" id="Pg_271"></a>[<a href="./images/271.png">271</a>]</span>
+librarian in contact with all the great objects of human interest.
+They supply an unfailing stimulus to his intellectual
+and moral nature. They give any active-minded person
+rare facilities, not only for the acquisition, but for
+the communication of ideas. And there is one avenue for
+such communication that is peculiarly open to one whose
+mind is stored with the ripe fruits of reading and observation.
+I mean the field of authorship&mdash;not necessarily the
+authorship of books, but of writing in the form of essays,
+reviews, lectures, stories or contributions to the periodical
+press. There are in every community literary societies,
+clubs, and evening gatherings, where such contributions
+are always in demand, and always welcomed, in exact proportion
+to their inherent interest and value. Such avenues
+for the communication of one's thought are of great and
+sometimes permanent advantage. The knowledge which
+we acquire is comparatively barren, until it is shared with
+others. And whether this be in an appreciative circle of listeners,
+or in the press, it gives a certain stimulus and reward
+to the thinker and writer, which nothing else can impart.
+To convey one's best thought to the world is one of
+the purest and highest of intellectual pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>Let me add that there are two sides to the question of
+authorship, as concerns librarians. On the one hand, their
+advantages for entering that field are undoubtedly superior,
+both from the ready command of the most abundant
+material, and from experience in its use. On the other
+hand, while authorship may be said to be the most besetting
+temptation of the librarian, it is one that should be
+steadily resisted whenever it encroaches on the time and
+attention due to library duties. If he makes it a rule to
+write nothing and to study nothing for his own objects
+during library hours, he is safe. Some years since it was
+a common subject of reproach regarding the librarians of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_272" id="Pg_272"></a>[<a href="./images/272.png">272</a>]</span>
+several university libraries in England that they were so
+engaged in writing books, that no scholar could get at them
+for aid in his literary researches. The librarians and assistants
+employed in the British Museum Library, where
+the hours of service are short, have found time to produce
+numerous contributions to literature. Witness the works,
+as authors and editors, of Sir Henry Ellis, Antonio Panizzi,
+Dr. Richard Garnett, Edward Edwards, J. Winter
+Jones, Thomas Watts, George Smith, and others. And
+in America, the late Justin Winsor was one of the most
+prolific and versatile of authors, while John Fiske, once
+assistant librarian at Harvard, Reuben A. Guild, William
+F. Poole, George H. Moore, J. N. Larned, Frederick Saunders
+and others have been copious contributors to the
+press.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In a retrospective view of what has been said in respect
+to the qualifications of a librarian, it may appear that I
+have insisted upon too high a standard, and have claimed
+that he should be possessed of every virtue under heaven.
+I freely admit that I have aimed to paint the portrait of
+the ideal librarian; and I have done it in order to show
+what might be accomplished, rather than what has been
+accomplished. To set one's mark high&mdash;higher even than
+we are likely to reach, is the surest way to attain real excellence
+in any vocation. It is very true that it is not
+given to mortals to achieve perfection: but it is none the
+less our business to aim at it, and the higher the ideal, the
+nearer we are likely to come to a notable success in the
+work we have chosen.</p>
+
+<p>Librarianship furnishes one of the widest fields for the
+most eminent attainments. The librarian, more than any
+other person whatever, is brought into contact with those
+who are hungering and thirsting after knowledge. He
+should be able to satisfy those longings, to lead inquirers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_273" id="Pg_273"></a>[<a href="./images/273.png">273</a>]</span>
+in the way they should go, and to be to all who seek his
+assistance a guide, philosopher and friend. Of all the
+pleasures which a generous mind is capable of enjoying,
+that of aiding and enlightening others is one of the finest
+and most delightful. To learn continually for one's self
+is a noble ambition, but to learn for the sake of communicating
+to others, is a far nobler one. In fact, the librarian
+becomes most widely useful by effacing himself, as it were,
+in seeking to promote the intelligence of the community in
+which he lives. One of the best librarians in the country
+said that such were the privileges and opportunities of the
+profession, that one might well afford to live on bread and
+water for the sake of being a librarian, provided one had
+no family to support.</p>
+
+<p>There is a new and signally marked advance in recent
+years, in the public idea of what constitutes a librarian.
+The old idea of a librarian was that of a guardian or keeper
+of books&mdash;not a diffuser of knowledge, but a mere custodian
+of it. This idea had its origin in ages when books
+were few, were printed chiefly in dead languages, and rendered
+still more dead by being chained to the shelves or
+tables of the library. The librarian might be a monk, or a
+professor, or a priest, or a doctor of law, or theology, or
+medicine, but in any case his function was to guard the
+books, and not to dispense them. Those who resorted to
+the library were kept at arm's length, as it were, and the
+fewer there were who came, the better the grim or studious
+custodian was pleased. Every inquiry which broke the
+profound silence of the cloistered library was a kind of
+rude interruption, and when it was answered, the perfunctory
+librarian resumed his reading or his studies. The institution
+appeared to exist, not for the benefit of the people,
+but for that of the librarian; or for the benefit, besides,
+of a few sequestered scholars, like himself, and any wide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_274" id="Pg_274"></a>[<a href="./images/274.png">274</a>]</span>
+popular use of it would have been viewed as a kind of profanation.</p>
+
+<p>We have changed all that in the modern world, and library
+service is now one of the busiest occupations in the
+whole range of human enterprise. One cannot succeed in
+the profession, if his main idea is that a public library is a
+nice and easy place where one may do one's own reading
+and writing to the best advantage. A library is an intellectual
+and material work-shop, in which there is no room
+for fossils nor for drones. My only conception of a useful
+library is a library that is used&mdash;and the same of a librarian.
+He should be a lover of books&mdash;but not a book-worm. If
+his tendencies toward idealism are strong, he should hold
+them in check by addicting himself to steady, practical,
+every-day work. While careful of all details, he should not
+be mastered by them. If I have sometimes seemed to
+dwell upon trifling or obvious suggestions as to temper, or
+conduct, or methods, let it be remembered that trifles
+make up perfection, and that perfection is no trifle.</p>
+
+<p>I once quoted the saying that "the librarian who reads
+is lost"; but it would be far truer to say that the librarian
+who does not read is lost; only he should read wisely and
+with a purpose. He should make his reading helpful in
+giving him a wide knowledge of facts, of thoughts, and of
+illustrations, which will come perpetually in play in his
+daily intercourse with an inquiring public.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_275" id="Pg_275"></a>[<a href="./images/275.png">275</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_14" id="CHAPTER_14"></a>CHAPTER 14.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Some of the Uses of Libraries.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>Let us now consider the subject of the uses of public libraries
+to schools and those connected with them. Most
+town and city libraries are supported, like the free schools,
+by the public money, drawn from the tax-payers, and supposed
+to be expended for the common benefit of all the
+people. It results that one leading object of the library
+should be to acquire such a collection of books as will be in
+the highest degree useful to all. And especially should
+the wants of the younger generation be cared for, since
+they are always not only nearly one half of the community,
+but they are also to become the future citizens of
+the republic. What we learn in youth is likely to make a
+more marked and lasting impression than what we may
+acquire in later years. And the public library should be
+viewed as the most important and necessary adjunct of the
+school, in the instruction and improvement of the young.
+Each is adapted to supply what the other lacks. The
+school supplies oral instruction and public exercises in various
+departments of learning; but it has few or no books,
+beyond the class text-books which are used in these instructions.
+The library, on the other hand, is a silent
+school of learning, free to all, and supplying a wide range
+of information, in books adapted to every age. It thus
+supplements, and in proportion to the extent and judicious
+choice of its collections, helps to complete that education,
+which the school falls short of. In this view, we see the
+great importance of making sure that the public library has
+not only a full supply of the best books in every field, avoid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_276" id="Pg_276"></a>[<a href="./images/276.png">276</a>]</span>ing
+(as previously urged) the bad or the inferior ones, but
+also that it has the best juvenile and elementary literature
+in ample supply. This subject of reading for the young has
+of late years come into unprecedented prominence. Formerly,
+and even up to the middle of our century, very
+slight attention was paid to it, either by authors or readers.
+Whole generations had been brought up on the New England
+Primer, with its grotesque wood-cuts, and antique
+theology in prose and verse, with a few moral narratives
+in addition, as solemn as a meeting-house, like the "Dairyman's
+Daughter," the "History of Sandford and Merton,"
+or "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." Very dreary and
+melancholy do such books appear to the frequenters of our
+modern libraries, filled as they now are with thousands
+of volumes of lively and entertaining juvenile books.</p>
+
+<p>The transition from the old to the new in this class of
+literature was through the Sunday-school and religious
+tract society books, professedly adapted to the young.
+While some of these had enough of interest to be fairly
+readable, if one had no other resource, the mass were irredeemably
+stale and poor. The mawkishness of the sentiment
+was only surpassed by the feebleness of the style.
+At last, weary of the goody-goody and artificial school of
+juvenile books, which had been produced for generations,
+until a surfeit of it led to something like a nausea in the
+public mind, there came a new type of writers for the
+young, who at least began to speak the language of reason.
+The dry bones took on some semblance of life and of human
+nature, and boys and girls were painted as real boys
+and genuine girls, instead of lifeless dolls and manikins.
+The reformation went on, until we now have a world of
+books for the young to choose from, very many of which
+are fresh and entertaining.</p>
+
+<p>But the very wealth and redundancy of such literature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_277" id="Pg_277"></a>[<a href="./images/277.png">277</a>]</span>
+is a new embarrassment to the librarian, who must indispensably
+make a selection, since no library can have or
+ought to have it all. Recurring to the function of the
+public library as the coadjutor of the school, let us see what
+classes of books should form essential parts of its stores.</p>
+
+<p>1. As geography, or an account of the earth on which
+we live, is a fundamental part of education, the library
+should possess a liberal selection of the best books in that
+science. The latest general gazetteer of the world, the best
+modern and a good ancient atlas, one or more of the great
+general collections of voyages, a set of Baedeker's admirable
+and inexpensive guide books, and descriptive works
+or travels in nearly all countries&mdash;those in America and
+Europe predominating&mdash;should be secured. The scholars
+of all grades will thus be able to supplement their studies
+by ready reference, and every part of the globe will lie open
+before them, as it were, by the aid of the library.</p>
+
+<p>2. The best and latest text-books in all the sciences, as
+geology, chemistry, natural history, physics, botany, agriculture,
+mechanic arts, mathematics, mental and moral
+science, architecture, fine arts, music, sociology, political
+science, etc., should be accessible.</p>
+
+<p>3. Every important history, with all the latest manuals
+or elementary books in general and national history should
+be found.</p>
+
+<p>4. The great collections of biography, with separate
+lives of all noted characters, should be provided.</p>
+
+<p>5. Dictionaries, cyclopaedias, statistical annuals, and
+other books of reference will be needed in abundance.</p>
+
+<p>6. A small but select number of approved works in law,
+medicine, and theology should be embraced in the library.</p>
+
+<p>7. I need not add that the poets and novelists should be
+well represented, as that goes without saying in all popular
+libraries.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_278" id="Pg_278"></a>[<a href="./images/278.png">278</a>]</span>And special attention should be paid to building up a
+collection of the best books for juvenile readers, such as
+have passed the ordeal of good critical judgment among
+the librarians, as eminently fit to be read. There are several
+useful catalogues of such reading, as: Caroline M. Hewins'
+"Books for the Young," G. E. Hardy's "Five Hundred
+Books for the Young," and the admirable "List of Books
+for Girls and Women" by Augusta H. Leypoldt and Geo.
+Iles, contributed to by many experts, and copiously supplied
+with notes describing the scope and quality of the
+books. The last two are published by the Library Bureau.</p>
+
+<p>With this broad equipment of the best books in every
+field, and vigilance in constant exercise to add fresh stores
+from the constantly appearing and often improved text-books
+in every science, the library will be a treasury of
+knowledge both for teachers and pupils in the schools.
+And the fact should not be overlooked, that there will be
+found as much growth for teachers as for scholars in such
+a collection of books. Very few teachers, save those of
+well-furnished minds and of much careful reading, are
+competent to guide their scholars into the highways and
+byways of knowledge, as the librarian should be able to do.</p>
+
+<p>To establish a relation of confidence and aid with teachers
+is the preliminary step to be taken in order to make the
+library at once practically useful to them and to their
+scholars. In case there are several public schools in
+charge of a general superintendent, that officer should be
+first consulted, and tendered the free aid of the library and
+its librarian for himself and the teachers. In some public
+libraries, the school superintendent is made an <i>ex officio</i>
+member of the library board. Then suitable regulations
+should be mutually agreed upon, fixing the number of
+books to be drawn on account of the schools at any one
+time, and the period of return to the library. It is most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_279" id="Pg_279"></a>[<a href="./images/279.png">279</a>]</span>
+usual to charge such books on teachers' cards, or account,
+to fix responsibility, although the teachers loan them to the
+scholars at their option.</p>
+
+<p>In places where there are no school libraries proper, the
+public library will need to provide a goodly number of duplicates,
+in order to meet the special school demand.
+This, however, will usually be of low-priced rather than
+costly books, as the elementary text-books do not draw
+heavily upon library funds.</p>
+
+<p>A very attractive feature in providing books for the
+young is the large number of illustrated books now available
+to all libraries. All the kingdoms of nature are depicted
+in these introductory manuals of science, rendering
+its pursuit more interesting, and cultivating the habits of
+observation of form and of proportion, in the minds of the
+young. Pupils who have never accomplished anything in
+school have been roused by interest in illustrated natural
+histories to take an eager interest in learning all about
+birds and animals. This always leads on and up to other
+study, since the mind that is once awakened to observation
+and to thought, needs only a slight guidance to develop an
+unappeasable hunger for finding out all about things.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient maxim that "it is only the first step that
+costs" is especially true in the great art of education. It
+matters little what it is that first awakens the intellect&mdash;the
+great fact is that it is awakened, and sleeps no more
+thenceforward. A mottled bird's egg, found on the way to
+school, excites the little finder to ascertain the name of the
+bird that laid it. The school or the teacher supplies no
+means of finding out, but the public library has books upon
+birds, with colored plates of their eggs, and an eager search
+ensues, until the young student is rewarded by finding the
+very bird, with its name, plumage, habits, size, and season,
+all described. That child has taken an enormous step for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_280" id="Pg_280"></a>[<a href="./images/280.png">280</a>]</span>ward
+on the road to knowledge, which will never be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Instances might be multiplied indefinitely of such valuable
+aids to research, afforded by libraries, all along the innumerable
+roads travelled by students of every age in
+search of information. One of the most profitable of
+school exercises is to take up successively the great men
+and notable women of the past, and, by the effective and
+practical aid of the libraries, to find out what is best
+worth knowing about Columbus, Franklin, Walter Scott,
+Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier,
+Emerson, Lowell, Victor Hugo, or others too numerous
+to name. Reading Longfellow's Evangeline will lead
+one to search out the history and geography of Acadia,
+and so fix indelibly the practical facts concerned, as well
+as the imagery of a fine poem. So in the notable events
+of history, if a study is made of the English Commonwealth,
+or the French Revolution, or the war between the
+United States and England in 1812-15, the library will
+supply the student with copious materials for illustration.</p>
+
+<p>Not alone in the fields of science, history, and biography,
+but in the attractive fields of literature, also, can the libraries
+aid and supplement the teachings of the school. A
+fine poem, or a simple, humorous, or pathetic story, told
+with artless grace or notable literary skill, when read
+aloud by a teacher in school, awakens a desire in many to
+have the same book at home to read, re-read, and perhaps
+commit to memory the finer passages. What more inspiring
+or pleasing reading than some of Longfellow's poems,
+or the Vicar of Wakefield, or Milton's L'Allegro and Il
+Penseroso, or Saintine's Picciola, or selections from the
+poems of Holmes, Whittier, Kipling, or Lowell? For all
+these and similar wants, the library has an unfailing supply.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_281" id="Pg_281"></a>[<a href="./images/281.png">281</a>]</span>As a practical illustration of the extensive, use of books
+by schools in some advanced communities, I may note that
+Librarian Green, of the Worcester (Mass.) Public Library,
+said in 1891 that his average daily account of the books
+loaned to schools in two busy winter months showed over
+1,600 volumes thus in daily use. This too, was in addition
+to all that were drawn out by pupils on their own independent
+cards as borrowers. Such a record speaks volumes.</p>
+
+<p>In the same city, where the Massachusetts State Normal
+School is located, sixty-four per cent. of the scholars visited
+the library to look up subjects connected with their
+studies.</p>
+
+<p>A forcible argument for librarians taking an interest in
+reading for schools is that both parents and teachers often
+neglect to see that the young get only proper books to read.
+The children are themselves quite ignorant what to choose,
+and if left to themselves, are likely to choose unwisely, and
+to read story papers or quite unimproving books. Their
+parents, busied as they are, commonly give no thought to
+the matter, and are quite destitute of that knowledge of the
+various classes of books which it is the province of the librarian
+to know and to discriminate. Teachers themselves
+do not possess this special knowledge, except in rare
+instances, and have to become far more conversant with
+libraries than is usual, in order to acquire it.</p>
+
+<p>That the very young, left to themselves, will choose
+many bad or worthless books is shown in the account of a
+principal of a school in San Francisco, who found that
+sixty per cent. of the books drawn from the public library
+by pupils had been dime novels, or other worthless literature.
+The wide prevalence of the dime novel evil appeared
+in the report of the reading of 1,000 boys in a western
+New York city. Out of this number, 472 (or nearly
+one-half) were in the habit of devouring this pernicious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_282" id="Pg_282"></a>[<a href="./images/282.png">282</a>]</span>
+trash, procured in most cases by purchase at the news
+stands. The matter was taken up by teachers, and, by wise
+direction and by aid of the public library, the reading of
+these youthful candidates for citizenship was led into more
+improving fields. To lead a mind in the formative stage
+from the low to the high, from tales of wild adventure to
+the best stories for the young, is by no means difficult.
+Take a book that you know is wholesome and entertaining,
+and it will be eagerly read by almost every one. There is
+an endless variety of good books adapted to the most rudimentary
+capacity. Even young minds can become interested
+in the works of standard writers, if the proper selection
+is made. Wonderful is the stimulus which the reading
+of a purely written, fascinating book gives to the young
+mind. It opens the way for more books and for infinite
+growth. All that is needed is to set the youth in the right
+direction, and he will go forward with rapid strides of his
+own accord. This teaching how to read is really the most
+profitable part of any education. To recite endless lessons
+is not education: and one book eagerly read through, has
+often proved more valuable than all the text-books that
+ever were printed.</p>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Uses of the Library to the University.</span></h4>
+
+<p>Closely allied to the benefits derived from the library by
+the teachers and scholars in public schools are its uses to all
+those engaged in the pursuit of higher education. For our
+colleges and universities and their researches, the library
+must have all that we have suggested as important for the
+schools, and a great deal more. The term university implies
+an education as broad as the whole world of books
+can supply: yet we must here meet with limitations that
+are inevitable. In this country we have to regret the application
+of the word "university" to institutions where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_283" id="Pg_283"></a>[<a href="./images/283.png">283</a>]</span>
+the training is only academical, or at the highest, collegiate.
+The university, properly speaking, is an institution for the
+most advanced scholars or graduates of our colleges. Just
+as the college takes up and carries forward the training of
+those who have been through the academy, the seminary, or
+the high school, so it is the function of the university to
+carry forward (we will not say complete) the education of
+the graduate of the college. No education is ever completed:
+the doctor who has received the highest honors at
+the university has only begun his education&mdash;for that is
+to go on through life&mdash;and who knows how far beyond?</p>
+
+<p>Now the aid which a well equipped library can furnish
+to all these higher institutions of learning, the academy,
+the seminary, the college, and the university, is quite incalculable.
+Their students are constantly engaged upon
+themes which not only demand the text-books they study,
+but collateral illustrations almost without number. The
+professors, too, who impart instruction, perpetually need
+to be instructed themselves, with fuller knowledge upon
+the themes they are daily called upon to elucidate. There
+is no text-book that can teach all, or anywhere near all
+there is upon the subject it professes to cover. So the library,
+which has many books upon that subject, comes in
+to supply its deficiencies. And the librarian is useful to
+the professors and students just in proportion as he knows,
+not the contents, but the range of books upon each subject
+sought to be investigated. Here is where the subject catalogue,
+or the dictionary catalogue, combining the subjects
+and the authors under a single alphabet, comes into play.
+But, as no catalogue of subjects was ever yet up to date in
+any considerable library, the librarian should be able to
+supplement the catalogue by his own knowledge of later
+works in any line of inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>The most profitable studies carried on in libraries are,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_284" id="Pg_284"></a>[<a href="./images/284.png">284</a>]</span>
+beyond all question, what we may term topical researches.
+To pursue one subject though many authorities is the true
+way to arrive at comprehensive knowledge. And in this
+kind of research, the librarian ought to be better equipped
+than any who frequent his library. Why? Simply because
+his business is bibliography; which is not the business
+of learned professors, or other scholars who visit the
+library.</p>
+
+<p>The late Librarian Winsor said that he considered the
+librarian's instruction far more valuable than that of the
+specialist. And this may be owing largely to the point of
+view, as well as to the training, of each. The specialist,
+perhaps, is an enthusiast or a devotee to his science, and so
+apt to give undue importance to the details of it, or to
+magnify some one feature: the librarian, on the other
+hand, who is nothing if not comprehensive, takes the larger
+view of the wide field of literature on each subject, and his
+suggestions concerning sources of information are correspondingly
+valuable.</p>
+
+<p>In those constantly arising questions which form the
+subjects of essays or discussions in all institutions of learning,
+the well-furnished library is an unfailing resource.
+The student who finds his unaided mind almost a blank
+upon the topic given out for treatment, resorts at once to
+the public library, searches catalogues, questions the librarian,
+and surrounds himself with books and periodicals
+which may throw light upon it. He is soon master of facts
+and reasonings which enable him to start upon a train of
+thought that bears fruit in an essay or discourse. In fact,
+it may be laid down as an axiom, that nearly every new
+book that is written is indebted to the library for most of
+its ideas, its facts, or its illustrations, so that libraries actually
+beget libraries.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the endlessly diversified uses of a well-equipped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_285" id="Pg_285"></a>[<a href="./images/285.png">285</a>]</span>
+library, not only to scholars but to the general public, may
+here be referred to. Among the most sought for sources
+of information, the periodical press, both of the past and
+the current time, holds a prominent rank. When it is
+considered how far-reaching are the fields embraced in the
+wide range of these periodicals, literary, religious, scientific,
+political, technical, philosophical, social, medical,
+legal, educational, agricultural, bibliographical, commercial,
+financial, historical, mechanical, nautical, military, artistic,
+musical, dramatic, typographical, sanitary, sporting,
+economic, and miscellaneous, is it any wonder that specialists
+and writers for the press seek and find ready aid therein
+for their many-sided labors?</p>
+
+<p>To the skeptical mind, accustomed to undervalue what
+does not happen to come within the range of his pet idols
+or pursuits, the observation of a single day's multifold research
+in a great library might be in the nature of a revelation.
+Hither flock the ever-present searchers into family
+history, laying under contribution all the genealogies and
+town and county histories which the country has produced.
+Here one finds an industrious compiler intent upon the
+history of American duels, for which the many files of
+Northern and Southern newspapers, reaching back to the
+beginning of the century, afford copious material. At another
+table sits a deputation from a government department,
+commissioned to make a record of all notable strikes
+and labor troubles for a series of years, to be gleaned from
+the columns of the journals of leading cities.</p>
+
+<p>An absorbed reader of French romances sits side by side
+with a clergyman perusing homilies, or endeavoring to
+elucidate, through a mass of commentators, a special text.
+Here are to be found ladies in pursuit of costumes of every
+age; artists turning over the great folio galleries of Europe
+for models or suggestions; lawyers seeking precedents or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_286" id="Pg_286"></a>[<a href="./images/286.png">286</a>]</span>
+leading cases; journalists verifying dates, speeches, conventions,
+or other forgotten facts; engineers studying the
+literature of railways or machinery; actors or amateurs in
+search of plays or works on the dramatic art; physicians
+looking up biographies of their profession or the history
+of epidemics; students of heraldry after coats of arms; inventors
+searching the specifications and drawings of patents;
+historical students pursuing some special field in
+American or foreign annals; scientists verifying facts or
+citations by original authorities; searchers tracing personal
+residences or deaths in old directories or newspapers; querists
+seeking for the words of some half-remembered passage
+in poetry or prose, or the original author of one of the
+myriad proverbs which have no father; architects or builders
+of houses comparing hundreds of designs and models;
+teachers perusing works on education or comparing text-books
+new or old; readers absorbing the great poems of the
+world; writers in pursuit of new or curious themes among
+books of antiquities or folk-lore; students of all the questions
+of finance and economic science; naturalists seeking
+to trace through many volumes descriptions of species;
+pursuers of military or naval history or science; enthusiasts
+venturing into the occult domains of spiritualism or
+thaumaturgy; explorers of voyages and travels in every
+region of the globe; fair readers, with dreamy eyes, devouring
+the last psychological novel; devotees of musical
+art perusing the lives or the scores of great composers; college
+and high-school students intent upon "booking up"
+on themes of study or composition or debate; and a host
+of other seekers after suggestion or information in a library
+of encyclopedic range.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_287" id="Pg_287"></a>[<a href="./images/287.png">287</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_15" id="CHAPTER_15"></a>CHAPTER 15.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The History of Libraries.</span></h3>
+
+<p>The Library, from very early times, has enlisted the
+enthusiasm of the learned, and the encomiums of the wise.
+The actual origin of the earliest collection of books (or
+rather of manuscripts) is lost in the mists of remote
+antiquity. Notwithstanding professed descriptions of several
+libraries found in Aulus Gellius, Athenaeus, and
+others, who wrote centuries after the alleged collections
+were made, we lack the convincing evidence of eye-witnesses
+and contemporaries. But so far as critical research
+has run, the earliest monuments of man which approached
+collections of written records are found not in Europe, but
+in Africa and Asia.</p>
+
+<p>That land of wonders, Egypt, abounds in hieroglyphic
+inscriptions, going back, as is agreed by modern scholars,
+to the year 2000 before the Christian era. A Papyrus
+manuscript, too, exists, which is assigned to about 1600 B.
+C. And the earliest recorded collection of books in the
+world, though perhaps not the first that existed, was that
+of the Egyptian king Ramses I.&mdash;B. C. 1400, near Thebes,
+which Diodorus Siculus says bore the inscription "Dispensary
+of the soul." Thus early were books regarded as
+remedial agents of great force and virtue.</p>
+
+<p>But before the library of Ramses the Egyptian king,
+there existed in Babylonia collections of books, written not
+on parchment, nor on the more perishable papyrus, but on
+clay. Whole poems, fables, laws, and hymns of the gods
+have been found, stamped in small characters upon baked
+bricks. These clay tablets or books were arranged in nu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_288" id="Pg_288"></a>[<a href="./images/288.png">288</a>]</span>merical
+order, and the library at Agane, which existed
+about 2000 B. C. even had a catalogue, in which each piece
+of literature was numbered, so that readers had only to
+write down the number of the tablet wanted, and the librarian
+would hand it over. Two of these curious poems
+in clay have been found intact, one on the deluge, the other
+on the descent of Istar into Hades.</p>
+
+<p>The next ancient library in point of time yet known to
+us was gathered in Asia by an Assyrian King, and this
+collection has actually come down to us, <i>in propria persona</i>.
+Buried beneath the earth for centuries, the archaeologist
+Layard discovered in 1850 at Nineveh, an extensive collection
+of tablets or tiles of clay, covered with cuneiform characters,
+and representing some ten thousand distinct works
+or documents. The Assyrian monarch Sardanapalus, a
+great patron of letters, was the collector of this primitive
+and curious library of clay. He flourished about 1650
+B. C.</p>
+
+<p>In Greece, where a copious and magnificent literature
+had grown up centuries before Christ, Pisistratus collected
+a library at Athens, and died B. C. 527. When Xerxes
+captured Athens, this collection, which represents the
+earliest record of a library dedicated to the public, was
+carried off to Persia, but restored two centuries later.
+The renowned philosopher Aristotle gathered one of the
+largest Greek libraries, about 350 B. C. said to have embraced
+about 1400 volumes, or rather, rolls. Plato called
+Aristotle's residence "the house of the reader." This library,
+also, was carried off to Scepsis, and later by the
+victorious Sulla to Rome. History shows that the Greek
+collections were the earliest "travelling libraries" on record,
+though they went as the spoils of war, and not to
+spread abroad learning by the arts of peace.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_289" id="Pg_289"></a>[<a href="./images/289.png">289</a>]</span>Rome having conquered Athens, we hear no more of the
+Athenian libraries, but the seat of ancient learning was
+transferred to Alexandria, where were gathered under the
+liberal sway of the Ptolemies, more books than had ever
+been assembled together in any part of the world. Marc
+Antony presented to Cleopatra the library of the Kings
+of Pergamus, said to have contained 200,000 rolls. There
+is no space to sketch the ancient libraries, so scantily
+commemorated, of Greece. Through Aristotle's enthusiasm
+for learning, as it is believed, the Ptolemies were
+fired with the zeal of book-collecting, and their capital
+of Alexandria became the seat of extensive libraries,
+stored in the Brucheion and the Serapeum. Here, according
+to general belief, occurred the burning of the famous
+Alexandrian library of 700,000 volumes, by the Saracens
+under Omar, A. D. 640. If any one would have an object
+lesson in the uncertainties of history and of human testimony,
+let him read the various conflicting accounts of the
+writers who have treated upon this subject. The number
+of volumes varies from 700,000, as stated by Aulus Gellius,
+to 100,000 by Eusebius. The fact that in ancient times
+each book or division of an author's work written on a roll
+of papyrus was reckoned as a volume, may account for the
+exaggeration, since the nine books of Herodotus would
+thus make nine volumes, and the twenty-four of Homer's
+Iliad, twenty-four volumes, instead of one. So, by an arbitrary
+application of averages, the size of the Alexandrian
+Library might be brought within reasonable dimensions,
+though there is nothing more misleading than the doctrine
+of averages, unless indeed it be a false analogy. But that
+any library eight hundred years before the invention of
+printing contained 700,000 volumes in the modern sense
+of the word, when the largest collection in the world, three
+centuries after books began to be multiplied by types, held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_290" id="Pg_290"></a>[<a href="./images/290.png">290</a>]</span>
+less than 100,000 volumes, is one of the wildest fictions
+which writers have imposed upon the credulity of ages.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot even touch upon the libraries of the Romans,
+though we have very attractive accounts, among others,
+of the literary riches of Lucullus, of Atticus, and of Cicero.
+The first library in Rome was founded 167 B. C. and in the
+Augustan age they multiplied, until there were twenty-nine
+public libraries in Hadrian's time, 120 A. D. The
+emperor Julian, in the fourth century, was a founder of
+libraries, and is said to have placed over the doors this
+inscription: "<i>Alii quidem equos amant, alii oves, alii
+feros; mihi vero a puerulo mirandum acquirendi et possidendi
+libros insedit desiderium.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The libraries of the middle ages were neither large nor
+numerous. The neglect of learning and of literature was
+wide-spread; only in the monasteries of Europe were to be
+found scholars who kept alive the sacred flame. In these
+were renewed those fruitful labors of the <i>scriptorium</i> which
+had preserved and multiplied so many precious books in
+classic times among the Romans. The monks, indeed,
+were not seldom creators as well as copyists, though the
+works which they composed were mainly theological (as
+became their sacred profession and ascetic life). The
+Latin, however, being the almost universal language for so
+many centuries, the love of learning conspired to widen
+the field of monastic study. Many zealous ecclesiastics
+were found who revived the classic authors, and copies of
+the works of poets, historians, philosophers and rhetoricians
+were multiplied. Then were gradually formed those
+monastic libraries to which so many thousands of mediaeval
+scholars owed a debt of gratitude. The order of Benedictines
+took a leading and effective part in this revival
+of learning. Taxes were levied on the inmates of monasteries
+expressly for furnishing the library with books, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_291" id="Pg_291"></a>[<a href="./images/291.png">291</a>]</span>
+the novices in many houses must contribute writing materials
+upon entering, and books at the close of their novitiate,
+for the enrichment of the library. Among notably
+valuable libraries, several of which still survive, were those
+of Monte Cassino in Italy, the Abbey of Fleury in France,
+St. Gall in Switzerland, and that of the illustrious congregation
+of St. Maur in France. The latter had at one time
+no less than one hundred and seven writers engaged in
+multiplying books.</p>
+
+<p>The first library in England is recorded (in the Canterbury
+Chartulary) to have been given by Pope Gregory the
+Great, and brought by St. Augustine, first Archbishop of
+Canterbury, on his mission to England about A. D. 600. It
+consisted of nine precious volumes on vellum, being copies
+of parts of the Scriptures, with commentaries, and a volume
+of Lives of the Martyrs. The library of the Benedictine
+Monastery at Canterbury had grown in the 13th century
+to 3000 titles, being very rich in theology, but with
+many books also in history, poetry and science. At York
+had been founded, in the 8th century, a noble library by
+Archbishop Egbert, and the great scholar Alcuin here acquired,
+amidst that "infinite number of excellent books,"
+his life-long devotion to literature. When he removed to
+Tours, in France, he lamented the loss of the literary treasures
+of York, in a poem composed of excellent hexameters.
+He begged of Charlemagne to send into Britain to procure
+books, "that the garden of paradise may not be confined
+to York."</p>
+
+<p>Fine libraries were also gathered at the monasteries of
+Durham, of Glastonbury, and of Croyland, and at the Abbeys
+of Whitby and Peterborough.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were the orders of Franciscans and Dominicans far
+behind as book-collectors, though they commonly preferred
+to buy rather than to transcribe manuscripts, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_292" id="Pg_292"></a>[<a href="./images/292.png">292</a>]</span>
+the Benedictines. "In every convent of friars," wrote
+Fitzralph to the Pope, in 1350, "there is a large and noble
+library." And Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and
+Chancellor of England in 1334, whose "Philobiblon" is the
+most eloquent treatise in praise of books ever written, said,
+when visiting places where the mendicants had convents;
+"there amid the deepest poverty, we found the most precious
+riches stored up." The Pope, it appears, relaxed for
+these orders the rigor of their vows of poverty, in favor
+of amassing books&mdash;mindful, doubtless, of that saying of
+Solomon the wise&mdash;"Therefore get wisdom, because it is
+better than gold."</p>
+
+<p>Richard de Bury, the enthusiast of learning, wrote thus:</p>
+
+<p>"The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than
+all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to
+be compared with it. Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges
+himself to be a zealous follower of the truth, of happiness,
+of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of necessity
+make himself a lover of books."</p>
+
+<p>And said Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich&mdash;"I can wonder
+at nothing more than how a man can be idle&mdash;but of
+all others a scholar; in so many improvements of reason,
+in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety of studies,
+in such importunity of thoughts. To find wit in poetry;
+in philosophy profoundness; in history wonder of events;
+in oratory, sweet eloquence; in divinity, supernatural light
+and holy devotion&mdash;whom would it not ravish with delight?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles the Fifth of France amassed a fine library, afterwards
+sold to an English nobleman. Lorenzo de Medici, of
+Hungary, and Frederic Duke of Urbino, each gathered in
+the 15th century a magnificent collection of books. All of
+these became widely dispersed in later years, though the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_293" id="Pg_293"></a>[<a href="./images/293.png">293</a>]</span>
+manuscripts of the Duke of Urbino's collection are preserved
+in the library of the Vatican.</p>
+
+<p>I may here note a very few of the most extensive library
+collections now existing in Europe and America.</p>
+
+<p>1. Of the great public libraries of Europe, which owe
+much of their riches to the government privilege of the
+copy-tax, the national library of France is the oldest and
+the largest, now numbering two million six hundred thousand
+volumes. Founded in the 15th century, it has had
+four hundred years of opportunity for steady and large increase.
+Paris abounds in other public libraries also, in
+which respect it is far superior to London.</p>
+
+<p>2. Next to the Biblioth&egrave;que nationale of France, comes
+the Library of the British Museum, with 2,000,000 volumes,
+very rich both in manuscripts and in printed
+books in all languages. A liberal Parliamentary grant of
+$60,000 a year for purchase of books and manuscripts
+keeps this great collection well up to date as to all important
+new works, besides enabling it constantly to fill up
+deficiencies in the literature of the past. Following this,
+among the great libraries having over half a million books,
+come in numerical order</p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Numbers of books">
+<tr><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>Volumes.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>3.</td><td align='left'>Russian Imperial Library, St. Petersburg,</td><td align='right'>1,200,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>4.</td><td align='left'>Royal Library of Prussia, Berlin,</td><td align='right'>1,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>5.</td><td align='left'>Royal Library of Bavaria, Munich,</td><td align='right'>980,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>6.</td><td align='left'>Library of Congress, Washington City,</td><td align='right'>840,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>7.</td><td align='left'>Boston Public Library,</td><td align='right'>734,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>8.</td><td align='left'>University Library, Strasburg, Germany,</td><td align='right'>700,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>9.</td><td align='left'>Imperial Public Library, Vienna,</td><td align='right'>575,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>10.</td><td align='left'>Bodleian Library, Oxford</td><td align='right'>530,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It is a notable fact that among the richest monuments of
+learning that have been gathered by mankind, the Uni<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_294" id="Pg_294"></a>[<a href="./images/294.png">294</a>]</span>versity
+libraries hold a very high rank. Reckoned in number
+of volumes, there are many of them which far outrank
+the government libraries, except in six instances. Out of
+174 libraries, all exceeding 100,000 volumes, as reported
+in the annual <i>Minerva</i>, in October, 1898, no less than 72
+are the libraries of universities. Strasburg heads the list,
+with a noble collection of 700,000 volumes; then Oxford
+university, whose Bodleian library numbers 530,000; Leipzig
+university, 504,000; Cambridge university, England,
+G&ouml;ttingen university, and Harvard university, 500,000
+each; the university of Vienna, 475,000; the universities of
+Heidelberg and of Munich, 400,000 each; Ghent and W&uuml;rzburg
+universities, 350,000 each; Christiania, Norway,
+university, and T&uuml;bingen, each 340,000; University of Chicago,
+330,000; Copenhagen university, 305,000; Breslau,
+Cracow, Rostock and Upsala, 300,000 each; Yale university,
+New Haven, 280,000; St. Petersburg, 257,000;
+Bologna, 255,000; Freiburg and Bonn universities, 250,000
+each; Prague, 245,000; Trinity, Dublin, 232,000; K&ouml;nigsberg,
+231,000; Kiel, 229,000; Naples, 224,000; and Buda-Pest,
+210,000. I need not detain you by enumerating
+those that fall below 200,000 volumes, but will say that
+the whole number of volumes in the 72 university libraries
+embraced in my table is more than fifteen millions, which
+would be much enlarged if smaller libraries were included.
+A noble exhibit is this, which the institutions of the highest
+education hold up before us.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>We may now consider, somewhat more in detail as to
+particulars, the origin and growth of the libraries of the
+United States. The record will show an amazingly rapid
+development, chiefly accomplished during the last quarter
+of a century, contrasted with the lamentably slow growth
+of earlier years.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_295" id="Pg_295"></a>[<a href="./images/295.png">295</a>]</span>Thirty years ago the present year, I was invited to give
+to the American Social Science Association, then meeting
+at New York, a discourse upon Public Libraries in the
+United States. On recurring to this address, I have been
+agreeably surprised to find how completely its facts and
+figures belong to the domain of ancient history. For,
+while it may excite a smile to allude to anything belonging
+to a period only thirty years back as ancient history, yet,
+so rapid has been the accumulation, not only of books, but
+of libraries themselves in that brief period of three decades,
+as almost to justify the term employed.</p>
+
+<p>Antiquarians must ever regard with interest the first
+efforts for the establishment of public libraries in the New
+World. The first record of books dedicated to a public
+purpose in that part of this country now occupied by the
+English-speaking race is, I believe, to be found in the following
+entry in the Records of the Virginia Company of
+London:</p>
+
+<p>"November 15, 1620.&mdash;After the Acts of the former
+Courte were read, a straunger stept in presentinge a Mapp
+of S<sup>r</sup> Walter Rawlighes contayinge a Descripcon of Guiana,
+and with the same fower great books as the Guifte of one
+unto the Company that desyred his name might not be
+made knowne, whereof one booke was a treatise of St.
+Augustine of the Citty of God translated into English, the
+other three greate Volumes wer the works of Mr. Perkins'
+newlie corrected and amended, wch books the Donor desyred
+they might be sent to the Colledge in Virginia there
+to remayne in saftie to the use of the collegiates thereafter,
+and not suffered at any time to be sent abroade or used in
+the meane while. For wch so worthy a guifte my Lord of
+Southampton desyred the p'tie that presented them to re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_296" id="Pg_296"></a>[<a href="./images/296.png">296</a>]</span>turne
+deserued thanks from himselfe and the rest of the
+Company to him that had so kindly bestowed them."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>The college here referred to was the first ever founded
+in America, and was seated at Henrico, at the confluence
+of the James River with the Chickahominy. It was designed
+not only for the education of the Virginia settlers,
+but to teach science and Christianity to the Indians.
+Large contributions were raised in England by Sir Edwin
+Sandys, and others of the Virginia Company, for its support.
+But this Virginia college and its incipient library
+were doomed to a speedy extinction. Like so many other
+brilliant "prospects for planting arts and learning in
+America," it did not survive the perils of the colonial
+epoch. It was brought to a period by the bloody Indian
+massacre of March 22, 1622, when three hundred and
+forty-seven of the Virginia settlers were slaughtered in a
+day, the new settlement broken up, and the expanding
+lines of civilization contracted to the neighborhood of
+Jamestown.</p>
+
+<p>Harvard University Library was founded in 1638 by the
+endowment of John Harvard, who bequeathed to the new
+college his library and half of his estate. Soon afterwards
+enriched by the zealous contributions of English Puritans
+and philosophers, of Berkeley, and Baxter, and Lightfoot,
+and Sir Kenelm Digby, the first university library in
+America, after a century and a quarter of usefulness, was
+totally destroyed with the college edifice in the year 1764
+by fire. When we contemplate the ravages of this element,
+which has consumed so many noble libraries, destroying
+not only printed books of priceless value, but often
+precious manuscripts which are unique and irreplaceable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_297" id="Pg_297"></a>[<a href="./images/297.png">297</a>]</span>
+a lively sense of regret comes over us that these creations
+of the intellect, which should be imperishable, are even yet
+at the mercy of an accident in all the libraries of the world
+save a very few. The destruction of books in private
+hands is natural and inevitable enough, and goes on continually.
+Whole editions of books, now sought with avidity
+as the rarest volumes known to literature, have been
+gradually destroyed in innumerable fires, worn out in the
+hands of readers, used for waste paper by grocers and petty
+tradesmen, swallowed up in the sack of towns, or consumed
+by dampness, mould, or, in rare instances, by the
+remorseless tooth of time. Yet there have always existed
+public libraries enough, had they been fire-proof, to have
+preserved many copies of every book bequeathed to the
+world, both before the invention of printing and since.
+But, when your insurance office is bankrupt, what becomes
+of the insured? When nearly all our public libraries are
+so constructed as to become an easy prey to the flames, the
+loss of so many books which have completely perished from
+the earth ceases to be wonderful.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of Harvard University library, from its
+second foundation a century ago, has been steady, though
+at no time rapid. Select and valuable in its principal contents,
+it has received numerous benefactions from the
+friends of learning, and promises to become the best, as it
+already is much the largest, among the university libraries
+of the country. Its present strength is about 500,000
+volumes.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1700 witnessed the birth of the first New York
+library open to public use. The Rev. John Sharp, then
+chaplain of His Majesty's forces in that city (it was in the
+days of good King William of Orange), bequeathed his
+private collection of books to found a "public library" in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_298" id="Pg_298"></a>[<a href="./images/298.png">298</a>]</span>
+New York. The library thus organized was placed in
+charge of the corporation of the city, but the first city
+library of New York languished with little or no increase
+until 1754, when a society of gentlemen undertook to
+found a public library by subscription, and succeeded so
+well that the city authorities turned over to them what remained
+of the Public City Library. This was the beginning
+of the New York Society Library, one of the largest
+of the proprietary libraries of the country. It was then,
+and for a long time afterwards, commonly known as "The
+City Library." The Continental Congress profited by its
+stores, there being no other library open to their use; and
+the First Congress under the Constitution, which met in
+New York in 1789, received the free use of the books it
+contained. The library is conducted on the share system,
+the payment of twenty-five dollars, and an annual assessment
+of six dollars, giving any one the privilege of membership.
+It now contains about 100,000 volumes.</p>
+
+<p>The same year, 1700, in which the New York Library
+was founded, ten Connecticut ministers met together at
+Lyme, each bringing a number of books, and saying,
+"I give these books for the founding of a college in this
+colony." Such was the foundation of Yale University, an
+institution that has done inestimable service to the cause
+of letters, having been fruitful of writers of books, as well
+as of living contributions to the ranks of every learned
+profession. Thirty years later, we find the good Bishop
+Berkeley pausing from the lofty speculations which absorbed
+him, to send over to Yale College what was called
+"the finest collection of books that ever came together at
+one time into America." For a century and a half the
+growth of this library was very slow, the college being oppressed
+with poverty. In 1869, the number of volumes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_299" id="Pg_299"></a>[<a href="./images/299.png">299</a>]</span>
+had risen only to 50,000, but it is cheering to relate that
+the last thirty years have witnessed a growth so rapid that
+in 1899 Yale University Library had 285,000 volumes.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth considerable library founded in the United
+States was due in a large degree to the industry and zeal
+for knowledge of the illustrous Franklin. As unquestionably
+the first established proprietary library in America,
+the Library Company of Philadelphia merits especial notice.
+Let us reverently take a leaf out of the autobiography
+of the printer-statesman of Pennsylvania:</p>
+
+<p>"And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature,
+that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals,
+got them put into form by our great scrivener,
+Brockden, and by the help of my friends in the Junto [the
+Junto was a club for mutual improvement, founded by
+Franklin] procured fifty subscribers at forty shillings each
+to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the
+term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained
+a charter, the company being increased to one hundred;
+this was the mother of all the North American subscription
+libraries now so numerous. It is become a great
+thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries
+have improved the general conversation of the Americans,
+made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as
+most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have
+contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made
+throughout the colonies in defence of their privileges."</p>
+
+<p>When this Philadelphia Library was founded, in 1731,
+not a single city or town in England possessed a subscription
+library. Even the library of the British Museum,
+since become the greatest collection of books in the world,
+save one, was not opened until 1759, more than a quarter
+of a century afterwards. Although not designed as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_300" id="Pg_300"></a>[<a href="./images/300.png">300</a>]</span>
+public library of circulation, save to its own subscribers,
+the Philadelphia Library has been kept free to all for reference
+and consultation. The record of the gradual increase
+of the first Philadelphia Library from its first few
+hundred volumes, when Franklin was but twenty-five years
+of age, to its present rank as the largest proprietary library
+in America, with 195,000 volumes of books, is highly interesting.
+Its history, in fact, is to a large extent the history
+of intellectual culture in Philadelphia, which remained,
+until the second decade in the present century, the
+foremost city of the Union in population, and, from 1791
+to 1800, the seat of government of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>The Philadelphia Library Company, in 1774, voted that
+"the gentlemen who were to meet in Congress" in that city
+should be furnished with such books as they might have
+occasion for; and the same privilege was exercised on the
+return of the Government to that city, in 1791, and until
+the removal of Congress to Washington in 1800. During
+the nine months' occupation of Philadelphia by the British
+army, it is refreshing to read that the conquerors lifted no
+spear against the Muses' bower, but that "the officers, without
+exception, left deposits, and paid hire for the books
+borrowed by them." The collection, in respect of early
+printed books, is one of the largest and most valuable in
+America, embracing some books and files of newspapers
+which are to be found in no other public library. The selection
+of new books has been kept unusually free from the
+masses of novels and other ephemeral publications which
+overload most of our popular libraries, and the collection,
+although limited in extent in every field, and purposely
+leaving special topics, such as the medical and natural sciences,
+to the scientific libraries which abound in Philadelphia,
+affords to the man of letters a good working library.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_301" id="Pg_301"></a>[<a href="./images/301.png">301</a>]</span>
+The shares in the library cost forty dollars, with an annual
+assessment of four dollars to each stockholder.</p>
+
+<p>In 1869, the great bequest of Doctor James Rush to the
+Philadelphia Library of his whole property, valued at over
+$1,000,000, was accepted by its stockholders, by the bare
+majority of five votes in a poll of over five hundred. This
+lack of harmony is attributable to the fact that the bequest,
+so generous in itself, was hampered by the donor
+with numerous conditions, deemed by many friends of the
+library to be highly onerous and vexatious. Not the least
+among these was the following, which is cited from the
+will itself:</p>
+
+<p>"Let the library not keep cushioned seats for time-wasting
+and lounging readers, nor places for every-day novels,
+mind-tainting reviews, controversial politics, scribblings
+of poetry and prose, biographies of unknown names, nor
+for those teachers of disjointed thinking, the daily newspapers."</p>
+
+<p>Here is one more melancholy instance of a broad and
+liberal bequest narrowly bestowed. The spirit which animated
+the respectable testator in attempting to exclude
+the larger part of modern literature from the library which
+his money was to benefit may have been unexceptionable
+enough. Doubtless there are evils connected with a public
+supply of frivolous and trifling literature; and perhaps our
+periodicals may be justly chargeable with devoting an undue
+proportion of their columns to topics of merely ephemeral
+interest. But it should never be forgotten that the
+literature of any period is and must be largely occupied
+with the questions of the day. Thus, and thus only, it becomes
+a representative literature, and it is precious to posterity
+in proportion as it accurately reflects the spirit, the
+prejudices, and the personalities of a time which has passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_302" id="Pg_302"></a>[<a href="./images/302.png">302</a>]</span>
+into history, leaving behind it no living representatives.
+If we admit that the development of the human intellect
+at any particular period is worth studying, then all books
+are, or may become, useful. It is amazing that a person
+with any pretensions to discernment should denounce
+newspapers as unfitted to form a part of a public library.
+The best newspapers of the time are sometimes the best
+books of the time. A first-class daily journal is an epitome
+of the world, recording the life and the deeds of men,
+their laws and their literature, their politics and religion,
+their social and criminal statistics, the progress of invention
+and of art, the revolutions of empires, and the latest
+results of science. Grant that newspapers are prejudiced,
+superficial, unfair; so also are books. Grant that the
+journals often give place to things scurrilous and base; but
+can there be anything baser or more scurrilous than are
+suffered to run riot in books? There is to be found hidden
+away in the pages of some books such filth as no man
+would dare to print in a newspaper, from fear of the instant
+wrath of the passers-by.</p>
+
+<p>When I consider the debt which libraries and literature
+alike owe to the daily and weekly press, it is difficult to
+characterize with patience the Parthian arrow flung at
+it from the grave of a querulous millionaire, who will owe
+to these very newspapers the greater part of his success
+and his reputation. The father of the respectable testator,
+Doctor Benjamin Rush, has left on record many
+learned speculations concerning the signs and evidences
+of lunacy. We may now add to the number the vagaries
+of the author of a ponderous work on the human intellect,
+who gravely proposed to hand over to posterity an expurgated
+copy of the nineteenth century, with all its newspapers
+left out.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_303" id="Pg_303"></a>[<a href="./images/303.png">303</a>]</span>The Library of Congress, or, as it was called in its first
+general catalogue in 1815, "The Library of the United
+States," was founded in 1800, by the purchase of five thousand
+dollars' worth of books by act of Congress, upon the
+removal of the government to Washington. By the act of
+January 26, 1802, entitled "An act concerning the Library
+for the use of both Houses of Congress," this
+library was placed in charge of a joint committee of
+both Houses of Congress, consisting of three Senators and
+three Representatives, and a Librarian, to be appointed by
+the President of the United States. It had grown to the
+number of only 3,000 volumes in 1814, when the British
+army made a bonfire of our national Capitol, and the library
+was consumed in the ruins. The first library of
+Congress being thus destroyed, ex-President Jefferson,
+then living, involved in debt, and in his old age, at Monticello,
+offered his fine private library of 6,700 volumes to
+Congress, through friends in that body, the terms of payment
+to be made convenient to the public, and the price
+to be fixed by a committee. The proposition met with
+able advocacy and also with some warm opposition. It is
+illustrative of the crude conceptions regarding the uses of
+books which prevailed in the minds of some members, that
+the library was objected to on the somewhat incongruous
+grounds of embracing too many editions of the Bible,
+and a number of the French writers in skeptical philosophy.
+It was gravely proposed to pack up this portion of
+the library, and return it to the illustrious owner at Monticello,
+paying him for the remainder. More enlightened
+counsels, however, prevailed, and the nation became possessed,
+for about $23,000, of a good basis for a public library
+which might become worthy of the country. The
+collection thus formed grew by slow accretion until, in
+1851, it had accumulated 55,000 volumes. On the 24th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_304" id="Pg_304"></a>[<a href="./images/304.png">304</a>]</span>
+of December in that year, a defective flue in the Capitol
+set fire to the wood-work with which the whole library was
+surrounded, and the result was a conflagration, from which
+20,000 volumes only were saved. Congress at once appropriated,
+with praiseworthy liberality, $75,000 for the purchase
+of new books, and $92,500 for rebuilding the library
+room in solid iron; the first instance of the employment of
+that safe and permanent material, so capable of the lightest
+and most beautiful architectural effects, in the entire
+interior structure of any public building. The appropriation
+of $75,000 was principally expended in the purchase
+of standard English literature, including complete sets of
+many important periodicals, and a selection of the more
+costly works in science and the fine arts. In 1866, two
+wings, each as large as the central library, and constructed
+of the same fire-proof material, were added to it, and quickly
+filled by the accession, the same year and the following,
+of two large libraries, that of the Smithsonian Institution,
+and the historical library of Peter Force, of Washington.
+The latter was the largest private library ever then
+brought together in the United States, but its chief value
+consisted in its possession of a very great proportion of the
+books relating to the settlement, history, topography, and
+politics of America, its 45,000 pamphlets, its files of early
+newspapers of the Revolution, its early printed books, and
+its rich assemblage of maps and manuscripts, many of the
+latter being original autographs of the highest historical
+interest, including military letters and papers of the period
+of the American Revolution. The Smithsonian library,
+the custody of which was accepted by Congress as a trust,
+is rich in scientific works in all the languages of Europe,
+and forms an extensive and appropriate supplement to the
+Library of Congress, the chief strength of which lies in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_305" id="Pg_305"></a>[<a href="./images/305.png">305</a>]</span>
+jurisprudence, political science, history, and books relating
+to America. Yet no department of literature or science
+has been left unrepresented in its formation, and the fact
+has been kept steadily in view that the Library of the
+Government must become, sooner or later, a universal
+one. As the only library which is entitled to the benefit
+of the copyright law, by which copies of each publication
+for which the Government grants an exclusive right must
+be deposited in the National Library, this collection must
+become annually more important as an exponent of the
+growth of American literature. This wise provision of
+law prevents the dispersion or destruction of books that
+tend continually to disappear; a benefit to the cause of
+letters, the full value of which it requires slight reflection
+to estimate.</p>
+
+<p>This National Library now embraces 840,000 volumes,
+besides about 250,000 pamphlets. It is freely open, as a
+library of reference and reading, to the whole people; but
+the books are not permitted to be drawn out, except by
+Senators and Representatives and a few officials for use at
+the seat of government. Its new, commodious and beautiful
+building, which may fitly be called the book-palace of
+the American people, open day and evening to all comers,
+is a delight to the eye, and to the mind.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The library of the Boston Athenaeum originated, in the
+year 1806, with a society of gentlemen of literary tastes,
+who aimed at creating a reading-room for the best foreign
+and American periodicals, together with a library of books.
+To this a gallery of art was subsequently added. The undertaking
+proved at once successful, leaving us to wonder
+why cultivated Boston, though abounding in special and
+parish libraries, should so long have done without a good
+general library; New York having anticipated her by fifty-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_306" id="Pg_306"></a>[<a href="./images/306.png">306</a>]</span>two
+years, and Philadelphia by three-quarters of a century.
+The Athenaeum Library is peculiarly rich in files
+of American newspapers, both old and new, and its collection
+of early pamphlets is one of the largest in the country.
+In literature and science it embraces a heavy proportion of
+the best books, its total number of volumes being reckoned
+at 190,000. Its collection of books, pamphlets, and newspapers
+relating to the recent civil war is among the completest
+known. The price of a share in the Athenaeum is
+three hundred dollars, a large sum when compared with
+that of other proprietary libraries; but it involves much
+more valuable property-rights than any other. The annual
+assessment is five dollars to shareholders, who alone
+possess the right to draw books. The proprietors have
+also the power to grant free admission to others, and the
+library and reading-room are thus thrown open for reference
+to a wide range of readers.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the Astor Library, opened in 1854, has
+been made too familiar by repeated publication to need
+repetition here. The generous founder gave two per cent.
+out of his fortune of $20,000,000 to create a free public
+library for the city which had given him all his wealth.
+The gift was a splendid one, greater than had ever before
+been given in money to found a library. Moreover, the
+$400,000 of Mr. Astor, half a century ago, appeared to be,
+and perhaps was, a larger sum relatively than four millions
+in New York of to-day. Yet it remains true that the bequest
+was but one-fiftieth part of the fortune of the donor,
+and that the growth and even the proper accommodation
+of the library must have stopped, but for the spontaneous
+supplementary gifts of the principal inheritors of his vast
+wealth.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of the Astor library has been very slow, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_307" id="Pg_307"></a>[<a href="./images/307.png">307</a>]</span>
+annual income from what was left of Mr. Astor's $400,000
+bequest, after defraying the cost of the library building,
+and the $100,000 expended for books at its foundation in
+1848, having been so small as to necessitate a pinching
+economy, both in salaries of the library staff, and in the
+annual purchase of books. It was an example of a generous
+act performed in a niggardly way. But after the lapse
+of half a century, enlightened public policy, building upon
+the Astor foundation, and on the Lenox and Tilden bequests
+for founding public libraries in New York city, is
+about to equip that long neglected city with a library
+worthy of the name. There has already been gathered
+from these three united benefactions, a collection of no
+less than 450,000 volumes, making the New York Public
+Library take rank as the fourth, numerically, in the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>While no library in America has yet reached one million
+volumes, there are five libraries in Europe, which have
+passed the million mark. Some of these, it is true, are
+repositories of ancient and mediaeval literature, chiefly,
+with a considerable representation of the books of the last
+century, and but few accessions from the more modern
+press. Such, for the most part, are the numerous libraries
+of Italy, while others, like the Library of the British
+Museum, in London, and the National Library, at Paris,
+are about equally rich in ancient and modern literature.
+The one great advantage which European libraries possess
+over American consists in the stores of ancient literature
+which the accumulations of the past have given them.
+This advantage, so far as manuscripts and early printed
+books are concerned, can never be overcome. With one
+or two hundred thousand volumes as a basis, what but utter
+neglect can prevent a library from becoming a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_308" id="Pg_308"></a>[<a href="./images/308.png">308</a>]</span>
+and useful institution? The most moderate share of discrimination,
+applied to the selection of current literature,
+will keep up the character of the collection as a progressive
+one. But with nothing at all as a basis, as most of
+our large American libraries have started, it will take generations
+for us to overtake some of the vast collections of
+Europe&mdash;even numerically.</p>
+
+<p>In the "American Almanac" for 1837 was published the
+earliest statistical account of American libraries which I
+have found. It is confined to a statement of the numerical
+contents of twenty public and university libraries, being
+all the American libraries which then (sixty years
+since) contained over 10,000 volumes each. The largest
+library in the United States at that date was that of the
+Philadelphia Library Company, which embraced 44,000
+volumes. The first organized effort to collect the full statistics
+of libraries in the United States was made in 1849,
+by Professor C. C. Jewett, then librarian of the Smithsonian
+Institution, and the results were published in 1851, under
+the auspices of that institution, in a volume of 207
+pages. It contains interesting notices of numerous libraries,
+only forty of which, however, contained as many as
+10,000 volumes each. In 1859, Mr. W. J. Rhees, of the
+Smithsonian Institution, published "A Manual of Public
+Libraries, Institutions, and Societies in the United States,"
+a large volume of 687 pages, filled with statistical information
+in great detail, and recording the number of volumes
+in 1338 libraries. This work was an expansion of that of
+Professor Jewett. The next publication of the statistics
+of American Libraries, of an official character, was published
+in "The National Almanac," Philadelphia, for the
+year 1864, pp. 58-62, and was prepared by the present
+writer. It gave the statistics of 104 libraries, each num<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_309" id="Pg_309"></a>[<a href="./images/309.png">309</a>]</span>bering
+10,000 volumes or upwards, exhibiting a gratifying
+progress in all the larger collections, and commemorating
+the more advanced and vigorous of the new libraries which
+had sprung into life.</p>
+
+<p>The work of collecting and publishing the statistics of
+American Libraries has for years past been admirably performed
+by the United States Bureau of Education. Begun
+in 1875, that institution has issued four tabular statements
+of all libraries responding to its circulars of inquiry,
+and having (as last reported in 1897) one thousand volumes
+or upwards. Besides these invaluable reports, costing
+much careful labor and great expense, the Bureau of
+Education published, in 1876, an extensive work wholly
+devoted to the subject of libraries, bearing the title "Special
+Report on Public Libraries in the United States."
+This publication (now wholly out of print) consisted of
+1222 pages, replete with information upon the history,
+management, and condition of American Libraries, under
+the editorship of S. R. Warren and S. N. Clark, of the
+Bureau of Education. It embraced many original contributions
+upon topics connected with library science, by experienced
+librarians, <i>viz.</i>: Messrs. W. F. Poole, Justin
+Winsor, C. A. Cutter, J. S. Billings, Theo. Gill, Melvil
+Dewey, O. H. Robinson, W. I. Fletcher, F. B. Perkins, H.
+A. Homes, A. R. Spofford, and others.</p>
+
+<p>I have prepared a table of the numerical contents of the
+thirty-four largest libraries in this country in 1897, being
+all those having 100,000 volumes each or upwards:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Libraries and numbers of books">
+<tr><td align='left'>Library of Congress, Washington,</td><td align='left'>840,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Boston Public Library, Boston,</td><td align='left'>730,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Harvard University Library, Cambridge,</td><td align='left'>510,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>New York Public Library, New York City,</td><td align='left'>450,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>University of Chicago Library,</td><td align='left'>335,000<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_310" id="Pg_310"></a>[<a href="./images/310.png">310</a>]</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>New York State Library, Albany,</td><td align='left'>320,710</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Yale University Library, New Haven,</td><td align='left'>285,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>New York Mercantile Library, New York,</td><td align='left'>270,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Columbia University Library, New York,</td><td align='left'>260,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Chicago Public Library,</td><td align='left'>235,385</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cincinnati Public Library,</td><td align='left'>223,043</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cornell University Library, Ithaca, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>220,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sutro Library, San Francisco,</td><td align='left'>206,300</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Newberry Library, Chicago,</td><td align='left'>203,108</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Philadelphia Library Company,</td><td align='left'>200,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Philadelphia Mercantile Library,</td><td align='left'>190,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Boston Athenaeum Library,</td><td align='left'>190,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore,</td><td align='left'>185,902</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Philadelphia Mercantile Library,</td><td align='left'>183,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Mich.,</td><td align='left'>148,198</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>University of Pennsylvania Library, Phila.,</td><td align='left'>140,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Princeton University Library, Princeton, N. J.,</td><td align='left'>135,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Pennsylvania State Library, Harrisburg,</td><td align='left'>134,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore,</td><td align='left'>130,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, O.,</td><td align='left'>129,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>St. Louis Public Library,</td><td align='left'>125,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mechanics and Tradesmen's Library, New York,</td><td align='left'>115,185</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Free Public Library, Worcester, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>115,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>San Francisco Public Library,</td><td align='left'>108,066</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Philadelphia Free Library,</td><td align='left'>105,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>American Antiquarian Society Library, Worcester, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>105,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>California State Library, Sacramento,</td><td align='left'>100,032</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Massachusetts State Library, Boston,</td><td align='left'>100,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>New York Society Library, New York,</td><td align='left'>100,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>Public libraries endowed by private munificence form already
+a large class, and these are constantly increasing. Of
+the public libraries founded by individual bequest, some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_311" id="Pg_311"></a>[<a href="./images/311.png">311</a>]</span>
+the principal are the Public Library of New York, the Watkinson
+Library, at Hartford, the Peabody Institute Libraries,
+of Baltimore, and at Danvers and Peabody, Mass., the
+Newberry Library and the John Crerar Library at Chicago,
+the Sutro Library, San Francisco, the Enoch Pratt
+Library, Baltimore, and the Carnegie Libraries at Pittsburgh
+and Allegheny City, Pa. Nearly all of them are
+the growth of the last quarter of a century. The more
+prominent, in point of well equipped buildings or collections
+of books, are here named, including all which number
+ten thousand volumes each, or upwards, among the
+public libraries associated with the founder's name.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Libraries and numbers of books">
+<tr><td align='left'>New York Public Library (Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations),</td><td align='left'>450,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Newberry Library, Chicago,</td><td align='left'>203,100</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sutro Library, San Francisco,</td><td align='left'>206,300</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore,</td><td align='left'>185,900</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore,</td><td align='left'>130,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Davenport Library, Bath, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>90,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Silas Bronson Library, Waterbury, Conn.,</td><td align='left'>52,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>51,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Watkinson Library, Hartford, Conn.,</td><td align='left'>47,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sage Library, New Brunswick, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>43,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Case Library, Cleveland, Ohio,</td><td align='left'>40,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Grosvenor Library, Buffalo, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>39,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>36,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cooper Union Library, New York,</td><td align='left'>34,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fisk Free Public Library, New Orleans,</td><td align='left'>33,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Peabody Institute Library, Peabody, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>33,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Reynolds Library, Rochester, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>33,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Carnegie Free Library, Allegheny, Pa.,</td><td align='left'>30,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, Vt.,</td><td align='left'>30,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans,</td><td align='left'>26,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Pa.,</td><td align='left'>25,000<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_312" id="Pg_312"></a>[<a href="./images/312.png">312</a>]</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sage Public Library, West Bay City, Mich.,</td><td align='left'>25,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hoyt Public Library, Saginaw, Mich.,</td><td align='left'>24,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Osterhout Free Library, Wilkesbarre, Pa.,</td><td align='left'>24,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Seymour Library, Auburn, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>24,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hackley Public Library, Muskegon, Mich.,</td><td align='left'>22,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Willard Library, Evansville, Ind.,</td><td align='left'>22,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Otis Library, Norwich, Conn.,</td><td align='left'>21,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Morrison-Reeves Library, Richmond, Ind.,</td><td align='left'>21,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Baxter Memorial Library, Rutland, Vt.,</td><td align='left'>20,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cornell Library Association, Ithaca, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>20,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>19,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Dimmick Library, Mauch Chunk, Pa.,</td><td align='left'>18,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill.,</td><td align='left'>17,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Peabody Institute Library, Danvers, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>17,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tufts Library, Weymouth, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>17,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Warder Public Library, Springfield, Ohio,</td><td align='left'>17,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Withers Public Library, Bloomington, Ill.,</td><td align='left'>15,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cary Library, Lexington, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>15,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fritz Public Library, Chelsea, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>15,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Turner Free Library, Randolph, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>15,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Ames Free Library, North Easton, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>14,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Bigelow Free Library, Clinton, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>14,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Clarke Public Library, Coldwater, Mich.,</td><td align='left'>14,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Harris Institute Library, Woonsocket, R. I.,</td><td align='left'>14,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Merrick Public Library, Brookfield, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>14,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Robbins Library, Arlington, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>14,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Nevins Memorial Library, Methuen, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>14,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sturgis Library, Barnstable, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>13,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Birchard Library, Fremont, Ohio,</td><td align='left'>12,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>James Prendergast Library, Jamestown, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>12,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rogers Free Library, Bristol, R. I.,</td><td align='left'>12,300</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Abbott Public Library, Marblehead, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>12,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Armour Institute, Chicago, Ill.,</td><td align='left'>12,000<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_313" id="Pg_313"></a>[<a href="./images/313.png">313</a>]</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Beebe Town Library, Wakefield, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>12,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Carnegie Free Library, Braddock, Pa.,</td><td align='left'>12,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Goodnow Library, South Sudbury, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>12,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Millicent Library, Fairhaven, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>12,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Thayer Public Library, South Braintree, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>11,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Dyer Library, Saco, Maine,</td><td align='left'>10,500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cossit Library, Memphis, Tenn.,</td><td align='left'>10,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Gloucester (Mass.) Sawyer Free Library,</td><td align='left'>10,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn.,</td><td align='left'>10,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Parlin Memorial Library, Everett, Mass.,</td><td align='left'>10,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jennie D. Haynes Library, Alton, Ill.,</td><td align='left'>10,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hornell Free Library, Hornellsville, N. Y.,</td><td align='left'>10,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>Besides the preceding list, purposely confined to free
+libraries chiefly founded by individuals, which have reached
+the ten thousand volume mark, there are a multitude of
+others, too numerous to be named, having a less number of
+volumes. In fact, the public spirit which gives freely of
+private wealth to enlarge the intelligence of the community
+may be said to grow by emulation. Many men who
+have made fortunes have endowed their native places with
+libraries. It is yearly becoming more and more widely
+recognized that a man can build no monument to himself
+so honorable or so lasting as a free public library. Its
+influence is well nigh universal, and its benefits are perennial.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>We now come to consider the city or town libraries, created
+or maintained by voluntary taxation. These, like
+the class of libraries founded by private munificence, are
+purely a modern growth. While the earliest movement
+in this direction in Great Britain dates back only to 1850,
+New Hampshire has the honor of adopting the first free
+public library law, in America, in the year 1849. Massachusetts
+followed in 1851, and the example was emulated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_314" id="Pg_314"></a>[<a href="./images/314.png">314</a>]</span>
+by other States at various intervals, until there now remain
+but fifteen out of our forty-five States which have
+no public library law. The general provisions of these
+laws authorize any town or city to collect taxes by vote of
+the citizens for maintaining a public library, to be managed
+by trustees elected or appointed for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>But a more far-reaching provision for supplying the people
+with public libraries was adopted by New Hampshire
+(again the pioneer State), in 1895. This was nothing
+less than the passage of a State law making it compulsory
+on every town in New Hampshire to assess annually the
+sum of thirty dollars for every dollar of public taxes apportioned
+to such town, the amount to be appropriated to
+establish and maintain a free public library. Library
+trustees are to be elected, and in towns where no public
+library exists, the money is to be held by them, and to accumulate
+until the town is ready to establish a library.</p>
+
+<p>This New Hampshire statute, making obligatory the
+supply of public information through books and periodicals
+in free libraries in every town, may fairly be termed
+the high-water mark of modern means for the diffusion of
+knowledge. This system of creating libraries proceeds
+upon the principle that intellectual enlightenment is as
+much a concern of the local government as sanitary regulations
+or public morality. Society has an interest that is
+common to all classes in the means that are provided for
+the education of the people. Among these means free
+town or city libraries are one of the most potent and useful.
+New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in nearly all of
+their towns and cities, have recognized the principle that
+public books are just as important to the general welfare
+as public lamps. What are everywhere needed are libraries
+open to the people as a matter of right, and not as
+a matter of favor.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_315" id="Pg_315"></a>[<a href="./images/315.png">315</a>]</span>The largest library in the country, save one (that at
+Washington), owes its origin and success to this principle,
+combined with some private munificence. The Boston
+Public Library is unquestionably one of the most widely
+useful collections of books open to the public in this country.
+Of all the greater collections, it is the only one which
+lends out books free of charge to all citizens. Instituted
+in 1852, its career has been one of rapid progress and ever
+widening usefulness. I shall not dwell upon it at length,
+as the facts regarding it have been more widely published
+than those relating to any other library.</p>
+
+<p>Under the permissive library laws of thirty States, there
+had been formed up to 1896, when the last comprehensive
+statistics were gathered, about 1,200 free public libraries,
+supported by taxation, in the United States.</p>
+
+<p>A still more widely successful means of securing a library
+foundation that shall be permanent is found in uniting
+private benefactions with public money to found or to
+maintain a library. Many public-spirited citizens, fortunately
+endowed with large means, have offered to erect library
+buildings in certain places, on condition that the
+local authorities would provide the books, and the means
+of maintaining a free library. Such generous offers,
+whether coupled with the condition of perpetuating the
+donor's name with that of the library, or leaving the gift
+unhampered, so that the library may bear the name of the
+town or city of its location, have generally been accepted
+by municipal bodies, or by popular vote. This secures, in
+most cases, a good working library of choice reading, as
+well as its steady annual growth and management, free of
+the heavy expense of building, of which the tax-payers are
+relieved. The many munificent gifts of library buildings by
+Mr. Andrew Carnegie, to American towns and cities, and
+to some in his native Scotland, are worthy of special note.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_316" id="Pg_316"></a>[<a href="./images/316.png">316</a>]</span>
+And the reader will see from the long list heretofore given
+of the more considerable public libraries to be credited
+wholly or in part to private munificence, that American
+men of wealth have not been wanting as public benefactors.</p>
+
+<p>In some cases, whole libraries have been given to a town
+or village where a public library already existed, or liberal
+gifts or bequests of money, to be expended in the enrichment
+of such libraries, have been bestowed. Very interesting
+lists of benefactions for the benefit of libraries may
+be found in the volumes of the Library Journal, New York.
+It is with regret that candor requires me to add, that
+several proffers of fine library buildings to certain places,
+coupled with the condition that the municipal authorities
+would establish and maintain a free library, have remained
+without acceptance, thus forfeiting a liberal endowment.
+Where public education has been so neglected
+as to render possible such a niggardly, penny-wise and
+pound-foolish policy, there is manifestly signal need of
+every means of enlightenment.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>We now come to the various State libraries founded at
+the public charge, and designed primarily for the use
+of the respective legislatures of the States. The earliest
+of these is the New Hampshire State Library, established
+in 1790, and the largest is the New York State Library,
+at Albany, founded in 1818, now embracing 325,000 volumes,
+and distinguished alike by the value of its stores and
+the liberality of its management. The reason for being
+of a State library is obviously and primarily to furnish the
+legislative body and State courts with such ample books
+of reference in jurisprudence, history, science, etc., as will
+aid them in the intelligent discharge of their duties as
+law-makers and judges of the law. The library thus existing
+at each State capital may well be opened to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_317" id="Pg_317"></a>[<a href="./images/317.png">317</a>]</span>
+public for reading and reference, thus greatly enlarging
+its usefulness.</p>
+
+<p>Every State in the Union has now at least a legislative
+library, although the most of them consist chiefly of laws
+and legislative documents, with a few works of reference
+superadded; and their direct usefulness to the public is
+therefore very circumscribed. The New York State Library
+is a model of what a great public library should be
+in the capital of a State. In it are gathered a great proportion
+of the best books in each department of literature
+and science, while indefatigable efforts have been made to
+enrich it in whatever relates to American history and polity.
+Its reading-room is freely opened to the public during
+many hours daily. But a State library should never be
+made a library of circulation, since its utility as a reference
+library, having its books always in for those who seek them,
+would thereby be destroyed. Even under the existing system,
+with the privilege of drawing books out confined to
+the Legislature, some of the State libraries have been depleted
+and despoiled of many of their most valuable books,
+through loaning them freely on the orders of members.
+The sense of responsibility is far less in the case of borrowed
+books which are government property, than in other
+cases. The only safe rule for keeping a government library
+from being scattered, is strict refusal of orders for
+loaning to any one not legally entitled to draw books, and
+short terms of withdrawal to legislators, with enforcement
+of a rule of replacement, at their expense, as to all books
+not returned at the end of each session.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>There is one class of libraries not yet touched upon,
+namely, school district libraries. These originated for the
+first time in a legally organized system, through an act of
+the New York State Legislature in 1835, authorizing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_318" id="Pg_318"></a>[<a href="./images/318.png">318</a>]</span>
+voters in each school district to levy a tax of twenty dollars
+with which to start a library, and ten dollars a year
+for adding to the same. These were not to be for the
+schools alone, but for all the people living in the district
+where the school was located. This was supplemented in
+1838 by a State appropriation of $55,000 a year, from New
+York's share of the surplus revenue fund distributed by
+Congress to the States in 1837, and the income of which
+was devoted by New York to enlarging the school district
+libraries. After spending nearly two millions of dollars
+on these libraries in forty years, the system was found to
+have been so far a failure that the volumes in the libraries
+had decreased from 1,600,000 to 700,000 volumes.</p>
+
+<p>This extraordinary and deplorable result was attributed
+to several distinct causes. 1st. No proper responsibility
+as to the use and return of books was enforced. 2d. The
+insignificance of the sum raised by taxation in each district
+prevented any considerable supply of books from being
+acquired. 3d. The funds were largely devoted to buying
+the same books in each school district, instead of being
+expended in building up a large and varied collection.
+Thus the system produced innumerable petty libraries of
+duplicates, enriching publishers and booksellers, while impoverishing
+the community. The school district library
+system, in short, while promising much in theory, in the
+way of public intelligence, broke down completely in practice.
+The people quickly lost interest in libraries which
+gave them so little variety in books, either of instruction
+or of recreation.</p>
+
+<p>Although widely introduced in other States besides New
+York, from 1837 to 1877, it proved an admitted failure
+in all. Much public money, raised by taxation of the people,
+was squandered upon sets of books, selected by State<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_319" id="Pg_319"></a>[<a href="./images/319.png">319</a>]</span>
+authority, and often of inferior interest and utility. Finally,
+it was recognized that school district libraries were
+an evanescent dream, and that town libraries must take
+their place. This instructive chapter in Library history
+shows an experience by which much was learned, though
+the lesson was a costly one.</p>
+
+<p>The Historical libraries of the country are numerous,
+and some of the larger ones are rich in printed Americana,
+and in historical manuscripts. The oldest is that of the
+Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in 1791, and
+among the most extensive are those of the New York Historical
+Society, American Antiquarian Society, the Historical
+Society of Pennsylvania, the New England Historic-genealogical
+Society, and the Wisconsin State Historical
+Society. There are no less than 230 historical societies
+in the U. S., some forty of which are State associations.</p>
+
+<p>The Mercantile libraries are properly a branch of the
+proprietary, though depending mostly upon annual subscriptions.
+The earliest of these was the Boston Mercantile
+Library, founded in 1820, and followed closely by the
+New York Mercantile the same year, the Philadelphia in
+1821, and the Cincinnati Mercantile in 1835.</p>
+
+<p>Next we have the professional libraries, law, medical,
+scientific, and, in several cities, theological. These supply
+a want of each of these professions seldom met by the public
+collections, and are proportionately valuable.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The most recent plan for the wide diffusion of popular
+books is the travelling library. This originated in New
+York in 1893, when the Legislature empowered the Regents
+of the State University (a body of trustees having
+charge of all library interests in that State) to send out
+selections of books to any community without a library, on
+request of 25 resident taxpayers. The results were most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_320" id="Pg_320"></a>[<a href="./images/320.png">320</a>]</span>
+beneficial, the sole expense being five dollars for each
+library.</p>
+
+<p>Travelling libraries, (mostly of fifty volumes each) have
+been set on foot in Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin,
+Pennsylvania, and other States, and, as the system
+appears capable of indefinite expansion, great results are
+anticipated in the direction of the public intelligence. It
+is pointed out that while the State, by its free school system,
+trains all the people to read, it should not leave the
+quality of their reading to chance or to utter neglect, when
+a few cents <i>per capita</i> annually would help them to an education
+of inestimable value in after life.</p>
+
+<p>Some objections, on the other hand, have been urged to
+the system, as introducing features of paternalism into
+State government, and taking out of the hands of individual
+generosity and local effort and enterprise what belongs
+properly to such agencies. The vexed question of
+the proper function and limitations of State control in the
+domain of education cannot here be entered upon.</p>
+
+<p>In the volume last published of statistics of American
+libraries, that of 1897, great progress was shown in the five
+years since 1891. The record of libraries reported in
+1896 embraced 4,026 collections, being all which contained
+over 1,000 volumes each. The increase in volumes in the
+five years was a little over seven millions, the aggregate
+of the 4,026 libraries being 33,051,872 volumes. This increase
+was over 27 per cent. in only five years.</p>
+
+<p>If the good work so splendidly begun, in New England,
+New York, Pennsylvania, and some of the Western States,
+in establishing libraries through public taxation and private
+munificence, can only be extended in the Southern
+and Middle States, the century now about to dawn will
+witness an advance quite as remarkable as we have seen
+in the latter years of the century about to close.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="tsc">Footnotes:</p>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> MS. Records of the Virginia Company, in the Library of
+Congress.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_321" id="Pg_321"></a>[<a href="./images/321.png">321</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_16" id="CHAPTER_16"></a>CHAPTER 16.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Library Buildings and Furnishings.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>Proceeding now to the subject of library buildings, reading-rooms,
+and furnishings, it must be remarked at the
+outset that very few rules can be laid down which are of
+universal application. The architectural plans, exterior
+and interior, of such great institutions as the Library of
+Congress, or the Boston Public Library, with their costly
+marbles, splendid mural decorations, and electric book-serving
+machinery, afford no model for the library building
+in the country village. Where the government of a
+nation or a wealthy city has millions to devote for providing
+a magnificent book-palace for its library, the smaller
+cities or towns have only a few thousands. So much the
+more important is it, that a thoroughly well-considered
+plan for building should be marked out before beginning
+to build, that no dollars should be wasted, or costly alterations
+required, in order to fit the interior for all the uses
+of a library.</p>
+
+<p>The need of this caution will be abundantly evident, in
+the light of the unfit and inconvenient constructions seen
+in so many public libraries, all over the country. So general
+has been the want of carefully planned and well-executed
+structures for books, that it may fairly be said that
+mistakes have been the rule, and fit adaptation the exception.
+For twenty years past, at every meeting of the
+American Library Association, the reports upon library
+buildings have deplored the waste of money in well-meant
+edifices designed to accommodate the library service, but
+successful only in obstructing it. Even in so recent a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_322" id="Pg_322"></a>[<a href="./images/322.png">322</a>]</span>
+construction as the Boston Public Library building, so
+many defects and inconveniences were found after it was
+supposed to have been finished, that rooms had to be torn
+out and re-constructed on three floors, while the pneumatic
+tube system had been found so noisy as to be a public
+nuisance, and had to be replaced by a later improved construction.</p>
+
+<p>One leading cause for the mistakes which are so patent
+in our library buildings is that they are not planned by
+librarians but mainly by architects. The library authorities
+commonly take it for granted that the able architect
+is master of his profession, and entrust him with the whole
+design, leaving out of account the librarian, as a mere subordinate,
+entitled only to secondary consideration. The
+result is a plan which exhibits, in its prominent features,
+the architect's skill in effective pilasters, pillars, architraves,
+cornices, and balustrades, while the library apartments
+which these features ornament are planned, not for
+convenient and rapid book-service, but mainly for show.
+It is the interest of architects to magnify their profession:
+and as none of them has ever been, or ever will be a librarian,
+they cannot be expected to carry into effect unaided,
+what they have never learned; namely, the interior
+arrangements which will best meet the utilities of the library
+service. Here is where the librarian's practical experience,
+or his observation of the successes or failures in
+the reading-room and delivery service of other libraries,
+should imperatively be called in. Let him demonstrate to
+the governing board that he knows what is needed for
+prompt and economical administration, and they will heed
+his judgment, if they are reasonable men. While it belongs
+to the architect to plan, according to his own ideas,
+the outside of the building, the inside should be planned
+by the architect in direct concert with the librarian, in
+all save merely ornamental or finishing work.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_323" id="Pg_323"></a>[<a href="./images/323.png">323</a>]</span>We do not erect a building and then determine whether
+it is to be a school house or a church: it is planned from
+the start with strict reference to the utilities involved; and
+so should it always be with a library.</p>
+
+<p>In treating this subject, I shall not occupy space in outlining
+the proper scheme of building and interior arrangement
+for a great library, with its many distinct departments,
+for such institutions are the exceptions, while most
+libraries come within the rule of very moderate size, and
+comparatively inexpensive equipment. The first requisite
+for a public library, then, is a good location. It is important
+that this should be central, but it is equally important
+that the building should be isolated&mdash;that is, with proper
+open space on all sides, and not located in a block with
+other buildings. Many libraries have been destroyed or
+seriously damaged by fire originating in neighboring buildings,
+or in other apartments in the same building; while
+fires in separate library buildings have been extremely
+rare. It would be a wise provision to secure a library lot
+sufficiently large in area to admit of further additions to
+the building, both in the rear and at the side; and with
+slight addition to the cost, the walls and their supports may
+be so planned as to admit of this. Committees are seldom
+willing to incur the expense of an edifice large enough to
+provide for very prolonged growth of their collection; and
+the result is that the country is full of overcrowded libraries,
+without money to build, and prevented from expanding
+on the spot because no foresight was exercised in
+the original construction or land purchase, to provide for
+ready increase of space by widening out, and removing an
+outer wall so as to connect the old building with the new
+addition. If a library has 10,000 volumes, it would be
+very short-sighted policy to plan an edifice to contain less
+than 40,000, which it is likely to reach in from ten to forty
+years.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_324" id="Pg_324"></a>[<a href="./images/324.png">324</a>]</span>The next requisite to a central and sufficient site is that
+the location must be dry and airy. Any low site, especially
+in river towns, will be damp, and among the enemies of
+books, moisture holds a foremost place. Next, the site
+should afford light on all sides, and if necessary to place it
+near any thoroughfare, it should be set back so as to afford
+ample light and ventilation in front.</p>
+
+<p>It need hardly be said that every library building should
+be fire-proof, after the many costly lessons we have had of
+the burning of public libraries at home and abroad. The
+material for the outside walls may be brick or stone, according
+to taste or relative cost. Brick is good enough,
+and if of the best quality, and treated with stone trimmings,
+is capable of sufficiently ornate effects, and is quite
+as durable as any granite or marble. No temptation of
+cheapness should ever be allowed to introduce wood in any
+part of the construction: walls, floors, and roof should be
+only of brick, stone, iron, or slate. A wooden roof is nothing
+but a tinder-box that invites the flames.</p>
+
+<p>In general, two stories is a sufficient height for library
+buildings, except in those of the largest class, and the
+upper floors may be amply lighted by sky-lights. The
+side-lights can hardly be too numerous: yet I have seen library
+buildings running back from a street fifty to seventy-five
+feet, without a single window in either of the side
+walls. The result was to throw all the books on shelves
+into a gloomy shade for many hours of each day.</p>
+
+<p>The interior construction should be so managed as to
+effect the finding and delivery of books to readers with the
+greatest possible economy of time and space. No shelves
+should be placed higher than can be reached by hand without
+mounting upon any steps or ladders; <i>i. e.</i>, seven to
+seven and a half feet. The system of shelving should all
+be constructed of iron or steel, instead of surrounding the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_325" id="Pg_325"></a>[<a href="./images/325.png">325</a>]</span>
+books on three sides with combustible wood, as is done in
+most libraries. Shelves of oxidized metal will be found
+smooth enough to prevent any abrasion of bindings.
+Shelves should be easily adjustable to any height, to accommodate
+the various sizes of books.</p>
+
+<p>In calculating shelf capacity, one and a half inches thickness
+a volume is a fair average, so that each hundred volumes
+would require about thirteen feet of linear shelf
+measurement. The space between uprights, that is, the
+length of each shelf, should not exceed two and a half feet.
+All spaces between shelves should be 10&frac12; or 11 inches high,
+to accommodate large octavos indiscriminately with smaller
+sizes; and a base shelf for quartos and folios, at a proper
+height from the floor, will restrict the number of shelves
+to six in each tier.</p>
+
+<p>In the arrangement of the cases or book-stacks, the most
+economical method is to place book-cases of double face,
+not less than three feet apart, approached by aisles on
+either side, so as to afford free passage for two persons
+meeting or passing one another. The cases may be about
+ten feet each in length. There should be electric lights
+between all cases, to be turned on only when books are
+sought. The cases should be set at right angles to the
+wall, two or three feet from it, with the light from abundant
+windows coming in between them. The width of
+shelves may be from 16 to 18 inches in these double cases,
+thus giving about eight to nine inches depth to each side.
+No partition is required between the two sides.</p>
+
+<p>It should be stated that the light obtained from windows,
+when thrown more than twenty feet, among cases of
+books on shelves, becomes too feeble for effective use in
+finding books. This fact should be considered in advance,
+while plans of construction, lighting, and interior arrangement
+are being made. All experience has shown that too
+much light cannot be had in any public library.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_326" id="Pg_326"></a>[<a href="./images/326.png">326</a>]</span>Railings and stair-cases for the second or upper floors
+should be of perforated iron.</p>
+
+<p>The reading-room should be distinct from the book delivery
+or charging-room, to secure quiet for readers at all
+hours, avoiding the pressure, hurry and noise of conversation
+inevitable in a lending library or department. In
+the reading-room should be shelved a liberal supply of
+books of reference, and bibliographies, open without tickets
+to the readers. Next the central desk there should be
+shelves for the deposit of books reserved day by day for the
+use of readers. The library chairs, of whatever pattern
+may be preferred, should always combine the two requisites
+of strength and lightness. The floor should be covered
+with linoleum, or some similar floor covering, to deaden
+sound. Woolen carpets, those perennial breeders of dust,
+are an abomination.</p>
+
+<p>In a library reading-room of any considerable size, each
+reader should be provided with table or desk room, not flat
+but sloping at a moderate angle, and allowing about three
+feet of space for each reader. These appliances for study
+need not be single pieces of furniture, but made in sections
+to accommodate from three to six readers at each. About
+thirty inches from the floor is a proper height.</p>
+
+<p>For large dictionaries, atlases, or other bulky volumes,
+the adjustable revolving case, mounted on a pedestal,
+should be used.</p>
+
+<p>For moving any large number of volumes about the library,
+book-trucks or barrows, with noiseless rubber
+wheels, are required.</p>
+
+<p>Every library will need one or more catalogue cases to
+hold the alphabetical card catalogue. These are made
+with a maximum of skill by the Library Bureau, Boston.</p>
+
+<p>The location of the issue-counter or desk is of cardinal
+importance. It should be located near the centre of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_327" id="Pg_327"></a>[<a href="./images/327.png">327</a>]</span>
+system of book-cases, or near the entrance to the stack, so
+as to minimize the time consumed in collecting the books
+wanted. It should also have a full supply of light, and
+this may be secured by a location directly in front of a
+large side window. Readers are impatient of delay, and
+the farther the books are from the issue-counter the longer
+they will have to wait for them.</p>
+
+<p>Among modern designs for libraries, that of Dr. W. F.
+Poole, adapted for the Newberry Library, Chicago, is notable
+for dividing the library into many departments or separate
+rooms, the book shelves occupying one half the
+height of each, or 7&frac12; feet out of 15, the remaining space
+being occupied by windows. This construction, of course,
+does not furnish as compact storage for books as the stack
+system. It is claimed to possess the advantage of extraordinarily
+good light, and of aiding the researches of readers.
+But it has the disadvantage of requiring readers to
+visit widely separated rooms to pursue studies involving
+several subjects, and of mounting in elevators to reach
+some departments. A system which brings the books to
+the reader, instead of the readers travelling after the
+books, would appear to be more practically useful to the
+public, with whom time is of cardinal importance.</p>
+
+<p>In all libraries, there should be a receiving or packing
+room, where boxes and parcels of books are opened and
+books mended, collated, and prepared for the shelves.
+This room may well be in a dry and well lighted basement.
+Two small cloak-rooms for wraps will be needed, one for
+each sex. Two toilet rooms or lavatories should be provided.
+A room for the library directors or trustees, and
+one for the librarian, are essential in libraries of much extent.
+A janitor's room or sleeping quarters sometimes
+needs to be provided. A storage room for blanks, stationery,
+catalogues, etc., will be necessary in libraries of much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_328" id="Pg_328"></a>[<a href="./images/328.png">328</a>]</span>
+extent. A periodical room is sometimes provided, distinct
+from the reading-room or the delivery department. In
+this case, if several hundred periodicals are taken, an attendant
+should be always present to serve them to readers,
+from the shelves or cases where they should be kept in
+alphabetical order. Without this, and a ticket system to
+keep track of what are in use, no one can readily find what
+is needed, nor ascertain whether it is in a reader's hands
+when sought for. System and the alphabet alone will
+solve all difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>As to the space required for readers in a periodical
+room, it may be assumed that about five hundred square
+feet will accommodate twenty-five readers, and the same
+proportion for a larger number at one time. A room
+twenty-five by forty would seat fifty readers, while one
+twenty-five by twenty would accommodate twenty-five
+readers, with proper space for tables, &amp;c. The files for
+newspapers are referred to in another chapter on periodicals.</p>
+
+<p>In a library building, the heating and ventilation are of
+prime importance. Upon their proper regulation largely
+depends the health and consequently the efficiency of all
+employed, as well as the comfort of the reading public.
+There is no space to enter upon specific descriptions, for
+which the many conflicting systems, with experience of
+their practical working, should be examined. Suffice it to
+say in general, that a temperature not far below nor above
+70 degrees Fahrenheit should be aimed at; that the furnace,
+with its attendant nuisances of noise, dust, and odors,
+should be outside the library building&mdash;not under it; and
+that electric lighting alone should be used, gas being
+highly injurious to the welfare of books.</p>
+
+<p>In calculating the space required for books shelved as
+has been heretofore suggested, it may be approximately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_329" id="Pg_329"></a>[<a href="./images/329.png">329</a>]</span>
+stated that every one thousand volumes will require at least
+eighty to one hundred square feet of floor measurement.
+Thus, a library of 10,000 volumes would occupy an area of
+nearly one thousand square feet. But it is necessary to
+provide also for the continual growth of the collection.
+To do this, experience shows that in any flourishing public
+library, space should be reserved for three or four times
+the number of volumes in actual possession. If rooms are
+hired for the books, because of inability to build, the library
+should be so arranged as to leave each alternate
+shelf vacant for additions, or, in the more rapidly growing
+divisions, a still greater space. This will permit accessions
+to be shelved with their related books, without the trouble
+of frequently moving and re-arranging large divisions of
+the library. This latter is a very laborious process, and
+should be resorted to only under compulsion. The preventive
+remedy, of making sure of space in advance, by
+leaving a sufficiency of unoccupied shelves in every division
+of the library, is the true one.</p>
+
+<p>In some libraries, a separate reading-room for ladies is
+provided. Mr. W. F. Poole records that in Cincinnati
+such a room was opened at the instance of the library directors.
+The result was that the ladies made it a kind of
+social rendezvous, where they talked over society matters,
+and exhibited the bargains made in their shopping excursions.
+Ladies who came to study preferred the general
+reading room, where they found every comfort among well
+conducted gentlemen, and the "ladies' reading-room" was
+abandoned, as not fulfilling its object. The same experiment
+in the Chicago Public Library had the same result.</p>
+
+<p>Some libraries in the larger towns provide a special reading-room
+for children; and this accomplishes a two-fold
+object, namely, to keep the public reading-room free from
+flocks of little people in pursuit of books under difficulties,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_330" id="Pg_330"></a>[<a href="./images/330.png">330</a>]</span>
+and to furnish the boys and girls with accommodations of
+their own. It may be suggested as an objection, that the
+dividing line as to age is difficult to be drawn: but let each
+applicant be questioned, and if falling below twelve, or
+fifteen, or whatever the age limit may be, directed to the
+juvenile reading-room, and there need be no trouble. Of
+course there will be some quite young readers who are
+gifted with intelligence beyond their years, and who may
+dislike to be reckoned as children; but library rules are
+not made to suit exceptions, but for the average; and as no
+book need be refused to any applicant in the juvenile department,
+no just cause of complaint can arise.</p>
+
+<p>In some libraries, and those usually of the larger size, an
+art room is provided, where students of works on painting,
+sculpture, and the decorative arts can go, and have about
+them whatever treasures the library may contain in that
+attractive field. The advantages of this provision are,
+first, to save the necessity of handling and carrying so
+many heavy volumes of galleries of art and illustrated
+books to the general reading-room, and back again, and
+secondly, to enable those in charge of the art department
+to exercise more strict supervision in enforcing careful and
+cleanly treatment of the finest books in the library, than
+can be maintained in the miscellaneous crowd of readers
+in the main reading-room. The objections to it concern
+the general want of room to set apart for this purpose, and
+the desirability of concentrating the use of books in one
+main hall or reading-room. Circumstances and experience
+should determine the question for each library.</p>
+
+<p>Some public libraries, and especially those constructed
+in recent years, are provided with a lecture-hall, or a large
+room for public meetings, concerts, or occasionally, even
+an opera-house, in the same building with the library.
+There are some excellent arguments in favor of this; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_331" id="Pg_331"></a>[<a href="./images/331.png">331</a>]</span>
+especially where a public benefactor donates to a city a
+building which combines both uses. The building given
+by Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the Public Library of Washington
+will be provided with a small hall suited to meetings,
+&amp;c. But in all cases, such a public hall should be
+so isolated from the library reading-room as not to annoy
+readers, to whom quiet is essential. This end can be effected
+by having the intervening walls and floors so constructed
+as completely to deaden sound. A wholly distinct
+entrance should also be provided, not communicating
+with the doors and passages leading to the library.</p>
+
+<p>Comparisons are sometimes made as to the relative cost
+of library buildings to the number of volumes they are designed
+to accommodate; but such estimates are misleading.
+The cost of an edifice in which architectural beauty and
+interior decoration concur to make it a permanent ornament
+to a city or town, need not be charged up at so much
+per volume. Buildings for libraries have cost all the way
+from twenty-five cents up to $4. for each volume stored.
+The Library of Congress, which cost six million dollars, and
+will ultimately accommodate 4,500,000 volumes, cost about
+$1.36 per volume. But it contains besides books, some
+half a million musical compositions, works of graphic art,
+maps and charts, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The comparative cost of some library buildings erected
+in recent years, with ultimate capacity of each, may be of
+interest. Kansas City Public Library, 132<span class="lf">+</span>144, 125,000
+vols., $200,000. Newark, N. J. Free Library, 138<span class="lf">+</span>216,
+400,000 vols., $188,000. Forbes Library, Northampton,
+Mass. (granite), 107<span class="lf">+</span>137, 250,000 vols., $134,000. Fall
+River, Ms. Library, 80<span class="lf">+</span>130, 250,000 vols., $100,000.
+Peoria, Ill. Public Library (brick), 76<span class="lf">+</span>135, $70,000. Smiley
+Memorial Library, Redlands, Cal. (brick), 96<span class="lf">+</span>100,
+$50,000. Reuben Hoar Library, Littleton, Mass. (brick),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_332" id="Pg_332"></a>[<a href="./images/332.png">332</a>]</span>
+50<span class="lf">+</span>57, 25,000 vols., $25,000. Rogers Memorial Library,
+Southworth, N. Y. 70<span class="lf">+</span>100, 20,000 vols., $20,000. Belfast
+(Me.) Free Library (granite), 27<span class="lf">+</span>54, $10,000. Gail-Borden
+Public Library, Elgin, Ill. (brick), 28<span class="lf">+</span>52, $9,000.
+Warwick, Mass. Public Library (wood), 45<span class="lf">+</span>60, 5,000 vols.,
+$5,000.</p>
+
+<p>The largely increased number of public library buildings
+erected in recent years is a most cheering sign of the
+times. Since 1895, eleven extensive new library buildings
+have been opened: namely, the Library of Congress, the
+Boston Public Library, the Pratt Institute Library, Brooklyn,
+the Columbia University Library, New York, the
+Princeton, N. J. University Library, the Hart Memorial
+Library, of Troy, N. Y., the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh,
+the Chicago Public Library, the Peoria, Ill. Public Library,
+the Kansas City, Mo. Public Library, and the
+Omaha, Neb. Public Library.</p>
+
+<p>And there are provided for eight more public library
+buildings, costing more than $100,000 each; namely, the
+Providence, R. I. Public Library, the Lynn, Mass. Public
+Library, the Fall River, Mass. Public Library, the Newark,
+N. J. Free Public Library, the Milwaukee, Wis. Public Library
+and Museum, the Wisconsin State Historical Society
+Library, Madison, the New York Public Library, and the
+Jersey City Public Library.</p>
+
+<p>To these will be added within the year 1900, as is confidently
+expected, the Washington City Public Library, the
+gift of Andrew Carnegie, to cost $300,000.</p>
+
+<p>No philanthropist can ever find a nobler object for his
+fortune, or a more enduring monument to his memory,
+than the founding of a free public library. The year 1899
+has witnessed a new gift by Mr. Carnegie of a one hundred
+thousand dollar library to Atlanta, the Capital of Georgia,
+on condition that the city will provide a site, and $5,000<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_333" id="Pg_333"></a>[<a href="./images/333.png">333</a>]</span>
+a year for the maintenance of the library. Cities in the
+east are emulating one another in providing public library
+buildings of greater or less cost. If the town library cannot
+have magnificence, it need not have meanness. A competition
+among architects selected to submit plans is becoming
+the favorite method of preparing to build. Five
+of the more extensive libraries have secured competitive
+plans of late from which to select&mdash;namely, the New York
+Public Library, the Jersey City Public Library, the Newark
+Free Public Library, the Lynn Public Library, and the
+Phoebe Hearst building for the University of California,
+which is to be planned for a library of 750,000 volumes.
+It is gratifying to add that in several recent provisions
+made for erecting large and important structures, the librarian
+was made a member of the building committee&mdash;<i>i. e.</i>,
+in the New York Public Library, the Newark Free
+Public Library, and the Lynn Public Library.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_17" id="CHAPTER_17"></a>CHAPTER 17.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Library Managers or Trustees.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>We now come to consider the management of libraries
+as entrusted to boards of directors, trustees or library managers.
+These relations have a most intimate bearing upon
+the foundation, the progress and the consequent success of
+any library. Where a liberal intelligence and a hearty
+co&ouml;peration are found in those constituting the library
+board, the affairs of the institution will be managed with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_334" id="Pg_334"></a>[<a href="./images/334.png">334</a>]</span>
+the best results. Where a narrow-minded and dictatorial
+spirit is manifested, even by a portion of those supervising
+a public library, it will require a large endowment both of
+patience and of tact in the librarian, to accomplish those
+aims which involve the highest usefulness.</p>
+
+<p>Boards of library trustees vary in number, usually from
+three to nine or more. A board of three or five is found in
+practice more active and efficient than a larger number.
+The zeal and responsibility felt is apt to diminish in direct
+proportion to the increased numbers of the board. An
+odd number is preferable, to avoid an equal division of
+opinion upon any question to be determined.</p>
+
+<p>In town or city libraries, the mode of selection of library
+trustees varies much. Sometimes the mayor appoints the
+library board, sometimes they are chosen by the city council,
+and sometimes elected by the people, at the annual
+selection of school or municipal officers. The term of service
+(most usually three years) should be so arranged that
+retirement of any members should always leave two at
+least who have had experience on the board. Library
+trustees serve without salary, the high honor of so serving
+the public counting for much.</p>
+
+<p>The librarian is often made secretary of the trustees, and
+then he keeps the record of their transactions. He should
+never be made treasurer of the library funds, which would
+involve labor and responsibility incompatible with the
+manifold duties of the superintendent of a library. In case
+of a library supported by municipal taxation, the town
+treasurer may well serve as library treasurer also, or the
+trustees can choose one from their own board. The librarian,
+however, should be empowered to collect book fines
+or other dues, to be deposited with the treasurer at regular
+intervals, and he should have a small fund at disposal for
+such petty library expenses as constantly arise. All bills<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_335" id="Pg_335"></a>[<a href="./images/335.png">335</a>]</span>
+for books and other purchases, and all salaries of persons
+employed in the library should be paid by the treasurer.</p>
+
+<p>The meetings of the trustees should be attended by the
+librarian, who must always be ready to supply all information
+as to the workings of the library, the needs for books,
+etc. Frequently the trustees divide up the business before
+them, appointing sub-committees on book selections,
+on library finances, on administration, furnishings, &amp;c.,
+with a view to prompt action.</p>
+
+<p>If a library receives endowments, money gifts or legacies,
+they are held and administered by the trustees as a
+body corporate, the same as the funds annually appropriated
+for library maintenance and increase. Their annual
+report to the council, or municipal authorities, should exhibit
+the amount of money received from all sources in detail,
+and the amount expended for all purposes, in detail;
+also, the number of books purchased in the year, the aggregate
+of volumes in the library, the number of readers,
+and other facts of general interest.</p>
+
+<p>All accounts against the library are first audited by the
+proper sub-committee, and payment ordered by the full
+board, by order on the treasurer. The accounts for all
+these expenditures should be kept by the treasurer, who
+should inform the librarian periodically as to balances.</p>
+
+<p>The selection of books for a public library is a delicate
+and responsible duty, involving wider literary and scientific
+knowledge than falls to the lot of most trustees of
+libraries. There are sometimes specially qualified professional
+men or widely read scholars on such boards, whose
+services in recruiting the library are of great value. More
+frequently there are one or more men with hobbies, who
+would spend the library funds much too freely upon a
+class of books of no general interest. Thus, one trustee
+who plays golf may urge the purchase of all the various<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_336" id="Pg_336"></a>[<a href="./images/336.png">336</a>]</span>
+books upon that game, when one or at most two of the best
+should supply all needful demands. Another may want
+to add to the library about all the published books on the
+horse; another, who is a physician, may recommend adding
+a lot of medical books to the collection, utterly useless
+to the general reader. Beware of the man who has a
+hobby, either as librarian or as library trustee; he will aim
+to expend too much money on books which suit his own
+taste, but which have little general utility. Two mischiefs
+result from such a course: the library gets books
+which very few people read, and its funds are diverted
+from buying many books that may be of prime importance.</p>
+
+<p>Trustees, although usually, (at least the majority of
+them) persons of culture and intelligence, cannot be expected
+to be bibliographers, nor to be familiar with the
+great range of new books that continually pour from the
+press. They have their own business or profession to engage
+them, and are commonly far too busy to study catalogues,
+or to follow the journals of the publishing world.
+So these busy men, charged with the oversight of the library
+interests, call to their aid an expert, and that expert
+is the librarian. It is his interest and his business
+to know far more than they do both of what the library
+already contains, and what it most needs. It is his to
+peruse the critical journals and reviews, as well as the literary
+notices of the select daily press, and to be prepared
+to recommend what works to purchase. He must always
+accompany his lists of wants with the prices, or at least the
+approximate cost of each, and the aggregate amount. If
+the trustees or book committee think the sum too large to
+be voted at any one time from the fund at their disposal,
+the librarian must know what can best be postponed, as
+well as what is most indispensable for the immediate wants
+of the library. If they object to any works on the list, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_337" id="Pg_337"></a>[<a href="./images/337.png">337</a>]</span>
+should be prepared to explain the quality and character of
+those called in question, and why the library, in his judgment,
+should possess them. If the list is largely cut down,
+and he considers himself hardly used, he should meet the
+disappointment with entire good humor, and try again
+when the members of the committee are in better mood, or
+funds in better supply.</p>
+
+<p>It is very customary for boards of library officers to assume
+the charge of the administration so far as regards
+the library staff, and to make appointments, promotions
+or removals at their own pleasure. In most libraries, however,
+this power is exercised mainly on the advice or selection
+of the librarian, his action being confirmed when
+there is no serious objection. In still other cases, the librarian
+is left wholly free to choose the assistants. This
+is perhaps the course most likely to secure efficient service,
+since his judgment, if he is a person of tried capacity and
+mature experience, will lead to the selection of the fittest
+candidates, for the work which he alone thoroughly knows.
+No library trustee can put himself fully in the place of a
+librarian, and see for himself the multitude of occasions
+arising in the daily work of the library, where promptness,
+tact, and wide knowledge of books will make a success, and
+the want of any of these qualities a failure. Still less can
+he judge the competency or incompetency of one who is
+to be employed in the difficult and exact work of cataloguing
+books. Besides, there is always the hazard that trustees,
+or some of them, may have personal favorites or relatives
+to prefer, and will use their influence to secure the
+appointment or promotion of utterly uninstructed persons,
+in place of such candidates as are known to the librarian
+to be best qualified. In no case should any person be employed
+without full examination as to fitness for library
+work, conducted either by the librarian, or by a committee<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_338" id="Pg_338"></a>[<a href="./images/338.png">338</a>]</span>
+of which the librarian is a member or chief examiner. A
+probationary trial should also follow before final appointment.</p>
+
+<p>The power of patronage, if unchecked by this safeguard,
+will result in filling any library with incompetents, to the
+serious detriment of the service on which its usefulness depends.
+The librarian cannot keep a training school for
+inexperts: he has no time for this, and he indispensably
+needs and should have assistants who are competent to
+their duties, from their first entrance upon them. As he
+is held responsible for all results, in the conduct of the
+library, both by the trustees and by the public, he should
+have the power, or at least the approximate power, to select
+the means by which those results are to be attained.</p>
+
+<p>In the Boston Public Library, all appointments are
+made by the trustees upon nomination by the librarian,
+after an examination somewhat similar to that of the civil
+service, but by a board of library experts. In the British
+Museum Library, the selection and promotion of members
+of the staff are passed upon by the trustees, having the
+recommendation of the principal librarian before them.
+In the Library of Congress, appointments are made directly
+by the librarian after a probationary trial, with previous
+examination as to education, former experience or employments,
+attainments, and fitness for library service.</p>
+
+<p>In smaller libraries, both in this country and abroad, a
+great diversity of usage prevails. Instances are rare in
+which the librarian has the uncontrolled power of appointment,
+promotion and removal. The requirement of examinations
+to test the fitness of candidates is extending,
+and since the establishment of five or six permanent
+schools of library science in the United States, with their
+graduates well equipped for library work, there is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_339" id="Pg_339"></a>[<a href="./images/339.png">339</a>]</span>
+longer any excuse for putting novices in charge of libraries&mdash;institutions
+where wide knowledge and thorough training
+are more indispensable than in any other profession
+whatever.</p>
+
+<p>In State libraries, no uniformity prevails as to control.
+In some States, the governor has the appointment of the
+librarian, while in others, he is an elective officer, the State
+Legislature being the electors. As governors rarely continue
+in office longer than two or three years, the tenure
+of a librarian under them is precarious, and a most valuable
+officer may at any time be superseded by another who
+would have to learn all that the other knows. The result
+is rarely favorable to the efficient administration of the
+library. In a business absolutely demanding the very
+largest compass of literary and scientific knowledge, frequent
+rotation in office is clearly out of place. In a public
+or State library, every added year of experience adds incalculably
+to the value of a librarian's services, provided
+he is of active habits, and full of zeal to make his acquired
+knowledge constantly useful to those who use the library.
+Partizan politics, with their frequent changes, if suffered
+to displace a tried librarian and staff, will be sure to defeat
+the highest usefulness of any library. What can a political
+appointee, a man totally without either library training
+or library experience, do with the tools of which he has
+never learned the use? It will take him years to learn,
+and by the time he has learned, some other political party
+coming uppermost will probably displace him, to make
+room for another novice, on the principle that "to the
+victors belong the spoils" of office. Meanwhile, "the hungry
+sheep look up and are not fed," as Milton sings&mdash;that
+is, readers are deprived of expert and intelligent guidance.</p>
+
+<p>This bane of political jobbery has not been confined to
+the libraries of States, but has invaded the management<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_340" id="Pg_340"></a>[<a href="./images/340.png">340</a>]</span>
+of many city and town libraries also. We have yet to
+learn of any benefit resulting to those who use the libraries.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of a few of the State libraries, trustees or
+library commissioners or boards of control have been provided
+by law, but in others, a joint library committee, composed
+of members of both houses of the Legislature, has
+charge of the library interests. This is also the case in
+the Library of Congress at Washington, where three Senators
+and three Representatives constitute the Joint Committee
+of both Houses of Congress on the Library. The
+membership of this committee, as of all others in Congress,
+is subject to change biennially. It has been proposed to
+secure a more permanent and careful supervision of this
+National Library by adding to the Joint Committee of
+Congress three or more trustees of eminent qualifications,
+elected by Congress, as the Regents of the Smithsonian
+Institution now are, for a longer term of years. The trustees
+of the British Museum are appointed by the Crown,
+their tenure of office being for life.</p>
+
+<p>In several States the librarian is appointed by the supreme
+court, as the State libraries are composed more
+largely of law books, than of miscellaneous literature, and
+special knowledge of case law, and the principles of jurisprudence,
+is demanded of the librarian.</p>
+
+<p>Where the trustees of a public library are elected by the
+people, they have in their own hands the power of choosing
+men who are far above party considerations, and they
+should exercise it. In no department of life is the maxim&mdash;"the
+tools to the hands that can use them," more important
+than in the case of librarians and boards of managers
+of libraries. The value of skilled labor over the unskilled
+is everywhere recognized in the business of the
+world, by more certain employment and larger compensation:
+and why should it not be so in libraries?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_341" id="Pg_341"></a>[<a href="./images/341.png">341</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_18" id="CHAPTER_18"></a>CHAPTER 18.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Library Regulations.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>No feature in library administration is more important
+than the regulations under which the service of the library
+is conducted. Upon their propriety and regular enforcement
+depends very much of the utility of the collection.</p>
+
+<p>Rules are of two kinds, those which concern the librarian
+and assistants, and those which concern the public
+resorting to the library. Of the first class are the regulations
+as to hours, division of labor, leaves or vacations of
+employees, &amp;c. The larger the library, and consequently
+the force employed, the more important is a careful adjustment
+of relative duties, and of the times and seasons to be
+devoted to them. The assignment of work to the various
+assistants will naturally depend upon their respective qualifications.
+Those who know Latin, and two or more of the
+modern languages, would probably be employed upon the
+catalogue. Those who are familiar with the range of
+books published, in literature and science, will be best
+qualified for the service of the reading-room, which involves
+the supply of books and information. In direct
+proportion to the breadth of information possessed by any
+one, will be his usefulness in promptly supplying the wants
+of readers. Nothing is so satisfactory to students in libraries,
+or to the casual seekers of information of any kind, as
+to find their wants immediately supplied. The reader
+whom an intelligent librarian or assistant answers at once
+is grateful to the whole establishment; while the reader
+who is required to wait ten to twenty minutes for what he
+wants, becomes impatient and sometimes querulous, or
+leaves the library unsatisfied.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_342" id="Pg_342"></a>[<a href="./images/342.png">342</a>]</span>One rule of service at the library desk or counter should
+be that every assistant there employed should deem it his
+duty to aid immediately any one who is waiting, no matter
+what other concerns may engage his attention. In other
+words, the one primary rule of a public library should be
+that the service of the public is always paramount. All
+other considerations should be subordinate to that.</p>
+
+<p>It is desirable that assistants in every library should
+learn all departments of library work, cataloguing, supplying
+books and information, preparing books for the
+shelves, etc. This will enable each assistant to take the
+place of another in case of absence, a most important point.
+It will also help to qualify the more expert for promotion.</p>
+
+<p>A second rule for internal <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'adminstration'">administration</ins> in any library
+should be that all books are to be distributed, or replaced
+upon their shelves, daily. If this is not systematically
+done, the library will tend to fall into chaos. And even a
+small number of volumes not in their places will embarrass
+the attendants seeking them, and often deprive readers of
+their use&mdash;a thing to be always sedulously avoided.</p>
+
+<p>In the Library of Congress, the replacement of books
+upon the shelves is carried out much more frequently than
+once daily. As fast as books come in at the central desk
+by the returns of readers, they are sent back through the
+book-carriers, to the proper floors, where the outside label-numbers
+indicate that they belong, and replaced by the
+attendant there on their proper shelves. These mechanical
+book-carriers run all day, by electric power, supplied
+by a dynamo in the basement, and, with their endless chain
+and attached boxes constantly revolving, they furnish a
+near approach to perpetual motion. Thus I have seen a
+set of Macaulay's England, called for by ticket from the
+reading-room, arrive in three minutes from the outlying
+book-repository or iron stack, several hundreds of feet dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_343" id="Pg_343"></a>[<a href="./images/343.png">343</a>]</span>tant
+on an upper floor, placed on the reader's table, referred
+to, and returned at once, then placed in the book-carrier
+by the desk attendant, received back on its proper
+floor, and distributed to its own shelf by the attendant
+there, all within half an hour after the reader's application.
+Another rule to be observed by the reading-room attendants
+is to examine all call-slips, or readers' tickets, remaining
+uncalled for at the close of each day's business, and see
+if the books on them are present in the library. This precaution
+is demanded by the security of the collection, as
+well as by the good order and arrangement of the library.
+Neglect of it may lead to losses or misplacements, which
+might be prevented by careful and unremitting observance
+of this rule.</p>
+
+<p>Another rule of eminent propriety is that librarians or
+assistants are not to read newspapers during library hours.
+When there happen to be no readers waiting to be helped,
+the time should be constantly occupied with other library
+work. There is no library large enough to be worthy of
+the name, that does not have arrears of work incessantly
+waiting to be done. And while this is the case, no library
+time should be wasted upon periodicals, which should be
+perused only outside of library hours. If one person employed
+in a library reads the newspaper or magazine, the
+bad example is likely to be followed by others. Thus serious
+inattention to the wants of readers, as well as neglect
+of library work postponed, will be sure to follow.</p>
+
+<p>A fourth rule, resting upon the same reason, should prevent
+any long sustained gossip or conversation during library
+hours. That time belongs explicitly to the public
+or to the work of the library. The rule of silence which
+is enforced upon the public in the interest of readers
+should not be broken by the library managers themselves.
+Such brief question and answer as emergency or the need<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_344" id="Pg_344"></a>[<a href="./images/344.png">344</a>]</span>ful
+business of the library requires should be conducted in
+a low tone, and soon ended. Library administration is a
+business, and must be conducted in a business way. No
+library can properly be turned into a place of conversation.</p>
+
+<p>All differences or disputes between attendants as to the
+work to be done by each, or methods, or any other question
+leading to dissension, should be promptly and decisively
+settled by the librarian, and of course cheerfully submitted
+to by all. Good order and discipline require that there
+should be only one final authority in any library. Controversies
+are not only unseemly in themselves, but they
+are time-consuming, and are liable to be overheard by
+readers, to the prejudice of those who engage in them.</p>
+
+<p>Another rule to be observed is to examine all books returned,
+as carefully as a glance through the volume will
+permit, to detect any missing or started leaves, or injury
+to bindings. No volume bearing marks of dilapidation of
+any kind should be permitted to go back to the shelves, or
+be given to readers, but placed in a bindery reserve for
+needful repairs.</p>
+
+<p>It should hardly be necessary to say that all those connected
+with a public library should be carefully observant
+of hours, and be always in their places, unless excused.
+The discipline of every library should be firm in this respect,
+and dilatory or tardy assistants brought to regard
+the rule of prompt and regular service. "No absence without
+leave" should be mentally posted in the consciousness
+and the conscience of every one.</p>
+
+<p>Another rule should limit the time for mid-day refreshment,
+and so arrange it that the various persons employed
+go at different hours. As to time employed, half-an-hour
+for lunch, as allowed in the Washington departments, is
+long enough in any library.</p>
+
+<p>Furloughs or vacations should be regulated to suit the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_345" id="Pg_345"></a>[<a href="./images/345.png">345</a>]</span>
+library service, and not allow several to be absent at the
+same time. As to length of vacation time, few libraries
+can afford the very liberal fashion of twelve months wages
+for eleven months work, as prevalent in the Washington
+Departments. The average vacation time of business
+houses&mdash;about two weeks&mdash;more nearly corresponds to that
+allowed in the smaller public libraries. Out of 173 libraries
+reporting in 1893, 61 allowed four weeks or more vacation,
+27 three weeks, 54 two weeks, and 31 none. But in
+cases of actual illness, the rule of liberality should be followed,
+and no deduction of wages should follow temporary
+disability.</p>
+
+<p>Where many library attendants are employed, all should
+be required to enter on a daily record sheet or book, the
+hour of beginning work. Then the rule of no absence
+without special leave should be enforced as to all during
+the day.</p>
+
+<p>We now come to such rules of library administration
+as concern the readers, or the public. The rule of silence,
+or total abstinence from loud talking, should be laid down
+and enforced. This is essential for the protection of every
+reader from annoyance or interruption in his pursuits.
+The rule should be printed on all readers' tickets, and it is
+well also to post the word <span class="smcap">silence</span>, in large letters, in two
+or more conspicuous places in the reading-room. This
+will give a continual reminder to all of what is expected,
+and will usually prevent any loud conversation. While
+absolute silence is impossible in any public library, the inquiries
+and answers at the desk can always be made in a
+low and even tone, which need attract no attention from
+any readers, if removed only a few feet distant. As there
+are always persons among readers who will talk, notwithstanding
+rules, they should be checked by a courteous reminder
+from the librarian, rather than from any subor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_346" id="Pg_346"></a>[<a href="./images/346.png">346</a>]</span>dinate.
+This&mdash;for the obvious reason that admonition
+from the highest authority carries the greatest weight.</p>
+
+<p>Another rule, which should always be printed on the
+call-slips, or readers' tickets, is the requirement to return
+books and receive back their tickets always before leaving
+the library. This duty is very commonly neglected, from
+the utter carelessness of many readers, who do not realize
+that signing their ticket for any book holds them responsible
+for it until it is returned. Many are unwilling to
+spend a moment's time in waiting for a ticket to be returned
+to them. Many will leave their books on tables or
+seats where they were reading, and go away without reclaiming
+their receipts. While complete observance of
+this rule is of course hopeless of attainment in a country
+where free and easy manners prevail, every librarian should
+endeavor to secure at least an approximate compliance with
+a rule adopted alike for the security and good order of the
+library, and the efficient service of the reader.</p>
+
+<p>All readers should be privileged to reserve books from
+day to day which they have not completed the use of, and
+instructed always to give notice of such reservation before
+leaving the library. This saves much time, both to the
+reader and to the librarian in sending repeatedly for books
+put away needlessly.</p>
+
+<p>In a circulating library, a fixed rule limiting the time
+for which a book may be kept, is essential. This may be
+from three days to two weeks, according to the demand
+for the book, but it should not exceed the latter period.
+Still, a renewal term may be conceded, provided the book
+is not otherwise called for. A small fine of so much a day
+for each volume kept out beyond the time prescribed by
+the rule, will often secure prompt return, and is the usage
+in most libraries where books are lent out. In the Boston
+Public Library no renewals are allowed. A rule requiring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_347" id="Pg_347"></a>[<a href="./images/347.png">347</a>]</span>
+the replacement or repair of books damaged while in the
+hands of a reader should be printed and enforced. It may
+properly be waived where the damage is slight or unavoidable.</p>
+
+<p>In public circulating libraries, a rule of registration is
+required, and in some libraries of reference also; but in the
+Library of Congress all readers over sixteen are admitted
+without any formality or registration whatever.</p>
+
+<p>In popular libraries, the need of a registry list of those
+entitled to borrow books, is obvious, to prevent the issue
+to improper or unauthorized persons; as, for example,
+residents of another town, or persons under the prescribed
+age of admission to library privileges. A printed library
+card should be issued to each person privileged to draw
+books; corresponding in number to the page or index-card
+of the library record. Each card should bear the full
+name and address of the applicant, and be signed with an
+obligation to obey the rules of the library. On this card
+all books drawn may be entered, always with month and
+day date, and credited with date of return, the parallel entries
+being at the same time made in the library charging
+record.</p>
+
+<p>Library cards of registration should be issued for a limited
+period, say twelve months, in order to bring all persons
+to a systematic review of their privilege, and should
+be renewed annually, so long as the holder is entitled to
+registration. No books should be issued except to those
+presenting registration cards, together with a call-slip or
+ticket for the book wanted.</p>
+
+<p>Another rule should fix a limit to the number of volumes
+to be drawn by any reader. Two volumes out at any
+one time would be a fair limit. If made more to all readers,
+there is likely to be sometimes a scarcity of books to
+be drawn upon; and if a few readers are permitted to draw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_348" id="Pg_348"></a>[<a href="./images/348.png">348</a>]</span>
+more than others, the charge of undue favoritism will be
+justified.</p>
+
+<p>Another rule should be that any incivility or neglect on
+the part of any library attendant should be reported to
+the librarian. In such cases, the attendant should always
+be heard, before any admonition or censure is bestowed.</p>
+
+<p>An almost necessary rule in most libraries is that no
+book should be taken from the shelves by any person not
+employed in the library. The exceptions are of course,
+the books provided expressly for the free and open reference
+of the readers.</p>
+
+<p>Another essential rule is that no writing or marks may
+be made in any library book or periodical; nor is any turning
+down of leaves permitted. A printed warning is important
+to the effect that any cutting or defacing of library
+books or periodicals is a penal offense, and will be prosecuted
+according to law.</p>
+
+<p>The regulations for admission to library privileges are
+important. In this country the age limitation is more
+liberal than in Europe. The Boston Public Library, for
+example, is free to all persons over twelve years of age.
+In the Library of Congress, the age limit is sixteen years
+or upward, to entitle one to the privileges of a reader.
+In the Astor Library, none are admitted under nineteen,
+and in the British Museum Library none below twenty-one
+years.</p>
+
+<p>The hours during which the library is open should be
+printed as part of the regulations.</p>
+
+<p>All the library rules should be printed and furnished to
+the public. The most essential of them, if carefully expressed
+in few words, can be grouped in a single small
+sheet, of 16mo. size or less, and pasted in the inside cover
+of every book belonging to the library. Better still, (and
+it will save expense in printing) let the few simple rules, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_349" id="Pg_349"></a>[<a href="./images/349.png">349</a>]</span>
+small but legible type, form a part of the book plate, or library
+label, which goes on the left-hand inner cover of
+each volume. Thus every reader will have before him, in
+daily prominence, the regulations which he is to observe,
+and no excuse can be pleaded of ignorance of the rules.</p>
+
+<p>As no law is ever long respected unless it is enforced, so
+no regulations are likely to be observed unless adhered to
+in every library. Rules are a most essential part of library
+administration, and it should be a primary object of every
+librarian or assistant to see that they are observed by all.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_19" id="CHAPTER_19"></a>CHAPTER 19.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Library Reports and Advertising.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>We now come to consider the annual reports of librarians.
+These should be made to the trustees or board of
+library control, by whatever name it may be known, and
+should be addressed to the chairman, as the organ of the
+board. In the preparation of such reports, two conditions
+are equally essential&mdash;conciseness and comprehensiveness.
+Every item in the administration, frequentation, and increase
+of the library should be separately treated, but each
+should be condensed into the smallest compass consistent
+with clear statement. Very long reports are costly to publish,
+and moreover, have small chance of being read. In
+fact, the wide perusal of any report is in direct proportion
+to its brevity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_350" id="Pg_350"></a>[<a href="./images/350.png">350</a>]</span>This being premised, let us see what topics the librarian's
+report should deal with.</p>
+
+<p>1. The progress of the library during the year must be
+viewed as most important. A statistical statement of accessions,
+giving volumes of books, and number of pamphlets
+separately, added during the year, should be followed
+by a statement of the aggregate of volumes and pamphlets
+in the collection. This is ascertained by actual count of
+the books upon the shelves, adding the number of volumes
+charged out, or in the bindery, or in readers' hands at the
+time of the enumeration. This count is far from a difficult
+or time-consuming affair, as there is a short-hand
+method of counting by which one person can easily arrive
+at the aggregate of a library of 100,000 volumes, in a single
+day of eight to ten hours. This is done by counting
+by twos or threes the rows of books as they stand
+on the shelves, passing the finger rapidly along the backs,
+from left to right and from top to bottom of the shelves.
+As fast as one hundred volumes are counted, simply write
+down a figure one; then, at the end of the second hundred,
+a figure two, and so on, always jotting down one figure the
+more for each hundred books counted. The last figure in
+the counter's memorandum will represent the number of
+hundreds of volumes the library contains. Thus, if the
+last figure is 92, the library has just 9,200 volumes. This
+rapid, and at the same time accurate method, by which any
+one of average quickness can easily count two hundred
+volumes a minute, saves all counting up by tallies of five
+or ten, and also all slow additions of figures, since one
+figure at the end multiplied by one hundred, expresses the
+whole.</p>
+
+<p>2. Any specially noteworthy additions to the library
+should be briefly specified.</p>
+
+<p>3. A list of donors of books during the year, with num<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_351" id="Pg_351"></a>[<a href="./images/351.png">351</a>]</span>ber
+of volumes given by each, should form part of the report.
+This may properly come at the end as an appendix.</p>
+
+<p>4. A brief of the money income of the year, with sources
+whence derived, and of all expenditures, for books, salaries,
+contingent expenses, etc., should form a part of the report,
+unless reported separately by a treasurer of the library
+funds.</p>
+
+<p>5. The statistics of a librarian's report, if of a lending
+library, should give the aggregate number of volumes circulated
+during the year, also the number of borrowers recorded
+who have used and who have not used the privilege
+of borrowing. The number of volumes used by readers in
+the reference or reading-room department should be given,
+as well as the aggregate of readers. It is usual in some
+library reports to classify the books used by readers, as, so
+many in history, poetry, travels, natural science, etc., but
+this involves labor and time quite out of proportion to its
+utility. Still, a comparative statement of the aggregate
+volumes of fiction read or drawn out, as against all other
+books, may be highly useful as an object lesson, if embodied
+in the library report.</p>
+
+<p>6. A statement of the actual condition of the library, as
+to books, shelving accommodations, furniture, etc., with
+any needful suggestions for improvement, should be included
+in the annual report.</p>
+
+<p>7. A well-considered suggestion of the value of contributions
+to the library in books or funds to enrich the collection,
+should not be overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>8. The librarian should not forget a word of praise for
+his assistants, in the great and useful work of carrying on
+the library. This will tend to excite added zeal to excel,
+when the subordinates feel that their services are appreciated
+by their head, as well as by the public.</p>
+
+<p>The preparation of an annual report affords some test<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_352" id="Pg_352"></a>[<a href="./images/352.png">352</a>]</span>
+of the librarian's skill and judgment. It should aim at
+plain and careful statement, and all rhetoric should be dispensed
+with. Divided into proper heads, a condensed
+statement of facts or suggestions under each should be
+made, and all repetition avoided.</p>
+
+<p>Such a library report should never fail to set forth the
+great benefit to the community which a free use of its
+treasures implies, while urging the importance of building
+up the collection, through liberal gifts of books, periodicals,
+or money, thus enabling it to answer the wants
+of readers more fully, year by year. It will sometimes be
+a wise suggestion to be made in a librarian's report, that
+the library still lacks some specially important work, such
+as Larned's "History for Ready Reference," or the extensive
+"Dictionary of National Biography," or Brunet's
+<i>Manuel du Libraire</i>, or a set of Congressional Debates from
+the beginning; and such a suggestion may often bear fruit
+in leading some public-spirited citizen to supply the want
+by a timely contribution.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the annual report of every public library
+should be printed, and as pamphlets are seldom read, and
+tend rapidly to disappear, its publication in the newspapers
+is vastly more important than in any other form.
+While a pamphlet report may reach a few people, the newspaper
+reaches nearly all; and as a means of diffusing information
+in any community, it stands absolutely without
+rival. Whether the library reports shall be printed in
+pamphlet form or not is a matter of expediency, to be determined
+by the managing board. Funds are rarely ample
+enough, in the smaller town libraries, to justify the
+expense, in view of the small circulation which such reports
+receive, and it is much better to put the money into
+printing library catalogues, which every body needs and
+will use, than into library reports, which comparatively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_353" id="Pg_353"></a>[<a href="./images/353.png">353</a>]</span>
+few will make any use of. A judicious compromise may
+be usefully made, by inducing some newspaper, which
+would print a liberal share of the report free of charge, as
+news, for public information, to put the whole in type and
+strike off a few hundred copies in sheet form or pages, at a
+moderate charge.</p>
+
+<p>This would enable the library officers to distribute a
+goodly number, and to keep copies of each annual report
+for reference, without the expense of a pamphlet edition.</p>
+
+<p>In some of the larger and more enterprising of city libraries,
+reports are made quarterly or monthly by the librarian.
+These of course are much more nearly up to date,
+and if they publish lists of books added to the library, they
+are correspondingly useful. Frequently they contain special
+bibliographies of books on certain subjects. Among
+these, the monthly bulletins of the Boston Public Library,
+Harvard University Library, New York Public Library,
+Salem, Mass., Public Library, and the Providence Public
+Library are specially numerous and important.</p>
+
+<p>The relations of a public library to the local press of
+the city or town where it is situated will now be noticed.
+It is the interest of the librarian to extend the usefulness
+of the library by every means; and the most effective means
+is to make it widely known. In every place are found
+many who are quite ignorant of the stores of knowledge
+which lie at their doors in the free library. And among
+those who do know it and resort to it, are many who need
+to have their interest and attention aroused by frequent
+notices as to its progress, recent additions to its stores, etc.
+The more often the library is brought before the public by
+the press, the more interest will be taken in it by the community
+for whose information it exists.</p>
+
+<p>It is of the utmost importance that the library conductors
+should have the active good will of all the newspaper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_354" id="Pg_354"></a>[<a href="./images/354.png">354</a>]</span>
+editors in its vicinity. This will be acquired both by aiding
+them in all researches which the daily or frequent
+wants of their profession render necessary; and also, by
+giving them freely and often items of intelligence about
+the library for publication. Enterprising journals are
+perpetually on the hunt for new and varied matter to fill
+their columns. They send their reporters to the library
+to make "a story," as it is called, out of something in it
+or about it. These reporters are very seldom persons
+versed in books, or able to write understandingly or attractively
+about them. Left to themselves to construct
+"a story" out of a half hour's conversation with the librarian,
+the chances are that an article will be produced which
+contains nearly as many errors as matters of fact, with the
+names of authors or the titles of their books mis-spelled or
+altered, and with matters manufactured out of the reporter's
+fancy which formed no part of the interview, while
+what did form important features in it are perhaps omitted.
+The remedy, or rather the preventive of such inadequate
+reports of what the librarian would say to the
+public is to become his own reporter. The papers will
+willingly take for publication short "library notes," as
+they may be called, containing information about the library
+or its books, carefully type-written. This course at
+once secures accurate and authentic statements, and saves
+the time of the press reporters for other work.</p>
+
+<p>Bear in mind always that the main object of such library
+notices is to attract attention, and encourage people to use
+the library. Thus there should be sought frequent opportunities
+of advertising the library by this best of all possible
+means, because it is the one which reaches the largest
+number. To do it well requires some skill and practice,
+and to do it often is quite as essential as to do it well.
+Keep the library continually before the public. What are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_355" id="Pg_355"></a>[<a href="./images/355.png">355</a>]</span>
+the business houses which are most thronged with customers?
+They are those that advertise most persistently
+and attractively. So with the library; it will be more and
+more resorted to, in proportion as it keeps its name and its
+riches before the public eye.</p>
+
+<p>A certain timeliness in these library notices should be
+cultivated. The papers are eager to get anything that illustrates
+what is uppermost in the public mind. If a local
+fair is in progress or preparing, give them a list of the best
+books the library has in that field; the history of the Philadelphia
+Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair, the Paris
+Expositions, &amp;c. On another day, set forth the books on
+manufactures, horses, cattle, domestic animals, decorative
+art, &amp;c. If there is a poultry exhibition, or a dog show,
+call public attention to the books on poultry or dogs. If
+an art exhibition, bring forward the titles of books on
+painting, sculpture, drawing, and the history of art, ancient
+and modern.</p>
+
+<p>If some great man has died, as Bismarck or Gladstone,
+give the titles of any biographies or books about him, adding
+even references to notable magazine articles that have
+appeared. When the summer vacation is coming around,
+advertise your best books of travel, of summer resorts, of
+ocean voyages, of yachting, camping, fishing and shooting,
+golf and other out-door games, etc. If there is a Presidential
+campaign raging, make known the library's riches in
+political science, the history of administrations, and of
+nominating conventions, lives of the Presidents, books on
+elections, etc. If an international dispute or complication
+is on foot, publish the titles of your books on international
+law, and those on the history or resources of the country or
+countries involved; and when a war is in progress, books
+on military science, campaigns, battles, sieges, and the history
+of the contending nations will be timely and interesting.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_356" id="Pg_356"></a>[<a href="./images/356.png">356</a>]</span>Whatever you do in this direction, make it short and attractive.
+Organize your material, describe a specially interesting
+work by a reference to its style, or its illustrations,
+or its reputation, etc. Distribute your library notes
+impartially; that is, if several papers are published, be careful
+not to slight any of them. Find out the proper days
+to suit their want of matter, and never send in your notes
+when the paper is overcrowded. Always read a proof-slip
+of each article; time spent in going to a newspaper office
+to correct proof is well spent, for misprints always await
+the unwary who trusts to the accuracy of types.</p>
+
+<p>If the library acquires any extensive or notable book,
+whether old or new, do not fail to make it known through
+the press. If any citizen gives a number of volumes to the
+library, let his good deeds have an appreciative notice, that
+others may go and do likewise.</p>
+
+<p>Another feature of library advertising is the publication
+in the press of the titles of new books added to the library.
+As this is merely catalogue printing, however abbreviated
+in form the titles may be, it will usually (and very properly)
+be charged for by the newspapers. But it will pay,
+in the direction of inducing a much larger use of the library,
+and as the sole object of the institution is to contribute
+to public intelligence, it becomes library managers
+not to spare any expense so conducive to that result.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_357" id="Pg_357"></a>[<a href="./images/357.png">357</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_20" id="CHAPTER_20"></a>CHAPTER 20.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Formation of Libraries.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>In the widely extended and growing public interest in
+libraries for the people, and in the ever increasing gatherings
+of books by private collectors, I may be pardoned for
+some suggestions pertaining specially to the formation of
+libraries. I do not refer to the selection of books, which
+is treated in the first chapter, nor to the housing and care
+of libraries, but to some important points involved in organizing
+the foundation, so to speak, of a library.</p>
+
+<p>The problem, of course, is a widely different one for the
+private collector of an individual or family library, and
+for the organizers of a public one. But in either case, it
+is important, first of all, to have a clearly defined and well
+considered plan. Without this, costly mistakes are apt
+to be made, and time, energy and money wasted, all of
+which might be saved by seeing the end from the beginning,
+and planning accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose that a resident in a community which
+has never enjoyed the benefit of a circulating library conceives
+the idea of using every means to secure one. The
+first question that arises is, what are those means? If the
+State in which his residence lies has a Library law, empowering
+any town or city to raise money by taxation for
+founding and maintaining a free library, the way is apparently
+easy, at first sight. But here comes in the problem&mdash;can
+the requisite authority to lay the tax be secured?
+This may involve difficulties unforeseen at first. If there
+is a city charter, does it empower the municipal authorities
+(city council or aldermen) to levy such a tax? If not,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_358" id="Pg_358"></a>[<a href="./images/358.png">358</a>]</span>
+then appeal must be made to a popular vote, at some election
+of municipal officers, at which the ballots for or against
+a Library tax should determine the question. This will at
+once involve a campaign of education, in which should be
+enlisted (1) The editors of all the local papers. (2) The
+local clergymen, lawyers and physicians. (3) All literary
+men and citizens of wealth or influence in the community.
+(4) All teachers in the public schools and other institutions
+of learning. (5) The members of the city or town
+government. These last will be apt to feel any impulse of
+public sentiment more keenly than their own individual
+opinions on the subject. In any case, the public-spirited
+man who originates the movement should enlist as many
+able coadjutors as he can. If he is not himself gifted
+with a ready tongue, he should persuade some others who
+are ready and eloquent talkers to take up the cause, and
+should inspire them with his own zeal. A public meeting
+should be called, after a goodly number of well-known and
+influential people are enlisted (not before) and addresses
+should be made, setting forth the great advantage of a free
+library to every family. Its value to educate the people,
+to furnish entertainment that will go far to supplant idleness
+and intemperance, to help on the work of the public
+schools, and to elevate the taste, improve the morals,
+quicken the intellect and employ the leisure hours of all,
+should be set forth.</p>
+
+<p>With all these means of persuasion constantly in exercise,
+and unremitting diligence in pushing the good cause
+through the press and by every private opportunity, up to
+the very day of the election, the chances are heavily in
+favor of passing the library measure by a good majority.
+It must be a truly B&oelig;otian community, far gone in stupidity
+or something worse, which would so stand in its
+own light as to vote down a measure conducing in the high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_359" id="Pg_359"></a>[<a href="./images/359.png">359</a>]</span>est
+degree to the public intelligence. But even should it
+be defeated, its advocates should never be discouraged.
+Like all other reforms or improvements, its progress may
+be slow at first, but it is none the less sure to win in the
+end. One defeat has often led to a more complete victory
+when the conflict is renewed. The beaten party gathers
+wisdom by experience, finds out any weakness existing in
+its ranks or its management, and becomes sensible where
+its greatest strength should be put forth in a renewal of
+the contest. The promoters of the measure should at once
+begin a fresh agitation. They should pledge every friend
+of the library scheme to stand by it himself, and to secure
+at least one new convert to the cause. And the chances
+are that it will be carried triumphantly through at the
+next trial, or, if not then, at least within no long time.</p>
+
+<p>But we should consider also the case of those communities
+where no State Library law exists. These are unhappily
+not a few; and it is a remarkable fact that even so old,
+and rich, and well-developed a State as Pennsylvania had
+no such provision for public enlightenment until within
+three years. In the absence of a law empowering local
+governments or voters to lay a tax for such a purpose, the
+most obvious way of founding a library is by local subscription.
+This is of course a less desirable method than
+one by which all citizens should contribute to the object
+in proportion to their means. But it is better to avail of
+the means that exist in any place than to wait an indefinite
+period for a State Legislature to be educated up
+to the point of passing measures which would render the
+formation of libraries easy in all places.</p>
+
+<p>Let the experiment be tried of founding a library by
+individual effort and concert. With only two or three
+zealous and active promoters, even such a plan can be carried
+into successful operation in almost any community.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_360" id="Pg_360"></a>[<a href="./images/360.png">360</a>]</span>
+A canvass should be made from house to house, with a
+short prospectus or agreement drawn up, pledging the
+subscribers to give a certain sum toward the foundation
+of a library. If a few residents with large property can
+be induced to head the list with liberal subscriptions, it
+will aid much in securing confidence in the success of the
+movement, and inducing others to subscribe. No contributions,
+however small, should fail to be welcomed, since
+they stand for a wider interest in the object. After a
+thorough canvass of the residents of the place, a meeting of
+those subscribing should be called, and a statement put before
+them of the amount subscribed. Then an executive
+committee, say of three or five members, should be chosen
+to take charge of the enterprise. This committee should
+appoint a chairman, a secretary, and a treasurer, the latter
+to receive and disburse the funds subscribed. The chairman
+should call and preside at meetings of the committee,
+of which the secretary should record the proceedings in a
+book kept for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>The first business of the Library committee should be
+to confer and determine upon the ways and means of
+organizing the library. This involves a selection of books
+suitable for a beginning, a place of deposit for them, and
+a custodian or librarian to catalogue them and keep the
+record of the books drawn out and returned. Usually, a
+room can be had for library purposes in some public building
+or private house, centrally located, without other expense
+than that of warming and lighting. The services of
+a librarian, too, can often be secured by competent volunteer
+aid, there being usually highly intelligent persons with
+sufficient leisure to give their time for the common benefit,
+or to share that duty with others, thus saving all the funds
+for books to enrich the library.</p>
+
+<p>The chief trouble likely to be encountered by a Library<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_361" id="Pg_361"></a>[<a href="./images/361.png">361</a>]</span>
+committee will lie in the selection of books to form the
+nucleus or starting point of the collection. Without repeating
+anything heretofore suggested, it may be said that
+great care should be taken to have books known to be
+excellent, both interesting in substance and attractive in
+style. To so apportion the moderate amount of money at
+disposal as to give variety and interest to the collection,
+and attract readers from the start, is a problem requiring
+good judgment for its solution. Much depends upon the
+extent of the fund, but even with so small a sum as two or
+three hundred dollars, a collection of the very best historians,
+poets, essayists, travellers and voyagers, scientists,
+and novelists can be brought together, which will furnish
+a range of entertaining and instructive reading for several
+hundred borrowers. The costlier encyclopaedias and
+works of reference might be waited for until funds are
+recruited by a library fair, or lectures, or amateur concerts,
+plays, or other evening entertainments.</p>
+
+<p>Another way of recruiting the library which has often
+proved fruitful is to solicit contributions of books and
+magazines from families and individuals in the vicinity.
+This should be undertaken systematically some time after
+the subscriptions in money have been gathered in. It is
+not good policy to aim at such donations at the outset,
+since many might make them an excuse for not subscribing
+to the fund for founding the library, which it is to the
+interest of all to make as large as possible. But when
+once successfully established, appeals for books and periodicals
+will surely add largely to the collection, and although
+many of such accessions may be duplicates, they
+will none the less enlarge the facilities for supplying the
+demands of readers. Families who have read through all
+or nearly all the books they possess will gladly bestow
+them for so useful a purpose, especially when assured of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_362" id="Pg_362"></a>[<a href="./images/362.png">362</a>]</span>
+reaping reciprocal benefit by the opportunity of freely
+perusing a great variety of choice books, new and old,
+which they have never read. Sometimes, too, a public-spirited
+citizen, when advised of the lack of a good cyclopaedia,
+or of the latest extensive dictionary, or collective
+biography, in the library, will be happy to supply it, thereby
+winning the gratitude and good will of all who frequent
+the library. All donations should have inserted in them a
+neat book-plate, with the name of the donor inscribed, in
+connection with the name of the Library.</p>
+
+<p>Many a useful library of circulation has been started
+with a beginning of fifty to a hundred volumes, and the
+little acorn of learning thus planted has grown up in the
+course of years to a great tree, full of fruitful and wide-spreading
+branches.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_21" id="CHAPTER_21"></a>CHAPTER 21.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Classification.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>If there is any subject which, more than all others, divides
+opinion and provokes endless controversy among librarians
+and scholars, it is the proper classification of
+books. From the beginning of literature this has been a
+well-nigh insoluble problem. Treatise after treatise has
+been written upon it, system has been piled upon system,
+learned men have theorised and wrangled about it all their
+lives, and successive generations have dropped into their
+graves, leaving the vexed question as unsettled as ever.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_363" id="Pg_363"></a>[<a href="./images/363.png">363</a>]</span>
+Every now and then a body of <i>savans</i> or a convention of
+librarians wrestles with it, and perhaps votes upon it,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And by decision more embroils the fray"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>since the dissatisfied minority, nearly as numerous and
+quite as obstinate as the majority, always refuses to be
+bound by it. No sooner does some sapient librarian, with
+the sublime confidence of conviction, get his classification
+house of cards constructed to his mind, and stands rapt
+in admiration before it, when there comes along some wise
+man of the east, and demolishes the fair edifice at a blow,
+while the architect stands by with a melancholy smile, and
+sees all his household gods lying shivered around him.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, systems of classification keep on growing,
+until, instead of the thirty-two systems so elaborately described
+in Edwards's Memoirs of Libraries, we have almost
+as many as there are libraries, if the endless modifications
+of them are taken into account. In fact, one begins to
+realise that the schemes for the classification of knowledge
+are becoming so numerous, that a classification of the systems
+themselves has fairly become a desideratum. The
+youthful neophyte, who is struggling after an education in
+library science, and thinks perhaps that it is or should be
+an exact science, is bewildered by the multitude of counsellors,
+gets a head-ache over their conflicting systems, and
+adds to it a heart-ache, perhaps, over the animosities and
+sarcasms which divide the warring schools of opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there would be less trouble about classification,
+if the system-mongers would consent to admit at the outset
+that no infallible system is possible, and would endeavor,
+amid all their other learning, to learn a little of the saving
+grace of modesty. A writer upon this subject has well
+observed that there is no man who can work out a scheme
+of classification that will satisfy permanently even himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_364" id="Pg_364"></a>[<a href="./images/364.png">364</a>]</span>
+Much less should he expect that others, all having their
+favorite ideas and systems, should be satisfied with his. As
+there is no royal road to learning, so there can be none to
+classification; and we democratic republicans, who stand
+upon the threshold of the twentieth century, may rest satisfied
+that in the Republic of Letters no autocrat can be
+allowed.</p>
+
+<p>The chief difficulty with most systems for distributing
+the books in a library appears to lie in the attempt to apply
+scientific minuteness in a region where it is largely inapplicable.
+One can divide and sub-divide the literature of
+any science indefinitely, in a list of subjects, but such exhaustive
+sub-divisions can never be made among the books
+on the shelves. Here, for example, is a "Treatise on diseases
+of the heart and lungs." This falls naturally into its
+two places in the subject catalogue, the one under "Heart,"
+and the second under "Lungs;" but the attempt to classify
+it on the shelves must fail, as regards half its contents.
+You cannot tear the book to pieces to satisfy logical classification.
+Thousands of similar cases will occur, where the
+same book treats of several subjects. Nearly all periodicals
+and transactions of societies of every kind refuse to be
+classified, though they can be catalogued perfectly on paper
+by analysing their contents. To bring all the resources of
+the library on any subject together on the shelves is clearly
+impossible. They must be assembled for readers from
+various sections of the library, where the rule of analogy or
+of superior convenience has placed them.</p>
+
+<p>What is termed close classification, it will be found, fails
+by attempting too much. One of the chief obstacles to its
+general use is that it involves a too complicated notation.
+The many letters and figures that indicate position on the
+shelves are difficult to remember in the direct ratio of their
+number. The more minute the classification, the more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_365" id="Pg_365"></a>[<a href="./images/365.png">365</a>]</span>
+signs of location are required. When they become very
+numerous, in any system of classification, the system
+breaks down by its own weight. Library attendants consume
+an undue amount of time in learning it, and library
+cataloguers and classifiers in affixing the requisite
+signs of designation to the labels, the shelves, and the
+catalogues. Memory, too, is unduly taxed to apply the
+system. While a superior memory may be found equal to
+any task imposed upon it, average memories are not so fortunate.
+The expert librarian, in whose accomplished head
+the whole world of science and literature lies co&ouml;rdinated,
+so that he can apply his classification unerringly to all the
+books in a vast library, must not presume that unskilled assistants
+can do the same.</p>
+
+<p>One of the mistakes made by the positivists in classification
+is the claim that their favorite system can be applied
+to all libraries alike. That this is a fallacy may be seen
+in an example or two. Take the case of a large and comprehensive
+Botanical library, in which an exact scientific
+distribution of the books may and should be made. It is
+classified not only in the grand divisions, such as scientific
+and economic botany, etc., but a close analytical treatment
+is extended over the whole vegetable kingdom. Books
+treating of every plant are relegated to their appropriate
+classes, genera, and species, until the whole library is organised
+on a strictly scientific basis. But in the case, even
+of what are called large libraries, so minute a classification
+would be not only unnecessary, but even obstructive to
+prompt service of the books. And the average town library,
+containing only a shelf or two of botanical works,
+clearly has no use for such a classification. The attempt
+to impose a universal law upon library arrangement,
+while the conditions of the collections are endlessly varied,
+is foredoomed to failure.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_366" id="Pg_366"></a>[<a href="./images/366.png">366</a>]</span>The object of classification is to bring order out of confusion,
+and to arrange the great mass of books in science
+and literature of which every library is composed, so that
+those on related subjects should be as nearly as possible
+brought together. Let us suppose a collection of some
+hundred thousand volumes, in all branches of human
+knowledge, thrown together without any classification or
+catalogue, on the tables, the shelves, and the floor of an
+extensive reading-room. Suppose also an assemblage of
+scholars and other readers, ready and anxious to avail
+themselves of these literary treasures, this immense library
+without a key. Each wants some certain book, by some
+author whose name he knows, or upon some subject upon
+which he seeks to inform himself. But how vain and hopeless
+the effort to go through all this chaos of learning, to
+find the one volume which he needs! This illustration
+points the prime necessity of classification of some kind,
+before a collection of books can be used in an available way.</p>
+
+<p>Then comes in the skilled bibliographer, to convert this
+chaos into a cosmos, to illumine this darkness with the light
+of science. He distributes the whole mass, volume by
+volume, into a few great distinct classes; he creates families
+or sub-divisions in every class; he assembles together in
+groups all that treat of the same subject, or any of its
+branches; and thus the entire scattered multitude of volumes
+is at length co&ouml;rdinated into a clear and systematic
+collection, ready for use in every department. A great library
+is like a great army: when unorganized, your army
+is a mere undisciplined mob: but divide and sub-divide it
+into army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and companies,
+and you can put your finger upon every man.</p>
+
+<p>To make this complete organization of a library successful,
+one must have an organising mind, a wide acquaintance
+with literature, history, and the outlines, at least, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_367" id="Pg_367"></a>[<a href="./images/367.png">367</a>]</span>
+all the sciences; a knowledge of the ancient and of various
+modern languages; a quick intuition, a ripe judgment, a
+cultivated taste, a retentive memory, and a patience and
+perseverance that are inexhaustible.</p>
+
+<p>Even were all these qualities possessed, there will be in
+the arrangement elements of discord and of a failure. A
+multitude of uncertain points in classification, and many
+exceptions will arise; and these must of necessity be settled
+arbitrarily. The more conversant one becomes with systems
+of classification, when reduced to practice, the more
+he becomes assured that a perfect bibliographical system is
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Every system of classification must find its application
+fraught with doubts, complications, and difficulties; but
+the wise bibliographer will not pause in his work to resolve
+all these insoluble problems; he will classify the book in
+hand according to his best judgment at the moment it
+comes before him. He can no more afford to spend time
+over intricate questions of the preponderance of this, that,
+or the other subject in a book, than a man about to walk
+to a certain place can afford to debate whether he shall put
+his right foot forward or his left. The one thing needful
+is to go forward.</p>
+
+<p>Referring to the chapter on bibliography for other details,
+I may here say that the French claim to have reached
+a highly practical system of classification in that set forth
+in J. C. Brunet's <i>Manuel du Libraire</i>. This is now generally
+used in the arrangement of collections of books in
+France, with some modifications, and the book trade find
+it so well adapted to their wants, that classified sale and
+auction catalogues are mostly arranged on that system.
+It has only five grand divisions: Theology, Law, Arts
+and Sciences, Belles-lettres, and History. Each of these
+classes has numerous sub-divisions. For example, geog<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_368" id="Pg_368"></a>[<a href="./images/368.png">368</a>]</span>raphy
+and voyages and travels form a division of history,
+between the philosophy of history and chronology, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The classification in use in the <i>Biblioth&egrave;que nationale</i> of
+France places Theology first, followed by Law, History,
+Philosophy and Belles-lettres. The grand division of Philosophy
+includes all which is classified under Arts and Sciences
+in the system of Brunet.</p>
+
+<p>In the Library of the British Museum the classification
+starts with Theology, followed by 2. Jurisprudence; 3.
+Natural History (including Botany, Geology, Zo&ouml;logy,
+and Medicine); 4. Art (including Archaeology, Fine Arts,
+Architecture, Music, and Useful Arts); 5. Philosophy (including
+Politics, Economics, Sociology, Education, Ethics,
+Metaphysics, Mathematics, Military and Naval Science,
+and Chemistry); 6. History (including Heraldry and Genealogy);
+7. Geography (including Ethnology); 8. Biography
+(including Epistles); 9. Belles-lettres (including Poetry,
+Drama, Rhetoric, Criticism, Bibliography, Collected
+Works, Encyclopaedias, Speeches, Proverbs, Anecdotes,
+Satirical and facetious works, Essays, Folklore and Fiction);
+10. Philology.</p>
+
+<p>Sub-divisions by countries are introduced in nearly all
+the classes.</p>
+
+<p>In the Library of Congress the classification was originally
+based upon Lord Bacon's scheme for the division of
+knowledge into three great classes, according to the faculty
+of the mind employed in each. 1. History (based upon
+memory); 2. Philosophy (based upon reason); 3. Poetry
+(based upon imagination). This scheme was much better
+adapted to a classification of ideas than of books. Its failure
+to answer the ends of a practical classification of the
+library led to radical modifications of the plan, as applied
+to the books on the shelves, for reasons of logical arrange<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_369" id="Pg_369"></a>[<a href="./images/369.png">369</a>]</span>ment,
+as well as of convenience. A more thorough and
+systematic re-arrangement is now in progress.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. C. A. Cutter has devised a system of "Expansive
+classification," now widely used in American libraries. In
+this, the classes are each indicated by a single letter, followed
+by numbers representing divisions by countries, and
+these in turn by letters indicating sub-divisions by subjects,
+etc. It is claimed that this method is not a rigid unchangeable
+system, but adaptable in a high degree, and capable of
+modification to suit the special wants of any library. In
+it the whole range of literature and science is divided into
+several grand classes, which, with their sub-classes, are indicated
+by the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Thus
+Class A embraces Generalia; B to D, Spiritual sciences (including
+philosophy and religion); E to G, Historical sciences
+(including, besides history and biography, geography
+and travels); H to K, Social sciences (including law and political
+science and economics); L to P, Natural sciences;
+Q, Medicine; and R to Z, Arts (including not only mechanical,
+recreative and fine arts, but music, languages, literature,
+and bibliography).</p>
+
+<p>The sub-divisions of these principal classes are arranged
+with progressive fullness, to suit smaller or larger libraries.
+Thus, the first classification provides only eleven classes,
+suited to very small libraries: the second is expanded to
+fifteen classes, the third to thirty classes, and so on up to
+the seventh or final one, designed to provide for the arrangement
+of the very largest libraries.</p>
+
+<p>This is the most elaborate and far-reaching library classification
+yet put forth, claiming superior clearness, flexibility,
+brevity of notation, logical co&ouml;rdination, etc., while
+objections have been freely made to it on the score of
+over-refinement and aiming at the unattainable.</p>
+
+<p>What is known as the decimal or the Dewey system of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_370" id="Pg_370"></a>[<a href="./images/370.png">370</a>]</span>
+classification was originally suggested by Mr. N. B. Shurtleff's
+"Decimal system for the arrangement and administration
+of libraries," published at Boston in 1856. But in its
+present form it has been developed by Mr. Melvil Dewey
+into a most ingenious scheme for distributing the whole
+vast range of human knowledge into ten classes, marked
+from 0 to 9, each of which sub-divides into exactly ten sub-classes,
+all divisible in their turn into ten minor divisions,
+and so on until the material in hand, or the ingenuity of
+the classifier is exhausted. The notation of the books on
+the shelves corresponds to these divisions and sub-divisions.
+The claims of this system, which has been quite extensively
+followed in the smaller American libraries, and in many
+European ones, are economy, simplicity, brevity of notation,
+expansibility, unchanging call-numbers, etc. It has
+been criticised as too mechanical, as illogical in arrangement
+of classes, as presenting many incongruities in its
+divisions, as procrustean, as wholly inadequate in its classification
+of jurisprudence, etc. It is partially used by
+librarians who have had to introduce radical changes in
+portions of the classification, and in fact it is understood
+that the classification has been very largely made over both
+in Amherst College library and in that of Columbia University,
+N. Y., where it was fully established.</p>
+
+<p>This only adds to the cumulative proofs that library
+classification cannot be made an exact science, but is in its
+nature indefinitely progressive and improvable. Its main
+object is not to classify knowledge, but books. There being
+multitudes of books that do not belong absolutely to
+any one class, all classification of them is necessarily a compromise.
+Nearly all the classification schemers have made
+over their schemes&mdash;some of them many times. I am not
+arguing against classification, which is essential to the
+practical utility of any library. An imperfect classifica<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_371" id="Pg_371"></a>[<a href="./images/371.png">371</a>]</span>tion
+is much better than none: but the tendency to erect
+classification into a fetish, and to lay down cast-iron rules
+for it, should be guarded against. In any library, reasons
+of convenience must often prevail over logical arrangement;
+and he who spends time due to prompt library service
+in worrying over errors in a catalogue, or vexing his
+soul at a faulty classification, is as mistaken as those fussy
+individuals who fancy that they are personally responsible
+for the obliquity of the earth's axis.</p>
+
+<p>It may be added that in the American Library Association's
+Catalogue of 5,000 books for a popular library, Washington,
+1893, the classification is given both on the Dewey
+(Decimal) system, and on the Cutter expansive system, so
+that all may take their choice.</p>
+
+<p>The fixed location system of arrangement, by which
+every book is assigned by its number to one definite shelf,
+is objectionable as preventing accessions from being placed
+with their cognate books. This is of such cardinal importance
+in every library, that a more elastic system of some
+kind should be adopted, to save continual re-numbering.
+No system which makes mere arithmetical progression a
+substitute for intrinsic qualities can long prove satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>The relative or movable location on shelves is now more
+generally adopted than the old plan of numbering every
+shelf and assigning a fixed location to every volume on
+that shelf. The book-marks, if designating simply the
+relative order of the volumes, permit the books to be
+moved along, as accessions come in, from shelf to shelf, as
+the latter become crowded. This does not derange the
+numbers, since the order of succession is observed.</p>
+
+<p>For small town libraries no elaborate system of classification
+can properly be attempted. Here, the most convenient
+grouping is apt to prove the best, because books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_372" id="Pg_372"></a>[<a href="./images/372.png">372</a>]</span>
+are most readily found by it. Mr. W. I. Fletcher has outlined
+a scheme for libraries of 10,000 volumes or less, as
+follows:</p>
+
+<p>A. Fiction (appended, J. Juvenile books); B. English and
+American literature; C. History; D. Biography; E. Travels;
+F. Science; G. Useful arts; H. Fine and recreative arts;
+I. Political and social science; K. Philosophy and religion;
+L. Works on language and in foreign languages; R. Reference
+books.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous sub-divisions would be required to make such
+a scheme (or indeed any other) fit any collection of books.</p>
+
+<p>In arranging the main classes, care should be taken to
+bring those most drawn upon near to the delivery desk, or
+charging system of the library.</p>
+
+<p>The alphabet is usefully applied in the arrangement of
+several of the great classes of books, and in many sub-divisions
+of other classes. Thus, all English and American
+fiction may be arranged in a single alphabet of authors, including
+English translations of foreign works. All collected
+works, or polygraphy, may form an alphabet, as
+well as poetry, dramatic works, collections of letters, and
+miscellanea, arranged by authors' names. In any of these
+classes, sub-divisions by languages may be made, if desired.</p>
+
+<p>The class biography may best be arranged in an alphabet
+of the subjects of the biographies, rather than of writers,
+for obvious reasons of convenience in finding at once
+the books about each person.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_373" id="Pg_373"></a>[<a href="./images/373.png">373</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_22" id="CHAPTER_22"></a>CHAPTER 22.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Catalogues.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>Catalogues of libraries are useful to readers in direct
+proportion to their fulfilment of three conditions: (1)
+Quick and ready reference. (2) Arranging all authors'
+names in an alphabet, followed by titles of their works.
+(3) Subjects or titles in their alphabetical order in the
+same alphabet as the authors. This is what is known as a
+"Dictionary catalogue"; but why is it preferable to any
+other? Because it answers more questions in less time
+than any other.</p>
+
+<p>The more prevalent styles of catalogues have been, 1. A
+list of authors, with titles of their works under each. 2.
+A catalogue of subjects, in a classified topical or alphabetical
+order, the authors and their works being grouped under
+each head. 3. A catalogue attempting to combine
+these two, by appending to the author-catalogue a classed
+list of subjects, with a brief of authors under each, referring
+to the page on which the titles of their works may be
+found; or else, 4. Appending to the subject-catalogue an
+alphabet of authors, with similar references to pages under
+subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Each of these methods of catalogue-making, while very
+useful, contrives to miss the highest utility, which lies in
+enabling the reader to put his finger on the book he wants,
+at one glance of the eye. The catalogue of authors will
+not help him to subjects, nor will the catalogue of subjects,
+as a rule, give the authors and titles with the fullness
+that may be needed. In either case, a double reference
+becomes necessary, consuming just twice the time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_374" id="Pg_374"></a>[<a href="./images/374.png">374</a>]</span>
+and in a two-column catalogue, three times the time required
+in a dictionary catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>The reader who wants Darwin's "Origin of Species" finds
+it readily enough by the author-catalogue; but he wants,
+at the same time, to find other works on the same subject,
+and all the author-catalogues in the world will not help
+him to them. But give him a dictionary catalogue, and
+he has, in the same alphabet with his Darwin, (if the
+library is large) dozens of books discussing the theory of
+that great naturalist, under species, evolution, Darwinism,
+etc.</p>
+
+<p>Thus he finds that there is no key which so quickly unlocks
+the stores of knowledge which a library contains, as
+a dictionary catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>The objections to it are chiefly brought by minds schooled
+in systems, who look askance on all innovations, and instinctively
+prefer round-about methods to short-hand ones.</p>
+
+<p>Ask such an objector if he would prefer his dictionary
+of the English language arranged, not alphabetically, but
+subjectively, so that all medical terms should be defined
+only under medicine, all species of fish described only under
+fishes, etc., and he will probably say that there is no
+analogy in the case. But the analogy becomes apparent
+when we find, in what are called systematic catalogues, no
+two systems alike, and the finding of books complicated by
+endless varieties of classification, with no common alphabet
+to simplify the search. The authors of systems doubtless
+understand them themselves, but no one else does, until
+he devotes time to learn the key to them; and even
+when learned, the knowledge is not worth the time lost in
+acquiring it, since the field covered in any one catalogue
+is so small. Alphabetical arrangement, on the other hand,
+strictly adhered to, is a universal key to the authors and
+subjects and titles of all the books contained in the library<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_375" id="Pg_375"></a>[<a href="./images/375.png">375</a>]</span>
+it represents. The devotee of a bibliographical system
+may be as mistaken as the slave of a scientific terminology.
+He forgets that bibliography is not a school for teaching
+all departments of knowledge, but a brief and handy index
+to books that may contain that knowledge. A student
+who has once made a thorough comparative test of the
+merits, as aids to wide and rapid research, of the old-fashioned
+bibliographies and the best modern dictionary catalogues,
+will no more deny the superiority of the latter,
+than he will contest the maxim that a straight line is the
+nearest road between two points. Meantime, "while doctors
+disagree, disciples are free;" and the disciples who
+would follow the latest guides in the art "how to make and
+use a catalogue," must get rid of many formulas.</p>
+
+<p>The reader will find in the chapter on bibliography,
+notes on some classes of catalogues, with the more notable
+examples of them. We are here concerned with the true
+method of preparing catalogues, and such plain rules as
+brevity will permit to be given, will be equally adapted to
+private or public libraries. For more ample treatment,
+with reasons for and against many rules laid down, reference
+is made to the able and acute work, "Rules for a Dictionary
+Catalogue," by C. A. Cutter, published by the U.
+S. Bureau of Education, 3d ed. 1891.</p>
+
+<p class="center">CONDENSED RULES FOR AN AUTHOR AND TITLE CATALOGUE.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prepared by the Co-operation Committee of the American Library
+Association.</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">entry.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Books are to be entered under the:</p>
+
+<p>Surnames of authors when ascertained, the abbreviation
+"<i>Anon.</i>" being added to the titles of anonymous works.</p>
+
+<p>Initials of authors' names when these only are known,
+the last initial being put first.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_376" id="Pg_376"></a>[<a href="./images/376.png">376</a>]</span>Pseudonyms of the writers when the real names are not
+ascertained.</p>
+
+<p>Names of editors of collections, each separate item to be at
+the same time sufficiently catalogued under its own heading.</p>
+
+<p>Names of countries, cities, societies, or other bodies which
+are responsible for their publication.</p>
+
+<p>First word (not an article or serial number) of the titles
+of periodicals and of anonymous books, the names of whose
+authors are not known. And a motto or the designation of a
+series may be neglected when it begins a title, and the entry
+may be made under the first word of the real title following.</p>
+
+<p>Commentaries accompanying a text, and translations, are
+to be entered under the heading of the original work; but
+commentaries without the text under the name of the commentator.
+A book entitled "Commentary on ...." and containing
+the text, should be put under both.</p>
+
+<p>The Bible, or any part of it (including the Apocrypha), in
+any language, is to be entered under the word Bible.</p>
+
+<p>The Talmud and Koran (and parts of them) are to be entered
+under those words; the sacred books of other religions
+are to be entered under the names by which they are generally
+known; references to be given from the names of
+editors, translators, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The respondent or defender of an academical thesis is to be
+considered as the author, unless the work unequivocally appears
+to be the work of the <i>praeses</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Books having more than one author to be entered under
+the one first named in the title, with a reference from each
+of the others.</p>
+
+<p>Reports of civil actions are to be entered under the name
+of the party to the suit which stands first on the title page.
+Reports of crown and criminal proceedings are to be entered
+under the name of the defendant. Admiralty proceedings
+relating to vessels are to be put under the name of the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Noblemen are to be entered under their titles, unless the
+family name is decidedly better known.</p>
+
+<p>Ecclesiastical dignitaries, unless popes or sovereigns, are
+to be entered under their surnames.</p>
+
+<p>Sovereigns (other than Greek or Roman), ruling princes,
+Oriental writers, popes, friars, persons canonized, and all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_377" id="Pg_377"></a>[<a href="./images/377.png">377</a>]</span>
+other persons known <i>only</i> by their first name, are to be entered
+under this first name.</p>
+
+<p>Married women, and other persons who have changed their
+names, are to be put under the last well-known form.</p>
+
+<p>A pseudonym may be used instead of the surname (and
+only a reference to the pseudonym made under the surname)
+when an author is much more known by his false than by his
+real name. In case of doubt, use the real name.</p>
+
+<p>A society is to be entered under the first word, not an
+article, of its corporate name, with references from any other
+name by which it is known, especially from the name of the
+place where its headquarters are established, if it is often
+called by that name.</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">References.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>When an author has been known by more than one name,
+references should be inserted from the name or names not
+to be used as headings to the one used.</p>
+
+<p>References are also to be made to the headings chosen:</p>
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>from the titles of all novels and plays, and of poems likely
+to be asked for by their titles;</li>
+
+<li>from other striking titles;</li>
+
+<li>from noticeable words in anonymous titles, especially from
+the names of subjects of anonymous biographies;</li>
+
+<li>from the names of editors of periodicals, when the periodicals
+are generally called by the editor's name;</li>
+
+<li>from the names of important translators (especially poetic
+translators) and commentators;</li>
+
+<li>from the title of an ecclesiastical dignitary, when that, and
+not the family name, is used in the book catalogued;</li>
+
+<li>and in other cases where a reference is needed to insure the
+ready finding of the book.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Headings.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>In the heading of titles, the names of authors are to be
+given in full, and in their vernacular form, except that the
+Latin form may be used when it is more generally known,
+the vernacular form being added in parentheses; except,
+also, that sovereigns and popes may be given in the English
+form.</p>
+
+<p>English and French surnames beginning with a prefix (except
+the French de and d') are to be recorded under the
+prefix; in other languages under the word following.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_378" id="Pg_378"></a>[<a href="./images/378.png">378</a>]</span>English compound surnames are to be entered under the
+last part of the name; foreign ones under the first part.</p>
+
+<p>Designations are to be added to distinguish writers of
+the same name from each other.</p>
+
+<p>Prefixes indicating the rank or profession of writers may
+be added in the heading, when they are part of the usual
+designation of the writers.</p>
+
+<p>Names of places to be given in the English form. When
+both an English and a vernacular form are used in English
+works, prefer the vernacular.</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Titles.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The title is to be an exact transcript of the title-page,
+neither amended, translated, nor in any way altered, except
+that mottos, titles of authors, repetitions, and matter of
+any kind not essential, are to be omitted. Where great accuracy
+is desirable, omissions are to be indicated by three
+dots (...). The titles of books especially valuable for antiquity
+or rarity may be given in full, with all practicable
+precision. The phraseology and spelling, but not necessarily
+the punctuation, of the title are to be exactly copied.</p>
+
+<p>Any additions needed to make the title clear are to be supplied,
+and inclosed by brackets.</p>
+
+<p>Initial capitals are to be given in English:</p>
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>to proper names of persons and personifications, places,
+bodies, noted events, and periods (each separate word not
+an article, conjunction, or preposition, may be capitalized
+in these cases);</li>
+
+<li>to adjectives and other derivatives from proper names when
+they have a direct reference to the person, place, etc., from
+which they are derived;</li>
+
+<li>to the first word of every sentence and of every quoted title;</li>
+
+<li>to titles of honor when standing instead of a proper name
+(<i>e. g.</i>, the Earl of Derby, but John Stanley, earl of Derby);</li>
+
+<li>In foreign languages, according to the local usage;</li>
+
+<li>In doubtful cases capitals are to be avoided.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Foreign languages.&mdash;Titles in foreign characters may be
+transliterated. The languages in which a book is written are
+to be stated when there are several, and the fact is not apparent
+from the title.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_379" id="Pg_379"></a>[<a href="./images/379.png">379</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Imprints.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>After the title are to be given, in the following order, those
+in [&emsp;] being optional:</p>
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>the edition;</li>
+
+<li>the place of publication;</li>
+
+<li>[and the publisher's name] (these three in the language of
+the title);</li>
+
+<li>the year as given on the title-page, but in Arabic figures;</li>
+
+<li>[the year of copyright or actual publication, if known to be
+different in brackets, and preceded by c. or p. as the case
+may be];</li>
+
+<li>the number of volumes, or of pages if there is only one
+volume;</li>
+
+<li>[the number of maps, portraits, or illustrations not included
+in the text];</li>
+
+<li>and either the approximate size designated by letter, or the
+exact size in centimeters;</li>
+
+<li>the name of the series to which the book belongs is to be
+given in parentheses after the other imprint entries.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>After the place of publication, the place of printing may
+be given if different. This is desirable only in rare and old
+books.</p>
+
+<p>The number of pages is to be indicated by giving the last
+number of each paging, connecting the numbers by the sign
+<span class="lf">+</span>; the addition of unpaged matter may be shown by a <span class="lf">+</span>,
+or the number of pages ascertained by counting may be
+given in brackets. When there are more than three pagings,
+it is better to add them together and give the sum in brackets.</p>
+
+<p>These imprint entries are to give the facts, whether ascertained
+from the book or from other sources; those which
+are usually taken from the title (edition, place, publisher's
+name, and series) should be in the language of the title, corrections
+and additions being inclosed in brackets. It is better
+to give the words, "maps," "portraits," etc., and the
+abbreviations for "volumes" and "pages," in English.</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Contents, Notes.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Notes (in English) and contents of volumes are to be given
+when necessary to properly describe the works. Both notes
+and lists of contents to be in a smaller type.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_380" id="Pg_380"></a>[<a href="./images/380.png">380</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Miscellaneous.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>A single dash or indent indicates the omission of the preceding
+heading; a subsequent dash or indent indicates the
+omission of a subordinate heading, or of a title.</p>
+
+<p>A dash connecting numbers signifies to and including; following
+a number it signifies continuation.</p>
+
+<p>A ? following a word or entry signifies probably.</p>
+
+<p>Brackets inclose words added to titles or imprints, or
+changed in form.</p>
+
+<p>Arabic figures are to be used rather than Roman; but small
+capitals may be used after the names of sovereigns, princes,
+and popes.</p>
+
+<p>A list of abbreviations to be used was given in the Library
+journal, Vol. 3: 16-20.</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Arrangement.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The surname when used alone precedes the same name
+used with forenames; where the initials only of the forenames
+are given, they are to precede fully written forenames
+beginning with the same initials (<i>e. g.</i>, Brown, Brown, J.;
+Brown, J. L.; Brown, James).</p>
+
+<p>The prefixes M and Mc, S., St., Ste., Messrs., Mr., and Mrs.,
+are to be arranged as if written in full, Mac, Sanctus, Saint,
+Sainte, Messieurs, Mister, and Mistress.</p>
+
+<p>The works of an author are to be arranged in the following
+order:</p>
+
+<ul class="plain"><li>1. Collected works.</li>
+
+<li>2. Partial collections.</li>
+
+<li>3. Single works, alphabetically, by the first word of the title.</li>
+</ul>
+<p>The order of alphabeting is to be that of the English alphabet.</p>
+
+<p>The German ae, oe, ue, are always to be written as &auml;, &ouml;, &uuml;,
+and arranged as a, o, u.</p>
+
+<p>Names of persons are to precede similar names of places,
+which in turn precede similar first words of titles.</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>A few desirable modifications or additions to these rules
+may be suggested.</p>
+
+<p>1. In title-entries, let the year of publication stand last,
+instead of the indication of size.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_381" id="Pg_381"></a>[<a href="./images/381.png">381</a>]</span>2. Noblemen to be entered under their family names,
+with reference from their titles.</p>
+
+<p>3. Instead of designations of title, profession, residence,
+or family, to distinguish authors, let every name be followed
+by the chronology, as&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">James (Henry) 1811-82.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">James (Henry) 1843-<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is highly desirable to give this information as to the
+author's period in every title-heading, without exception,
+when ascertainable. If unknown, the approximate period
+to be given, with a query.</p>
+
+<p>4. All titles to be written in small letters, and printed
+in lower case, whether in English, German, or any other
+language, avoiding capitals except in cases named in the
+rule.</p>
+
+<p>5. Works without date, when the exact date is not
+found, are to be described conjecturally, thus:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">[1690?] or [about 1840.]<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>6. In expressing collations, use commas rather than the
+sign <span class="lf">+</span> between the pagings, as&mdash;xvi, 452, vii pp.&mdash;not
+xvi<span class="lf">+</span>452<span class="lf">+</span>vii pp.</p>
+
+<p>7. Forenames should be separated from the surnames
+which precede them by parenthesis rather than commas,
+as a clearer discrimination: as&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alembert (Jean Baptiste le Rond d')&mdash;not<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alembert, Jean Baptiste le Rond d'.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The printed catalogue of the British Museum Library
+follows this method, as well as that in the preceding paragraph.</p>
+
+<p>8. All books of history, travels, or voyages to have the
+period covered by them inserted in brackets, when not expressed
+in the title-page.</p>
+
+<p>9. All collected works of authors, and all libraries or
+collections of different works to be analysed by giving the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_382" id="Pg_382"></a>[<a href="./images/382.png">382</a>]</span>
+contents of each volume, either in order of volumes, or
+alphabetically by authors' names.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there are multitudes of points in catalogue
+practice not provided for in the necessarily brief summary
+preceding: and, as books on the art abound, the writer
+gives only such space to it as justice to the wide range of
+library topics here treated permits.</p>
+
+<p>Probably the most important question in preparing catalogue
+titles, is what space to give to the author's frequently
+long-drawn-out verbiage in his title-page. There are
+two extremes to be considered: (1) Copying the title literally
+and in full, however prolix; and (2) reducing all title-pages,
+by a Procrustean rule, to what we may call "one-line
+titles." Take an example:</p>
+
+<p>"Jones (Richard T.) A theoretical and practical treatise
+on the benefits of agriculture to mankind. With an appendix
+containing many useful reflections derived from practical
+experience. iv, 389 pp. 8&deg;. London, MDCCXLIV."
+As abridged to a short title, this would read: "Jones
+(Richard T.) Benefits of agriculture, iv, 389 pp. 8&deg;. Lond.
+1744." Who will say that the last form of title does
+not convey substantially all that is significant of the book,
+stripped of superfluous verbiage? But we need not insist
+upon titles crowded into a single line of the catalogue,
+whether written or printed. This would do violence to
+the actual scope of many books, by suppressing some significant
+or important part of their titles. The rule should
+be to give in the briefest words selected out of the title
+(never imported into it) the essential character of the
+book, so far as the author has expressed it. Take another
+example:</p>
+
+<p>"Bowman (Thomas) A new, easy, and complete Hebrew
+course; containing a Hebrew grammar, with copious Hebrew
+and English exercises, strictly graduated: also, a He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_383" id="Pg_383"></a>[<a href="./images/383.png">383</a>]</span>brew-English
+and English-Hebrew lexicon. In two parts.
+Part I. Regular verbs. Edinburgh, 1879."</p>
+
+<p>This might be usefully condensed thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Bowman, (Thomas) Hebrew course: grammar, exercises,
+lexicon, [&amp;c.] Part I. Regular verbs. Edinburgh, 1879.</p></div>
+
+<p>One objection brought against the dictionary catalogue
+is that it widely separates subjects that belong together.
+In the Boston Athenaeum catalogue, for example, the
+topic Banks is found in Vol. 1, while Money is in Vol. 3;
+and for Wages, one must go to Vol. 5, while Labor is in
+Vol. 3. But there are two valid reasons for this. First,
+the reader who wants to know about banks or wages may
+care nothing about the larger topics of money or of labor;
+and secondly, if he does want them, he is sent to them at
+once by cross-reference, where they belong in the alphabet;
+whereas, if they were grouped under Political Economy, as
+in classed catalogues, he must hunt for them through a
+maze of unrelated books, without any alphabet at all.</p>
+
+<p>It is often forgotten by the advocates of systematic subject
+catalogues rather than alphabetical ones, that catalogues
+are for those who do not know, more than for those
+who do. The order of the alphabet is settled and familiar;
+but no classification by subjects is either familiar or settled.
+Catalogues should aim at the greatest convenience
+of the greatest number of readers.</p>
+
+<p>It is noteworthy that the English Catalogue (the one
+national bibliography of the current literature of that
+country) has adopted, since 1891, the dictionary form of
+recording authors, titles and subjects in one alphabet, distinguishing
+authors' names by antique type. It is hoped
+that the American Catalogue, an indispensable work in
+all libraries, will adopt in its annual and quinquennial issues
+the time-saving method of a single alphabet.</p>
+
+<p>It is not claimed that the dictionary catalogue possesses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_384" id="Pg_384"></a>[<a href="./images/384.png">384</a>]</span>
+fully all the advantages in educating readers that the best
+classed catalogues embody. But the chief end of catalogues
+being to find books promptly, rather than to educate
+readers, the fact that the dictionary catalogue, though
+far from perfect, comes nearer to the true object than any
+other system, weighs heavily in its favor. Edward Edwards
+said&mdash;"Many a reader has spent whole days in book-hunting
+[in catalogues] which ought to have been spent
+in book-reading." It is to save this wasted time that
+catalogues should aim.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can be easier than to make a poor catalogue,
+while nothing is more difficult than to make a good one.
+The most expert French bibliographers who have distinguished
+themselves by compiling catalogues have been
+most severely criticised by writers who no doubt would
+have been victimized in their turn if they had undertaken
+similar work. Byron says</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A man must serve his time to every trade,<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">Save censure;&mdash;critics all are ready made."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When De Bure and Van Praet, most accomplished bibliographers,
+published the catalogue of the precious library
+of the duke de La Valli&egrave;re, the abb&eacute; Rive boasted that he
+had discovered a blunder in every one of the five thousand
+titles of their catalogue. Barbier and Brunet have both
+been criticised for swarms of errors in the earlier editions
+of their famous catalogues. The task of the exact cataloguer
+is full of difficulty, constantly renewed, and demanding
+almost encyclopaedic knowledge, and incessant
+care of minute particulars.</p>
+
+<p>The liability to error is so great in a kind of work which,
+more than almost any other, demands the most scrupulous
+accuracy, lest a catalogue should record a book with
+such mistakes as to completely mislead a reader, that rules
+are imperatively necessary. And whatever rules are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_385" id="Pg_385"></a>[<a href="./images/385.png">385</a>]</span>
+adopted, a rigid adherence to them is no less essential, to
+avoid misapprehension and confusion. A singular instance
+of imperfect and misleading catalogue work was unwittingly
+furnished by Mr. J. Payne Collier, a noted English
+critic, author, and librarian, who criticised the slow
+progress of the British Museum catalogue, saying that he
+could himself do "twenty-five titles an hour without trouble."
+His twenty-five titles when examined, were found
+to contain almost every possible error that can be made in
+cataloguing books. These included using names of translators
+or editors as headings, when the author's name was
+on the title-page; omitting christian names of authors;
+omitting to specify the edition; using English instead of
+foreign words to give the titles of foreign books; adopting
+titled instead of family names for authors (which would
+separate Stanhope's "England under Queen Anne" from
+the same writer's "History of England," published when
+he was Lord Mahon); errors in grammar, etc. These
+ridiculous blunders of a twenty-five-title-an-hour man exemplify
+the maxim "the more haste, the worse speed," in
+catalogue-making.</p>
+
+<p>That our British brethren are neither adapted nor inclined
+to pose as exemplars in the fine art of cataloguing,
+we need only cite their own self-criticisms to prove. Here
+are two confessions found in two authors of books on catalogue-making,
+both Englishmen. Says one: "We are deficient
+in good bibliographies. It is a standing disgrace
+to the country that we have no complete bibliography of
+English authors, much less of English literature generally."
+Says another: "The English are a supremely illogical
+people. The disposition to irregularity has made
+English bibliography, or work on catalogues, a by-word
+among those who give attention to these matters."</p>
+
+<p>An American may well add, "They do these things bet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_386" id="Pg_386"></a>[<a href="./images/386.png">386</a>]</span>ter
+in France and Germany," while declining to claim the
+meed of superiority for the United States.</p>
+
+<p>Too much prominence should not be given to place-numbers
+in library catalogues. The tendency to substitute
+mere numerical signs for authors and subjects has
+been carried so far in some libraries, that books are called
+for and charged by class-numbers only, instead of their
+distinctive names. An English librarian testifies that assistants
+trained in such libraries are generally the most
+ignorant of literature. When mechanical or mnemonical
+signs are wholly substituted for ideas and for authors, is it
+any wonder that persons incessantly using them become
+mechanical? Let catalogue and classification go hand in
+hand in bringing all related books together, and library
+assistants will not stunt their intellects by becoming bond-slaves
+to the nine digits, nor lose the power of thought
+and reflection by never growing out of their <i>a b c's</i>.</p>
+
+<p>There are two forms of catalogue not here discussed,
+which are adjuncts to the library catalogue proper. The
+accession catalogue, kept in a large volume, records the
+particulars regarding every volume, on its receipt by the
+library. It gives author, title, date, size, binding, whence
+acquired, cost, etc., and assigns it an accession number,
+which it ever after retains. The shelf catalogue (or shelf-list)
+is a portable one divided into sections representing
+the cases of shelves in the library. It gives the shelf classification
+number, author, brief title and number of volumes
+of each book, as arranged on the shelves; thus constituting
+an inventory of each case, or stack, throughout the
+library.</p>
+
+<p>To check a library over is to take an account of stock
+of all the books it should contain. This is done annually
+in some libraries, and the deficiencies reported. All libraries
+lose some books, however few, and these losses will be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_387" id="Pg_387"></a>[<a href="./images/387.png">387</a>]</span>
+small or great according to the care exercised and the safe-guards
+provided. The method is to take one division of
+the library at a time, and check off all books on the shelves
+by their numbers on the shelf-list, supplemented by careful
+examination of all numbers drawn out, or at bindery,
+or in other parts of the library. Not a volume should be
+absent unaccounted for. Those found missing after a certain
+time should be noted on the shelf-list and accession
+book, and replaced, if important, after the loss is definitely
+assured.</p>
+
+<p>The reason for writing and printing all catalogue titles
+in small letters, without capitals (except for proper names)
+is two-fold. First, there can be no standard prescribing
+what words should or should not be capitalized, and the
+cataloguer will be constantly at a loss, or will use capitals
+in the most unprincipled way. He will write one day,
+perhaps, "The Dangers of great Cities," and the next,
+"The dangers of Great cities"&mdash;with no controlling reason
+for either form. Secondly, the symmetry of a title or a
+sentence, whether written or printed, is best attained by
+the uniform exclusion of capitals. That this should be
+applied to all languages, notwithstanding the habit of
+most German typographers of printing all nouns with
+capitals, is borne out by no less an authority than the new
+Grimm's <i>Deutsches W&ouml;rterbuch</i>, which prints all words in
+"lower case" type except proper names. Nothing can be
+more unsightly than the constant breaking up of the harmony
+of a line by the capricious use of capitals.</p>
+
+<p>To discriminate carefully the various editions of each
+work is part of the necessary duty of the cataloguer. Many
+books have passed through several editions, and as these
+are by no means always specified on the title-page, one
+should establish the sequence, if possible, by other means.
+The first edition is one which includes all copies printed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_388" id="Pg_388"></a>[<a href="./images/388.png">388</a>]</span>
+from the plates or the type as first set; the second, one
+which is reprinted, with or without changes in the text
+or the title. First editions often acquire a greatly enhanced
+value, in the case of a noted author, by reason of
+changes made in the text in later issues of the work. For
+though the latest revision may and should be the author's
+best improved expression, his earliest furnishes food for
+the hunters of literary curiosities. Every catalogue should
+distinguish first editions thus [1st ed.] in brackets.</p>
+
+<p>In the arrangement of titles in catalogues, either of the
+various works of the same writer, or of many books on the
+same subject, some compilers follow the alphabetical order,
+while others prefer the chronological&mdash;or the order
+of years of publication of the various works. The latter
+has the advantage of showing the reader the earlier as distinguished
+from the recent literature, but in a long sequence
+of authors (in a subject-catalogue) it is more difficult
+to find a given writer's work, or to detect its absence.</p>
+
+<p>The task of accurately distributing the titles in a catalogue
+of subjects would be much simplified, if the books
+were all properly named. But it is an unhappy failing
+of many writers to give fanciful or far-fetched titles to
+their books, so that, instead of a descriptive name, they
+have names that describe nothing. This adds indefinitely
+to the labor of the cataloguer, who must spend time to
+analyse to some extent the contents of the book, before
+he can classify it. This must be done to avoid what may
+be gross errors in the catalogue. Familiar examples are
+Ruskin's Notes on Sheep-folds (an ecclesiastical criticism)
+classified under Agriculture; and Edgeworth's Irish Bulls
+under Domestic animals.</p>
+
+<p>The work of alphabeting a large number of title-cards
+is much simplified and abbreviated by observing certain
+obvious rules in the distribution. (1) Gather in the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_389" id="Pg_389"></a>[<a href="./images/389.png">389</a>]</span>
+pile all the cards in the first letter of the alphabet, A, followed
+in successive parallel rows by all the B's, and so on,
+to the letter Z. (2) Next, pursue the same course with all
+the titles, arranging under the second letter of the alphabet,
+Aa, Ab, Ac, etc., and so with all the cards under B. C.
+&amp;c. for all the letters. (3) If there still remain a great
+many titles to distribute into a closer alphabetic sequence,
+the third operation will consist in arranging under the
+third letter of the alphabet, <i>e. g.</i>, Abb, Abc, Abd, etc. The
+same method is pursued throughout the entire alphabet,
+until all the title-cards are arranged in strict order.</p>
+
+<p>Too much care cannot be taken to distinguish between
+books written by different authors, but bearing the same
+name. Many catalogues are full of errors in this respect,
+attributing, for example, works written by Jonathan Edwards,
+the younger, (1745-1801) to Jonathan Edwards the
+elder, (1703-58); or cataloguing under Henry James, Jr.,
+the works of his father, Henry James. The abundant
+means of identification which exist should cause such
+errors to be avoided; and when the true authorship is
+fixed, every author's chronology should appear next after
+his name on every card-title: <i>e. g.</i> James (Henry, 1811-82)
+Moralism and Christianity, New York, 1850. James
+(Henry, 1843- ) Daisy Miller, N. Y. 1879.</p>
+
+<p>The designation of book sizes is a vexed question in catalogues.
+The generally used descriptions of size, from folio
+down to 48mo. signify no accurate measurement whatever,
+the same book being described by different catalogues
+as 12mo. 8vo, crown 8vo. &amp;c., according to fancy; while
+the same cataloguer who describes a volume as octavo to-day,
+is very likely to call it a duodecimo to-morrow. Library
+catalogues are full of these heterogeneous descriptions,
+and the size-notation is the <i>b&ecirc;te noir</i> of the veteran
+bibliographer, and the despair of the infant librarian. Yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_390" id="Pg_390"></a>[<a href="./images/390.png">390</a>]</span>
+it is probable that the question has excited a discussion
+out of all proportion to its importance. Of what consequence
+is the size of a book to any one, except to the
+searcher who has to find it on the shelves? While the
+matter has been much exaggerated, some concert or uniformity
+in describing the sizes of books is highly desirable.</p>
+
+<p>A Committee of the American Library Association
+agreed to a size-notation, figured below, adopting the metric
+system as the standard, to which we add the approximate
+equivalents in inches.</p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Sizes of Books">
+<tr><td align='center'><i>Sizes.</i></td><td align='center'><i>&emsp;&emsp;Size abbreviations.&emsp;&emsp;</i></td><td align='center'><i>Centimetres<br /> outside height.</i></td><td align='center'>&emsp;&emsp;<i>Inches.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Folio, F&deg;.</td><td align='center'>F</td><td align='left'>40</td><td align='right'>16</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Quarto, 4&deg;.</td><td align='center'>Q</td><td align='left'>30</td><td align='right'>12</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Octavo, 8&deg;.</td><td align='center'>O</td><td align='left'>25</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Duodecimo, 12&deg;.</td><td align='center'>D</td><td align='left'>20</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sixteen mo., 16&deg;.</td><td align='center'>S</td><td align='left'>17.5</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Twenty-four mo., 24&deg;.</td><td align='center'>T</td><td align='left'>15</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Thirty-two mo., 32&deg;.</td><td align='center'>Tt</td><td align='left'>12.3</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Forty-eight mo., 48&deg;.</td><td align='center'>Fe</td><td align='left'>10</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It will be understood that the figure against each size
+indicated represents the maximum measure: <i>e. g.</i> a volume
+is octavo when above 20 and below 25 centimetres (8 to
+10 inches high).</p>
+
+<p>As this question of sizes concerns publishers and booksellers,
+as well as librarians, and the metric system, though
+established in continental Europe, is in little use in the
+United States and England, it remains doubtful if any
+general adherence to this system of notation can be reached&mdash;or,
+indeed, to any other. The Publishers' Weekly
+(N. Y.) the organ of the book trade, has adopted it for the
+titles of new books actually in hand, but follows the publishers'
+descriptions of sizes as to others. Librarian J.
+Winter Jones, of the British Museum, recommended classing
+all books above twelve inches in height as folios, those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_391" id="Pg_391"></a>[<a href="./images/391.png">391</a>]</span>
+between ten and twelve inches as quartos, those from seven
+to ten inches as octavos, and all measuring seven inches
+or under as 12mos. Mr. H. B. Wheatley, in his work,
+"How to Catalogue a Library," 1889, proposed to call all
+books small octavos which measure below the ordinary
+octavo size. As all sizes "run into each other," and the
+former classification by the fold of the sheets is quite obsolete,
+people appear to be left to their own devices in describing
+the sizes of books. While the metric notation
+would be exact, if the size of every book were expressed in
+centimetres, the size-notation in the table given is wholly
+wanting in precision, and has no more claim to be adopted
+than any other arbitrary plan. Still, it will serve ordinary
+wants, and the fact that we cannot reach an exact standard
+is no reason for refusing to be as nearly exact as we can.</p>
+
+<p>And while we are upon the subject of notation may be
+added a brief explanation of the method adopted in earlier
+ages, (and especially the years reckoned from the Christian
+era) to express numbers by Roman numerals. The one
+simple principle was, that each letter placed after a figure
+of greater equal value adds to it just the value which itself
+has; and, on the other hand, a letter of less value placed
+before (or on the left of) a larger figure, diminishes the
+value of that figure in the same proportion. For example:</p>
+
+<p>These letters&mdash;VI represent six; which is the same as
+saying V<span class="lf">+</span>I. On the contrary, these same letters reversed
+represent four; thus&mdash;IV: that is V<span class="lf">-</span>I<span class="lf">=</span>4. Nine is represented
+by IX, <i>i. e.</i>, X<span class="lf">-</span>I, ten minus one. On the same
+principle, LX represents 60&mdash;or L<span class="lf">+</span>N: whereas XL means
+40&mdash;being L<span class="lf">-</span>X. Proceeding on the same basis, we find
+that LXX<span class="lf">=</span>L<span class="lf">+</span>XX<span class="lf">=</span>70; and LXXX or L<span class="lf">+</span>XXX is 80.
+But when we come to ninety, instead of adding four X's
+to the L, they took a shorter method, and expressed it in
+two figures instead of five, thus, XC, <i>i. e.</i> 100 or C<span class="lf">-</span>X<span class="lf">=</span>90.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_392" id="Pg_392"></a>[<a href="./images/392.png">392</a>]</span>The remarkable thing about this Roman notation is that
+only six letters sufficed to express all numbers up to one
+thousand, and even beyond, by skilful and simple combinations:
+namely the I, the V, the X, the L, the C, and
+the M, and by adding or <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'substracting'">subtracting</ins> some of these letters,
+when placed before or after another letter, they had a
+whole succession of numbers done to their hand&mdash;thus:</p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Roman Numerals">
+<tr><td align='right'>I,</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>XX,</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>CC,</td><td align='right'>200</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II,</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>XXX,</td><td align='right'>30</td><td align='right'>CCC,</td><td align='right'>300</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III,</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>XL,</td><td align='right'>40</td><td align='right'>CCCC,</td><td align='right'>400</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV,</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>L,</td><td align='right'>50</td><td align='right'>D,</td><td align='right'>500</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V,</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>LX,</td><td align='right'>60</td><td align='right'>DC,</td><td align='right'>600</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI,</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>LXX,</td><td align='right'>70</td><td align='right'>DCC,</td><td align='right'>700</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII,</td><td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>LXXX,</td><td align='right'>80</td><td align='right'>DCCC,</td><td align='right'>800</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII,</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>XC,</td><td align='right'>90</td><td align='right'>CM,</td><td align='right'>900</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX,</td><td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>&emsp;C (centum),</td><td align='right'>100</td><td align='right'>&emsp;M, (mille),</td><td align='right'>1,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X,</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>Now, when the early printers came to apply dates of
+publication to the books they issued, (and here is where
+their methods of notation become most important to librarians)
+they used precisely these methods. For example,
+to express the year 1695, they printed it thus: MDCVC,
+that is&mdash;1000<span class="lf">+</span>500<span class="lf">+</span>100<span class="lf">+</span>100<span class="lf">-</span>5. But the printers of
+the 15th century and later, often used complications of
+letters, dictated by caprice rather than by any fixed principles,
+so that it is sometimes difficult to interpret certain
+dates in the colophons or title-pages of books, without collateral
+aid of some kind, usually supplied to the librarian
+by bibliographies. One of the simpler methods of departure
+from the regular notation as above explained, was to
+substitute for the letter D (500) two letters, thus&mdash;I&#390;, an I
+and a C inverted, supposed to resemble the letter D in outline.
+Another fancy was to replace the M, standing for
+1,000, by the symbols CI&#390;&mdash;which present a faint approach
+to the outline of the letter M, for which they stand. Thus,
+to express the year 1610, we have this combination&mdash;CI&#390;
+I&#390; CX, which would be indecipherable to a modern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_393" id="Pg_393"></a>[<a href="./images/393.png">393</a>]</span>
+reader, uninstructed in the numerical signs anciently used,
+and their values. In like manner, 1548 is expressed thus:
+MDXLIIX, meaning 1000<span class="lf">+</span>500<span class="lf">+</span>40<span class="lf">+</span>10<span class="lf">-</span>2. And for
+1626, we have CI&#390; I&#390; C XXVI.</p>
+
+<p>As every considerable library has early printed books,
+a librarian must know these peculiarities of notation, in
+order to catalogue them properly, without mistake as to
+their dates. In some books, where a capricious combination
+of Roman numerals leaves him without a precedent to
+guide him to the true date, reference must be had to
+the bibliographies of the older literature, (as Hain, Panzer,
+etc.), which will commonly solve the doubt.</p>
+
+<p>As to the mechanics of catalogue-making, widely different
+usages and materials prevail. In America, the card or
+title-slip system is well nigh <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'univeral'">universal</ins>, while in England it
+is but slowly gaining ground, as against the ledger or blank
+book catalogue. Its obvious advantage lies in affording
+the only possible means of maintaining a strict alphabetical
+sequence in titles, whether of authors or subjects. The
+title-cards should be always of uniform size, and the measure
+most in vogue is five inches in length by three inches
+in breadth. They should not be too stiff, though of sufficient
+thickness, whether of paper or of thin card board,
+to stand upright without doubling at the edges. They
+may be ruled or plain, at pleasure, and kept in drawers,
+trays, or (in case of a small catalogue) in such paste-board
+boxes as letter envelopes come in.</p>
+
+<p>The many advantages of the card system, both for catalogues
+and indexes, should not lead us to overlook its palpable
+defects. These are (1) It obliges readers to manipulate
+many cards, to arrive at all the works of an author,
+or all the books on any subject, instead of having them
+under his eye at once, as in printed catalogues. (2) It
+can be used only in the library, and in only one place in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_394" id="Pg_394"></a>[<a href="./images/394.png">394</a>]</span>
+the library, and by only one person at a time in the same
+spot, while a printed catalogue can be freely used anywhere,
+and by any numbers, copies being multiplied. (3)
+It entails frequent crowding of readers around the catalogue
+drawers, who need to consult the same subjects or
+authors at the same time. (4) It requires immeasurably
+more room than a printed catalogue, and in fact, exacts
+space which in some libraries can be ill afforded. (5)
+It obliges readers to search the title-cards at inconvenient
+angles of vision, and often with inadequate light. (6) It
+is cumbersome in itself, and doubly cumbersome to searchers,
+who must stand up instead of sitting to consult it, and
+travel from drawer to drawer, interfering with other
+searchers almost constantly, or losing time in waiting.
+(7) To this is added the inconvenience of constant insertion
+of new title-cards by members of the library staff, and
+the time-consuming process of working the rods which
+keep the cards in place, if they are used, and if not used,
+the risk of loss of titles, or misplacement equivalent to
+loss for a time.</p>
+
+<p>Says Mr. H. B. Wheatley: "I can scarcely imagine anything
+more maddening than a frequent reference to cards
+in a drawer." But it is to be considered that all systems
+have defects, and the problem of choosing the least defective
+is ever before us. Most of the suggested defects
+of the card catalogue, as concerns the readers, can be obviated
+by making a two-fold catalogue, the type-written
+titles being manifolded, and one set arranged in card-drawers
+for the use of the library staff, while another is
+mounted on large sheets in bound volumes for use of the
+public. This would secure the advantages of a printed
+catalogue, with no more expense than the manuscript
+titles would cost. If desired, a number of copies could be
+bound up for reading-room use. Accessions of new books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_395" id="Pg_395"></a>[<a href="./images/395.png">395</a>]</span>
+could be incorporated from month to month, by leaving
+the right-hand pages blank for that purpose. This would
+be near enough to alphabetical order for most readers,
+with the immense advantage of opening at one glance before
+the eye, any author or subject. It would go far to
+solve the problem how to unite the flexibility and perfect
+alphabeting of the card system, with the superior comfort,
+safety, and ease of reference of the book. It would also
+be a safe-guard against the loss or displacement of titles,
+a danger inherent in the card system, as they could be
+replaced by copying missing titles from the catalogue volumes.</p>
+
+<p>While the undoubted merits of the card system have
+been much overrated, it would be as unwise to dispense
+with it as the complete official catalogue of the library, as
+it would be to tie down the public to its use, when there is
+a more excellent way, saving time and patience, and contributing
+to the comfort of all.</p>
+
+<p>To print or not to print? is a vital question for libraries,
+and it is in most cases decided to forego or to postpone
+printing, because of its great expense. Yet so manifest
+are the advantages of a printed catalogue, that all public
+libraries should make every effort to endow their readers
+with its benefits. These advantages are (1) Greater facility
+of reading titles. (2) Much more rapid turning from
+letter to letter of the catalogue alphabet. (3) Ability to
+consult it outside of the library. (4) Unlimited command
+of the catalogue by many readers at once, from the number
+of copies at hand, whereas card catalogues or manuscript
+volumes involve loss of time in waiting, or interfering
+with the researches of others. A part of these advantages
+may be realized by printing type-written copies of all
+titles in duplicate, or by carbon paper in manifold, thus
+furnishing the library with several copies of its catalogue:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_396" id="Pg_396"></a>[<a href="./images/396.png">396</a>]</span>
+but why not extend this by multiplying copies through the
+ingenious processes now in use, by which the printing of
+titles can be effected far more cheaply than in any printing
+office? Might not every library become its own printer,
+thus saving it from the inconvenience and risk of sending
+its titles outside, or the great expense of copying them
+for the printer?</p>
+
+<p>The titles thus manifolded could be combined into volumes,
+by cutting away all superfluous margins and mounting
+the thin title-slips alphabetically on paper of uniform
+size, which, when bound, would be readily handled. All
+the titles of an author's works would be under the eye
+at a glance, instead of only one at a time, as in the card
+catalogue. And the titles of books on every subject would
+lie open, without slowly manipulating an infinite series
+of cards, one after another, to reveal them to the eye. The
+classification marks could be readily placed against each
+title, or even printed as a part of the manifold card titles.</p>
+
+<p>Not that the card catalogue system would be abolished:
+it would remain as the only complete catalogue of the library,
+always up to date, in a single alphabet. Daily accessions
+inserted in it would render it the standard of
+appeal as to all that the library contained, and it would
+thus supplement the printed catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, large and increasing accessions would require
+to be combined in occasional supplementary volumes of
+the catalogue; and in no long number of years the whole
+might be re-combined in a single alphabet, furnishing a
+printed dictionary catalogue up to its date.</p>
+
+<p>The experience of the great British Museum Library in
+this matter of catalogues is an instructive one. After
+printing various incomplete author-catalogues in the years
+from 1787 to 1841, the attempt to print came to a full
+stop. The extensive collection grew apace, and the man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_397" id="Pg_397"></a>[<a href="./images/397.png">397</a>]</span>agement
+got along somehow with a manuscript catalogue,
+the titles of which (written in script with approximate
+fullness) were pasted in a series of unwieldy but alphabetically
+arranged volumes. To incorporate the accessions,
+these volumes had continually to be taken apart by
+the binder, and the new titles combined in alphabetical
+order, entailing a literally endless labor of transcribing,
+shifting, relaying and rebinding, to secure even an imperfect
+alphabetical sequence. In 1875, the catalogue had
+grown to over two thousand thick folio volumes, and it was
+foreseen, by a simple computation of the rate of growth of
+the library, that in a very few years its catalogue could no
+longer be contained in the reading-room. The bulky
+manuscript catalogue system broke down by its own
+weight, and the management was compelled to resort to
+printing in self defence. Before the printing had reached
+any where near the concluding letters of the alphabet, the
+MS. catalogue had grown to three thousand volumes, and
+was a daily and hourly incubus to librarians and readers.</p>
+
+<p>This printed catalogue of the largest library in the
+world, save one, is strictly a catalogue of authors, giving
+in alphabetical order the names, followed by the titles of
+all works by each writer which that library possesses. In
+addition, it refers in the case of biographies or comments
+upon any writer found in the index, to the authors of such
+works; and also from translators or editors to the authors
+of the translated or edited work. The titles of accessions
+to the library (between thirty and forty thousand volumes
+a year) were incorporated year by year as the printing
+went on. All claim to minute accuracy had to be ignored,
+and the titles greatly abridged by omitting superfluous
+words, otherwise its cost would have been prohibitory.
+The work was prosecuted with great energy and
+diligence by the staff of able scholars in the service of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_398" id="Pg_398"></a>[<a href="./images/398.png">398</a>]</span>
+Museum Library. As the catalogue embraces far more
+titles of books, pamphlets, and periodicals than any other
+ever printed, it is a great public boon, the aid it affords
+to all investigators being incalculable. And any library
+possessing it may find, with many titles of rare and unattainable
+works, multitudes of books now available by purchase
+in the market, to enrich its own collection. It is
+said to contain about 3,500,000 titles and cross-references.
+It is printed in large, clear type, double columns, well
+spaced, and its open page is a comfort to the eye. Issued
+in paper covers, the thin folios can be bound in volumes
+of any thickness desired by the possessor.</p>
+
+<p>It has several capital defects: (1) It fails to discriminate
+authors of the same name by printing the years or
+period of each; instead of which it gives designations like
+"the elder", "the younger", or the residence, or occupation,
+or title of the author. The years during which any
+writer flourished would have been easily added to the name
+in most cases, and the value of such information would
+have been great, solving at once many doubts as to many
+writers. (2) The catalogue fails to print the collations
+of all works, except as to a portion of those published
+since 1882, or in the newer portions issued. This omission
+leaves a reader uncertain whether the book recorded
+is a pamphlet or an extensive work. (3) The letters I and
+J and U and V are run together in the alphabet, after the
+ancient fashion, thus placing Josephus before Irving, and
+Utah after Virginia; an arrangement highly perplexing,
+not to say exasperating, to every searcher. To follow an
+obsolete usage may be defended on the plea that it is a good
+one, but when it is bad as well as outworn, no excuse for
+it can satisfy a modern reader. (4) No analysis is given
+of the collected works of authors, nor of many libraries
+made up of monographs. One cannot find in it the con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_399" id="Pg_399"></a>[<a href="./images/399.png">399</a>]</span>tents
+of the volumes of any of Swift's Works, nor even of
+Milton's Prose Writings. (5) It fails to record the names
+of publishers, except in the case of some early or rare
+books.</p>
+
+<p>The printing of this monumental catalogue began in
+1881, the volumes of MS. catalogue being set up by the
+printer without transcription, which would have delayed
+the work indefinitely, and it is now substantially
+completed. Its total cost will be not far from &pound;50,000.
+There are about 374 volumes or parts in all. Only 250
+copies were printed, part of which were presented to large
+libraries, and others were offered for sale at &pound;3.10 per
+annum, payable as issued, so that a complete set costs about
+&pound;70. One learns with surprise that only about forty
+copies have been subscribed for. This furnishes another
+evidence of the low estate of bibliography in England,
+where, in a nation full of rich book-collectors and owners
+of fine libraries, almost no buyers are found for the most
+extensive bibliography ever published, a national work,
+furnishing so copious and useful a key to the literature of
+the world in every department of human knowledge.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_400" id="Pg_400"></a>[<a href="./images/400.png">400</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_23" id="CHAPTER_23"></a>CHAPTER 23.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Copyright and Libraries.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>The preservation of literature through public libraries
+has been and will ever be one of the most signal benefits
+which civilization has brought to mankind. When we
+consider the multitude of books which have perished
+from the earth, from the want of a preserving hand, a lively
+sense of regret comes over us that so few libraries have
+been charged with the duty of acquiring and keeping
+every publication that comes from the press. Yet we owe
+an immeasurable debt to the wisdom and far-sightedness
+of those who, centuries ago, provided by this means for
+the perpetuity of literature.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest step taken in this direction appears to
+have been in France. By an ordinance proclaimed
+in 1537, regulating the printing of books, it was required
+that a copy of each work issued from the press should be
+deposited in the royal library. And it was distinctly
+affirmed that the ground of this exaction was to preserve
+to posterity the literature of the time, which might otherwise
+disappear.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> This edict of three centuries and a half
+ago was the seed-grain from which has grown the largest
+library yet gathered in the world&mdash;the <i>Biblioth&egrave;que Nationale</i>
+of France. It antedated by more than two hundred
+years, any similar provision in England for the preservation
+of the national literature.</p>
+
+<p>It is a notable fact that the United States of America<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_401" id="Pg_401"></a>[<a href="./images/401.png">401</a>]</span>
+was the first nation that ever embodied the principle of
+protection to the rights of authors in its fundamental
+law. "The Congress shall have power to promote the
+progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited
+times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their
+respective writings and discoveries." Thus anchored in
+the Constitution itself, this principle has been further
+recognized by repeated acts of Congress, aimed in all cases
+at giving it full practical effect.</p>
+
+<p>If it is asked why the authors of the Constitution gave
+to Congress no plenary power, which might have authorized
+a grant of copyright in perpetuity, the answer is,
+that in this, British precedent had a great, if not a controlling
+influence. Copyright in England, by virtue of
+the statute of Anne, passed in 1710 (the first British copyright
+act), was limited to fourteen years, with right of renewal,
+by a living author, of only fourteen years more;
+and this was in full force in 1787, when our Constitution
+was framed. Prior to the British statute of 1710, authors
+had only what is called a common law right to their writings;
+and however good such a right might be, so long
+as they held them in manuscript, the protection to printed
+books was extremely uncertain and precarious.</p>
+
+<p>It has been held, indeed, that all copyright laws, so far
+from maintaining an exclusive property right to authors,
+do in effect deny it (at least in the sense of a natural
+right), by explicitly limiting the term of exclusive ownership,
+which might otherwise be held (as in other property)
+to be perpetual. But there is a radical distinction
+between the products of the brain, when put in the concrete
+form of books and multiplied by the art of printing,
+and the land or other property which is held by common
+law tenure. Society views the absolute or exclusive property
+in books or inventions as a monopoly. While a mon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_402" id="Pg_402"></a>[<a href="./images/402.png">402</a>]</span>opoly
+may be justified for a reasonable number of years,
+on the obvious ground of securing to their originators the
+pecuniary benefit of their own ideas, a perpetual monopoly
+is generally regarded as odious and unjust. Hence
+society says to the author or inventor: "Put your ideas
+into material form, and we will guarantee you the exclusive
+right to multiply and sell your books or your inventions
+for a term long enough to secure a fair reward to
+you and to your family; after that period we want your
+monopoly, with its individual benefits, to cease in favor
+of the greatest good of all." If this appears unfair to
+authors, who contribute so greatly to the instruction and
+the advancement of mankind, it is to be considered that a
+perpetual copyright would (1) largely increase the cost
+of books, which should be most widely diffused for the
+public benefit, prolonging the enhanced cost indefinitely
+beyond the author's lifetime; (2) it would benefit by a
+special privilege, prolonged without limit, a class of book
+manufacturers or publishers who act as middle-men
+between the author and the public, and who own, in most
+cases, the entire property in the works of authors deceased,
+and which they did not originate; (3) it would
+amount in a few centuries to so vast a sum, taxed upon
+the community who buy books, that the publishers of
+Shakespeare's works, for example, who under perpetual
+copyright could alone print the poet's writings, might
+have reaped colossal fortunes, perhaps unequalled by any
+private wealth yet amassed in the world.</p>
+
+<p>If it is said that copyright, thus limited, is a purely
+arbitrary right, it may be answered that all legal provisions
+are arbitrary. That which is an absolute or natural
+right, so long as held in idea or in manuscript, becomes,
+when given to the world in multiplied copies, the
+creature of law. The most that authors can fairly claim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_403" id="Pg_403"></a>[<a href="./images/403.png">403</a>]</span>
+is a sufficiently prolonged exclusive right to guarantee
+them for a lifetime the just reward of their labors, with
+a reversion for their immediate heirs. That such exclusive
+rights should run to their remotest posterity, or, <i>a
+fortiori</i>, to mere merchants or artificers who had no hand
+whatever in the creation of the intellectual work thus protected,
+would be manifestly unjust. The judicial tribunals,
+both in England and America, have held that
+copyright laws do not affirm an existing right, but create
+a right, with special privileges not before existing, and
+also with special limitations.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest copyright enactment of 1790 granted the
+exclusive privilege of printing his work to the author or
+his assigns for 14 <span class="lf">+</span> 14, or twenty-eight years in all.</p>
+
+<p>The act further required entry of the title, before publication,
+in the office of the Clerk of the United States
+District Court in the State where the author or proprietor
+resided.</p>
+
+<p>This remained the law, with slight amendment, until
+1831, when a new copyright act extended the duration
+of copyright from fourteen to twenty-eight years for the
+original, or first term, with right of renewal to the author
+(now first extended to his widow or children, in case
+of his decease) for fourteen additional years, making forty-two
+years in all.</p>
+
+<p>By the same act the privilege of copyright was extended
+to cover musical compositions, as it had been earlier extended
+(in 1802) to include designs, engravings, and etchings.
+Copyright was further extended in 1856 to dramatic
+compositions, and in 1865 to photographs and negatives
+thereof. In 1870 a new copyright code, to take the
+place of all existing and scattered statutes, was enacted,
+and there were added to the lawful subjects of copyright,
+paintings, drawings, chromos, statues, statuary, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_404" id="Pg_404"></a>[<a href="./images/404.png">404</a>]</span>
+models or designs intended to be perfected as works of
+the fine arts. And finally, by act of March 3, 1891, the
+benefits of copyright were extended so as to embrace foreign
+authors. In 1897, Congress created the office of
+Register of Copyrights, but continued the Copyright
+office, with its records, in the Library of Congress.</p>
+
+<p>In 1846, the first enactment entitling the Library of
+the United States Government to a copy of every work
+protected by copyright was passed. This act, to establish
+the Smithsonian Institution, required that one copy of
+each copyright publication be deposited therein, and one
+copy in the Library of Congress. No penalties were provided,
+and in 1859, on complaint of the authorities of the
+Smithsonian Institution that the law brought in much
+trash in the shape of articles which were not books, the
+law was repealed, with the apparent concurrence of those
+in charge of the Congressional Library.</p>
+
+<p>This <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'ieft'">left</ins> that Library without any accessions of copyright
+books until 1865, when, at the instance of the present
+writer, the Library Committee recommended, and Congress
+passed an act restoring the privilege to the Library
+of Congress. But it was found to require, in order to its
+enforcement, frequent visits to the records of the clerks
+of United States District Courts in many cities, with
+costly transcripts of records in more than thirty other
+offices, in order to ascertain what books had actually been
+copyrighted. To this was added the necessity of issuing
+demands upon delinquent authors or publishers for books
+not sent to the Library; no residence of the delinquents,
+however, being found in any of the records, which simply
+recorded those claiming copyright as "of the said District."</p>
+
+<p>It resulted that no complete, nor even approximate
+compliance with the law was secured, and after five years'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_405" id="Pg_405"></a>[<a href="./images/405.png">405</a>]</span>
+trial, the Librarian was obliged to bring before the committees
+of Congress the plan of a copyright registry at the
+seat of government, as had been the requirement in the
+case of Patents from the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>The law of copyright, as codified by act of July 8, 1870,
+made an epoch in the copyright system of the United
+States. It transferred the entire registry of books and
+other publications, under copyright law, to the city of
+Washington, and made the Librarian of Congress sole
+register of copyrights, instead of the clerks of the District
+Courts of the United States. Manifold reasons existed for
+this radical change, and those which were most influential
+with Congress in making it were the following:</p>
+
+<p>1. The transfer of the copyright records to Washington
+it was foreseen would concentrate and simplify the business,
+and this was a cardinal point. Prior to 1870 there
+were between forty and fifty separate and distinct authorities
+for issuing copyrights. The American people
+were put to much trouble to find out where to apply, in
+the complicated system of District Courts, several of them
+frequently in a single State, to enter titles for publication.
+They were required to make entry in the district
+where the applicant resided, and this was frequently a
+matter of doubt. Moreover, they were required to go to
+the expense and trouble of transmitting a copy of the work,
+after publication, to the District clerk, and another copy
+to the Library of Congress. Were both copies mailed to
+Washington (post-free by law) this duty would be diminished
+by one-half.</p>
+
+<p>2. A copyright work is not an invention nor a patent; it
+is a contribution to literature. It is not material, but intellectual,
+and has no natural relation to a department which
+is charged with the care of the mechanic arts; and it belongs
+rather to a national library system than to any other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_406" id="Pg_406"></a>[<a href="./images/406.png">406</a>]</span>
+department of the civil service. The responsibility of caring
+for it would be an incident to the similar labors already
+devolved upon the Librarian of Congress; and the receipts
+from copyright certificates would much more than pay its
+expense, thus leaving the treasury the gainer by the
+change.</p>
+
+<p>3. The advantage of securing to our national library a
+complete collection of all American copyright publications
+can scarcely be over-estimated. If such a law as that enacted
+in 1870 had been enforced since the beginning of the
+government, we should now have in the Library of Congress
+a complete representation of the product of the
+American mind in every department of science and literature.
+Many publications which are printed in small editions,
+or which become "out of print" from the many accidents
+which continually destroy books, would owe to such
+a library their sole chance of preservation. We ought to
+have one comprehensive library in the country, and that
+belonging to the nation, whose aim it should be to preserve
+the books which other libraries have not the room nor the
+means to procure.</p>
+
+<p>4. This consideration assumes additional weight when it
+is remembered that the Library of Congress is freely open
+to the public day and evening throughout the year, and is
+rapidly becoming the great reference library of the country,
+resorted to not only by Congress and the residents of
+Washington, but by students and writers from all parts of
+the Union, in search of references and authorities not elsewhere
+to be found. The advantage of having all American
+publications accessible upon inquiry would be to build
+up at Washington a truly national library, approximately
+complete and available to all the people.</p>
+
+<p>These considerations prevailed with Congress to effect
+the amendment in copyright registration referred to.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_407" id="Pg_407"></a>[<a href="./images/407.png">407</a>]</span>By enactment of the statute of 1870 all the defects in
+the methods of registration and deposit of copies were obviated.
+The original records of copyright in all the States
+were thenceforward kept in the office of the Librarian of
+Congress. All questions as to literary property, involving
+a search of records to determine points of validity,
+such as priority of entry, names and residence of actual
+owners, transfers or assignments, timely deposit of the
+required copies, etc., could be determined upon inquiry at
+a single office of record. These inquiries are extremely
+numerous, and obviously very important, involving frequently
+large interests in valuable publications in which
+litigation to establish the rights of authors, publishers or
+infringers has been commenced or threatened. By the
+full records of copyright entries thus preserved, moreover,
+the Library of Congress (which is the property of the
+nation) has been enabled to secure what was before unattainable,
+namely, an approximately complete collection of
+all American books, etc., protected by copyright, since the
+legislation referred to went into effect. The system has
+been found in practice to give general satisfaction; the
+manner of securing copyright has been made plain and
+easy to all, the office of record being now a matter of public
+notoriety; and the test of experience during thirty
+years has established the system so thoroughly that none
+would be found to favor a return to the former methods.</p>
+
+<p>The Act of 1870 provided for the removal of the collection
+of copyright books and other publications from the
+over-crowded Patent Office to the Library of Congress.
+These publications were the accumulations of about eighty
+years, received from the United States District Clerks'
+offices under the old law. By request of the Commissioner
+of Patents all the law books and a large number of
+technical works were reserved at the Department of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_408" id="Pg_408"></a>[<a href="./images/408.png">408</a>]</span>
+Interior. The residue, when removed to the Capitol, were
+found to number 23,070 volumes, a much smaller number
+than had been anticipated, in view of the length of
+time during which the copy tax had been in operation.
+But the observance of the acts requiring deposits of copyright
+publications with the Clerks of the United States
+District Courts had been very defective (no penalty being
+provided for non-compliance), and, moreover, the Patent
+Office had failed to receive from the offices of original deposit
+large numbers of publications which should have
+been sent to Washington. From one of the oldest States
+in the Union not a single book had been sent in evidence
+of copyright. The books, however, which were added to
+the Congressional Library, although consisting largely of
+school books and the minor literature of the last half century,
+comprised many valuable additions to the collection
+of American books, which it should be the aim of a National
+Library to render complete. Among them were
+the earliest editions of the works of many well-known writers,
+now out of print and scarce.</p>
+
+<p>The first book ever entered for copyright privileges
+under the laws of the United States was "The Philadelphia
+Spelling Book," which was registered in the Clerk's
+Office of the District of Pennsylvania, June 9, 1790, by
+John Barry as author. The spelling book was a fit introduction
+to the long series of books since produced to further
+the diffusion of knowledge among men. The second
+book entered was "The American Geography," by Jedediah
+Morse, entered in the District of Massachusetts on
+July 10, 1790, a copy of which is preserved in the Library
+of Congress. The earliest book entered in the State of
+New York was on the 30th of April, 1791, and it was entitled
+"The Young Gentleman's and Lady's Assistant, by
+Donald Fraser, Schoolmaster."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_409" id="Pg_409"></a>[<a href="./images/409.png">409</a>]</span>Objection has occasionally, though rarely, been made to
+what is known as the copy-tax, by which two copies of each
+publication must be deposited in the National Library.
+This requirement rests upon two valid grounds: (1) The
+preservation of copies of everything protected by copyright
+is necessary in the interest of authors and publishers,
+in evidence of copyright, and in aid of identification
+in connection with the record of title; (2) the library of
+the government (which is that of the whole people) should
+possess and permanently preserve a complete collection of
+the products of the American press, so far as secured by
+copyright. The government makes no unreasonable exaction
+in saying to authors and publishers: "The nation
+gives you exclusive right to make and sell your publication,
+without limit as to quantity, for forty-two years; give
+the nation in return two copies, one for the use and reference
+of Congress and the public in the National Library,
+the other for preservation in the copyright archives, in
+perpetual evidence of your right."</p>
+
+<p>In view of the valuable monopoly conceded by the public,
+does not the government in effect give far more than
+a <i>quid pro quo</i> for the copy-tax? Of course it would not
+be equitable to exact even one copy of publications not secured
+by copyright, in which case the government gives
+nothing and gets nothing; but the exaction of actually
+protected publications, while it is almost unfelt by publishers,
+is so clearly in the interest of the public intelligence,
+as well as of authors and publishers themselves, that no
+valid objection to it appears to exist. In Great Britain
+five copies of every book protected by copyright are required
+for five different libraries, which appears somewhat
+unreasonable.</p>
+
+<p>Regarding the right of renewal of the term of copyright,
+it is a significant fact that it is availed of in comparatively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_410" id="Pg_410"></a>[<a href="./images/410.png">410</a>]</span>
+few instances, compared with the whole body of publications.
+Multitudes of books are published which not only
+never reach a second edition, but the sale of which does
+not exhaust more than a small part of the copies printed
+of the first. In these cases the right of renewal is waived
+and suffered to lapse, from defect of commercial value in
+the work protected. In many other cases the right of renewal
+expires before the author or his assigns bethink
+them of the privilege secured to them under the law. It
+results that more than nine-tenths, probably, of all books
+published are free to any one to print, without reward or
+royalty to their authors, after a very few years have elapsed.
+On the other hand, the exclusive right in some publications
+of considerable commercial value is kept alive far beyond
+the forty-two years included in the original and the
+renewal term, by entry of new editions of the work, and
+securing copyright on the same. While this method may
+not protect any of the original work from republication by
+others, it enables the publishers of the copyright edition
+to advertise such unauthorized reprints as imperfect, and
+without the author's or editor's latest revision or additions.</p>
+
+<p>The whole number of entries of copyright in the United
+States since we became a nation considerably exceeds a
+million and a half. It may be of interest to give the aggregate
+number of titles of publications entered for copyright
+in each year since the transfer of the entire records
+to Washington in 1870.</p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Copyrights Registered in the US 1870-1899">
+<tr><th align='center' colspan='6'><span class="smcap">Copyrights Registered in the United States</span>, 1870-1899.</th></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1870</td><td align='right'>5,600</td><td align='right'>1874</td><td align='right'>16,283</td><td align='right'>1878</td><td align='right'>15,798</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1871</td><td align='right'>12,688</td><td align='right'>1875</td><td align='right'>14,364</td><td align='right'>1879</td><td align='right'>18,125</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1872</td><td align='right'>14,164</td><td align='right'>1876</td><td align='right'>14,882</td><td align='right'>1880</td><td align='right'>20,686</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1873</td><td align='right'>15,352</td><td align='right'>1877</td><td align='right'>15,758</td><td align='right'>1881</td><td align='right'>21,075<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_411" id="Pg_411"></a>[<a href="./images/411.png">411</a>]</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1882</td><td align='right'>22,918</td><td align='right'>1888</td><td align='right'>38,225</td><td align='right'>1894</td><td align='right'>62,762</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1883</td><td align='right'>25,273</td><td align='right'>1889</td><td align='right'>40,777</td><td align='right'>1895</td><td align='right'>67,572</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1884</td><td align='right'>26,893</td><td align='right'>1890</td><td align='right'>42,758</td><td align='right'>1896</td><td align='right'>72,470</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1885</td><td align='right'>28,410</td><td align='right'>1891</td><td align='right'>48,908</td><td align='right'>1897</td><td align='right'>74,321</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1886</td><td align='right'>31,241</td><td align='right'>1892</td><td align='right'>54,735</td><td align='right'>1898</td><td align='right'>76,874</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1887</td><td align='right'>35,083</td><td align='right'>1893</td><td align='right'>58,936</td><td align='right'>1899</td><td align='right'>86,492</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center' colspan='5'>Total, 30 years,</td><td align='right'>1,079,445</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It will readily be seen that this great number of copyrights
+does not represent books alone. Many thousands
+of entries are daily and weekly periodicals claiming copyright
+protection, in which case they are required by law
+to make entry of every separate issue. These include a
+multitude of journals, literary, political, scientific, religious,
+pictorial, technical, commercial, agricultural, sporting,
+dramatic, etc., among which are a number in foreign
+languages. These entries also embrace all the leading
+monthly and quarterly magazines and reviews, with many
+devoted to specialties&mdash;as metaphysics, sociology, law, theology,
+art, finance, education, and the arts and sciences
+generally. Another large class of copyright entries (and
+the largest next to books and periodicals) is musical compositions,
+numbering recently some 20,000 publications
+yearly. Much of this property is valuable, and it is
+nearly all protected by entry of copyright, coming from all
+parts of the Union. There is also a large and constantly
+increasing number of works of graphic art, comprising
+engravings, photographs, photogravures, chromos, lithographs,
+etchings, prints, and drawings, for which copyright
+is entered. The steady accumulation of hundreds of
+thousands of these various pictorial illustrations will enable
+the government at no distant day, without a dollar
+of expense, to make an exhibit of the progress of the arts
+of design in America, which will be highly interesting and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_412" id="Pg_412"></a>[<a href="./images/412.png">412</a>]</span>
+instructive. An art gallery of ample dimensions for this
+purpose is provided in the new National Library building.</p>
+
+<p>It remains to consider briefly the principles and practice
+of what is known as international copyright.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there is no argument for copyright at all in the
+productions of the intellect which is not good for its extension
+to all countries. The basis of copyright is that all
+useful labor is worthy of a recompense; but since all human
+thought when put into material or merchantable
+form becomes, in a certain sense, public property, the laws
+of all countries recognize and protect the original owners,
+or their assigns to whom they may convey the right, in an
+exclusive privilege for limited terms only. Literary property
+therefore is not a natural right, but a conventional
+one. The author's right to his manuscript is, indeed, absolute,
+and the law will protect him in it as fully as it will
+guard any other property. But when once put in type and
+multiplied through the printing-press, his claim to an exclusive
+right has to be guarded by a special statute, otherwise
+it is held to be abandoned (like the articles in a
+newspaper) to the public. This special protection is furnished
+in nearly all civilized countries by copyright law.</p>
+
+<p>What we call "copyright" is an exclusive right to multiply
+copies of any publication for sale. Domestic copyright,
+which is all we formerly had in this country, is
+limited to the United States. International copyright,
+which has now been enacted, extends the right of American
+authors to foreign countries, and recognizes a parallel
+right of foreign authors in our own. There is nothing in
+the constitutional provision which restrains Congress from
+granting copyright to other than American citizens.
+Patent right, coming under the same clause of the Constitution,
+has been extended to foreigners. Out of over 20,000
+patents annually issued, about 2,500 (or 12 per cent.)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_413" id="Pg_413"></a>[<a href="./images/413.png">413</a>]</span>
+are issued to foreigners, while American patents are similarly
+protected abroad. If we have international patent
+right, why not international copyright? The grant of
+power is the same; both patent right and copyright are
+for a limited time; both rights during this time are exclusive;
+and both rest upon the broad ground of the promotion
+of science and the useful arts. If copyright is
+justifiable at all, if authors are to be secured a reward for
+their labors, they claim that all who use them should contribute
+equally to this result. The principle of copyright
+once admitted, it cannot logically be confined to State
+lines or national boundaries. There appears to be no
+middle ground between the doctrine of common property
+in all productions of the intellect&mdash;which leads us to communism
+by the shortest road&mdash;and the admission that
+copyright is due, while its limited term lasts, from all who
+use the works of an author, wherever found.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, international copyright has become the
+policy of nearly all civilized nations. The term of copyright
+is longer in most countries than in the United
+States, ranging from the life of the author and seven years
+beyond, in England, to a life term and fifty years additional
+in France and Russia. Copyright is thus made a
+life tenure and something more in all countries except our
+own, where its utmost limit is forty-two years. This may
+perhaps be held to represent a fair average lifetime, reckoned
+from the age of intellectual maturity. There have
+not been wanting advocates for a perpetual copyright, to
+run to the author and his heirs and assigns forever. This
+was urged before the British Copyright Commission in
+1878 by leading British publishers, but the term of copyright
+is hitherto, in all nations, limited by law.</p>
+
+<p>Only brief allusion can be made to the most recent (and
+in some respects most important) advance step which has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_414" id="Pg_414"></a>[<a href="./images/414.png">414</a>]</span>
+been taken in copyright legislation in the United States.
+This act of Congress is aimed at securing reciprocal protection
+to American and foreign authors in the respective
+countries which may comply with its provisions. There
+is here no room to sketch the hitherto vain attempt to secure
+to authors, here and abroad, an international protection
+to their writings. Suffice it to say that a union of
+interests was at last effected, whereby authors, publishers
+and manufacturers are supposed to have secured some
+measure of protection to their varied interests. The
+measure is largely experimental, and the satisfaction felt
+over its passage into law is tempered by doubt in various
+quarters as to the justice, or liberality, or actual benefit
+to authors of its provisions. What is to be said of a
+statute which was denounced by some Senators as a long
+step backward toward barbarism, and hailed by others as
+a great landmark in the progress of civilization?</p>
+
+<p>The main features added to the existing law of copyright
+by this act, which took effect July 1, 1891, are these:</p>
+
+<p>1. All limitation of the privilege of copyright to citizens
+and residents of the United States is repealed.</p>
+
+<p>2. Foreigners applying for copyright are to pay fees of
+$1 for record, or $1.50 for certificate of copyright.</p>
+
+<p>3. Importation of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs
+entered here for copyright is prohibited, except two
+copies of any book for use and not for sale.</p>
+
+<p>4. The two copies of books, photographs, chromos or
+lithographs deposited with the Librarian of Congress
+must be printed from type set, or plates, etc., made in the
+United States. It follows that all foreign works protected
+by American copyright must be wholly manufactured
+in this country.</p>
+
+<p>5. The copyright privilege is restricted to citizens or
+subjects of nations permitting the benefit of copyright to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_415" id="Pg_415"></a>[<a href="./images/415.png">415</a>]</span>
+Americans on substantially the same terms as their own
+citizens, or of nations who have international agreements
+providing for reciprocity in the grant of copyright, to
+which the United States may at its pleasure become a
+party.</p>
+
+<p>6. The benefit of copyright in the United States is not
+to take effect as to any foreigner until the actual existence
+of either of the conditions just recited, in the case of the
+nation to which he belongs, shall have been made known
+by a proclamation of the President of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>One very material benefit has been secured through international
+copyright. Under it, authors are assured the
+control of their own text, both as to correctness and completeness.
+Formerly, republication was conducted on a
+"scramble" system, by which books were hastened through
+the press, to secure the earliest market, with little or no
+regard to a correct re-production. Moreover, it was in
+the power of the American publisher of an English book,
+or of a British publisher of an American one, to alter or
+omit passages in any work reprinted, at his pleasure. This
+license was formerly exercised, and imperfect, garbled,
+or truncated editions of an author's writings were issued
+without his consent, an outrage against which international
+copyright furnishes the only preventive.</p>
+
+<p>Another benefit of copyright between nations has been
+to check the relentless flood of cheap, unpaid-for fiction,
+which formerly poured from the press, submerging the
+better literature. The Seaside and other libraries, with
+their miserable type, flimsy paper, and ugly form, were
+an injury alike to the eyesight, to the taste, and in many
+cases, to the morals of the community. More than ninety
+per cent. of these wretched "Libraries" were foreign
+novels. An avalanche of English and translated French
+novels of the "bigamy school" of fiction swept over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_416" id="Pg_416"></a>[<a href="./images/416.png">416</a>]</span>
+land, until the cut-throat competition of publishers, after
+exhausting the stock of unwholesome foreign literature,
+led to the failure of many houses, and piled high the counters
+of book and other stores with bankrupt stock. Having
+at last got rid of this unclean brood, (it is hoped
+forever) we now have better books, produced on good
+paper and type, and worth preserving, at prices not much
+above those of the trash formerly offered us.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, standard works of science and literature
+are being published in England at prices which tend
+steadily toward increased popular circulation. Even conservative
+publishers are reversing the rule of small editions
+at high prices, for larger editions at low prices. The old
+three-volume novel is nearly supplanted by the one volume,
+well-printed and bound book at five or six shillings.
+Many more reductions would follow in the higher class of
+books, were not the measure of reciprocal copyright thus
+far secured handicapped by the necessity of re-printing on
+this side at double cost, if a large American circulation
+is in view.</p>
+
+<p>The writers of America, with the steady and rapid
+progress of the art of making books, have come more and
+more to appreciate the value of their preservation, in complete
+and unbroken series, in the library of the government,
+the appropriate conservator of the nation's literature.
+Inclusive and not exclusive, as this library is wisely
+made by law, so far as copyright works are concerned, it
+preserves with impartial care the illustrious and the obscure.
+In its archives all sciences and all schools of
+opinion stand on equal ground. In the beautiful and
+ample repository, now erected and dedicated to literature
+and art through the liberal action of Congress, the intellectual
+wealth of the past and the present age will be
+handed down to the ages that are to follow.</p>
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="tsc">Footnotes:</p>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> G. H. Putnam, "Books and their makers in the Middle
+Ages," N. Y. 1897, vol. 2, p. 447.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_417" id="Pg_417"></a>[<a href="./images/417.png">417</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_24" id="CHAPTER_24"></a>CHAPTER 24.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Poetry of the Library.</span></h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>The Librarian's Dream.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i14">1.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sat at night by his lonely bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With an open book before him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And slowly nodded his weary head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As slumber came stealing o'er him.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">2.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he saw in his dream a mighty host<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the writers gone before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the shadowy form of many a ghost<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glided in at the open door.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">3.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great Homer came first in a snow-white shroud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Virgil sang sweet by his side;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Cicero thundered in accents loud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Caesar most gravely replied.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">4.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Anacreon, too, from his rhythmical lips<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The honey of Hybla distilled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Herodotus suffered a partial eclipse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Horace with music was filled.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">5.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The procession of ancients was brilliant and long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aristotle and Plato were there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thucydides, too, and Tacitus strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Plutarch, and Sappho the fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">6.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aristophanes elbowed gay Ovid's white ghost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Euripides Xenophon led,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Propertius laughed loud at Juvenal's jokes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Sophocles rose from the dead.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_418" id="Pg_418"></a>[<a href="./images/418.png">418</a>]</span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">7.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then followed a throng to memory dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of writers more modern in age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cervantes and Shakespeare, who died the same year,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Chaucer, and Bacon the sage.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">8.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Immortal the laurels that decked the fair throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Dante moved by with his lyre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Montaigne and Pascal stood rapt by his song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Boccaccio paused to admire.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">9.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet Spenser and Calderon moved arm in arm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Milton and Sidney were there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pope, Dryden, and Moli&egrave;re added their charm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Bunyan, and Marlowe so rare.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">10.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then Gibbon stalked by in classical guise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Hume, and Macaulay, and Froude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Darwin, and Huxley, and Tyndall looked wise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Humboldt and Comte near them stood.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">11.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dean Swift looked sardonic on Addison's face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Johnson tipped Boswell a wink,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Walter Scott and Jane Austen hobnobbed o'er a glass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Goethe himself deigned to drink.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">12.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robert Burns followed next with Thomas Carlyle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jean Paul paired with Coleridge, too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While De Foe elbowed Goldsmith, the master of style,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Fielding and Schiller made two.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">13.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rousseau with his eloquent, marvellous style,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Voltaire, with his keen, witty pen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Victor Hugo so grand, though repellent the while,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Dumas and Balzac again.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_419" id="Pg_419"></a>[<a href="./images/419.png">419</a>]</span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">14.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dear Thackeray came in his happiest mood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stayed until midnight was done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, and Kingsley and Hood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Dickens, the master of fun.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">15.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">George Eliot, too, with her matter-full page,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Byron, and Browning, and Keats,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Shelley and Tennyson joined youth and age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Wordsworth the circle completes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">16.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then followed a group of America's best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Irving, and Bryant, and Holmes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Bancroft and Motley unite with the rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Thoreau with Whittier comes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">17.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his Raven in hand dreamed on Edgar Poe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Longfellow sweet and serene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Prescott, and Ticknor, and Emerson too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Hawthorne and Lowell were seen.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">18.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While thus the assembly of witty and wise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rejoiced the librarian's sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere the wonderful vision had fled from his eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From above shone a heavenly light:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i13">19.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And solemn and sweet came a voice from the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"All battles and conflicts are done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The temple of Knowledge shall open all eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And law, faith, and reason are one!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the radiant dawn of the morning broke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From his glorious dream the librarian woke.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_420" id="Pg_420"></a>[<a href="./images/420.png">420</a>]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>The Library.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That place that does contain my books,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My books, the best companions, is to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A glorious court, where hourly I converse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the old sages and philosophers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sometimes, for variety I confer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Beaumont and Fletcher.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The bard of every age and clime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of genius fruitful and of soul sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who from the glowing mint of fancy pours<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No spurious metal, fused from common ores,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But gold to matchless purity refined,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stamped with all the Godhead in his mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Juvenal.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Books, we know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are a substantial world, both pure and good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our pastime and our happiness will grow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Wordsworth.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Quaint Lines on a Book-worm.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Bokeworme sitteth in his celle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He studyethe all alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And burnethe oute the oile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Till ye midnight hour is gone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then gethe he downe upon his bedde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne mo watch will he a-keepe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He layethe his heade on ye pillowe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And eke he tryes to sleepe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then swyfte there cometh a vision grimme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And greetythe him sleepynge fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And straighte he dreameth of grislie dreames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dreades fellowne and rayre.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherefore, if cravest life to eld<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne rede longe uppe at night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But go to bed at Curfew bell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ryse wythe mornynge's lyte.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_421" id="Pg_421"></a>[<a href="./images/421.png">421</a>]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Ballade of the Book-hunter.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In torrid heats of late July,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In March, beneath the bitter <i>bise</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He book-hunts while the loungers fly,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He book-hunts, though December freeze;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In breeches baggy at the knees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heedless of the public jeers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For these, for these, he hoards his fees,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No dismal stall escapes his eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He turns o'er tomes of low degrees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There soiled romanticists may lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or Restoration comedies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each tract that flutters in the breeze<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For him is charged with hopes and fears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In mouldy novels fancy sees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With restless eyes that peer and spy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In dismal nooks he loves to pry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose motto evermore is <i>Spes</i>!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ah! the fabled treasure flees;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grown rarer with the fleeting years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In rich men's shelves they take their ease,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Prince, all the things that tease and please,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, jeers and tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What are they but such toys as these&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs?<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Andrew Lang.</span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Tis in books the chief<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all perfections to be plain and brief.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Samuel Butler.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Of all those arts in which the wise excel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nature's chief master-piece is writing well.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Buckingham.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Books should to one of these four ends conduce:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Sir John Denham.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_422" id="Pg_422"></a>[<a href="./images/422.png">422</a>]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>My Books.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, happy he who, weary of the sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of throbbing life, can shut his study door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like Heinsius, on it all, to find a store<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of peace that otherwise is never found!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such happiness is mine, when all around<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My dear dumb friends in groups of three or four<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Command my soul to linger on the shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of those fair realms where they reign monarchs crowned.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To-day the strivings of the world are naught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I am in a land that glows with God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I am in a path by angels trod.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dost ask what book creates such heavenly thought?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then know that I with Dante soar afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till earth shrinks slowly to a tiny star.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">J. Williams.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Thoughts in a Library.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Speak low! tread softly through these halls;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here genius lives enshrined;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here reign in silent majesty<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The monarchs of the mind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A mighty spirit host they come<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From every age and clime;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above the buried wrecks of years<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They breast the tide of time.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here shall the poets chant for thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their sweetest, loftiest lays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And prophets wait to guide thy steps<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Wisdom's pleasant ways.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Come, with these God-anointed kings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be thou companion here;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in the mighty realm of mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou shalt go forth a peer!<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Anne C. Lynch Botta.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_423" id="Pg_423"></a>[<a href="./images/423.png">423</a>]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Verses in a Library.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Give me that book whose power is such<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I forget the north wind's touch.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Give me that book that brings to me<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forgetfulness of what I be.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Give me that book that takes my life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In seeming far from all its strife.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Give me that book wherein each page<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Destroys my sense of creeping age.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">John Kendrick Bangs.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>A Book by the Brook.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Give me a nook and a book,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And let the proud world spin round;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let it scramble by hook or by crook<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For wealth or a name with a sound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You are welcome to amble your ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aspirers to place or to glory;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May big bells jangle your praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And golden pens blazon your story;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For me, let me dwell in my nook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here by the curve of this brook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That croons to the tune of my book:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose melody wafts me forever<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the waves of an unseen river.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">William Freeland.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the sweet serenity of books.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">H. W. Longfellow.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh for a booke and a shady nooke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eyther in door or out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the greene leaves whispering overhead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or the streete cryes all about:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where I maie reade all at my ease<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Both of the newe and olde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is better to me than golde!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_424" id="Pg_424"></a>[<a href="./images/424.png">424</a>]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>To Daniel Elzevir.</b><br /></span>
+&emsp;&emsp;(<i>From the Latin of M&eacute;nage.</i>)<br />
+<span class="i0">What do I see! Oh! gods divine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Goddesses&mdash;this Book of mine&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This child of many hopes and fears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is published by the Elzevirs!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh Perfect publishers complete!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh dainty volume, new and neat!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Paper doth outshine the snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Print is blacker than the crow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Title-page, with crimson bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The vellum cover smooth and white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All sorts of readers to invite;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ay, and will keep them reading still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against their will, or with their will!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus what of grace the Rhymes may lack<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Publisher has given them back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As Milliners adorn the fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose charms are something skimp and spare.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh dulce decus, Elzevirs!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pride of dead and dawning years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How can a poet best repay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The debt he owes your House to-day?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May this round world, while aught endures,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Applaud, and buy, these books of yours.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May purchasers incessant pop,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My Elzevirs, within your shop,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And learned bards salute, with cheers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The volumes of the Elzevirs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till your renown fills earth and sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till men forget the Stephani,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all that Aldus wrought, and all<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turnebus sold in shop or stall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While still may Fate's (and Binders') shears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Respect, and spare, the Elzevirs!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Wordsworth.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_425" id="Pg_425"></a>[<a href="./images/425.png">425</a>]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Companions.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But books, old friends that are always new,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all good things that we know are best;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They never forsake us, as others do,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never disturb our inward rest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here is truth in a world of lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all that in man is great and wise!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better than men and women, friend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are the books their cunning hands have penned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they depart, but the books remain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Richard Henry Stoddard.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>The Paradox of Books.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm strange contradictions; I'm new and I'm old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm often in tatters, and oft decked with gold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though I never could read, yet lettered I'm found;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though blind, I enlighten; though loose, I am bound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm always in black, and I'm always in white;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am grave and I'm gay, I am heavy and light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In form too I differ,&mdash;I'm thick and I'm thin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've no flesh and no bone, yet I'm covered with skin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've more points than the compass, more stops than the flute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I sing without voice, without speaking confute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm English, I'm German, I'm French, and I'm Dutch;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some love me too fondly, some slight me too much;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I often die soon, though I sometimes live ages,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And no monarch alive has so many pages.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Hannah More.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I love my books as drinkers love their wine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The more I drink, the more they seem divine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each fresh draught is sweeter than before:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Books bring me friends where'er on earth I be,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Solace of solitude, bonds of society.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I love my books! they are companions dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here talk I with the wise in ages gone,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_426" id="Pg_426"></a>[<a href="./images/426.png">426</a>]<br /></span></span>
+<span class="i0">And with the nobly gifted in our own:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Francis Bennoch.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>My Library.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All round the room my silent servants wait,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My friends in every season, bright and dim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Angels and seraphim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spirits of the skies all come and go<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Early and late;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the old world's divine and distant date,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the sublimer few,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down to the poet who but yester-eve<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sang sweet and made us grieve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All come, assembling here in order due.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And here I dwell with Poesy, my mate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Erato and all her vernal sighs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great Clio with her victories elate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or pale Urania's deep and starry eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh friends, whom chance or change can never harm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom Death the tyrant cannot doom to die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Within whose folding soft eternal charm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I love to lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And meditate upon your verse that flows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fertilizes wheresoe'er it goes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Bryan Waller Procter.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Rational Madness.</b><br /></span>
+&emsp;<i>A Song, for the Lover of Curious and Rare Books.</i><br />
+<span class="i0">Come, boys, fill your glasses, and fill to the brim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here's the essence of humor, the soul, too, of whim!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Attend and receive (and sure 'tis no vapour)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A "hap' worth of wit on a pennyworth of paper."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Those joys which the Bibliomania affords<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are felt and acknowledged by Dukes and by Lords!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the finest estate would be offer'd in vain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For an exemplar bound by the famed Roger Payne!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_427" id="Pg_427"></a>[<a href="./images/427.png">427</a>]<br /></span></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To a proverb goes madness with love hand in hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But our senses we yield to a double command;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dear frenzy in both is first rous'd by fair looks,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here's our sweethearts, my boys! not forgetting our books!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thus our time may we pass with rare books and rare friends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Growing wiser and better, till life itself ends:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And may those who delight not in black-letter lore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By some obsolete act be sent from our shore!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Ballade of True Wisdom.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While others are asking for beauty or fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or praying to know that for which they should pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sage has found out a more excellent way&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his humble petition puts up day by day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Philosophers kneel to the God without name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh grant me a life without pleasure or blame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Envoy.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gods, grant or withhold it; your "yea" and your "nay"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_428" id="Pg_428"></a>[<a href="./images/428.png">428</a>]<br /></span></span>
+<span class="i0">But life is worth living, and here we would stay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Andrew Lang.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>The Library.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their aid they yield to all: they never shun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor tell to various people various things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But show to subjects, what they show to kings.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To stamp a lasting image of the mind!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With awe, around these silent walks I tread;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These are the lasting mansions of the dead:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"These are the tombs of such as cannot die!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And laugh at all the little strife of time."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Lo, all in silence, all in order stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mighty folios first, a lordly band;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then quartos their well-order'd ranks maintain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And light octavos fill a spacious plain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See yonder, rang&egrave;d in more frequent rows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A humbler band of duodecimos;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While undistinguished trifles swell the scene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The last new play and fritter'd magazine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here all the rage of controversy ends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rival zealots rest like bosom friends:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An Athanasian here, in deep repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Socinians here with Calvinists abide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thin partitions angry chiefs divide;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here wily Jesuits simple Quakers meet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">George Crabbe.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_429" id="Pg_429"></a>[<a href="./images/429.png">429</a>]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Eternity of Poetry.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For deeds doe die, however noblie donne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thoughts do as themselves decay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But wise words, taught in numbers for to runne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Recorded by the Muses, live for ay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne may with storming showers be washt away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne bitter breathing windes with harmful blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor age, nor envie, shall them ever wast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Spenser.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>The Old Books.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old books, the old books, the books of long ago!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who ever felt Miss Austen tame, or called Sir Walter slow?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We did not care the worst to hear of human sty or den;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We liked to love a little bit, and trust our fellow-men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old books, the old books, as pure as summer breeze!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We read them under garden boughs, by fire-light on our knees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They did not teach, they did not preach, or scold us into good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A noble spirit from them breathed, the rest was understood.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The old books, the old books, the mother loves them best;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They leave no bitter taste behind to haunt the youthful breast:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They bid us hope, they bid us fill our hearts with visions fair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They do not paralyze the will with problems of despair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as they lift from sloth and sense to follow loftier planes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stir the blood of indolence to bubble in the veins:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Inheritors of mighty things, who own a lineage high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We feel within us budding wings that long to reach the sky:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To rise above the commonplace, and through the cloud to soar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And join the loftier company of grander souls of yore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">The Spectator.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_430" id="Pg_430"></a>[<a href="./images/430.png">430</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_25" id="CHAPTER_25"></a>CHAPTER 25.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Humors of the Library.</span><a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Some Thoughts on Classification.</b><br /></span>
+<i>&emsp;By Librarian F. M. Crunden.</i><br />
+<span class="i0">Classification is vexation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shelf-numbering is as bad;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The rule of D<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Doth puzzle me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mnemonics drives me mad.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<i>&emsp;Air&mdash;The Lord Chancellor's Song.</i>
+<span class="i0">When first I became a librarian,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll learn all their systems as fast as I can,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Cutter, the Dewey, the Schwartz, and the Poole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The alphabet, numeral, mnemonic rule,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old, and the new, and the eclectic school,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Class-numbers, shelf-numbers, book-numbers, too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll study them all, and I'll learn them clear thro',<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll find what is good, and what's better and best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I'll put two or three to a practical test;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then&mdash;if I've time&mdash;I'll take a short rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But art it is long and time it doth fly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And three or four years have already passed by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet on those systems I'm not at all clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While new combinations forever appear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To master them all is a life-work, I fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says I to myself, says I.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_431" id="Pg_431"></a>[<a href="./images/431.png">431</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Classification in a Library in Western New York: Gail
+Hamilton's "Woolgathering," under Agriculture.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Book asked for. "An attack philosopher in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>A changed title. A young woman went into a library the
+other day and asked for the novel entitled "She combeth not
+her head," but she finally concluded to take "He cometh not,
+she said."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Labor-saving devices. The economical catalogue-maker who
+thus set down two titles&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Mill on the Floss<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: removed extraneous quotation mark">,</ins><br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">do. Political economy."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>has a sister who keeps a universal scrap-book into which
+everything goes, but which is carefully indexed. She, too, has
+a mind for saving, as witness:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Patti, Adelina.<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">do. Oyster."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>From a New York auction catalogue:</p>
+
+<p>"267. Junius Stat Nominis Umbrii, with numerous splendid
+portraits."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>At the New York Free Circulating Library, a youth of
+twenty said Shakespeare made him tired. "Why couldn't he
+write English instead of indulging in that <i>thee</i> and <i>thou</i> business?"
+Miss Braddon he pronounced "a daisy". A pretty little
+blue-eyed fellow "liked American history best of all," but
+found the first volume of Justin Winsor's history too much
+for him. "The French and German and Hebrew in it are all
+right, but there's Spanish and Italian and Latin, and I don't
+know those."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A gentleman in Paris sent to the bookbinder two volumes
+of the French edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The title in
+French is "L'Oncle Tom," and the two volumes were returned
+to him marked on their backs:</p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Uncle Tom Volumes">
+<tr><td align='left'>L'Oncle,</td><td align='left'>L'Oncle,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tome I.</td><td align='left'>Tome II.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_432" id="Pg_432"></a>[<a href="./images/432.png">432</a>]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>How a Bibliomaniac Binds His Books.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'd like my favorite books to bind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that their outward dress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To every bibliomaniac's mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their contents should express.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Napoleon's life should glare in red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">John Calvin's life in blue;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus they would typify bloodshed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sour religion's hue.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Popes in scarlet well may go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In jealous green, Othello;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In gray, Old Age of Cicero,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And London Cries in yellow.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My Walton should his gentle art<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In salmon best express,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Penn and Fox the friendly heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In quiet drab confess.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Crimea's warlike facts and dates<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of fragrant Russia smell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The subjugated Barbary States<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In crushed Morocco dwell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But oh! that one I hold so dear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should be arrayed so cheap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gives me a qualm; I sadly fear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My Lamb must be half-sheep!<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Irving Browne.<br /></span></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>In a Wisconsin library, a young lady asked for the "Life of
+National Harthorne" and the "Autograph on the breakfast
+table."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"Have you a poem on the Victor of Manengo, by Anon?"</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Library inquiry&mdash;"I want the catalogue of temporary literature."</p>
+
+<p>Query&mdash;What did she want?</p>
+
+<p>A friend proposes to put Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundaries
+of Another World" in Travels. Shall we let him?</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_433" id="Pg_433"></a>[<a href="./images/433.png">433</a>]</span></p>
+
+<p>A poet, in Boston, filled out an application for a volume
+of Pope's works, an edition reserved from circulation, in the
+following tuneful manner:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You ask me, dear sir, to a reason define<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why you should for a fortnight this volume resign<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To my care.&mdash;<i>I am also a son of the nine.</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A worthy Deutscher, confident in his mastery of the English
+tongue, sent the following quaint document across the sea:</p>
+
+<p>"I send you with the Post six numbers, of our Allgemeine
+Milit&auml;r-Zeitung, which is published in the next year to the
+fifty times. Excuse my bath english I learned in the school
+and I forgot so much. If you have interest to german Antiquariatskataloge
+I will send to you some. I remain however
+yours truly servant."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A gentlemanly stranger once asked the delivery clerk for
+"a genealogy." "What one?" she asked. "Oh! any," he said.
+"Well&mdash;Savage's?" "No; white men."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Said Melvil Dewey: "To my thinking, a great librarian
+must have a clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great
+heart. Such shall be greatest among librarians; and, when I
+look into the future, I am inclined to think that most of the
+men who will achieve this greatness will be women."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>A Library Hymn.</b><br /></span>
+<i>&emsp;By an Assistant Librarian.</i><br />
+<span class="ihalf">I have endeavored to clothe the dull prose of the usual Library
+Rules with the mantle of poetry, that they may be
+more attractive, and more easily remembered by the great
+public whom we serve.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Gently, reader, gently moving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wipe your feet beside the door;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hush your voice to whispers soothing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take your hat off, I implore!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mark your number, plainly, rightly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the catalogue you see;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_434" id="Pg_434"></a>[<a href="./images/434.png">434</a>]</span>
+<span class="i0">With the card projecting slightly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then your book bring unto me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quickly working,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With no shirking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soon another there will be.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If above two weeks you've left me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just two cents a day I'll take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, unless my mind's bereft me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Payment you must straightway make.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Treat your books as if to-morrow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gabriel's trump would surely sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all scribbling, to your sorrow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Gainst your credit would be found.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Therefore tear not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spot and wear not<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All these books so neatly bound.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">These few simple rules abiding,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We shall always on you smile:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There will be no room for chiding,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No one's temper will you rile.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when Heaven's golden portals<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For you on their hinges turn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the books for all immortals,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There will be no rules to learn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Therefore heed them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Often read them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lest your future weal you spurn.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Titles of Books Asked for by written Slips in a Popular Library.</span></h4>
+
+<ul><li>Aristopholus translated by Buckley.</li>
+<li>Alfreri Tragedus.</li>
+<li>Bertall Lavie Hors De Ches Soi.</li>
+<li>Cooke M. C. M. A. L. L. D. their nature and uses. Edited by Rev. J. M. Berkeley M. A. F. R. S. (Fungi.)</li>
+<li>Caralus Note Book (A Cavalier's).</li>
+<li>Gobden Club-Essays.</li>
+<li>Specie the origin of Darwin.</li>
+<li>An Epistropal Prayer Book.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_435" id="Pg_435"></a>[<a href="./images/435.png">435</a>]</span></p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Blunders in Cataloguing.</span></h4>
+
+<ul><li>Gasparin. The uprising of a great many people.</li>
+<li>Hughes, Tom. The scouring of the White House.</li>
+<li>Mayhew. The pheasant boy.</li>
+<li>Wind in the lower animals (Mind.)</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Recent Calls for Books at a Western Library.</span></h4>
+
+<ul><li>Account of Monte Cristo.</li>
+<li>Acrost the Kontinent by Boles.</li>
+<li>Bula.</li>
+<li>Count of Corpus Cristy.</li>
+<li>Dant's Infernal comedy.</li>
+<li>Darwin's Descent on man.</li>
+<li>Feminine Cooper's works.</li>
+<li>Infeleese.</li>
+<li>Less Miserable.</li>
+<li>Some of Macbeth's writings.</li>
+<li>Something in the way of friction.</li>
+<li>Squeal to a book.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>In Vol. 3 of Laporte's "Bibliographie contemporaine," Dibdin's
+famous book is entered thus: "Bibliomania, or boock,
+madnss: a bibliographical romance...ilustrated with cats."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A well-known librarian writes:</p>
+
+<p>"The Catalogue of the Indiana State Library for the year
+1859 has long been my wonder and admiration. "Bank's History
+of the Popes" appears under the letter B. Strong in the
+historical department, it offers a choice between the "Life
+of John Tyler, by Harper &amp; Brothers," "Memoirs of Moses
+Henderson, by Jewish Philosophers," "Memoirs and Correspondence
+of Viscount Castlereach, by the Marquis of Londonderry,"
+and "Memoirs of Benvenuto, by Gellini." In fiction,
+you may find "Tales of My Landlord by Cleishbotham," and
+"The Pilot, by the Author of the Pioneers;" while, if your passion
+for plural authorship is otherwise unappeasable&mdash;if
+Beaumont and Fletcher or Erckman-Chatrian seem to you too
+feeble a combination of talents&mdash;you may well be captivated
+by the title "Small Arms, by the United States Army."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_436" id="Pg_436"></a>[<a href="./images/436.png">436</a>]</span>"The State of Indiana has undoubtedly learned a good
+many things since 1859; but whosoever its present librarian
+may be, it is hardly probable that its highest flight in bibliography
+has surpassed the catalogue from which the above
+are quoted."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Books demanded at a certain public library:</p>
+
+
+<ul><li>"The Stuck-up Minister"&mdash;(Stickit Minister.)</li>
+<li>"From Jessie to Ernest" (Jest to Earnest).</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A country order for books called for "The Thrown of
+David," "Echo of Hummo" (Ecce Homo) and "Echo of Deas"
+(Ecce Deus).</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>The Nation mentions as an instance of "the havoc which
+types can make with the titles of books, that a single catalogue
+gives us 'Clara Reeve's Old English Barn,' 'Swinburne's
+Century of Scoundrels,' and 'Una and her Papuse.' But this
+is outdone by the bookseller who offered for sale "Balvatzky,
+Mrs. Izis unveiled." Another goddess is offended in "Transits
+of Venice, by R. A. Proctor."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>In a certain city, an examination of applicants for employment
+in the public library was held. The following is an exact
+copy of the answer to a question, asking for the
+title of a work written by each of the authors named: "John
+Ruskin, 'The Bread Winners;' William H. Prescott, 'The
+Frozen Pirate;' Charles Darwin, 'The Missing Link;' Thomas
+Carlyle, 'Caesar's Column.'" The same man is responsible for
+saying that "B. C." stands for the Creation, and "A. D." for
+the Deluge.</p>
+
+<p>Who wants this bright young man?</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>A Story About Stories.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"When A Man's Single," all "Vanity Fair"<br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf">Courts his favor and smiles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And feminine "Moths" "In Silk Attire"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Try on him "A Woman's Wiles."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_437" id="Pg_437"></a>[<a href="./images/437.png">437</a>]</span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The World, the Flesh and the Devil"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were "Wormwood" and gall to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weary and sick of "The Passing Show,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No "Woman's Face" was "Fair to See."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I fled away to "The Mill on the Floss"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Two Years Ago," "In an Evil Hour,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For "The Miller's Daughter" there I met,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who "Cometh Up as a Flower."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She was a simple "Rose in June,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I was "An Average Man;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"We Two" were "Far From the Madding Crowd"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When our "Love and Life" began.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was but "A Modern Instance"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of true "Love's Random Shot,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I, "The Heir of Redclyffe"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was "Kidnapped": and "Why Not"?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We cannot escape the hand of "Fate,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And few are "Fated to be Free,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But beware of "A Social Departure"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You'll live "Under the Ban," like me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I tried to force the "Gates Ajar"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For my "Queen of Curds and Cream,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But "The Pillars of Society"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shook with horror at my "Dream."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I am no more "A Happy Man,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though blessed with "Heavenly Twins,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because "The Wicked World" maintains<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A Low Marriage" the worst of sins.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Pride and Prejudice" rule the world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"A Marriage for Love" is "A Capital Crime,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beware of "A Country Neighborhood"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shun "Mad Love" in time.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Says the Nation:</p>
+
+<p>A Philadelphia catalogue, whose compiler must have been
+more interested in current events than in his task, offers for
+sale "Intrigues of the Queen of Spain with McKinley, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_438" id="Pg_438"></a>[<a href="./images/438.png">438</a>]</span>
+Prince of Peace, Boston, 1809." How Godoy should become
+McKinley, or McKinley should become the Prince of Peace,
+is a problem for psychologists.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Confusion of Knowledge.</span></h4>
+
+<p>The following are some specimens of answers to Examinations
+of candidates for Library employment, given within
+the past five years:</p>
+
+<p>"A sonnet is a poem which is adapted to music, as Petrarch's
+sonnets"; "a sonnet is a short poem sometimes and sometimes
+a long one and generally a reflection, or thoughts upon some
+inanimate thing, as Young's 'Night thoughts.'" "An epic is a
+critical writing, as 'Criticism on man'"; "an epic is a literary
+form written in verse, and which teaches us some lesson not
+necessarily of a moral nature"; "an epic is a dramatic poem."</p>
+
+<p>Epigrammatic writing is very clearly defined as "critical
+in a grammatical way." "Allegory is writing highly
+colored, as Pope's works"; "allegory is writing of something
+that never happened, but it is purely imaginary, often a wandering
+from the main point." A common mistake regarding
+the meaning of the word bibliography results in such answers
+as "bibliography&mdash;a study of the Bible;" or "gives the
+lives of the people in the Bible." An encyclopaedia
+was aptly defined as "a storehouse of knowledge for the enlightenment
+of the public," while another answer reads "Book
+of Books, giving the life of famous persons, life and habits
+of animals and plants, and some medical knowledge." A collection
+of works of any author is termed "an anthropology."
+"Anthology is the study of insects." Folklore is defined as
+"giving to animals and things human sense"; an elegy means
+"a eulogy," oratory, "the deliverance of words." Belles-lettres
+is to one applicant "beautiful ideas," to another "the title
+of a book," to another "short stories"; again "are the letters
+of French writers," and still another writes "French for
+prominent literature and light literature." A concordance "is
+the explication or definition of something told in a simpler
+form," is the extremely lucid answer to one question, which
+was answered by another candidate as "a table of reference at
+back of book."</p>
+
+<p>The titles of books are too seldom associated with their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_439" id="Pg_439"></a>[<a href="./images/439.png">439</a>]</span>
+authors' names, resulting in such answers as "Homer is the
+author of the Aeneid"; "Lalla Rookh" was written by James
+Blackmore; "Children of the Abbey," by Walter Besant (while
+another attributed it to Jane Porter); "Bow of orange Ribbon,"
+by George Meredith; "Hon. Peter Stirling," by Fielding;
+"Quo Vadis," by Browning; "Pamela," by Frank Stockton
+(according to another by Marie Edgworth); "Love's Labour's
+Lost," by Bryant (another gives Thomas Reade as the author,
+while still another guesses Schiller); "Descent of Man," by
+Alexander Pope (another gives Dryden); "The Essay on
+Man," by Francis Bacon.</p>
+
+<p>One candidate believes "Hudibras" to be an early Saxon
+poem; another that "Victor Hugo's best known work is William
+Tell"; another that "Aesop's Fables is a famous allegory."
+Charlotte Bront&euml; is described as an "American&mdash;nineteenth
+century&mdash;children's book." Cicero was "known for
+Latin poetry." "Dante is an exceedingly bitter writer; he
+takes you into hell and describes Satan and his angels. He
+wrote his play for the stage." Another's idea of the Divine
+Comedy is "a play which could be acted by the priests on
+the steps of a church for the benefit of the poorer class."</p>
+
+<p>Civil service in the mind of one young woman was "the service
+done by the government in a country, domesticly."</p>
+
+<p>A Christian socialist is "an advocate of Christian science."
+"A limited monarchy is a kingdom whose ruler is under the
+ruler of another country." Legal tender is "the legal rate of
+interest"; another considers it "Paper money." In economics,
+some of the answers were "profit-sharing, a term used in socialism,
+the rich to divide among the poor." "Monopolies is
+the money gained by selling church properties"; while "a
+trust is usually a place where a person puts some money
+where it will be safe to keep it."</p>
+
+<p>About noted personages and historic events and places the
+answers are equally startling. "Moli&egrave;re was a French essayist
+and critic" (also "a French writer of the nineteenth century,")
+Cecil Rhodes, "the founder of Bryn Mawr College";
+"Seth Low&mdash;England, eighteenth century;" Attila "a woman
+mentioned in the Bible for her great cruelty to her child;"
+Warren Hastings "was a German soldier" (also "was a discoverer;
+died about 1870"); "Nero was a Roman emperor B. C.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_440" id="Pg_440"></a>[<a href="./images/440.png">440</a>]</span>
+450." Perhaps the most unique guess in this line was "Richard
+Wagner invented the Wagner cars;" Abbotsford is "the
+title of a book by Sir Walter Scott;" "Vassar College is a
+dream, high-up and unattainable;" "Tammany Hall is a political
+meeting place in London;" "the Parthenon, an art
+gallery in Athens."</p>
+
+<p>Pedagogy seemed one of the most perplexing of words. It
+was defined by one as "the science of religion," by another as
+"learned pomposity;" but the most remarkable of all was
+"pedagogy is the study of feet."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>Song of Some Library School Scholars.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Three little maids from school are we,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Filled to the brim with economy&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Not of the house but library,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Learnt in the Library School<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: added period">.</ins><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>1st Maid</i>&mdash;I range my books from number one.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>2nd Maid</i>&mdash;Alphabetically I've begun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>3rd Maid</i>&mdash;In regular classes mine do run.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1"><i>All</i>&mdash;Three maids from the Library School.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1"><i>All</i>&mdash;Three little maidens all unwary,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Each in charge of a library,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Each with a system quite contrary<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">To every other school.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Our catalogues, we quite agree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">From faults and errors must be free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">If only we our way can see<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">To find the proper rule.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Boy's remark on returning a certain juvenile book to the
+library: "I don't want any more of them books. The girls
+is all too holy."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"Half the books in this library are not worth reading," said
+a sour-visaged, hypercritical, novel-satiated woman.&mdash;"Read
+the other half, then," advised a bystander.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_441" id="Pg_441"></a>[<a href="./images/441.png">441</a>]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="smcap">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<b>The Woes of a Librarian.</b><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let us give a brief rehearsal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the learning universal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which men expect to find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Librarians to their mind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He must undergo probation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before he gets a situation;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must begin at the creation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the world was in formation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And come down to its cremation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the final consummation<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the old world's final spasm:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He must study protoplasm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bridge over every chasm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the origin of species,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere the monkey wore the breeches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or the Simian tribe began<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To ascend from ape to man.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He must master the cosmology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And know all about <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'pyschology'">psychology</ins>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wonders of biology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And be deep in ornithology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And develop ideology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the aid of craniology.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He must learn to teach zo&ouml;logy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And be skilled in etymology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the science of philology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And calculate chronology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While he digs into geology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And treats of entomology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hunts up old mythology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dips into theology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And grows wise in sociology,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And expert in anthropology.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He must also know geography,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the best works on photography,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the science of stenography,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And be well up on cosmography,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the secrets of cryptography.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must interpret blind chirography,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_442" id="Pg_442"></a>[<a href="./images/442.png">442</a>]</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Know by heart all mens' biography,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the black art of typography,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every book in bibliography.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">These things are all essential<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And highly consequential.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If he's haunted by ambition<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a library position,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And esteems it a high mission,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To aspire to erudition;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He will find some politician<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of an envious disposition,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Getting up a coalition<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To secure his non-admission,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And send him to perdition,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before he's reached fruition.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If he gets the situation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And is full of proud elation<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of fond anticipation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And has in contemplation<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To enlighten half the nation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He may write a dissertation<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the public information<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the laws of observation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the art of conversation.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He must know each famed oration,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And poetical quotation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And master derivation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the science of translation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And complex pagination,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And perfect punctuation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And binomial equation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And accurate computation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And boundless permutation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And infinite gradation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the craft of divination,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Scripture revelation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the secret of salvation.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He must know the population<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of every separate nation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_443" id="Pg_443"></a>[<a href="./images/443.png">443</a>]</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The amount of immigration,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And be wise in arbitration,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the art of navigation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And colonial annexation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And problems Australasian.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He must take his daily ration<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of catalogue vexation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And endless botheration<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With ceaseless complication<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of decimal notation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or Cutter combination.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To complete his education,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He must know the valuation<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all the publications<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of many generations,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With their endless variations,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And true interpretations.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When he's spent a life in learning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If his lamp continues burning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he's mastered all philosophy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the science of theosophy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grown as learned as Mezzofanti,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As poetical as Dante,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As wise as Magliabecchi<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: added comma">,</ins><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As profound as Mr. Lecky&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has absorbed more kinds of knowledge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than are found in any college;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He may take his full degree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Ph. or LL. D.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And prepare to pass the portal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That leads to life immortal.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="tsc">Footnotes:</p>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Mostly from the Library Journal, New York.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_444" id="Pg_444"></a>[<a href="./images/444.png">444</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_26" id="CHAPTER_26"></a>CHAPTER 26.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Rare Books.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>There is perhaps no field of inquiry concerning literature
+in which so large an amount of actual mis-information
+or of ignorance exists as that of the rarity of many books.
+The makers of second-hand catalogues are responsible for
+much of this, in describing the books which they wish to
+sell as "rare," "very scarce," etc., but more of it proceeds
+from absolute ignorance of the book-markets of the world.
+I have had multitudes of volumes offered for sale whose
+commercial value was hardly as many cents as was demanded
+in dollars by their ill-informed owners, who fancied
+the commonest book valuable because they "had never
+seen another copy." No one's ideas of the money value of
+any book are worth anything, unless he has had long experimental
+knowledge of the market for books both in
+America and in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>What constitutes rarity in books is a question that involves
+many particulars. Thus, a given book may be rare
+in the United States which is abundant in London; or rare
+in London, when common enough in Germany. So books
+may be rare in one age which were easily found in another:
+and again, books on certain subjects may be so absorbed
+by public demand when events excite interest in that subject,
+as to take up most of the copies in market, and enhance
+the price of the remainder. Thus, Napoleon's conquering
+career in Egypt created a great demand for all
+books on Egypt and Africa. The scheme for founding a
+great French colony in Louisiana raised the price of all
+books and pamphlets on that region, which soon after fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_445" id="Pg_445"></a>[<a href="./images/445.png">445</a>]</span>
+into the possession of the United States. President Lincoln's
+assassination caused a demand for all accounts of the
+murder of the heads of nations. Latterly, all books on
+Cuba, the West Indies, and the Philippines have been in
+unprecedented demand, and dealers have raised the prices,
+which will again decline after the recent public interest in
+them has been supplanted by future events.</p>
+
+<p>There is a broad distinction to be drawn between books
+which are absolutely rare, and those which are only relatively
+scarce, or which become temporarily rare, as just explained.
+Thus, a large share of the books published in
+the infancy of printing are <i>rare</i>; nearly all which appeared
+in the quarter century after printing began are <i>very</i> rare;
+and several among these last are <i>superlatively</i> rare. I may
+instance the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg and Schoeffer
+(1455?) of which only twenty-four copies are known,
+nearly all in public libraries, where they ought to be; the
+Mentz Psalter of the same printers, 1457, the first book
+ever printed with a date; and the first edition of Livy,
+Rome [1469] the only copy of which printed on vellum
+is in the British Museum Library.</p>
+
+<p>One reason of the scarcity of books emanating from the
+presses of the fifteenth century is that of many of them
+the editions consisted of only two hundred to three hundred
+copies, of which the large number absorbed in public
+libraries, or destroyed by use, fire or decay, left very few in
+the hands of booksellers or private persons. Still, it is a
+great mistake to infer that all books printed before A. D.
+1500 are rare. The editions of many were large, especially
+after about 1480, many were reprinted in several editions,
+and of such incunabula copies can even now be picked up
+on the continent at very low prices.</p>
+
+<p>Contrary to a wide-spread belief, mere age adds very
+little to the value of any book, and oft-times nothing at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_446" id="Pg_446"></a>[<a href="./images/446.png">446</a>]</span>
+all. All librarians are pestered to buy "hundred year old"
+treatises on theology or philosophy, as dry as the desert of
+Sahara, on the ground that they are both old and rare,
+whereas such books, two hundred and even three hundred
+years old, swarm in unsalable masses on the shelves of London
+and provincial booksellers at a few pence per volume.
+The reason that they are comparatively rare in this country
+is that nobody wants them, and so they do not get imported.</p>
+
+<p>A rare book is, strictly speaking, only one which is found
+with difficulty, taking into view all the principal book
+markets of various countries. Very few books printed
+since 1650 have any peculiar value on account of their age.
+Of many books, both old and new, the reason of scarcity is
+that only a few copies actually remain, outside of public
+libraries, and these last, of course, are not for sale. This
+scarcity of copies is produced by a great variety of causes,
+most of which are here noted.</p>
+
+<p>(1) The small number of the books originally printed
+leads to rarity. This is by no means peculiar to early impressions
+of the press: on the contrary, of some books
+printed only last year not one tenth as many exist
+as of a multitude of books printed four centuries ago.
+Not only privately printed books, not designed for publication,
+but some family or personal memoirs, or original
+works circulated only among friends, and many other publications
+belong to this class of rarities. The books printed
+at private presses are mostly rare. Horace Walpole's
+Strawberry Hill press produced some thirty works from
+1757 to 1789, in editions varying from fifty to six hundred
+copies. The Lee Priory press of Sir E. Brydges printed
+many literary curiosities, none of which had more than
+one hundred impressions. Most of the editions of the
+Shakespearean and other critical essays of J. O. Halliwell-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_447" id="Pg_447"></a>[<a href="./images/447.png">447</a>]</span>Phillipps
+were limited to forty copies, or even less. The
+genealogical and heraldic imprints of Sir Thomas Phillipps,
+at the Middle Hill press, 1819-59, numbering some
+hundreds of different works, were mostly confined to twenty
+copies each, and some to only six copies. Some of them
+are as rare as many manuscripts, of which several copies
+have been made, and sell at prices dictated by their scarcity.
+Most of them are in the Library of Congress. The
+Kelmscott press of William Morris printed in sumptuous
+style, improved upon the finest models of antique typography,
+a number of literary works, which now bring enhanced
+prices. Of the many historical and literary publications of
+the Roxburghe Club, the Percy Society, the Maitland, the
+Abbotsford, and the Bannatyne Clubs abroad, only thirty
+to one hundred copies were printed. Of those of the Prince
+Society, the Grolier Club, and others in America, only
+from 150 to 300 copies were printed, being for subscribers
+only. Rarity and enhanced prices necessarily result in all
+these cases. Of some books, only five to ten copies have
+been printed, or else, out of fifty or more printed,
+all but a very few have been ruthlessly destroyed, in order
+to give a fanciful value to the remainder. In these extreme
+instances, the rarity commonly constitutes almost
+the sole value of the work.</p>
+
+<p>(2) Even where many copies have been printed, the destruction
+of the greater part of the edition has rendered
+the book very rare. Printing offices and book binderies
+are peculiarly subject to fires, and many editions have thus
+been consumed before more than a few copies have been
+issued. The great theological libraries edited by the Abb&eacute;
+J. P. Migne, the <i>Patrologie Grecque, et Latine</i>, owe their
+scarcity and advanced prices to a fire which consumed the
+entire remainder of the edition. All the copies of a large
+edition of "Twenty years among our savage Indians," by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_448" id="Pg_448"></a>[<a href="./images/448.png">448</a>]</span>
+J. L. Humfreville, were destroyed by fire in a Hartford
+printing office in 1899, except two, which had been deposited
+in the Library of Congress, to secure the copyright.
+The whole edition of the <i>Machina coelestis</i> of Hevelius was
+burned, except the few copies which the author had presented
+to friends before the fire occurred. The earlier
+issues in Spanish of the Mexican and Peruvian presses
+prior to 1600 are exceedingly rare. And editions of books
+printed at places in the United States where no books are
+now published are sought for their imprint alone and
+seldom found.</p>
+
+<p>(3) Many books have become rare because proscribed
+and in part destroyed by governmental or ecclesiastical
+authority. This applies more especially to the ages that
+succeeded the application of printing to the art of multiplying
+books. The freedom of many writers upon <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'polittics'">politics</ins>
+and popular rights led to the suppression of their
+books by kings, emperors or parliaments. At the same
+time, books of church history or doctrinal theology which
+departed, in however slight a degree, from the standard of
+faith proclaimed by the church, were put in the Index
+Expurgatorius, or list of works condemned in whole or in
+part as heretical and unlawful to be read. A long and melancholy
+record of such proscriptions, civil and ecclesiastical,
+is found in Gabriel Peignot's two volumes&mdash;<i>Dictionnaire
+des livres condamn&eacute;s au feu, supprim&eacute;s, ou censur&eacute;s</i>,
+etc. Works of writers of genius and versatile ability were
+thus proscribed, until it gave rise to the sarcasm among the
+scholars of Europe, that if one wanted to find what were
+the books best worth reading, he should look in the Index
+Expurgatorius. It appears to have been quite forgotten
+by those in authority that persecution commonly helps
+the cause persecuted, and that the best way to promote the
+circulation of a book is to undertake to suppress it. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_449" id="Pg_449"></a>[<a href="./images/449.png">449</a>]</span>
+age finds itself endowed with so many heretics that it is no
+longer possible to find purchasers at high prices for books
+once deemed unholy. Suppressed passages in later editions
+lead to a demand for the uncastrated copies which adds
+an element of enhanced cost in the market.</p>
+
+<p>(4) Another source of rarity is the great extent and cost
+of many works, outrunning the ability of most collectors
+to buy or to accommodate them on their shelves. These
+costly possessions have been commonly printed in limited
+numbers for subscribers, or for distribution by governments
+under whose patronage they were produced. Such
+are some of the notable collections of early voyages, the
+great folios of many illustrated scientific works on natural
+history, local geography, etc. That great scholar, Baron
+von Humboldt, used jocosely to say that he could not afford
+to own a set of his own works, most of which are folios
+sumptuously printed, with finely engraved illustrations.
+The collection known as the "<i>Grands et petits Voyages</i>" of
+De Bry, the former in 13 volumes, relating to America, and
+finely illustrated with copper-plates produced in the
+highest style of that art, are among the rarest sets of books
+to find complete. The collection of voyages by Hulsius is
+equally difficult to procure. A really perfect set of Piranesi's
+great illustrated work on the art and architecture of
+ancient Rome is very difficult to acquire. The <i>Acta Sanctorum</i>,
+in the original edition, is very seldom found. But
+there is no room to multiply examples.</p>
+
+<p>(5) What adds to the rarity and cost of certain books
+is the peculiarly expensive style or condition in which they
+are produced or preserved. Some few copies of an edition,
+for example, are printed on vellum, or on China or India
+or other choice paper, in colored ink or bronze, on colored
+paper, (rose-tinted, or green, blue or yellow,) on large
+paper, with broad margins, etc. Uncut copies always fetch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_450" id="Pg_450"></a>[<a href="./images/450.png">450</a>]</span>
+a higher price than those whose edges are trimmed down
+in binding. To some book-collecting amateurs cut edges
+are an abomination. They will pay more for a book "in
+sheets," which they can bind after their own taste, than for
+the finest copy in calf or morocco with gilt edges. Some
+books, also, are exceptionally costly because bound in a
+style of superior elegance and beauty, or as having belonged
+to a crowned head or a noble person, ("books with a
+pedigree") or an eminent author, or having autographs of
+notable characters on the fly-leaves or title-pages, or original
+letters inserted in the volume. Others still are "extra-illustrated"
+works, in which one volume is swelled to several
+by the insertion of a multitude of portraits, autographs,
+and engravings, more or less illustrative of the contents
+of the book. This is called "Grangerising," from
+its origin in the practice of thus illustrating Granger's Biographical
+History of England. Book amateurs of expensive
+tastes are by no means rare, especially in England,
+France, and America, and the great commercial value
+placed upon uncut and rarely beautiful books, on which
+the highest arts of the printer and book-binder have been
+lavished, evinces the fact.</p>
+
+<p>(6) The books emanating from the presses of famous
+printers are more sought for by collectors and libraries
+than other publications, because of their superior excellence.
+Sometimes this is found in the beauty of the type,
+or the clear and elegant press-work; sometimes in the
+printers' marks, monograms, engraved initial letters, head
+and tail-pieces, or other illustrations; and sometimes in the
+fine quality of the choice paper on which the books are
+printed. Thus, the productions of the presses of Aldus,
+Giunta, Bodoni, Etienne, Elzevir, Froben, Gutenberg,
+Fust and Schoeffer, Plantin, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde,
+Bulmer, Didot, Baskerville, Pickering, Whittingham, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_451" id="Pg_451"></a>[<a href="./images/451.png">451</a>]</span>
+others, are always in demand, and some of the choicer
+specimens of their art, if in fine condition, bring great
+prices in the second-hand book-shops, or the auction room.
+An example of Caxton's press is now almost unattainable,
+except in fragmentary copies. There are known to be only
+about 560 examples of Caxtons in the world, four-fifths
+of which are in England, and thirty-one of these are
+unique. His "King Arthur" (1485) brought &pound;1950 at
+auction in 1885, and the Polychronicon (1482) was sold at
+the Ives sale (N. Y.) in 1891, for $1,500.</p>
+
+<p>(7) In the case of all finely illustrated works, the earlier
+impressions taken, both of text and plates, are more rare,
+and hence more valuable, than the bulk of the edition.
+Thus, copies with "proofs before letters" of the steel engravings
+or etchings, sometimes command more than
+double the price of copies having only the ordinary plates.
+Each added impression deteriorates a little the sharp,
+clear outlines and brilliant impressions which are peculiar
+to the first copies printed.</p>
+
+<p>(8) Of some books, certain volumes only are rare, and
+very costly in consequence. Thus, Burk's History of Virginia
+is common enough in three volumes, but volume 4
+of the set, by Jones and Girardin, (1816,) is exceedingly
+rare, and seldom found with the others. The fifth and last
+volume of Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History
+is very scarce, while the others are readily procured. Of
+De Bry's Voyages, the 13th or final part of the American
+voyages is so rare as to be quite unattainable, unless after
+long years of search, and at an unconscionable price.</p>
+
+<p>(9) The condition of any book is an unfailing factor in
+its price. Many, if not most books offered by second-hand
+dealers are shop-worn, soiled, or with broken bindings, or
+some other defect. A pure, clean copy, in handsome condition
+without and within, commands invariably an extra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_452" id="Pg_452"></a>[<a href="./images/452.png">452</a>]</span>
+price. Thus the noted Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, a
+huge portly folio, with 2,250 wood-cuts in the text, many
+of them by Albert D&uuml;rer or other early artists, is priced
+in London catalogues all the way from &pound;7.15 up to &pound;35, for
+identically the same edition. The difference is dependent
+wholly on the condition of the copies offered. Here is part
+of a description of the best copy: "Nuremberg Chronicle,
+by Schedel, printed by Koberger, first edition, 1493, royal
+folio, with fine original impressions of the 2,250 large wood-cuts
+of towns, historical events, portraits, etc., very tall
+copy, measuring 18&frac12; inches by 12&frac12;, beautifully bound in
+morocco super extra, full gilt edges, by Riviere, &pound;35. All
+the cuts are brilliant impressions, large and spirited. The
+book is genuine and perfect throughout; <i>no washed leaves</i>,
+and all the large capitals filled in by the rubricator by
+different colored inks: it has the six additional leaves at
+end, which Brunet says are nearly always wanting."</p>
+
+<p>(10) The first editions printed of many books always
+command high prices. Not only is this true of the <i>editio
+princeps</i> of Homer, Virgil, Tacitus and other Greek and
+Roman writers, published in the infancy of printing, but
+of every noted author, of ancient or modern date. The
+edition printed during the life of the writer has had his
+own oversight and correction. And when more than one
+issue of his book has thus appeared, one sees how his maturer
+judgment has altered the substance or the style of
+his work. First editions of any very successful work always
+tend to become scarce, since the number printed is
+smaller, as a rule, and a large part of the issue is absorbed
+by public libraries. The earliest published writings of
+Tennyson, now found with difficulty, show how much of
+emendation and omission this great poet thought proper
+to make in his poems in after years. A first edition of
+Ivanhoe, 3 vols., 1820, brings &pound;7 or more, in the original<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_453" id="Pg_453"></a>[<a href="./images/453.png">453</a>]</span>
+boards, but if rebound in any style, the first Waverley
+novels can be had at much less, though collectors are many.</p>
+
+<p>(11) Another class of rare books is found in many local
+histories, both among the county histories of Great
+Britain, and those of towns and counties in the United
+States. Jay Gould's History of Delaware County, N. Y.,
+published in 1856, and sought after in later times because
+of his note as a financier, is seldom found. Of family genealogies,
+too, printed in small editions, there are many
+which cannot be had at all, and many more which have
+risen to double or even quadruple price. The market
+value of these books, always dependent on demand, is enhanced
+by the wants of public libraries which are making
+or completing collections of these much sought sources of
+information.</p>
+
+<p>(12) There is a class of books rarely found in any reputable
+book shop, and which ought to be much rarer than
+they are&mdash;namely, those that belong to the domain of indecent
+literature. Booksellers who deal in such wares
+often put them in catalogues under the head of <i>facetiae</i>,
+thus making a vile use of what should be characteristic only
+of books of wit or humor. Men of prurient tastes become
+collectors of such books, many of which are not without
+some literary merit, while many more are neither fit to be
+written, nor printed, nor read.</p>
+
+<p>(13) There is a large variety of books that are sought
+mainly on account, not of their authors, nor for their value
+as literature, but for their illustrators. Many eminent
+artists (in fact most of those of any period) have made
+designs for certain books of their day. The reputation of
+an artist sometimes rests more upon his work given to the
+public in engravings, etchings, wood-cuts, etc., that illustrate
+books, than upon his works on canvas or in marble.
+Many finely illustrated works bear prices enhanced by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_454" id="Pg_454"></a>[<a href="./images/454.png">454</a>]</span>
+eagerness of collectors, who are bent upon possessing the
+designs of some favorite artist, while some amateurs covet
+a collection of far wider scope. This demand, although
+fitful, and sometimes evanescent, (though more frequently
+recurrent,) lessens the supply of illustrated books, and with
+the constant drafts of new libraries, raises prices. Turner's
+exquisite pictures in Rogers's Italy and Poems (1830-34)
+have floated into fame books of verse which find very
+few readers. Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz") designed those
+immortal Wellers in Pickwick, which have delighted two
+whole generations of readers. The "Cruikshankiana" are
+sought with avidity, in whatever numerous volumes they
+adorn. Books illustrated with the designs of Bartolozzi,
+Marillier, Eisen, Gravelot, Moreau, Johannot, Grandville,
+Rowlandson, Bewick, William Blake, Stothard, Stanfield,
+Harvey, Martin, Cattermole, Birket Foster, Mulready,
+Tenniel, Maclise, Gilbert, Dalziel, Leighton, Holman
+Hunt, Doyle, Leech, Millais, Rossetti, Linton, Du
+Maurier, Sambourne, Caldecott, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway,
+Haden, Hamerton, Whistler, Dor&eacute;, Anderson, Darley,
+Matt Morgan, Thos. Nast, Vedder, and others, are in
+constant demand, especially for the early impressions of
+books in which their designs appear.</p>
+
+<p>(14) Finally, that extensive class of books known as
+early <i>Americana</i> have been steadily growing rarer, and
+rising in commercial value, since about the middle of the
+nineteenth century. Books and pamphlets relating to
+any part of the American continent or islands, the first
+voyages, discoveries, narratives or histories of those regions,
+which were hardly noted or cared for a century ago,
+are now eagerly sought by collectors for libraries both
+public and private. In this field, the keen competition
+of American Historical Societies, and of several great libraries,
+besides the ever increasing number of private col<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_455" id="Pg_455"></a>[<a href="./images/455.png">455</a>]</span>lectors
+with large means, has notably enhanced the prices
+of all desirable and rare books. Nor do the many reprints
+which have appeared much affect the market value of the
+originals, or first editions.</p>
+
+<p>This rise in prices, while far from uniform, and furnishing
+many examples of isolated extravagance, has been
+marked. Witness some examples. The "Bay Psalm
+Book," Cambridge, Mass., A. D. 1640, is the Caxton of
+New England, so rare that no perfect copy has been found
+for many years. In 1855, Henry Stevens had the singular
+good fortune to find this typographical gem sandwiched
+in an odd bundle of old hymn books, unknown to the auctioneers
+or catalogue, at a London book sale. Keeping his
+own counsel, he bid off the lot at nine shillings, completed
+an imperfection in the book, from another imperfect copy,
+had it bound in Bedford's best, and sold it to Mr. Lenox's
+library at &pound;80. In 1868, Stevens sold another copy to
+George Brinley for 150 guineas, which was bought for
+$1,200 in 1878, by C. Vanderbilt, at the Brinley sale.</p>
+
+<p>John Smith's folio "Historie of Virginia," 1st ed., 1624,
+large paper, was sold to Brinley in 1874 at $1,275, and re-sold
+in 1878 for $1,800 to Mr. Lenox. In 1884 a copy on
+large paper brought &pound;605 at the Hamilton Library sale in
+London. In 1899, a perfect copy of the large paper edition
+was presented to the Library of Congress by Gen. W.
+B. Franklin. Perfect copies of Smith's Virginia of 1624
+on small paper have sold for $1,000, and those wanting
+some maps at $70 to $150.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier English tracts relating to Virginia and New
+England, printed between 1608 and 1700, command large
+prices: <i>e. g.</i>, Lescarbot's New France, [Canada,] 1609, $50
+to $150; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635, $50 to
+$320; Hubbard's Present State of New England, Boston,
+1677, $180 to $316.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_456" id="Pg_456"></a>[<a href="./images/456.png">456</a>]</span>It is curious to note, in contrast, the following record
+of prices at the sale of Dr. Bernard's Library in London,
+in 1686:</p>
+
+<p>T. Morton's New England, 1615, eight pence; Lescarbot's
+New France, 1609, ten pence; Wood's New
+England's Prospect, 1635, and three others, 5 s. 8 d.; nine
+Eliot Tracts, &amp;c., 5 s. 2 d.; Hubbard's Present State of
+New England, 1677, 1 s.; Smith's Historie of Virginia,
+1624, 4 s. 2 d.</p>
+
+<p>The numerous and now rare works of Increase and Cotton
+Mather, printed from 1667 to 1728, though mostly
+sermons, are collected by a sufficient number of libraries
+to maintain prices at from $4 to $25 each, according to
+condition. They number over 470 volumes.</p>
+
+<p>Several collections have been attempted of Frankliniana,
+or works printed at Benjamin Franklin's press, and
+of the many editions of his writings, with all books concerning
+the illustrious printer-statesman of America. His
+"Poor Richard's Almanacs," printed by him from 1733 to
+1758, and by successors to 1798, are so rare that Mr. P. L.
+Ford found a visit to three cities requisite to see all of
+them. The Library of Congress possesses thirty-five years
+of these issues.</p>
+
+<p>A word may be added as to early newspapers, of some
+special numbers of which prices that are literally "fabulous"
+are recorded. There are many reprints afloat of the
+first American newspaper, and most librarians have frequent
+offers of the Ulster County, (N. Y.) Gazette of Jan.
+10, 1800, in mourning for the death of Washington, a genuine
+copy of which is worth money, but the many spurious
+reprints (which include all those offered) are worth nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Of many rare early books reprints or facsimiles are rife
+in the market, especially of those having but few leaves;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_457" id="Pg_457"></a>[<a href="./images/457.png">457</a>]</span>
+these, however, are easily detected by an expert eye, and
+need deceive no one.</p>
+
+<p>Of some scarce books, it may be said that they are as rare
+as the individuals who want them: and of a very few, that
+they are as rare as the extinct dodo. In fact, volumes have
+been written concerning extinct books, not without interest
+to the bibliomaniac who is fired with the passion for
+possessing something which no one else has got. Some
+books are quite <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'at'">as</ins> worthless as they are rare. But books
+deemed worthless by the common or even by the enlightened
+mind are cherished as treasures by many collectors.
+The cook-book, entitled <i>Le Pastissier fran&ccedil;ois</i>, an Elzevir
+of 1655, is so rare as to have brought several times its
+weight in gold. Nearly all the copies of some books have
+been worn to rags by anglers, devout women, cooks, or
+children.</p>
+
+<p>When a book is sold at a great price as "very rare," it
+often happens that several copies come into the market
+soon after, and, there being no demand, the commercial
+value is correspondingly depressed. The books
+most sure of maintaining full prices are first editions
+of master-pieces in literature. Fitzgerald's version of
+Omar Khayyam was bought by nobody when Quaritch
+first published it in 1859. After eight years, he put the
+remainder of the edition,&mdash;a paper-covered volume&mdash;down
+to a penny each. When the book had grown into
+fame, and the many variations in later issues were discovered,
+this first edition, no longer procurable, rose to &pound;21,
+the price actually paid by Mr. Quaritch himself at a book
+auction in 1898!</p>
+
+<p>Auction sales of libraries having many rare books have
+been frequent in London and Paris. The largest price yet
+obtained for any library was reached in 1882-3, when that
+of Mr. Wm. Beckford brought &pound;73,551, being an average of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_458" id="Pg_458"></a>[<a href="./images/458.png">458</a>]</span>
+nearly $40 a volume. But W. C. Hazlitt says of this sale,
+"the Beckford books realized perfectly insane prices, and
+were afterwards re-sold for a sixth or even tenth of the
+amount, to the serious loss of somebody, when the barometer
+had fallen."</p>
+
+<p>The second-hand bookseller, having the whole range of
+printed literature for his field, has a great advantage in
+dealing with book collectors over the average dealer, who
+has to offer only new books, or such as are "in print."</p>
+
+<p>It may be owned that the love of rare books is chiefly
+sentimental. He who delights to spend his days or his
+nights in the contemplation of black-letter volumes, quaint
+title-pages, fine old bindings, and curious early illustrations,
+may not add to the knowledge or the happiness of
+mankind, but he makes sure of his own.</p>
+
+<p>The passion for rare books, merely because of their
+rarity, is a low order of the taste for books. But the desire
+to possess and read wise old books which have been touched
+by the hoar frost of time is of a higher mood. The first
+impression of Paradise Lost (1667) with its quarto page
+and antique orthography, is it not more redolent of the
+author's age than the elegant Pickering edition, or the one
+illustrated by John Martin or Gustave Dor&eacute;? When
+you hold in your hand Shakespeare's "Midsommer
+Night's Dream" (A. D. 1600) and read with fresh
+admiration and delight the exquisite speeches of
+Oberon and Titania, may not the thought that perhaps
+that very copy may once have been held in the immortal
+bard's own hand send a thrill through your own?</p>
+
+<p>When you turn over the classic pages of Homer illustrated
+by Flaxman, that "dear sculptor of eternity," as
+William Blake called him, or drink in the beauty of those
+delicious landscapes of Turner, that astonishing man, who
+shall wonder at your desire to possess them?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_459" id="Pg_459"></a>[<a href="./images/459.png">459</a>]</span>The genuine book lover is he who reads books; who
+values them for what they contain, not for their rarity, nor
+for the preposterous prices which have been paid for them.
+To him, book-hunting is an ever-enduring delight. Of all
+the pleasures tasted here below, that of the book lover in
+finding a precious and long sought volume is one of the
+purest and most innocent. In books, he becomes master
+of all the kingdoms of the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_27" id="CHAPTER_27"></a>CHAPTER 27.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Bibliography.</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>To the book collector and the Librarian, books of bibliography
+are the tools of the profession. Without them
+he would be lost in a maze of literature without a clue.
+With them, his path is plain, and, in exact proportion to
+his acquaintance with them, will his knowledge and usefulness
+extend. Bibliography may be defined as the
+science which treats of books, of their authors, subjects,
+history, classification, cataloguing, typography, materials
+(including paper, printing and binding) dates, editions,
+etc. This compound word, derived from two Greek roots,
+<i>Biblion</i>, book, and <i>graphein</i>, to write, has many analogous
+words, some of which, ignorantly used to express a
+bibliographer, may be set down for distinction: as, for
+example&mdash;Bibliopole&mdash;a seller of books, often erroneously
+applied to a librarian, who buys but never sells:
+Bibliophile, a lover of books, a title which he should always
+exemplify: Bibliopegist, a book-binder: Biblio<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_460" id="Pg_460"></a>[<a href="./images/460.png">460</a>]</span>later,
+a worshipper of books: Bibliophobe, a hater of
+books: Bibliotaph, a burier of books&mdash;one who hides or
+conceals them: Bibliomaniac, or bibliomane, one who has
+a mania or passion for collecting books. (Bibliomania,
+some one has said, is a disease: Bibliophily is a science:
+The first is a parody of the second.) Bibliophage, or bibliophagist,
+a book-eater, or devourer of books. Bibliognost,
+one versed in the science of books. Biblioklept, a
+book thief. (This, you perceive, is from the same Greek
+root as kleptomaniac.) Bibliogist, one learned about
+books, (the same nearly as bibliographer); and finally,
+Bibliothecary, a librarian.</p>
+
+<p>This brings me to say, in supplementing this elementary
+list (needless for some readers) that <i>Bibliotheca</i> is
+Latin for a library; <i>Biblioth&egrave;que</i> is French for the same;
+<i>Biblioth&eacute;caire</i> is French for Librarian, while the French
+word <i>Libraire</i> means book seller or publisher, though
+often mistaken by otherwise intelligent persons, for librarian,
+or library.</p>
+
+<p>The word "bibliotechny" is not found in any English
+dictionary known to me, although long in use in its equivalent
+forms in France and Germany. It means all that
+belongs to the knowledge of the book, to its handling,
+cataloguing, and its arrangement upon the shelves of a
+library. It is also applied to the science of the formation
+of libraries, and their complete organization. It is
+employed in the widest and most extended sense of what
+may be termed material or physical bibliography. Bibliotechny
+applies, that is to say, to the technics of the librarian's
+work&mdash;to the outside of the books rather than
+the inside&mdash;to the mechanics, not the metaphysics of the
+profession. The French word "<i>Biblioth&eacute;conomie</i>," much
+in use of late years, signifies much the same thing as
+<i>Bibliotechnie</i>, and we translate it, not into one word, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_461" id="Pg_461"></a>[<a href="./images/461.png">461</a>]</span>
+two, calling it "library economy." This word "economy"
+is not used in the most current sense&mdash;as significant of
+saving&mdash;but in the broad, modern sense of systematic
+order, or arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>There are two other words which have found their way
+into Murray's Oxford Dictionary, the most copious repository
+of English words, with illustrations of their
+origin and history, ever published, namely, Biblioclast&mdash;a
+destroyer of books (from the same final root as iconoclast)
+and Bibliogony, the production of books. I will add
+that out of the fifteen or more words cited as analogous
+to Bibliography, only three are found used earlier than
+the last quarter century, the first use of most having been
+this side of 1880. This is a striking instance of the phenomenal
+growth of new words in our already rich and
+flexible English tongue. Carlyle even has the word
+"Bibliopoesy," the making of books,&mdash;from <i>Biblion</i>, and
+<i>poiein</i>&mdash;to make.</p>
+
+<p>Public libraries are useful to readers in proportion to
+the extent and ready supply of the helps they furnish to
+facilitate researches of every kind. Among these helps
+a wisely selected collection of books of reference stands
+foremost. Considering the vast extent and opulence of
+the world of letters, and the want of experience of the
+majority of readers in exploring this almost boundless
+field, the importance of every key which can unlock its
+hidden stores becomes apparent. The printed catalogue
+of no single library is at all adequate to supply full references,
+even to its own stores of knowledge; while these
+catalogues are, of course, comparatively useless as to other
+stores of information, elsewhere existing. Even the completest
+and most extensive catalogue in the world, that
+of the British Museum Library, although now extended
+to more than 370 folio volumes in print, representing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_462" id="Pg_462"></a>[<a href="./images/462.png">462</a>]</span>
+3,000 volumes in manuscript, is not completed so as to
+embrace the entire contents of that rich repository of
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>From lack of information of the aid furnished by adequate
+books of reference in a special field, many a reader
+goes groping in pursuit of references or information
+which might be found in some one of the many volumes
+which may be designated as works of bibliography. The
+diffidence and reserve of many students in libraries, and
+the mistaken fear of giving trouble to librarians, frequently
+deprives them of even those aids which a few
+words of inquiry might bring forth from the ready knowledge
+of the custodians in charge.</p>
+
+<p>That is the best library, and he is the most useful librarian,
+by whose aid every reader is enabled to put his
+finger on the fact he wants, just when it is wanted. In
+attaining this end it is essential that the more recent,
+important, and valuable aids to research in general
+science, as well as in special departments of each, should
+form a part of the library. In order to make a fit selection
+of books (and all libraries are practically reduced
+to a selection, from want of means to possess the whole)
+it is indispensable to know the relative value of the books
+concerned. Many works of reference of great fame, and
+once of great value, have become almost obsolete, through
+the issue of more extensive and carefully edited works
+in the same field. While a great and comprehensive library
+should possess every work of reference, old or new,
+which has aided or may aid the researches of scholars,
+(not forgetting even the earlier editions of works often
+reprinted), the smaller libraries, on the other hand, are
+compelled to exercise a close economy of selection. The
+most valuable works of reference, among which the more
+copious and extensive bibliographies stand first, are fre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_463" id="Pg_463"></a>[<a href="./images/463.png">463</a>]</span>quently
+expensive treasures, and it is important to the
+librarian furnishing a limited and select library to know
+what books he can best afford to do without. If he cannot
+buy both the <i>Manuel du libraire</i> by Brunet, in five
+volumes, and the <i>Tr&eacute;sor des livres rares et pr&eacute;cieux</i> of
+Graesse, seven volumes, both of which are dictionaries of
+the choicer portions of literature, it is important to know
+that Brunet is the more indispensable of the two. From
+the 20,000 reference books lying open to the consultation
+of all readers in the great rotunda of the British Museum
+reading room, to the small and select case of dictionaries,
+catalogues, cyclopaedias, and other works of reference
+in a town or subscription library, the interval is wide indeed.
+But where we cannot have all, it becomes the more
+important to have the best; and the reader who has at
+hand for ready reference the latest and most copious dictionary
+of each of the leading languages of the world, two
+or three of the best general bibliographies, the most
+copious catalogue raisonn&eacute; of the literature in each great
+department of science, the best biographical dictionaries,
+and the latest and most copious encyclopaedias issued
+from the press, is tolerably well equipped for the prosecution
+of his researches.</p>
+
+<p>Next in importance to the possession in any library of
+a good selection of the most useful books of reference, is
+the convenient accessibility of these works to the reading
+public. Just in proportion to the indispensability and
+frequency of use of any work should be the facility to the
+reader of availing himself of its aid. The leading encyclopaedias,
+bibliographies, dictionaries, annuals, and
+other books of reference should never be locked up in
+cases, nor placed on high or remote shelves. There should
+be in every library what may be termed a central bureau
+of reference. Here should be assembled, whether on cir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_464" id="Pg_464"></a>[<a href="./images/464.png">464</a>]</span>cular
+cases made to revolve on a pivot, or on a rectangular
+case, with volumes covering both sides, or in a central
+alcove forming a portion of the shelves of the main library,
+all those books of reference, and volumes incessantly
+needed by students in pursuit of their various inquiries.
+It is important that the custodians of all libraries
+should remember that this ready and convenient supply
+of the reference books most constantly wanted, serves the
+double object of economizing the time of the librarian
+and assistants for other labor, and of accommodating in
+the highest degree the readers, whose time is also economized.
+The misplacement of volumes which will thus
+occur is easily rectified, while the possibility of loss
+through abstraction is so extremely small that it should
+not be permitted to weigh for a moment in comparison
+with the great advantages resulting from the rule of liberality
+in aiding the wants of readers.</p>
+
+<p>Bibliography, in its most intimate sense, is the proper
+science of the librarian. To many it is a study&mdash;to some,
+it is a passion. While the best works in bibliography have
+not always been written by librarians, but by scholars
+enamored of the science of books, and devotees of learning,
+it is safe to say that the great catalogues which afford
+such inestimable aid to research, have nearly all been
+prepared in libraries, and not one of the books worthy
+of the name of bibliography, could have been written
+without their aid.</p>
+
+<p>In viewing the extensive field of bibliographies, regard
+for systematic treatment requires that they be divided
+into classes. Beginning first with general bibliographies,
+or those claiming to be universal, we should afterwards
+consider the numerous bibliographies of countries, or
+those devoted to national literature; following that by
+the still more numerous special bibliographies, or those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_465" id="Pg_465"></a>[<a href="./images/465.png">465</a>]</span>
+embracing works on specially designated subjects. The
+two classes last named are by far the most numerous.</p>
+
+<p>Although what may be termed a "universal catalogue"
+has been the dream of scholars for many ages, it is as far
+as ever from being realized&mdash;and in fact much farther
+than ever before, since each year that is added to the
+long roll of the past increases enormously the number of
+books to be dealt with, and consequently the difficulties
+of the problem. We may set down the publication of a
+work which should contain the titles of all books ever
+printed, as a practical impossibility. The world's literature
+is too vast and complex to be completely catalogued,
+whether on the co&ouml;perative plan, or any other. Meanwhile
+the many thousands of volumes, each of which has
+been devoted to some portion of the vast and ever-increasing
+stores of literature and science which human brains
+have put in print, will serve to aid the researches of the
+student, when rightly guided by an intelligent librarian.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the hopeless nature of the quest, it
+is true that some men of learning have essayed what have
+been termed universal bibliographies. The earliest attempt
+in this direction was published at Z&uuml;rich in 1545,
+under the title of "Bibliotheca Universalis," by Conrad
+Gesner, a Swiss scholar whose acquisition of knowledge
+was so extensive that he was styled "a miracle of learning."
+This great work gave the titles of all books of
+which its author could find trace, and was illustrated by
+a mass of bibliographical notes and criticism. It long
+held a high place in the world of letters, though it is now
+seldom referred to in the plethora of more modern works
+of bibliography. In 1625, the bookseller B. Ostern put
+forth at Frankfort, his <i>Biblioth&egrave;que Universelle</i>, a catalogue
+of all books from 1500 to 1624. In 1742, Th. Georgi issued
+in eleven folio volumes, his <i>Allgemeines Europ&auml;isches</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_466" id="Pg_466"></a>[<a href="./images/466.png">466</a>]</span>
+<i>B&uuml;cher-lexikon</i>, claiming to represent the works of nearly
+all writers from 1500 down to 1739. This formidable catalogue
+may perhaps be said to embrace more forgotten
+books than any other in the literary history of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Almost equally formidable, however, is the bibliography
+of that erudite scholar, Christian G. J&ouml;cher, who put forth
+in 1750, at Leipzig, his <i>Allgemeines Gelehrten-lexicon</i>, in
+which, says the title page, "the learned men of all classes
+who have lived from the beginning of the world up to
+the present time, are described." This book, with its
+supplement, by Adelung and Rotermund, (completed only
+to letter R), makes ten ponderous quarto volumes, and
+may fairly be styled a thesaurus of the birth and death
+of ancient scholars and their works. It is still largely
+used in great libraries, to identify the period and the full
+names of many obscure writers of books, who are not commemorated
+in the catalogues of universal bibliography,
+compiled on a more restrictive plan.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to the notable catalogues of early-printed
+books, which aim to cover all the issues of the press from
+the first invention of printing, up to a certain period.
+One of the most carefully edited and most readily useful
+of these is Hain, (L.) <i>Repertorium Bibliographicum</i>, in
+four small and portable octavo volumes, published at
+Stuttgart in 1826-38. This gives, in an alphabet of authors,
+all the publications found printed (with their variations
+and new editions), from A. D. 1450 to A. D. 1500.</p>
+
+<p>More extensive is the great catalogue of G. W. Panzer,
+entitled <i>Annales Typographici</i>, in eleven quarto volumes,
+published at Nuremberg from 1793 to 1803. This work,
+which covers the period from 1457 (the period of the first
+book ever printed with a date) up to A. D. 1536, is not
+arranged alphabetically (as in Hain's Repertorium) by
+the names of authors, but in the order of the cities or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_467" id="Pg_467"></a>[<a href="./images/467.png">467</a>]</span>
+places where the books catalogued were printed. The
+bibliography thus brings together in one view, the typographical
+product of each city or town for about eighty
+years after the earliest dated issues of the press, arranged
+in chronological order of the years when printed. This
+system has undeniable advantages, but equally obvious
+defects, which are sought to be remedied by many copious
+indexes of authors and printers.</p>
+
+<p>Next in importance comes M. Maittaire's <i>Annales Typographici,
+ab artis inventae origine ad annum 1664</i>, printed
+at The Hague (Hagae Comitum) and completed at London,
+from 1722-89, in eleven volumes, quarto, often bound
+in five volumes. There is besides, devoted to the early
+printed literature of the world, the useful three volume
+bibliography by La Serna de Santander, published at
+Brussels in 1805, entitled <i>Dictionnaire bibliographique
+choisie du quinzi&egrave;me si&egrave;cle</i>, Bruxelles, 1803, embracing a
+selection of what its compiler deemed the more important
+books published from the beginning of printing up to A.
+D. 1500. All the four works last named contain the titles
+and descriptions of what are known as <i>incunabula</i>, or
+cradle-books (from Latin <i>cunabula</i>, a cradle) a term applied
+to all works produced in the infancy of printing, and
+most commonly to those appearing before 1500. These
+books are also sometimes called fifteeners, or 15th century
+books.</p>
+
+<p>Of general bibliographies of later date, only a few of
+the most useful and important can here be named. At
+the head of these stands, deservedly, the great work of
+J. C. Brunet, entitled <i>Manuel du Libraire et de l'amateur
+des livres</i>, the last or 5th edition of which appeared at
+Paris in 1860-64, in five thick octavo volumes. The first
+edition of Brunet appeared in 1810, and every issue since
+has exhibited not only an extensive enlargement, but great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_468" id="Pg_468"></a>[<a href="./images/468.png">468</a>]</span>
+improvement in careful, critical editorship. It embraces
+most of the choicest books that have appeared in the principal
+languages of Europe, and a supplement in two volumes,
+by P. Deschamps and G. Brunet, appeared in 1878.</p>
+
+<p>Next to Brunet in importance to the librarian, is J.
+G. T. Graesse's <i>Tr&eacute;sor des Livres rares et pr&eacute;cieux</i>, which is
+more full than Brunet in works in the Teutonic languages,
+and was published at Dresden in six quarto volumes, with
+a supplement, in 1861-69. Both of these bibliographies
+aim at a universal range, though they make a selection of
+the best authors and editions, ancient and modern, omitting
+however, the most recent writers. The arrangement
+of both is strictly alphabetical, or a dictionary of authors'
+names, while Brunet gives in a final volume a classification
+by subjects. Both catalogues are rendered additionally
+valuable by the citation of prices at which many of
+the works catalogued have been sold at book auctions in
+the present century.</p>
+
+<p>In 1857 was published at Paris a kind of universal
+bibliography, on the plan of a <i>catalogue raisonn&eacute;</i>, or dictionary
+of subjects, by Messrs. F. Denis, Pin&ccedil;on, and De
+Martonne, two of whom were librarians by profession.
+This work of over 700 pages, though printed in almost
+microscopic type, and now about forty years in arrears,
+has much value as a ready key to the best books then
+known on nearly every subject in science and literature.
+It is arranged in a complete index of topics, the books
+under each being described in chronological order, instead
+of the alphabetical. The preponderance is given to the
+French in the works cited on most subjects, but the literature
+of other nations is by no means neglected. It is
+entitled <i>Nouveau Manuel de Bibliographie universelle</i>, and
+being a subjective index, while Brunet and Graesse are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_469" id="Pg_469"></a>[<a href="./images/469.png">469</a>]</span>
+arranged by authors' names, it may be used to advantage
+in connection with these standard bibliographies.</p>
+
+<p>While on this subject, let me name the books specially
+devoted to lists of bibliographical works&mdash;general and
+special. These may be termed the catalogues of catalogues,&mdash;and
+are highly useful aids, indeed indispensable
+to the librarian, who seeks to know what lists of books
+have appeared that are devoted to the titles of publications
+covering any period, or country, or special subject
+in the whole circle of sciences or literatures. The first
+notably important book of reference in this field, was the
+work of that most industrious bibliographer, Gabriel Peignot,
+who published at Paris, in 1812, his <i>Repertoire bibliographique
+universelle</i>, in one volume. This work contains
+the titles of most special bibliographies, of whatever subject
+or country, published up to 1812, and of many works
+bibliographical in character, devoted to literary history.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Julius Petzholdt, one of the most learned and laborious
+of librarians, issued at Leipzig in 1866, a <i>Bibliotheca
+bibliographica</i>, the fuller title of which was "a critical catalogue,
+exhibiting in systematic order, the entire field of
+bibliography covering the literature of Germany and other
+countries." The rather ambitious promise of this title is
+well redeemed in the contents: for very few catalogues
+of importance issued before 1866, are omitted in this
+elaborate book of 931 closely printed pages. Most titles
+of the bibliographies given are followed by critical and
+explanatory notes, of much value to the unskilled reader.
+These notes are in German, while all the titles cited are in
+the language of the books themselves. After giving full
+titles of all the books in general bibliography, he takes
+up the national bibliographies by countries, citing both
+systematic catalogues and periodicals devoted to the
+literature of each in any period. This is followed by a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_470" id="Pg_470"></a>[<a href="./images/470.png">470</a>]</span>
+distributive list of scientific bibliographies, so full as to
+leave little to be desired, except for later issues of the
+press. One of the curiosities of this work is its catalogue
+of all the issues of the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum", or
+books forbidden to be read, including 185 separate catalogues,
+from A. D. 1510 to A. D. 1862.</p>
+
+<p>The next bibliographical work claiming to cover this
+field was in the French language, being the <i>Bibliographie
+des bibliographies</i> of L&eacute;on Vall&eacute;e, published in 1883 at
+Paris. This book, though beautifully printed, is so full
+of errors, and still fuller of omissions, that it is regarded
+by competent scholars as a failure, though still having
+its uses to the librarian. It is amazing that any writer
+should put forth a book seventeen years after the great
+and successful work of Petzholdt, purporting to be a catalogue
+of bibliographies, and yet fail to record such a
+multitude of printed contributions to the science of
+sciences as Vall&eacute;e has overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>Some ten years later, or in 1897, there came from the
+French press, a far better bibliographical work, covering
+the modern issues of books of bibliography more especially,
+with greater fullness and superior plan. This is the
+<i>Manuel de Bibliographie g&eacute;n&eacute;rale</i>, by Henri Stein. <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Thus'">This</ins>
+work contains, in 915 well-printed pages, 1st. a list of
+universal bibliographies: 2d. a catalogue of national bibliographies,
+in alphabetical order of countries: 3d. a list of
+classified bibliographies of subjects, divided into seventeen
+classes, namely, religious sciences, philosophical
+sciences, juridical, economic, social, and educational
+sciences, pure and applied sciences, medical sciences, philology
+and belles lettres, geographical and historical sciences,
+sciences auxiliary to history, archaeology and fine arts,
+music, and biography. Besides these extremely useful categories
+of bibliographical aids, in which the freshest publi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_471" id="Pg_471"></a>[<a href="./images/471.png">471</a>]</span>cations
+of catalogues and lists of books in each field are set
+forth, M. Stein gives us a complete geographical bibliography
+of printing, on a new plan. This he entitles "<i>G&eacute;ographie
+bibliographique</i>," or systematic lists of localities in
+every part of the world which possessed a printing press
+prior to the 19th century. It gives, after the modern or
+current name of each place, the Latin, or ancient name, the
+country in which located, the year in which the first printed
+publication appeared in each place, and finally, the
+authority for the statement. This handy-list of information
+alone, is worth the cost of the work, since it will
+save much time of the inquirer, in hunting over many
+volumes of Panzer, Maittaire, Hain, Dibdin, Thomas, or
+other authors on printing, to find the origin of the art,
+or early name of the place where it was introduced. The
+work contains, in addition, a general table of the periodicals
+of all countries, (of course not exhaustive) divided
+into classes, and filling seventy-five pages. It closes with
+a "repertory of the principal libraries of the entire world,"
+and with an index to the whole work, in which the early
+names in Latin, of all places where books were printed,
+are interspersed in the alphabet, distinguished by italic
+type, and with the modern name of each town or city
+affixed. This admirable feature will render unnecessary
+any reference to the <i>Orbis Latinus</i> of Graesse, or to any
+other <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'vocabularly'">vocabulary</ins> of geography, to identify the place in
+which early-printed books appeared. Stein is by no means
+free from errors, and some surprising omissions. One cardinal
+defect is the absence of any full index of authors
+whose books are cited.</p>
+
+<p>There are also quite brief catalogues of works on bibliography
+in J. Power's Handy Book about Books, London,
+1870, and in J. Sabin's Bibliography: a handy book about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_472" id="Pg_472"></a>[<a href="./images/472.png">472</a>]</span>
+books which relate to books, N. Y., 1877. The latter
+work is an expansion of the first-named.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to the second class of our bibliographies,
+<i>viz.</i>: those of various countries. Here the reader must be
+on his guard not to be misled into too general an interpretation
+of geographical terms. Thus, he will find many
+books and pamphlets ambitiously styled "<i>Catalogue Am&eacute;ricaine</i>",
+which are so far from being general bibliographies
+of books relating to America, that they are merely
+lists of a few books for sale by some book-dealer, which
+have something American in their subject. To know
+what catalogues are comprehensive, and what period they
+cover, as well as the limitations of nearly all of them, is
+a necessary part of the training of a bibliographer, and is
+essential to the librarian who would economize his time
+and enlarge his usefulness.</p>
+
+<p>Let us begin with our own country. Here we are met
+at the outset by the great paucity of general catalogues
+of American literature, and the utter impossibility of finding
+any really comprehensive lists of the books published
+in the United States, during certain periods. We can get
+along tolerably well for the publications within the last
+thirty years, which nearly represent the time since systematic
+weekly bibliographical journals have been published,
+containing lists of the current issues of books. But
+for the period just before the Civil War, back to the year
+1775, or for very nearly a century, we are without any
+systematic bibliography of the product of the American
+press. The fragmentary attempts which have been made
+toward supplying an account of what books have been
+published in the United States from the beginning, will
+hereafter be briefly noted. At the outset, you are to observe
+the wide distinction that exists between books treating
+of America, or any part of it, and books printed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_473" id="Pg_473"></a>[<a href="./images/473.png">473</a>]</span>
+America. The former may have been printed anywhere,
+at any time since 1492, and in any language: and to
+such books, the broad significant term "<i>Americana</i>" may
+properly be applied, as implying books relating to America.
+But this class of works is wholly different from that
+of books written or produced by Americans, or printed in
+America. It is these latter that we mean when we lament
+the want of a comprehensive American catalogue. There
+have been published in the United States alone (to go no
+farther into America at present) thousands of books, whose
+titles are not found anywhere, except widely scattered in
+the catalogues of libraries, public and private, in which
+they exist. Nay, there are multitudes of publications
+which have been issued in this country during the last two
+hundred years, whose titles cannot be found anywhere in
+print. This is not, generally, because the books have
+perished utterly,&mdash;though this is unquestionably true of
+some, but because multitudes of books that have appeared,
+and do appear, wholly escape the eye of the literary, or
+critical, or bibliographical chronicler. It is, beyond doubt
+true even now, that what are commonly accepted as complete
+catalogues of the issues of the press of any year, are
+wofully incomplete, and that too, through no fault of their
+compilers. Many works are printed in obscure towns, or
+in newspaper offices, which never reach the great eastern
+cities, where our principal bibliographies, both periodical
+and permanent, are prepared. Many books, too, are "privately
+printed," to gratify the pride or the taste of their
+authors, and a few copies distributed to friends, or sometimes
+to selected libraries, or public men. In these cases,
+not only are the public chroniclers of new issues of the
+press in ignorance of the printing of many books, but they
+are purposely kept in ignorance. Charles Lamb, of
+humorous and perhaps immortal memory, used to com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_474" id="Pg_474"></a>[<a href="./images/474.png">474</a>]</span>plain
+of the multitudes of books which are no books; and
+we of to-day may complain, if we choose, of the vast number
+of publications that are not published.</p>
+
+<p>Take a single example of the failure of even large and
+imposing volumes to be included in the "American Catalogue,"
+for whose aid, librarians are so immeasurably indebted
+to the enterprise of its publishers. A single publishing
+house west of New York, printed and circulated in
+about four years time, no less than thirty-two elaborate
+and costly histories, of western counties and towns, not
+one of which was ever recorded by title in our only comprehensive
+American bibliography. Why was this? Simply
+because the works referred to were published only as
+subscription books, circulated by agents, carefully kept out
+of booksellers' hands, and never sent to the Eastern press
+for notice or review. When circumstances like these exist
+as to even very recent American publications (and they are
+continually happening) is it any wonder that our bibliographies
+are incomplete?</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps some will suggest that there must be one record
+of American publications which is complete, namely, the
+office of Copyright at Washington. It is true that the
+titles of all copyright publications are required by law to
+be there registered, and copies deposited as soon as printed.
+It is also true that a weekly catalogue of all books and
+other copyright publications is printed, and distributed by
+the Treasury, to all our custom-houses, to intercept piratical
+re-prints which might be imported. But the books
+just referred to were not entered for copyright at all, the
+publishers apparently preferring the risk of any rival's reprinting
+them, rather than to incur the cost of the small
+copyright fee, and the deposit of copies. In such cases,
+there is no law requiring publishers to furnish copies of
+their books. The government guarantees no monopoly of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_475" id="Pg_475"></a>[<a href="./images/475.png">475</a>]</span>
+publication, and so cannot exact a <i>quid pro quo.</i>, however
+much it might inure to the interest of publisher and author
+to have the work seen and noticed, and preserved beyond
+risk of perishing (unless printed on wood-pulp paper) in
+the Library of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>If such extensive omissions of the titles of books sometimes
+important, can now continually occur in our accepted
+standards of national bibliography, what shall we say
+of times when we had no critical journals, no publishers'
+trade organs, and no weekly, nor annual, nor quinquennial
+catalogues of American books issued? Must we not allow,
+in the absence of any catalogues worthy of the name, to
+represent such periods, that all our reference books are
+from the very necessity of the case deplorably incomplete?
+Only by the most devoted, indefatigable and unrewarded
+industry have we got such aids to research as to the existence
+of American publications, as Haven's Catalogue of
+American publications prior to 1776, Sabin's Bibliotheca
+Americana, and the American Catalogues of Leypoldt,
+Bowker, and their coadjutors.</p>
+
+<p>These illustrations are cited to guard against the too
+common error of supposing that we have in the numerous
+American catalogues that exist, even putting them all together,
+any full bibliography of the titles of American
+books. While it cannot be said that the <i>lacunae</i> or omissions
+approach the actual entries in number, it must be
+allowed that books are turning up every day, both new and
+old, whose titles are not found in any catalogue. The
+most important books&mdash;those which deserve a name as
+literature, are found recorded somewhere&mdash;although even
+as to many of these, one has to search many alphabets, in
+a large number of volumes, before tracing them, or some
+editions of them.</p>
+
+<p>One principal source of the great number of titles of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_476" id="Pg_476"></a>[<a href="./images/476.png">476</a>]</span>
+books found wanting in American catalogues, is that many
+books were printed at places remote from the great cities,
+and were never announced in the columns of the press at
+all. This is especially true as to books printed toward the
+close of the 18th century, and during the first quarter of
+the 19th. Not only have we no bibliography whatever of
+American issues of the press, specially devoted to covering
+the long period between 1775 and 1820, but multitudes of
+books printed during that neglected half-century, have
+failed to get into the printed catalogues of our libraries.
+As illustrations we might give a long catalogue of places
+where book-publication was long carried on, and many
+books of more or less importance printed or reprinted, but
+in which towns not a book has been produced for more
+than three-quarters of a century past. One of these towns
+was Winchester, and another Williamsburg, in Virginia;
+another was Exeter, New Hampshire, and a fourth was
+Carlisle, Pa. In the last-named place, one Archibald Loudon
+printed many books, between A. D. 1798, and 1813,
+which have nearly all escaped the chroniclers of American
+book-titles. Notable among the productions of his press,
+was his own book, A History of Indian Wars, or as he
+styled it in the title page, "A selection of some of the most
+interesting narratives of outrages committed by the Indians
+in their wars with the white people." This history
+appeared in two volumes from the press of A. Loudon, Carlisle,
+Pa., in 1808 and 1811. It is so rare that I have failed
+to find its title anywhere except in Sabin's Bibliotheca
+Americana, Field's Indian Bibliography, and the Catalogue
+of the Library of Congress. Not even the British Museum
+Library, so rich in Americana, has a copy. Sabin states
+that only six copies are known, and Field styles it, "this
+rarest of books on America," adding that he could learn of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_477" id="Pg_477"></a>[<a href="./images/477.png">477</a>]</span>
+only three perfect copies in the world. A Harrisburg reprint
+of 1888 (100 copies to subscribers) is also quite rare.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing the subject of American bibliography, and
+still lamenting the want of any comprehensive or finished
+work in that field which is worthy of the name, let us see
+what catalogues do exist, even approximating completeness
+for any period. The earlier years of the production of
+American books have been partially covered by the "Catalogue
+of publications in what is now the United States,
+prior to 1776." This list was compiled by an indefatigable
+librarian, the late Samuel F. Haven, who was at the
+head of the Library of the American Antiquarian Society,
+at Worcester, Mass. It gives all titles by sequence of years
+of publication, instead of alphabetical order, from 1639
+(the epoch of the earliest printing in the United States)
+to the end of 1775. The titles of books and pamphlets are
+described with provoking brevity, being generally limited
+to a single line for each, and usually without publishers'
+names, (though the places of publication and sometimes
+the number of pages are given) so that it leaves much to
+be desired. Notwithstanding this, Mr. Haven's catalogue
+is an invaluable aid to the searcher after titles of the
+early printed literature of our country. It appeared at Albany,
+N. Y., in 1874, as an appendix [in Vol 2] to a new
+(or second) edition of Isaiah Thomas's History of Printing
+in America, which was first published in 1810. In using
+it, the librarian will find no difficulty, if he knows the year
+when the publication he looks for appeared, as all books
+of each year are arranged in alphabetical order. But if
+he knows only the author's name, he may have a long
+search to trace the title, there being no general alphabet
+or index of authors. This chronological arrangement has
+certain advantages to the literary inquirer or historian,
+while for ready reference, its disadvantages are obvious.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_478" id="Pg_478"></a>[<a href="./images/478.png">478</a>]</span>While there were several earlier undertakings of an
+American bibliography than Haven's catalogue of publications
+before the American revolution, yet the long period
+which that list covers, and its importance, entitled it to
+first mention here. There had, however, appeared, as
+early as the year 1804, in Boston, "A Catalogue of all
+books, printed in the United States, with the prices, and
+places where published, annexed." This large promise
+is hardly redeemed by the contents of this thin pamphlet
+of 91 pages, all told. Yet the editor goes on to assure us&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"This Catalogue is intended to include all books of general
+sale printed in the United States, whether original, or reprinted;
+that the public may see the rapid progress of book-printing
+in a country, where, twenty years since, scarcely a
+book was published. Local and occasional tracts are generally
+omitted. Some of the books in the Catalogue are now
+out of print, and others are scarce. It is contemplated to
+publish a new edition of this Catalogue, every two years, and
+to make the necessary additions and corrections; and it is
+hoped the time is not far distant, when useful Libraries may
+be formed of American editions of Books, well printed, and
+handsomely bound.</p>
+
+<p>Printed at Boston, for the Book sellers, Jan., 1804."</p></div>
+
+<p>The really remarkable thing about this catalogue is that
+it was the very first bibliographical attempt at a general
+catalogue, in separate form, in America. It is quite interesting
+as an early booksellers' list of American publications,
+as well as for its classification, which is as follows:
+"Law, Physic, Divinity, Bibles, Miscellanies, School Books,
+Singing Books, Omissions."</p>
+
+<p>The fact that no subsequent issues of the catalogue appeared,
+evinces the very small interest taken in bibliographic
+knowledge in those early days.</p>
+
+<p>This curiosity of early American bibliography gives the
+titles of 1338 books, all of American publication, with
+prices in 1804. Here are samples: Bingham's <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Columbiau'">Columbian</ins>
+Orator, 75 cts.: Burney's Cecilia, 3 vols. $3: Memoirs of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_479" id="Pg_479"></a>[<a href="./images/479.png">479</a>]</span>
+Pious Women, $1.12: Belknap's New Hampshire, 3 vols.
+$5: Mrs. Coghlan's Memoirs, 62&frac12; cts.: Brockden Brown's
+Wieland, $1: Federalist, 2 vols. $4.50: Dilworth's Spelling
+Book, 12&frac12; cts.: Pike's Arithmetic, $2.25.</p>
+
+<p>The number of out-of-the-way places in which books
+were published in those days is remarkable. Thus, in Connecticut,
+we have as issuing books, Litchfield, New London
+and Fairhaven: in Massachusetts, Leominster, Dedham,
+Greenfield, Brookfield, and Wrentham<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads ';'">:</ins> in New Hampshire,
+Dover, Walpole, Portsmouth, and Exeter: in Pennsylvania,
+Washington, Carlisle, and Chambersburg: in New Jersey,
+Morristown, Elizabethtown, and Burlington. At Alexandria,
+Va., eight books are recorded as published.</p>
+
+<p>This historical nugget of the Boston bookmongers of a
+century ago is so rare, that only two copies are known in
+public libraries, namely, in the Library of Congress, and
+in that of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It was reprinted
+in 1898, for the Dibdin Club of New York, by Mr.
+A. Growoll, of the Publishers' Weekly, to whose curious
+and valuable notes on "Booktrade Bibliography in the
+United States in the 19th century," it forms a supplement.</p>
+
+<p>The next catalogue of note claiming to be an American
+catalogue, or of books published in America, was put forth
+in 1847, at Claremont, N. H., by Alexander V. Blake.
+This was entitled, "The American Bookseller's complete
+reference trade-list, and alphabetical catalogue of books,
+published in this country, with the publishers' and
+authors' names, and prices." This quarto volume, making
+351 pages (with its supplement issued in 1848) was the
+precursor of the now current "Trade List Annual," containing
+the lists of books published by all publishers whose
+lists could be secured. The titles are very brief, and are
+arranged in the catalogue under the names of the respective
+publishers, with an alphabetical index of authors and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_480" id="Pg_480"></a>[<a href="./images/480.png">480</a>]</span>
+of anonymous titles at the end. It served well its purpose
+of a book-trade catalogue fifty years ago, being the
+pioneer in that important field. It is now, like the catalogue
+of 1804, just noticed, chiefly interesting as a bibliographical
+curiosity, although both lists do contain the
+titles of some books not elsewhere found.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Orville A. Roorbach, a New York bookseller, was
+the next compiler of an American bibliography. His first
+issue of 1849 was enlarged and published in 1852, under
+this title: "Bibliotheca Americana: a catalogue of American
+publications, including reprints and original works,
+from 1820 to 1852, inclusive." This octavo volume of 663
+pages, in large, clear type, closely abbreviates nearly all
+titles, though giving in one comprehensive alphabet, the
+authors' names, and the titles of the books under the first
+word, with year and place of publication, publisher's name,
+and price at which issued. No collation of the books is
+given, but the catalogue supplies sufficient portions of each
+title to identify the book. It is followed in an appendix
+by a catalogue of law books, in a separate alphabet, and a
+list of periodicals published in the United States in 1852.</p>
+
+<p>Roorbach continued his catalogue to the year 1861, by
+the issue of three successive supplements: (1) covering the
+American publications of 1853 to 1855: (2) from 1855 to
+1858: (3) from 1858 to 1861. These four catalogues, aiming
+to cover, in four different alphabets, the issues of the
+American press for forty years, or from 1820 to 1861, are
+extremely useful lists to the librarian, as finding lists, although
+the rigorously abbreviated titles leave very much
+to be desired by the bibliographer, and the omissions
+are exceedingly numerous of books published within the
+years named, but whose titles escaped the compiler.</p>
+
+<p>Following close upon Roorbach's Bibliotheca Americana
+in chronological order, we have next two bibliographies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_481" id="Pg_481"></a>[<a href="./images/481.png">481</a>]</span>
+covering American book issues from 1861 to 1871. These
+were compiled by a New York book dealer named James
+Kelly, and were entitled The American Catalogue of
+Books, (original and reprint) published in the United
+States from Jan., 1861, to Jan., 1866, [and from Jan.,
+1866, to Jan., 1871] with date of publication, size, price,
+and publisher's name. The first volume contained a supplement,
+with list of pamphlets on the civil war, and also
+a list of the publications of learned societies. These very
+useful and important catalogues cover ten years of American
+publishing activity, adding also to their own period
+many titles omitted by Roorbach in earlier years. Kelly's
+catalogues number 307 and 444 pages respectively, and,
+like Roorbach's, they give both author and title in a single
+alphabet. Names of publishers are given, with place and
+year of publication, and retail price, but without number
+of pages, and with no alphabet of subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Next after Kelly's catalogue came the first issue of the
+"American Catalogue," which, with its successive volumes
+(all published in quarto form) ably represents the bibliography
+of our country during the past twenty-five years.
+The title of the first volume, issued in 1880, reads "American
+Catalogue of books in print and for sale (including reprints
+and importations) July 1, 1876. Compiled under
+direction of F. Leypoldt, by L. E. Jones." This copious
+repository of book-titles was in two parts: (1) Authors,
+and (2) Subject-index. Both are of course in alphabetical
+order, and the titles of books are given with considerable
+abbreviation. The fact that its plan includes many titles
+of books imported from Great Britain, (as supplying information
+to book-dealers and book-buyers) prevents it
+from being considered as a bibliography of strictly American
+publications. Still, it is the only <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'approxmiately'">approximately</ins> full
+American bibliography of the publications current twenty-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_482" id="Pg_482"></a>[<a href="./images/482.png">482</a>]</span>five
+years ago. As such, its volumes are indispensable
+in every library, and should be in its earliest purchase of
+works of reference. The limitation of the catalogue to
+books still in print&mdash;<i>i. e.</i>, to be had of the publishers at
+the time of its issue, of course precludes it from being
+ranked as a universal American bibliography.</p>
+
+<p>The first issue in 1880 was followed, in 1885, by the
+"American Catalogue, 1876-1884: books recorded (including
+reprints and importations<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: added closing parenthesis">)</ins>, under editorial direction of
+R. R. Bowker, by Miss A. I. Appleton." This appeared in
+one volume, but with two alphabets; one being authors
+and titles, and the other an alphabet of subjects. As this
+volume included eight years issues of the American press,
+the next bibliography published covered the next ensuing
+six years, and included the books recorded from July, 1884
+to July, 1890. This appeared in 1891, edited with care
+by Miss Appleton and others.</p>
+
+<p>In 1896 appeared its successor, the "American Catalogue,
+1890-95. Compiled under the editorial direction
+of R. R. Bowker." This catalogue records in its first
+volume, or alphabet of authors: (1) author; (2) size of
+book; (3) year of issue; (4) price; (5) publisher's name.
+The names of places where published are not given with
+the title, being rendered unnecessary by the full alphabetical
+list of publishers which precedes, and fixes the city or
+town where each published his books. This same usage is
+followed in succeeding issues of the American Catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>This indispensable bibliography of recent American
+books, in addition to its regular alphabets of authors and
+titles (the latter under first words and in the same alphabet
+with the authors) and the succeeding alphabet of subjects,
+prints a full list of the publications of the United States
+government, arranged by departments and bureaus; also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_483" id="Pg_483"></a>[<a href="./images/483.png">483</a>]</span>
+a list of the publications of State governments, of Societies,
+and of books published in series.</p>
+
+<p>This last issue has 939 pages. Its only defects (aside
+from its inevitable omissions of many unrecorded books)
+are the double alphabet, and the want of collation, or an
+indication of the number of pages in each work, which
+should follow every title. Its cost in bound form is $15,
+at which the two preceding American catalogues 1876-84,
+and 1884 to 1890 can also be had, while the catalogue of
+books in print in 1876, published in 1880, is quite out of
+print, though a copy turns up occasionally from some
+book-dealer's stock.</p>
+
+<p>The American Catalogue has now become a quinquennial
+issue, gathering the publications of five years into one
+alphabet; and it is supplemented at the end of every year
+by the "Annual American Catalogue," started in 1886,
+which gives, in about 400 pages, in its first alphabet, collations
+of the books of the year (a most important feature,
+unfortunately absent from the quinquennial American
+Catalogue.) Its second alphabet gives authors, titles, and
+sometimes subject-matters, but without the distribution
+into subject-divisions found in the quinquennial catalogue;
+and the titles are greatly abridged from the full record of
+its first alphabet. Its price is $3.50 each year.</p>
+
+<p>And this annual, in turn, is made up from the catalogues
+of titles of all publications, which appear in the <i>Publishers'
+Weekly</i>, the carefully edited organ of the book publishing
+interests in the United States. This periodical, which will
+be found a prime necessity in every library, originated in
+New York, in 1855, as the "American Publishers' Circular,"
+and has developed into the recognized authority in
+American publications, under the able management of R.
+R. Bowker and A. Growoll. For three dollars a year, it
+supplies weekly and monthly alphabetical lists of whatever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_484" id="Pg_484"></a>[<a href="./images/484.png">484</a>]</span>
+comes from the press, in book form, as completely as the
+titles can be gathered from every source. It gives valuable
+notes after most titles, defining the scope and idea of the
+work, with collations, features which are copied into the
+Annual American Catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>I must not omit to mention among American bibliographies,
+although published in London, and edited by a
+foreigner, Mr. N. Tr&uuml;bner's "Bibliographical Guide to
+American literature: a classed list of books published in
+the United States during the last forty years." This book
+appeared in 1859, and is a carefully edited bibliography,
+arranged systematically in thirty-two divisions of subjects,
+filling 714 pages octavo. It gives under each topic, an
+alphabet of authors, followed by titles of the works, given
+with approximate fullness, followed by place and year of
+publication, but without publishers' names. The number
+of pages is also given where ascertained, and the price of
+the work quoted in sterling English money. This work,
+by a competent German-English book-publisher of London,
+is preceded by a brief history of American literature,
+and closes with a full index of authors whose works are
+catalogued in it.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to by far the most comprehensive and
+ambitious attempt to cover not only the wide field of
+American publications, but the still more extensive field
+of books relating to America, which has ever yet been
+made. I refer to the "Bibliotheca Americana; a dictionary
+of books relating to America," by Joseph Sabin,
+begun more than thirty years ago, in 1868, and still unfinished,
+its indefatigable compiler having died in 1881,
+at the age of sixty. This vast bibliographical undertaking
+was originated by a variously-gifted and most energetic
+man, not a scholar, but a bookseller and auctioneer,
+born in England. Mr. Sabin is said to have compiled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_485" id="Pg_485"></a>[<a href="./images/485.png">485</a>]</span>
+more catalogues of private libraries that have been
+brought to the auctioneer's hammer, than any man who
+ever lived in America. He bought and sold, during nearly
+twenty years, old and rare books, in a shop in Nassau street,
+New York, which was the resort of book collectors and
+bibliophiles without number. He made a specialty of
+Americana, and of early printed books in English literature,
+crossing the Atlantic twenty-five times to gather
+fresh stores with which to feed his hungry American
+customers. During all these years, he worked steadily at
+his <i>magnum opus</i>, the bibliography of America, carrying
+with him in his many journeys and voyages, in cars or
+on ocean steamships, copy and proofs of some part of the
+work. There have been completed about ninety parts,
+or eighteen thick volumes of nearly 600 pages each; and
+since his death the catalogue has been brought down to
+the letter S, mainly by Mr. Wilberforce Eames, librarian
+of the Lenox Library, New York. Though its ultimate
+completion must be regarded as uncertain, the great value
+to all librarians, and students of American bibliography
+or history, of the work so far as issued, can hardly be over-estimated.
+Mr. Sabin had the benefit in revising the
+proofs of most of the work, of the critical knowledge and
+large experience of Mr. Charles A. Cutter, the librarian
+of the Boston Athenaeum Library, whose catalogue of the
+books in that institution, in five goodly volumes, is a
+monument of bibliographical learning and industry.
+Sabin's Dictionary is well printed, in large, clear type,
+the titles being frequently annotated, and prices at auction
+sales of the rarer and earlier books noted. Every
+known edition of each work is given, and the initials of
+public libraries in the United States, to the number of
+thirteen, in which the more important works are found,
+are appended. In not a few cases, where no copy was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_486" id="Pg_486"></a>[<a href="./images/486.png">486</a>]</span>
+known to the compiler in a public collection, but was
+found in a private library, the initials of its owner were
+given instead.</p>
+
+<p>This extensive bibliography was published solely by
+subscription, only 635 copies being printed at $2.50 a
+part, so that its cost to those subscribing was about $225
+unbound, up to the time of its suspension. The first part
+appeared January 1, 1867, although Vol. I. bears date
+New York, 1868. It records most important titles in full,
+with (usually) marks denoting omissions where such are
+made. In the case of many rare books relating to America
+(and especially those published prior to the 18th century)
+the collations are printed so as to show what each line
+of the original title embraces, <i>i. e.</i> with vertical marks or
+dashes between the matter of the respective lines. This
+careful description is invaluable to the bibliographical
+student, frequently enabling him to identify editions, or to
+solve doubts as to the genuineness of a book-title in hand.
+The collation by number of pages is given in all cases
+where the book has been seen, or reported fully to the
+editor. The order of description as to each title is as
+follows: (1) Place of publication (2) publisher (3) year
+(4) collation and size of book. Notes in a smaller type
+frequently convey information of other editions, of
+prices in various sales, of minor works by the same
+writer, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The fullness which has been aimed at in Sabin's
+American bibliography is seen in the great number of sermons
+and other specimens of pamphlet literature which
+it chronicles. It gives also the titles of most early
+American magazines, reviews, and other periodicals, except
+newspapers, which are generally omitted, as are maps
+also. As an example of the often minute cataloguing of
+the work, I may mention that no less than eight pages are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_487" id="Pg_487"></a>[<a href="./images/487.png">487</a>]</span>
+occupied with a list of the various publications and editions
+of books by Dr. Jedediah Morse, an author of whom
+few of the present generation of Americans have ever
+heard. He was the earliest American geographer who
+published any comprehensive books upon the subject, and
+his numerous Gazetteers and Geographies, published
+from 1784 to 1826, were constantly reprinted, until supplanted
+by more full, if not more accurate works.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, Sabin's great work, although so far
+from being finished, is invaluable as containing immeasurably
+more and fuller titles than any other American bibliography.
+It is also the only extensive work on the subject
+which covers all periods, although the books of the
+last thirty years must chiefly be excepted as not represented.
+As a work of reference, while its cost and scarcity
+may prevent the smaller public libraries from possessing
+it, it is always accessible in the libraries of the larger
+cities, where it is among the foremost works to be consulted
+in any research involving American publications,
+or books of any period or country relating to America, or
+its numerous sub-divisions.</p>
+
+<p>I may now mention, much more cursorily, some other
+bibliographies pertaining to our country. The late Henry
+Stevens, who died in 1886, compiled a "Catalogue of the
+American Books in the Library of the British Museum."
+This was printed by the Museum authorities in 1856, and
+fills 754 octavo pages. Its editor was a highly accomplished
+bibliographer and book-merchant, born in Vermont,
+but during the last forty years of his life resided
+in London, where he devoted himself to his profession
+with great learning and assiduity. He published many
+catalogues of various stocks of books collected by
+him, under such titles as "Bibliotheca historica,"
+"Bibliotheca Americana," etc., in which the books were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_488" id="Pg_488"></a>[<a href="./images/488.png">488</a>]</span>
+carefully described, often with notes illustrating their history
+or their value. He became an authority upon rare
+books and early editions, and made a valuable catalogue
+of the Bibles in the Caxton exhibition at London, in 1877,
+with bibliographical commentary. He was for years chief
+purveyor of the British Museum Library for its American
+book purchases, and aided the late James Lenox in building
+up that rich collection of Americana and editions of
+the Scriptures which is now a part of the New York Public
+Library. His catalogue of the American books in the
+British Museum, though now over forty years old, and
+supplanted by the full alphabetical catalogue of that entire
+library since published, is a valuable contribution to
+American bibliography.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stevens was one of the most acute and learned bibliographers
+I have known. He was a man of marked individuality
+and independent views; with a spice of eccentricity
+and humor, which crept into all his catalogues,
+and made his notes highly entertaining reading. Besides
+his services to the British Museum Library, in building
+up its noble collection of Americana, and in whose rooms
+he labored for many years, with the aid of Panizzi and
+his successors, whom he aided in return, Stevens collected
+multitudes of the books which now form the choice
+treasures of the Lenox library, the Carter Brown library,
+at Providence, the Library of Congress, and many more
+American collections. To go with him through any lot
+of Americana, in one of his enterprising visits to New
+York, where he sometimes came to market his overflowing
+stores picked up in London and on the continent, was a
+rare treat. Every book, almost, brought out some verbal
+criticism, anecdote or reminiscence of his book-hunting
+experiences, which began in America, and extended all
+over Europe.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_489" id="Pg_489"></a>[<a href="./images/489.png">489</a>]</span>He was not only an indefatigable collector, but a most
+industrious and accurate bibliographer, doing more work
+in that field, probably, than any other American. He
+wrote a singularly careful, though rapid hand, as plain
+and condensed as print, and in days before modern devices
+for manifolding writing were known, he copied out his
+invoices in duplicate or triplicate in his own hand, with
+titles in full, and frequent descriptive notes attached.
+His many catalogues are notable for the varied learning
+embodied. He was a most intelligent and vigilant book
+collector for more than forty years, his early labors embracing
+towns in New York and New England, as purveyor
+for material for Peter Force, of Washington, whose
+American Archives were then in course of preparation.
+Among the library collectors who absorbed large portions
+of his gathered treasures, were James Lenox, Jared
+Sparks, George Livermore, John Carter Brown, Henry C.
+Murphy, George Brinley, the American Geographical Society,
+and many historical societies. He was an authority
+on all the early voyages, and wrote much upon them. No
+one knew more about early Bibles than Henry Stevens.</p>
+
+<p>His enterprise and ambition for success led him to bold
+and sometimes extensive purchases. He bought about
+1865, the library of Baron von Humboldt, and this and
+other large ventures embarrassed him much in later years.
+He became the owner of the Franklin manuscripts, left
+in London by the great man's grandson, and collected
+during many years a library of Frankliniana, which came
+to the Library of Congress when the Franklin manuscripts
+were purchased for the State Department in 1881.</p>
+
+<p>He was proud of his country and his State, always signing
+himself "Henry Stevens, of Vermont." His book-plate
+had engraved beneath his name, the titles, "G. M. B.:
+F. S. A." The last, of course, designated him as Fellow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_490" id="Pg_490"></a>[<a href="./images/490.png">490</a>]</span>
+of the Society of Antiquaries of London, but the first
+puzzled even his friends, until it was interpreted as signifying
+"Green Mountain Boy." His brother used jocosely
+to assure me that it really meant "Grubber of Musty
+Books."</p>
+
+<p>As to his prices for books, while some collectors complained
+of them as "very stiff," they appear, when compared
+with recent sales of Americana, at auction and in
+sale catalogues, to be quite moderate. The late historian
+Motley told me that Mr. Stevens charged more than any
+one for Dutch books relating to America; but Mr. Motley's
+measure of values was <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'guaged'">gauged</ins> by the low prices of
+Dutch booksellers which prevailed during his residence
+in the Netherlands, for years before the keen demand from
+America had rendered the numerous Dutch tracts of the
+West India Company, etc., more scarce and of greater
+commercial value than they bore at the middle of this
+century.</p>
+
+<p>As treating of books by American authors, though not
+so much a complete bibliography of their works, as a
+critical history, with specimens selected from each writer,
+<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Duyckincks'">Duyckinck's</ins> "Cyclopaedia of American Literature" deserves
+special mention. The last edition appeared at
+Philadelphia, in 1875, in two large quarto volumes.
+Equally worthy of note is the compilation by E. C. Stedman
+and Ellen M. Hutchinson, in eleven volumes, entitled
+"Library of American Literature," New York, 1887-90.
+A most convenient hand-book of bibliographical reference
+is Oscar F. Adams's "Dictionary of American Authors,"
+Boston, 1897, which gives in a compact duodecimo volume,
+the name and period of nearly every American writer,
+with a brief list of his principal works, and their date of
+publication, in one alphabet.</p>
+
+<p>Of notable catalogues of books relating to America,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_491" id="Pg_491"></a>[<a href="./images/491.png">491</a>]</span>
+rather than of American publications, should be named
+White Kennet's "Bibliotheca Americana primordia," the
+earliest known catalogue devoted to American bibliography,
+London, 1713; O. Rich, Catalogue of Books relating
+to America, 1500-1700, London, 1832; Rich, "Bibliotheca
+Americana nova," books printed between 1700 and 1844,
+two volumes, London, 1835-46; H. Harrisse, "Bibliotheca
+Americana vetustissima," New York, 1866, and its supplement,
+Paris, 1872, both embracing rare early Americana,
+published from 1492 to 1551. This is a critically edited
+bibliography of the rarest books concerning America that
+appeared in the first half century after its discovery.</p>
+
+<p>The important field of American local history has given
+birth to many bibliographies. The earliest to be noted is
+H. E. Ludewig's "Literature of American Local History,"
+New York, 1846. Thirty years later came F. B. Perkins's
+"Check List for American Local History," Boston, 1876;
+followed by A. P. C. Griffin's "Index of articles upon
+American Local History in historical collections," Boston,
+1889, and by his "Index of the literature of American
+local history in collections published in 1890-95," Boston,
+1896. Closely allied to the catalogues of city, town, and
+county histories, come the bibliographies of genealogies
+and family histories, of which the last or 4th edition
+of D. S. Durrie's "Bibliographia genealogica Americana;
+an alphabetical index to American genealogies in county
+and town histories, printed genealogies, and kindred
+works," Albany, 1895, is the most comprehensive and indispensable.
+This work gives us an alphabet of family
+names, under each of which are grouped the titles of books
+in which that special name is treated, with citation of the
+page. It also gives the name and date of publication of
+the special family genealogies which are separately
+printed, whether book or pamphlet, with number of pages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_492" id="Pg_492"></a>[<a href="./images/492.png">492</a>]</span>
+in each. The work is by a librarian, to whose laborious
+diligence Americans are deeply indebted.</p>
+
+<p>Among other bibliographies of genealogy are Munsell's
+"American Genealogist: a catalogue of family histories,"
+Albany, 1897. This work aims to give the titles of all
+separately printed American genealogies, in an alphabet
+of family names, giving titles in full, with place and year
+of publication, name of publisher, and collation, or number
+of pages.</p>
+
+<p>For the multitudinous public documents of the United
+States, consult B. P. Poore's "Descriptive catalogue of the
+government publications of the United States, 1775-1881,"
+Washington, 1885, and F. A. Crandall, Check list of public
+documents, debates and proceedings from 1st to 53d Congress
+(1789-1895), Washington, 1895; also,</p>
+
+<p>Comprehensive index to the publications of the United
+States government, 1889-1893. The same&mdash;United States
+Catalogue of Public Documents, 1893 to 1895, Washington,
+1896. Several biennial or annual lists of United
+States Documents have followed.</p>
+
+<p>As supplementing these extensive catalogues, we have
+in the Appendix to the "American Catalogue" of 1885 a
+List of United States Government publications from 1880
+to 1884; in that of 1891 a List from 1884 to 1890; and
+in that of 1896 a List covering the years 1891 to 1895.</p>
+
+<p>A most important recent bibliography is found in H. C.
+Bolton's "Catalogue of Scientific and Technical Periodicals,
+1665-1895," Washington, 1897.</p>
+
+<p>There are also many sale catalogues of American books,
+with prices, some of which may be noted, <i>e. g.</i> J. R. Smith,
+Bibliotheca Americana, London, 1865; F. M&uuml;ller, Catalogue
+of books and pamphlets relating to America, Amsterdam,
+1877, and later years. Ternaux-Compans, "Biblioth&egrave;que
+Am&eacute;ricaine;" books printed before 1700, Paris,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_493" id="Pg_493"></a>[<a href="./images/493.png">493</a>]</span>
+1837: P. Tr&ouml;mel, "Biblioth&egrave;que Am&eacute;ricaine," Leipzig,
+1861: D. B. Warden, "Biblioth&egrave;que Am&eacute;ricaine," Paris,
+1840: R. Clarke &amp; Co., "Bibliotheca Americana," Cincinnati,
+1874, 1878, 1887, 1891, and 1893.</p>
+
+<p>There are, besides, important catalogues of some private
+libraries, devoted wholly or chiefly to books relating to
+America. Among these, the most extensive and costly is
+John R. Bartlett's catalogue of the library of J. Carter
+Brown, of Providence, in four sumptuous volumes, with
+fac-similes of early title-pages, of which bibliography only
+fifty copies were printed. It is entitled, "Bibliotheca
+Americana: a catalogue of books relating to North and
+South America," 1482-1800, 4 vols. large 8vo., Providence,
+1870-82. The Carter Brown Library is now the richest
+collection of Americana in any private library in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Among catalogues of libraries sold by auction, and
+composed largely of American books, are those of John
+A. Rice, New York, 1870: W. <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Meuzies'">Menzies</ins>, New York, 1875:
+George Brinley, in five volumes, sold 1878 to 1886: Henry
+C. Murphy, New York, 1884: S. L. M. Barlow, New York,
+1889: and Brayton Ives, New York, 1891.</p>
+
+<p>The wide field of bibliography of English literature has
+given birth to many books. Only the more comprehensive
+can here be noted.</p>
+
+<p>R. Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, in four quarto
+volumes, Edinburgh, 1824, although now old, is still an
+indispensable work of reference, giving multitudes of titles
+of English books and pamphlets not found in any other
+bibliography. It of course abounds in errors, most of
+which have been copied in Allibone's Dictionary of English
+literature. This extensive work is a monument of
+labor, to which the industrious compiler devoted many
+years, dying of too intense study, at Glasgow, at the early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_494" id="Pg_494"></a>[<a href="./images/494.png">494</a>]</span>
+age of forty-five, in the year 1819. The issue of the work
+in 1824, being thus posthumous, its errors and omissions
+are largely accounted for by the author's inability to correct
+the press. The plan of the work is unique. Vols. <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'I'">1</ins>
+and 2 contain the alphabet of authors and titles, with
+dates and publishers' prices when known. Vols. 3 and
+4 contain an alphabet of subjects, in which the titles re-appear,
+with a key alphabet in italic letters attached to
+each title, by which reference is made to the author-catalogue,
+at a fixed place, where all the works of the author
+are recorded.</p>
+
+<p>The work is printed in small type, with two crowded
+columns on a page, thus containing an enormous amount
+of matter. The key is quickly learned, and by its aid, and
+the alphabet of subjects, the librarian can find out the
+authors of many anonymous books. Watt is the only
+general bibliography of English literature which gives
+most of the obscure writers and their works.</p>
+
+<p>Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature,
+in its second edition, enlarged by H. G. Bohn, is a most
+indispensable bibliography. This work is arranged alphabetically
+by authors' names, and aims to record all important
+books published in Great Britain, from the earliest
+times to about A. D. 1834. It is in eleven parts, or
+6 vols. 16 mo. of very portable size, Lond., 1857-65. While
+it gives collations of the more important works, with publishers
+and dates, it fails to record many editions of the
+same work. Its quoted prices represent the original publisher's
+price, with very frequent additions of the sale
+prices obtained at book auctions. The chief defect of
+Lowndes' Manual is its total lack of any index of subjects.</p>
+
+<p>S. Austin Allibone's "Critical Dictionary of English literature,"
+Philadelphia, 1858-71, 3 volumes, with sup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_495" id="Pg_495"></a>[<a href="./images/495.png">495</a>]</span>plement
+by John F. Kirk, in 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1891,
+is a copious reference book, which, in spite of its many
+errors and crudities, should be in all libraries. It contains
+in abbreviated form most of the titles in Watt and
+Lowndes, with the addition of American authors, and of
+British books published since the period covered by
+Lowndes. The three volumes of Allibone accompany
+the titles of works by noted authors with many critical
+remarks, copied mostly from reviews and literary journals.
+This feature of the book, which makes it rather a work of
+literary history and criticism than a bibliography pure
+and simple, has been dropped in Mr. Kirk's supplement,
+which thus becomes properly a bibliography. The publications
+of England and America, from about 1850 to 1890,
+are more fully chronicled in this work of Kirk than in any
+other bibliography.</p>
+
+<p>The important "English Catalogue of Books," from A.
+D. 1835 to 1897, in 5 vols., with its valuable Index of Subjects,
+in 4 vols., from 1857 up to 1889, is so constantly
+useful as to be almost indispensable in a public library<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads ','">.</ins>
+It records, in provokingly brief one-line titles, with publisher's
+name, year of issue, and price, all books published
+in Great Britain whose titles could be secured. It thus
+subserves the same purpose for English publications,
+which the American Catalogue fulfills for those of the
+United States. Both are in effect greatly condensed bibliographies,
+enabling the librarian to locate most of the
+published literature in the English language for many
+years back. The English catalogue, from 1897 to date, is
+supplemented by its annual issues, entitled "the English
+Catalogue of Books for 1898," etc.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that accuracy should be one of the cardinal
+aims of the librarian: and this because in that profession
+it is peculiarly important. Bibliography is a study which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_496" id="Pg_496"></a>[<a href="./images/496.png">496</a>]</span>
+approaches very nearly to the rank of an exact science;
+and the practice of it, in application to the daily work of
+the librarian, is at once a school of accuracy, and a test
+of ability. A habit of analytical methods should be assiduously
+cultivated, without which much time will be lost
+in fruitless searches in the wrong books to find what one
+wants. As a single illustration of this need of method,
+suppose that you want to find the title of a certain book
+with its full description, a want likely to occur every hour
+in the day, and sometimes many times an hour. The book
+is perhaps Sir Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon,&mdash;9 vols.,
+London, 1827, and your object is to trace its title, published
+price, etc., among the numerous bibliographies of
+literature. You begin by a simple act of analysis&mdash;thus.
+This is a London, not an American book&mdash;hence it is useless
+to look in any American catalogue. It is written in
+English, so you are dispensed from looking for it in any
+French or other foreign bibliography. Its date is 1827,
+London. Therefore among the three leading English reference
+books in bibliography, which are Watt's Bibliotheca
+Britannica, Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual, and the
+English Catalogue, you at once eliminate the former as
+not containing the book. Why do you do this? Because
+Watt's great work, in four huge quartos, though invaluable
+for the early English literature, stops with books published
+before the date of its issue, 1824. Your book is
+published in 1827, and of course could not appear in a
+catalogue of 1824. Shall you refer then to the English
+Catalogue for its title? No, because the five volumes of
+that useful work (though some imperfect book lists were
+published earlier), begin with the year 1835, and the book
+you seek bears date of 1827. You are then reduced, by
+this simple process of analyzing in your mind the various<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_497" id="Pg_497"></a>[<a href="./images/497.png">497</a>]</span>
+sources of information, and rejecting all except one, namely
+Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual, to a search in a single
+catalogue for your title. This simplifies matters
+greatly, and saves all the time which might otherwise have
+been lost in hunting fruitlessly through several works of
+reference. Lowndes' invaluable Manual was published in
+1834, and though a second edition, edited by Bohn, appeared
+thirty years later, it does not contain books <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'pubished'">published</ins>
+after that date, unless they are later editions of
+works issued earlier. You find in it your Scott's Napoleon,
+date 1827, with its published price, &pound;4. 14. 6, and an
+account of other later editions of the book. Of
+course you will observe that it is necessary to know
+what period of years is covered by the various bibliographies,
+and to carry those dates perpetually in your
+memory, in order thus to simplify searches, and save time.
+Once learned, you will have the comfort of knowing where
+to turn for light upon any book, and the faculty of accurate
+memory will reward the pains taken to acquire it.</p>
+
+<p>I must not omit to include, in noting the more useful
+and important English bibliographies, the very copious
+list of works appended to each biography of British
+writers, in the new "Dictionary of National Biography,"
+Lond., 1885-1900. This extensive work is nearly finished
+in about 65 volumes, and constitutes a rich thesaurus
+of information about all British authors, except living
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>Living characters, considered notable, and brief note of
+their books, are recorded in "Men and Women of the
+Time," 15th ed. London, 1899&mdash;but this book, although
+highly useful, is far from being a bibliography.</p>
+
+<p>I should not omit to mention among useful librarians'
+aids, the "Book Prices Current; record of prices at which
+books have been sold at auction." This London publica<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_498" id="Pg_498"></a>[<a href="./images/498.png">498</a>]</span>tion
+began with the year 1887. No sales are reported
+of books bringing less than one pound sterling. The
+book-sales of 1898 were reported in 1899 of this issue,
+and the book is published in each case the next year. The
+similar catalogue entitled "American Book Prices Current"
+was begun with 1895, being compiled from the sale
+catalogues of American auctioneers, for that year, and
+the prices brought at auction in New York, Boston, Philadelphia,
+and Chicago, are recorded for all notable books,
+but limited to works bringing as much as $3 or upward.
+Five years' reports, in as many volumes, have now been
+issued, and the publication is to be continued. Its utility
+of course consists in informing librarians or collectors of
+the most recent auction values of books. At the same
+time, a word of caution is required, since it is not safe to
+judge of average commercial values, from any isolated bid
+at an auction sale.</p>
+
+<p>A very useful classed catalogue, published by the British
+Museum library, and edited by G. K. Fortescue, an assistant
+librarian, is the so-called "Subject-index to modern
+works," of which three volumes have appeared, beginning
+with the accessions of 1880-85, each covering five years
+additions of new works, in all European languages, to that
+library. The third volume embraces the years 1890 to
+1895, and appeared in 1896. As this is not confined to
+works in English, it should be classed with universal
+bibliography. As containing most of the latest books of
+any note, all three volumes are important aids to research.
+They are printed in large type, in which it is a refreshment
+to the eye to read titles, after the small and obscure print
+of Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, and the but little better
+type of Lowndes' Manual, and of the English Catalogue.
+A collation of pages is also added in most cases, and the
+importance of this can hardly be overrated. These cata<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_499" id="Pg_499"></a>[<a href="./images/499.png">499</a>]</span>logues
+of the British Museum Library abound in pamphlets,
+English, French, German, Italian, etc., evincing how
+large a share of attention is given to the minor literature
+coming from the press in the more recent years.</p>
+
+<p>W. H. D. Adams's "Dictionary of English Literature,"
+London, 1880, and later, in a compact volume, gives authors
+and titles of the more important English and American
+books. Also, in the same alphabet, an index to the
+titles, as well as authors, by the first word, and to many
+sayings or quotations, with their original sources. It is
+a highly useful book, although its small bulk leaves it
+far from being a comprehensive one.</p>
+
+<p>Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature, in 2 vols.,
+London, 1876, has an account of the most notable British
+writers, with specimens of their works, and forms what
+may be termed an essential part of the equipment of every
+public library.</p>
+
+<p>The Library Association of the United Kingdom, since
+1888, the date of its organization, has published Transactions
+and Proceedings; also, since 1889, "The Library," a
+periodical with bibliographical information.</p>
+
+<p>It may be noted, without undue expression of pride,
+that America first set the example of an organized national
+association of Librarians (founded in 1876) followed
+the same year by a journal devoted to Library interests.
+That extremely useful periodical, the <i>Library Journal</i>, is
+now in its twenty-fourth volume. Its successive issues
+have contained lists of nearly all new bibliographical works
+and catalogues published, in whatever language.</p>
+
+<p>The London Publisher's Circular, first established in
+1838, is a weekly organ of the book-publishing trade, aiming
+to record the titles of all British publications as they
+appear from the press. It gives, in an alphabet by authors'
+names, the titles in much abbreviated form, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_500" id="Pg_500"></a>[<a href="./images/500.png">500</a>]</span>
+publisher, size in inches, collation, price, and date, with
+a fairly good index of titles or subjects, in the same alphabet.
+Covering much the same ground, as a publishers'
+periodical, is "The Bookseller," issued monthly since 1858,
+with lists of the new issues of the British press, and critical
+notices. In addition to the English catalogue, there
+is the extensive Whitaker's "Reference catalogue of current
+literature," published every year, which now makes
+two large volumes, and embraces the trade catalogues of
+English publishers, bound up in alphabetical order, with
+a copious index, by authors and titles, in one alphabet,
+prefixed.</p>
+
+<p>While on English bibliographies, I must note the important
+work on local history, by J. P. Anderson, "Book
+of British Topography," London, 1881. This gives, in
+an alphabet of counties, titles of all county histories or
+descriptive works of England, Scotland, Ireland, and
+Wales, followed in each county by a list of town histories
+or topographical works. The arrangement under each
+town is chronological. Its only want is a collation of the
+books. British genealogy, or the history of families, is
+treated bibliographically in G. W. Marshall's "The Genealogist's
+Guide," London, 1893, which gives an alphabet
+of family names, with references in great detail to county
+and town histories, pedigrees, heralds' visitations, genealogies,
+etc., all over Great Britain, in which any family is
+treated.</p>
+
+<p>The wide field of foreign bibliography, by countries, cannot
+here be entered upon, nor can I now treat of the still
+more extensive range of works devoted to the bibliography
+of various subjects.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_501" id="Pg_501"></a>[<a href="./images/501.png">501</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX.</h2>
+
+
+
+<ul><li>Access to shelves, <a href="#Pg_215">215</a>-<a href="#Pg_225">225</a></li>
+<li>Accuracy, rarity of, <a href="#Pg_254">254</a>-<a href="#Pg_257">257</a></li>
+<li>Adams (O. F.) Dictionary of American authors, <a href="#Pg_490">490</a></li>
+<li>Adams (W. H. D.) Dictionary of English literature, <a href="#Pg_499">499</a></li>
+<li>Administration, faculty of, <a href="#Pg_249">249</a></li>
+<li>Advertising, library, <a href="#Pg_353">353</a>-<a href="#Pg_356">356</a></li>
+<li>Aids to readers, <a href="#Pg_190">190</a>-<a href="#Pg_214">214</a></li>
+<li>Alexandrian library, <a href="#Pg_107">107</a>, <a href="#Pg_289">289</a></li>
+<li>Allibone (S. A.) Critical dictionary of English literature, <a href="#Pg_494">494</a>-<a href="#Pg_495">495</a></li>
+<li>Alphabeting titles, <a href="#Pg_380">380</a>, <a href="#Pg_388">388</a>-<a href="#Pg_389">389</a></li>
+<li>American book prices, current, 1895-99, <a href="#Pg_498">498</a></li>
+<li>American catalogue, 1876-1899, <a href="#Pg_481">481</a>-<a href="#Pg_484">484</a></li>
+<li>American Library Association<ul>
+<li>    catalogue of <a href="#Pg_5">5</a>,000 books, <a href="#Pg_25">25</a>, <a href="#Pg_371">371</a></li>
+<li>    foundation of, <a href="#Pg_499">499</a></li>
+<li>    list of novelists, <a href="#Pg_22">22</a></li>
+<li>    on open shelves, <a href="#Pg_223">223</a></li>
+<li>    on size-notation, <a href="#Pg_390">390</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Americana,<ul>
+<li>    bibliographies of, <a href="#Pg_472">472</a>-<a href="#Pg_493">493</a></li>
+<li>    rare, <a href="#Pg_454">454</a>-<a href="#Pg_456">456</a></li>
+<li>    what are, <a href="#Pg_473">473</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Anderson (J. P.) book of British topography, <a href="#Pg_500">500</a></li>
+<li>Arabic figures, <a href="#Pg_81">81</a></li>
+<li>Art of reading, <a href="#Pg_171">171</a>-<a href="#Pg_189">189</a></li>
+<li>Art, lesson from, <a href="#Pg_24">24</a></li>
+<li>Assistants in libraries<ul>
+<li>    appointment of, <a href="#Pg_337">337</a>-<a href="#Pg_339">339</a></li>
+<li>    qualifications of, <a href="#Pg_242">242</a>-<a href="#Pg_274">274</a></li>
+<li>    regulations for, <a href="#Pg_341">341</a>-<a href="#Pg_345">345</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Astor library, N. Y., <a href="#Pg_35">35</a>, <a href="#Pg_306">306</a><ul>
+<li>    mutilation in, <a href="#Pg_137">137</a>, <a href="#Pg_140">140</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Auction sales, <a href="#Pg_38">38</a>-<a href="#Pg_40">40</a>, <a href="#Pg_45">45</a>-<a href="#Pg_47">47</a>, <a href="#Pg_457">457</a></li>
+<li>Authorship, <a href="#Pg_271">271</a>-<a href="#Pg_2">2</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Bad books, <a href="#Pg_20">20</a>-<a href="#Pg_24">24</a>, <a href="#Pg_281">281</a>-<a href="#Pg_2">2</a></li>
+<li>Bartlett (J. R.) catalogue of J. Carter Brown library, <a href="#Pg_493">493</a></li>
+<li>Bay Psalm book, <a href="#Pg_455">455</a></li>
+<li>Beckford library sale, <a href="#Pg_74">74</a>, <a href="#Pg_457">457</a>-<a href="#Pg_8">8</a></li>
+<li>Beecher (H. W.) on books, <a href="#Pg_15">15</a></li>
+<li>Bibliography, <a href="#Pg_459">459</a>-<a href="#Pg_500">500</a><ul>
+<li>    accessibility of, <a href="#Pg_463">463</a>-<a href="#Pg_464">464</a></li>
+<li>    bibliographies of, <a href="#Pg_469">469</a>-<a href="#Pg_471">471</a></li>
+<li>    classification of, <a href="#Pg_464">464</a>-<a href="#Pg_5">5</a></li>
+<li>    definition of, <a href="#Pg_459">459</a></li>
+<li>    earliest American, <a href="#Pg_478">478</a></li>
+<li>    early works in, <a href="#Pg_465">465</a></li>
+<li>    no full American, <a href="#Pg_475">475</a></li>
+<li>    of American publications, <a href="#Pg_472">472</a>-<a href="#Pg_493">493</a></li>
+<li>    selection of works in, <a href="#Pg_462">462</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Binding of books, <a href="#Pg_50">50</a>-<a href="#Pg_87">87</a>, <a href="#Pg_93">93</a>-<a href="#Pg_94">94</a><ul>
+<li>    colors in, <a href="#Pg_57">57</a></li>
+<li>    desiderata in, <a href="#Pg_52">52</a></li>
+<li>    how a bibliomaniac binds, <a href="#Pg_432">432</a></li>
+<li>    importance of, <a href="#Pg_87">87</a></li>
+<li>    lettering titles, <a href="#Pg_72">72</a>, <a href="#Pg_78">78</a>-<a href="#Pg_83">83</a></li>
+<li>    machine methods, <a href="#Pg_62">62</a>-<a href="#Pg_3">3</a></li>
+<li>    marbling and gilding, <a href="#Pg_68">68</a>-<a href="#Pg_69">69</a>, <a href="#Pg_73">73</a></li>
+<li>    materials for, <a href="#Pg_53">53</a></li>
+<li>    rebinding methods, <a href="#Pg_64">64</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Biography, <a href="#Pg_4">4</a>-<a href="#Pg_7">7</a>, <a href="#Pg_17">17</a><ul>
+<li>    discrepancies in, <a href="#Pg_210">210</a>-<a href="#Pg_212">212</a></li>
+<li>    living characters, <a href="#Pg_197">197</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Blake (A. V.) American booksellers' trade-list catalogue, <a href="#Pg_479">479</a></li>
+<li>Boccaccio of 1471, sale of, <a href="#Pg_46">46</a></li>
+<li>Bolton (H. C.) catalogue of scientific and technical periodicals, <a href="#Pg_492">492</a></li>
+<li>Book binding, <a href="#Pg_50">50</a>-<a href="#Pg_87">87</a>, <a href="#Pg_93">93</a>-<a href="#Pg_94">94</a></li>
+<li>Book buying, <a href="#Pg_33">33</a>-<a href="#Pg_49">49</a></li>
+<li>Book covering, <a href="#Pg_97">97</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_502" id="Pg_502"></a>[<a href="./images/502.png">502</a>]</span></li>
+<li>Book-marks, <a href="#Pg_115">115</a></li>
+<li>Book plates, <a href="#Pg_90">90</a>-<a href="#Pg_93">93</a>, <a href="#Pg_97">97</a>-<a href="#Pg_100">100</a></li>
+<li>Book prices<ul>
+<li>    current, 1887-99, <a href="#Pg_497">497</a>-<a href="#Pg_498">498</a></li>
+<li>    American, 1895-99, <a href="#Pg_498">498</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Book shops, second hand, <a href="#Pg_42">42</a>-<a href="#Pg_45">45</a>, <a href="#Pg_458">458</a></li>
+<li>Book supports, <a href="#Pg_96">96</a>, <a href="#Pg_110">110</a></li>
+<li>Book worms, <a href="#Pg_108">108</a></li>
+<li>Books, cheap and poor editions of, <a href="#Pg_30">30</a></li>
+<li>Books, choice of, <a href="#Pg_3">3</a>-<a href="#Pg_32">32</a></li>
+<li>Books for public libraries, selection of, <a href="#Pg_15">15</a>-<a href="#Pg_32">32</a>, <a href="#Pg_361">361</a></li>
+<li>Books of reference, <a href="#Pg_16">16</a>, <a href="#Pg_462">462</a>-<a href="#Pg_463">463</a></li>
+<li>Books, three classes of, <a href="#Pg_182">182</a></li>
+<li>Books which have helped me, <a href="#Pg_183">183</a></li>
+<li>Books,&mdash;<i>see</i> Reading</li>
+<li>Bores, how to treat, <a href="#Pg_259">259</a></li>
+<li>Boston Athenaeum library, <a href="#Pg_305">305</a>, <a href="#Pg_485">485</a><ul>
+<li>    early pamphlets in, <a href="#Pg_149">149</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Boston public library, <a href="#Pg_315">315</a><ul>
+<li>    appointments in, <a href="#Pg_338">338</a></li>
+<li>    languages demanded, <a href="#Pg_247">247</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Bowker (R. R.)<ul>
+<li>    American catalogue, <a href="#Pg_482">482</a>-<a href="#Pg_483">483</a></li>
+<li>    Publishers' weekly, <a href="#Pg_483">483</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>British Museum library<ul>
+<li>    appointments in, <a href="#Pg_338">338</a></li>
+<li>    catalogue of, <a href="#Pg_396">396</a>-<a href="#Pg_399">399</a>, <a href="#Pg_498">498</a><ul>
+<li>        its defects, <a href="#Pg_398">398</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>    classification, <a href="#Pg_367">367</a></li>
+<li>    mutilation in, <a href="#Pg_137">137</a>-<a href="#Pg_138">138</a></li>
+<li>    trustees of, <a href="#Pg_340">340</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Brown (J. Carter) library of Americana, <a href="#Pg_493">493</a></li>
+<li>Brunet (J. C.) Manuel du libraire, <a href="#Pg_467">467</a></li>
+<li>Bry (De) Voyages, <a href="#Pg_449">449</a>, <a href="#Pg_451">451</a></li>
+<li>Buildings, library, <a href="#Pg_321">321</a>-<a href="#Pg_333">333</a><ul>
+<li>    cost of, <a href="#Pg_331">331</a></li>
+<li>    light in, <a href="#Pg_325">325</a></li>
+<li>    location of, <a href="#Pg_323">323</a>-<a href="#Pg_324">324</a></li>
+<li>    many mistakes in, <a href="#Pg_321">321</a></li>
+<li>    materials for, <a href="#Pg_324">324</a></li>
+<li>    periodical room, <a href="#Pg_328">328</a></li>
+<li>    shelving, <a href="#Pg_325">325</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Bulwer-Lytton (E. L.) writings of, <a href="#Pg_23">23</a>, <a href="#Pg_174">174</a></li>
+<li>Burnham (T. O. H. P.), <a href="#Pg_44">44</a></li>
+<li>Bury, Richard de, <a href="#Pg_292">292</a></li>
+<li>Buying of books, <a href="#Pg_33">33</a>-<a href="#Pg_49">49</a><ul>
+<li>    methods of, <a href="#Pg_36">36</a>-<a href="#Pg_37">37</a></li></ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Calf binding, <a href="#Pg_55">55</a></li>
+<li>Campbell (John), <a href="#Pg_45">45</a></li>
+<li>Capitals, how to be used in catalogues, <a href="#Pg_378">378</a>, <a href="#Pg_387">387</a></li>
+<li>Card catalogue system, <a href="#Pg_393">393</a><ul>
+<li>    its defects, <a href="#Pg_393">393</a>-<a href="#Pg_394">394</a></li>
+<li>    how obviated, <a href="#Pg_394">394</a>-<a href="#Pg_396">396</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Cards, for catalogues, <a href="#Pg_393">393</a></li>
+<li>Carlyle (Thomas)<ul>
+<li>    life of Cromwell, <a href="#Pg_148">148</a></li>
+<li>    on librarians, <a href="#Pg_249">249</a></li>
+<li>    on reading, <a href="#Pg_171">171</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Carnegie (Andrew) gifts to libraries, <a href="#Pg_315">315</a></li>
+<li>Catalogue of all books printed in the U. S. 1804, <a href="#Pg_478">478</a>-<a href="#Pg_479">479</a></li>
+<li>Catalogues, <a href="#Pg_373">373</a>-<a href="#Pg_399">399</a><ul>
+<li>    abridging titles, <a href="#Pg_382">382</a>-<a href="#Pg_383">383</a></li>
+<li>    accession, <a href="#Pg_386">386</a></li>
+<li>    auction, <a href="#Pg_38">38</a>-<a href="#Pg_39">39</a></li>
+<li>    card system for, <a href="#Pg_393">393</a></li>
+<li>    chronology of authors, <a href="#Pg_381">381</a>, <a href="#Pg_389">389</a>, <a href="#Pg_398">398</a></li>
+<li>    classed, <a href="#Pg_374">374</a>-<a href="#Pg_5">5</a>, <a href="#Pg_383">383</a></li>
+<li>    collations in, <a href="#Pg_379">379</a></li>
+<li>    cross references, <a href="#Pg_377">377</a></li>
+<li>    Cutter's rules for, <a href="#Pg_375">375</a></li>
+<li>    deficiencies of American, <a href="#Pg_473">473</a>-<a href="#Pg_476">476</a></li>
+<li>    dictionary, <a href="#Pg_373">373</a>-<a href="#Pg_5">5</a>, <a href="#Pg_383">383</a>-<a href="#Pg_384">384</a></li>
+<li>    English, <a href="#Pg_383">383</a>, <a href="#Pg_495">495</a></li>
+<li>    errors in, <a href="#Pg_384">384</a>-<a href="#Pg_385">385</a>, <a href="#Pg_388">388</a></li>
+<li>    imprints, how given, <a href="#Pg_379">379</a></li>
+<li>    kinds of, <a href="#Pg_373">373</a></li>
+<li>    of British Museum library, <a href="#Pg_396">396</a>-<a href="#Pg_399">399</a>, <a href="#Pg_498">498</a></li>
+<li>    printing, advantages of, <a href="#Pg_395">395</a>-<a href="#Pg_396">396</a></li>
+<li>    rules for, <a href="#Pg_375">375</a>-<a href="#Pg_381">381</a></li>
+<li>    sale, value of, <a href="#Pg_33">33</a>-<a href="#Pg_34">34</a>, <a href="#Pg_37">37</a></li>
+<li>    shelf, <a href="#Pg_386">386</a></li>
+<li>    size-notation in, <a href="#Pg_389">389</a>-<a href="#Pg_391">391</a></li>
+<li>    use of capitals in, <a href="#Pg_378">378</a>, <a href="#Pg_387">387</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_503" id="Pg_503"></a>[<a href="./images/503.png">503</a>]</span></li></ul></li>
+<li>Caxton's press, books, <a href="#Pg_451">451</a></li>
+<li>Census of wealth, futility of, <a href="#Pg_194">194</a>-<a href="#Pg_196">196</a></li>
+<li>Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English literature, <a href="#Pg_499">499</a></li>
+<li>Children's books, <a href="#Pg_276">276</a>, <a href="#Pg_278">278</a><ul>
+<li>    reading-rooms, <a href="#Pg_329">329</a>-<a href="#Pg_330">330</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Choice of books, <a href="#Pg_3">3</a>-<a href="#Pg_32">32</a>, <a href="#Pg_277">277</a>, <a href="#Pg_335">335</a></li>
+<li>Chronology of authors, <a href="#Pg_381">381</a>, <a href="#Pg_398">398</a></li>
+<li>Classic authors, <a href="#Pg_30">30</a></li>
+<li>Classification of books, <a href="#Pg_362">362</a>-<a href="#Pg_372">372</a><ul>
+<li>    application of, <a href="#Pg_366">366</a></li>
+<li>    Biblioth&egrave;que nationale, system of, <a href="#Pg_368">368</a></li>
+<li>    British museum, system of, <a href="#Pg_368">368</a></li>
+<li>    Brunet's system of, <a href="#Pg_367">367</a></li>
+<li>    close classification, <a href="#Pg_364">364</a>-<a href="#Pg_365">365</a></li>
+<li>    conflict of systems, <a href="#Pg_362">362</a>-<a href="#Pg_363">363</a></li>
+<li>    Crunden's verses on, <a href="#Pg_430">430</a></li>
+<li>    Cutter, system of, <a href="#Pg_369">369</a></li>
+<li>    Dewey, system of, <a href="#Pg_370">370</a></li>
+<li>    Fletcher, system of, <a href="#Pg_372">372</a></li>
+<li>    fixed shelf location, <a href="#Pg_371">371</a></li>
+<li>    Library of Congress, system of, <a href="#Pg_368">368</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Cleaning books, <a href="#Pg_103">103</a>-<a href="#Pg_104">104</a>, <a href="#Pg_127">127</a>-<a href="#Pg_130">130</a></li>
+<li>Clergymen, some book-abusing, <a href="#Pg_138">138</a>, <a href="#Pg_140">140</a></li>
+<li>Cleveland public library<ul>
+<li>    fiction experience, <a href="#Pg_27">27</a></li>
+<li>    methods of selections, <a href="#Pg_31">31</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Cogswell (J. G.), <a href="#Pg_35">35</a></li>
+<li>Collation, <a href="#Pg_61">61</a>, <a href="#Pg_379">379</a></li>
+<li>Collier, J. Payne, as a cataloguer, <a href="#Pg_385">385</a></li>
+<li>Congressional library&mdash;<i>see</i> Library of Congress</li>
+<li>Copy tax,<ul>
+<li>    origin of, <a href="#Pg_400">400</a></li>
+<li>    rationale of, <a href="#Pg_406">406</a>, <a href="#Pg_409">409</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Copyright<ul>
+<li>    and libraries, <a href="#Pg_400">400</a>-<a href="#Pg_416">416</a></li>
+<li>    aggregate copyrights entered, <a href="#Pg_410">410</a></li>
+<li>    and Library of Congress, <a href="#Pg_404">404</a>-<a href="#Pg_411">411</a></li>
+<li>    books not entered, <a href="#Pg_474">474</a></li>
+<li>    duration of, <a href="#Pg_413">413</a></li>
+<li>    foundation of, <a href="#Pg_402">402</a>, <a href="#Pg_412">412</a></li>
+<li>    history of, <a href="#Pg_403">403</a></li>
+<li>    in the Constitution, <a href="#Pg_401">401</a></li>
+<li>    international, why, <a href="#Pg_412">412</a>-<a href="#Pg_413">413</a></li>
+<li>    origin of, <a href="#Pg_401">401</a></li>
+<li>    perpetual, <a href="#Pg_402">402</a>, <a href="#Pg_413">413</a></li>
+<li>    provisions of, <a href="#Pg_414">414</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Counting a library, <a href="#Pg_350">350</a>, <a href="#Pg_386">386</a></li>
+<li>Courtesy, in libraries, <a href="#Pg_250">250</a>, <a href="#Pg_261">261</a></li>
+<li>Croton bug, <a href="#Pg_109">109</a></li>
+<li>Crowding of books on shelves, <a href="#Pg_116">116</a>-<a href="#Pg_117">117</a></li>
+<li>Crunden (F. M.) verses on classification, <a href="#Pg_430">430</a></li>
+<li>Cutter (C. A.) Boston Athenaeum catalogue, <a href="#Pg_485">485</a><ul>
+<li>    classification, <a href="#Pg_430">430</a></li>
+<li>    rules for catalogue, <a href="#Pg_375">375</a></li>
+<li>    Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, <a href="#Pg_485">485</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Cutting edges, <a href="#Pg_60">60</a>-<a href="#Pg_61">61</a>, <a href="#Pg_67">67</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Damage to books, <i>see</i> Injuries</li>
+<li>Damp, an enemy of books, <a href="#Pg_104">104</a></li>
+<li>Dates, errors in, <a href="#Pg_210">210</a>-<a href="#Pg_212">212</a></li>
+<li>Dates of books, ancient expression of, <a href="#Pg_391">391</a>-<a href="#Pg_393">393</a></li>
+<li>Decimal system, <a href="#Pg_370">370</a>, <a href="#Pg_390">390</a></li>
+<li>Denis (F.) Nouveau manuel de bibliographie, <a href="#Pg_468">468</a>-<a href="#Pg_469">469</a></li>
+<li>Dewey (Melvil)<ul>
+<li>    classification, <a href="#Pg_370">370</a></li>
+<li>    remark by, <a href="#Pg_433">433</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Dictionary catalogues, <a href="#Pg_373">373</a>-<a href="#Pg_375">375</a>, <a href="#Pg_383">383</a>-<a href="#Pg_384">384</a></li>
+<li>Dictionary of national biography, <a href="#Pg_197">197</a>, <a href="#Pg_497">497</a></li>
+<li>Dime novels, <a href="#Pg_21">21</a>, <a href="#Pg_281">281</a></li>
+<li>Documents (U. S. public) catalogues, <a href="#Pg_492">492</a></li>
+<li>Dogs-earing books, <a href="#Pg_114">114</a></li>
+<li>"Dont's," list of proper warnings, <a href="#Pg_134">134</a></li>
+<li>Duplicates in libraries, <a href="#Pg_31">31</a>, <a href="#Pg_167">167</a>-<a href="#Pg_168">168</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_504" id="Pg_504"></a>[<a href="./images/504.png">504</a>]</span></li>
+<li>Durrie (D. S.) Bibliographia genealogica Americana, <a href="#Pg_491">491</a></li>
+<li>Dust,<ul>
+<li>    in libraries, <a href="#Pg_101">101</a>-<a href="#Pg_103">103</a></li>
+<li>    to remove from books, <a href="#Pg_103">103</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Duyckink's Cyclopaedia of American literature, <a href="#Pg_490">490</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Eames (W.) continuation of Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, <a href="#Pg_485">485</a></li>
+<li>Editions,<ul>
+<li>    to be always noted, <a href="#Pg_387">387</a></li>
+<li>    first, <a href="#Pg_46">46</a>, <a href="#Pg_388">388</a>, <a href="#Pg_452">452</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Education, <a href="#Pg_245">245</a>, <a href="#Pg_282">282</a>-<a href="#Pg_283">283</a></li>
+<li>Egypt, libraries of, <a href="#Pg_287">287</a>-<a href="#Pg_289">289</a></li>
+<li>Elzevirs, <a href="#Pg_424">424</a>, <a href="#Pg_457">457</a></li>
+<li>Emerson (R. W.) cited, <a href="#Pg_172">172</a>, <a href="#Pg_185">185</a></li>
+<li>Encyclopaedia Britannica, scope and limitations of, <a href="#Pg_14">14</a>, <a href="#Pg_197">197</a>-<a href="#Pg_199">199</a>, <a href="#Pg_245">245</a></li>
+<li>Enemies of books, <a href="#Pg_101">101</a>-<a href="#Pg_118">118</a></li>
+<li>English catalogue,<ul>
+<li>    1835-1899, <a href="#Pg_383">383</a>, <a href="#Pg_495">495</a></li>
+<li>    uses dictionary form, <a href="#Pg_383">383</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Errors<ul>
+<li>    in books, <a href="#Pg_210">210</a>-<a href="#Pg_212">212</a>, <a href="#Pg_255">255</a></li>
+<li>    in librarians, <a href="#Pg_256">256</a>-<a href="#Pg_257">257</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Essays, <a href="#Pg_9">9</a>, <a href="#Pg_17">17</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Facsimile reproduction, <a href="#Pg_132">132</a>-<a href="#Pg_134">134</a></li>
+<li>Fiction, <a href="#Pg_12">12</a>, <a href="#Pg_18">18</a>-<a href="#Pg_28">28</a>, <a href="#Pg_179">179</a></li>
+<li>Fires,<ul>
+<li>    in libraries, <a href="#Pg_106">106</a>-<a href="#Pg_108">108</a>, <a href="#Pg_131">131</a>, <a href="#Pg_297">297</a></li>
+<li>    destruction of books by, <a href="#Pg_448">448</a>-<a href="#Pg_449">449</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>First editions, <a href="#Pg_46">46</a>, <a href="#Pg_388">388</a>, <a href="#Pg_452">452</a></li>
+<li>Fletcher (W. I.),<ul>
+<li>    classification, <a href="#Pg_372">372</a></li>
+<li>    index to periodicals, <a href="#Pg_169">169</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Force (Peter) historical library of, <a href="#Pg_304">304</a><ul>
+<li>    rich in pamphlets, <a href="#Pg_150">150</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Formation of libraries, <a href="#Pg_357">357</a>-<a href="#Pg_362">362</a></li>
+<li>Franklin (B.)<ul>
+<li>    collections of Frankliniana, <a href="#Pg_456">456</a></li>
+<li>    his manuscripts, <a href="#Pg_489">489</a></li>
+<li>    on Philadelphia library, <a href="#Pg_299">299</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>French language, need of, <a href="#Pg_246">246</a>-<a href="#Pg_248">248</a>, <a href="#Pg_257">257</a></li>
+<li>Furnishings of libraries, <a href="#Pg_326">326</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Gas, an enemy of books, <a href="#Pg_105">105</a></li>
+<li>Genealogy, bibliographies of, <a href="#Pg_491">491</a>-<a href="#Pg_492">492</a>, <a href="#Pg_500">500</a></li>
+<li>George IV, library of, <a href="#Pg_212">212</a></li>
+<li>Georgi (T.) <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Allgemeinas'">Allgemeines</ins> Europ&auml;isches b&uuml;cher-lexikon, <a href="#Pg_465">465</a></li>
+<li>Gesner (C.) Bibliotheca universalis, <a href="#Pg_465">465</a></li>
+<li>Gould (Jay) History of Delaware county, N. Y., <a href="#Pg_453">453</a></li>
+<li>Gowans (William), <a href="#Pg_43">43</a></li>
+<li>Graesse, Tr&eacute;sor des livres rares et pr&eacute;cieux, <a href="#Pg_468">468</a></li>
+<li>Grangerising, <a href="#Pg_450">450</a></li>
+<li>Greece, libraries of, <a href="#Pg_288">288</a>-<a href="#Pg_289">289</a></li>
+<li>Griffin (A. P. C.) indexes of American local history, <a href="#Pg_491">491</a></li>
+<li>Grolier bindings, <a href="#Pg_73">73</a>, <a href="#Pg_75">75</a></li>
+<li>Grolier club, N. Y., <a href="#Pg_85">85</a>, <a href="#Pg_447">447</a></li>
+<li>Growoll (A.)<ul>
+<li>    Book trade bibliography in the U. S., <a href="#Pg_479">479</a></li>
+<li>    Publishers' weekly, <a href="#Pg_483">483</a></li></ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Hain (L.) Repertorium bibliographicum, <a href="#Pg_466">466</a></li>
+<li>Halliwell-Phillipps (J. O.), privately printed books, <a href="#Pg_446">446</a></li>
+<li>Harris (W. T.) experience with memory, <a href="#Pg_239">239</a></li>
+<li>Harrisse (H.) Bibliotheca Americana, <a href="#Pg_491">491</a></li>
+<li>Harvard university library, <a href="#Pg_296">296</a></li>
+<li>Haven (S. F.) Catalogue of American publications, 1639-1775, <a href="#Pg_477">477</a></li>
+<li>Heat, an enemy of books, <a href="#Pg_104">104</a></li>
+<li>Heber library, <a href="#Pg_34">34</a></li>
+<li>Helps to readers, <a href="#Pg_191">191</a>-<a href="#Pg_214">214</a></li>
+<li>History, <a href="#Pg_7">7</a>-<a href="#Pg_8">8</a>, <a href="#Pg_17">17</a><ul>
+<li>    of libraries, <a href="#Pg_287">287</a>-<a href="#Pg_320">320</a></li>
+<li>    (local) bibliography, <a href="#Pg_491">491</a>, <a href="#Pg_500">500</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Homer, <a href="#Pg_173">173</a>, <a href="#Pg_184">184</a>, <a href="#Pg_458">458</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_505" id="Pg_505"></a>[<a href="./images/505.png">505</a>]</span></li>
+<li>Horace, perfection of his odes, <a href="#Pg_184">184</a></li>
+<li>Humboldt (Baron von), <a href="#Pg_449">449</a></li>
+<li>Humors of the library, <a href="#Pg_430">430</a>-<a href="#Pg_443">443</a></li>
+<li>Hurst (J. F.) on choice books, <a href="#Pg_15">15</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Illustrated books, <a href="#Pg_279">279</a>, <a href="#Pg_450">450</a>, <a href="#Pg_451">451</a>, <a href="#Pg_453">453</a>-<a href="#Pg_454">454</a></li>
+<li>Immoral books, <a href="#Pg_20">20</a>, <a href="#Pg_22">22</a>, <a href="#Pg_453">453</a></li>
+<li>Index expurgatorius, <a href="#Pg_448">448</a>, <a href="#Pg_470">470</a></li>
+<li>Indexes,<ul>
+<li>    use of, <a href="#Pg_205">205</a>-<a href="#Pg_206">206</a></li>
+<li>    how to make, <a href="#Pg_388">388</a>-<a href="#Pg_389">389</a></li>
+<li>    substitutes for, <a href="#Pg_207">207</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Injuries to books, <i>See</i> Crowding, Cutting, Dogs-earing, Enemies, Ink, Margins, Mutilations, Soiling, Tracing, Torn leaves</li>
+<li>Ink,<ul>
+<li>    use of, <a href="#Pg_113">113</a></li>
+<li>    how removed, <a href="#Pg_128">128</a>-<a href="#Pg_129">129</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Inquiries, innumerable, <a href="#Pg_191">191</a>-<a href="#Pg_201">201</a></li>
+<li>International copyright, <a href="#Pg_412">412</a>-<a href="#Pg_416">416</a></li>
+<li>Iron construction, <a href="#Pg_106">106</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>J&ouml;cher (C. G.) Allgemeines gelehrten-lexikon, <a href="#Pg_466">466</a></li>
+<li>Juvenile books, <a href="#Pg_276">276</a>, <a href="#Pg_278">278</a>, <a href="#Pg_279">279</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Kelly (J.) American catalogue, 1861-1871, <a href="#Pg_481">481</a></li>
+<li>Khayyam (Omar), <a href="#Pg_457">457</a></li>
+<li>Kirk (J. F.) Supplement to Allibone, 1850-1890, <a href="#Pg_495">495</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>La Bedoy&egrave;re, French revolution collection, <a href="#Pg_149">149</a></li>
+<li>Labelling books, <a href="#Pg_90">90</a>-<a href="#Pg_93">93</a></li>
+<li>Ladies' reading-rooms, <a href="#Pg_329">329</a></li>
+<li>Languages, foreign, <a href="#Pg_246">246</a>-<a href="#Pg_248">248</a></li>
+<li>La Serna de Santander, Dictionnaire bibliographique, <a href="#Pg_467">467</a></li>
+<li>Law books, binding, <a href="#Pg_76">76</a></li>
+<li>Letters, <a href="#Pg_8">8</a>-<a href="#Pg_9">9</a></li>
+<li>Leypoldt (F.) Books of all time, <a href="#Pg_481">481</a></li>
+<li>Librarian<ul>
+<li>    a constant aid, <a href="#Pg_200">200</a></li>
+<li>    ancient idea of, <a href="#Pg_273">273</a></li>
+<li>    as an author, <a href="#Pg_271">271</a>-<a href="#Pg_272">272</a></li>
+<li>    as preserver and restorer of books, <a href="#Pg_120">120</a>-<a href="#Pg_121">121</a></li>
+<li>    benefits to, of inquiries, <a href="#Pg_202">202</a></li>
+<li>    high standard for, <a href="#Pg_272">272</a></li>
+<li>    indispensable, how to become, <a href="#Pg_200">200</a>, <a href="#Pg_203">203</a></li>
+<li>    intercourse with readers, <a href="#Pg_199">199</a></li>
+<li>    librarian's dream, <a href="#Pg_417">417</a></li>
+<li>    qualifications of, <a href="#Pg_242">242</a>-<a href="#Pg_274">274</a><ul>
+<li>        accuracy, <a href="#Pg_254">254</a></li>
+<li>        business habits, <a href="#Pg_249">249</a>, <a href="#Pg_258">258</a></li>
+<li>        courtesy, <a href="#Pg_250">250</a>, <a href="#Pg_261">261</a></li>
+<li>        energy and industry, <a href="#Pg_262">262</a></li>
+<li>        foreign languages, <a href="#Pg_246">246</a>-<a href="#Pg_248">248</a></li>
+<li>        good temper, <a href="#Pg_250">250</a></li>
+<li>        habits of order, <a href="#Pg_257">257</a>-<a href="#Pg_260">260</a></li>
+<li>        health, <a href="#Pg_251">251</a></li>
+<li>        impartial liberality, <a href="#Pg_264">264</a>-<a href="#Pg_265">265</a></li>
+<li>        knowledge of books, <a href="#Pg_248">248</a></li>
+<li>        love of his work, <a href="#Pg_253">253</a></li>
+<li>        patience inexhaustible, <a href="#Pg_261">261</a></li>
+<li>        sound common sense, <a href="#Pg_252">252</a></li>
+<li>        tact unfailing, <a href="#Pg_262">262</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>    reserve in recommending books, <a href="#Pg_213">213</a></li>
+<li>    "who reads is lost," <a href="#Pg_242">242</a>, <a href="#Pg_274">274</a></li>
+<li>    woes of a, <a href="#Pg_441">441</a>-<a href="#Pg_443">443</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Librarianship,<ul>
+<li>    attractions of, <a href="#Pg_193">193</a>, <a href="#Pg_268">268</a>-<a href="#Pg_271">271</a></li>
+<li>    drawbacks attending, <a href="#Pg_266">266</a>-<a href="#Pg_268">268</a></li>
+<li>    opens avenues to growth, <a href="#Pg_269">269</a></li>
+<li>    school of human nature, <a href="#Pg_270">270</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Libraries,<ul>
+<li>    ancient, of clay, <a href="#Pg_287">287</a>-<a href="#Pg_288">288</a></li>
+<li>    and copyright, <a href="#Pg_400">400</a>-<a href="#Pg_416">416</a></li>
+<li>    and schools, <a href="#Pg_275">275</a>, <a href="#Pg_282">282</a></li>
+<li>    and universities, <a href="#Pg_282">282</a>, <a href="#Pg_293">293</a></li>
+<li>    annual reports of, <a href="#Pg_349">349</a>-<a href="#Pg_356">356</a></li>
+<li>    catalogues of, <a href="#Pg_373">373</a>-<a href="#Pg_399">399</a></li>
+<li>    classification of, <a href="#Pg_362">362</a>-<a href="#Pg_372">372</a></li>
+<li>    exaggeration of volumes in, <a href="#Pg_212">212</a>-<a href="#Pg_213">213</a></li>
+<li>    formation of, <a href="#Pg_357">357</a>-<a href="#Pg_362">362</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_506" id="Pg_506"></a>[<a href="./images/506.png">506</a>]</span></li>
+<li>    founded by individual gift, <a href="#Pg_311">311</a>-<a href="#Pg_313">313</a></li>
+<li>    history of, <a href="#Pg_287">287</a>-<a href="#Pg_320">320</a></li>
+<li>    historical, <a href="#Pg_319">319</a></li>
+<li>    list of, over <a href="#Pg_100">100</a>,000 vols., <a href="#Pg_309">309</a>-<a href="#Pg_310">310</a></li>
+<li>    mercantile, <a href="#Pg_319">319</a></li>
+<li>    monastic, <a href="#Pg_290">290</a>-<a href="#Pg_292">292</a></li>
+<li>    picture of ancient, <a href="#Pg_273">273</a></li>
+<li>    poetry of, <a href="#Pg_417">417</a>-<a href="#Pg_430">430</a></li>
+<li>    professional, <a href="#Pg_319">319</a></li>
+<li>    prompt service in, <a href="#Pg_341">341</a>-<a href="#Pg_342">342</a></li>
+<li>    readers in, <a href="#Pg_186">186</a>, <a href="#Pg_285">285</a>-<a href="#Pg_286">286</a></li>
+<li>    special report on, 1876, <a href="#Pg_309">309</a></li>
+<li>    state libraries, <a href="#Pg_316">316</a>-<a href="#Pg_317">317</a></li>
+<li>    statistics of American, <a href="#Pg_308">308</a></li>
+<li>    subscription libraries, <a href="#Pg_360">360</a></li>
+<li>    ten largest, <a href="#Pg_293">293</a></li>
+<li>    travelling libraries, <a href="#Pg_319">319</a>-<a href="#Pg_320">320</a></li>
+<li>    uses of, <a href="#Pg_275">275</a>-<a href="#Pg_286">286</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Library, how to count a, <a href="#Pg_350">350</a>, <a href="#Pg_386">386</a></li>
+<li>Library, humors of the, <a href="#Pg_430">430</a></li>
+<li>Library, poetry of the, <a href="#Pg_417">417</a></li>
+<li>Library advertising, <a href="#Pg_353">353</a>-<a href="#Pg_356">356</a></li>
+<li>Library association of United Kingdom, <a href="#Pg_499">499</a></li>
+<li>Library buildings and furnishings, <a href="#Pg_321">321</a>-<a href="#Pg_333">333</a><ul>
+<li>    <i>See</i> Buildings</li></ul></li>
+<li>Library bulletins, <a href="#Pg_353">353</a></li>
+<li>Library commissioners, <a href="#Pg_345">345</a></li>
+<li>Library committees, <a href="#Pg_333">333</a>-<a href="#Pg_340">340</a>, <a href="#Pg_360">360</a></li>
+<li>Library donations, <a href="#Pg_361">361</a></li>
+<li>Library Journal, N. Y., 1876-99, <a href="#Pg_499">499</a></li>
+<li>Library laws (State), <a href="#Pg_357">357</a>, <a href="#Pg_359">359</a></li>
+<li>Library of Congress<ul>
+<li>    and copyright books, <a href="#Pg_404">404</a>-<a href="#Pg_411">411</a>, <a href="#Pg_416">416</a></li>
+<li>    appointments in, <a href="#Pg_338">338</a></li>
+<li>    joint committee on, <a href="#Pg_340">340</a></li>
+<li>    our national conservatory of books, <a href="#Pg_181">181</a>-<a href="#Pg_182">182</a></li>
+<li>    restriction of MSS. and rare books, <a href="#Pg_225">225</a></li>
+<li>    sketch of its history, <a href="#Pg_303">303</a>-<a href="#Pg_305">305</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Library regulations, <a href="#Pg_341">341</a>-<a href="#Pg_349">349</a>, <a href="#Pg_433">433</a>-<a href="#Pg_434">434</a></li>
+<li>Library reports, <a href="#Pg_349">349</a></li>
+<li>Library science schools, <a href="#Pg_338">338</a></li>
+<li>Library trustees or boards of managers, <a href="#Pg_333">333</a>-<a href="#Pg_340">340</a></li>
+<li>Literature, history of, <a href="#Pg_12">12</a>-<a href="#Pg_14">14</a></li>
+<li>Loudon (A.) History of Indian wars, <a href="#Pg_476">476</a></li>
+<li>Lowndes (W. T.) Bibliographer's Manual, <a href="#Pg_494">494</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Macaulay (T. B.) memory, <a href="#Pg_229">229</a></li>
+<li>Maittaire (M.) Annales typographici, <a href="#Pg_467">467</a></li>
+<li>Marbling, <a href="#Pg_68">68</a></li>
+<li>Margins, writing or marking on, <a href="#Pg_114">114</a>, <a href="#Pg_124">124</a>-<a href="#Pg_125">125</a>, <a href="#Pg_136">136</a></li>
+<li>Mazarin Bible, <a href="#Pg_46">46</a>, <a href="#Pg_445">445</a></li>
+<li>Memory,<ul>
+<li>    the faculty of, <a href="#Pg_226">226</a>-<a href="#Pg_241">241</a></li>
+<li>    attention and association, its corner-stones, <a href="#Pg_236">236</a>-<a href="#Pg_237">237</a></li>
+<li>    cardinal qualification of a librarian, <a href="#Pg_226">226</a>-<a href="#Pg_227">227</a></li>
+<li>    discursive reading impairs it, <a href="#Pg_240">240</a>-<a href="#Pg_241">241</a></li>
+<li>    improvement of, <a href="#Pg_236">236</a>-<a href="#Pg_240">240</a></li>
+<li>    intuitive memory, <a href="#Pg_230">230</a></li>
+<li>    local memory, <a href="#Pg_229">229</a></li>
+<li>    verbal memory, <a href="#Pg_228">228</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Migne (J. P. <i>abb&eacute;</i>) Patrologie, <a href="#Pg_447">447</a></li>
+<li>Milton, <a href="#Pg_11">11</a>, <a href="#Pg_147">147</a>, <a href="#Pg_184">184</a>, <a href="#Pg_187">187</a>, <a href="#Pg_458">458</a></li>
+<li>Mnemonic systems, <a href="#Pg_234">234</a>-<a href="#Pg_236">236</a></li>
+<li>Morocco binding, <a href="#Pg_56">56</a></li>
+<li>Morris (William) Kelmscott press, <a href="#Pg_447">447</a></li>
+<li>Mutilation of books, <a href="#Pg_111">111</a>, <a href="#Pg_124">124</a>-<a href="#Pg_126">126</a><ul>
+<li>    penal laws for, <a href="#Pg_135">135</a>-<a href="#Pg_136">136</a></li>
+<li>    posting offenders, <a href="#Pg_138">138</a></li></ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>New Hampshire library law, <a href="#Pg_314">314</a></li>
+<li>Newspapers, <i>see</i> Periodicals</li>
+<li>New York Mercantile Library, selections for, <a href="#Pg_32">32</a></li>
+<li>New York Public library, <a href="#Pg_307">307</a></li>
+<li>Notation<ul>
+<li>    of book sizes, <a href="#Pg_390">390</a></li>
+<li>    of book dates, <a href="#Pg_381">381</a>, <a href="#Pg_391">391</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Novels, <i>see</i> Fiction</li>
+<li>Nuremberg chronicle, <a href="#Pg_452">452</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li>Omar (Caliph) sentence imputed to, <a href="#Pg_107">107</a>, <a href="#Pg_171">171</a>, <a href="#Pg_289">289</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_507" id="Pg_507"></a>[<a href="./images/507.png">507</a>]</span></li>
+<li>Omniscience, no human, <a href="#Pg_172">172</a></li>
+<li>Open shelves, <a href="#Pg_215">215</a>-<a href="#Pg_225">225</a><ul>
+<li>    American library association on, <a href="#Pg_223">223</a></li>
+<li>    an open question, <a href="#Pg_222">222</a></li>
+<li>    benefits of, <a href="#Pg_215">215</a>-<a href="#Pg_222">222</a>, <a href="#Pg_224">224</a></li>
+<li>    evils of, <a href="#Pg_216">216</a>-<a href="#Pg_224">224</a></li>
+<li>    international library conference on, <a href="#Pg_220">220</a>-<a href="#Pg_221">221</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Opinions on books, <a href="#Pg_27">27</a></li>
+<li>Ostend manifesto, <a href="#Pg_196">196</a>-<a href="#Pg_197">197</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Pamphlets,<ul>
+<li>    literature of, <a href="#Pg_145">145</a>-<a href="#Pg_156">156</a></li>
+<li>    binding of, <a href="#Pg_153">153</a>-<a href="#Pg_155">155</a></li>
+<li>    British museum, wealth in, <a href="#Pg_149">149</a>, <a href="#Pg_499">499</a></li>
+<li>    classification of, <a href="#Pg_152">152</a>, <a href="#Pg_155">155</a></li>
+<li>    definitions of, <a href="#Pg_145">145</a></li>
+<li>    dignity and power of, <a href="#Pg_148">148</a></li>
+<li>    embarrassments of, <a href="#Pg_146">146</a></li>
+<li>    great works printed as, <a href="#Pg_147">147</a></li>
+<li>    how to acquire, <a href="#Pg_151">151</a></li>
+<li>    La Bedoy&egrave;re collection of, <a href="#Pg_149">149</a></li>
+<li>    Peter Force, collection of, <a href="#Pg_150">150</a></li>
+<li>    swift disappearance of, <a href="#Pg_151">151</a></li>
+<li>    Thomason collection of, <a href="#Pg_148">148</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Panzer (G. W.) Annales typographici, <a href="#Pg_466">466</a></li>
+<li>Parchment, <a href="#Pg_54">54</a></li>
+<li>Peignot (G.)<ul>
+<li>    Repertoire bibliographique universelle, <a href="#Pg_469">469</a></li>
+<li>    Dictionnaire des livres condamn&eacute;s, <a href="#Pg_448">448</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Periodicals,<ul>
+<li>    literature of, <a href="#Pg_157">157</a>-<a href="#Pg_170">170</a></li>
+<li>    binding of, <a href="#Pg_84">84</a>-<a href="#Pg_85">85</a></li>
+<li>    cardinal importance of, <a href="#Pg_153">153</a>-<a href="#Pg_154">154</a>, <a href="#Pg_157">157</a>, <a href="#Pg_161">161</a>, <a href="#Pg_285">285</a></li>
+<li>    check list for, <a href="#Pg_168">168</a></li>
+<li>    compared with books, <a href="#Pg_164">164</a></li>
+<li>    completeness of, <a href="#Pg_158">158</a>-<a href="#Pg_159">159</a></li>
+<li>    continuous reading of impairs the memory, <a href="#Pg_241">241</a></li>
+<li>    indexes to, <a href="#Pg_169">169</a>-<a href="#Pg_170">170</a></li>
+<li>    lettering by Poole index, <a href="#Pg_84">84</a></li>
+<li>    limited library circulation, <a href="#Pg_167">167</a>-<a href="#Pg_168">168</a></li>
+<li>    newspapers<ul>
+<li>        abuses of, <a href="#Pg_180">180</a></li>
+<li>        destruction of, <a href="#Pg_62">62</a></li>
+<li>        filing for readers' use, <a href="#Pg_166">166</a></li>
+<li>        library notices in, <a href="#Pg_353">353</a>-<a href="#Pg_356">356</a></li>
+<li>        mutilation of, <a href="#Pg_112">112</a></li>
+<li>        number of, <a href="#Pg_157">157</a>, <a href="#Pg_160">160</a></li>
+<li>        over-reading of, <a href="#Pg_180">180</a>, <a href="#Pg_241">241</a></li>
+<li>        percentage of, to books, <a href="#Pg_157">157</a></li>
+<li>        syndicate publication, <a href="#Pg_165">165</a></li>
+<li>        value of, <a href="#Pg_301">301</a>-<a href="#Pg_302">302</a></li></ul></li></ul></li>
+<li>Perkins (F. B.) check-list for American local history, <a href="#Pg_491">491</a></li>
+<li>Petzholdt (J.) Bibliotheca bibliographica, <a href="#Pg_469">469</a></li>
+<li>Philadelphia library company's library, <a href="#Pg_299">299</a>-<a href="#Pg_302">302</a></li>
+<li>Philadelphia Mercantile Library fire, <a href="#Pg_131">131</a>-<a href="#Pg_132">132</a></li>
+<li>Phillipps (Sir T.) privately printed books, <a href="#Pg_447">447</a></li>
+<li>Plato, reading of, <a href="#Pg_172">172</a>, <a href="#Pg_178">178</a></li>
+<li>Plutarch's lives, <a href="#Pg_3">3</a>, <a href="#Pg_184">184</a></li>
+<li>Poetical quotations, <a href="#Pg_193">193</a>, <a href="#Pg_204">204</a>-<a href="#Pg_205">205</a></li>
+<li>Poetry, <a href="#Pg_9">9</a>-<a href="#Pg_11">11</a>, <a href="#Pg_18">18</a></li>
+<li>Poetry of the library, <a href="#Pg_417">417</a>-<a href="#Pg_429">429</a></li>
+<li>Politics in libraries, <a href="#Pg_265">265</a></li>
+<li>Poole (W. F.)<ul>
+<li>    plan of library building, <a href="#Pg_327">327</a></li>
+<li>    on ladies' reading-rooms, <a href="#Pg_329">329</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Poole's indexes to periodical literature, <a href="#Pg_169">169</a></li>
+<li>Poor Richard's almanac, <a href="#Pg_456">456</a></li>
+<li>Pratt Institute library, thefts in, <a href="#Pg_144">144</a></li>
+<li>Preparation for the shelves, <a href="#Pg_88">88</a>-<a href="#Pg_97">97</a></li>
+<li>Press, the, and the library, <a href="#Pg_353">353</a>-<a href="#Pg_356">356</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_508" id="Pg_508"></a>[<a href="./images/508.png">508</a>]</span></li>
+<li>Prices of books, <a href="#Pg_36">36</a>, <a href="#Pg_46">46</a>-<a href="#Pg_48">48</a>, <a href="#Pg_444">444</a>-<a href="#Pg_451">451</a>, <a href="#Pg_455">455</a>-<a href="#Pg_456">456</a>, <a href="#Pg_497">497</a>-<a href="#Pg_498">498</a></li>
+<li>Privately printed books, <a href="#Pg_446">446</a>-<a href="#Pg_447">447</a>, <a href="#Pg_473">473</a></li>
+<li>Problems, insoluble, <a href="#Pg_194">194</a>-<a href="#Pg_196">196</a></li>
+<li>Pseudonyms, <a href="#Pg_376">376</a>-<a href="#Pg_377">377</a></li>
+<li>Publishers' Circular (London), <a href="#Pg_499">499</a></li>
+<li>Publishers' Weekly, N. Y., <a href="#Pg_483">483</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Qualifications of librarians, <a href="#Pg_242">242</a>-<a href="#Pg_274">274</a></li>
+<li>Questions asked, innumerable, <a href="#Pg_191">191</a>, <a href="#Pg_204">204</a>, <a href="#Pg_206">206</a>-<a href="#Pg_209">209</a></li>
+<li>Quotations, search for, <a href="#Pg_193">193</a>, <a href="#Pg_204">204</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Rare books, <a href="#Pg_113">113</a>, <a href="#Pg_114">114</a>, <a href="#Pg_224">224</a>, <a href="#Pg_444">444</a>-<a href="#Pg_459">459</a><ul>
+<li>    causes of rarity, <a href="#Pg_445">445</a>-<a href="#Pg_457">457</a></li>
+<li>    mere age not a cause, <a href="#Pg_446">446</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Readers,<ul>
+<li>    aids to, <a href="#Pg_190">190</a>-<a href="#Pg_214">214</a></li>
+<li>    classification of, <a href="#Pg_186">186</a>-<a href="#Pg_187">187</a>, <a href="#Pg_190">190</a>-<a href="#Pg_191">191</a>, <a href="#Pg_206">206</a>, <a href="#Pg_285">285</a>-<a href="#Pg_286">286</a></li>
+<li>    favoritism among, <a href="#Pg_217">217</a></li>
+<li>    limitations of aid, <a href="#Pg_204">204</a>, <a href="#Pg_208">208</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Reading,<ul>
+<li>    art of, <a href="#Pg_171">171</a>-<a href="#Pg_189">189</a></li>
+<li>    best, not the latest, <a href="#Pg_178">178</a>-<a href="#Pg_179">179</a></li>
+<li>    choice of, <a href="#Pg_3">3</a>-<a href="#Pg_32">32</a>, <a href="#Pg_181">181</a>-<a href="#Pg_2">2</a>, <a href="#Pg_277">277</a>-<a href="#Pg_278">278</a></li>
+<li>    formative power of, <a href="#Pg_183">183</a>-<a href="#Pg_185">185</a></li>
+<li>    passion for, <a href="#Pg_458">458</a>-<a href="#Pg_459">459</a></li>
+<li>    inspiration of, <a href="#Pg_183">183</a>-<a href="#Pg_185">185</a></li>
+<li>    librarian's, <a href="#Pg_121">121</a>, <a href="#Pg_243">243</a>-<a href="#Pg_244">244</a>, <a href="#Pg_248">248</a></li>
+<li>    methods of, <a href="#Pg_175">175</a>-<a href="#Pg_178">178</a>, <a href="#Pg_186">186</a>-<a href="#Pg_187">187</a><ul>
+<li>        the literal, <a href="#Pg_175">175</a></li>
+<li>        the intuitive, <a href="#Pg_176">176</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>    novel reading, <a href="#Pg_179">179</a></li>
+<li>    over-much reading of newspapers, <a href="#Pg_180">180</a>, <a href="#Pg_241">241</a></li>
+<li>    perils of too great absorption in, <a href="#Pg_185">185</a>-<a href="#Pg_186">186</a></li>
+<li>    pleasures of, <a href="#Pg_182">182</a>-<a href="#Pg_189">189</a></li>
+<li>    reading aloud, <a href="#Pg_177">177</a>-<a href="#Pg_178">178</a>, <a href="#Pg_280">280</a></li>
+<li>    taste in, <a href="#Pg_181">181</a></li>
+<li>    time to read, <a href="#Pg_173">173</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Reading rooms, <a href="#Pg_326">326</a></li>
+<li>Reclamation of books, <a href="#Pg_119">119</a>-<a href="#Pg_144">144</a></li>
+<li>Recommending books, <a href="#Pg_32">32</a><ul>
+<li>    to be done sparingly, <a href="#Pg_213">213</a>, <a href="#Pg_244">244</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Reference, books of, <a href="#Pg_16">16</a>, <a href="#Pg_461">461</a>-<a href="#Pg_463">463</a></li>
+<li>Religion, questions about, <a href="#Pg_201">201</a>, <a href="#Pg_265">265</a></li>
+<li>Reports, librarians', <a href="#Pg_349">349</a>-<a href="#Pg_356">356</a><ul>
+<li>    comprehensive, <a href="#Pg_349">349</a></li>
+<li>    printing of, <a href="#Pg_352">352</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Reserved books, <a href="#Pg_224">224</a>-<a href="#Pg_245">245</a></li>
+<li>Restoration and reclamation of books, <a href="#Pg_119">119</a>-<a href="#Pg_144">144</a></li>
+<li>Rich (O.) Bibliotheca Americana, <a href="#Pg_491">491</a></li>
+<li>Roman libraries, <a href="#Pg_290">290</a></li>
+<li>Roman numerals, <a href="#Pg_81">81</a>, <a href="#Pg_391">391</a>-<a href="#Pg_392">392</a></li>
+<li>Roorbach (O. A.) Bibliotheca Americana, 1820-1861, <a href="#Pg_480">480</a></li>
+<li>Rubber bands, untrustworthy, <a href="#Pg_155">155</a></li>
+<li>Rules, library, <a href="#Pg_341">341</a>-<a href="#Pg_349">349</a><ul>
+<li>    call slips or tickets, <a href="#Pg_346">346</a></li>
+<li>    circulation, limit, <a href="#Pg_346">346</a>-<a href="#Pg_347">347</a></li>
+<li>    done into verse, <a href="#Pg_433">433</a>-<a href="#Pg_434">434</a></li>
+<li>    hours, <a href="#Pg_344">344</a></li>
+<li>    prompt service, <a href="#Pg_341">341</a>-<a href="#Pg_342">342</a></li>
+<li>    registration, <a href="#Pg_347">347</a></li>
+<li>    vacations, <a href="#Pg_345">345</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Rush (James) bequest to Philadelphia Library Co., <a href="#Pg_301">301</a>-<a href="#Pg_302">302</a></li>
+<li>Ruskin on collecting books, <a href="#Pg_14">14</a></li>
+<li>Russia binding, <a href="#Pg_56">56</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Sabin (J.) Bibliotheca Americana, <a href="#Pg_484">484</a>-<a href="#Pg_487">487</a></li>
+<li>School district libraries a failure, <a href="#Pg_317">317</a>-<a href="#Pg_319">319</a></li>
+<li>Schools and libraries, <a href="#Pg_275">275</a>-<a href="#Pg_282">282</a></li>
+<li>Science, books of, <a href="#Pg_11">11</a>, <a href="#Pg_18">18</a></li>
+<li>Scott's Napoleon, bibliographical object-lesson, <a href="#Pg_496">496</a>-<a href="#Pg_497">497</a></li>
+<li>Second-hand book shops, <a href="#Pg_42">42</a>-<a href="#Pg_45">45</a></li>
+<li>Selection of books, <a href="#Pg_3">3</a>-<a href="#Pg_32">32</a>, <a href="#Pg_277">277</a><ul>
+<li>    <i>See</i> Choice of books</li></ul></li>
+<li>Shakespeare, <a href="#Pg_10">10</a>, <a href="#Pg_46">46</a>, <a href="#Pg_184">184</a>, <a href="#Pg_188">188</a>, <a href="#Pg_458">458</a></li>
+<li>Sheep binding, <a href="#Pg_55">55</a></li>
+<li>Shelves, library, <a href="#Pg_325">325</a><ul>
+<li>    access to, <a href="#Pg_215">215</a></li>
+<li>    preparation of books for, <a href="#Pg_88">88</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Shelves, open, <a href="#Pg_215">215</a>-<a href="#Pg_225">225</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_509" id="Pg_509"></a>[<a href="./images/509.png">509</a>]</span></li>
+<li>Signatures, <a href="#Pg_65">65</a></li>
+<li>Size-notation of books, <a href="#Pg_389">389</a>-<a href="#Pg_391">391</a></li>
+<li>Sizing paper, <a href="#Pg_128">128</a></li>
+<li>Smith's Historie of Virginia, <a href="#Pg_455">455</a></li>
+<li>Smithsonian Institution<ul>
+<li>    collection in Library of Congress, <a href="#Pg_304">304</a></li>
+<li>    copyright privilege of, <a href="#Pg_404">404</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Soiling of books, <a href="#Pg_116">116</a><ul>
+<li>    how removed, <a href="#Pg_127">127</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Spelling, facility in, <a href="#Pg_232">232</a></li>
+<li>Stack system, <a href="#Pg_216">216</a>, <a href="#Pg_325">325</a></li>
+<li>Stamps in books, <a href="#Pg_88">88</a>-<a href="#Pg_90">90</a>, <a href="#Pg_114">114</a></li>
+<li>State libraries, <a href="#Pg_316">316</a>-<a href="#Pg_317">317</a><ul>
+<li>    appointments in, <a href="#Pg_339">339</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Stealing of books, <a href="#Pg_111">111</a><ul>
+<li>    <i>See</i> thefts</li></ul></li>
+<li>Stedman (E. C.) Library of American literature, <a href="#Pg_490">490</a></li>
+<li>Stein (H.) Manuel de bibliographie, <a href="#Pg_470">470</a>-<a href="#Pg_471">471</a></li>
+<li>Stevens (Henry) characteristics of, <a href="#Pg_487">487</a>, <a href="#Pg_489">489</a></li>
+<li>Story (A) about stories, <a href="#Pg_436">436</a>-<a href="#Pg_437">437</a></li>
+<li>Style,<ul>
+<li>    importance of, <a href="#Pg_175">175</a>-<a href="#Pg_176">176</a>, <a href="#Pg_226">226</a></li>
+<li>    sample of prose run mad, <a href="#Pg_26">26</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Sunday-school books, <a href="#Pg_276">276</a></li>
+<li>Syndicate publishing, <a href="#Pg_165">165</a>-<a href="#Pg_166">166</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Teaching, <a href="#Pg_269">269</a></li>
+<li>Tennyson (Alfred) early editions of poems, <a href="#Pg_452">452</a></li>
+<li>Thackeray (W. M.) curious question of, <a href="#Pg_205">205</a></li>
+<li>Thefts,<ul>
+<li>    book, <a href="#Pg_111">111</a>, <a href="#Pg_136">136</a>-<a href="#Pg_144">144</a></li>
+<li>    leniency in case of, <a href="#Pg_142">142</a>-<a href="#Pg_144">144</a></li>
+<li>    methods of reclamation, <a href="#Pg_141">141</a>-<a href="#Pg_144">144</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Time, use of, <a href="#Pg_173">173</a>-<a href="#Pg_174">174</a>, <a href="#Pg_258">258</a>-<a href="#Pg_259">259</a></li>
+<li>Titles,<ul>
+<li>    abridgment of, <a href="#Pg_382">382</a>-<a href="#Pg_383">383</a></li>
+<li>    alphabeting of, <a href="#Pg_388">388</a>-<a href="#Pg_389">389</a></li>
+<li>    entry of, in catalogues, <a href="#Pg_375">375</a>-<a href="#Pg_377">377</a></li>
+<li>    headings of, <a href="#Pg_377">377</a></li>
+<li>    lettering of, <a href="#Pg_72">72</a>-<a href="#Pg_73">73</a>, <a href="#Pg_78">78</a>-<a href="#Pg_83">83</a></li>
+<li>    use of capitals in, <a href="#Pg_378">378</a>, <a href="#Pg_381">381</a>, <a href="#Pg_387">387</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Titles of novels, done into verse, <a href="#Pg_436">436</a>-<a href="#Pg_437">437</a></li>
+<li>Torn leaves, how repaired, <a href="#Pg_122">122</a></li>
+<li>Tracing of maps or plates, <a href="#Pg_113">113</a></li>
+<li>Travels, <a href="#Pg_11">11</a>, <a href="#Pg_18">18</a></li>
+<li>Tree calf binding, <a href="#Pg_74">74</a></li>
+<li>Tr&uuml;bner (N.) Bibliographical guide to American literature, <a href="#Pg_484">484</a></li>
+<li>Trustees, boards of library, <a href="#Pg_268">268</a>, <a href="#Pg_333">333</a>-<a href="#Pg_340">340</a></li>
+<li>Turner's illustrations, <a href="#Pg_454">454</a>, <a href="#Pg_458">458</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Ulster Co. Gazette, 1800, <a href="#Pg_456">456</a></li>
+<li>Universal catalogue, <a href="#Pg_465">465</a></li>
+<li>Universities, use of the library to, <a href="#Pg_282">282</a>-<a href="#Pg_285">285</a></li>
+<li>University libraries, <a href="#Pg_294">294</a></li>
+<li>Uses of libraries, <a href="#Pg_275">275</a>-<a href="#Pg_286">286</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Vall&eacute;e (L.) Bibliographie des bibliographies, <a href="#Pg_470">470</a></li>
+<li>Vellum binding, <a href="#Pg_54">54</a></li>
+<li>Voyages, <a href="#Pg_11">11</a>, <a href="#Pg_18">18</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Walpole (Horace) Strawberry hill press, <a href="#Pg_446">446</a></li>
+<li>Washing soiled books, <a href="#Pg_127">127</a>, <a href="#Pg_129">129</a></li>
+<li>Watt (R.) Bibliotheca Britannica, <a href="#Pg_493">493</a>-<a href="#Pg_494">494</a></li>
+<li>Wealth, all estimates of, futile, <a href="#Pg_194">194</a>-<a href="#Pg_196">196</a></li>
+<li>Winsor (Justin)<ul>
+<li>    a prolific author, <a href="#Pg_272">272</a></li>
+<li>    on librarians' instructions, <a href="#Pg_284">284</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>Woes of a librarian, <a href="#Pg_441">441</a>-<a href="#Pg_443">443</a></li>
+<li>Worcester, Massachusetts, public library<ul>
+<li>    methods of selection, <a href="#Pg_31">31</a></li>
+<li>    theft in, <a href="#Pg_143">143</a></li>
+<li>    use of by schools, <a href="#Pg_281">281</a></li></ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<ul><li>Yale university library, <a href="#Pg_298">298</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_510" id="Pg_510"></a>[<a href="./images/510.png">510</a>]</span></p>
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<div class="boxtext">
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>Books for Authors</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Authors and Publishers</span></h3>
+
+<p class="center">A MANUAL OF SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS IN LITERATURE</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Comprising a description of publishing methods
+and arrangements, directions for the
+preparation of MSS. for the press, explanations
+of the details of book-manufacturing,
+instructions for proof-reading, specimens of
+typography, the text of the United States
+Copyright Law, and information concerning
+International Copyrights, together with
+general hints for authors. By G. H. P. and
+J. B. P.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Seventh Edition, re-written with additional material.</i></p></div>
+
+<h5><i>8&deg;, gilt top</i>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<i>net, $1.75</i></h5>
+
+<p class="center">CHIEF CONTENTS</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;<span class="smcap">Part I.</span>&mdash;Publishing arrangements&mdash;Books published at
+the risk and expense of the publisher&mdash;Books published for
+the account of the author, <i>i. e.</i>, at the author's risk and
+expense, or in which he assumes a portion of the investment&mdash;Publishing
+arrangements for productions first printed
+in periodicals or cyclop&aelig;dias&mdash;The literary agent&mdash;Authors'
+associations&mdash;Advertising&mdash;On securing copyright.</p>
+
+<p>&emsp;&emsp;<span class="smcap">Part II.</span>&mdash;The Making of Books&mdash;Composition&mdash;Electrotyping&mdash;Presswork&mdash;Bookbinding&mdash;Illustrations.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;"Full of valuable information for authors and writers. . . . A
+most instructive and excellent manual."&mdash;<span class="smcap">George Wm. Curtis</span> in
+<i>Harper's Magazine</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&emsp;&emsp;"This handy and useful book is written with perfect fairness and
+abounds in hints which writers will do well to 'make a note of.'
+. . . There is a host of other matters treated succinctly and lucidly
+which it behoves beginners in literature to know, and we can recommend
+it most heartily to them."&mdash;<i>London Spectator.</i></p></div>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p class="center">G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, <span class="smcap">New York and London</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+</div></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_511" id="Pg_511"></a>[<a href="./images/511.png">511</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<div class="boxtext">
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>BY GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3>AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES</h3>
+
+<h4>A Sketch of Literary Conditions and of the Relations with the<br />
+Public of Literary Producers, from the Earliest Times<br />
+to the Fall of the Roman Empire.</h4>
+
+<h4>Second edition, revised, 12&deg;, gilt top, $1.50.</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;The book abounds in information, is written in a delightfully succinct and
+agreeable manner, with apt comparisons that are often humorous, and with
+scrupulous exactness to statement, and without a sign of partiality either from
+an author's or a publisher's point of view.&mdash;<i>New York Times.</i></p></div>
+
+
+<h3>BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES</h3>
+
+
+<h4>A Study of the Conditions of the Production and Distribution of<br />
+Literature from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the<br />
+Close of the Seventeenth Century.</h4>
+
+<h4>In two volumes, 8&deg;, cloth extra (sold separately), each $2.50<br />
+Vol. I., 476-1600&mdash;Vol. II., 1500-1709.</h4>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;It is seldom that such wide learning, such historical grasp and insight, have
+been employed in their service.&mdash;<i>Atlantic Monthly.</i></p>
+
+<p>It is a book to be studied rather than merely praised. . . . That its
+literary style is perfect is acceptable as a matter of course, and equally of
+course is it that the information it contains bears the stamp of historical verification.&mdash;<i>N.
+Y. Sun.</i></p></div>
+
+<h3>THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;Comprising the text of the Copyright Law of the United States,
+and a summary of the Copyright laws at present in force in
+the chief countries of the world; together with a report of the
+legislation now pending in Great Britain, a sketch of the contest
+in the United States, 1837-1891, in behalf of International
+Copyright, and certain papers on the development of
+the conception of literary property and on the results of the
+American law of 1891.</p>
+
+<p>Second edition, revised, with additions, and with the record of
+legislation brought down to March, 1896. 8&deg;, gilt top, $1.75.
+</p>
+
+<p>A perfect arsenal of facts and arguments, carefully elaborated and very effectively
+presented. . . . Altogether it constitutes an extremely valuable
+history of the development of a very intricate right of property, and it is as
+interesting as it is valuable.&mdash;<i>N. Y. Nation.</i></p></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<h5>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS</h5>
+<h5><span class="smcap">New York</span>: 27 West 23rd Street.&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<span class="smcap">London</span>: 24 Bedford St., Strand.</h5>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_512" id="Pg_512"></a>[<a href="./images/512.png">512</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<div class="boxtext">
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>BY MOSES COIT TYLER</h3>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h2>A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE DURING THE COLONIAL TIME</h2>
+
+<h3>New Edition, revised, in two volumes.<br />
+Volume I.&mdash;1607-1676. Volume II.&mdash;1676-1765. Each $2.50.<br />
+Agawam edition, 2 vols. in one. 8&deg;, half leather, $3.00.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;"In the execution of his work thus far, Professor Tyler has evinced a skill in
+the arrangement of his materials, and a masterly power of combination,
+which will at once place it in a very eminent rank among American historical
+compositions. It is not so much the history of a special development of literature,
+as a series of profound and brilliant studies on the character and genius
+of a people of whom that literature was the natural product. The work betrays
+acute philosophical insight, a rare power of historical research, and a cultivated
+literary habit, which was perhaps no less essential than the two former conditions,
+to its successful accomplishment. The style of the author is marked
+by vigor, originality, comprehensiveness, and a curious instinct in the selection
+of words. In this latter respect, though not in the moulding of sentences,
+the reader may perhaps be reminded of the choice and fragrant vocabulary of
+Washington Irving, whose words alone often leave an exquisite odor like the
+perfume of sweet-brier and arbutus."&mdash;<span class="smcap">George Ripley</span>, in <i>The Tribune</i>.</p></div>
+
+
+<h2>THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION</h2>
+
+<h3>1763-1783</h3>
+
+<h4>Two volumes, large octavo. Sold separately.<br />
+Volume I.&mdash;1763-1776. Volume II.&mdash;1776-1783. Each $3.00.</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;This work is the result of an altogether new and original treatment of the
+American Revolution. The outward history of that period has been many
+times written, and is now, by a new school of American historians, being
+freshly re-written in the light of larger evidence, and after a more disinterested
+and judicial method. In the present work, for the first time in a systematic
+and complete way, is set forth the inward history of our Revolution,&mdash;the history
+of its ideas, its spiritual moods, its passions, as these uttered themselves at the
+time in the writings of the two parties of Americans who either promoted or
+resisted that great movement.</p></div>
+
+
+<h2>THREE MEN OF LETTERS</h2>
+
+<h4>Chapters in Literary Biography and Criticism devoted to<br />
+George Berkeley, Timothy Dwight, and Joel Barlow.</h4>
+
+<h4>12&deg;, gilt top, $1.25.</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;"Though more lengthy than most of the sketches in Professor Tyler's well-known
+'History,' these monographs have much of the brevity of their original
+purpose; and they are marked by the same picturesqueness of treatment, the
+same vivacity of expression, and the same felicity of statement, that characterize
+the author's larger volumes."&mdash;<i>The Nation.</i></p></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h5>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, <span class="smcap">New York and London.</span></h5>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_513" id="Pg_513"></a>[<a href="./images/513.png">513</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<div class="boxtext">
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>LANGUAGE.</h2>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3>SOME COMMON ERRORS OF SPEECH.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;Suggestions for the Avoiding of Certain Classes of Errors, together with
+Examples of Bad and of Good Usage. By <span class="smcap">Alfred G. Compton</span>,
+Professor in College of the City of New York. 12&deg;&emsp;&emsp;$ .75</p>
+
+<p>&emsp;&emsp;"The book calls up many interesting, not to say fascinating, lapses from strict
+grammar, and is very valuable. In its index expurgatorius will be found many surprises
+by the self-supposed learned."&mdash;<i>Chicago Times-Herald.</i></p></div>
+
+<h3>A SIMPLE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH NOW IN USE.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;By <span class="smcap">John Earle</span>, A.M., LL.D., Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University
+of Oxford, author of "English Prose: Its Elements, History, and
+Usage." 12&deg;&emsp;&emsp;$1.50</p>
+
+<p>&emsp;&emsp;"The book is a clear, careful, and scholarly treatise on the English Language and
+its use, rather than a work of science. It is a book that will be valuable to teachers
+and to students of language everywhere."&mdash;<i>Washington Times.</i></p></div>
+
+<h3>THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ENGLISH GRAMMAR.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;An Historical Study of the Sources, Development, and Analogies of the
+Language, and of the Principles Covering its Usages. Illustrated
+by Copious Examples by Writers of all Periods. By <span class="smcap">Samuel
+Ramsey</span>. 8&deg;&emsp;&emsp;$2.00</p>
+
+<p>&emsp;&emsp;"Mr. Ramsey's work will appeal especially to those that desire to know something
+more about the history and philology, the growth and mistakes of their native tongue
+than is given in the ordinary text-books."&mdash;<i>Baltimore Sun.</i></p></div>
+
+<h3>ORTHOMETRY.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;A Treatise on the Art of Versification and the Technicalities of Poetry,
+with a New and Complete Rhyming Dictionary. By <span class="smcap">R. F. Brewer</span>,
+B.A. 12&deg;, pp. xv. <span class="lf">+</span> 376&emsp;&emsp;$2.00</p>
+
+<p>&emsp;&emsp;"It is a good book for its purpose, lucid, compact, and well arranged. It lays bare,
+we believe, the complete anatomy of poetry. It affords interesting quotations, in the
+way of example, and interesting comments by distinguished critics upon certain passages
+from the distinguished poets."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Sun.</i></p></div>
+
+<h3>MANUAL OF LINGUISTICS.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;An Account of General and English Phonology. By <span class="smcap">John Clark</span>, A.M.
+8&deg;, pp. lxiii. <span class="lf">+</span> 314&emsp;&emsp;$2.00
+</p>
+
+<p>&emsp;&emsp;"Mr. Clark has traced the English language back to its foundations in his work
+'Manual of Linguistics.' It is an interesting theme, and his book will prove very useful
+for reference, for he has culled from many sources and gone over a wide territory."&mdash;<i>Detroit
+Free Press.</i></p></div>
+
+<h3>COMPOSITION IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&emsp;&emsp;A Practical Treatise. By <span class="smcap">E. Galbraith.</span> 16&deg;, cloth&emsp;&emsp;$1.00
+</p>
+
+<p>&emsp;&emsp;"The author has drawn fully from the best writers on the subject, and her book is an
+epitome of the best thought of all."&mdash;<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p></div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h5>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, <span class="smcap">New York and London</span>.</h5>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3>
+
+<p>1. Punctuation for abbreviations such as per cent., viz. has been standardised.</p>
+
+<p>2. There are spelling inconsistencies in proper and place names
+as well as within accented characters and hyphenated words. These have been left as printed.</p>
+
+<p>3. The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under
+the corrections.
+Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins class="err"
+title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p> </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Book for All Readers, by Ainsworth Rand Spofford
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK FOR ALL READERS ***
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@@ -0,0 +1,16838 @@
+Project Gutenberg's A Book for All Readers, by Ainsworth Rand Spofford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Book for All Readers
+       An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books
+       and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries
+
+Author: Ainsworth Rand Spofford
+
+Release Date: September 15, 2007 [EBook #22608]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK FOR ALL READERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Ciesielski and the booksmiths at
+http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+A BOOK FOR ALL READERS
+
+DESIGNED AS AN AID TO THE
+
+COLLECTION, USE, AND PRESERVATION
+
+OF BOOKS
+
+AND THE
+
+FORMATION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES
+
+
+BY
+
+AINSWORTH RAND SPOFFORD
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+NEW YORK & LONDON
+1900
+
+
+COPYRIGHT 1900
+
+BY
+
+A R SPOFFORD
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+Chapter                                               Page
+ 1. THE CHOICE OF BOOKS,                                 3
+ 2. BOOK BUYING,                                        33
+ 3. THE ART OF BOOK BINDING,                            50
+ 4. PREPARATION FOR THE SHELVES: BOOK PLATES, &C.,      88
+ 5. THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS,                              101
+ 6. RESTORATION AND RECLAMATION OF BOOKS,              119
+ 7. PAMPHLET LITERATURE,                               145
+ 8. PERIODICAL LITERATURE,                             157
+ 9. THE ART OF READING,                                171
+10. AIDS TO READERS,                                   190
+11. ACCESS TO LIBRARY SHELVES,                         215
+12. THE FACULTY OF MEMORY,                             226
+13. QUALIFICATIONS OF LIBRARIANS,                      242
+14. SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES,                     275
+15. THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES,                          287
+16. LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND FURNISHINGS,                 321
+17. LIBRARY MANAGERS OR TRUSTEES,                      333
+18. LIBRARY REGULATIONS,                               341
+19. LIBRARY REPORTS AND ADVERTISING,                   349
+20. THE FORMATION OF LIBRARIES,                        357
+21. CLASSIFICATION,                                    362
+22. CATALOGUES,                                        373
+23. COPYRIGHT AND LIBRARIES,                           400
+24. POETRY OF THE LIBRARY,                             417
+25. HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY,                             430
+26. RARE BOOKS,                                        444
+27. BIBLIOGRAPHY,                                      459
+    INDEX,                                             501
+
+
+
+
+A BOOK FOR ALL READERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1.
+
+THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.
+
+
+When we survey the really illimitable field of human knowledge, the vast
+accumulation of works already printed, and the ever-increasing flood of
+new books poured out by the modern press, the first feeling which is apt
+to arise in the mind is one of dismay, if not of despair. We ask--who is
+sufficient for these things? What life is long enough--what intellect
+strong enough, to master even a tithe of the learning which all these
+books contain? But the reflection comes to our aid that, after all, the
+really important books bear but a small proportion to the mass. Most
+books are but repetitions, in a different form, of what has already been
+many times written and printed. The rarest of literary qualities is
+originality. Most writers are mere echoes, and the greater part of
+literature is the pouring out of one bottle into another. If you can get
+hold of the few really best books, you can well afford to be ignorant of
+all the rest. The reader who has mastered Kames's "Elements of
+Criticism," need not spend his time over the multitudinous treatises upon
+rhetoric. He who has read Plutarch's Lives thoroughly has before him a
+gallery of heroes which will go farther to instruct him in the elements
+of character than a whole library of modern biographies. The student of
+the best plays of Shakespeare may save his time by letting other and
+inferior dramatists alone. He whose imagination has been fed upon Homer,
+Dante, Milton, Burns, and Tennyson, with a few of the world's
+master-pieces in single poems like Gray's Elegy, may dispense with the
+whole race of poetasters. Until you have read the best fictions of
+Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne, George Eliot, and Victor Hugo, you
+should not be hungry after the last new novel,--sure to be forgotten in a
+year, while the former are perennial. The taste which is once formed upon
+models such as have been named, will not be satisfied with the trashy
+book, or the spasmodic school of writing.
+
+What kind of books should form the predominant part in the selection of
+our reading, is a question admitting of widely differing opinions. Rigid
+utilitarians may hold that only books of fact, of history and science,
+works crammed full of knowledge, should be encouraged. Others will plead
+in behalf of lighter reading, or for a universal range. It must be
+admitted that the most attractive reading to the mass of people is not
+scientific or philosophical. But there are many very attractive books
+outside the field of science, and outside the realm of fiction, books
+capable of yielding pleasure as well as instruction. There are few books
+that render a more substantial benefit to readers of any age than good
+biographies. In them we find those personal experiences and adventures,
+those traits of character, that environment of social and domestic life,
+which form the chief interest in works of fiction. In fact, the novel, in
+its best estate, is only biography amplified by imagination, and
+enlivened by dialogue. And the novel is successful only when it succeeds
+in depicting the most truly the scenes, circumstances, and characters of
+real life. A well written biography, like that of Dr. Johnson, by
+Boswell, Walter Scott, by Lockhart, or Charles Dickens, by Forster, gives
+the reader an insight into the history of the times they lived in, the
+social, political, and literary environment, and the impress of their
+famous writings upon their contemporaries. In the autobiography of Dr.
+Franklin, one of the most charming narratives ever written, we are taken
+into the writer's confidence, sympathize with his early struggles,
+mistakes, and successes, and learn how he made himself, from a poor boy
+selling ballads on Boston streets, into a leader among men, whom two
+worlds have delighted to honor. Another most interesting book of
+biography is that of the brothers William and Robert Chambers, the famous
+publishers of Edinburgh, who did more to diffuse useful knowledge, and to
+educate the people, by their manifold cheap issues of improving and
+entertaining literature, than was ever done by the British Useful
+Knowledge Society itself.
+
+The French nation has, of all others, the greatest genius for personal
+memoirs, and the past two centuries are brought far more vividly before
+us in these free-spoken and often amusing chronicles, than in all the
+formal histories. Among the most readable of these (comparatively few
+having been translated into English) are the Memoirs of Marmontel,
+Rousseau, Madame Remusat, Amiel, and Madame De Stael. The recently
+published memoirs by Imbert de St. Amand, of court life in France in the
+times of Marie Antoinette, Josephine, Marie Louise, and other periods,
+while hastily written and not always accurate, are lively and
+entertaining.
+
+The English people fall far behind the French in biographic skill, and
+many of their memoirs are as heavy and dull as the persons whom they
+commemorate. But there are bright exceptions, in the lives of literary
+men and women, and in some of those of noted public men in church and
+state. Thus, there are few books more enjoyable than Sydney Smith's
+Memoirs and Letters, or Greville's Journals covering the period including
+George IV to Victoria, or the Life and Letters of Macaulay, or Mrs.
+Gaskell's Charlotte Bronte, or the memoirs of Harriet Martineau, or
+Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson. Among the briefer biographies worthy of
+special mention are the series of English Men of Letters, edited by John
+Morley, and written by some of the best of contemporary British writers.
+They embrace memoirs of Chaucer, Spenser, Bacon, Sidney, Milton, De Foe,
+Swift, Sterne, Fielding, Locke, Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Gray, Addison,
+Goldsmith, Burke, Hume, Gibbon, Bunyan, Bentley, Sheridan, Burns, Cowper,
+Southey, Scott, Byron, Lamb, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, De
+Quincey, Macaulay, Landor, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Carlyle.
+These biographies, being quite compendious, and in the main very well
+written, afford to busy readers a short-hand method of acquainting
+themselves with most of the notable writers of Britain, their personal
+characteristics, their relation to their contemporaries, and the quality
+and influence of their works. Americans have not as yet illustrated the
+field of biographic literature by many notably skilful examples. We are
+especially deficient in good autobiographies, so that Dr. Franklin's
+stands almost alone in singular merit in that class. We have an abundance
+of lives of notable generals, professional men, and politicians, in which
+indiscriminate eulogy and partisanship too often usurp the place of
+actual facts, and the truth of history is distorted to glorify the merits
+of the subject of the biography. The great success of General Grant's own
+Memoirs, too, has led publishers to tempt many public men in military or
+civil life, into the field of personal memoirs, not as yet with
+distinguished success.
+
+It were to be wished that more writers possessed of some literary skill,
+who have borne a part in the wonderful drama involving men and events
+enacted in this country during the century now drawing to a close, had
+given us their sincere personal impressions in autobiographic form. Such
+narratives, in proportion as they are truthful, are far more trustworthy
+than history written long after the event by authors who were neither
+observers nor participants in the scenes which they describe.
+
+Among American biographies which will help the reader to gain a tolerably
+wide acquaintance with the men and affairs of the past century in this
+country, are the series of Lives of American Statesmen, of which thirty
+volumes have been published. These include Washington, the Adamses,
+Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Henry,
+Gallatin, Morris, Randolph, Jackson, Van Buren, Webster, Clay, Calhoun,
+Cass, Benton, Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Stevens, and Sumner. While these
+Memoirs are of very unequal merit, they are sufficiently instructive to
+be valuable to all students of our national history.
+
+Another very useful series is that of American Men of Letters, edited by
+Charles Dudley Warner, in fifteen volumes, which already includes
+Franklin, Bryant, Cooper, Irving, Noah Webster, Simms, Poe, Emerson,
+Ripley, Margaret Fuller, Willis, Thoreau, Taylor, and Curtis.
+
+In the department of history, the best books for learners are not always
+the most famous. Any mere synopsis of universal history is necessarily
+dry reading, but for a constant help in reference, guiding one to the
+best original sources, under each country, and with very readable
+extracts from the best writers treating on each period, the late work of
+J. N. Larned, "History for Ready Reference," five volumes, will be found
+invaluable. Brewer's Historic Note Book, in a single volume, answers many
+historic queries in a single glance at the alphabet. For the History of
+the United States, either John Fiske's or Eggleston's is an excellent
+compend, while for the fullest treatment, Bancroft's covers the period
+from the discovery of America up to the adoption of the constitution in
+1789, in a style at once full, classical, and picturesque. For
+continuations, McMaster's History of the People of the United States
+covers the period from 1789 to 1824, and is being continued. James
+Schouler has written a History of the United States from 1789 to 1861, in
+five volumes, while J. F. Rhodes ably covers the years 1850 to the Civil
+War with a much more copious narrative.
+
+For the annals of England, the Short History of England by J. R. Green is
+a most excellent compend. For more elaborate works, the histories of Hume
+and Macaulay bring the story of the British Empire down to about 1700.
+For the more modern period, Lecky's History of England in the 18th
+century is excellent, and for the present century, McCarthy's History of
+Our Own Time, and Miss Martineau's History of England, 1815-52, are well
+written works. French history is briefly treated in the Student's History
+of France, while Guizot's complete History, in eight volumes, gives a
+much fuller account, from the beginnings of France in the Roman period,
+to the year 1848. Carlyle's French Revolution is a splendid picture of
+that wonderful epoch, and Sloane's History of Napoleon gives very full
+details of the later period.
+
+For the history of Germany, Austria, Russia, France, Spain, Italy,
+Holland, and other countries, the various works in the "Story of the
+Nations" series, are excellent brief histories.
+
+Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic and his United Netherlands are highly
+important and well written historical works.
+
+The annals of the ancient world are elaborately and ably set forth in
+Grote's History of Greece, Merivale's Rome, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall
+of the Roman Empire.
+
+Another class of books closely allied to biography and history, is the
+correspondence of public men, and men of letters, with friends and
+contemporaries. These familiar letters frequently give us views of
+social, public, and professional life which are of absorbing interest.
+Among the best letters of this class may be reckoned the correspondence
+of Horace Walpole, Madame de Sevigne, the poets Gray and Cowper, Lord
+Macaulay, Lord Byron, and Charles Dickens. Written for the most part with
+unstudied ease and unreserve, they entertain the reader with constant
+variety of incident and character, while at the same time they throw
+innumerable side-lights upon the society and the history of the time.
+
+Next, we may come to the master-pieces of the essay-writers. You will
+often find that the best treatise on any subject is the briefest, because
+the writer is put upon condensation and pointed statement, by the very
+form and limitations of the essay, or the review or magazine article.
+Book-writers are apt to be diffuse and episodical, having so extensive a
+canvas to cover with their literary designs. Among the finest of the
+essayists are Montaigne, Lord Bacon, Addison, Goldsmith, Macaulay, Sir
+James Stephen, Cardinal Newman, De Quincey, Charles Lamb, Washington
+Irving, Emerson, Froude, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. You may spend
+many a delightful hour in the perusal of any one of these authors.
+
+We come now to poetry, which some people consider very unsubstantial
+pabulum, but which forms one of the most precious and inspiring portions
+of the literature of the world. In all ages, the true poet has exercised
+an influence upon men's minds that is unsurpassed by that of any other
+class of writers. And the reason is not far to seek. Poetry deals with
+the highest thoughts, in the most expressive language. It gives utterance
+to all the sentiments and passions of humanity in rhythmic and harmonious
+verse. The poet's lines are remembered long after the finest compositions
+of the writers of prose are forgotten. They fasten themselves in the
+memory by the very flow and cadence of the verse, and they minister to
+that sense of melody that dwells in every human brain. What the world
+owes to its great poets can never be fully measured. But some faint idea
+of it may be gained from the wondrous stimulus given through them to the
+imaginative power, and from the fact that those sentiments of human
+sympathy, justice, virtue, and freedom, which inspire the best poetry of
+all nations, become sooner or later incarnated in their institutions.
+This is the real significance of the oft-quoted saying of Andrew
+Fletcher, that stout Scotch republican of two centuries ago, that if one
+were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who
+should make the laws.
+
+In the best poetry, the felicity of its expressions of thought, joined
+with their rhythmical form, makes it easy for the reader to lay up almost
+unconsciously a store in the memory of the noblest poetic sentiments, to
+comfort or to divert him in many a weary or troubled hour. Hence time is
+well spent in reading over and over again the great poems of the world.
+Far better and wiser is this, than to waste it upon the newest trash that
+captivates the popular fancy, for the last will only tickle the
+intellectual palate for an hour, or a day, and be then forgotten, while
+the former will make one better and wiser for all time.
+
+Nor need one seek to read the works of very many writers in order to fill
+his mind with images of truth and beauty which will dwell with him
+forever. The really great poets in the English tongue may be counted upon
+the fingers. Shakespeare fitly heads the list--a world's classic,
+unsurpassed for reach of imagination, variety of scenes and characters,
+profound insight, ideal power, lofty eloquence, moral purpose, the most
+moving pathos, alternating with the finest humor, and diction unequalled
+for strength and beauty of expression. Milton, too, in his minor poems,
+has given us some of the noblest verse in the language. There is poetry
+enough in his L'Allegro and Il Penseroso to furnish forth a whole galaxy
+of poets.
+
+Spenser and Pope, Gray and Campbell, Goldsmith and Burns, Wordsworth and
+the Brownings, Tennyson and Longfellow,--these are among the other
+foremost names in the catalogue of poets which none can afford to
+neglect. Add to these the best translations of Homer, Virgil, Horace,
+Dante, and Goethe, and one need not want for intellectual company and
+solace in youth or age.
+
+Among the books which combine entertainment with information, the best
+narratives of travellers and voyagers hold an eminent place. In them the
+reader enlarges the bounds of his horizon, and travels in companionship
+with his author all over the globe. While many, if not the most, of the
+books of modern travellers are filled with petty incidents and personal
+observations of no importance, there are some wonderfully good books of
+this attractive class. Such are Kinglake's "Eothen, or traces of travel
+in the East," Helen Hunt Jackson's "Bits of Travel," a volume of keen and
+amusing sketches of German and French experiences, the books of De Amicus
+on Holland, Constantinople, and Paris, those on England by Emerson,
+Hawthorne, William Winter, and Richard Grant White, Curtis's Nile Notes,
+Howell's "Venetian Life," and Taine's "Italy, Rome and Naples."
+
+The wide domain of science can be but cursorily touched upon. Many
+readers get so thorough a distaste for science in early life--mainly from
+the fearfully and wonderfully dry text-books in which our schools and
+colleges have abounded--that they never open a scientific book in later
+years. This is a profound mistake, since no one can afford to remain
+ignorant of the world in which we live, with its myriad wonders, its
+inexhaustible beauties, and its unsolved problems. And there are now
+works produced in every department of scientific research which give in a
+popular and often in a fascinating style, the revelations of nature which
+have come through the study and investigation of man. Such books are "The
+Stars and the Earth," Kingsley's "Glaucus, or Wonders of the Shore,"
+Clodd's "Story of Creation," (a clear account of the evolution theory)
+Figuier's "Vegetable World," and Professor Langley's "New Astronomy."
+There are wise specialists whose published labors have illuminated for
+the uninformed reader every nook and province of the mysteries of
+creation, from the wing of a beetle to the orbits of the planetary
+worlds. There are few pursuits more fascinating than those that bring us
+acquainted with the secrets of nature, whether dragged up from the depths
+of the sea, or demonstrated in the substance and garniture of the green
+earth, or wrung from the far-off worlds in the shining heavens.
+
+A word only can be spared to the wide and attractive realm of fiction. In
+this field, those are the best books which have longest kept their hold
+upon the public mind. It is a wise plan to neglect the novels of the
+year, and to read (or to re-read in many cases) the master-pieces which
+have stood the test of time, and criticism, and changing fashions, by the
+sure verdict of a call for continually new editions. Ouida and Trilby may
+endure for a day, but Thackeray and Walter Scott are perennial. It is
+better to read a fine old book through three times, than to read three
+new books through once.
+
+Of books more especially devoted to the history of literature, in times
+ancient and modern, and in various nations, the name is legion. I count
+up, of histories of English literature alone (leaving out the American)
+no less than one hundred and thirty authors on this great field or some
+portion of it. To know what ones of these to study, and what to leave
+alone, would require critical judgment and time not at my command. I can
+only suggest a few known by me to be good. For a succinct yet most
+skilfully written summary of English writers, there is no book that can
+compare with Stopford A. Brooke's Primer of English Literature. For more
+full and detailed treatment, Taine's History of English Literature, or
+Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature, two volumes, with specimens
+of the writers of every period, are the best. E. C. Stedman's Victorian
+Poets is admirable, as is also his Poets of America. For a bird's eye
+view of American authors and their works, C. F. Richardson's Primer of
+American Literature can be studied to advantage, while for more full
+reference to our authors, with specimens of each, Stedman's Library of
+American Literature in eleven volumes, should be consulted. M. C. Tyler's
+very interesting critical History of the Early American Literature, so
+little known, comes down in its fourth volume only to the close of the
+revolution in 1783.
+
+For classical literature, the importance of a good general knowledge of
+which can hardly be overrated, J. P. Mahaffy's History of Greek
+Literature, two volumes, and G. A. Simcox's Latin Literature, two
+volumes, may be commended. On the literature of modern languages, to
+refer only to works written in English, Saintsbury's Primer of French
+Literature is good, and R. Garnett's History of Italian Literature is
+admirable (by the former Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum
+Library). Lublin's Primer of German Literature is excellent for a
+condensed survey of the writers of Germany, while W. Scherer's History of
+German Literature, two volumes, covers a far wider field. For Spanish
+Literature in its full extent, there is no work at all equal to George
+Ticknor's three volumes, but for a briefer history, H. B. Clark's
+Hand-book of Spanish Literature, London, 1893, may be used.
+
+I make no allusion here to the many works of reference in the form of
+catalogues and bibliographical works, which may be hereafter noted. My
+aim has been only to indicate the best and latest treatises covering the
+leading literatures of the world, having no space for the Scandinavian,
+Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, or any of the Slavonic or oriental tongues.
+
+Those who find no time for studying the more extended works named, will
+find much profit in devoting their hours to the articles in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica upon the literatures of the various countries.
+These are within reach of everyone.
+
+The select list of books named in this chapter does not by any means aim
+to cover those which are well worth reading; but only to indicate a few,
+a very few, of the best. It is based on the supposition that intelligent
+readers will give far less time to fiction than to the more solid food of
+history, biography, essays, travels, literary history, and applied
+science. The select list of books in the fields already named is designed
+to include only the most improving and well-executed works. Many will not
+find their favorites in the list, which is purposely kept within narrow
+limits, as a suggestion only of a few of the best books for a home
+library or for general reading. You will find it wise to own, as early in
+life as possible, a few of the choicest productions of the great writers
+of the world. Those who can afford only a selection from a selection, can
+begin with never so few of the authors most desired, or which they have
+not already, putting in practice the advice of Shakespeare:
+
+    "In brief, sir, study what you most affect."
+
+Says John Ruskin: "I would urge upon every young man to obtain as soon
+as he can, by the severest economy, a restricted and steadily increasing
+series of books, for use through life; making his little library, of all
+his furniture, the most studied and decorative piece." And Henry Ward
+Beecher urged it as the most important early ambition for clerks, working
+men and women, and all who are struggling up in life, to form gradually a
+library of good books. "It is a man's duty," says he, "to have books. A
+library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."
+
+And says Bishop Hurst, urging the vital importance of wise selection in
+choosing our reading: "If two-thirds of the shelves of the typical
+domestic library were emptied of their burden, and choice books put in
+their stead, there would be reformation in intelligence and thought
+throughout the civilized world."
+
+
+SELECTION OF BOOKS FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES.
+
+Let us now consider the subject of books fitted for public libraries. At
+the outset, it is most important that each selection should be made on a
+well considered plan. No hap-hazard, or fitfully, or hastily made
+collection can answer the two ends constantly to be aimed at--namely,
+first, to select the best and most useful books, and, secondly, to
+economize the funds of the library. No money should be wasted upon whims
+and experiments, but every dollar should be devoted to the acquisition of
+improving books.
+
+As to the principles that should govern and the limitations to be laid
+down, these will depend much upon the scope of the library, and the
+amount of its funds. No library of the limited and moderate class
+commonly found in our public town libraries can afford to aim at the
+universal range of a national library, nor even at the broad selections
+proper to a liberally endowed city library.
+
+But its aims, while modest, should be comprehensive enough to provide a
+complete selection of what may be termed standard literature, for the
+reading public. If the funds are inadequate to do this in the beginning,
+it should be kept constantly in view, as the months and years go on.
+Every great and notable book should be in the library sooner or later,
+and if possible at its foundation. Thus will its utility and
+attractiveness both be well secured.
+
+Taking first the case of a small public library about to be started, let
+us see in a few leading outlines what it will need.
+
+1. A selection of the best works of reference should be the corner-stone
+of every library collection. In choosing these, regard must be had to
+secure the latest as well as the best. Never buy the first edition of
+Soule's Synonymes because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and
+enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated Lempriere's or
+Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some venerable library director,
+who used it in his boyhood, suggests it, when you can get Professor H. T.
+Peck's "Dictionary of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897. Never be
+tempted to buy an old edition of an encyclopaedia at half or quarter
+price, for it will be sure to lack the populations of the last census,
+besides being a quarter of a century or more in arrears in its other
+information. When consulting sale catalogues to select reference books,
+look closely at the dates of publication, and make sure by your American
+or English catalogues that no later edition has appeared. It goes without
+saying that you will have these essential bibliographies, as well as
+Lowndes' Manual of English Literature first of all, whether you are able
+to buy Watt and Brunet or not.
+
+2. Without here stopping to treat of books of reference in detail, which
+will appear in another place, let me refer to some other great classes
+of literature in which every library should be strong. History stands
+fairly at the head, and while a newly established library cannot hope to
+possess at once all the noted writers, it should begin by securing a fine
+selection, embracing general history, ancient and modern, and the history
+of each country, at least of the important nations. For compendious short
+histories, the "Story of the Nations" series, by various writers, should
+be secured, and the more extensive works of Gibbon, Grote, Mommsen,
+Duruy, Fyffe, Green, Macaulay, Froude, McCarthy, Carlyle, Thiers,
+Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Fiske, Schouler, McMaster, Buckle, Guizot,
+etc., should be acquired. The copious lists of historical works appended
+to Larned's "History for Ready Reference" will be useful here.
+
+3. Biography stands close to history in interest and importance. For
+general reference, or the biography of all nations, Lippincott's
+Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography is essential, as well as
+Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, for our own country. For
+Great Britain, the "Dictionary of National Biography" is a mine of
+information, and should be added if funds are sufficient. Certain sets of
+collective biographies which are important are American Statesmen, 26
+vols., Englishmen of Letters, -- vols., Autobiography, 33 vols., Famous
+Women series, 21 vols., Heroes of the Nation series, 24 vols., American
+Pioneers and Patriots, 12 vols., and Plutarch's Lives. Then of
+indispensable single biographies there are Boswell's Johnson, Lockhart's
+Scott, Froude's Carlyle, Trevelyan's Macaulay, Froude's Caesar, Lewes'
+Goethe, etc.
+
+4. Of notable essays, a high class of literature in which there are many
+names, may be named Addison, Montaigne, Bacon, Goldsmith, Emerson, Lamb,
+De Quincey, Holmes, Lowell, etc.
+
+5. Poetry stands at the head of all the literature of imagination. Some
+people of highly utilitarian views decry poetry, and desire to feed all
+readers upon facts. But that this is a great mistake will be apparent
+when we consider that the highest expressions of moral and intellectual
+truth and the most finely wrought examples of literature in every nation
+are in poetic form. Take out of the world's literature the works of its
+great poets, and you would leave it poor indeed. Poetry is the only great
+source for the nurture of imagination, and without imagination man is a
+poor creature. I read the other day a dictum of a certain writer,
+alleging that Dickens's Christmas Carol is far more effective as a piece
+of writing than Milton's noble ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity."
+Such comparisons are of small value. In point of fact, no library can
+spare either of them. I need not repeat the familiar names of the great
+poets; they are found in all styles of production, and some of the best
+are among the least expensive.
+
+6. Travels and voyages form a very entertaining as well as highly
+instructive part of a library. A good selection of the more notable will
+prove a valuable resource to readers of nearly every age.
+
+7. The wide field of science should be carefully gleaned for a good range
+of approved text-books in each department. So progressive is the modern
+world that the latest books are apt to be the best in each science,
+something which is by no means true in literature.
+
+8. In law, medicine, theology, political science, sociology, economics,
+art, architecture, music, eloquence, and language, the library should be
+provided with the leading modern works.
+
+9. We come now to fiction, which the experience of all libraries shows is
+the favorite pabulum of about three readers out of four. The great demand
+for this class of reading renders it all the more important to make a
+wise and improving selection of that which forms the minds of multitudes,
+and especially of the young. This selection presents to every librarian
+and library director or trustee some perplexing problems. To buy
+indiscriminately the new novels of the day, good, bad, and indifferent
+(the last named greatly predominating) would be a very poor discharge of
+the duty devolving upon those who are the responsible choosers of the
+reading of any community. Conceding, as we must, the vast influence and
+untold value of fiction as a vehicle of entertainment and instruction,
+the question arises--where can the line be drawn between the good and
+improving novels, and novels which are neither good nor improving? This
+involves something more than the moral tone and influence of the
+fictions: it involves their merits and demerits as literature also. I
+hold it to be the bounden duty of those who select the reading of a
+community to maintain a standard of good taste, as well as of good
+morals. They have no business to fill the library with wretched models of
+writing, when there are thousand of good models ready, in numbers far
+greater than they have money to purchase. Weak and flabby and silly books
+tend to make weak and flabby and silly brains. Why should library guides
+put in circulation such stuff as the dime novels, or "Old Sleuth"
+stories, or the slip-slop novels of "The Duchess," when the great masters
+of romantic fiction have endowed us with so many books replete with
+intellectual and moral power? To furnish immature minds with the
+miserable trash which does not deserve the name of literature, is as
+blameworthy as to put before them books full of feverish excitement, or
+stories of successful crime.
+
+We are told, indeed (and some librarians even have said it) that for
+unformed readers to read a bad book is better than to read none at all.
+I do not believe it. You might as well say that it is better for one to
+swallow poison than not to swallow any thing at all. I hold that library
+providers are as much bound to furnish wholesome food for the minds of
+the young who resort to them for guidance, as their parents are to
+provide wholesome food for their bodies.
+
+But the question returns upon us--what is wholesome food? In the first
+place, it is that great body of fiction which has borne the test, both of
+critical judgment, and of popularity with successive generations of
+readers. It is the novels of Scott, Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, George
+Eliot, Cooper, Hawthorne, Kingsley, Mulock-Craik, and many more, such as
+no parents need blush to put into the hands of their daughters. In the
+next place, it is such a selection from the myriads of stories that have
+poured from the press of this generation as have been approved by the
+best readers, and the critical judgment of a responsible press.
+
+As to books of questionable morality, I am aware that contrary opinions
+prevail on the question whether any such books should be allowed in a
+public library, or not. The question is a different one for the small
+town libraries and for the great reference libraries of the world. The
+former are really educational institutions, supported at the people's
+expense, like the free schools, and should be held to a responsibility
+from which the extensive reference libraries in the city are free. The
+latter may and ought to preserve every form of literature, and, if
+national libraries, they would be derelict in their duty to posterity if
+they did not acquire and preserve the whole literature of the country,
+and hand it down complete to future generations. The function of the
+public town library is different. It must indispensably make a selection,
+since its means are not adequate to buy one-tenth of the annual product
+of the press, which amounts in only four nations (England, France,
+Germany, and the United States) to more than thirty-five thousand new
+volumes a year. Its selection, mainly of American and English books, must
+be small, and the smaller it is, the greater is the need of care in
+buying. In fact, it is in most cases, compelled to be a selection from a
+selection. Therefore, in the many cases of doubt arising as to the fit
+character of a book, let the doubt be resolved in favor of the fund, thus
+preserving the chance of getting a better book for the money.
+
+With this careful and limited selection of the best, out of the multitude
+of novels that swarm from the press, the reading public will have every
+reason to be satisfied. No excuse can be alleged for filling up our
+libraries with poor books, while there is no dearth whatever of good
+ones. It is not the business of a public library to compete with the news
+stands or the daily press in furnishing the latest short stories for
+popular consumption; a class of literature whose survival is likely to be
+quite as short as the stories themselves.
+
+Take an object lesson as to the mischiefs of reading the wretched stuff
+which some people pretend is "better than no reading at all" from the boy
+Jesse Pomeroy, who perpetrated a murder of peculiar atrocity in Boston.
+"Pomeroy confessed that he had always been a great reader of 'blood and
+thunder' stories, having read probably sixty dime novels, all treating of
+scalping and deeds of violence. The boy said that he had no doubt that
+the reading of those books had a great deal to do with his course, and he
+would advise all boys to leave them alone."
+
+In some libraries, where the pernicious effect of the lower class of
+fiction has been observed, the directors have withdrawn from circulation
+a large proportion of the novels, which had been bought by reason of
+their popularity. In other newly started libraries only fiction of the
+highest grade has been placed in the library from the start, and this is
+by far the best course. If readers inquire for inferior or immoral books,
+and are told that the library does not have them, although they will
+express surprise and disappointment, they will take other and improving
+reading, thus fulfilling the true function of the library as an educator.
+Librarians and library boards cannot be too careful about what
+constitutes the collection which is to form the pabulum of so many of the
+rising generation.
+
+This does not imply that they are to be censors, or prudes, but with the
+vast field of literature before them from which to choose, they are bound
+to choose the best.
+
+The American Library Association has had this subject under discussion
+repeatedly, and while much difference of opinion has arisen from the
+difficulty of finding any absolute standard of excellence, nearly all
+have agreed that as to certain books, readers should look elsewhere than
+to the public free library for them. At one time a list of authors was
+made out, many of whose works were deemed objectionable, either from
+their highly sensational character, or their bad style, or their highly
+wrought and morbid pictures of human passions, or their immoral tendency.
+This list no doubt will surprise many, as including writers whose books
+everybody, almost, has read, or has been accustomed to think well of. It
+embraces the following popular authors, many of whose novels have had a
+wide circulation, and that principally through popular libraries.
+
+Here follow the names:
+
+Mary J. Holmes, Mrs. Henry Wood, C. L. Hentz, M. P. Finley, Mrs. A. S.
+Stephens, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mrs. Forrester, Rhoda Broughton, Helen
+Mathers, Jessie Fothergill, M. E. Braddon, Florence Marryat, Ouida,
+Horatio Alger, Mayne Reid, Oliver Optic, W. H. S. Kingston, E. Kellogg,
+G. W. M. Reynolds, C. Fosdick, Edmund Yates, G. A. Lawrence, Grenville
+Murray, W. H. Ainsworth, Wilkie Collins, E. L. Bulwer-Lytton, W. H.
+Thomes, and Augusta Evans Wilson.
+
+Bear in mind, that only English and American novels are included, and
+those only of the present century: also, that as to many which are
+included, no imputation of immorality was made. Such a "black list" is
+obviously open to the charge of doing great injustice to the good repute
+of writers named, since only a part of the works written by some of them
+can properly be objected to, and these are not specially named.
+Bulwer-Lytton, for example, whose "Paul Clifford" is a very improper book
+to go into the hands of young people, has written at least a dozen other
+fictions of noble moral purpose, and high literary merit.
+
+Out of seventy public libraries to which the list was sent, with inquiry
+whether the authors named were admitted as books of circulation, thirty
+libraries replied. All of them admitted Bulwer-Lytton and Wilkie Collins,
+all but two Oliver Optic's books, and all but six Augusta Evans Wilson's.
+Reynolds' novels were excluded by twenty libraries, Mrs. Southworth's by
+eleven, "Ouida's" by nine, and Mrs. Stephens's and Mrs. Henry Wood's by
+eight. Other details cannot find space for notice here.
+
+This instance is one among many of endeavors constantly being made by
+associated librarians to stem the ever increasing flood of poor fiction
+which threatens to submerge the better class of books in our public
+libraries.
+
+That no such wholesome attempt can be wholly successful is evident
+enough. The passion for reading fiction is both epidemic and chronic; and
+in saying this, do not infer that I reckon it as a disease. A librarian
+has no right to banish fiction because the appetite for it is abused. He
+is not to set up any ideal and impossible standard of selection. His
+most useful and beneficent function is to turn into better channels the
+universal hunger for reading which is entertaining. Do readers want an
+exciting novel? What can be more exciting than "Les Miserables" of Victor
+Hugo, a book of exceptional literary excellence and power? Literature is
+full of fascinating stories, admirably told, and there is no excuse for
+loading our libraries with trash, going into the slums for models, or
+feeding young minds upon the unclean brood of pessimistic novels. If it
+is said that people will have trash, let them buy it, and let the
+libraries wash their hands of it, and refuse to circulate the stuff which
+no boy nor girl can touch without being contaminated.
+
+Those who claim that we might as well let the libraries down to the level
+of the poorest books, because unformed and ignorant minds are capable of
+nothing better, should be told that people are never raised by giving
+them nothing to look up to. To devour infinite trash is not the road to
+learn wisdom, or virtue, or even to attain genuine amusement. To those
+who are afraid that if the libraries are purified, the masses will get
+nothing that they can read, the answer is, have they not got the entire
+world of magazines, the weekly, daily, and Sunday newspapers, which
+supply a whole library of fiction almost daily? Add to these plenty of
+imaginative literature in fiction and in poetry, on every library's
+shelves, which all who can read can comprehend, and what excuse remains
+for buying what is neither decent nor improving?
+
+Take an example of the boundless capacity for improvement that exists in
+the human mind and human taste, from the spread of the fine arts among
+the people. Thirty years ago, their houses, if having any decoration at
+all, exhibited those fearful and wonderful colored lithographs and
+chromos in which bad drawing, bad portraiture, and bad coloring vied with
+each other to produce pictures which it would be a mild use of terms to
+call detestable. Then came the two great international art expositions at
+Philadelphia and Chicago, each greatly advancing by the finest models,
+the standard of taste in art, and by new economies of reproduction
+placing the most beautiful statues and pictures within the reach of the
+most moderate purse. What has been the result? An incalculable
+improvement in the public taste, educated by the diffusion of the best
+models, until even the poor farmer of the backwoods will no longer
+tolerate the cheap and nasty horrors that once disfigured his walls.
+
+The lesson in art is good in literature also. Give the common people good
+models, and there is no danger but they will appreciate and understand
+them. Never stoop to pander to a depraved taste, no matter what specious
+pleas you may hear for tolerating the low in order to lead to the high,
+or for making your library contribute to the survival of the unfittest.
+
+Is it asked, how can the librarian find out, among the world of novels
+from which he is to select, what is pure and what is not, what is
+wholesome and what unhealthy, what is improving and what is trash? The
+answer is--there are some lists which will be most useful in this
+discrimination, while there is no list which is infallible. Mr. F.
+Leypoldt's little catalogue of "Books for all Time" has nothing that any
+library need do without. Another compendious list is published by the
+American Library Association. And the more extensive catalogue prepared
+for the World's Fair in 1893, and embracing about 5,000 volumes, entitled
+"Catalogue of A. L. A. Library: 5,000 vols. for a popular library," while
+it has many mistakes and omissions, is a tolerably safe guide in making
+up a popular library. I may note that the list of novels in this large
+catalogue put forth by the American Library Association has the names of
+five only out of the twenty-eight writers of fiction heretofore
+pronounced objectionable, and names a select few only of the books of
+these five.
+
+As for the later issues of the press, and especially the new novels, let
+him skim them for himself, unless in cases where trustworthy critical
+judgments are found in journals. Running through a book to test its style
+and moral drift is no difficult task for the practiced eye.
+
+Let us suppose that you are cursorily perusing a novel which has made a
+great sensation, and you come upon the following sentence: "Eighteen
+millions of years would level all in one huge, common, shapeless ruin.
+Perish the microcosm in the limitless macrocosm! and sink this feeble
+earthly segregate in the boundless rushing choral aggregation!" This is
+in Augusta J. Evans Wilson's story "Macaria", and many equally
+extraordinary examples of "prose run mad" are found in the novels of this
+once noted writer. What kind of a model is that to form the style of the
+youthful neophyte, to whom one book is as good as another, since it was
+found on the shelves of the public library?
+
+I am not insisting that all books admitted should be models of style;
+even a purist must admit that one of the greatest charms of literature is
+its infinite variety. But when book after book is filled with such
+specimens of literary lunacy as this, one is tempted to believe that
+Homer and Shakespeare, to say nothing of Thackeray and Hawthorne, have
+lived in vain.
+
+Never fear criticism of those who find fault with the absence from your
+library of books that you know to be nearly worthless; their absence will
+be a silent but eloquent protest against them, sure to be vindicated by
+the utter oblivion into which they will fall. Many a flaming reputation
+has been extinguished after dazzling callow admirers for six months, or
+even less. Do not dread the empty sarcasm, that may grow out of the
+exclusion of freshly printed trash, that your library is a "back number."
+To some poor souls every thing that is great and good in the world's
+literature is a "back number"; and the Bible itself, with its immortal
+poetry and sublimity, is the oldest back number of all. It is no part of
+your business as a librarian to cater to the tastes of those who act as
+if the reading of endless novels of sensation were the chief end of man.
+As one fed on highly spiced viands and stimulating drinks surely loses
+the appetite for wholesome and nourishing food, so one who reads only
+exciting and highly wrought fictions loses the taste for the
+master-pieces of prose and poetry.
+
+Let not the fear of making many mistakes be a bug-bear in your path. If
+you are told that your library is too exclusive, reply that it has not
+means enough to buy all the good books that are wanted, and cannot afford
+to spend money on bad or even on doubtful ones. If you have excluded any
+highly-sought-for book on insufficient evidence, never fail to revise the
+judgment. All that can be expected of any library is approximately just
+and wise selection, having regard to merit, interest, and moral tone,
+more than to novelty or popularity.
+
+In the matter of choice, individual opinions are of small value. Never
+buy a book simply because some reader extols it as very fine, or
+"splendid," or "perfectly lovely." Such praises are commonly to be
+distrusted in direct proportion to their extravagance.
+
+A good lesson to libraries is furnished in the experience of the
+Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library. In 1878, out of 16,000 volumes in that
+library, no less than 6,000 were novels. The governing board, on the
+plea of giving people what they wanted, bought nearly all new books of
+fiction, and went so far, even, as to buy of Pinkerton's Detective
+stories, fifteen copies each, fifteen of all Mrs. Southworth's novels,
+etc. But a change took place in the board, and the librarian was
+permitted to stop the growing flood of worthless fiction, and as fast as
+the books were worn out, they were replaced by useful reading. It
+resulted that four years later, with 40,000 volumes in the library, only
+7,000 were novels, or less than one-fifth, instead of more than one-third
+of the whole collection, as formerly. In the same time, the percentage of
+fiction drawn out was reduced from 69 per cent. of the aggregate books
+read, to 50 per cent.
+
+Libraries are always complaining that they cannot buy many valuable books
+from lack of funds. Yet some of them buy a great many that are valueless
+in spite of this lack. Can any thing be conceived more valueless than a
+set of Sylvanus Cobb's novels, reprinted to the number of thirty-five to
+forty, from the New York Ledger? Yet these have been bought for scores of
+libraries, which could not afford the latest books in science and art, or
+biography, history, or travel. There are libraries in which the latest
+books on electricity, or sewerage, or sanitary plumbing, might have saved
+many lives, but which must go without them, because the money has been
+squandered on vapid and pernicious literature.
+
+In almost every library, while some branches of knowledge are fairly
+represented, others are not represented at all. Nearly all present
+glaring deficiencies, and these are often caused by want of systematic
+plan in building up the collection. Boards of managers are frequently
+changed, and the policy of the library with them. All the more important
+is it that the librarian should be so well equipped with a definite aim,
+and with knowledge and skill competent to urge that aim consistently, as
+to preserve some unity of plan.
+
+I need not add that a librarian should be always wide awake to the needs
+of his library in every direction. It should be taken for granted that
+its general aim is to include the best books in the whole range of human
+knowledge. With the vast area of book production before him, he should
+strengthen every year some department, taking them in order of
+importance.
+
+Some scholarly writers tell us that very few books are essential to a
+good education. James Russell Lowell named five, which in his view
+embraced all the essentials; namely, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare,
+Cervantes, and Goethe's Faust. Prof. Charles E. Norton of Harvard
+remarked that this list might even be abridged so as to embrace only
+Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. I can only regard such exclusiveness as
+misleading, though conceding the many-sidedness of these great writers.
+To extend the list is the function of all public libraries, as well as of
+most of the private ones. Next after the really essential books, that
+library will be doing its public good service which acquires all the
+important works that record the history of man. This will include
+biography, travels and voyages, science, and much besides, as well as
+history.
+
+Special pains should be taken in every library to have every thing
+produced in its own town, county, and State. Not only books, but all
+pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, and even broadsides or circulars,
+should be sought for and stored up as memorials of the present age,
+tending in large part rapidly to disappear.
+
+In selecting editions of standard authors, one should always
+discriminate, so as to secure for the library, if not the best, at least
+good, clear type, sound, thick paper, and durable binding. Cheap and
+poor editions wear out quickly, and have to be thrown away for better
+ones, which wise economy should have selected in the first place. For
+example, a widely circulated edition of Scott's novels, found in most
+libraries, has the type so worn and battered by the many large editions
+printed from the plates, that many letters and words are wanting, thus
+spoiling not only the pleasure but abridging the profit of the reader in
+perusing the novels. The same is true of one edition of Cooper. Then
+there are many cheap reprints of English novels in the Seaside and other
+libraries which abound in typographical errors. A close examination of a
+cheap edition of a leading English novelist's works revealed more than
+3,000 typographical errors in the one set of books! It would be
+unpardonable carelessness to buy such books for general reading because
+they are cheap.
+
+Librarians should avoid what are known as subscription books, as a rule,
+though some valid exceptions exist. Most of such books are profusely
+illustrated and in gaudy bindings, gotten up to dazzle the eye. If works
+of merit, it is better to wait for them, than to subscribe for an
+unfinished work, which perhaps may never reach completion.
+
+A librarian or book collector should be ever observant of what he may
+find to enrich his collection. When in a book-store, or a private or
+public library, he should make notes of such works seen as are new to
+him, with any characteristics which their custodian may remark upon. Such
+personal examination is more informing than any catalogue.
+
+I think each public library should possess, besides a complete set of the
+English translations of the Greek and Latin classics, a full set of the
+originals, for the benefit of scholarly readers. These classic texts can
+be had complete in modern editions for a very moderate price.
+
+How far duplicate volumes should be bought should depend upon demand, and
+the views of the purchasing powers. There is a real need of more than one
+copy of almost every standard work, else it will be perpetually out,
+giving occasion for numerous complaints from those who use the library.
+It would be a good rule to keep one copy always in, and at the service of
+readers, of every leading history, standard poet, or popular novel. Then
+the duplicate copies for circulation may be one or more, as experience
+and ability to provide may determine. A library which caters to the
+novel-reading habit as extensively as the New York Mercantile (a
+subscription library) has to buy fifty to one hundred copies of "Trilby,"
+for example, to keep up with the demand. No such obligation exists for
+the free public libraries. They, however, often buy half a dozen to a
+dozen copies of a very popular story, when new, and sell them out after
+the demand has slackened or died away.
+
+The methods of selection and purchase in public libraries are very
+various. In the Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, the librarian makes a
+list of desiderata, has it manifolded, and sends a copy to each of the
+thirteen members of the Board of directors. This list is reported on by
+the members at the next monthly meeting of the Board, and generally, in
+the main, approved. Novels and stories are not bought until time has
+shown of what value they may be. The aim is mainly educational at the
+Worcester library, very special pains being taken to aid all the pupils
+and teachers in the public schools, by careful selection, and providing
+duplicate or more copies of important works.
+
+In the Public Library of Cleveland, Ohio, there is appointed out of the
+governing Board a book-committee of three. To one of these are referred
+English books wanted, to another French, and to the third German books.
+This sub-committee approves or amends the Librarian's recommendations,
+at its discretion; but expensive works are referred to the whole board
+for determination.
+
+In the New York Mercantile Library, which must keep continually up to
+date in its supply of new books, the announcements in all the morning
+papers are daily scanned, and books just out secured by immediate order.
+Many publishers send in books on approval, which are frequently bought.
+An agent in London is required to send on the day of publication all new
+books on certain subjects.
+
+The library boards of management meet weekly in New York and
+Philadelphia, but monthly in most country libraries. The selection of
+books made by committees introduces often an element of chance, not quite
+favorable to the unity of plan in developing the resources of the
+library. But with a librarian of large information, discretion, and
+skill, there need seldom be any difficulty in securing approval of his
+selections, or of most of them. In some libraries the librarian is
+authorized to buy at discretion additions of books in certain lines, to
+be reported at the next meeting of the board; and to fill up all
+deficiencies in periodicals that are taken. This is an important
+concession to his judgment, made in the interest of completeness in the
+library, saving a delay of days and sometimes weeks in waiting for the
+board of directors.
+
+All orders sent out for accessions should previously be compared with the
+alphabeted order-card list, as well as with the general catalogue of the
+library, to avoid duplication. After this the titles are to be
+incorporated in the alphabet of all outstanding orders, to be withdrawn
+only on receipt of the books.
+
+The library should invite suggestions from all frequenting it, of books
+recommended and not found in the collection. A blank record-book for this
+purpose, or an equivalent in order-cards, should be always kept on the
+counter of the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2.
+
+BOOK BUYING.
+
+
+The buying of books is to some men a pastime; to others it is a passion;
+but to the librarian and the intelligent book collector it is both a
+business and a pleasure. The man who is endowed with a zeal for knowledge
+is eager to be continually adding to the stores which will enable him to
+acquire and to dispense that knowledge. Hence the perusal of catalogues
+is to him an ever fresh and fascinating pursuit. However hampered he may
+be by the lack of funds, the zest of being continually in quest of some
+coveted volumes gives him an interest in every sale catalogue, whether of
+bookseller or of auctioneer. He is led on by the perennial hope that he
+may find one or more of the long-wished for and waited-for _desiderata_
+in the thin pamphlet whose solid columns bristle with book-titles in
+every variety of abbreviation and arrangement. It is a good plan, if one
+can possibly command the time, to read every catalogue of the book
+auctions, and of the second-hand book dealers, which comes to hand. You
+will thus find a world of books chronicled and offered which you do not
+want, because you have got them already: you will find many, also, which
+you want, but which you know you cannot have; and you may find some of
+the very volumes which you have sought through many years in vain. In any
+case, you will have acquired valuable information--whether you acquire
+any books or not; since there is hardly a priced catalogue, of any
+considerable extent, from which you cannot reap knowledge of some
+kind--knowledge of editions, knowledge of prices, and knowledge of the
+comparative scarcity or full supply of many books, with a glimpse of
+titles which you may never have met before. The value of the study of
+catalogues as an education in bibliography can never be over-estimated.
+
+The large number of active and discriminating book-buyers from America
+has for years past awakened the interest and jealousy of collectors
+abroad, where it has very largely enhanced the price of all first-class
+editions, and rare works.
+
+No longer, as in the early days of Dibdin and Heber, is the competition
+for the curiosities of old English literature confined to a half-score of
+native amateurs. True, we have no such omnivorous gatherers of literary
+rubbish as that magnificent _helluo librorum_, Richard Heber, who amassed
+what was claimed to be the largest collection of books ever formed by a
+single individual. Endowed with a princely fortune, and an undying
+passion for the possession of books, he spent nearly a million dollars in
+their acquisition. His library, variously stated at from 105,000 volumes
+(by Dr. Dibdin) to 146,000 volumes (by Dr. Allibone) was brought to the
+hammer in 1834. The catalogue filled 13 octavo volumes, and the sale
+occupied 216 days. The insatiable owner (who was a brother of Reginald
+Heber, Bishop of Calcutta) died while still collecting, at the age of
+sixty, leaving his enormous library, which no single house of ordinary
+size could hold, scattered in half a dozen mansions in London, Oxford,
+Paris, Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent.
+
+Yet the owner of this vast mass of mingled nonsense and erudition, this
+library of the curiosities of literature, was as generous in imparting as
+in acquiring his literary treasures. No English scholar but was freely
+welcome to the loan of his volumes; and his own taste and critical
+knowledge are said to have been of the first order.
+
+From this, probably the most extensive private library ever gathered, let
+us turn to the largest single purchase, in number of volumes, made at one
+time for a public library. When Dr. J. G. Cogswell went abroad in 1848,
+to lay the foundations of the Astor Library, he took with him credentials
+for the expenditure of $100,000; and, what was of even greater
+importance, a thoroughly digested catalogue of _desiderata_, embracing
+the most important books in every department of literature and science.
+No such opportunity of buying the finest books at the lowest prices is
+likely ever to occur again, as the fortuitous concourse of events brought
+to Dr. Cogswell. It was the year of revolutions--the year when the
+thrones were tottering or falling all over Europe, when the wealthy and
+privileged classes were trembling for their possessions, and anxious to
+turn them into ready money. In every time of panic, political or
+financial, the prices of books, as well as of all articles of luxury, are
+the first to fall. Many of the choicest collections came to the hammer;
+multitudes were eager to sell--but there were few buyers except the book
+merchants, who were all ready to sell again. The result was that some
+80,000 volumes were gathered for the Astor Library, embracing a very
+large share of the best editions and the most expensive works, with many
+books strictly denominated rare, and nearly all bound in superior style,
+at an average cost of about $1.40 per volume. This extraordinary good
+fortune enabled the Astor Library to be opened on a very small endowment,
+more splendidly equipped for a library of reference than any new
+institution could be today with four or five times the money.
+
+Compared with such opportunities as these, you may consider the
+experiences of the little libraries, and the narrow means of recruitment
+generally found, as very literally the day of small things. But a wise
+apportionment of small funds, combined with a good knowledge of the
+commercial value of books, and perpetual vigilance in using
+opportunities, will go very far toward enlarging any collection in the
+most desirable directions.
+
+Compare for a moment with the results stated of the Astor Library's early
+purchases, the average prices paid by British Libraries for books
+purchased from 1826 to 1854, as published in a parliamentary return. The
+average cost per volume varied from 16_s_ or about $4 a volume, for the
+University Library of Edinburgh, to 4_s_ 6_d_, or $1.10 a volume for the
+Manchester Free Library. The latter, however, were chiefly popular new
+books, published at low prices, while the former included many costly old
+works, law books, etc. The British Museum Library's average was 8_s_ 5_d_
+or about $2.00 per volume. Those figures represent cloth binding, while
+the Astor's purchases were mostly in permanent leather bindings.
+
+Averages are very uncertain standards of comparison, as a single book
+rarity often costs more than a hundred volumes of the new books of the
+day; but in a library filled with the best editions of classical and
+scientific works, and reference books, I presume that two dollars a
+volume is not too high an estimate of average cost, in these days
+represented by the last twenty years. For a circulating library, on the
+other hand, composed chiefly of what the public most seek to read, half
+that average would perhaps express the full commercial value of the
+collection. Of its intrinsic value I will not here pause to speak.
+
+There are many methods of book buying, of which we may indicate the
+principal as follows:
+
+    1. By direct orders from book dealers.
+    2. By competition on select lists of wants.
+    3. By order from priced catalogues.
+    4. By purchase at auction sales.
+    5. By personal research among book stocks.
+    6. By lists and samples of books sent on approval.
+
+Each of these methods has its advantages--and, I may add, its
+disadvantages likewise. The collector who combines them, as opportunity
+presents, is most likely to make his funds go the farthest, and to enrich
+his collection the most. Direct orders for purchase are necessary for
+most new books wanted, except in the case of the one government library,
+which in most countries, receives them under copyright provision. An
+advantageous arrangement can usually be made with one or more
+book-dealers, to supply all new books at a fairly liberal discount from
+retail prices. And it is wise management to distribute purchases where
+good terms are made, as thereby the trade will feel an interest in the
+library, and a mutuality of interest will secure more opportunities and
+better bargains.
+
+The submission of lists of books wanted, to houses having large stocks or
+good facilities, helps to make funds go as far as possible through
+competition. By the typewriter such lists can now be manifolded much more
+cheaply than they can be written or printed.
+
+Selection from priced catalogues presents a constantly recurring
+opportunity of buying volumes of the greatest consequence, to fill gaps
+in any collection, and often at surprisingly low prices. Much as book
+values have been enhanced of late years, there are yet catalogues issued
+by American, English and continental dealers which quote books both of
+the standard and secondary class at very cheap rates. Even now English
+books are sold by the Mudie and the W. H. Smith lending libraries in
+London, after a very few months, at one-half to one-fourth their original
+publishing price. These must usually be rebound, but by instructing your
+agent to select copies which are clean within, all the soil of the edges
+will disappear with the light trimming of the binder.
+
+Purchase at auction supplies a means of recruiting libraries both public
+and private with many rare works, and with the best editions of the
+standard authors, often finely bound. The choice private libraries of the
+country, as well as the poor ones, tend to pour themselves sooner or
+later into public auctions. The collectors of books, whose early avidity
+to amass libraries of fine editions was phenomenal, rarely persist in
+cultivating the passion through life. Sometimes they are overtaken by
+misfortune--sometimes by indifference--the bibliomania not being a
+perennial inspiration, but often an acute and fiery attack, which in a
+few years burns out. Even if the library gathered with so much money and
+pains descends to the heirs of the collector, the passion for books is
+very seldom an inherited one. Thus the public libraries are constantly
+recruited by the opportunities of selection furnished by the forced sale
+of the private ones. Here, public competition frequently runs up the
+price of certain books to an exorbitant degree, while those not wanted
+often sell for the merest trifle. One should have a pretty clear idea of
+the approximate commercial value of books, before competing for them at
+public sale. He may, however, if well persuaded in his own mind as to the
+importance or the relative unimportance to his own collection of any
+work, regulate his bids by that standard, regardless of commercial value,
+except as a limit beyond which he will not go. Few librarians can
+personally attend auction sales--nor is it needful, when limits can so
+easily be set to orders. It is never safe to send an unlimited bid, as
+there may be others without limit, in which case the book is commonly
+awarded to the most remote bidder.
+
+There are many curiosities of the auction room, one of them being the
+frequent re-appearance of book rarities which have been through several
+auctions, sometimes at intervals of years, keenly competed for by rival
+bibliophiles, and carried off in triumph by some ardent collector, who
+little thought at the time how soon his own collection would come to the
+hammer.
+
+There are also many curiosities of compilation in auction catalogues. Not
+to name errors of commission, like giving the authorship of books to the
+wrong name, and errors of omission, like giving no author's name at all,
+some catalogues are thickly strewn with the epithets _rare_--and _very
+rare_, when the books are sufficiently common in one or the other market.
+Do not be misled by these surface indications. Books are often attributed
+in catalogues to their editor or translator, and the unwary buyer may
+thus find himself saddled with a duplicate already in his own collection.
+There has been much improvement in late years in the care with which
+auction catalogues are edited, and no important collection at least is
+offered, without having first passed through the hands of an expert,
+familiar with bibliography. It is the minor book sales where the
+catalogues receive no careful editing, and where the dates and editions
+are frequently omitted, that it is necessary to guard against. It is well
+to refrain from sending any bids out of such lists, because they furnish
+no certain identification of the books, and if all would do the same,
+thus diminishing the competition and the profit of the auctioneer, he
+might learn never to print a catalogue without date, place of
+publication, and full name of author of every book offered.
+
+Never be too eager to acquire an auction book, unless you are very
+thoroughly assured that it is one of the kind truly designated
+_rarissimus_. An eminent and thoroughly informed book collector, with an
+experience of forty years devoted to book auctions and book catalogues,
+assured me that it was his experience that almost every book would turn
+up on the average about every seven years. Of course there are notable
+exceptions--and especially among the class of books known as
+_incunabula_, (or cradle-books printed in the infancy of printing) and of
+early Americana: but it is not these which the majority of libraries are
+most in search of. Remember always, if you lose a coveted volume, that
+there will be another chance--perhaps many of them. The private
+collector, who carries it off against you, has had no former opportunity
+to get the rare volume, and may never have another. He is therefore
+justified in paying what is to ordinary judgment an extraordinary price.
+Individual collectors die, but public libraries are immortal.
+
+If you become thoroughly conversant with priced catalogues, you will make
+fewer mistakes than most private buyers. Not only catalogues of notable
+collections, with the prices obtained at auction, but the large and very
+copious catalogues of such London book-dealers as Quaritch and Sotheran,
+are accessible in the great city libraries. These are of the highest use
+in suggesting the proximate prices at which important books have been or
+may be acquired. Since 1895, annual volumes entitled "American Book
+Prices Current" have been issued, giving the figures at which books have
+been sold at all the principal auction sales of the year.
+
+There is no word so much abused as the term _rare_, when applied to
+books. Librarians know well the unsophisticated citizen who wants to sell
+at a high price a "rare" volume of divinity "a hundred and fifty years
+old" (worth possibly twenty-five cents to half a dollar,) and the
+persistent woman who has the rarest old bible in the country, which she
+values anywhere from fifty to five hundred dollars, and which turns out
+on inspection to be an imperfect copy of one of Barker's multitudinous
+editions of 1612 to '18, which may be picked up at five to eight
+shillings in any old London book-shop. The confident assertions so often
+paraded, even in catalogues, "only three copies known," and the like, are
+to be received with absolute incredulity, and the claims of ignorant
+owners of books who fancy that their little pet goose is a fine swan,
+because they never saw another, are as ridiculous as the laudation
+bestowed by a sapient collector upon two of his most valued nuggets.
+"This, sir, is unique, but not so unique as the other."
+
+Buying books by actual inspection at the book-shops is even more
+fascinating employment than buying them through catalogues. You thus come
+upon the most unexpected volumes unawares. You open the covers, scan the
+title-pages, get a glimpse of the plates, and flit from book to book,
+like a bee gathering honey for its hive. It is a good way to recruit your
+library economically, to run through the stock of a book-dealer
+systematically--neglecting no shelf, but selecting throughout the whole
+stock, and laying aside what you think you may want. When this is done,
+you will have quite a pile of literature upon which to negotiate with the
+proprietor. It is cheaper to buy thus at wholesale than by piecemeal,
+because the bookseller will make you a larger discount on a round lot of
+which you relieve his shelves.
+
+Another method of recruiting your library is the examination of books "on
+approval." Most book-dealers will be so obliging as to send in parcels of
+books for the inspection of a librarian or collector, who can thus
+examine them leisurely and with more thoroughness than in a book store,
+without leaving his business.
+
+All books, by whatever course they may be purchased, are indispensably
+to be collated before they are accepted and paid for. Neglect of this
+will fill any library with imperfections, since second-hand books are
+liable to have missing leaves, or plates, or maps, while new books may
+lack signatures or plates, or be wrongly bound together. In the case of
+new books, or books still in print, the publisher is bound to make good
+an imperfection.
+
+In old books, this is usually impossible, and the only remedy is to
+return the imperfect books upon the seller's hands, unless there may be a
+reason, such as the rarity of the volume, or its comparative little cost,
+or the trifling nature of the imperfection, for retaining it. The
+equities in these cases are in favor of the buyer, who is presumed to
+have purchased a perfect copy. But the right of reclamation must be
+exercised promptly, or it may be forfeited by lapse of time. If an
+imperfection in any book you order is noted in the catalogue, it is not
+subject to return. I have ever found the book auctioneers most courteous
+and considerate in their dealings--and the same can be said of the book
+trade generally, among whom instances of liberality to libraries are by
+no means rare.
+
+One of the choicest pleasures of the book collector, whether private
+student or librarian, is to visit the second-hand book-shops of any city,
+and examine the stock with care. While he may find but few notable
+treasures in one collection, a search through several shops will be
+almost sure to reward him. Here are found many of the outpourings of the
+private libraries, formed by specialists or amateurs, and either
+purchased by the second-hand dealer _en bloc_, or bid off by him at some
+auction sale. Even rare books are picked up in this way, no copies of
+which can be had by order, because long since "out of print." The stock
+in these shops is constantly changing, thus adding a piquant and
+sometimes exciting element to the book-hunter, who is wise in proportion
+as he seizes quickly upon all opportunities of new "finds" by frequent
+visits. To mourn over a lost chance in rare books is often more grievous
+to the zealous collector, than to lose a large share out of his fortune;
+while to exult over a literary nugget long sought and at length found is
+a pleasure to which few others can be compared.
+
+Of the many _bouquinistes_ whose open-air shops line the quays of Paris
+along the Seine, numbering once as many as a hundred and fifty dealers in
+second-hand books, I have no room to treat; books have been written about
+them, and the _litterateurs_ of France, of Europe, and of America have
+profited by countless bargains in their learned wares. Nor can I dwell
+upon the literary wealth of London book-shops, dark and dingy, but ever
+attractive to the hungry scholar, or the devotee of bibliomania.
+
+Of the many second-hand booksellers (or rather sellers of second-hand
+books) in American cities, the more notable have passed from the stage of
+action in the last quarter of a century. Old William Gowans, a quaint,
+intelligent Scotchman, in shabby clothes and a strong face deeply marked
+with small pox, was for many years the dean of this fraternity in New
+York. His extensive book-shop in Nassau street, with its dark cellar, was
+crowded and packed with books on shelves, on stairways and on the floors,
+heaped and piled in enormous masses, amid which the visitor could hardly
+find room to move. On one of the piles you might find the proprietor
+seated--
+
+    Books to the right of him,
+    Books to the left of him,
+    Books behind him,
+    Volleyed and tumbled,
+
+while he answered inquiries for books from clergymen and students, or
+gruffly bargained with a boy or an old woman for a dilapidated lot of
+old books. He had a curious quizzical way with strangers, who at once set
+him down as an oddity, and his impatience with ignoramuses and bores gave
+him the repute of crustiness, which was redeemed by suavity enough
+whenever he met with people of intelligence.
+
+Gowans issued scores of catalogues of his stock, in which titles were
+often illustrated by notes, always curious and often amusing, credited to
+"Western Memorabilia," a work which no bookseller or man of letters had
+ever heard of, but which was shrewdly suspected to have been a projected
+scrap-book of the observations and opinions of William Gowans.
+
+There was another eccentric book-dealer's shop in Nassau street kept by
+one John Doyle, who aimed so high in his profession as to post over his
+door a sign reading "The Moral Centre of the Intellectual Universe." This
+establishment was notably full of old editions of books of English
+history and controversial theology.
+
+The most famous second-hand book-shop in Boston was Burnham's, whose
+fore-name was Thomas Oliver Hazard Perry, shortened into "Perry Burnham"
+by his familiars. He was a little, pale-faced, wiry, nervous man, with
+piercing black eyes and very brusque manners. In old and musty books he
+lived and moved and had his being, for more than a generation. He
+exchanged a stuffy, narrow shop in Cornhill for more spacious quarters in
+Washington street, near School street, where he bought and sold books
+with an assiduous devotion to business, never trusting to others what he
+could do himself. He was proud of his collection and its extent. He
+bought books and pamphlets at auction literally by the cart-load, every
+thing that nobody else wanted being bid off to Burnham at an
+insignificant price, almost nominal. He got a wide reputation for
+selling cheaply, but he always knew when to charge a stiff price for a
+book, and to stick to it. Once when I was pricing a lot of miscellaneous
+books picked out for purchase, mostly under a dollar a volume, we came to
+a copy of "The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of
+America," 1st edition, Philadelphia, 1781, of which two hundred copies
+only were printed, by order of Congress. This copy was in the original
+boards, uncut, and with the autograph of Timothy Pickering on the title
+page. "If the Congress Library wants that book," said Mr. Burnham, "it
+will have to pay eight dollars for it." I took it, well pleased to secure
+what years of search had failed to bring. The next year my satisfaction
+was enhanced when an inferior copy of the same book was offered at twenty
+dollars.
+
+Burnham died a wealthy man, having amassed a million dollars in trade and
+by rise in real estate, as he owned the land on which the Parker House
+stands in Boston.
+
+Among Philadelphia dealers in second-hand books, one John Penington was
+recognized as most intelligent and honorable. He was a book-lover and a
+scholar, and one instinctively ranked him not as a bookseller, but as a
+gentleman who dealt in books. On his shelves one always found books of
+science and volumes in foreign languages.
+
+Another notable dealer was John Campbell, a jolly, hearty Irish-American,
+with a taste for good books, and an antipathy to negroes, as keen as the
+proverbial hatred of the devil for holy water. Campbell wrote a book
+entitled "Negromania," published in 1851, in which his creed was set
+forth in strong language. He was a regular bidder at book auctions, where
+his burly form and loud voice made him a prominent figure.
+
+Of notable auction sales of books, and of the extravagant prices obtained
+for certain editions by ambitious and eager competition, there is little
+room to treat. The oft-told story of the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471,
+carried off at the Roxburghe sale in 1812, at L2,260 from Earl Spencer by
+the Marquis of Blandford, and re-purchased seven years after at another
+auction for L918, has been far surpassed in modern bibliomania. "The
+sound of that hammer," wrote the melodramatic Dibdin, "echoed through
+Europe:" but what would he have said of the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg
+and Fust (1450-55) sold in 1897, at the Ashburnham sale, for four
+thousand pounds, or of the Latin Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, 2d ed.
+1459, which brought L4,950 at the Syston Park sale in 1884? This last sum
+(about twenty-four thousand dollars) is the largest price ever yet
+recorded as received for a single volume. Among books of less rarity,
+though always eagerly sought, is the first folio Shakespeare of 1623, a
+very fine and perfect copy of which brought L716.2 at Daniel's sale in
+1864. Copies warranted perfect have since been sold in London for L415 to
+L470. In New York, a perfect but not "tall" copy brought $4,200 in 1891
+at auction. Walton's "Compleat Angler," London, 1st ed. 1653, a little
+book of only 250 pages, sold for L310 in 1891. It was published for one
+shilling and sixpence. The first edition of Robinson Crusoe brought L75
+at the Crampton sale in 1896.
+
+The rage for first editions of very modern books reached what might be
+called high-water mark some time since, and has been on the decline.
+Shelley's "Queen Mab," 1st ed. 1813, was sold at London for L22.10, and
+his "Refutation of Deism," 1814, was sold at L33, at a London sale in
+1887. In New York, many first editions of Shelley's poems brought the
+following enormous prices in 1897.
+
+    Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, Italy, 1821, $335.
+    Alastor, London, 1816, $130.
+    The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $65.
+    Hellas, London, 1822, $13.
+
+But these were purely adventitious prices, as was clearly shown in the
+sale at the same auction rooms, a year or two earlier, of the following:
+
+    Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, 1821, $19.
+    Alastor, London, 1816, $32.
+    The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $21.
+    Hellas, London, 1822, $2.
+
+The sales occasionally made at auction of certain books at extraordinary
+prices, prove nothing whatever as to the real market value, for these
+reasons: (1) The auctioneer often has an unlimited bid, and the price is
+carried up to an inordinate height. (2) Two or more bidders present,
+infatuated by the idea of extreme rarity, bid against one another until
+all but one succumb, when the price has reached a figure which it is a
+mild use of terms to call absurd. (3) Descriptions in sale catalogues,
+though often entirely unfounded, characterising a book as "excessively
+rare;" "only -- copies known," "very scarce," "never before offered at
+our sales," etc., may carry the bidding on a book up to an unheard-of
+price.
+
+The appeal always lies to the years against the hours; and many a poor
+book-mad enthusiast has had to rue his too easy credulity in giving an
+extravagant sum for books which he discovers later that he could have
+bought for as many shillings as he has paid dollars. Not that the
+_rarissimi_ of early printed books can ever be purchased for a trifle;
+but it should ever be remembered that even at the sales where a few--a
+very few--bring the enormous prices that are bruited abroad, the mass of
+the books offered are knocked down at very moderate figures, or are even
+sacrificed at rates very far below their cost. The possessor of one of
+the books so advertised as sold at some auction for a hundred dollars or
+upwards, if he expects to realise a tithe of the figure quoted, will
+speedily find himself in the vocative.
+
+While there are almost priceless rarities not to be found in the market
+by any buyer, let the book collector be consoled by the knowledge that
+good books, in good editions, were never so easy to come by as now. A
+fine library can be gathered by any one with very moderate means,
+supplemented by a fair amount of sagacity and common sense. The buyer
+with a carefully digested list of books wanted will find that to buy them
+wisely takes more time and less money than he had anticipated. The time
+is required to acquaint himself with the many competing editions, with
+their respective merits and demerits. This involves a comparison of type,
+paper, and binding, as well as the comparative prices of various dealers
+for the same books. No one who is himself gifted with good perceptions
+and good taste, should trust to other hands the selection of his library.
+His enjoyment of it will be proportioned to the extent to which it is his
+own creation. The passion for nobly written books, handsomely printed,
+and clothed in a fitting garb, when it has once dawned, is not to be
+defrauded of its satisfaction by hiring a commission merchant to appease
+it. What we do for ourselves, in the acquirement of any knowledge, is apt
+to be well done: what is done for us by others is of little value.
+
+We have heard of some uninformed _parvenus_, grown suddenly rich, who
+have first ordered a magnificent library room fitted with rose-wood,
+marble and gilded trappings, and then ordered it to be filled with
+splendidly bound volumes at so much per volume. And it is an authentic
+fact, that a bookseller to the Czar of Russia one Klostermann, actually
+sold books at fifty to one hundred roubles by the yard, according to the
+binding. The force of folly could no farther go, to debase the aims and
+degrade the intellect of man.
+
+In the chapter upon rare books, the reader will find instances in great
+variety of the causes that contribute to the scarcity and enhancement of
+prices of certain books, without at all affecting their intrinsic value,
+which may be of the smallest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.
+
+THE ART OF BOOK BINDING.
+
+
+In these suggestions upon the important question of the binding of books,
+I shall have nothing to say of the history of the art, and very little of
+its aesthetics. The plainest and most practical hints will be aimed at,
+and if my experience shall prove of value to any, I shall be well
+rewarded for giving it here. For other matters readers will naturally
+consult some of the numerous manuals of book-binding in English, French
+and German. The sumptuous bindings executed in the sixteenth century,
+under the patronage and the eyes of Grolier, the famous tooled
+masterpieces of Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup, Trautz and other French
+artists, and the beautiful gems of the binder's art from the hands of
+Roger Payne, Lewis, Mackenzie, Hayday and Bedford, are they not
+celebrated in the pages of Dibdin, Lacroix, Fournier, Wheatley, and
+Robert Hoe?
+
+There are some professed lovers of books who affect either indifference
+or contempt for the style in which their favorites are dressed. A well
+known epigram of Burns is sometimes quoted against the fondness for fine
+bindings which widely prevails in the present day, as it did in that of
+the Scottish Poet. A certain Scottish nobleman, endowed with more wealth
+than brains, was vain of his splendidly bound Shakespeare, which,
+however, he never read. Burns, on opening the folio, found the leaves
+sadly worm-eaten, and wrote these lines on the fly-leaf:
+
+    "Through and through th' inspired leaves,
+        Ye maggots make your windings;
+      But O respect his lordship's taste,
+        And spare the golden bindings!"
+
+Yet no real book-lover fails to appreciate the neatness and beauty of a
+tasteful binding, any more than he is indifferent to the same qualities
+in literary style. Slovenly binding is almost as offensive to a
+cultivated eye as slovenly composition. No doubt both are "mere
+externals," as we are told, and so are the splendors of scenery, the
+beauty of flowers, and the comeliness of the human form, or features, or
+costume. Talk as men will of the insignificance of dress, it constitutes
+a large share of the attractiveness of the world in which we live.
+
+The two prime requisites of good binding for libraries are neatness and
+solidity. It is pleasant to note the steady improvement in American
+bindings of late years. As the old style of "Half cloth boards," of half
+a century ago, with paper titles pasted on the backs, has given way to
+the neat, embossed, full muslin gilt, so the clumsy and homely sheep-skin
+binding has been supplanted by the half-roan or morocco, with marble or
+muslin sides. Few books are issued, however, either here or abroad, in
+what may be called permanent bindings. The cheapness demanded by buyers
+of popular books forbids this, while it leaves to the taste and fancy of
+every one the selection of the "library style" in which he will have his
+collection permanently dressed.
+
+What is the best style of binding for a select or a public library? is a
+question often discussed, with wide discrepancies of opinion. The so
+universally prevalent cloth binding is too flimsy for books subjected to
+much use--as most volumes in public collections and many in private
+libraries are likely to be. The choice of the more substantial bindings
+lies between calf and morocco, and between half or full bindings of
+either. For nearly all books, half binding, if well executed, and with
+cloth sides, is quite as elegant, and very nearly as solid and lasting as
+full leather; for if a book is so worn as to need rebinding, it is
+generally in a part where the full binding wears out quite as fast as the
+other. That is, it gets worn at the hinges and on the back, whether full
+or half-bound. The exceptions are the heavy dictionaries, encyclopaedias,
+and other works of reference, which are subjected to much wear and tear
+at the sides, as well as at the back and corners. Full leather is much
+more expensive than half binding, though not doubly so.
+
+Every librarian or book collector should understand something of
+book-binding and its terms, so that he may be able to give clear
+directions as to every item involved in binding, repairing, or
+re-lettering, and to detect imperfect or slighted work.
+
+The qualities that we always expect to find in a well-bound book are
+solidity, flexibility, and elegance. Special examination should be
+directed toward each of these points in revising any lot of books
+returned from a binder. Look at each book with regard to:--
+
+    1. Flexibility in opening.
+
+    2. Evenness of the cover, which should lie flat and
+    smooth--each edge being just parallel with the others
+    throughout.
+
+    3. Compactness--see that the volumes are thoroughly
+    pressed--solid, and not loose or spongy.
+
+    4. Correct and even lettering of titles, and other tooling.
+
+    5. Good wide margins.
+
+A well-bound book always opens out flat, and stays open. It also shuts up
+completely, and when closed stays shut. But how many books do we see
+always bulging open at the sides, or stiffly resisting being opened by
+too great tightness in the back? If the books you have had bound do not
+meet all these requirements, it is time to look for another binder.
+
+The different styles of dressing books may all be summed up in the
+following materials: Boards, cloth, vellum, sheep, bock, pig-skin, calf,
+Russia, and morocco--to which may be added of recent years, buckram,
+duck, linoleum, and the imitations of leather, such as leatherette and
+morocco paper, and of parchment. I take no account here of obsolete
+styles--as ivory, wood, brass, silver and other metals, nor of velvet,
+satin, and other occasional luxuries of the binder's art. These belong to
+the domain of the amateur, the antiquary, or the book-fancier--not to
+that of the librarian or the ordinary book-collector.
+
+Roan leather is nothing but sheep-skin, stained or colored; basil or
+basan is sheepskin tanned in bark, while roan is tanned in sumac, and
+most of the so called moroccos are also sheep, ingeniously grained by a
+mechanical process. As all the manufactures in the world are full of
+"shoddy," or sham materials, the bookbinder's art affords no exception.
+But if the librarian or collector patronises shams, he should at least do
+it with his eyes open, and with due counting of the cost.
+
+Now as to the relative merits and demerits of materials for binding. No
+one will choose boards covered with paper for any book which is to be
+subjected to perusal, and cloth is too flimsy and shaky in its attachment
+to the book, however cheap, for any library volumes which are to be
+constantly in use. It is true that since the bulk of the new books coming
+into any library are bound in cloth, they may be safely left in it until
+well worn; and by this rule, all the books which nobody ever reads may be
+expected to last many years, if not for generations. Cloth is a very
+durable material, and will outlast some of the leathers, but any wetting
+destroys its beauty, and all colors but the darkest soon become soiled
+and repulsive, if in constant use. In most libraries, I hold that every
+cloth-bound book which is read, must sooner or later come to have a
+stout leather jacket. It may go for years, especially if the book is well
+sewed, but to rebinding it must come at last; and the larger the volume,
+the sooner it becomes shaky, or broken at some weak spot.
+
+The many beautiful new forms of cloth binding should have a word of
+praise, but the many more which we see of gaudy, fantastic, and
+meretricious bindings, and frightful combinations of colors must be
+viewed with a shudder.
+
+Vellum, formerly much used for book-bindings, is the modern name for
+parchment. Parchment was the only known writing material up to the 12th
+century, when paper was first invented. There are two kinds--animal and
+vegetable. The vegetable is made from cotton fibre or paper, by dipping
+it in a solution of sulphuric acid and [sometimes] gelatine, then
+removing the acid by a weak solution of ammonia, and smooth finishing by
+rolling the sheets over a heated cylinder. Vegetable parchment is used to
+bind many booklets which it is desired to dress in an elegant or dainty
+style, but is highly unsuitable for library books. Vellum proper is a
+much thicker material, made from the skins of calves, sheep, or lambs,
+soaked in lime-water, and smoothed and hardened by burnishing with a hard
+instrument, or pumice-stone. The common vellum is made from sheep-skin
+splits, or skivers, but the best from whole calf-skins. The hard, strong
+texture of vellum is in its favor, but its white color and tendency to
+warp are fatal objections to it as a binding material.
+
+Vellum is wholly unfit for the shelves of a library; the elegant white
+binding soils with dust, or the use of the hands, more quickly than any
+other; and the vellum warps in a dry climate, or curls up in a heated
+room, so as to be unmanageable upon the shelves, and a nuisance in the
+eyes of librarian and reader alike. The thin vegetable parchment lately
+in vogue for some books and booklets is too unsubstantial for anything
+but a lady's boudoir, where it may have its little day--"a thing of
+beauty," but by no means "a joy forever."
+
+Sheepskin--once the full binding for most school-books, and for a large
+share of law and miscellaneous works for libraries, is now but little
+used, except in its disguised forms. It is too soft a leather for hard
+wear and tear, and what with abrasion and breaking at the hinges (termed
+by binders the joints), it will give little satisfaction in the long run.
+Under the effect of gas and heated atmospheres sheep crumbles and turns
+to powder. Its cheapness is about its only merit, and even this is
+doubtful economy, since no binding can be called cheap that has to be
+rebound or repaired every few years. In the form of half-roan or bock,
+colored sheep presents a handsome appearance on the shelf, and in volumes
+or sets which are reasonably secure from frequent handling, one is
+sometimes justified in adopting it, as it is far less expensive than
+morocco. Pig-skin has been recently revived as a binding material, but
+though extremely hard and durable, it is found to warp badly on the
+shelves.
+
+Calf bindings have always been great favorites with book-lovers, and
+there are few things more beautiful--_prima facie_, than a volume
+daintily bound in light French calf, as smooth as glass, as fine as silk,
+with elegant gold tooling without and within, gilt edges, and fly-leaves
+of finest satin. I said beautiful, _prima facie_--and this calls to mind
+the definition of that law term by a learned Vermont jurist, who said:
+"Gentlemen of the jury, I must explain to you that a _prima facie_ case
+is a case that is very good in front, but may be very bad in the rear."
+So of our so much lauded and really lovely calf bindings: they develop
+qualities in use which give us pause. Calf is the most brittle of the
+leathers--hence it is always breaking at the hinges; it is a very smooth
+leather--hence it shows every scratch instantly; it is a light and
+delicate leather--hence it shows soils and stains more quickly than any
+other. Out of every hundred calf-bound volumes in any well-used library,
+there will not remain ten which have not had to be re-bound or repaired
+at the end of twenty or thirty years. Heavy volumes bound in calf or
+half-calf leather will break by their own weight on the shelves, without
+any use at all; and smaller volumes are sure to have their brittle joints
+snapped asunder by handling sooner or later--it is only a question of
+time.
+
+Next comes Russia leather, which is very thick and strong, being made of
+the hides of cattle, colored, and perfumed by the oil of birch, and made
+chiefly in Russia. The objections to this leather are its great cost, its
+stiffness and want of elasticity, and its tendency to desiccate and lose
+all its tenacity in the dry or heated atmosphere of our libraries. It
+will break at the hinges--though not so readily as calf.
+
+Lastly, we have the morocco leather, so called because it was brought
+from Morocco, in Africa, and still we get the best from thence, and from
+the Mediterranean ports of the Levant--whence comes another name for the
+best of this favorite leather, "Levant morocco," which is the skin of the
+mountain goat, and reckoned superior to all other leathers. The
+characteristics of the genuine morocco, sometimes called Turkey morocco,
+having a pebbled grain, distinguishing it from the smooth morocco, are
+its toughness and durability, combined with softness and flexibility. It
+has a very tenacious fibre, and I have never found a real morocco binding
+broken at the hinges. The old proverb--"there is nothing like
+leather"--is pregnant with meaning, and especially applies to the best
+morocco. As no material yet discovered in so many ages can take the
+place of leather for foot-wear and for harness, such is its tenacity and
+elasticity--so for book coverings, to withstand wear and tear, good
+leather is indispensable. There are thoroughly-bound books existing which
+are five centuries old--representing about the time when leather began to
+replace wood and metals for binding. The three great enemies of books are
+too great heat, too much moisture, and coal gas, which produces a
+sulphurous acid very destructive to bindings, and should never be used in
+libraries. From the dangers which destroy calf and Russia leather,
+morocco is measurably free.
+
+As to color, I usually choose red for books which come to binding or
+rebinding, for these reasons. The bulk of every library is of dark and
+sombre color, being composed of the old-fashioned calf bindings, which
+grow darker with age, mingled with the cloth bindings of our own day, in
+which dark colors predominate. Now the intermixture of red morocco, in
+all or most of the newly bound books, relieves the monotony of so much
+blackness, lights up the shelves, and gives a more cheerful aspect to the
+whole library. Some there are who insist upon varying the colors of
+bindings with the subjects of the books--and the British Museum Library
+actually once bound all works on botany in green, poetry in yellow,
+history in red, and theology in blue; but this is more fanciful than
+important. A second reason for preferring red in moroccos is that, being
+dyed with cochineal, it holds its color more permanently than any
+other--the moroccos not colored red turning to a dingy, disagreeable
+brown after forty or fifty years, while the red are found to be fast
+colors. This was first discovered in the National Library of France, and
+ever since most books in that great collection have been bound in red. A
+celebrated binder having recommended this color to a connoisseur who was
+having fine morocco binding done, instanced the example of the Paris
+Library, whose books, said he, are "mostly red," to which the amateur
+replied that he hoped they were.
+
+Add to the merits of morocco leather the fact that it is not easily
+scratched nor stained, that it is very tough in wear, and resists better
+than any other the moisture and soiling of the hands--and we have a
+material worthy of all acceptance.
+
+In half-binding chosen for the great majority of books because it is much
+cheaper than full leather, the sides are covered with muslin or with some
+kind of colored paper--usually marble. The four corners of every book,
+however, should always be protected by leather or, better still, by
+vellum, which is a firmer material--otherwise they will rapidly wear off,
+and the boards will break easily at their corners. As to the relative
+merits of cloth and paper for the sides of books, cloth is far more
+durable, though it costs more. Paper becomes quickly frayed at the edges,
+or is liable to peel where pasted on, though it may be renewed at small
+expense, and may properly be used except upon the much-read portion of
+the library. The cloth or paper should always harmonize in color with the
+leather to which it is attached. They need not be the same, but they
+should be of similar shade.
+
+One more reason for preferring morocco to other leathers is that you can
+always dispense with lettering-pieces or patches in gilding the titles on
+the back. All light-colored bindings (including law calf) are open to the
+objection that gold lettering is hardly legible upon them. Hence the
+necessity of stamping the titles upon darker pieces of leather, which are
+fastened to the backs. These lettering-pieces become loose in over-heated
+libraries, and tend continually to peel off, entailing the expense of
+repairing or re-lettering. Every morocco bound book can be lettered
+directly upon the leather. Bock is made of the skin of the Persian sheep,
+and is called Persian in London. It is a partially unsuccessful imitation
+of morocco, becoming easily abraded, like all the sheep-skin leathers,
+and although it is to be had in all colors, and looks fairly handsome for
+a time, and is tougher than skiver (or split sheep-skin), the books that
+are bound in it will sooner or later become an eyesore upon the shelves.
+A skin of Persian leather costs about one-third the price of genuine
+morocco, or goat. But the actual saving in binding is in a far less
+ratio--the difference being only six to eight cents per volume. It is
+really much cheaper to use morocco in the first place, than to undergo
+all the risks of deterioration and re-binding.
+
+Of the various imitations of leather, or substitutes for it, we have
+leatherette, leather-cloth, duck, fibrette, feltine, and buckram. Buckram
+and duck are strong cotton or linen fabricks, made of different colors,
+and sometimes figured or embossed to give them somewhat the look of
+leather. Hitherto, they are made mostly in England, and I have learned of
+no American experience in their favor except the use of stout duck for
+covering blank books and binding newspapers. The use of buckram has been
+mostly abandoned by the libraries. Morocco cloth is American, but has no
+advantage over plain muslin or book cloth, that I am aware of.
+Leatherette, made principally of paper, colored and embossed to simulate
+morocco leather, appears to have dropped out of use almost as fast as it
+came in, having no quality of permanence, elegance, or even of great
+cheapness to commend it. Leatherette tears easily, and lacks both
+tenacity and smoothness.
+
+Both feltine and fibrette are made of paper--tear quickly, and are unfit
+for use on any book that is ever likely to be read. All these imitations
+of leather are made of paper as their basis, and hence can never be
+proper substitutes for leather.
+
+All torn leaves or plates in books should be at once mended by pasting a
+very thin onion-skin paper on both sides of the torn leaf, and pressing
+gently between leaves of sized paper until dry.
+
+Corners made of vellum or parchment are more durable than any leather.
+When dry, the parchment becomes as hard almost as iron and resists falls
+or abrasion. To use it on books where the backs are of leather is a
+departure from the uniformity or harmony of style insisted upon by many,
+but in binding books that are to be greatly worn, use should come before
+beauty.
+
+In rebinding, all maps or folded plates should be mounted on thin canvas,
+linen, or muslin, strong and fine, to protect them from inevitable
+tearing by long use. If a coarse or thick cloth is used, the maps will
+not fold or open easily and smoothly.
+
+The cutting or trimming of the edges of books needs to be watched with
+jealous care. Few have reflected that the more margin a binder cuts off,
+the greater his profit on any job, white paper shavings having a very
+appreciable price by the pound. A strictly uncut book is in many American
+libraries a rarity. And of the books which go a second time to the
+binder, although at first uncut, how many retain their fair proportions
+of margin when they come back? You have all seen books in which the text
+has been cut into by the ruthless knife-machine of the binder. This is
+called "bleeding" a book, and there are no words strong enough to
+denounce this murderous and cold-blooded atrocity. The trimming of all
+books should be held within the narrowest limits--for the life of a book
+depends largely upon its preserving a good margin. Its only chance of
+being able to stand a second rebinding may depend upon its being very
+little trimmed at its first. If it must be cut at all, charge your binder
+to take off the merest shaving from either edge.
+
+Every new book or magazine added to the library, if uncut, should be
+carefully cut with a paper-knife before it goes into the hands of any
+reader. Spoiled or torn or ragged edges will be the penalty of neglecting
+this. You have seen people tear open the leaves of books and magazines
+with their fingers--a barbarism which renders him who would be guilty of
+it worthy of banishment from the resorts of civilization. In cutting
+books, the leaves should always be held firmly down--and the knife
+pressed evenly through the uncut leaves to the farthest verge of the
+back. Books which are cut in the loose fashion which many use are left
+with rough or ragged edges always, and often a slice is gouged out of the
+margin by the mis-directed knife. Never trust a book to a novice to be
+cut, without showing him how to do it, and how not to do it.
+
+The collation of new books in cloth or _broche_ should be done before
+cutting, provided they are issued to readers untrimmed. In collating
+books in two or more volumes double watchfulness is needed to guard
+against a missing signature, which may have its place filled by the same
+pages belonging to another volume--a mixture sometimes made in binderies,
+in "gathering" the sheets, and which makes it necessary to see that the
+signatures are right as well as the pages. The collator should check off
+all plates and maps called for by the table of contents to make sure that
+the copy is perfect. Books without pagination are of course to have their
+leaves counted, which is done first in detail, one by one, and then
+verified by a rapid counting in sections, in the manner used by printers
+and binders in counting paper by the quire.
+
+The binding of books may be divided into two styles or methods, namely,
+machine-made book-bindings, and hand-made bindings. Binding by machinery
+is wholly a modern art, and is applied to all or nearly all new books
+coming from the press. As these are, in more than nine cases out of ten,
+bound in cloth covers, and these covers, or cases, are cut out and
+stamped by machinery, such books are called "case-made." The distinction
+between this method of binding and the hand method is that in the former
+the case is made separately from the book, which is then put into it.
+After the sheets of any book come pressed and dried from the printing
+office, the first step is to fold them from the large flat sheets into
+book form. This is sometimes done by hand-folders of bone or some other
+hard material, but in large establishments for making books, it is done
+by a folding machine. This will fold ten thousand or more sheets in a
+day. The folded sheets are next placed in piles or rows, in their
+numerical sequence, and "gathered" by hand, _i. e._: a bindery hand picks
+up the sheets one by one, with great rapidity, until one whole book is
+gathered and collated, and the process is repeated so long as any sheets
+remain. Next, the books are thoroughly pressed or "smashed" as it is
+called, in a powerful smashing-machine, giving solidity to the book,
+which before pressing was loose and spongy. Then the books are sawed or
+grooved in the back by another machine, operating a swiftly moving saw,
+and sewed on cords by still another machine, at about half the cost of
+hand-sewing. Next, they are cut or trimmed on the three edges in a
+cutting-machine. The backs of the books are made round by a
+rounding-machine, leaving the back convex and the front concave in form,
+as seen in all finished books. The books are now ready for the covers.
+These consist of binders' board or mill-board, cut out of large sheets
+into proper size, with lightning-like rapidity, by another machine
+called a rotary board-cutter. The cloth which is to form the back and
+sides of the book is cut out, of proper size for the boards, from great
+rolls of stamped or ribbed or embossed muslin, by another machine. The
+use of cloth, now so universal for book-binding, dates back little more
+than half a century. About 1825, Mr. Leighton, of London, introduced it
+as a substitute for the drab-colored paper then used on the sides, and
+for the printed titles on the backs. The boards are firmly glued to the
+cloth, the edges of which are turned over the boards, and fastened on the
+inside of the covers. The ornamental stamps or figures seen on the
+covers, both at the back and sides are stamped in with a heated die of
+brass, or other metal, worked by machinery. The lettering of the title is
+done in the same way, only that gold-leaf is applied before the die
+falls. Lastly, the book is pasted by its fly leaves or end-leaves,
+(sometimes with the addition of a cloth guard) to the inside of the cloth
+case or cover, and the book is done, after a final pressing. By these
+rapid machine methods a single book-manufacturing house can turn out ten
+thousand volumes in a day, with a rapidity which almost takes the breath
+away from the beholder.
+
+There is a kind of binding which dispenses entirely with sewing the
+sheets of a book. The backs are soaked with a solution of india-rubber,
+and each sheet must be thoroughly agglutinated to the backs, so as to
+adhere firmly to its fellows. This requires that all the sheets shall be
+folded as single leaves or folios, otherwise the inner leaves of the
+sheets, having no sewing, would drop out. This method is employed on
+volumes of plates, music, or any books made up of large separate sheets.
+
+In notable contrast to these rapid methods of binding what are termed
+case-made books, comes the hand-made process, where only partial use of
+machinery is possible.
+
+The rebinding process is divided into three branches: preparing,
+forwarding, and finishing. The most vital distinction between a
+machine-made and a hand-made binding, is that the cloth or case-made book
+is not fastened into its cover in a firm and permanent way, as in
+leather-backed books. It is simply pasted or glued to its boards--not
+interlaced by the cords or bands on which it is sewed. Hence one can
+easily tear off the whole cover of a cloth-bound book, by a slight
+effort, and such volumes tend to come to pieces early, under constant
+wear and tear of library service.
+
+Let us now turn to the practical steps pursued in the treatment of books
+for library use. In re-binding a book, the first step is to take the book
+apart, or, as it is sometimes called, to take it to pieces. This is done
+by first stripping off its cover, if it has one. Cloth covers easily come
+off, as their boards are not tied to the cords on which the book is
+sewed, but are simply fastened by paste or glue to the boards by a muslin
+guard, or else the cloth is glued to the back of the book. If the book is
+leather-covered, or half-bound, _i. e._: with a leather back and
+(usually) leather on its four corners, taking it to pieces is a somewhat
+slower process. The binder's knife is used to cut the leather at the
+joints or hinges of the volume, so that the boards may be removed. The
+cords that tie the boards to the volume are cut at the same time. If the
+book has a loose or flexible back, the whole cover comes easily off: if
+bound with a tight back, the glued leather back must be soaked with a
+sponge full of water, till it is soft enough to peel off, and let the
+sheets be easily separated.
+
+The book is now stripped of its former binding, and the next step is to
+take it apart, signature by signature. A signature is that number of
+leaves which make up one sheet of the book in hand. Thus, an octavo
+volume, or a volume printed in eights, as it is called, has eight leaves,
+or sixteen pages to a signature; a quarto four leaves; a duodecimo, or 12
+mo. twelve leaves. The term signature (from Lat. _signare_, a sign) is
+also applied to a letter or figure printed at the foot of the first page
+of each sheet or section of the book. If the letters are used, the
+signatures begin with A. and follow in regular sequence of the alphabet.
+If the book is a very thick one, (or more than twenty-six signatures)
+then after signature Z, it is customary to duplicate the letters--A.
+A.--etc., for the remaining signatures. If figures are used instead of
+letters, the signatures run on to the last, in order of numbers. These
+letters, indicating signatures are an aid to the binder, in folding,
+"gathering," and collating the consecutive sheets of any book, saving
+constant reference to the "pagination," as it is termed, or the paging of
+the volume, which would take much more time. In many books, you find the
+signature repeated in the "inset," or the inner leaves of the sheet, with
+a star or a figure to mark the sequence. Many books, however, are now
+printed without any signature marks whatever.
+
+To return: in taking apart the sheets or signatures, where they are stuck
+together at the back by adhesive glue or paste, the knife is first used
+to cut the thread in the grooves, where the book is sewed on cords or
+tape. Then the back is again soaked, the sheets are carefully separated,
+and the adhering substance removed by the knife or fingers. Care has to
+be taken to lay the signatures in strict order or sequence of pages, or
+the book may be bound up wrongly. The threads are next to be removed from
+the inside of every sheet. The sheets being all separated, the book is
+next pressed, to render all the leaves smooth, and the book solid for
+binding. Formerly, books were beaten by a powerful hammer, to accomplish
+this, but it is much more quickly and effectively done in most binderies
+by the ordinary screw press. Every pressing of books should leave them
+under pressure at least eight hours.
+
+After pressing, the next step is to sew the sheets on to cords or twine,
+set vertically at proper distances in a frame, called a "sewing bench,"
+for this purpose. No book can be thoroughly well bound if the sewing is
+slighted in any degree. Insist upon strong, honest linen thread--if it
+breaks with a slight pull it is not fit to be used in a book. The book is
+prepared for the sewer by sawing several grooves across the back with a
+common saw. The two end grooves are light and narrow, the central ones
+wider and deeper. Into these inner grooves, the cords fit easily, and the
+book being taken, sheet by sheet, is firmly sewed around the cords, by
+alternate movements of the needle and thread, always along the middle of
+the sheet, the thread making a firm knot at each end (called the
+"kettle-stitch") as it is returned for sewing on the next sheet.
+Sometimes the backs are not sawed at all, but the sheets of the book are
+sewed around the cords, which thus project a little from the back, and
+form the "bands," seen in raised form on the backs of some books. Books
+should be sewed on three to six cords, according to their size. This
+raised-band sewing is reckoned by some a feature of excellent binding.
+The sunken-band style is apt to give a stiff back, while the raised bands
+are usually treated with a flexible back. When sewed, the book is
+detached from its fellows, which may have been sewed on the same bench,
+by slipping it along the cords, then cutting them apart, so as to leave
+some two inches of each cord projecting, as ends to be fastened later to
+the board. In careful binding, the thread is sewed "all along," _i. e._:
+each sheet by itself, instead of "two on," as it is called.
+
+The next process is termed "lining up," and consists of putting on the
+proper fly-leaves or end-leaves, at the beginning and end of the volume.
+These usually consist of four leaves of ordinary white printing paper at
+each end, sometimes finished out with two leaves of colored or marbled
+paper, to add a touch of beauty to the book when opened. Marbled paper is
+more durable in color than the tinted, and does not stain so easily. One
+of these end-leaves is pasted down to the inside cover, while the other
+is left flying--whence "fly-leaf."
+
+After this comes the cutting of the book at the edges. This is done by
+screwing it firmly in a cutting-machine, which works a sharp knife
+rapidly, shaving off the edges successively of the head, front and end,
+or "tail" as it is called in book-binding parlance. This trimming used to
+be done by hand, with a sharp cutting knife called by binders a "plough."
+Now, there are many forms of cutting machines, some of which are called
+"guillotines" for an obvious reason. In binding some books, which it is
+desired to preserve with wide margins, only a mere shaving is taken off
+the head, so as to leave it smooth at the top, letting the front and tail
+leaves remain uncut. But in case of re-binding much-used books, the edges
+are commonly so much soiled that trimming all around may be required, in
+order that they may present a decent appearance. Yet in no case should
+the binder be allowed to cut any book deeply, so as to destroy a good,
+fair margin. Care must also be taken to cut the margins evenly, at right
+angles, avoiding any crooked lines.
+
+After cutting the book comes "rounding," or giving the back of the book a
+curved instead of its flat shape. This process is done with the hand, by
+a hammer, or in a rounding press, with a metallic roller. Before
+rounding, the back of the book is glued up, that is, receives a coating
+of melted glue with a glueing brush, to hold the sections together, and
+render the back firm, and a thorough rubbing of the back with hot glue
+between the sections gives strength to the volume.
+
+Next comes the treatment of the edges of the book, hitherto all white, in
+order to protect them from showing soil in long use. Sometimes (and this
+is the cheaper process) the books are simply sprinkled at the edges with
+a brush dipped in a dark fluid made of burnt umber or red ochre, and
+shaken with a quick concussion near the edges until they receive a
+sprinkle of color from the brush. Other books receive what is called a
+solid color on the edges, the books being screwed into a press, and the
+color applied with a sponge or brush.
+
+But a marbled edge presents a far more handsome appearance, and should
+harmonize in color and figure with the marbled paper of the end leaves.
+Marbling, so called from its imitation of richly veined colored marble,
+is staining paper or book edges with variegated colors. The process of
+marbling is highly curious, both chemically and aesthetically, and may be
+briefly described. A large shallow trough or vat is filled with prepared
+gum water (gum-tragacanth being used); on the surface of this gum-water
+bright colors, mixed with a little ox-gall, to be used in producing the
+composite effect aimed at in the marbling are thrown or sprinkled in
+liquid form. Then they are deftly stirred or agitated on the surface of
+the water, with an implement shaped to produce a certain pattern. The
+most commonly used one is a long metallic comb, which is drawn across the
+surface of the combined liquids, leaving its pattern impressed upon the
+ductile fluid. The edges of the book to be marbled are then touched or
+dipped on the top of the water, on which the coloring matter floats, and
+at once withdrawn, exhibiting on the edge the precise pattern of "combed
+marble" desired, since the various colors--red, yellow, blue, white,
+etc., have adhered to the surface of the book-edges. The serrated and
+diversified effect of most comb-marbling is due to stroking the comb in
+waved lines over the surface. The spotted effect so much admired in other
+forms, is produced by throwing the colors on with a brush, at the fancy
+of the skilled workman, or artist, as you may call him. Marbled paper is
+made in the same way, by dipping one surface of the white sheet, held in
+a curved form, with great care on the surface of the coloring vat. This
+is termed shell and wave marbling, as distinguished from comb-marbling.
+The paper or the book edges are next finished by sizing and burnishing,
+which gives them a bright glistening appearance.
+
+A still more ornate effect in a book is attained by gilding the edges.
+Frequently the head of a book is gilt, leaving the front and tail of an
+uncut book without ornament, and this is esteemed a very elegant style by
+book connoisseurs, who are, or should be solicitous of wide margins. The
+gilding of the top edge is a partial protection from dust falling inside,
+to which the other edges are not so liable. To gild a book edge, it is
+placed in a press, the edges scraped or smoothed, and coated with a
+red-colored fluid, which serves to heighten the effect of the gold. Then
+a sizing is applied by a camel's-hair brush, being a sticky substance,
+usually the white of an egg, mixed with water (termed by binders
+"glaire") and the gold-leaf is laid smoothly over it. When the sizing is
+dry, the gold is burnished with a tool, tipped with an agate or
+blood-stone, drawn forcibly over the edge until it assumes a glistening
+appearance.
+
+After the edges have been treated by whatever process, there follows what
+is termed the "backing" of the book. The volume is pressed between iron
+clamps, and the back is hammered or rolled where it joins the sides, so
+as to form a groove to hold the boards forming the solid portion of the
+cover of every book. A backing-machine is sometimes used for this
+process, making by pressure the joint or groove for the boards. Then the
+"head-band" is glued on, being a silk braid or colored muslin, fastened
+around a cord, which projects a little above the head and the tail, at
+the back of the book, giving it a more finished appearance. At the same
+time, a book-mark for keeping the place is sometimes inserted and
+fastened like the head-band. This is often a narrow ribbon of colored
+silk, or satin, and helps to give a finish to the book, as well as to
+furnish the reader a trustworthy guide to keep a place--as it will not
+fall out like bits of paper inserted for that purpose.
+
+Next, the mill-boards are applied, cut so as to project about an eighth
+to a quarter of an inch from the edges of the book on three sides. The
+book is held to the boards by the ends of its cords being interlaced, _i.
+e._: passed twice through holes pierced in the boards, the loose ends of
+the cords being then wet with paste and hammered down flat to the surface
+of the boards. The best tar-boards should be used, which are made of old
+rope; no board made of straw is fit to be used on any book. Straw boards
+are an abomination--a cheap expedient which costs dearly in the end. The
+binder should use heavy boards on the larger and thicker volumes, but
+thin ones on all duodecimos and smaller sizes.
+
+Next, the books are subjected to a second pressing, after which the
+lining of the back is in order. Good thick brown paper is generally used
+for this, cut to the length of the book, and is firmly glued to the back,
+and rubbed down closely with a bone folder. A cloth "joint," or piece of
+linen (termed "muslin super,") is often glued to the back, with two
+narrow flaps to be pasted to the boards, on each side, thus giving
+greater tenacity to the covering. If the book is to be backed so as to
+open freely, that is, to have a spring back or elastic back, two
+thicknesses of a firm, strong paper, or thin card-board are used, one
+thickness of the paper being glued to the back of the book, while the
+other--open in the middle, but fastened at the edges, is to be glued to
+the leather of which the back is to be made.
+
+After this, comes putting the book in leather. If full bound a piece of
+leather cut full size of the volume, with about half an inch over, is
+firmly glued or pasted to the boards and the back, the leather being
+turned over the edges of the boards, and nicely glued on their inside
+margin. It is of great importance that the edges of the leather should be
+smoothly pared down with a sharp knife, so as to present an even edge
+where the leather joins the boards, not a protuberance--which makes an
+ugly and clumsy piece of work, instead of a neat one.
+
+For half-binding, a piece of leather is taken large enough to cover the
+back lengthwise, and turn in at the head and tail, while the width should
+be such as to allow from one to one and a half inches of the leather to
+be firmly glued to the boards next the back. The four corners of the
+boards are next to be leathered, the edges of the leather being carefully
+pared down, to give a smooth surface, even with the boards, when turned
+in. The leather is usually wet, preparatory to being manipulated thus,
+which renders it more flexible and ductile than in its dry state. The
+cloth or marbled paper is afterwards pasted or glued to the sides of the
+book, and turned neatly over the edge of the boards.
+
+It may be added, that the edges of the boards, in binding nice books, are
+sometimes ground off on a swiftly revolving emery-wheel, giving the book
+a beveled edge, which is regarded as handsomer and more finished than a
+straight rectangular edge.
+
+All the processes hitherto described are called "forwarding" the book: we
+now come to what is denominated "finishing." This includes the lettering
+of the title, and the embellishing of the back and sides, with or without
+gilding, as the case may be. Before this is taken in hand, the leather of
+the book must be perfectly dry. For the lettering, copper-faced types are
+used to set up the desired sequence of letters and words, and care and
+taste should be exercised to have (1) Types neither too large, which
+present a clumsy appearance, nor too small, which are difficult to read.
+(2) Proper spacing of the words and lines, and "balancing" the component
+parts of the lettering on the back, so as to present a neat and
+harmonious effect to the eye. A word should never be divided or
+hyphenated in lettering, when it can be avoided. In the case of quite
+thin volumes, the title may be lettered lengthwise along the back, in
+plain, legible type, instead of in very small letters across the back,
+which are often illegible. The method of applying gold lettering is as
+follows: the back of the book where the title is to go, is first
+moistened with a sticky substance, as albumen or glaire, heretofore
+mentioned, laid on with a camel's hair brush. The type (or the die as the
+case may be) is heated in a binder's charcoal furnace, or gas stove, to
+insure the adhesion of the gold leaf. The thin gold leaf (which comes
+packed in little square "books," one sheet between every two leaves) is
+then cut the proper size by the broad thin knife of the "finisher," and
+carefully laid over the sized spot to receive the lettering. Usually, two
+thicknesses of gold leaf are laid one above another, which ensures a
+brighter and more decided effect in the lettering. The type metal or die
+is then pressed firmly and evenly down upon the gold-leaf, and the
+surplus shavings of the gold carefully brushed off and husbanded, for
+this leaf is worth money. The gold leaf generally in use costs about
+$6.50 for 500 little squares or sheets. It is almost inconceivably thin,
+the thickness of one gold leaf being estimated at about 1/280000 of an
+inch.
+
+Besides the lettering, many books receive gold ornamentation on the back
+or side of a more or less elaborate character. Designs of great artistic
+beauty, and in countless variety, have been devised for book ornaments,
+and French and English book-binders have vied with each other for
+generations in the production of decorative borders, fillets,
+centre-pieces, rolls, and the most exquisite gold-tooling, of which the
+art is capable.
+
+These varied patterns of book ornamentation are cut in brass or steel,
+and applied by the embossing press with a rapidity far exceeding that of
+the hand-work formerly executed by the gilders of books. But for choice
+books and select jobs, only the hands are employed, with such fillets,
+stamps, pallets, rolls, and polishing irons as may aid in the nice
+execution of the work. If a book is to be bound in what is called
+"morocco antique," it is to be "blind-tooled," _i. e._: the hot iron
+wheels which impress the fillets or rolls, are to be worked in blank, or
+without gold-leaf ornamentation. This is a rich and tasteful binding,
+especially with carefully beveled boards, and gilded edges.
+
+On some books, money has been lavished on the binding to an amount
+exceeding by many fold the cost of the book itself. Elegant book-binding
+has come to be reckoned as a fine art, and why should not "the art
+preservative of all other arts"--printing--be preserved in permanent and
+sumptuous, if not splendid style, in its environment? Specimens of French
+artistic binding from the library of Grolier, that celebrated and
+munificent patron of art, who died in 1565, have passed through the hands
+of many eager connoisseurs, always at advancing prices. The Grolier
+binding was notable for the elegant finish of its interlaced ornaments
+in gold-leaf, a delicacy of touch, and an inimitable flowing grace, which
+modern binders have struggled after in vain. At the Beckford Library sale
+in London, in 1884, there was a great array of fine French bindings of
+early date. A book from Grolier's library, the "Toison d'Or," 1563,
+brought L405, or over $2,000, and a Heptameron, which had belonged to
+Louis XIV, in beautiful brown morocco, with crown, fleur-de-lys, a stag,
+a cock, and stars, as ornaments, all exquisitely worked in gold, lined
+with vellum, was sold for L400. Following the Grolier patterns, came
+another highly decorative style, by the French binders, which was notable
+for the very delicate gold tooling, covering the whole sides of the book
+with exquisite scroll-work, and branches of laurel.
+
+The most celebrated of English book-binders was Roger Payne, who was
+notable for the careful labor bestowed on the forwarding and finishing of
+his books, specimens of which are still reckoned among the
+_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the art. His favorite style was a roughly-grained red
+morocco, always full-bound, and he kept in view what many binders forget,
+that the leather is the main thing in a finely executed binding, not to
+be overlaid by too much gilding and decoration. He charged twelve guineas
+each (over $60) for binding some small volumes in his best style. Payne's
+most notable successors have been Lewis, Hayday, Bedford, and Zaehnsdorf,
+the latter of whom is the author of a treatise on book-binding. At the
+art exhibition of 1862, a book bound by Bedford was exhibited, which took
+two months merely to finish, and the binding cost forty guineas; and a
+Dore's Dante, exquisitely bound by Zaehnsdorf, in Grolier style, cost one
+hundred guineas.
+
+A decorative treatment not yet mentioned is applied to the covers of some
+books, which are bound in elegant full calf. To give to this leather the
+elegant finish known as "tree-calf binding", it is first washed with
+glaire or albumen. The boards of the book are then bent to a convex
+shape, and water sprinkled over, until it runs down from the centre in
+many little branches or rivulets. While running, a solution of copperas
+is sprinkled on, and carried along the branches which radiate from the
+central trunk, producing the dark-mottled colored effect which resembles,
+more or less nearly, a tree with its spreading branches.
+
+To make the book beautiful should be the united aim of all who are
+concerned in its manufacture--the paper-maker, the printer, and the
+book-binder. While utility comes first in the art of book-making for
+libraries, yet neatness and even elegance should always be united with
+it. An ill-forwarded book, or a badly finished one, presents a clumsy,
+unattractive look to the eye; while an evenly made piece of work, and a
+careful and tasteful ornamentation in the gilding, attract every
+discerning reader by their beauty. One writer upon book-binding terms the
+forwarder of the book an artizan, and the finisher an artist; but both
+should have the true artist's taste, in order to produce the work that
+shall commend itself by intrinsic excellence. The form and shape of the
+book depend wholly, indeed, on the forwarder.
+
+We are told that the great beauty of the Grolier bindings lay in the
+lavish and tasteful adornment of the sides. In fact, much depends upon
+the design, in every piece of decorative work. The pretty scroll
+patterns, the interlaced figures, the delicate tracery, the circles,
+rosettes, and stars, the lovely arabesques, the flowers and leaves
+borrowed from the floral kingdom, the geometric lines, the embroidered
+borders, like fine lace-work,--all these lend their separate individual
+charms to the finish of the varied specimens of the binder's art. There
+are some books that look as brilliant as jewels in their rich, lustrous
+adornment, the design sometimes powdered with gold points and stars. Some
+gems of art are lined with rich colored leather in the inside covers,
+which are stamped and figured in gold. This is termed "_double_" by the
+French. Some have their edges gilded over marbling, a refinement of
+beauty which adds richness to the work, the marble design showing through
+the brilliant gold, when the edge is turned. Others have pictorial
+designs drawn on the edges, which are then gilded over the pictures. This
+complex style of gilding, the French term _gaufre_. It was formerly much
+in vogue, but is latterly out of fashion. Many gems of binding are
+adorned with fly-leaves of moire silk, or rich colored satin. Color,
+interspersed with gold in the finish of a book covering, heightens the
+effect. The morocco of the side-cover is sometimes cut, and inlaid with
+leather of a different color. Inlaying with morocco or kid is the richest
+style of decoration which the art has yet reached. Beautiful bindings
+have been in greater request during the past twenty years than ever
+before. There was a renaissance of the ancient styles of decoration in
+France, and the choice Grolier and Maioli patterns were revived with the
+general applause of the lovers of fine books.
+
+In vivid contrast to these lovely specimens of the binder's art, are
+found innumerable bibliopegic horrors, on the shelves of countless
+libraries, public and private. Among these are to be reckoned most law
+books, clad in that dead monotony of ugliness, which Charles Dickens has
+described as "that _under-done pie-crust_ cover, which is technically
+known as law calf." There are other uncouth and unwholesome specimens
+everywhere abroad, "whom Satan hath bound", to borrow Mr. Henry Stevens's
+witty application of a well-known Scripture text. Such repellant
+bindings are only fit to serve as models to be avoided by the librarian.
+
+The binding that is executed by machinery is sometimes called "commercial
+binding". It is also known as "edition binding", because the whole
+edition of a book is bound in uniform style of cover. While the modern
+figured cloth binding originated in England, it has had its fullest
+development in the United States. Here, those ingenious and powerful
+machines which execute every branch of the folding and forwarding of a
+book, and even the finishing of the covers, with almost lightning speed,
+were mostly invented and applied. Very vivid is the contrast between the
+quiet, humdrum air of the old-fashioned bindery hand-work, and the
+ceaseless clang and roar of the machinery which turns out thousands of
+volumes in a day.
+
+    "Not as ours the books of old,
+    Things that steam can stamp and fold."
+
+I believe that I failed to notice, among the varieties of material for
+book-bindings heretofore enumerated, some of the rarer and more singular
+styles. Thus, books have been bound in enamel, (richly variegated in
+color) in Persian silk, in seal-skin, in the skin of the rabbit,
+white-bear, crocodile, cat, dog, mole, tiger, otter, buffalo, wolf, and
+even rattle-snake. A favorite modern leather for purses and satchels,
+alligator-skin, has been also applied to the clothing of books. Many
+eccentric fancies have been exemplified in book-binding, but the acme of
+gruesome oddity has been reached by binding books in human skin, of which
+many examples are on record. It is perhaps three centuries old, but the
+first considerable instance of its use grew out of the horrors of the
+French Revolution. In England, the Bristol law library has several
+volumes bound in the skin of local criminals, flayed after execution,
+and specially tanned for the purpose. It is described as rather darker
+than vellum. A Russian poet is said to have bound his sonnets in human
+leather--his own skin--taken from a broken thigh--and the book he
+presented to the lady of his affections! Such ghoulish incidents as these
+afford curious though repulsive glimpses of the endless vagaries of human
+nature.
+
+It is said that the invention of half-binding originated among the
+economists of Germany; and some wealthy bibliophiles have stigmatized
+this style of dressing books as "genteel poverty." But its utility and
+economy have been demonstrated too long to admit of any doubt that
+half-binding has come to stay; while, as we have seen, it is also capable
+of attractive aesthetic features. Mr. William Matthews, perhaps the
+foremost of American binders, said that "a book when neatly forwarded,
+and cleanly covered, is in a very satisfactory condition without any
+finishing or decorating." It was this same binder who exhibited at the
+New York World's Fair Exhibition of 1853, a copy of Owen Jones's
+Alhambra, bound by him in full Russia, inlaid with blue and red morocco,
+with gold tooling all executed by hand, taking six months to complete,
+and costing the binder no less than five hundred dollars.
+
+Book lettering, or stamping the proper title on the back of the book, is
+a matter of the first importance. As the titles of most books are much
+too long to go on the back, a careful selection of the most distinctive
+words becomes necessary. Here the taste and judgment of the librarian
+come indispensably into play. To select the lettering of a book should
+never be left to the binder, because it is not his business, and because,
+in most cases, he will make a mistake somewhere in the matter. From want
+of care on this point, many libraries are filled with wrongly lettered
+books, misleading titles, and blunders as ludicrous as they are
+distressing. I have had to have thousands of volumes in the Library of
+Congress re-lettered. A copy of Lord Bacon's "Sylva Sylvarum", for
+example, was lettered "Verlum's Sylva"--because the sapient binder read
+on the title-page "By Baron Verulam", and it was not his business to find
+out that this was the title of honor which Bacon bore; so, by a compound
+blunder, he converted Verulam into Verlum, and gave the book to an
+unknown writer. This is perhaps an extreme case, but you will find many
+to match it. Another folio, Rochefort's History of the Caribby Islands,
+was lettered "Davies' Carriby Islands," because the title bore the
+statement "Rendered into English by John Davies." In another library, the
+great work of the naturalist, Buffon, was actually lettered "Buffoon's
+Natural History." Neither of these blunders was as bad as that of the
+owner of an elegant black-letter edition of a Latin classic, which was
+printed without title-page, like most fifteenth century books, and began
+at the top of the first leaf, in large letters--"HOC INCIPIT," signifying
+"This begins", followed by the title or subject of the book. The wiseacre
+who owned it had the book richly bound, and directed it to be lettered on
+the back--"Works of Hoc Incipit, Rome, 1490." This is a true story, and
+the hero of it might perhaps, on the strength of owning so many learned
+works, have passed for a philosopher, if he had not taken the pains to
+advertise himself as a blockhead.
+
+Some of the commonest blunders are stamping on the back the translator's
+or the editor's name, instead of that of the author of the book; putting
+on adjectives instead of substantives for titles; modernizing ancient and
+characteristic spelling, found in the title, (the exact orthography of
+which should always be followed); mixing up the number and the case of
+Latin titles, and those in other foreign languages; leaving off entirely
+the name of the writer; and lettering periodicals by putting on the
+volume without the year, or the year, without the number of the volume.
+"No one but an idiot", said Mr. C. Walford to the London Librarians'
+Conference, "would send his books to the binder, without indicating the
+lettering he desires on the backs." The only safe-guard is for the
+librarian or owner to prescribe on a written slip in each volume, a title
+for every book, before it goes to the binder, who will be only too glad
+to have his own time saved--since time is money to him. I would not
+underrate the book-binders, who are a most worthy and intelligent class,
+numbering in their ranks men who are scholars as well as artists; but
+they are concerned chiefly with the mechanics and not with the
+metaphysics of their art, and moreover, they are not bound by that rigid
+rule which should govern the librarian--namely--to have no ignoramus
+about the premises.
+
+In writing letterings (for I take it that no one would be guilty of
+defacing his title-pages by marking them up with directions to the
+binder) you should definitely write out the parts of the title as they
+are to run on the back of the book, spaced line upon line, and not "run
+together." I think that the name of the author should always stand first
+at the head of the lettering, because it affords the quickest guide to
+the eye in finding any book, as well as in replacing it upon the shelves.
+Especially useful and time-saving is this, where classes of books are
+arranged in alphabetical sequence. Is not the name of the author commonly
+uppermost in the mind of the searcher? Then, let it be uppermost on the
+book sought also. Follow the name of the author by the briefest possible
+words selected from the title which will suffice to characterize the
+subject of the work. Thus, the title--"On the Origin of Species by means
+of Natural Selection", by Charles Darwin, should be abbreviated into
+
+                           Darwin
+                          --------
+                      Origin of Species.
+
+Here are no superfluous words, to consume the binder's time and
+gold-leaf, and to be charged in the bill; or to consume the time of the
+book-searcher, in stopping to read a lot of surplusage on the back of the
+book, before seizing it for immediate use. Books in several volumes
+should have the number of each volume plainly marked in Arabic (not
+Roman) numerals on the back. The old-fashioned method of expressing
+numerals by letters, instead of figures, is too cumbrous and
+time-consuming to be tolerated. You want to letter, we will say, vol. 88
+of Blackwood's Magazine. If you follow the title-page of that book, as
+printed, you have to write
+
+"Volume LXXXVIII," eight letters, for the number of the volume, instead
+of two simple figures--thus--88.
+
+Now can any one give a valid reason for the awkward and tedious method of
+notation exhibited in the Roman numerals? If it were only the lost time
+of the person who writes it, or the binder's finisher who letters it, it
+would be comparatively insignificant. But think of the time wasted by the
+whole world of readers, who must go through a more or less troublesome
+process of notation before they get a clear notion of what all this
+superfluous stuff stands for instead of the quick intuition with which
+they take in the Arabic figures; and who must moreover, by the antiquated
+method, take valuable time to write out LXXXVIII, eight figures instead
+of two, to say nothing of the added liability to error, which increases
+in the exact ratio of the number of figures to be written. Which of these
+two forms of expression is more quickly written, or stamped, or read? By
+which method of notation will the library messenger boys or girls soonest
+find the book? This leads me to say what cannot be too strongly insisted
+upon; all library methods should be time-saving methods, and so devised
+for the benefit alike of the librarian, the assistants, and the readers.
+Until one has learned the supreme value of moments, he will not be fit
+for a librarian. The same method by Arabic numerals only, should be used
+in all references to books; and it would be well if the legal fashion of
+citing authorities by volume and page, now adopted in most law books,
+were extended to all literature--thus:
+
+"3 Macaulay's England, 481. N. Y. 1854," instead of "Macaulay's England,
+N. Y. ed. 1854. vol. 3, page 481." It is a matter of congratulation to
+all librarians, as well as to the reading public, that Poole's Indexes to
+Periodical Literature have wisely adopted Arabic figures only, both for
+volume and page. The valuable time thus saved to all is quite
+incalculable.
+
+Every book which is leather-bound has its back divided off into panels or
+sections, by the band across the back or by the gold or plain fillet or
+roll forming part of the finish of the book. These panels are usually
+five or six in number, the former being the more common. Now it is the
+librarian's function to prescribe in which of these panels the lettering
+of the book--especially where there is double lettering--shall go. Thus
+
+          |   COUSIN   |       |       |      |      |
+          |    ----    |       |       |      | NEW  |
+     2nd  |  HISTORY   |  4th  | WIGHT | End  |YORK, |
+    panel |    OF      | panel |       |      |1852. |
+          |  MODERN    |       |       |      |      |
+          | PHILOSOPHY.|       |       |      |      |
+
+Many books, especially dramatic works, and the collected works of authors
+require the contents of the various volumes to be briefed on the back.
+Here is a Shakespeare, for example, in 10 volumes, or a Swift in 19, or
+Carlyle in 33, and you want to find _King Lear_, or _Gulliver's Travels_,
+or _Heroes and Hero Worship_. The other volumes concern you not--but you
+want the shortest road to these. If the name of each play is briefed by
+the first word upon the different volumes of your Shakespeare, or the
+contents of each volume upon the Swift and the Carlyle,--as they should
+be--you find instantly what you want, with one glance of the eye along
+the backs. If put to the trouble of opening every volume to find the
+contents, or of hunting it in the index, or the library catalogue, you
+lose precious time, while readers wait, thus making the needless delay
+cumulative, and as it must be often repeated, indefinite.
+
+Each volume should have its date and place of publication plainly
+lettered at the lower end, or what binders term the tail of the book.
+This often saves time, as you may not want an edition of old date, or
+_vice versa_, while the place and date enable readers' tickets to be
+filled out quickly without the book. The name of the library might well
+be lettered also on the back, being more obvious as a permanent means of
+identification than the book-plate or inside stamp.
+
+Books should never be used when fresh from the binder's hands. The covers
+are then always damp, and warp on exposure to air and heat. Unless
+pressed firmly in shelves, or in piles, for at least two weeks, they may
+become incurably warped out of shape. Many an otherwise handsomely bound
+book is ruined by neglect of this caution, for once thoroughly dried in
+its warped condition, there is no remedy save the costly one of
+rebinding.
+
+Books are frequently lettered so carelessly that the titles instead of
+aligning, or being in straight horizontal lines, run obliquely upward or
+downward, thus defacing the volume. Errors in spelling words are also
+liable to occur. All crooked lettering and all mistakes in spelling
+should at once be rejected, and the faulty books returned to the binder,
+to be corrected at his own expense. This severe revision of all books
+when newly bound, before they are placed upon the shelves, should be done
+by the librarian's or owner's own eye--not entrusted to subordinates,
+unless to one thoroughly skilled.
+
+One should never receive back books from a binder without collating them,
+to see if all are perfect as to pages, and if all plates or maps are in
+place. If deficiencies are found, the binder, and not the library is
+responsible, provided the book was known to be perfect when sent for
+binding.
+
+In the Congressional Library I had the periodicals which are analyzed in
+Poole's Index of Periodical Literature thoroughly compared and
+re-lettered, wherever necessary, to make the series of volumes correspond
+with the references in that invaluable and labor-saving index. For
+instance, the Eclectic Review, as published in London, had eight distinct
+and successive series (thus confusing reference by making eight different
+volumes called 1, 2, 3, etc.) each with a different numbering, "First
+series, 2d series," etc., which Poole's Index very properly consolidated
+into one, for convenient reference. By adding the figures as scheduled in
+that work--prefixed by the words _Poole's Index No._ ---- or simply
+_Poole_, in small letters, followed by the figure of the volume as given
+in that index, you will find a saving of time in hunting and supplying
+references that is almost incalculable. If you cannot afford to have this
+re-numbering done by a binder in gilt letters, it will many times repay
+the cost and time of doing it on thin manila paper titles, written or
+printed by a numbering machine and pasted on the backs of the volumes.
+
+In all periodicals,--magazines and serials of every kind,--the covers and
+their advertisements should be bound in their proper place, with each
+month or number of the periodical, though it may interrupt the continuity
+of the paging. Thus will be preserved valuable contemporary records
+respecting prices, bibliographical information, etc., which should never
+be destroyed, as it is illustrative of the life and history of the
+period. The covers of the magazines, too, frequently contain the table of
+contents of the number, which of course must be prefixed to it, in order
+to be of any use. If advertising pages are very numerous and bulky, (as
+in many popular periodicals of late years) they may well be bound at the
+end of the volume, or, if so many as to make the volume excessively
+thick, they might be bound in a supplementary volume. In all books,
+half-titles or bastard titles, as they are called, should be bound in, as
+they are a part of the book.
+
+With each lot of books to be bound, there should always be sent a sample
+volume of good work as a pattern, that the binder may have no excuse for
+hasty or inferior workmanship.
+
+The Grolier Club was founded in New York in 1884, having for its objects
+to promote the literary study and progress of the arts pertaining to the
+production of books. It has published more than twenty books in sumptuous
+style, and mostly in quarto form, the editions being limited to 150
+copies at first, since increased to 300, under the rapidly enlarging
+membership of the Club. Most of these books relate to fine binding, fine
+printing, or fine illustration of books, or are intended to exemplify
+them, and by their means, by lectures, and exhibitions of fine book-work,
+this society has contributed much toward the diffusion of correct taste.
+More care has been bestowed upon fine binding in New York than in London
+itself. In fact, elegant book-binding is coming to be recognized as one
+of the foremost of the decorative arts.
+
+The art of designing book-covers and patterns for gilding books has
+engaged the talents of many artists, among whom may be named Edwin A.
+Abbey, Howard Pyle, Stanford White, and Elihu Vedder. Nor have skilful
+designs been wanting among women, as witness Mrs. Whitman's elegant
+tea-leaf border for the cover of Dr. O. W. Holmes's "Over the Tea-cups,"
+and Miss Alice Morse's arabesques and medallions for Lafcadio Hearn's
+"Two Years in the French West Indies." Miss May Morris designed many
+tasteful letters for the fine bindings executed by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson
+of London, and Kate Greenaway's many exquisite little books for little
+people have become widely known for their quaint and curious cover
+designs. A new field thus opens for skilled cultivators of the beautiful
+who have an eye for the art of drawing.
+
+Mr. William Matthews, the accomplished New York binder, in an address
+before the Grolier Club in 1895, said: "I have been astonished that so
+few women--in America, I know none--are encouragers of the art; they
+certainly could not bestow their taste on anything that would do them
+more credit, or as a study, give them more satisfaction." It is but fair
+to add that since this judgment was put forth, its implied reproach is no
+longer applicable: a number of American women have interested themselves
+in the study of binding as a fine art; and some few in practical work as
+binders of books.
+
+There is no question that readers take a greater interest in books that
+are neatly and attractively bound, than in volumes dressed in a mean
+garb. No book owner or librarian with any knowledge of the incurable
+defects of calf, sheep, or roan leather, if he has any regard for the
+usefulness or the economies of his library, will use them in binding
+books that are to possess permanent value in personal or public use. True
+economy lies in employing the best description of binding in the first
+instance.
+
+When it is considered that the purposed object of book-binding is to
+preserve in a shape at once attractive and permanent, the best and
+noblest thoughts of man, it rises to a high rank among the arts. Side by
+side with printing, it strives after that perfection which shall ensure
+the perpetuity of human thought. Thus a book, clothed in morocco, is not
+a mere piece of mechanism, but a vehicle in which the intellectual life
+of writers no longer on earth is transmitted from age to age. And it is
+the art of book-binding which renders libraries possible. What the
+author, the printer, and the binder create, the library takes charge of
+and preserves. It is thus that the material and the practical link
+themselves indissolubly with the ideal. And the ideal of every true
+librarian should be so to care for the embodiments of intelligence
+entrusted to his guardianship, that they may become in the highest degree
+useful to mankind. In this sense, the care bestowed upon thorough and
+enduring binding can hardly be overrated, since the life of the book
+depends upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4.
+
+PREPARATION FOR THE SHELVES: BOOK PLATES, ETC.
+
+
+When any lot of books is acquired, whether by purchase from book-dealers
+or from auction, or by presentation, the first step to be taken, after
+seeing that they agree with the bill, and have been collated, in
+accordance with methods elsewhere given, should be to stamp and label
+each volume, as the property of the library. These two processes are
+quite distinct, and may be performed by one or two persons, according to
+convenience, or to the library force employed. The stamp may be the
+ordinary rubber one, inked by striking on a pad, and ink of any color may
+be used, although black or blue ink has the neatest appearance. The stamp
+should bear the name of the library, in clear, legible, plain type, with
+year of acquisition of the book in the centre, followed by the month and
+day if desired. A more permanent kind of stamp is the embossing stamp,
+which is a steel die, the letters cut in relief, but it is very expensive
+and slow, requiring the leaf to be inserted between the two parts of the
+stamp, though the impression, once made, is practically indelible.
+
+The size of the stamp (which is preferably oval in shape) should not
+exceed 11/4 to 11/2 inches in diameter, as a large, coarse stamp never
+presents a neat appearance on a book. Indeed, many books are too small to
+admit any but a stamp of very moderate dimensions. The books should be
+stamped on the verso (reverse) of the title page, or if preferred, on the
+widest unprinted portion of the title-page, preferably on the right hand
+of the centre, or just below the centre on the right. This, because its
+impression is far more legible on the plain white surface than on any
+part of the printed title. In a circulating library, the stamps should be
+impressed on one or more pages in the body of the book, as well as on the
+last page, as a means of identification if the book is stolen or
+otherwise lost; as it is very easy to erase the impression of a rubber
+stamp from the title-page, and thereby commit a fraud by appropriating or
+selling the book. In such a case, the duplicate or triplicate impression
+of the stamp on some subsequent page (say page 5 or 16, many books having
+but few pages) as fixed upon by the librarian, is quite likely to escape
+notice of the thief, while it remains a safe-guard, enabling the
+librarian to reclaim the book, wherever found. The law will enforce this
+right of free reclamation in favor of a public library, in the case of
+stolen books, no matter in what hands found, and even though the last
+holder may be an innocent purchaser. All libraries are victimized at some
+time by unscrupulous or dishonest readers, who will appropriate books,
+thinking themselves safe from detection, and sometimes easing their
+consciences, (if they have any) by the plea that the book is in a measure
+public property.
+
+In these cases, there is no absolute safe-guard, as it is easy to carry
+off a book under one's coat, and the librarian and his few aids are far
+too busy to act as detectives in watching readers. Still, a vigilant
+librarian will almost always find out, by some suspicious
+circumstance--such as the hiding of books away, or a certain furtive
+action observed in a reader--who are the persons that should be watched,
+and when it is advisable to call in the policeman.
+
+The British Museum Library, which has no circulation or book lending,
+enforces a rule that no one making his exit can have a book with him,
+unless checked as his own property, all overcoats and other wraps being
+of course checked at the door.
+
+It is a melancholy fact, duly recorded in a Massachusetts paper, that no
+less than two hundred and fifty volumes, duly labeled and stamped as
+public library books, were stolen from a single library in a single year,
+and sold to second-hand booksellers.
+
+The impression of the stamp in the middle of a certain page, known to the
+librarian, renders it less liable to detection by others, while if
+stamped on the lower unprinted margin, it might be cut out by a designing
+person.
+
+Next to the stamping, comes the labeling of the books to be added to the
+library. This is a mechanical process, and yet one of much importance.
+Upon its being done neatly and properly, depends the good or bad
+appearance of the library books, as labels with rough or ragged edges, or
+put on askew, or trimmed irregularly at their margins, present an ugly
+and unfinished aspect, offensive to the eye of good taste, and reflecting
+discredit on the management. A librarian should take pride in seeing all
+details of his work carefully and neatly carried out. If he cannot have
+perfection, from want of time, he should always aim at it, at least, and
+then only will he come near to achieving it.
+
+The label, or book-plate (for they are one and the same thing) should be
+of convenient size to go into books both small and large; and a good size
+is approximately 21/4 inches wide by 11/2 inches high when trimmed. As
+comparatively few libraries care to go to the expense, which is about ten
+times that of printing, of an engraved label (although such work adds to
+the attractiveness of the books containing it) it should be printed in
+clear, not ornamental type, with the name of the library, that of the
+city or town in which it is located (unless forming a part of the title)
+and the abbreviation No. for number, with such other spaces for section
+marks or divisions, shelf-marks, etc., as the classification adopted may
+require. The whole should be enclosed in an ornamental border--not too
+ornate for good taste.
+
+The labels, nicely trimmed to uniform size by a cutting machine, (if that
+is not in the library equipment, any binder will do it for you) are next
+to be pasted or gummed, as preferred. This process is a nice one,
+requiring patience, care, and practice. Most libraries are full of books
+imperfectly labelled, pasted on in crooked fashion, or perhaps damaging
+the end-leaves by an over-use of paste, causing the leaves to adhere to
+the page labelled--which should always be the inside left hand cover of
+the book. This slovenly work is unworthy of a skilled librarian, who
+should not suffer torn waste leaves, nor daubs of over-running paste in
+any of his books. To prevent both these blunders in library economy, it
+is only needful to instruct any intelligent assistant thoroughly, by
+practical example how to do it--accompanied by a counter-example how not
+to do it. The way to do it is to have your paste as thin as that used by
+binders in pasting their fly-leaves, or their leather, or about the
+consistency of porridge or pea soup. Then lay the label or book-plate
+face downward on a board or table covered with blotting paper, dip your
+paste brush (a half inch bristle brush is the best) in the paste, stroke
+it (to remove too much adhering matter) on the inner side of your paste
+cup, then apply it across the whole surface of the label, with light,
+even strokes of the brush, until you see that it is all moistened with
+paste. Next, take up the label and lay it evenly in the middle of the
+left inner cover page of the book to be labelled, and with a small piece
+of paper (not with the naked fingers) laid over it, stroke it down firmly
+in its place, by rubbing over a few times the incumbent paper. This being
+properly done (and it is done by an expert, once learned, very rapidly)
+your book-plate will be firmly and smoothly pasted in, with no exuding
+of paste at the edges, to spoil the fly-leaves, and no curling up of
+edges because insufficiently pasted down.
+
+So much for the book-plate--for the inside of the volumes; now let us
+turn attention to the outside label. This is necessarily very much
+smaller than the book-plate: in fact, it should not be larger than
+three-quarters or seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, and even smaller
+for the thinner volumes, while in the case of the very smallest, or
+thinnest of books, it becomes necessary to paste the labels on the side,
+instead of on the back. This label is to contain the section and
+shelf-mark of the book, marked by plain figures, according to the plan of
+classification adopted. When well done, it is an inexpressible comfort to
+any librarian, because it shows at one glance of the eye, and without
+opening the book at all, just where in the wide range of the
+miscellaneous library it is to go. Thus the book service of every day is
+incalculably aided, and the books are both found when sought on the
+shelves, and replaced there, with no trouble of opening them.
+
+This outer-label system once established, in strict correspondence with
+the catalogue, the only part of the librarian's work remaining to be
+prescribed in this field, concerns the kind of label to be selected, and
+the method of affixing them to the books. The adhesive gummed labels
+furnished by the Library Bureau, or those manufactured by the Dennison
+Company of New York have the requisite qualities for practical use. They
+may be purchased in sheets, or cut apart, as convenient handling may
+dictate. Having first written in ink in plain figures, as large as the
+labels will bear, the proper locality marks, take a label moistener (a
+hollow tube filled with water, provided with a bit of sponge at the end
+and sold by stationers) and wet the label throughout its surface, then
+fix it on the back of the book, on the smooth part of the binding near
+the lower end, and with a piece of paper (not the fingers) press it down
+firmly to its place by repeated rubbings. If thoroughly done, the labels
+will not peel off nor curl up at the edges for a long time. Under much
+usage of the volumes, however, they must occasionally be renewed.
+
+When the books being prepared for the shelves have all been duly
+collated, labelled and stamped, processes which should precede
+cataloguing them, they are next ready for the cataloguer. His functions
+having been elsewhere described, it need only be said that the books when
+catalogued and handed over to the reviser, (or whoever is to scrutinize
+the titles and assign them their proper places in the library
+classification) are to have the shelf-marks of the card-titles written on
+the inside labels, as well as upon the outside.
+
+When this is done, the title-cards can be withdrawn and alphabeted in the
+catalogue drawers. Next, all the books thus catalogued, labelled, and
+supposed to be ready for the shelves, should be examined with reference
+to three points:
+
+1st. Whether any of the volumes need re-lettering.
+
+2nd. Whether any of them require re-binding.
+
+3rd. If any of the bindings are in need of repair.
+
+In any lot of books purchased or presented, are almost always to be found
+some that are wrongly or imperfectly lettered on the back. Before these
+are ready for the shelves, they should be carefully gone through with,
+and all errors or shortcomings corrected. It is needful to send to the
+binder
+
+1st. All books which lack the name of the author on the back. This should
+be stamped by the binder at the head, if there is room--if not, in the
+middle panel on the back of the book.
+
+2nd. All books lettered with mis-spelled words.
+
+3rd. All volumes in sets, embracing several distinct works--to have the
+name of each book in the contents plainly stamped on the outside.
+
+4th. All books wholly without titles on the back, of which many are
+published--the title 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
+furbishing 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 distinguishing 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 assistant, 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 accumulated.
+
+If you find other injury to a book returned, than the natural wear and
+tear that the library must assume, 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 title, suggesting to the uninitiated the
+illustrations 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 ownership, 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 fashion of
+collecting these owners' marks, as such, irrespective of the books
+containing them, is a recent and very possibly a passing 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 Washington'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 Washington in 1863, this counterfeit plate had been placed in
+many books to give a fictitious 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 Washington, 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 workmanship 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 illustrate 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.
+
+THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS.
+
+
+We have seen in former chapters how the books of a library are acquired,
+how they are prepared for the shelves, or for use, and how they are or
+should be bound. Let us now consider the important questions which
+involve the care, the protection, and the preservation of the books.
+
+Every librarian or book owner should be something more than a custodian
+of the books in his collection. He should also exercise perpetual
+vigilance with regard to their safety and condition. The books of every
+library are beset by dangers and by enemies. Some of these are open and
+palpable; others are secret, illusive, little suspected, and liable to
+come unlooked for and without warning. Some of these enemies are
+impersonal and immaterial, but none the less deadly; others are
+personally human in form, but most inhuman in their careless and brutal
+treatment of books. How far and how fatally the books of many libraries
+have been injured by these ever active and persistent enemies can never
+be adequately told. But we may point out what the several dangers are
+which beset them, and how far the watchful care of the librarian and his
+assistants may fore-stall or prevent them.
+
+One of the foremost of the inanimate enemies of books is dust. In some
+libraries the atmosphere is dust-laden, to a degree which seems
+incredible until you witness its results in the deposits upon books,
+which soil your fingers, and contaminate the air you breathe, as you
+brush or blow it away. Peculiarly liable to dust are library rooms
+located in populous towns, or in business streets, and built close to
+the avenues of traffic. Here, the dust is driven in at the windows and
+doors by every breeze that blows. It is an omnipresent evil, that cannot
+be escaped or very largely remedied. As preventive measures, care should
+be taken not to build libraries too near the street, but to have ample
+front and side yards to isolate the books as far as may be consistent
+with convenient access. Where the library is already located immediately
+on the street, a subscription for sprinkling the thoroughfare with water,
+the year round, would be true economy.
+
+In some cities, the evils of street dust are supplemented by the
+mischiefs of coal smoke, to an aggravated degree. Wherever soft coal is
+burned as the principal fuel, a black, fuliginous substance goes floating
+through the air, and soils every thing it touches. It penetrates into
+houses and public buildings, often intensified by their own interior use
+of the same generator of dirt, and covers the books of the library with
+its foul deposits. You may see, in the public libraries of some western
+cities, how this perpetual curse of coal smoke has penetrated the leaves
+of all the books, resisting all efforts to keep it out, and slowly but
+surely deteriorating both paper and bindings. Here, preventive measures
+are impossible, unless some device for consuming the coal smoke of
+chimneys and factories were made compulsory, or the evil somewhat
+mitigated by using a less dangerous fuel within the library.
+
+But, aside from these afflictions of dust, in its most aggravated form,
+every library and every room in any building is subject to its persistent
+visitations. Wherever carpets or rugs cover the floors, there dust has an
+assured abiding-place, and it is diffused throughout the apartment in
+impalpable clouds, at every sweeping of the floors. Hence it would be
+wise to adopt in public libraries a floor-covering like linoleum, or some
+substance other than woolen, which would be measurably free from dust,
+while soft enough to deaden the sound of feet upon the floors. Even with
+this preventive precaution, there will always be dust enough, and too
+much for comfort, or for the health of the books. Only a thorough
+dusting, carried on if possible daily, can prevent an accumulation of
+dust, at once deleterious to the durability of the books, and to the
+comfort both of librarians and readers. Dust is an insidious foe,
+stealing on its march silently and unobserved, yet, however impalpable in
+the atmosphere of a library, it will settle upon the tops of every shelf
+of books, it will penetrate their inner leaves, it will lodge upon the
+bindings, soiling books and readers, and constituting a perpetual
+annoyance.
+
+It is not enough to dust the tops of the books periodically; a more full
+and radical remedy is required, to render library books presentable. At
+no long intervals, there should be a thorough library cleaning, as
+drastic and complete as the house-cleaning which neat housewives
+institute twice a year, with such wholesome results. The books are to be
+taken down from the shelves, and subjected to a shaking-up process, which
+will remove more of the dust they have absorbed than any brush can reach.
+To do this effectually, take them, if of moderate thickness, by the
+half-dozen at a time from the shelf, hold them loosely on a table, their
+fronts downward, backs uppermost, then with a hand at either side of the
+little pile, strike them smartly together a few times, until the dust,
+which will fly from them in a very palpable cloud, ceases to fall. Then
+lay them on their ends, with the tops uppermost on the table, and repeat
+the concussion in that posture, when you will eliminate a fresh crop of
+dust, though not so thick as the first. After this, let each volume of
+the lot be brushed over at the sides and back with a soft (never stiff)
+brush, or else with a piece of cotton or woolen cloth, and so restored
+clean to the shelves. While this thorough method of cleansing will take
+time and pains, it will pay in the long run. It will not eliminate all
+the dust (which in a large collection is a physical impossibility) but it
+will reduce it to a minimum. Faithfully carried out, as a periodical
+supplement to a daily dusting of the books as they stand on the shelves,
+it will immensely relieve the librarian or book-owner, who can then, (and
+then only) feel that he has done his whole duty by his books.
+
+Another dangerous enemy of the library book is damp, already briefly
+referred to. Books kept in any basement room, or near any wall, absorb
+moisture with avidity; both paper and bindings becoming mildewed, and
+often covered with blue mould. If long left in this perilous condition,
+sure destruction follows; the glue or paste which fastens the cover
+softens, the leather loses its tenacity, and the leaves slowly rot, until
+the worthless volumes smell to heaven. Books thus injured may be
+partially recovered, before the advanced stage of decomposition, by
+removal to a dry atmosphere, and by taking the volumes apart, drying the
+sheets, and rebinding--a very expensive, but necessary remedy, provided
+the books are deemed worth preserving.
+
+But a true remedy is the preventive one. No library should ever be kept,
+even in part, in a basement story, nor should any books ever be located
+near the wall of a building. All walls absorb, retain, and give out
+moisture, and are dangerous and oft-times fatal neighbors to books. Let
+the shelves be located at right angles to every wall--with the end
+nearest to it at least twelve to eighteen inches removed, and the danger
+will be obviated.
+
+A third enemy of the book is heat. Most libraries are unfortunately
+over-heated,--sometimes from defective means of controlling the
+temperature, and sometimes from carelessness or want of thought in the
+attendant. A high temperature is very destructive to books. It warps
+their covers, so that volumes unprotected by their fellows, or by a book
+support, tend to curl up, and stay warped until they become a nuisance.
+It also injures the paper of the volumes by over-heating, and weakening
+the tenacity of the leaves held together by the glue on the back, besides
+drying to an extreme the leather, till it cracks or crumbles under the
+heat. The upper shelves or galleries of any library are most seriously
+affected by over-heating, because the natural law causes the heat to rise
+toward the ceiling. If you put your hand on some books occupying the
+highest places in some library rooms, in mid-winter, when the fires are
+kept at their maximum, the heat of the volume will almost burn your
+fingers. If these books were sentient beings, and could speak, would they
+not say--"our sufferings are intolerable?"
+
+The remedy is of course a preventive one; never to suffer the library to
+become over-heated, and to have proper ventilation on every floor,
+communicating with the air outside. Seventy degrees Fahrenheit is a safe
+and proper maximum temperature for books and librarian.
+
+The mischief arising from gas exhalations is another serious source of
+danger to books. In many well-lighted libraries, the heat itself from the
+numerous gas-burners is sufficient to injure them, and there is besides a
+sulphuric acid escaping from the coal-gas fluid, in combustion, which is
+most deleterious to bindings. The only remedy appears to be, where
+libraries are open evenings, to furnish them with electric lights. This
+improved mode of illumination is now so perfected, and so widely
+diffused, that it may be reckoned a positive boon to public libraries, in
+saving their books from one of their worst and most destructive enemies.
+
+Another of the potent enemies of books is fire. I refer, not to
+over-heating the rooms they occupy, but to the risk they continually run,
+in most libraries, of total destruction. The chronicle of burned
+libraries would make a long and melancholy record, on which there is no
+space here to enter. Irreparable losses of manuscripts and early printed
+books, and precious volumes printed in small editions, have arisen from
+men's neglect of building our book-repositories fire-proof. In all
+libraries not provided with iron or steel shelves, there is perpetual
+danger. Books do not burn easily, unless surrounded with combustibles,
+but these are furnished in nearly all libraries, by surrounding the books
+on three sides with wooden shelves, which need only to be ignited at any
+point to put the whole collection in a blaze. Then follows the usual
+abortive endeavor to save the library by the aid of fire engines, which
+flood the building, until the water spoils nearly all which the fire does
+not consume. The incalculable losses which the cause of learning has
+sustained from the burning of public, university and ecclesiastical
+libraries are far greater than the cost which the provision of fire-proof
+repositories would have entailed.
+
+Of late years, there has been a partial reform in library construction.
+Some have been built fire-proof throughout, with only stone, brick,
+concrete and iron material, even to the floors and window casings. Many
+more have had iron shelves and iron stacks to hold the shelves
+constructed, and there are now several competing manufacturers of these
+invaluable safeguards to books. The first library interior constructed
+wholly of iron was that of the Library of Congress at Washington, which
+had been twice consumed, first when the Capitol was burned by the British
+army in 1814, and again in 1851, through a defective flue, when only
+20,000 volumes were saved from the flames, out of a total of 55,000. The
+example of iron construction has been slowly followed, until now the
+large cities have most of their newly-constructed libraries approximately
+fire-proof, although many are exposed to fire in parts, owing to a
+niggardly and false economy. The lesson that what is worth doing at all
+is worth doing well, and that every neglect of security brings sooner or
+later irreparable loss, is very slowly learned. Whole hecatombs of books
+have been sacrificed to the spirit of commercial greed, blind or
+short-sighted enough not to see that secure protection to public
+property, though costlier at first, is far cheaper in the end. You may
+speak of insurance against library losses by fire, but what insurance
+could restore the rare and costly Shakespearean treasures of the
+Birmingham Free Library, or the unique and priceless manuscripts that
+went up in flames in the city library of Strasburg, in 1870, or the many
+precious and irreplaceable manuscript archives of so many of our States,
+burned in the conflagration of their capitols?
+
+One would think that the civilized world had had lessons enough, ever
+since that seventh century burning of the Alexandrian library by the
+Caliph Omar, with that famous but apocryphal rhetorical dilemma, put in
+his mouth perhaps by some nimble-witted reporter:--"If these books agree
+with the Koran, they are useless, and should be burned: if not, they are
+pernicious, and must not be spared." But the heedless world goes
+carelessly on, deaf to the voice of reason, and the lessons of history,
+amid the holocausts of literature and the wreck of blazing libraries,
+uttering loud newspaper wails at each new instance of destruction,
+forgotten in a week, then cheerfully renewing the business of building
+libraries that invite the flames.
+
+Nothing here said should be interpreted as advice not to insure any
+library, in all cases where it is not provided with iron cases for the
+books, or a fire-proof building. On the contrary, the menaced destruction
+of books or manuscripts that cannot be replaced should lead to securing
+means in advance for replacing all the rest in case of loss by fire. And
+the experience of the past points the wisdom of locating every library in
+an isolated building, where risks of fire from other buildings are
+reduced to a minimum, instead of in a block whose buildings (as in most
+commercial structures) are lined with wood.
+
+You will perhaps attach but small importance at first thought, to the
+next insidious foe to library books that I shall name--that is, wetting
+by rain. Yet most buildings leak at the roof, sometime, and some old
+buildings are subject to leaks all the time. Even under the roof of the
+Capitol at Washington, at every melting of a heavy snow-fall, and on
+occasion of violent and protracted rains, there have been leaks pouring
+down water into the libraries located in the old part of the building.
+Each of these saturated and injured its quota of books, some of which
+could only be restored to available use by re-binding, and even then the
+leaves were left water-stained in part. See to it that your library roof
+is water-tight, or the contents of your library will be constantly
+exposed to damage against which there is no insurance.
+
+Another besetting danger to the books of our libraries arises from
+insects and vermin. These animated foes appear chiefly in the form of
+book-worms, cockroaches, and mice. The first-named is rare in American
+libraries, though its ravages have extended far and wide among the old
+European ones. This minute little insect, whose scientific name is the
+_anobium paniceum_, bores through the leaves of old volumes, making
+sometimes holes which deface and mutilate the text. All our public
+libraries, doubtless, have on their shelves old folios in vellum or
+leather bindings, which present upon opening the disagreeable vision of
+leaves eaten through (usually before they crossed the sea) by these
+pernicious little borers. It is comforting to add, that I have never
+known of any book-worm in the Congressional Library--except the human
+variety, which is frequently in evidence. Georgetown College library once
+sent me a specimen of the insect, which was found alive in one of its
+volumes, but the united testimony of librarians is that this pest is rare
+in the United States. As to remedies, the preventive one of sprinkling
+the shelves twice a year with a mixture of powdered camphor and snuff, or
+the vapor of benzine or carbolic acid, or other repellant chemicals, is
+resorted to abroad, but I have not heard of any similar practice in this
+country. I may remark in passing, that the term "book-worm" is a
+misnomer, since it is not a worm at all, but an insect. A more serious
+insect menace is the cockroach, a hungry, unclean little beast, which
+frequents a good many libraries, and devours bindings (especially fresh
+ones) to get at the paste or savory parts of the binding. The remedy for
+this evil, when once found to exist, is to scatter the most effective
+roach poison that can be found, which may arrest further ravages.
+
+Another insect pest is the Croton bug, (_Blatta Germanica_) which eats
+into cloth bindings to get at the sizing or albumen. The late eminent
+entomologist, Dr. C. V. Riley, pronounced them the worst pest known in
+libraries, but observed that they do not attack books bound in leather,
+and confine their ravages to the outside of cloth-bound books, never
+troubling the leaves. The remedy prescribed is a powder in which
+pyrethrum is the chief ingredient, sprinkled about the shelves.
+
+Among the rodents, mice are apt to be busy and mischievous infesters of
+libraries. They are extremely fond of paste, and being in a chronic
+state of hunger, they watch opportunities of getting at any library
+receptacle of it. They will gnaw any fresh binding, whether of cloth,
+board, or leather, to get at the coveted food. They will also gnaw some
+books, and even pamphlets, without any apparent temptation of a succulent
+nature. A good library cat or a series of mouse traps, skilfully baited,
+may rid you of this evil.
+
+The injury that comes to library books from insufficient care in
+protecting them on the shelves is great and incalculable. There are to be
+seen in every library, volumes all twisted out of shape by the sagging or
+leaning, to which the end-book is subjected, and which is often shared by
+all its neighbors on the shelf. The inevitable result is that the book is
+not only spoiled in its good looks, but (which is vastly more important)
+it is injured in its binding, which is strained and weakened just in
+proportion to the length of time in which it is subjected to such risks.
+The plain remedy is to take care that every volume is supported upright
+upon the shelf, in some way. When the shelf is full, the books will
+support one another. But when volumes are withdrawn, or when a shelf is
+only partly filled with books, the unsupported volumes tumble by force of
+gravitation, and those next them sag and lean, or fall like a row of
+bricks, pushing one another over. No shelf of books can safely be left in
+this condition. Some one of the numerous book-supports that have been
+contrived should be always ready, to hold up the volumes which are liable
+to lean and fall.
+
+We come now to the active human enemies of books, and these are unhappily
+found among some of the readers who frequent our libraries. These abuses
+are manifold and far-reaching. Most of them are committed through
+ignorance, and can be corrected by the courteous but firm interposition
+of the librarian, instructing the delinquent how to treat a book in hand.
+Others are wilful and unpardonable offences against property rights and
+public morals, even if not made penal offences by law. One of these is
+book mutilation, very widely practiced, but rarely detected until the
+mischief is done, and the culprit gone. I have found whole pages torn out
+of translations, in the volumes of Bohn's Classical Library, doubtless by
+students wanting the translated text as a "crib" in their study of the
+original tongue. Some readers will watch their opportunity, and mutilate
+a book by cutting out plates or a map, to please their fancy, or perhaps
+to make up a defective copy of the same work. Those consulting bound
+files of newspapers will ruthlessly despoil them by cutting out articles
+or correspondence, or advertisements, and carrying off the stolen
+extracts, to save themselves the trouble of copying. Others, bolder
+still, if not more unscrupulous, will deliberately carry off a library
+book under a coat, or in a pocket, perhaps signing a false name to a
+reader's ticket to hide the theft, or escape detection. Against these
+scandalous practices, there is no absolute safeguard in any library. Even
+where a police watch is kept, thefts are perpetrated, and in most
+libraries where no watchman is employed, the librarian and his assistants
+are commonly far too busy to exercise close scrutiny of all readers. As
+one safeguard, no rare or specially costly book should be entrusted to a
+reader except under the immediate eye of the librarian or assistant.
+Ordinary books can be replaced if carried off, and by watching the
+rarities, risk of theft can be reduced to a minimum.
+
+When newspapers are given out to readers, it should always be in a part
+of the library where those using them are conscious of a surveillance
+exercised over their movements. The penalty of neglecting this may at any
+time be the mutilation of an important file, and it must be remembered
+that such damage, once done, cannot be repaired. You can replace a
+mutilated book usually by buying a new one, but a newspaper can almost
+never be replaced. Even in the city of Boston, the librarian of the
+Athenaeum library records the disgraceful fact, that "the temptation to
+avoid the trouble of copying, by cutting out articles from newspapers is
+too strong for the honesty of a considerable part of the public." And it
+was recorded by the custodian of a public library in Albany that all the
+plates were missing from certain books, that the poetry and best
+illustrations were cut from magazines before they had lain on the tables
+a week, and strange to say, that many of these depredations were
+committed by women.
+
+It is a difficult problem how to prevent such outrages to decency, and
+such irreparable depredations on the books in our libraries as destroy,
+in great part, their value. A posted notice, reminding readers that
+mutilation of books or periodicals is a penal offence, will warn off
+many, if not all, from such acts of vandalism. If there is no law
+punishing the offence, agitate until you get one. Expose through the
+press such thefts and mutilations as are discovered. Interest readers
+whom you know, to be watchful of those you do not know, and to quietly
+report any observed violation of rules. When a culprit is detected, push
+the case to prompt legal hearing, and let the penalty of the law be
+enforced. Let it be known that the public property in books is too sacred
+a right to be violated with impunity. Inculcate by every means and on
+every opportunity the sentiment that readers who freely benefit by the
+books supplied should themselves feel personal concern in their
+cleanliness and preservation, and that the interest of the library is
+really the interest of all.
+
+A daily abuse practiced by many readers in libraries, though without
+wrongful intent, is the piling of one book on top of another while open.
+This is inexcusable ill-treatment, for it subjects the open book thus
+burdened, to injury, besides probably soiling its pages with dust.
+Especially harmful is such careless treatment of large volumes of
+newspapers or illustrated works.
+
+Careless use of ink is the cause of much injury to library books. As a
+rule (to which the very fewest exceptions should be made) pencils only
+should be allowed to readers, who must forego the use of ink, with the
+inevitable risk of dropping it upon the book to its irreparable injury.
+The use of ink in fountain pens is less objectionable. Tracing of maps or
+plates should not be allowed, unless with a soft pencil. Under no
+circumstances should tracing with a pen or other hard instrument be
+permitted to any reader. Failure to enforce this rule may result in ruin
+of valuable engravings or maps.
+
+There is one class of books which demand special and watchful care at the
+hands of the librarian. These are the fine illustrated works, mostly in
+large folio, which include the engravings of the art galleries of Europe,
+and many other specially rare or costly publications. These should be
+carefully shelved in cases where they can lie on their sides, not placed
+upright, as in some collections, to lean over, and, sooner or later to
+break their backs, and necessitate rebinding. When supplied to readers,
+there should not be more than one volume at a time given out, to avoid
+the risk, always threatening, of careless handling or of opening one
+volume on top of another that is open. There should also be a printed
+notice or label affixed to the side cover of every illustrated work
+reading, "Never touch an engraving," or an equivalent warning. This will
+go far, by its plain reminder, to prevent soiling the pages by the
+fingers, a practice which rapidly deteriorates fine books, and if long
+continued, renders them unfit to be exhibited to clean-handed readers.
+
+All plates should be stamped at some portion of their surface (it is
+often done on the back) with the embossing stamp of the library, as a
+means of identification if abstracted from the volume to which they
+belong.
+
+Such books should, moreover, be consulted on a large table, or better an
+adjustable stand (to avoid frequent lifting or shifting of the position
+of the volume when inspecting the plates) and always under the eye of the
+librarian or an assistant not far removed. These precautions will insure
+far more careful treatment, and will result in handing down to a new
+generation of readers many a rare and precious volume, which would
+otherwise be destroyed or irretrievably injured in a very few years. The
+library treasures which cost so much to bring together should never be
+permitted to suffer from want of care to preserve them.
+
+All writing upon the margins of books should be prohibited--other than
+simple pencil corrections of the text, as to an erroneous date, name,
+etc., which corrections of errors should not only be permitted, but
+welcomed, upon due verification. The marking of passages for copying or
+citation should be tolerated only upon the rigid condition that every
+user of the book rubs out his own pencil marks before returning it. I
+have seen lawyers and others thoughtless enough of right and wrong to
+mark long passages in pen and ink in books belonging to public libraries.
+This is a practice to be sternly repressed, even at the cost of denying
+further library privileges to the offender.
+
+Turning down leaves in a book to keep the place is one of the easily
+besetting sins of too many readers. Those who thus dogs-ear a volume
+should be taught that the vile practice weakens and wears out the leaves
+thus folded down, and makes the book a more easy prey to dust and
+disintegration. However busy I may be, I instinctively turn back every
+turned-down leaf I notice in any book, before using it, or handing it to
+another. A good safe-guard would be to provide a supply of little narrow
+strips of paper, in the ticket boxes at the library tables to serve as
+the book-markers so frequently needed by readers. For this purpose, no
+thick or smooth calendered paper should be used, which falls out of any
+loosely bound book too readily--but a thin soft paper un-sized, which
+will be apt to retain its place. I have lost valuable time (which I shall
+never see again) in trying to find the pages marked for me by a searcher
+who had thoughtlessly inserted bits of card-board as markers--which kept
+falling out by their own weight. The book-marks should be at least two
+inches long, and not more than half an inch wide; and rough edges are
+better than smooth ones, for they will adhere better to the head of the
+volume where placed. Better still it is, to provide paper book-marks
+forked at the lower end by slitting, then doubled so that the mark will
+go on both sides of the leaf at once. This is the only sure safe-guard
+against these bits of paper falling out, and thus losing the place. Never
+put cards, or letters, or documents, or any solid substance into a book.
+It weakens the binding, and if continued, often breaks the back. The fact
+that most of the injuries to which books are exposed are unintentional
+injuries does not alter the fact that they are none the less injuries to
+be guarded against. Wilful perpetration of the many abuses referred to
+may be rare, but the unconscious perpetrators should be instructed how to
+use books by a vigilant librarian. And they who have thus been taught to
+be careful of the books in a public library will learn to be more careful
+of their own, which is a great step in the education of any one.
+
+It ought not to be needful to charge any one never to wet the finger to
+turn over the leaves of a book--a childish habit, akin to running out the
+tongue when writing, or moving the lips when reading to one's self. The
+only proper way to turn the leaf is at the upper right-hand corner, and
+the index-finger of the right hand will always be found competent to that
+duty.
+
+Still less should it be needful to insist upon the importance to every
+reader of books, of coming to their perusal clean-handed. When you
+reflect that nine-tenths of the soiling and spoiling which books undergo
+comes from the dirty hands of many readers, this becomes a vital point.
+Fouquet, a learned book collector of France, used to keep a pile of white
+gloves in the ante-room of his library, and no visitor was allowed to
+cross the threshold, or to handle a book without putting on a pair, lest
+he should soil the precious volumes with naked hands. Such a refinement
+of care to keep books immaculate is not to be expected in this age of the
+world; and yet, a librarian who respects his calling is often tempted to
+wish that there were some means of compelling people to be more careful
+about books than they are.
+
+It ought not ever to be true that an enemy to the welfare of library
+books is found in the librarian himself, or in any of his assistants, yet
+there have been those employed in the care of books who have abused their
+positions and the volumes entrusted to their charge, not only by neglect
+of care, (which is a negative injury) but by positive and continual ill
+treatment. This may arise from ignorance of better methods, but ignorance
+is a poor excuse for one credited with the intelligence of a librarian.
+In some libraries, books are treated with positive indignity, and are
+permanently injured by tightly wedging them together. Never crowd books
+by main force into shelves too short or too small for them. It strains
+the backs, and seriously injures the bindings. Every book should slip
+easily past its fellows on the shelf. If a volume is too tall to go in
+its place, it should be relegated to lower shelves for larger books,
+never letting its head be crowded against the shelf above it.
+
+One should never pull books out from the shelf by their head-bands, or by
+pulling at the binding, but place the finger firmly on the top of the
+book, next to the binding, and press down while drawing out the volume.
+From failure to observe this simple precaution, you will find in all
+libraries multitudes of torn or broken bindings at the top--a wholly
+needless defacement and waste.
+
+Never permit a book to be turned down on its face to keep the place. This
+easily besetting habit weakens the book, and frequently soils its leaves
+by contact with a dusty table. For the same reason, one volume should not
+be placed within the leaves of another to keep the place where a
+book-mark of paper, so easily supplied, should always be used. Books
+should not be turned down on the fore-edges or fronts on the library
+tables, as practiced in most book-stores, in order to better display the
+stock. The same habit prevails in many libraries, from careless
+inattention. When necessary, in order to better read the titles, they
+should never be left long in such position. This treatment weakens the
+back infallibly, and if long continued breaks it. Librarians, of all
+persons in the world, should learn, and should lead others to learn,
+never to treat a book with indignity, and how truly the life of a book
+depends upon proper treatment, as well as that of an animated being.
+
+These things, and others of my suggestions, may seem trifles to some; but
+to those who consider how much success in life depends upon attention to
+what are called trifles--nay, how much both human taste and human
+happiness are promoted by care regarding trifles, they will not appear
+unimportant. The existence of schools to teach library science, and of
+manuals devoted to similar laudable aims, is an auspicious omen of the
+new reign of refined taste in those nobler arts of life which connect
+themselves with literature, and are to be hailed as authentic evidences
+of the onward progress of civilization.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6.
+
+THE RESTORATION AND RECLAMATION OF BOOKS.
+
+
+We are now to consider carefully the restoration and the reclamation of
+the books of a library, whether public or private.
+
+Nothing can be more important than the means of restoring or reclaiming
+library books that are lost or injured, since every such restoration will
+save the funds of the library or collector from replacing them with fresh
+or newly bought copies, and will enable it to furnish its stores with as
+many new books as the money thus saved represents. The cardinal thing to
+be kept always in view is a wise economy of means. An every-day prudence
+is the price of successful administration. A management which permits any
+of the enemies of books to destroy or damage them, thereby wasting the
+substance of the library without repair, is a fatally defective
+management, which should be changed as soon as possible.
+
+This consideration assumes added importance when it is remembered that
+the means of nearly all our libraries are very limited and inadequate to
+the drafts upon them, year by year. A great many libraries are compelled
+to let their books needing rebinding accumulate, from the mere want of
+money to pay for reclothing the nearly worn-out volumes, thus depriving
+the readers for a considerable time, of the use of many coveted books.
+And even with those which have large means, I have never yet heard of a
+library that had enough, either to satisfy the eager desire of the
+librarian to fill up deficiencies, or to meet fully the manifold wants of
+readers. So much the more important, then, is it to husband every dollar
+that can be saved, to keep the books in such good condition that they
+will not need frequent rebinding, and to reduce to a minimum all the
+evils which beset them, menacing their safety, or injuring their
+condition.
+
+To attain these great ends, the librarian who is qualified for his
+responsible position, must be both a preserver and a restorer of books.
+If not personally able to go through the mechanical processes which
+belong to the art of restoration, (and this is the case in all libraries
+except the smallest) he should at least learn all about them, so as to be
+able to teach them thoroughly and intelligently to an assistant. It is
+frequently made an excuse for the soiled and slovenly and even torn
+condition of books and bindings in a much used public library, that
+neither the librarian nor his aids have any time to look into the
+condition of the books, much less to repair any of the numerous damages
+they sustain. But it should be remembered that in most libraries, even
+the busiest, there are seasons of the day, or periods of very stormy
+weather, when the frequentation of readers is quite small. Those times
+should always be seized upon to take hold of volumes which have had to be
+laid aside as damaged, in the hurry of business. To arrest such damages
+at the threshold is the duty and the interest of the library. A torn leaf
+can be quickly mended, a slightly broken binding can be pasted or glued,
+turned-down leaves can be restored where they belong, a plate or map that
+is started can be fastened in, by devoting a few minutes at the proper
+time, and with the proper appliances ready at hand. Multitudes of volumes
+can be so treated in the course of the year, thus saving the heavy cost
+of rebinding. It is the proverbial stitch in time that saves nine. Never
+wait, in such matters, for the leisure day that never comes, but seize
+the golden moment as it flies, when no reader is interrupting you, and
+clear off at least one of the little jobs that are awaiting your
+attention. No one who does not know how to use the odd moments is
+qualified for the duties of a librarian. I have seen, in country
+libraries, the librarian and his lady assistant absorbed in reading
+newspapers, with no other readers in the room. This is a use of valuable
+time never to be indulged in during library hours. If they had given
+those moments to proper care of the books under their charge, their
+shelves would not have been found filled with neglected volumes, many of
+which had been plainly badly treated and injured, but not beyond
+reclamation by timely and provident care.
+
+It is amazing how any one can expect long employment as a librarian, who
+takes no interest in the condition of the books under his charge. The way
+to build up a library, and to establish the reputation of a librarian at
+the same time, is to devote every energy and intelligence to the great
+work in hand. Convince the library directors, by incessant care of the
+condition of the books, that you are not only a fit, but an indispensable
+custodian of them. Let them see your methods of preserving and restoring,
+and they will be induced to give you every facility of which you stand in
+need. Show them how the cost of binding or re-buying many books can be
+saved by timely repair within the library, and then ask for another
+assistant to be always employed on such work at very moderate cost.
+Library directors and trustees are commonly intensely practical men, and
+quick to see into the heart of good management. They do not want a
+librarian who has a great reputation as a linguist, or an educator, or a
+book-worm, but one who knows and cares about making their funds go as far
+as possible, and can show them how he has saved by restoring old books,
+enough money to pay for a great many new ones.
+
+Nothing is more common in public lending libraries than to find torn
+leaves in some of the books. If the leaf is simply broken, without being
+absolutely detached, or if part is torn off, and remains on hand, the
+volume may be restored by a very simple process. Keep always at hand in
+some drawer, a few sheets of thin "onion-skin" paper, or the transparent
+adhesive paper supplied by the Library Bureau. Paste this on either side
+of the torn leaf, seeing that it laps over all the points of juncture
+where the tear occurred, and that the fitting of the text or reading
+matter is complete and perfect. The paper being transparent, there will
+be no difficulty in reading the torn page through it.
+
+This little piece of restoration should always be effected immediately on
+discovery, both that the torn piece or fragment may be saved, and that
+the volume may be restored to use.
+
+In case of absolute loss of a leaf or a part of a page, there are only
+three remedies known to me.
+
+1. The book may be condemned as imperfect, and a new copy purchased.
+
+2. The missing part may be restored from a perfect copy of the same work,
+by copying the portions of the text wanting, and inserting them where
+they belong. This can be done with a pen, and the written deficiency
+neatly inserted, in fac-simile of the type, or in ordinary script hand;
+or else the part wanting may be photographed or heliotyped by the best
+modern process from a duplicate copy of the book.
+
+3. If the book is of very recent issue, the publishers may furnish a
+signature or sheet which would make good the deficiency, from the
+"imperfections" left in the bindery, after making up the edition of the
+work.
+
+In most cases, the last named means of replacement will not be found
+available. The first, or buying a fresh copy, may entail a greater
+expense than the library authorities would deem proper at the time, and
+it might be preferred to continue the book in use, with a slight
+imperfection.
+
+The second method, more or less troublesome according to circumstances,
+or the extent of the matter to be copied is sometimes the most
+economical. Of course, it is subject to the drawback of not being, when
+done, a _bona fide_ or genuine copy of the book as published. This
+diminishes the commercial value of even the rarest book, although so
+fully restored as to text that the reader has it all before him, so that
+it supplies every requisite of a perfect copy for the purposes of a
+public library, or a private owner who is not a connoisseur in books.
+
+When the corners of a book are found to be broken (as often happens by
+falling to the floor or severe handling) the book may be restored by a
+treatment which will give it new leather corners. With paste or glue well
+rubbed in, apply thick brown paper on the corners, which, when dry, will
+be as hard as desired, and ready to receive the leather. Then the sides
+may be covered with marbled paper or cloth, and the volume is restored.
+
+When the back of a book becomes loose, the remedy is to take it out of
+the cover, re-sew it, and glue it firmly into the former back. This will
+of course render the back of the volume more rigid, but, in compensation,
+it will be more durable.
+
+In these cases of loose or broken backs, the study should be to save the
+leather cover and the boards or sides of the book intact, so as to
+diminish by more than one-half the cost of repair. As the volume cannot
+be restored to a solid and safe condition without being re-sewed, it may
+be carefully separated from the cover by cutting the cords or bands at
+their junction with the boards, then slowly stripping the book out of its
+cover, little by little, and treating the sheets when separated as
+already indicated in the chapter on rebinding.
+
+One of the most common defacements which library books undergo is marking
+up the margins with comments or references in pencil. Of course no
+thoughtful reader would be guilty of this practice, but thoughtless
+readers are often in the majority, and the books they read or fancy that
+they read, get such silly commentaries on the margins as these:
+"beautiful," "very sad," "perfectly splendid," "I think Becky is horrid,"
+or, "this book ends badly." Such vile practices or defacements are not
+always traceable to the true offender, especially in a circulating
+library, where the hours are so busy as to prevent the librarian from
+looking through the volumes as they come in from the readers. But if
+detected, as they may be after a few trials of suspected parties, by
+giving them out books known to be clean and free from pencil marks when
+issued to them, the reader should be required always to rub out his own
+marks, as a wholesome object-lesson for the future. The same course
+should be pursued with any reader detected in scribbling on the margin of
+any book which is being read within the library. Incorrigible cases,
+amounting to malicious marking up of books, should be visited by severe
+penalties--even to the denial of further library privileges to the
+offender.
+
+Not long ago, I bought at an auction sale a copy of the first edition of
+Tennyson's "In Memoriam," which was found on receipt to be defaced by
+marking dozens of verses in the margin with black lines drawn along them,
+absolutely with pen and ink! The owner of that book, who did the
+ruthless deed, never reflected that it might fall into hands where his
+indelible folly would be sharply denounced.
+
+The librarian or assistant librarian who will instinctively rub out all
+pencil marks observed in a library book deserves well of his countrymen.
+It is time well spent.
+
+The writing on book-margins is so common a practice, and so destructive
+of the comfort and satisfaction which readers of taste should find in
+their perusal of books, that no legitimate means of arresting it or
+repairing it should be neglected. In a public library in Massachusetts, a
+young woman of eighteen who was detected as having marked a library copy
+of "Middlemarch" with gushing effusions, was required to read the statute
+prescribing fine and imprisonment for such offenses, with very tearful
+effect, and undoubtedly with a wholesome and permanent improvement in her
+relations to books and libraries.
+
+In some libraries, a warning notice is posted up like this: "Readers
+finding a book injured or defaced, are required to report it at once to
+the librarian, otherwise they will be held responsible for the damage
+done." This rule, while its object is highly commendable, may lead in
+practice to injustice to some readers. So long as the reader uses the
+book inside of the library walls, he should of course report such defects
+as meet his eye in reading, whether missing pages, plates, or maps, or
+serious internal soiling, torn leaves, etc. But in the case of drawing
+out books for home reading, the rule might embarrass any reader, however
+well disposed, if too strictly construed. A reader finding any serious
+defect in a library volume used at home, should simply place a mark or
+slip in the proper place with the word "damaged," or "defective" written
+on it. Then, on returning the book to the library, his simple statement
+of finding it damaged or defective when he came to read it should be
+accepted by the librarian as exonerating him from blame for any damage.
+And this gives point to the importance of examining every book, at least
+by cursory inspection, before it is handed out for use. A volume can be
+run through quickly by a practiced hand, so as to show in a moment or two
+any leaves started or torn, or, usually, any other important injury. If
+any such is found, the volume should under no circumstances be given out,
+but at once subjected to repair or restoration. This degree of care will
+not only save the books of the library from rapid deterioration, but will
+also save the feelings of readers, who might be anxious lest they be
+unjustly charged with damaging while in their hands.
+
+The treatment of their imperfect books (which tend perpetually to
+accumulate) is very different in different libraries. Some libraries,
+where funds are ample enough to enable them to do it, condemn any book
+that has so much as a sentence torn out, and replace it on the shelves
+with a new copy. The imperfect volumes are sold for waste paper, or put
+into some sale of duplicate books, marked as imperfect, with note of the
+damage upon a slip inserted at the proper place in the book, and also in
+the catalogue, if sold at auction or in a printed list of duplicates
+offered by the library. This notice of what imperfection exists is
+necessary, so that no incautious purchaser may think that he is securing
+a perfect copy of the work.
+
+Other libraries not blessed with means to pursue this course, do as best
+they can afford, supplying what is deficient when possible without much
+cost of time or money, or else continuing the damaged book in use "with
+all its imperfections on its head."
+
+The loss of a single plate does not destroy the value of the book for
+readers, however to be regretted as diminishing the satisfaction to be
+derived from the volume. And one can sometimes pardon the loss of a part
+of a page in a mutilated book, especially when he is made aware of the
+fact that the library which welcomes him to the free enjoyment of its
+treasures cannot well afford to buy another.
+
+It is disheartening to read, in an annual report of a public library of
+circulation in Massachusetts, that many of its popular books are so
+soiled and defaced, after a few readings, as to be unfit for further
+service; that books of poetry are despoiled by the scissors to save
+trouble of copying verses wanted; that plates are often abstracted, and
+that many magazines "seem to be taken from the library for no other
+reason than that private scrap-books may be enriched or restless children
+amused." The only remedy suggested is to examine each book before again
+giving it out, and, if returned defaced, to hold the borrower
+responsible.
+
+The art of cleaning books that are stained or dirty, is a matter not
+widely known, and in this country there are few experts at it. Some of
+these keep closely guarded the methods they use to cleanse a book.
+Comparatively few libraries avail themselves of the practice of washing
+their soiled volumes, as the process is too expensive for most of them,
+and so they are accustomed to let the library books remain in use and
+re-issue them again and again, until they become so filthy as to be quite
+unfit to be seen--much less handled by any reader.
+
+But there are often valuable or rare works which have sustained interior
+injury, and which it is desired to restore to a clean condition. The best
+method is to take the book apart as the first step. When separated into
+sheets, those leaves which are merely dirty should be placed in a bath
+composed of about four ounces of chloride of lime, dissolved in a quart
+of water. They should soak until all stains are removed, and the paper is
+restored to its proper color. Then the pages should be washed in cold
+water--running water is preferable--and allowed to soak about six hours.
+This removes all traces of the lime, which would otherwise tend to rot or
+injure the book. After this, the sheets are to be "sized," _i. e._,
+dipped in a bath of size and water, and laid out to dry. This process
+gives firmness and consistency to the paper, which would otherwise remain
+too soft to handle. The sheets should be pressed a few hours between
+glazed paste-boards, as used in printing offices. A cheap and simple size
+for this purpose may be made by mixing white gelatine with water, and
+this may be kept in a bottle, so as to be always conveniently at hand.
+The art of restoring and rendering fit for handling books and rare early
+pamphlets by sizing all the leaves is in constant use in Europe. By this
+means, and by piecing out margins, the most rotten paper, ready to drop
+apart in turning the leaves, may be restored to use, if not quite to its
+pristine condition.
+
+Ink-spots or mildew stains may be wholly removed, when freshly made, by
+applying a solution of oxalic or citric acid, and then washing the leaf
+with a wet sponge. It is more effectual to follow the bath of oxalic acid
+by applying a solution of one part hydrochloric acid to six parts of
+water, after which bathe in cold water, and dry slowly. Or an infusion of
+hypochlorite of potash in twice its volume of water may be used instead
+of the preceding.
+
+If a leather-bound book has grease on its cover, it can be removed by
+scraping French chalk or magnesia over the place, and ironing with a warm
+(not hot) iron. A simpler method is to apply benzine to the grease spots,
+(which dissolves the fatty material) and then dry the spot quickly with a
+fine cloth. This operation may be repeated, if not effectual at the first
+trial. The same method of applying benzine to oily spots upon plates or
+engravings, will remove the stains.
+
+Ink-stains may also be taken off from the leather covers of books bound
+in calf or morocco by the use of oxalic acid. Care should be taken first
+to try the acid on a piece of similar leather or on a discarded book of
+the same color. If the leather is discolored after removing the black
+spot, one may apply, after taking out the traces of oxalic acid by some
+alkali, a coloring matter similar to the tint of the leather.
+
+Spots or stains of grease or oil are often found in books. They may be
+wholly removed by applying carbonate of magnesia on both sides of the
+leaf stained, backed by paper, and pressing with a hot iron, after which
+the sheets should be washed and left under pressure over night. Another
+method is to dilute spirits of salts with five times its bulk of water,
+then let the stained leaves lie in the liquid four minutes, after which
+they are to be washed. Still another method is to make a mixture of one
+pound of soap, half a pound of clay and two ounces of lime, dissolved in
+water to a proper consistency; apply it to the spots; fifteen minutes
+after, dip the leaf in a bath of warm water for half an hour, after which
+dry and press until smooth.
+
+Stains left by mud on the leaves of a book (a not uncommon fate of
+volumes falling in a wet street) can be removed thus: spread over the
+spots a jelly composed of white soap and water, letting it remain about
+half an hour. Then dip the leaf in clear water, and remove the soap with
+a fine sponge dipped in warm water; all the mud stains will disappear at
+the same time. To remove the last traces of the soap, dip a second time
+in clear water, place the leaf between two sheets of blotting paper, and
+dry slowly in a cool and shady place.
+
+The same process, of washing in soap and water, will remove what are
+doubtless the most common of all the soilings that library books
+undergo, namely, the soil that comes from the dirty hands and fingers of
+readers.
+
+It is sometimes necessary to color the sheets that have been washed
+white, so as to correspond in tint with the rest of the volume, which has
+not needed that treatment. An infusion of cheap tobacco leaves, or a bath
+of brown stout will effect this.
+
+In all these methods of removing soil from the pages of books, it is
+absolutely necessary to give attention to thorough washing after the
+chemicals are used. Otherwise there will remain an element of destruction
+which will sooner or later spoil the book, to restore which so much pains
+may have been expended.
+
+And one can readily learn how to restore a valuable book by these
+methods. He should, however, first practice on the restoration of a
+volume of little worth--and venture upon the treatment of a precious
+volume only after practice has made him an expert.
+
+To restore a fresher look to volumes whose bindings are much rubbed or
+"scuffed" as it is sometimes called, one may spread over their surface a
+little wet starch pretty thick, with a little alum added, applied with an
+old leather glove. With this the back of the book, and the sides and
+edges of the boards should be smartly rubbed, after which, with a fine
+rag rub off the thicker part of the starch, and the book will present a
+much brighter appearance, besides being rid of dust and soil.
+
+There will remain on the volume a very slight deposit of gelatine or
+gluten; before it dries completely, the palm of the hand may be passed
+over it at all points, and the leather, which may have assumed a dull
+color from the starch, will resume a bright brown or other tint. If this
+fails to appear, a bit of flannel, impregnated with a few drops of
+varnish, should be rubbed over the leather, and when nearly dry, rub
+with a white rag slightly touched with olive oil, and a brilliant
+appearance will be given to the binding.
+
+When leaves are started, or a signature becomes loose in any volume, it
+should be at once withdrawn from circulation, or the loss of an important
+part of the book may result. The remedy commonly resorted to, of patching
+up the book by pasting in the loose leaves, is a mere makeshift which
+will not last. The cause of a loose signature is generally to be found in
+a broken thread in the sewing, and the only permanent cure is to take the
+book out of its cover, and re-sew it, when it may usually be re-inserted
+in the same binding. This is for cloth-bound books. When bound in
+leather, it is best to take out the loose sheet, "overcast" it, that is,
+secure all the leaves by sewing, then carefully lay some paste along the
+outer edge or back of the sheet, insert the sheet in its place, pressing
+it firmly with a paper knife along the middle of the sheet, and the
+volume will be restored ready for use after a few days drying under
+weight.
+
+On occasion of a fire next to the Mercantile Library rooms in
+Philadelphia, in 1877, great damage was done, from water thrown by the
+fire-engines, to many thousands of books. The library authorities tried
+various methods of restoring the volumes, and among others, drying them
+in ovens was resorted to. This was found, however, to dry the books so
+rapidly, that the bindings cracked, and in many cases came off, while
+many volumes were much warped. The most advantageous method that was
+adopted was to prepare a large number of frames on which many wires were
+strung horizontally across a large room. The wet books (many of which
+were soaked through) were suspended on these wires in such a way as to
+dry them by degrees, the temperature of the room being raised
+considerably by furnace heat.
+
+The condition in which the books were found after the wetting varied
+greatly. Nearly all that were printed on soft paper were wet through,
+while those next to them printed on thick paper, and with solid leather
+bindings, were scarcely damaged at all. The water stains constituted the
+most serious injury to the volumes, and multitudes of fine books that
+were wet will always bear the marks of the stain. Some of the more costly
+books were restored by taking them apart, washing them thoroughly, then
+placing them in a heated press, and drying them, so that the water-stains
+were removed. All the books, however different the degree of damage from
+the water, retained their legibility, and were put to the same uses in
+the library as before the fire occurred. None were burned, the actual
+fire being confined to the neighboring buildings of the block in the
+midst of which the library was unfortunately located.
+
+The whole number of volumes damaged was about 55,000, and the insurance,
+which was assessed by referees at the amount of $42,000, would nearly
+have replaced the books by new ones. Many of the volumes had to be
+rebound as the damage by wetting the glue and paste which are such
+important elements in binding securely, led to the falling apart of the
+covers.
+
+There are multitudes of books restored by some one of the processes which
+have been ingeniously contrived to make an old book as good as new, or an
+imperfect volume perfect. The art of reproducing in facsimile, by mere
+manual dexterity with the pen, letters, words, and whole pages, has been
+carried to a high degree of perfection, notably in London. A celebrated
+book restorer named Harris, gained a great reputation among book lovers
+and librarians by his consummate skill in the reproduction of the text
+of black-letter rarities and early-printed books of every kind. To such
+perfection did he carry the art of imitating an original that in many
+cases one could not distinguish the original from the imitation, and even
+experts have announced a Harris facsimile in a Shakespeare folio to be
+the printed original. The art has even been extended to engravings, with
+such success that the famous Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare, which
+illustrates the title-page of the first folio of 1623, has been
+multiplied in pen-made facsimile, so as to deceive the most careful
+scrutiny.
+
+This nice and difficult art is not widely pursued in this country, though
+there are some experts among New York and Philadelphia book-binders, who
+practice it. The British Museum Library has a corps of workers engaged in
+the restoration both of books and of manuscripts (as well as engravings)
+who are men of the highest training and skill.
+
+The process is necessarily quite expensive, because of the time required
+and of the small number of competing artists in this field. It is chiefly
+confined to the restoration of imperfect copies of early printed and rare
+books, which are so frequently found in imperfect condition, often
+wanting title-pages or the final leaves, or parts of pages in any part of
+the volume.
+
+So costly, indeed, is this skilful hand-restoration of imperfect books,
+that it has been a great boon to the collectors of libraries and rare
+works, to see the arts of photography so developed in recent years, as to
+reproduce with almost exact fidelity printed matter of any kind from the
+pages of books. The cost of such facsimiles of course varies with the
+locality, the work, the skill, or the competition involved. But it may be
+said in general that the average cost of book-page facsimiles by
+photographic process need not exceed one dollar a page.
+
+An entire edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has been printed from
+plates made in replica from photographs of the original text of the
+Edinburgh edition. The reproduction in this case can hardly be commended,
+as it is trying to the eyes to read, when compared with the original,
+presenting a somewhat blurred and irregular aspect to the eyes.
+
+It is very difficult to lay down rules which shall be effective in
+checking the abuse of books which compels exercise of the means of
+restoration. Writing upon margins (already referred to) may sometimes be
+checked by putting a printed slip in every library book bearing the
+warning--"Never write in a library book." To this may be added--"Never
+turn down leaves," an equally important injunction. Indeed, a whole list
+of "Dont's" might be inserted, but for the chance that too many warnings
+might operate to warn off a reader from absorbing any of them. Thus--
+
+    "Don't soil any book
+    Don't write on margins
+    Don't turn down leaves
+    Don't lay a book on its face open
+    Don't wet fingers to turn leaves
+    Don't fail to use the book-mark
+    Don't read with unclean hands."
+
+As a loose slip is liable to fall out, some such reminder should be
+pasted into the fly-leaf of every book, next the book-plate.
+
+A self-respecting reader will generally heed such hints, which a moment's
+reflection will teach him are meant to preserve the library book clean
+and presentable for his own use, as well as for that of others. But there
+will always be some rude, boorish people who will persist in their brutal
+and destructive treatment of books, in the face of whatever warnings. How
+to deal with such unwelcome persons is an ever-present problem with the
+librarian. If sustained by the other library authorities, a really
+effectual remedy is to deny the further use of the library to any
+offender clearly proven to have subjected library books to damage while
+in his hands. Some librarians go so far as to post the names of such
+offenders in the library hall, stating that they are denied the
+privileges of the library by the authorities, for mutilating books.
+
+In any case, great care must be taken to have the clearest proof, before
+proceeding to fasten the offense upon a particular individual. This
+involves, where the injury is not committed in the presence of any
+library officer, so as to be observed, but has been done while the book
+was drawn out, an examination of each volume before giving it out. If
+this rule were to be observed as to all, it would entail an expense that
+few libraries could afford. In a large circulating library in a city, it
+might require the entire time of two assistants to collate the books
+before re-issuing them. The circumstances of each library must determine
+how to deal with this matter. Probably the majority will limit the close
+examination of books before giving them out, to cases where there is
+reason to suspect wilful continued soiling, scribbling, or dog's-earing.
+A few such cases once detected and dealt with will have a most salutary
+restraining influence upon others, especially if re-enforced by frequent
+and judicious paragraphs in the local press, setting forth the offense
+and the remedy.
+
+But all in vain will be the endeavor to abate these defacements and
+consequent waste of the library books, unless it is enforced by a
+positive law, with penal provisions, to punish offenders who mutilate or
+deface books that are public property. A good model of such a statute is
+the following, slightly abridged as to verbiage, from an act of Congress,
+of which we procured the enactment in the year 1878:
+
+"Any person who steals, defaces, injures, mutilates, tears, or destroys
+any book, pamphlet, work of art, or manuscript, belonging to any public
+library, or to the United States, in the District of Columbia, shall be
+fined ten dollars to one hundred dollars, and punished by imprisonment
+from one to twelve months, for every such offense."
+
+This act will be found in the United States Statutes at Large, Vol. 20,
+p. 171. It would be well if the term "periodical" were added to the list
+of objects to be protected, to avoid all risk of a failure to punish the
+mutilation of newspapers and magazines, by pleading technical points, of
+which lawyers are prone to avail themselves in aiding offenders to escape
+conviction.
+
+It will be observed, that the word "deface," employed in this statute,
+actually covers the marking of margins by any reader, all such marking
+constituting a defacement within the meaning of the law.
+
+While the great multitude of readers who frequent our public libraries
+are honest and trustworthy, there are always some who are conspicuously
+the reverse. It is rarely safe in a large public library to admit readers
+to the shelves, without the company or the surveillance of an attendant.
+And it is not alone the uncultivated reader who cannot be trusted; the
+experience of librarians is almost uniform to the effect that literary
+men, and special scholars, as well as the collectors of rare books, are
+among those who watch the opportunity to purloin what they wish to save
+themselves the cost of buying. Sometimes, you may find your most valuable
+work on coins mutilated by the abstraction of a plate, carried off by
+some student of numismatics. Sometimes, you may discover a fine picture
+or portrait abstracted from a book by some lover of art or collector of
+portraits. Again, you may be horrified by finding a whole sermon torn out
+of a volume of theology by a theological student or even a clergyman.
+All these things have happened, and are liable to happen again. No
+library is safe that is not closely watched and guarded. In the Astor
+library a literary man actually tore out sixty pages of the _Revue de
+Paris_, and added to the theft the fraud of plagiarism, by translating
+from the stolen leaves an article which he sold to Appleton's Journal as
+an original production!
+
+In this case, the culprit, though detected, could not be punished, the
+law of New York requiring the posting in the library of the statute
+prohibiting mutilation or other injury to the books, and this posting had
+not been done. The law has since been amended, to make the penalties
+absolute and unconditional.
+
+In the Astor Library, over six hundred volumes were discovered to have
+been mutilated, including art works, Patent office reports, magazines,
+newspapers, and even encyclopaedias. The books stolen from that library
+had been many, until several exposures and punishment of thieves inspired
+a wholesome dread of a similar fate.
+
+At a meeting of the American Library Association, one member inquired
+whether there was any effectual way to prevent the abstraction of books.
+He was answered by another librarian (from Cincinnati) who replied that
+he knew of only one effectual method, and that was to keep a man standing
+over each book with a club. Of course this was a humorous paradox, not to
+be taken literally, but it points a moral.
+
+Seriously, however, the evil may be greatly curtailed, (though we may be
+hopeless of absolute prevention) by adopting the precautions already
+referred to. In the Library of the British Museum, a great library of
+reference, from which no book is permitted to be taken under any
+circumstances, the evil of mutilation was much reduced by prosecuting
+and posting the offenders publicly. After a few years, the obnoxious
+practice had so far ceased, that the placards, having an unpleasant
+aspect, were taken down. But on renewal of such depredations and
+defacements of books by readers, the placards were renewed, and some of
+the mutilated books, suitably labelled, were posted in the great reading
+room before the eyes of all. The authorities of the British Museum are
+convinced of the salutary effects of such warnings, though books are
+sometimes stolen or mutilated under the liberal management which leaves
+several thousand volumes open for reference, without tickets.
+
+The late Dr. Wm. F. Poole, the Chicago librarian, recorded his experience
+in dealing with some clergymen, who, said he, seem to have as regards
+books, an imperfect appreciation of the laws of _meum_ and _tuum_. He had
+found ministers more remiss in returning books than any other class of
+men. He would by no means reflect on a noble and sacred profession by
+charging the derelictions of a few upon the many. But he had had
+unpleasant experiences with men of that profession, who had absolutely
+purloined books from the Public Library, removed the book-plates and
+library stamp, and covered the volumes with paper carefully pasted down
+inside of the covers.
+
+A librarian in Massachusetts testified that it was common experience that
+clergymen and professional men gave the most trouble. Second-hand
+book-dealers in Boston had found a judge of the court purloining rare
+pamphlets, and ministers making away with pamphlet sermons under their
+coats. Without insisting here upon any such extenuations of such
+practices as the prevalence of kleptomania, it has been made abundantly
+manifest that theft and mutilation of books are sufficiently common to
+demonstrate the weakness of human nature, and the necessity of every
+safeguard which public libraries can provide against such abuses of
+their treasures.
+
+A Boston librarian stated that the thieves or mutilators of books
+included school-boys, clerks, students, teachers, soldiers, physicians,
+lawyers, clergymen, etc. In only one case was the crime committed through
+want or suffering. Yet, though the offenders had been proven guilty in
+every instance, only two cases were known in which the penalty of the law
+had been enforced. Does not this bespeak laxity of public morals in
+Boston in regard to such abuses of library property?
+
+The Union Theological Seminary at New York recorded its experience with
+ministers and theological students, to the effect that its library had
+lost more than a thousand volumes, taken and not returned. This of course
+included what were charged out, but could not be recovered.
+
+A librarian in Auburn, N. Y., returning from vacation, found that the
+American Architect, an important illustrated weekly, had been mutilated
+in seven different volumes, and that 130 pages in all had been stolen.
+Fortunately, she was able to trace the reader who had been using the
+work, and succeeded in recovering the abstracted plates. The offender was
+prosecuted to conviction, and had to pay a fine of fifty dollars.
+
+It often happens that books which disappear mysteriously from a public
+library re-appear quite as mysteriously. Those taking them, finding that
+the rules do not allow certain books to leave the library, make a law
+unto themselves, carry off the book wanted, keep it until read, and then
+return it surreptitiously, by replacing it on some shelf or table, when
+no one is looking. This is where no intention of stealing the book
+exists, and the borrower wilfully makes his own convenience override the
+library regulations, in the belief that he will not be found out. The
+Buffalo Young Men's Library reported in one year eighteen illustrated
+works on the fine arts, reserved from being taken out by its by-laws, as
+disappearing for weeks, but brought back in this underhanded manner. In
+other cases of such return, it is likely that the purpose was to keep the
+book, but that conscience or better thoughts, or fear of detection
+prevailed, and secured its return.
+
+Some instances where leniency has been exercised to save book thieves
+from penalties may be instructive. One man who had carried off and sold
+two volumes from the Astor Library was traced and arrested, when he
+pleaded that absolute want had driven him to the act. He had a wife ill
+and starving at his home, and this on investigation proving true, he was
+pardoned and saved further misery.
+
+In another case, a poor German had stolen a volume of the classics which
+he pawned for a small sum to get bread for himself, being long out of
+work, and in a condition bordering closely upon starvation. He was
+released, the book reclaimed, and the offender turned over to the
+agencies of public charity.
+
+A librarian of New York gave it as his experience that some ministers are
+not to be trusted any more than other people. Some of them like to write
+their opinions on the margins of the books. He found one of the library
+books written on in thirty pages, recognized the hand-writing, and wrote
+to the reverend gentleman asking an interview. He came, admitted the
+fact, and said that his notes made the book more valuable. This ingenious
+excuse did not satisfy the librarian, who said, "others do not think so,
+sir; so if you will get us a new book, you may keep the more valuable
+one." He soon brought in a new copy, and the matter ended.
+
+At the New York Mercantile Library, a young lady, amply able to buy all
+the books she could want, was discovered going out of the library with
+one book in her hand which she was entitled to, it being charged, and
+with five others hidden under her cloak, without permission.
+
+Mr. Melvil Dewey has truly said that it is very hard to tell a library
+thief at sight. Well-dressed, gentlemanly, even sanctimonious looking men
+are among them, and the wife of a well-known college professor, detected
+in purloining books, begged so hard not to be exposed, that she was
+reluctantly pardoned, and even restored to library privileges.
+
+A prominent lawyer of Brooklyn, of distinguished appearance and fine
+manners, did not steal books, but his specialty was magazines and
+newspapers, which he carried off frequently. Being caught at it one day,
+and accused by the librarian, he put on an air of dignity, declared he
+was insulted, and walked out. The librarian found the periodical he had
+taken thrown down in the entry, and he never after frequented that
+library.
+
+It is curious and instructive to know the experience of some libraries
+regarding the theft or mutilation of books. Thus, in the public library
+of Woburn, Mass., a case of mutilation occurred by the cutting out of a
+picture from "Drake's Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex County."
+On discovery of the loss, a reward of $10 was offered for information
+leading to detection of the culprit. This was published in the town
+paper, and an article was printed calling attention to these library
+thefts and abuses, followed by citing the State law making such
+depredations a penal offense. Within a week the missing plate came back
+to the librarian through the mail--anonymously of course, the person who
+had abstracted it finding that it was rather an unsafe picture to keep or
+exhibit, and so choosing to make his best policy honesty, though rather
+tardy in coming to that wise conclusion.
+
+This experience, and others here cited, may serve as a hint what course
+to pursue under similar circumstances, in the reclamation of library
+books.
+
+In the Library of the London Institution, continuous thefts of valuable
+editions of the classics had occurred. Putting a detective in the
+library, a young man of suspicious demeanor was soon identified as the
+thief, and was followed and arrested in the very act of selling a library
+book. He proved to be a young man of good family, education and previous
+good character; but the library had suffered such losses from his
+depredations, that no mercy was shown, and he received and underwent the
+sentence to two months imprisonment.
+
+It may be added as an instance of methods availed of in London to trace
+missing books, that the librarian, knowing from the vacancies on the
+shelves what books had been abstracted, printed a list of them, sent it
+to every second-hand book-dealer in London, at the same time supplying it
+to the police, who circulate daily a list of missing property among all
+the pawn-brokers' shops in the city, and recovered all the books within
+twenty-four hours.
+
+The Mercantile Library of Philadelphia missed a number of valuable books
+from its shelves, and on a watch being set, a physician in the most
+respectable rank in society was detected as the purloiner, and more than
+fifty volumes recovered from him.
+
+A library at Lancaster, Pa., reported the almost incredible incident of a
+thief having hidden under his coat, and carried off, a Webster's
+Unabridged Dictionary!
+
+In most cases of detected theft or mutilation of books, strong appeals
+are made by the culprit or his friends to save exposure by public
+prosecution. These are commonly, in the case of persons in very
+respectable circumstances in life, not so much to avoid paying fines
+imposed by law as to avoid the disgrace attached to publicity, and the
+consequent damage done to the character of the individual. It is probably
+true that in a majority of cases, such influences have been strong enough
+to overcome the determination of the librarian or library authorities to
+let the law take its course. Now, while it must be admitted that there is
+no rule without some valid exception that may be made, it is nevertheless
+to be insisted upon that due protection to public property in libraries
+demands the enforcement of the laws enacted to that end. The consequence
+of leniency to the majority of book thieves would be not only an indirect
+encouragement to the culprits to continue their depredations, but it
+would also lead to a lax and dangerous notion of the obligations of
+readers, and the sacredness of such property, in the public mind.
+Enforcement of the penalties of wrong-doing, on the other hand, tends
+unquestionably to deter others, both by the fear of publicity which must
+follow detection, and by terror of the penalty which is or may be
+imprisonment for a considerable term, besides the imposing of a fine.
+
+At the Worcester, Mass., Public Library, a young man of twenty-two was
+detected in stealing a book, obliged to confess, and prosecuted. Much
+pressure was brought to bear by his family and friends, very respectable
+people, to save him from the penalty. The Court, however, imposed a fine
+of thirty dollars, and it being represented that his relatives would have
+to pay the amount, though innocent parties, the judge suspended the
+sentence until the young man should pay it in instalments from his own
+earnings, one of the family giving bail. The valuable lesson was in this
+way not lost, either to the offender or to the community; the law was
+enforced, and the young man perhaps saved from a life of wrong-doing,
+while if he had been let off scot-free, in deference to the influence
+exerted to that end, he might have gone from bad to worse.
+
+At the Pratt Institute Free Library in Brooklyn, books had been
+disappearing from the reference department at intervals of about a week,
+and a watch was instituted. After some weeks' fruitless watching, a young
+man who came frequently to consult books was singled out as the probable
+offender, and the eyes of the library staff were centered upon him. The
+janitor watched his movements for some days, from a concealed post of
+observation, as the young man walked back and forth between the book
+stacks, and one day caught him in the act of slipping a book into his
+pocket, and arrested him as he was leaving the building. He had stolen a
+dozen books from the library, all but three of which were recovered. He
+claimed to be a theological student, and that he had taken the books
+merely for the purposes of study. Much sympathy was expressed for him by
+people who believed that this was his motive, and that it was some
+partial atonement for his offense. The grief of his relatives at his
+disgrace was intense. The Court sentenced him to eight years in the
+penitentiary, but suspended the sentence in view of the fact that it was
+a first offense, by a youth of twenty-one years. He was put under police
+surveillance for his good behavior (equivalent to being paroled) but the
+sentence becomes active upon any further transgression of the law on his
+part.
+
+It may be gathered from these many cases of library depredations, that
+they are very common, that perpetual vigilance is the price of safety,
+that punishment in nearly all cases is wiser than pardon, and that the
+few exceptions made should be mostly confined to offenders who steal
+books under desperate necessity or actual want.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7.
+
+PAMPHLET LITERATURE.
+
+
+What is a pamphlet? is a question which is by no means capable of being
+scientifically answered. Yet, to the librarian dealing continually with a
+mass of pamphlets, books, and periodicals, it becomes important to define
+somewhere, the boundary line between the pamphlet and the book. The
+dictionaries will not aid us, for they all call the pamphlet "a few
+sheets of printed paper stitched together, but not bound." Suppose (as
+often happens) that you bind your pamphlet, does it then cease to be a
+pamphlet, and become a book? Again, most pamphlets now published are not
+stitched at all, but stabbed and wired to fasten the leaves together. The
+origin of the word "pamphlet," is in great doubt. A plausible derivation
+is from two French words, "_paume_," and "_feuillet_," literally a
+hand-leaf; and another derives the word from a corruption of
+Latin--"_papyrus_," paper, into _pampilus_, or _panfletus_, whence
+pamphlet. The word is in Shakespeare:
+
+    "Comest thou with deep premeditated lines,
+     With written pamphlets studiously devised?"
+
+But we also find "pamphlets and bookys," in a work printed by Caxton in
+1490, a hundred years before Shakespeare.
+
+Whatever the origin, the common acceptation of the word is plain,
+signifying a little book, though where the pamphlet ends, and the book
+begins, is uncertain. The rule of the British Museum Library calls every
+printed publication of one hundred pages or less, a pamphlet. This is
+arbitrary, and so would any other rule be. As that library binds its
+pamphlets separately, and counts them in its aggregate of volumes, the
+reason for any distinction in the matter is not plain. Some of the
+government libraries in Europe are greatly overrated numerically by
+reckoning pamphlets as volumes. Thus, the Royal Library at Munich, in
+Bavaria, has been ranked fourth among the libraries of the world,
+claiming over a million volumes, but as it reckons every university
+thesis, or discussion of some special topic by candidates for degrees, as
+a volume, and has perhaps 400,000 of this prolific class of publications,
+it is actually not so large as some American libraries, which count their
+pamphlets as distinct from books in their returns.
+
+The pamphlet, or thin book, or tract (as some prefer to call it) is
+reckoned by some librarians as a nuisance, and by others as a treasure.
+That it forms rather a troublesome asset in the wealth of a library
+cannot be doubted. Pamphlets taken singly, will not stand upon the
+shelves; they will curl up, become dogs-eared, accumulate dust, and get
+in the way of the books. If kept in piles, as is most frequent, it is
+very hard to get at any one that is wanted in the mass. Then it is
+objected to them, that the majority of them are worthless, that they cost
+altogether too much money, and time, and pains, to catalogue them, and
+that they are useless if not catalogued; that if kept bound, they cost
+the library a sum out of all proportion to their value; that they
+accumulate so rapidly (much faster, in fact, than books) as to outrun the
+means at the disposal of any library to deal with them; in short, that
+they cost more than they come to, if bound, and if unbound, they vex the
+soul of the librarian day by day.
+
+This is one side of the pamphlet question; and it may be candidly
+admitted, that in most libraries, the accumulation of uncatalogued and
+unbound pamphlets is one of the chief among those arrears which form the
+skeleton in the closet of the librarian. But there is another side to the
+matter. It is always possible to divide your pamphlets into two
+classes--the important, and the insignificant. Some of them have great
+historical, or economic, or intellectual value; others are as nearly
+worthless as it is possible for any printed matter to be. Why should you
+treat a pamphlet upon Pears's soap, or a quack medicine, or advertising
+the Columbia bicycle, with the same attention which you would naturally
+give to an essay on international politics by Gladstone, or a review of
+the Cuban question by a prominent Spaniard, or a tract on Chinese
+immigration by Minister Seward, or the pamphlet genealogy of an American
+family? Take out of the mass of pamphlets, as they come in, what appear
+to you the more valuable, or the more liable to be called for; catalogue
+and bind them, or file them away, according to the use which they are
+likely to have: relegate the rest, assorted always by subject-matters or
+classes, to marked piles, or to pamphlet cases, according to your means;
+and the problem is approximately solved.
+
+To condemn any pamphlet to "innocuous desuetude," or to permanent
+banishment from among the intellectual stores of a library, merely
+because it is innocent of a stiff cover, is to despoil the temple of
+learning and reject the good things of Providence. What great and
+influential publications have appeared in the world in the guise of
+pamphlets! Milton's immortal "Areopagitica, or Plea for Unlicenced
+Printing," was a pamphlet of only forty pages; Webster's speech for the
+Union, in reply to Hayne, was a pamphlet; every play of Shakespeare, that
+was printed in his life-time, was a pamphlet; Charles Sumner's discourse
+on "The True Grandeur of Nations" was a pamphlet; the "Crisis" and
+"Common Sense" of Thomas Paine, which fired the American heart in the
+Revolution, were pamphlets. Strike out of literature, ancient and modern,
+what was first published in pamphlets, and you would leave it the poorer
+and weaker to an incalculable degree.
+
+Pamphlets are not only vehicles of thought and opinion, and propagandists
+of new ideas; they are often also store-houses of facts, repositories of
+history, annals of biography, records of genealogy, treasuries of
+statistics, chronicles of invention and discovery. They sometimes throw
+an unexpected light upon obscure questions where all books are silent.
+Being published for the most part upon some subject that was interesting
+the public mind when written, they reflect, as in a mirror, the social,
+political, and religious spirit and life of the time. As much as
+newspapers, they illustrate the civilization (or want of it) of an epoch,
+and multitudes of them, preserved in great libraries, exhibit this at
+those early periods when no newspapers existed as vehicles of public
+opinion. Many of the government libraries of Europe have been buying up
+for many years past, the rare, early-printed pamphlets of their
+respective countries, paying enormous prices for what, a century ago,
+they would have slighted, even as a gift.
+
+When Thomas Carlyle undertook to write the life of Oliver Cromwell, and
+to resurrect from the dust-bins of two centuries, the letters and
+speeches of the great Protector, he found his richest quarry in a
+collection of pamphlets in the British Museum Library. An indefatigable
+patriot and bookseller, named Thomason, had carefully gathered and kept
+every pamphlet, book, periodical, or broadside that appeared from the
+British press, during the whole time from A. D. 1649 to 1660, the period
+of the interregnum in the English monarchy, represented by Cromwell and
+the Commonwealth. This vast collection, numbering over 20,000 pamphlets,
+bound in 2,000 volumes, after escaping the perils of fire, and of both
+hostile armies, was finally purchased by the King, and afterward
+presented to the British Museum Library. Its completeness is one great
+source of its value, furnishing, as it does, to the historical student of
+that exceedingly interesting revolution, the most precious memorials of
+the spirit of the times, many of which have been utterly lost, except the
+single copy preserved in this collection.
+
+Several great European libraries number as many pamphlets as books in
+their collections. The printed catalogue of the British Museum Library is
+widely sought by historical students, because of the enormous amount of
+pamphlet literature it contains, that is described nowhere else. And the
+Librarian of the Boston Athenaeum said that some readers found the great
+interest in his catalogue of that collection lay in its early American
+pamphlets.
+
+As another instance of the value to the historical stores of a public
+library of this ephemeral literature, it may be noted that the great
+collection of printed matter, mostly of a fugitive character, relating to
+the French Revolutionary period, gathered by the late M. de La Bedoyere,
+amounted to 15,000 volumes and pamphlets. Fifty years of the life of the
+wealthy and enthusiastic collector, besides a very large sum of money,
+were spent in amassing this collection. With an avidity almost
+incredible, he ransacked every book-store, quay, and private shelf that
+might contribute a fresh morsel to his stores; and when Paris was
+exhausted, had his agents and purveyors busy in executing his orders all
+over Europe. Rival collectors, and particularly M. Deschiens, who had
+been a contemporary in the Revolution, and had laid aside everything that
+appeared in his day, only contributed at their decease, to swell the
+precious stores of M. de La Bedoyere. This vast collection, so precious
+for the history of France at its most memorable period, contained
+several thousands of volumes of newspapers and ephemeral journals, and
+was acquired in the year 1863, for the National Library of France, where
+it will ever remain a monument to the enlightened and far-sighted spirit
+of its projector.
+
+In like manner, the late Peter Force, Mayor of Washington City, and
+historiographer of the "American Archives," devoted forty years to
+amassing an extensive collection of _Americana_, or books, pamphlets,
+newspapers, manuscripts, and maps, relating to the discovery, history,
+topography, natural history, and biography of America. He carried off at
+auction sales, from all competitors, six great collections of early
+American pamphlets, formed by Ebenezer Hazard, William Duane, Oliver
+Wolcott, etc., representing the copious literature of all schools of
+political opinion. He sedulously laid aside and preserved every pamphlet
+that appeared at the capital or elsewhere, on which he could lay hands,
+and his rich historical collection, purchased by the government in 1866,
+thirty-three years ago, now forms an invaluable portion of the
+Congressional Library.
+
+Of the multitudinous literature of pamphlets it is not necessary to speak
+at length. Suffice it to say that the library which neglects the
+acquisition and proper preservation and binding of these publications is
+far behind its duty, both to those of its own generation, and to those
+which are to follow. The pamphlet literature of every period often
+furnishes the most precious material to illustrate the history and
+development of that period. The new ideas, the critical sagacity, the
+political controversies, the mechanical and industrial development, the
+religious thought, and the social character of many epochs, find their
+best expression in the pamphlets that swarmed from the press while those
+agencies were operating. The fact that multitudes of these productions
+are anonymous, does not detract from their value as materials for
+students.
+
+Pamphlets, from their peculiar style of publication, and the difficulty
+of preserving them, tend to disappear more quickly than any class of
+publications except newspapers, and broad-sides, and hand-bills. They are
+far less likely to be preserved in the hands of private holders than even
+reviews and magazines. It is the common experience of librarians that a
+pamphlet is far more difficult to procure than a book. Multitudes of
+pamphlets are annually lost to the world, from the want of any preserving
+hand to gather them and deposit them permanently in some library. So much
+the more important is it that the custodians of all our public libraries
+should form as complete collections as possible of all pamphlets, at
+least, that appear in their own city or neighborhood. How to do this is a
+problem not unattended with difficulty. Pamphlets are rarely furnished
+for sale in the same manner as books, and when they are, book-sellers
+treat them with such indignity that they are commonly thrust aside as
+waste paper, almost as soon as they have appeared from the press. If all
+the writers of pamphlets would take pains to present them to the public
+libraries of the country, and especially to those in their own
+neighborhood, they would at once enrich these collections, and provide
+for the perpetuity of their own thought. A vigilant librarian should
+invite and collect from private libraries all the pamphlets which their
+owners will part with. It would also be a wise practice to engage the
+printing-offices where these fugitive leaves of literature are put in
+type, to lay aside one copy of each for the library making the
+collection.
+
+Our local libraries should each and all make it a settled object to
+preserve not only full sets of the reports of all societies,
+corporations, charity organizations, churches, railroads, etc., in their
+own neighborhood, but all catalogues of educational institutions, all
+sermons or memorial addresses, and in short, every fugitive publication
+which helps to a knowledge of the people or the region in which the
+library is situated.
+
+The binding of pamphlets is a mooted point in all libraries. While the
+British Museum and the Library of Congress treat the pamphlets as a book,
+binding all separately, this is deemed in some quarters too vexatious and
+troublesome, as well as needlessly expensive. It must be considered,
+however, that the crowding together of a heterogenous mass of a dozen or
+twenty pamphlets, by different authors, and on various subjects, into a
+single cover, is just as objectionable as binding books on unrelated
+subjects together. Much time is consumed in finding the pamphlet wanted,
+among the dozen or more that precede or follow it, and, if valuable or
+much sought-for pamphlets are thus bound, many readers may be kept
+waiting for some of them, while one reader engrosses the volume
+containing all. Besides, if separately bound, a single pamphlet can be
+far more easily replaced in case of loss than can a whole volume of them.
+Pamphlets may be lightly bound in paste-board, stitched, with cloth
+backs, at a small cost; and the compensating advantage of being able to
+classify them like books upon the shelves, should weigh materially in the
+decision of the question. If many are bound together, they should
+invariably be assorted into classes, and those only on the same general
+topic should be embraced in the same cover. The long series of annual
+reports of societies and institutions, corporations, annual catalogues,
+etc., need not be bound separately, but should be bound in chronological
+series, with five to ten years in a volume, according to thickness. So
+may several pamphlets, by the same writer, if preferred, be bound
+together. Libraries which acquire many bound volumes of pamphlets should
+divide them into series, and number them throughout with strict reference
+to the catalogue. There will thus be accumulated a constantly increasing
+series of theological, political, agricultural, medical, educational,
+scientific, and other pamphlets, while the remaining mass, which cannot
+be thus classified, may be designated in a consecutive series of volumes,
+as "Miscellaneous Pamphlets." When catalogued, the title-page or
+beginning of each pamphlet in the volume, should be marked by a thin slip
+of unsized paper, projected above the top of the book, to facilitate
+quick reference in finding each one without turning many leaves to get at
+the titles. In all cases, the contents of each volume of pamphlets should
+be briefed in numerical order upon the fly-leaf of the volume, and its
+corresponding number, or sequence in the volumes written in pencil on the
+title page of each pamphlet, to correspond with the figures of this brief
+list. Then the catalogue of each should indicate its exact location,
+thus: Wilkeson (Samuel) How our National Debt may become a National
+Blessing, 21 pp. 8vo. Phila., 1863 [Miscellaneous pamphlets, v. 347:3],
+meaning that this is the third pamphlet bound in vol. 347.
+
+The only objection to separate binding of each pamphlet, is the increased
+expense. The advantage of distinct treatment may or may not outweigh
+this, according to the importance of the pamphlet, the circumstances of
+the library, and the funds at its command. If bound substantially in good
+half-leather, with leather corners, the cost is reckoned at 1_s._ 4_d._
+each, in London. Here, they cost about thirty cents with cloth sides,
+which may be reduced by the use of marble or Manila paper, to twenty
+cents each. Black roan is perhaps the best leather for pamphlets, as it
+brings out the lettering on the backs more distinctly--always a cardinal
+point in a library.
+
+But there is a more economical method, which dispenses with leather
+entirely. As no patent is claimed for the invention, or rather the
+modification of well-known methods, it may be briefly described. The
+thinnest tar-board is used for the sides, which, _i. e._, the boards, are
+cut down to nearly the size of the pamphlet to be bound. The latter is
+prepared for the boards by adding two or more waste leaves to the front
+and back, and backing it with a strip of common muslin, which is firmly
+pasted the full length of the back, and overlaps the sides to the width
+of an inch or more. The pamphlet has to be stitched through, or stabbed
+and fastened with wire, in the manner commonly practiced with thin books;
+after which it is ready to receive the boards. These are glued to a strip
+of book muslin, which constitutes the ultimate back of the book, being
+turned in neatly at each end, so as to form, with the boards, a skeleton
+cover, into which the pamphlet is inserted, and held in its place by the
+inner strip of muslin before described, which is pasted or glued to the
+inside of the boards. The boards are then covered with marbled paper,
+turned in at each edge, and the waste leaves pasted smoothly down to the
+boards on the inside. The only remaining process is the lettering, which
+is done by printing the titles in bronze upon glazed colored paper, which
+is pasted lengthwise on the back. A small font of type, with a
+hand-press, will suffice for this, and a stabbing machine, with a small
+pair of binding shears, constitutes the only other apparatus required.
+The cost of binding pamphlets in this style varies from seven to twelve
+cents each, according to the material employed, and the amount of labor
+paid for. The advantages of the method are too obvious to all acquainted
+with books to require exemplification.
+
+Two still cheaper methods of binding may be named. What is known as the
+Harvard binder, employed in that library at Cambridge, Mass., consists
+simply of thin board sides with muslin back, and stubs also of cloth on
+the inside. The pamphlet is inserted and held in place by paste or glue.
+The cost of each binding is stated at six cents.
+
+The cheapest style of separate treatment for pamphlets yet suggested is
+of stiff Manila paper, with cloth back, costing about three cents each.
+
+I think that the rule of never mixing incongruous subjects within the
+same cover should be adhered to. The expense, by the cheaper method of
+binding referred to, is but slightly greater than must be incurred by
+binding several in a volume, in solid half morocco style. But, whenever
+pamphlets are bound together, the original printed paper covers should
+never be destroyed, but should be bound in.
+
+Another method of preserving pamphlets is to file them away in selected
+lots, placed inside of cloth covers, of considerable thickness. These may
+be had from any book-binder, being the rejected covers in which books
+sent for re-binding were originally bound. If kept in this way, each
+volume, or case of pamphlets, should be firmly tied with cord (or better
+with tape) fastened to the front edge of the cloth cover. Never use
+rubber or elastic bands for this, or any other purpose where time and
+security of fastening are involved, because the rubber will surely rot in
+a few weeks or months, and be useless as a means of holding together any
+objects whatever.
+
+Still another means of assorting and keeping pamphlets is to use
+Woodruff's file-holders, one of which holds from ten to thirty pamphlets
+according to their thickness. They should be arranged in classes, placing
+in each file case only pamphlets on similar subjects, in order of the
+authors' names, arranged alphabetically. Each pamphlet should be plainly
+numbered at its head by colored pencil, with the figure of its place in
+the volume, and the number of the case, containing it, which should also
+be volumed, and assigned to shelves containing books on related subjects.
+I need not add that all these numbers should correspond with the
+catalogue-title of each pamphlet. Then, when any one pamphlet is wanted,
+send for the case containing it, find it and withdraw it at once by its
+number, place it in one of the Koch spring-back binders, and give it to
+the reader precisely like any book that is served at the library counter.
+
+A more economical plan still, for libraries which cannot afford the
+expense of the Woodruff file-holders, is to cut out cases for the
+pamphlets, of suitable size, from tough Manila board, which need not cost
+more than about three cents each case.
+
+In whatever way the unbound pamphlets are treated, you should always mark
+them as such on the left-hand margin of each catalogue-card, by the
+designation "ub." (unbound) in pencil. If you decide later, to bind any
+of them, this pencil-mark should be erased from the cards, on the return
+of the pamphlets from the bindery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8.
+
+PERIODICAL LITERATURE.
+
+
+The librarian who desires to make the management of his library in the
+highest degree successful, must give special attention to the important
+field of periodical literature. More and more, as the years roll on, the
+periodical becomes the successful rival of the book in the claim for
+public attention. Indeed, we hear now and then, denunciations of the
+ever-swelling flood of magazines and newspapers, as tending to drive out
+the book. Readers, we are told, are seduced from solid and improving
+reading, by the mass of daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals which lie
+in wait for them on every hand. But no indiscriminate censure of
+periodicals or of their reading, can blind us to the fact of their great
+value. Because some persons devote an inordinate amount of time to them,
+is no reason why we should fail to use them judiciously ourselves, or to
+aid others in doing so. And because many periodicals (and even the vast
+majority) are of little importance, and are filled with trifling and
+ephemeral matter, that fact does not discredit the meritorious ones.
+Counterfeit currency does not diminish the value of the true coin; it is
+very sure to find its own just level at last; and so the wretched or the
+sensational periodical, however pretentious, will fall into inevitable
+neglect and failure in the long run.
+
+It is true that the figures as to the relative issues of books and
+periodicals in the publishing world are startling enough to give us
+pause. It has been computed that of the annual product of the American
+press, eighty-two per cent. consists of newspapers, ten per cent. of
+magazines and reviews, and only eight per cent. of books. Yet this vast
+redundancy of periodical literature is by no means such a menace to our
+permanent literature as it appears at first sight;--and that for three
+reasons: (1) a large share of the books actually published, appear in the
+first instance in the periodicals in serial or casual form; (2) the
+periodicals contain very much matter of permanent value; (3) the steady
+increase of carefully prepared books in the publishing world, while it
+may not keep pace with the rapid increase of periodicals, evinces a
+growth in the right direction. It is no longer so easy to get a crude or
+a poor book published, as it was a generation ago. The standard of
+critical taste has risen, and far more readers are judges of what
+constitutes a really good book than ever before. While it is true that
+our periodical product has so grown, that whereas there were twenty years
+ago, in 1878, only 7,958 different newspapers and magazines published in
+the United States, there are now, in 1899, over 20,500 issued, it can
+also be stated that the annual product of books has increased in the same
+twenty years from less than two thousand to more than five thousand
+volumes of new issues in a year. Whatever may be the future of our
+American literature, it can hardly be doubted that the tendency is
+steadily toward the production of more books, and better ones.
+
+Whether a public library be large or small, its value to students will
+depend greatly upon the care and completeness with which its selection of
+periodical works is made, and kept up from year to year. Nothing is more
+common in all libraries, public and private, than imperfect and partially
+bound sets of serials, whether newspapers, reviews, magazines or the
+proceedings and reports of scientific and other societies. Nothing can be
+more annoying than to find the sets of such publications broken at the
+very point where the reference or the wants of those consulting them
+require satisfaction. In these matters, perpetual vigilance is the price
+of completeness; and the librarian who is not willing or able to devote
+the time and means requisite to complete the files of periodical
+publications under his charge is to be censured or commiserated,
+according to the causes of the failure. The first essential in keeping up
+the completeness of files of ephemeral publications, next to vigilance on
+the part of their custodian, is room for the arrangement of the various
+parts, and means for binding with promptitude. Some libraries, and among
+them a few of the largest, are so hampered for want of room, that their
+serials are piled in heaps without order or arrangement, and are thus
+comparatively useless until bound. In the more fortunate institutions,
+which possess adequate space for the orderly arrangement of all their
+stores, there can be no excuse for failing to supply any periodical,
+whether bound or unbound, at the moment it is called for. It is simply
+necessary to devote sufficient time each day to the systematic
+arrangement of all receipts: to keep each file together in chronological
+order; to supply them for the perusal of readers, with a proper check or
+receipt, and to make sure of binding each new volume as fast as the
+publication of titles and index enables it to be done properly. While
+some libraries receive several thousands of serials, the periodical
+publications taken by others amount to a very small number; but in either
+case, the importance of prompt collation and immediate supply of missing
+parts or numbers is equally imperative. While deficiencies in daily
+newspapers can rarely be made up after the week, and sometimes not after
+the day of their appearance, the missing parts of official and other
+publications, as well as of reviews and magazines appearing at less
+frequent intervals, can usually be supplied within the year, although a
+more prompt securing of them is often necessary. In these publications,
+as in the acquisition of books for any library, the collation of each
+part or number is imperative, in order to avoid imperfections which may
+be irreparable.
+
+First in the ranks of these ephemeral publications, in order of number,
+if not of importance, come the journals of all classes, daily and weekly,
+political, illustrated, literary, scientific, mechanical, professional,
+agricultural, financial, etc. From the obscure and fugitive beginnings of
+journalism in the sixteenth century to the establishment of the first
+continuous newspaper--the London Weekly News, in 1622, and Renaudot's
+Gazette (afterwards the _Gazette de France_) in 1631, followed by the
+issue of the first daily newspaper, the London Daily Courant, in 1702,
+and the Boston Weekly News-letter in 1704, (the first American
+journal)--to the wonderful fecundity of the modern periodical press,
+which scatters the leaves of more than thirty thousand different journals
+broadcast over the world, there is a long and interesting history of the
+trials and triumphs of a free press. In whatever respect American
+libraries may fall behind those of older lands (and their deficiencies
+are vast, and, in many directions permanent) it may be said with
+confidence, that in the United States the newspaper has received its
+widest and most complete development. Numerically, the fullest
+approximate return of the newspaper and periodical press gives a total
+number of 21,500 periodical publications, regularly appearing within the
+limits of the United States.
+
+While no one library, however large and comprehensive, has either the
+space or the means to accumulate a tithe of the periodicals that swarm
+from a productive press, there are valid reasons why more attention
+should be paid by the librarian to a careful preservation of a wise
+selection of the best of all this current literature. The modern
+newspaper and other periodical publications afford the fullest and
+truest, and on the whole, the most impartial image of the age we live in,
+that can be derived from a single source. Taken together, they afford the
+richest material for the historian, or the student of politics, of
+society, of literature, and of civilization in all its varied aspects.
+What precious memorials of the day, even the advertisements and brief
+paragraphs of the newspapers of a century ago afford us! While in a field
+so vast, it is impossible for any one library to be more than a gleaner,
+no such institution can afford to neglect the collection and preservation
+of at least some of the more important newspapers from year to year. A
+public library is not for one generation only, but it is for all time.
+Opportunities once neglected of securing the current periodicals of any
+age in continuous and complete form seldom or never recur. The principle
+of selection will of course vary in different libraries and localities.
+While the safest general rule is to secure the best and most
+representative of all the journals, reviews, and magazines within the
+limit of the funds which can be devoted to that purpose, there is another
+principle which should largely guide the selection. In each locality, it
+should be one leading object of the principal library to gather within
+its walls the fullest representation possible, of the literature relating
+to its own State and neighborhood. In every city and large town, the
+local journals and other periodicals should form an indispensable part of
+a public library collection. Where the means are wanting to purchase
+these, the proprietors will frequently furnish them free of expense, for
+public use; but no occasion should be lost of securing, immediately on
+its issue from the press, every publication, large or small, which
+relates to the local history or interests of the place where the library
+is maintained.
+
+While the files of the journals of any period furnish unquestionably the
+best instruments for the history of that epoch, it is lamentable to
+reflect that so little care has ever been taken to preserve a fair
+representation of those of any age. The destiny of nearly all newspapers
+is swift destruction; and even those which are preserved, commonly
+survive in a lamentably fragmentary state. The obvious causes of the
+rapid disappearance of periodical literature, are its great volume,
+necessarily increasing with every year, the difficulty of lodging the
+files of any long period in our narrow apartments, and the continual
+demand for paper for the uses of trade. To these must be added the great
+cost of binding files of journals, increasing in the direct ratio of the
+size of the volume. As so formidable an expense can be incurred by very
+few private subscribers to periodicals, so much the more important is it
+that the public libraries should not neglect a duty which they owe to
+their generation, as well as to those that are to follow. These poor
+journals of to-day, which everybody is willing to stigmatize as trash,
+not worth the room to store or the money to bind, are the very materials
+which the man of the future will search for with eagerness, and for some
+of which he will be ready to pay their weight in gold. These
+representatives of the commercial, industrial, inventive, social,
+literary, political, moral and religious life of the times, should be
+preserved and handed down to posterity with sedulous care. No historian
+or other writer on any subject who would write conscientiously or with
+full information, can afford to neglect this fruitful mine of the
+journals, where his richest materials are frequently to be found.
+
+In the absence of any great library of journals, or of that universal
+library which every nation should possess, it becomes the more important
+to assemble in the various local libraries all those ephemeral
+publications, which, if not thus preserved contemporaneously with their
+issue, will disappear utterly, and elude the search of future historical
+inquirers. And that library which shall most sedulously gather and
+preserve such fugitive memorials of the life of the people among which it
+is situated will be found to have best subserved its purpose to the
+succeeding generations of men.
+
+Not less important than the preservation of newspapers is that of reviews
+and magazines. In fact, the latter are almost universally recognized as
+far more important than the more fugitive literature of the daily and
+weekly press. Though inferior to the journals as historical and
+statistical materials, reviews and magazines supply the largest fund of
+discussion concerning such topics of scientific, social, literary, and
+religious interest as occupy the public mind during the time in which
+they appear. More and more the best thought of the times gets reflected
+in the pages of this portion of the periodical press. No investigator in
+any department can afford to overlook the rich stores contributed to
+thought in reviews and magazines. These articles are commonly more
+condensed and full of matter than the average books of the period. While
+every library, therefore, should possess for the current use and ultimate
+reference of its readers a selection of the best, as large as its means
+will permit, a great and comprehensive library, in order to be
+representative of the national literature, should possess them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The salient fact that the periodical press absorbs, year by year, more of
+the talent which might otherwise be expended upon literature of more
+permanent form is abundantly obvious. This tendency has both its good and
+its evil results. On the one hand, the best writing ability is often
+drawn out by magazines and journals, which are keen competitors for
+attractive matter, and for known reputations, and sometimes they secure
+both in combination. On the other hand, it is a notable fact that writers
+capable of excellent work often do great injustice to their reputations
+by producing too hastily articles written to order, instead of the
+well-considered, ripe fruits of their literary skill. Whether the brief
+article answering the limits of a magazine or a review is apt to be more
+or less superficial than a book treating the same topic, is a question
+admitting of different views. If the writer is capable of skilful
+condensation, without loss of grace of composition, or of graphic power,
+then the article, measured by its influence upon the public mind, must be
+preferred to the more diffuse treatise of the book. It has the immense
+advantage of demanding far less of the reader's time; and whenever its
+conclusions are stated in a masterly way, its impression should be quite
+as lasting as that of any book treating a similar theme. Such is
+doubtless the effect of the abler articles written for periodicals, which
+are more condensed and full of matter in speedily available form, than
+the average book of the period. In this sense it is a misuse of terms to
+call the review article ephemeral, or to treat the periodicals containing
+them as perishable literary commodities, which serve their term with the
+month or year that produced them. On the contrary, the experience of
+librarians shows that the most sought-for, and the most useful
+contributions to any subject are frequently found, not in the books
+written upon it, but in the files of current periodicals, or in those of
+former years. It is especially to be noted that the book may frequently
+lose its adaptation and usefulness by lapse of time, and the onward march
+of science, while the article is apt to reflect the latest light which
+can help to illustrate the subject.
+
+While, therefore, there is always a liability of finding many crude and
+sketchy contributions in the literature of the periodical press, its
+conductors are ever on the alert to reduce to a minimum the weak or
+unworthy offerings, and to secure a maximum of articles embodying mature
+thought and fit expression. The pronounced tendency toward short methods
+in every channel of human activity, is reflected in the constantly
+multiplying series of periodical publications.
+
+The publishing activities of the times are taking on a certain
+cooeperative element, which was not formerly known. Thus, the "literary
+syndicate" has been developed by degrees into one of the most
+far-reaching agencies for popular entertainment. The taste for short
+stories, in place of the ancient three volume novel, has been cultivated
+even in conservative England, and has become so wide-spread in the United
+States, that very few periodicals which deal in fiction at all, are
+without their stories begun and finished in a single issue. The talent
+required to produce a fascinating and successful fiction in this narrow
+compass is a peculiar one, and while there are numerous failures, there
+are also a surprising number of successes. Well written descriptive
+articles, too, are in demand, and special cravings for personal gossip
+and lively sketches of notable living characters are manifest. That
+perennial interest which mankind and womankind evince in every individual
+whose name, for whatever reason, has become familiar, supplies a basis
+for an inexhaustible series of light paragraphic articles. Another
+fruitful field for the syndicate composition is brief essays upon any
+topic of the times, the fashions, notable events, or new inventions,
+public charities, education, governmental doings, current political
+movements, etc. These appear almost simultaneously, in many different
+periodicals, scattered throughout the country, under the copyright
+_imprimatur_, which warns off all journals from republishing, which have
+not subscribed to the special "syndicate" engaging them. Thus each
+periodical secures, at extremely moderate rates, contributions which are
+frequently written by the most noted and popular living writers, who, in
+their turn, are much better remunerated for their work than they would be
+for the same amount of writing if published in book form. Whether this
+now popular method of attaining a wide and remunerative circulation for
+their productions will prove permanent, is less certain than that many
+authors now find it the surest road to profitable employment of their
+pens. The fact that it rarely serves to introduce unknown writers of
+talent to the reading world, may be laid to the account of the eagerness
+of the syndicates to secure names that already enjoy notoriety.
+
+The best method for filing newspapers for current reading is a vexed
+question in libraries. In the large ones, where room enough exists, large
+reading-stands with sloping sides furnish the most convenient access,
+provided with movable metal rods to keep the papers in place. Where no
+room exists for these stands, some of the numerous portable
+newspaper-file inventions, or racks, may be substituted, allowing one to
+each paper received at the library.
+
+For filing current magazines, reviews, and the smaller newspapers, like
+the literary and technical journals, various plans are in use. All of
+these have advantages, while none is free from objection. Some libraries
+use the ordinary pamphlet case, in which the successive numbers are kept
+until a volume is accumulated for binding. This requires a separate case
+for each periodical, and where many are taken, is expensive, though by
+this method the magazines are kept neat and in order. Others use small
+newspaper files or tapes for periodicals. Others still arrange them
+alphabetically on shelves, in which case the latest issues are found on
+top, if the chronology is preserved. In serving periodicals to readers,
+tickets should be required (as for books) with title and date, as a
+precaution against loss, or careless leaving upon tables.
+
+Whether current periodicals are ever allowed to be drawn out, must depend
+upon several weighty considerations. When only one copy is taken, no
+circulation should be permitted, so that the magazines and journals may
+be always in, at the service of readers frequenting the library. But in
+some large public libraries, where several copies of each of the more
+popular serials are subscribed to, it is the custom to keep one copy
+(sometimes two) always in, and to allow the duplicate copies to be drawn
+out. This circulation should be limited to a period much shorter than is
+allowed for keeping books.
+
+In no case, should the bound volumes of magazines, reviews, and journals
+of whatever kind be allowed to leave the library. This is a rule which
+should be enforced for the common benefit of all the readers, since to
+lend to one reader any periodical or work of general reference is to
+deprive all the rest of its use just so long as it is out of the library.
+This has become all the more important since the publication of Poole's
+Indexes to periodical literature has put the whole reading community on
+the quest for information to be found only (in condensed form, or in the
+latest treatment) in the volumes of the periodical press. And it is
+really no hardship to any quick, intelligent reader, to require that
+these valuable serials should be used within the library only. An article
+is not like a book;--a long and perhaps serious study, requiring many
+hours or days to master it. The magazine or review article, whatever
+other virtues it may lack, has the supreme merit of brevity.
+
+The only valid exception which will justify loaning the serial volumes of
+periodicals outside the library, is when there are duplicate sets of any
+of them. Some large libraries having a wide popular circulation are able
+to buy two or more sets of the magazines most in demand, and so to lend
+one out, while another is kept constantly in for use and reference. And
+even a library of small means might secure for its shelves duplicate sets
+of many periodicals, by simply making known that it would be glad to
+receive from any families or other owners, all the numbers of their
+magazines, etc., which they no longer need for use. This would bring in,
+in any large town or city, a copious supply of periodicals which
+house-keepers, tired of keeping, storing and dusting such unsightly
+property, would be glad to bestow where they would do the most good.
+
+Whatever periodicals are taken, it is essential to watch over their
+completeness by keeping a faithfully revised check-list. This should be
+ruled to furnish blank spaces for each issue of all serials taken,
+whether quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily, and no week should elapse
+without complete scrutiny of the list, and ordering all missing numbers
+from the publishers. Mail failures are common, and unceasing vigilance is
+the price that must be paid for completeness. The same check-list, by
+other spaces, should show the time of expiration of subscriptions, and
+the price paid per year. And where a large number of periodicals are
+received, covering many parts of the country, they should be listed, not
+only by an alphabet of titles, but by another alphabet of places where
+published, as well.
+
+If a new library is to be formed, having no sets of periodicals on which
+to build, effort should be made to secure full sets from the beginning of
+as many of the prominent magazines and reviews, American and foreign, as
+the funds will permit. It is expedient to wait a little, rather than to
+take up with incomplete sets, as full ones are pretty sure to turn up,
+and competition between the many dealers should bring down prices to a
+fair medium. In fact, many old sets of magazines are offered surprisingly
+cheap, and usually well-bound. But vigilant care must be exercised to
+secure perfect sets, as numbers are often mutilated, or deficient in some
+pages or illustrations. This object can only be secured by collation of
+every volume, page by page, with due attention to the list of
+illustrations, if any are published.
+
+In the absence of British bibliographical enterprise (a want much to be
+deplored) it has fallen to the lot of American librarians to produce the
+only general index of subjects to English periodical literature which
+exists. Poole's Index to Periodical Literature is called by the name of
+its senior editor, the late Dr. Wm. F. Poole, and was contributed to by
+many librarians on a cooeperative division of labor, in indexing, under
+direction of Mr. Wm. I. Fletcher, librarian of Amherst College. This
+index to leading periodicals is literally invaluable, and indispensable
+as an aid to research. Its first volume indexes in one alphabet the
+periodicals embraced, from their first issues up to 1882. The second
+volume runs from 1882 to 1887, and the third covers the period from 1887
+to 1891, while a fourth volume indexes the periodicals from 1892 to 1896,
+inclusive. For 1897, and each year after, an annual index to the
+publications of the year is issued.
+
+Besides this, the _Review of Reviews_ publishes monthly an index to one
+month's leading periodicals, and also an annual index, very full, in a
+single alphabet. And the "Cumulative Index," issued both monthly and
+quarterly, by W. H. Brett, the Cleveland, Ohio, librarian, is an
+admirably full means of keeping our keys to periodical literature up to
+date. There are other indexes to periodicals, published monthly or
+quarterly, too numerous to be noticed here. The annual _New York Tribune_
+Index (the only daily journal, except the _London Times_, which prints an
+index) is highly useful, and may be used for other newspapers as well,
+for the most important events or discussions, enabling one to search the
+dailies for himself, the date once being fixed by aid of the index.
+
+Mention should also be made here of the admirably comprehensive annual
+"_Rowell's Newspaper Directory_," which should rather be called the
+"American Periodical Directory," since it has a classified catalogue of
+all periodicals published in the United States and Canada.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9.
+
+THE ART OF READING.
+
+
+"The true University of these days," says a great scholar of our century,
+Thomas Carlyle, "is a collection of books, and all education is to teach
+us how to read."
+
+If there were any volume, out of the multitude of books about books that
+have been written, which could illuminate the pathway of the unskilled
+reader, so as to guide him into all knowledge by the shortest road, what
+a boon that book would be!
+
+When we survey the vast and rapidly growing product of the modern
+press,--when we see these hosts of poets without imagination, historians
+without accuracy, critics without discernment, and novelists without
+invention or style, in short, the whole prolific brood of writers who do
+not know how to write,--we are tempted to echo the sentiment of
+Wordsworth:--
+
+    "The intellectual power, through words and things,
+     Goes sounding on a dim and perilous way."
+
+The most that any one can hope to do for others is to suggest to them a
+clue which, however feeble, has helped to guide his uncertain footsteps
+through the labyrinthian maze of folly and wisdom which we call
+literature.
+
+The knowledge acquired by a Librarian, while it may be very wide and very
+varied, runs much risk of being as superficial as it is diversified.
+There is a very prevalent, but very erroneous notion which conceives of a
+librarian as a kind of animated encyclopaedia, who, if you tap him in any
+direction, from A to Z, will straightway pour forth a flood of knowledge
+upon any subject in history, science, or literature. This popular ideal,
+however fine in theory, has to undergo what commercial men call a heavy
+discount when reduced to practice. The librarian is a constant and busy
+worker in far other fields than exploring the contents of books. His day
+is filled with cataloguing, arranging and classifying them, searching
+catalogues, selecting new books, correspondence, directing assistants,
+keeping library records, adjusting accounts, etc., in the midst of which
+he is constantly at the call of the public for books and information.
+What time has he, wearied by the day's multifarious and exacting labors,
+for any thorough study of books? So, when anyone begins an inquiry with,
+"You know everything; can you tell me,"--I say: "Stop a moment;
+omniscience is not a human quality; I really know very few things, and am
+not quite sure of some of them." There are many men, and women, too, in
+almost every community, whose range of knowledge is more extended than
+that of most librarians.
+
+The idea, then, that because one lives perpetually among books, he
+absorbs all the learning that they contain, must be abandoned as a
+popular delusion. To know a little upon many subjects is quite compatible
+with not knowing much about any one. "Beware of the man of one book," is
+an ancient proverb, pregnant with meaning. The man of one book, if it is
+wisely chosen, and if he knows it all, can sometimes confound a whole
+assembly of scholars. An American poet once declared to me that all
+leisure time is lost that is not spent in reading Shakespeare. And we
+remember Emerson's panegyric upon Plato's writings, borrowing from the
+Caliph Omar his famous (but apocryphal) sentence against all books but
+the Koran: "Burn all the libraries, for their value is in this book." So
+Sheffield, duke of Buckingham:
+
+    "Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
+     For all books else appear so tame, so poor,
+     Verse will seem prose, but still persist to read,
+     And Homer will be all the books you need."
+
+Of course I am far from designing to say anything against the widest
+study, which great libraries exist to supply and to encourage; and all
+utterances of a half-truth, like the maxim I have quoted, are
+exaggerations. But the saying points a moral--and that is, the supreme
+importance of thoroughness in all that we undertake. The poetical
+wiseacre who endowed the world with the maxim, "A little learning is a
+dangerous thing," does not appear to have reflected upon the logical
+sequence of the dictum, namely: that if a little learning upon any
+subject is dangerous, then less must be still more dangerous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The art of reading to the best advantage implies the command of adequate
+time to read. The art of having time to read depends upon knowing how to
+make the best use of our days. Days are short, and time is fleeting, but
+no one's day ever holds less than 24 hours. Engrossing as one's
+occupation may be, it need never consume all the time remaining from
+sleep, refreshment and social intercourse. The half hour before
+breakfast, the fifteen minutes waiting for dinner, given to the book you
+wish to read, will soon finish it, and make room for another. The busiest
+men I have known have often been the most intelligent, and the widest
+readers. The idle person never knows how to make use of odd moments; the
+busy one always knows how. Yet the vast majority of people go through
+life without ever learning the great lesson of the supreme value of
+moments.
+
+Let us suppose that you determine to devote two hours every day to
+reading. That is equivalent to more than seven hundred hours a year, or
+to three months of working time of eight hours a day. What could you not
+do in three months, if you had all the time to yourself? You could almost
+learn a new language, or master a new science; yet this two hours a day,
+which would give you three months of free time every year, is frittered
+away, you scarcely know how, in aimless matters that lead to nothing.
+
+A famous writer of our century, some of whose books you have
+read,--Edward Bulwer Lytton,--devoted only four hours a day to writing;
+yet he produced more than sixty volumes of fiction, poetry, drama and
+criticism, of singular literary merit. The great naturalist, Darwin, a
+chronic sufferer from a depressing malady, counted two hours a fortunate
+day's work for him; yet he accomplished results in the world of science
+which render his name immortal.
+
+Be not over particular as to hours, or the time of day, and you will soon
+find that all hours are good for the muse. Have a purpose, and adhere to
+it with good-humored pertinacity. Be independent of the advice and
+opinions of others; the world of books, like the world of nature, was
+made for you; possess it in your own way. If you find no good in ancient
+history or in metaphysics, let them alone and read books of art, or
+poetry, or biography, or voyages and travels. The wide domain of
+knowledge and the world of books are so related, that all roads cross and
+converge, like the paths that carry us over the surface of the globe on
+which we live. Many a reader has learned more of past times from good
+biographies, than from any formal history; and it is a fact that many owe
+to the plays of Shakespeare and the novels of Walter Scott nearly all the
+knowledge which they possess of the history of England and Scotland.
+
+It is unhappily true that books do not teach the use of books. The art of
+extracting what is important or instructive in any book, from the mass
+of verbiage that commonly overlays it, cannot be learned by theory.
+Invaluable as the art of reading is, as a means of enlightenment, its
+highest uses can only be obtained by a certain method of reading, which
+will separate the wheat from the chaff. Different readers will, of
+course, possess different capacities for doing this. Young or
+undisciplined minds can read only in one way,--and that way is, to
+mentally pronounce every word, and dwell equally upon all the parts of
+every sentence. This comes naturally in the first instance, from the mere
+method of learning to read, in which every word is a spoken symbol, and
+has to be sounded, whether it is essential to the sense, or not. This
+habit of reading, which may be termed the literal method, goes with most
+persons through life. Once learned, it is very hard to unlearn. There are
+multitudes who cannot read a newspaper, even, without dwelling upon every
+word, and coming to a full stop at the end of every sentence. Now this
+method of reading, while it may be indispensable to all readers at some
+time, and to some readers at all times, is too slow and fruitless for the
+student who aims to absorb the largest amount of knowledge in the
+briefest space of time. Life is too short to be wasted over the rhetoric
+or the periods of an author whose knowledge we want as all that concerns
+us.
+
+Doubtless there are classes of literature in which form or expression
+predominates, and we cannot read poetry, for example, or the drama, or
+even the higher class of fiction, without lingering upon the finer
+passages, to get the full impression of their beauty. In reading works of
+the imagination, we read not for ideas alone, but for expression also,
+and to enjoy the rhythm and melody of the verse, if it be poetry, or, if
+prose, the finished rhetoric, and the pleasing cadence of the style. It
+is here that the literary skill of an accomplished writer, and all that
+we understand by rhetoric, becomes important, while in reading for
+information only, we may either ignore words and phrases entirely, or
+subordinate them to the ideas which they convey. In reading any book for
+the knowledge it contains, I should as soon think of spelling out all the
+words, as of reading out all the sentences. Just as, in listening to a
+slow speaker, you divine the whole meaning of what he is about to say,
+before he has got half through his sentence, so, in reading, you can
+gather the full sense of the ideas which any sentence contains, without
+stopping to accentuate the words.
+
+Leaving aside the purely literary works, in which form or style is a
+predominant element, let us come to books of science, history, biography,
+voyages, travels, etc. In these, the primal aim is to convey information,
+and thus the style of expression is little or nothing--the thought or the
+fact is all. Yet most writers envelop the thought or the fact in so much
+verbiage, complicate it with so many episodes, beat it out thin, by so
+much iteration and reiteration, that the student must needs learn the art
+of skipping, in self-defense. To one in zealous pursuit of knowledge, to
+read most books through is paying them too extravagant a compliment. He
+has to read between the lines, as it were, to note down a fact here, or a
+thought there, or an illustration elsewhere, and leaves alone all that
+contributes nothing to his special purpose. As the quick, practiced eye
+glances over the visible signs of thought, page after page is rapidly
+absorbed, and a book which would occupy an ordinary reader many days in
+reading, is mastered in a few hours.
+
+The habit of reading which I have outlined, and which may be termed the
+intuitive method, or, if you prefer it, the short-hand method, will more
+than double the working power of the reader. It is not difficult to
+practice, especially to a busy man, who does with all his might what he
+has got to do. But it should be learned early in life, when the faculties
+are fresh, the mind full of zeal for knowledge, and the mental habits are
+ductile, not fixed. With it one's capacity for acquiring knowledge, and
+consequently his accomplishment, whether as writer, teacher, librarian,
+or private student, will be immeasureably increased.
+
+Doubtless it is true that some native or intuitive gifts must be
+conjoined with much mental discipline and perseverance, in order to reach
+the highest result, in this method of reading, as in any other study.
+"_Non omnia possumus omnes_," Virgil says; and there are intellects who
+could no more master such a method, than they could understand the
+binomial theorem, or calculate the orbit of Uranus. If it be true, as has
+been epigramatically said, that "a great book is a great evil," let it be
+reduced to a small one by the skilful use of the art of skipping. Then,
+"he that runs may read" as he runs--while, without this refuge, he that
+reads will often assuredly be tempted to run.
+
+What I said, just now, in deprecation of set courses of reading, was
+designed for private students only, who so often find a stereotyped
+sequence of books barren or uninteresting. It was not intended to
+discourage the pursuit of a special course of study in the school, or the
+society, or the reading class. This is, in fact, one of the best means of
+intellectual progress. Here, there is the opportunity to discuss the
+style, the merits, and the characteristics of the author in hand, and by
+the attrition of mind with mind, to inform and entertain the whole circle
+of readers. In an association of this kind, embracing one or two acute
+minds, the excellent practice of reading aloud finds its best results.
+Here, too, the art of expression becomes important, how to adapt the
+sound to the sense, by a just emphasis, intonation, and modulation of the
+voice. In short, the value of a book thus read and discussed, in an
+appreciative circle, may be more than doubled to each reader.
+
+It is almost literally true that no book, undertaken merely as task work,
+ever helped the reader to knowledge of permanent or material value. How
+many persons, struck by Mr. Emerson's exalted praise of the writings of
+Plato, have undertaken to go through the Dialogues. Alas! for the vain
+ambition to be or to seem learned! After trying to understand the Phaedo,
+or falling asleep over the Gorgias, the book has been dropped as hastily
+as it was taken up. It was not perceived that in order to enjoy or
+comprehend a philosopher, one must have a capacity for ideas. It requires
+almost as much intelligence to appreciate an idea as to conceive one. One
+will bring nothing home from the most persistent cruise after knowledge,
+unless he carries something out. In the realm of learning, we recognize
+the full meaning of that Scripture, that to him that hath, shall be
+given; and he that hath not, though never so anxious to read and
+understand Plato, will quickly return to the perusal of his daily
+newspaper.
+
+It were easier, perhaps, in one sense, to tell what not to read, than to
+recommend what is best worth reading. In the publishing world, this is
+the age of compilation, not of creation. If we seek for great original
+works, if we must go to the wholesale merchants to buy knowledge, since
+retail geniuses are worth but little, one must go back many years for his
+main selection of books. It would not be a bad rule for those who can
+read but little, to read no book until it has been published at least a
+year or two. This fever for the newest books is not a wholesome condition
+of the mind. And since a selection must indispensably be made, and that
+selection must be, for the great mass of readers, so rigid and so small,
+why should precious time be wasted upon the ephemeral productions of the
+hour? What business, for example, has one to be reading Rider Haggard, or
+Amelie Rives, or Ian Maclaren, who has never read Homer, or Dante, or
+even so much as half-a-dozen plays of Shakespeare?
+
+One hears with dismay that about three-fourths of the books drawn from
+our popular libraries are novels. Now, while such aimless reading, merely
+to be amused, is doubtless better than no reading at all, it is
+unquestionably true that over-much reading of fiction, especially at an
+early age, enervates the mind, weakens the will, makes dreamers instead
+of thinkers and workers, and fills the imagination with morbid and unreal
+views of life. Yet the vast consumption of novels is due more to the
+cheapness and wide diffusion of such works, and the want of wise
+direction in other fields, than to any original tendency on the part of
+the young. People will always read the most, that which is most put
+before them, if only the style be attractive. The mischief that is done
+by improper books is literally immeasureable. The superabundance of cheap
+fictions in the markets creates and supplies an appetite which should be
+directed by wise guidance into more improving fields. A two-fold evil
+follows upon the reading of every unworthy book; in the first place, it
+absorbs the time which should be bestowed upon a worthy one; and
+secondly, it leaves the mind and heart unimproved, instead of conducing
+to the benefit of both. As there are few books more elevating than a
+really good novel, so there are none more fruitful of evil than a bad
+one.
+
+And what of the newspaper? it may be asked. When I consider for how much
+really good literature we are beholden to the daily and weekly press, how
+indispensable is its function as purveyor of the news of the world, how
+widely it has been improved in recent years, I cannot advise quarreling
+with the bridge that brings so many across the gulf of ignorance. Yet the
+newspaper, like the book, is to be read sparingly, and with judgment. It
+is to be used, not abused. I call that an abuse which squanders the
+precious and unreturning hours over long chronicles of depravity. The
+murders, the suicides, the executions, the divorces, the criminal trials,
+are each and all so like one another that it is only a wanton waste of
+time to read them. The morbid style in which social disorders of all
+kinds are written up in the sensational press, with staring headlines to
+attract attention, ought to warn off every healthy mind from their
+perusal. Every scandal in society that can be brought to the surface is
+eagerly caught up and paraded, while the millions of people who lead
+blameless lives of course go unnoticed and unchronicled. Such journals
+thus inculcate the vilest pessimism, instead of a wholesome and honest
+belief in the average decency of human nature. The prolixity of the
+narrative, too, is always in monstrous disproportion to its importance.
+"Does not the burning of a metropolitan theatre," says a great writer,
+"take above a million times as much telling as the creation of a world?"
+Here is where the art of skipping is to be rigorously applied. Read the
+newspaper by headlines only,--skipping all the murders, all the fires,
+all the executions, all the crimes, all the news, except the most
+important and immediately interesting,--and you will spend perhaps
+fifteen or twenty minutes upon what would otherwise occupy hours. It is
+no exaggeration to say that most persons have spent time enough over the
+newspapers, to have given them a liberal education.
+
+As all readers cannot have the same gifts, so all cannot enjoy the same
+books. There are those who can see no greatness in Shakespeare, but who
+think Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy sublime. Some will eagerly devour
+every novel of Miss Braddon's, or "The Duchess," or the woman calling
+herself "Ouida," but they cannot appreciate the masterly fictions of
+Thackeray. I have known very good people who could not, for the life of
+them, find any humor in Dickens, but who actually enjoyed the strained
+wit of Mrs. Partington and Bill Nye. Readers who could not get through a
+volume of Gibbon will read with admiration a so-called History of
+Napoleon by Abbott. And I fear that you will find many a young lady of
+to-day, who is content to be ignorant of Homer and Shakespeare, but who
+is ravished by the charms of "Trilby" or the "Heavenly Twins." But taste
+in literature, as in art, or in anything else, can be cultivated. Lay
+down the rule, and adhere to it, to read none but the best books, and you
+will soon lose all relish for the poor ones. You can educate readers into
+good judges, in no long time, by feeding them on the masterpieces of
+English prose and poetry. Surely, we all have cause to deprecate the
+remorseless flood of fictitious literature in which better books are
+drowned.
+
+Be not dismayed at the vast multitude of books, nor fear that, with your
+small leisure, you will never be able to master any appreciable share of
+them. Few and far between are the great books of the world. The works
+which it is necessary to know, may be comprised in a comparatively small
+compass. The rest are to be preserved in the great literary
+conservatories, some as records of the past, others as chronicles of the
+times, and not a few as models to be avoided. The Congressional Library
+at Washington is our great National conservatory of books. As the library
+of the government--that is, of the whole people,--it is inclusive of all
+the literature which the country produces, while all the other libraries
+are and must be more or less exclusive. No National Library can ever be
+too large. In order that the completeness of the collection shall not
+fail, and to preserve the whole of our literature, it is put into the
+Statute of Copyright, as a condition precedent of the exclusive right to
+multiply copies of any book, that it shall be deposited in the Library of
+Congress. Apprehension is sometimes expressed that our National Library
+will become overloaded with trash, and so fail of its usefulness. 'Tis a
+lost fear. There is no act of Congress requiring all the books to be
+read. The public sense is continually winnowing and sifting the
+literature of every period, and to books and their authors, every day is
+the day of judgment. Nowhere in the world is the inexorable law of the
+survival of the fittest more rigidly applied than in the world of books.
+The works which are the most frequently re-printed in successive ages are
+the ones which it is safe to stand by.
+
+Books may be divided into three classes: 1st, acquaintances; 2d, friends;
+and 3d, intimates.
+
+It is well enough to have an acquaintance with a multitude of books, as
+with many people; though in either case much time should not be given to
+merely pleasant intercourse, that leads to no result. With our literary
+friends, we can spend more time, for they awaken keen interest, and are
+to be read with zest, and consequently with profit. But for our chosen
+intimates, our heart-companions, we reserve our highest regard, and our
+best hours. Choice and sacred is the book that makes an era in the life
+of the reader; the book which first rouses his higher nature, and awakens
+the reason or the imagination. Such a volume will many a one remember;
+the book which first excited his own thought, made him conscious of
+untried powers, and opened to his charmed vision a new world.
+
+Such a book has Carlyle's Sartor Resartus been to many; or the play of
+Hamlet, read for the first time; or the Faust of Goethe; or the
+Confessions of St. Augustine; or an essay of Emerson; or John Ruskin; or
+the Divine Comedy of Dante; or even an exquisite work of fiction, like
+John Halifax, or Henry Esmond. What the book is that works such miracles
+is never of so much importance as the epoch in the mind of the reader
+which it signalizes. It were vain to single out any one writer, and say
+to all readers--"Here is the book that must indispensably be read;" for
+the same book will have totally different effects upon different minds,
+or even upon the same mind, at different stages of development.
+
+When I have been asked to contribute to the once popular _symposia_ upon
+"Books which have helped me,"--I have declined, for such catalogues of
+intellectual aids are liable to be very misleading. Thus, if I were to
+name the book which did more than most others for my own mind, I should
+say that it was the Emile of Rousseau, read at about the age of
+seventeen. This work, written with that marvellous eloquence which
+characterises all the best productions of Jean Jacques, first brought me
+acquainted with those advanced ideas of education which have penetrated
+the whole modern world. Yet the Emile would probably appear to most of my
+readers trite and common-place, as it would now to me, for the reason
+that we have long passed the period of development when its ideas were
+new to us.
+
+But the formative power of books can never be over-rated: their subtle
+mastery to stimulate all the germs of intellectual and moral life that
+lie enfolded in the mind. As the poet sings--
+
+    "Books are not seldom talismans and spells."
+
+Why should they not be so? They furnish us the means, and the only
+means, whereby we may hold communion with the master-spirits of all ages.
+They bring us acquainted with the best thoughts which the human mind has
+produced, expressed in the noblest language. Books create for us the
+many-sided world, carry us abroad, out of our narrow provincial horizons,
+and reveal to us new scenery, new men, new languages, and new modes of
+life. As we read, the mind expands with the horizon, and becomes broad as
+the blue heaven above us. With Homer, we breathe the fresh air of the
+pristine world, when the light of poetry gilded every mountain top, and
+peopled the earth with heroes and demigods. With Plutarch, we walk in
+company with sages, warriors, and statesmen, and kindle with admiration
+of their virtues, or are roused to indignation at their crimes. With
+Sophocles, we sound the depths of human passion, and learn the sublime
+lesson of endurance. We are charmed with an ode of Horace, perfect in
+rhythm, perfect in sentiment, perfect in diction, and perfect in moral;
+the condensed essence of volumes in a single page. We walk with Dante
+through the nether world, awed by the tremendous power with which he
+depicts for us the secrets of the prison house. With Milton, we mount
+heaven-ward, and in the immortal verse of his minor poems, finer even
+than the stately march of Paradise Lost, we hear celestial music, and
+breathe diviner air. With that sovereign artist, Shakespeare, full
+equally of delight and of majesty, we sweep the horizon of this complex
+human life, and become comprehensive scholars and citizens of the world.
+The masters of fiction enthrall us with their fascinating pages, one
+moment shaking us with uncontrollable laughter, and the next, dissolving
+us in tears. In the presence of all these emanations of genius, the wise
+reader may feed on nectar and ambrosia, and forget the petty cares and
+vexations of to-day.
+
+There are some books that charm us by their wit or their sweetness,
+others that surprise and captivate us by their strength: books that
+refresh us when weary: books that comfort us when afflicted: books that
+stimulate us by their robust health: books that exalt and refine our
+natures, as it were, to a finer mould: books that rouse us like the sound
+of a trumpet: books that illumine the darkest hours, and fill all our day
+with delight.
+
+It is books that record the advance and the decline of nations, the
+experience of the world, the achievements and the possibilities of
+mankind. It is books that reveal to us ideas and images almost above
+ourselves, and go far to open for us the gates of the invisible. "A river
+of thought," says Emerson, "is continually flowing out of the invisible
+world into the mind of man:" and we may add that books contain the most
+fruitful and permanent of the currents of that mighty river.
+
+I am not disposed to celebrate the praises of all books, nor to recommend
+to readers of any age a habit of indiscriminate reading: but for the
+books which are true helpers and teachers, the thoughts of the best
+poets, historians, publicists, philosophers, orators,--if their value is
+not real, then there are no realities in the world.
+
+Very true is it, nevertheless, that the many-sided man cannot be
+cultivated by books alone. One may learn by heart whole libraries, and
+yet be profoundly unacquainted with the face of nature, or the life of
+man. The pale student who gives himself wholly to books pays the penalty
+by losing that robust energy of character, that sympathy with his kind,
+that keen sense of the charms of earth and sky, that are essential to
+complete development. "The world's great men," says Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, "have not commonly been great scholars, nor its scholars great
+men." To know what other men have said about things is not always the
+most important part of knowledge. There is nothing that can dispense us
+from the independent use of our own faculties. Meditation and observation
+are more valuable than mere absorption; and knowledge itself is not
+wisdom. The true way to use books is to make them our servants--not our
+masters. Very helpful, cheering, and profitable will they become, when
+they fall naturally into our daily life and growth--when they tally with
+the moods of the mind.
+
+The habits and methods of readers are as various as those of authors.
+Thus, there are some readers who gobble a book, as Boswell tells us Dr.
+Johnson used to gobble his dinner--eagerly, and with a furious appetite,
+suggestive of dyspepsia, and the non-assimilation of food. Then there are
+slow readers, who plod along through a book, sentence by sentence,
+putting in a mark conscientiously where they left off to-day, so as to
+begin at the self-same spot to-morrow; fast readers, who gallop through a
+book, as you would ride a flying bicycle on a race; drowsy readers, to
+whom a book is only a covert apology for a nap, and who pretend to be
+reading Macaulay or Herbert Spencer only to dream between the leaves;
+sensitive readers, who cannot abide the least noise or interruption when
+reading, and to whose nerves a foot-fall or a conversation is an
+exquisite torture; absorbed readers, who are so pre-occupied with their
+pursuit that they forget all their surroundings--the time of day, the
+presence or the voices of others, the hour for dinner, and even their own
+existence; credulous readers, who believe everything they read because it
+is printed in a book, and swallow without winking the most colossal
+lying; critical and captious readers, who quarrel with the blunders or
+the beliefs of their author, and who cannot refrain from calling him an
+idiot or an ass--and perhaps even writing him down so on his own pages;
+admiring and receptive readers, who find fresh beauties in a favorite
+author every time they peruse him, and even discover beautiful swans in
+the stupidest geese that ever cackled along the flowery meads of
+literature; reverent readers, who treat a book as they would treat a
+great and good man, considerately and politely, carefully brushing the
+dust from a beloved volume with the sleeve, or tenderly lifting a book
+fallen to the floor, as if they thought it suffered, or felt harm;
+careless and rough readers, who will turn down books on their faces to
+keep the place, tumble them over in heaps, cram them into shelves never
+meant for them, scribble upon the margins, dogs-ear the leaves, or even
+cut them with their fingers--all brutal and intolerable practices,
+totally unworthy of any one pretending to civilization.
+
+To those who have well learned the art of reading, what inexhaustible
+delights does the world of books contain! With Milton, "to behold the
+bright countenance of truth, in the quiet and still air of delightful
+studies;" to journey through far countries with Marco Polo; to steer
+across an unknown sea with Columbus, or to brave the dangers of the
+frozen ocean with Nansen or Dr. Kane; to study the manners of ancient
+nations with Herodotus; to live over again the life of Greece and Rome
+with Plutarch's heroes; to trace the decline of empires with Gibbon and
+Mommsen; to pursue the story of the modern world in the pages of Hume,
+Macaulay, Thiers and Sismondi, and our own Prescott, Motley, and
+Bancroft; to enjoy afresh the eloquence of Demosthenes, and the polished
+and splendid diction of Cicero; to drink in the wisdom of philosophers,
+and to walk with Socrates, Plato and the stoics through the groves of
+Academia; to be kindled by the saintly utterances of prophets and
+apostles, St. Paul's high reasoning of immortality, or the seraphic
+visions of St. John; to study the laws that govern communities with the
+great publicists, or the economy of nations with Adam Smith and Stuart
+Mill; with the naturalists, to sound the depths of the argument as to the
+origin of species and the genesis of man; with the astronomers, to leave
+the narrow bounds of earth, and explore the illimitable spaces of the
+universe, in which our solar system is but a speck; with the
+mathematicians, to quit the uncertain realm of speculation and
+assumption, and plant our feet firmly on the rock of exact science:--to
+come back anon to lighter themes, and to revel in the grotesque humor of
+Dickens, the philosophic page of Bulwer, the chivalric romances of Walter
+Scott, the ideal creations of Hawthorne, the finished life-pictures of
+George Eliot, the powerful imagination of Victor Hugo, and the masterly
+delineations of Thackeray; to hang over the absorbing biographies of Dr.
+Franklin, Walter Scott and Dr. Johnson; to peruse with fresh delight the
+masterpieces of Irving and Goldsmith, and the best essays of Hazlitt, De
+Quincey, Charles Lamb, and Montaigne; to feel the inspiration of the
+great poets of all ages, from Homer down to Tennyson; to read
+Shakespeare--a book that is in itself almost a university:--is not all
+this satisfaction enough for human appetite, however craving, solace
+enough for trouble, however bitter, occupation enough for life, however
+long?
+
+There are pleasures that perish in the using; but the pleasure which the
+art of reading carries with it is perennial. He who can feast on the
+intellectual spoils of centuries need fear neither poverty nor hunger. In
+the society of those immortals who still rule our spirits from their
+urns, we become assured that though heaven and earth may pass away, no
+true thought shall ever pass away.
+
+The great orator, on whose lips once hung multitudes, dies and is
+forgotten; the great actor passes swiftly off the stage, and is seen no
+more; the great singer, whose voice charmed listening crowds by its
+melody, is hushed in the grave; the great preacher survives but a single
+generation in the memory of men; all we who now live and act must be, in
+a little while, with yesterday's seven thousand years:--but the book of
+the great writer lives on and on, inspiring age after age of readers, and
+has in it more of the seeds of immortality than anything upon earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10.
+
+AIDS TO READERS.
+
+
+There is one venerable Latin proverb which deserves a wider recognition
+than it has yet received. It is to the effect that "the best part of
+learning is to know where to find things." From lack of this knowledge,
+an unskilled reader will often spend hours in vainly searching for what a
+skilled reader can find in less than five minutes. Now, librarians are
+presumed to be skilled readers, although it would not be quite safe to
+apply this designation to all of that profession, since there are those
+among librarians, or their assistants, who are mere novices in the art of
+reading to advantage. Manifestly, one cannot teach what he does not know:
+and so the librarian who has not previously travelled the same road, will
+not be able to guide the inquiring reader who asks him to point out the
+way. But if the way has once been found, the librarian, with only a
+fairly good memory, kept in constant exercise by his vocation, can find
+it again. Still more surely, if he has been through it many times, will
+he know it intuitively, the moment any question is asked about it.
+
+It is true of the great majority of readers resorting to a library, that
+they have a most imperfect idea, both of what they want, and of the
+proper way to find it. The world of knowledge, they know, is vast, and
+they are quite bewildered by the many paths that lead to some part or
+other of it, crossing each other in all directions. And among the
+would-be readers may be found every shade of intelligence, and every
+degree of ignorance. There is the timid variety, too modest or diffident
+to ask for any help at all, and so feeling about among the catalogues or
+other reference-books in a baffled search for information. There is the
+sciolist variety, who knows it all, or imagines that he does, and who
+asks for proof of impossible facts, with an assurance born of the
+profoundest ignorance. Then, too, there is the half-informed reader, who
+is in search of a book he once read, but has clean forgotten, which had a
+remarkable description of a tornado in the West, or a storm and
+ship-wreck at sea, or a wonderful tropical garden, or a thrilling escape
+from prison, or a descent into the bowels of the earth, or a tremendous
+snow-storm, or a swarming flight of migratory birds, or a mausoleum of
+departed kings, or a haunted chamber hung with tapestry, or the fatal
+caving-in of a coal-mine, or a widely destructive flood, or a
+hair-breadth escape from cannibals, or a race for life, pursued by
+wolves, or a wondrous sub-marine grotto, or a terrible forest fire, or
+any one of a hundred scenes or descriptions, all of which the librarian
+is presumed, not only to have read, but to have retained in his memory
+the author, the title, and the very chapter of the book which contained
+it.
+
+To give some idea of the extent and variety of information which a
+librarian is supposed to possess, I have been asked, almost at the same
+time, to refer a reader to the origin of Candlemas day, to define the
+Pragmatic Sanction, to give, out of hand, the aggregate wealth of Great
+Britain, compared with that of half-a-dozen other nations, to define the
+limits of neutrality or belligerent rights, to explain what is meant by
+the Gresham law, to tell what ship has made the quickest voyage to
+Europe, when she made it, and what the time was, to elucidate the meaning
+of the Carolina doctrine, to explain the character and objects of the
+Knights of the Golden Circle, to tell how large are the endowments of the
+British Universities, to give the origin of the custom of egg-rolling,
+to tell the meaning of the cipher dispatches, to explain who was "Extra
+Billy Smith," to tell the aggregate number killed on all sides during the
+Napoleonic wars, to certify who wrote the "Vestiges of Creation," or,
+finally, to give the author of one of those innumerable ancient proverbs,
+which float about the world without a father.
+
+The great number and variety of such inquiries as are propounded by
+readers should not appal one. Nor should one too readily take refuge from
+a troublesome reader by the plea, however convenient, that the library
+contains nothing on that subject. While this may unquestionably be true,
+especially as regards a small public library, it should never be put
+forward as a certainty, until one has looked. Most inquiring readers are
+very patient, and being fully sensible how much they owe to the free
+enjoyment of the library treasures, and to the aid of the superintendent
+of them, they are willing to wait for information. However busy you may
+be at the moment, the reader can be asked to wait, or to call at a less
+busy time, when you will be prepared with a more satisfactory answer than
+can be given on the spur of the moment. What cannot be done to-day, may
+often be done to-morrow. Remember always, that readers are entitled to
+the best and most careful service, for a librarian is not only the
+keeper, but the interpreter of the intellectual stores of the library. It
+is a good and a safe rule to let no opportunity of aiding a reader
+escape. One should be particularly careful to volunteer help to those who
+are too new or too timid to ask: and it is they who will be most grateful
+for any assistance. The librarian has only to put himself in their
+place--(the golden rule for a librarian, as for all the world besides),
+and to consider how often, in his own searches in libraries, in the
+continual, never-ending quest of knowledge, he would have been thankful
+for a hint from some one who knew, or had been over the ground of his
+search before; and then he will feel the full value to the novice, of
+such knowledge as he can impart.
+
+He is not to forget that his superior opportunities for learning all
+about things, with a whole library at command, and within elbow-reach
+every hour of the day, should impose upon him a higher standard of
+attainment than most readers are supposed to have reached. In the
+intervals of library work, I am accustomed to consider the looking up of
+subjects or authorities as one of my very best recreations. It is as
+interesting as a game of whist, and much more profitable. It is more
+welcome than routine labor, for it rests or diverts the mind, by its very
+variety, while, to note the different views or expressions of writers on
+the same subject, affords almost endless entertainment. In tracing down a
+quotation also, or the half-remembered line of some verse in poetry, you
+encounter a host of parallel poetic images or expressions, which
+contribute to aid the memory, or to feed the imagination. Or, in pursuing
+a sought-for fact in history, through many volumes, you learn
+collaterally much that may never have met your eye before. Full, as all
+libraries are, of what we call trash, there is almost no book which will
+not give us something,--even though it be only the negative virtue of a
+model to be avoided. One may not, indeed, always find what he seeks,
+because it may not exist at all, or it may not be found in the limited
+range of his small library, but he is almost sure to find something which
+gives food for thought, or for memory to note. And this is one of the
+foremost attractions, let me add, of the librarian's calling; it is more
+full of intellectual variety, of wide-open avenues to knowledge, than any
+other vocation whatever. His daily quests in pursuit of information to
+lay before others, bring him acquainted with passages that are full of
+endless suggestion for himself. He may not be able to pursue any of these
+avenues at the moment; but he should make a mental or a written note of
+them, for future benefit. His daily business being learning, why should
+he not in time, become learned? There are, of course, among the
+infinitude of questions, that come before the librarian, some that are
+really insoluble problems. One of these is to be found among the topics
+of inquiry I just now suggested; namely: what is the aggregate wealth of
+Great Britain, or that of other nations? This is a question frequently
+asked by inquiring Congressmen, who imagine that an answer may readily be
+had from one of those gifted librarians who is invested with that
+apocryphal attribute, commonly called omniscience. But the inquirer is
+suddenly confronted by the fact (and a very stubborn fact it is) that not
+a single foreign nation has ever taken any census of wealth whatever. In
+Great Britain (about which country inquiry as to the national resources
+more largely centres) the government wisely lets alone the attempt to
+tabulate the value of private wealth, knowing that such an object is
+utterly impracticable.
+
+But, while the British census makes no attempt at estimating the property
+of the people, the independent estimates of statistical writers vary
+hopelessly and irreconcilably. Mr. J. R. McCulloch, one of the foremost
+accredited writers on economic science, lays it down as a dictum, that
+"sixty years is the shortest time in which the capital of an old and
+densely-peopled country can be expected to be doubled." Yet Joseph Lowe
+assumes the wealth of the United Kingdom to have doubled in eighteen
+years, from 1823 to 1841; while George R. Porter, in his
+widely-accredited book on the "Progress of the Nation," and Leoni Levi, a
+publicist of high reputation, make out, (by combining their estimates)
+that the private wealth of England increased fifty per cent. in seventeen
+years, at which rate it would double in about twenty-nine years, instead
+of sixty, as laid down by Mr. McCulloch. Mr. Levi calculates the
+aggregate private wealth of Great Britain in 1858, at $29,178,000,000,
+being a fraction less than the guesses of the census enumerators at the
+national wealth of the United States, twelve years later, in 1870. Can
+one guess be said to be any nearer the fact than the other? May we not be
+pardoned for treating all estimates as utterly fallacious that are not
+based upon known facts and figures? Why do we hear so much of the
+"approximate correctness" of so many statistical tables, when, in point
+of fact, the primary data are incapable of proof, and the averages and
+conclusions built upon them are all assumed? "Statisticians," says one of
+the fraternity, "are generally held to be eminently practical people; on
+the contrary, they are more given to theorizing than any other class of
+writers; and are generally less expert in it."
+
+In the presence of such gross discrepancies as these, by statisticians of
+the highest repute, and among such a practical people as the English,
+what value can be attached to the mere estimates of wealth which have
+been attempted in the census of the United States? The careful
+Superintendent of the Census of 1870 and 1880, the late Francis A.
+Walker, writes concerning it:
+
+"At the best, these figures represent but the opinion of one man, or of a
+body of men, in the collection of material, and in the calculation of the
+several elements of the public wealth." And in the last Census Report for
+1890, the results of the so-called "census of wealth," are cautiously
+submitted, "as showing in a general way a continuous increase in the
+wealth of the nation, the exact proportions of which cannot be
+measured."
+
+Now, what are we to conclude regarding the attempt to elevate to a rank
+in statistical science, mere estimates of private wealth, for a large
+portion of which, by the statements of those who make them, no actual
+statistical data exist? And when this is confessedly the case in our own
+country, the only one attempting the impossible task of tabulating the
+wealth of the people, what shall we say of the demand that is made upon
+our credulity of accepting the guesses of Mr. Giffen, or Mr. Mulhall, as
+to British wealth? Are we not justified in applying the old Latin
+maxim--"_De non apparentibus, et de non existentibus, eadem est ratio_,"
+and replying to those who demand of us to know how much any nation is
+worth, that it is sometimes an important part of knowledge to know that
+nothing can be known?
+
+Among the literally innumerable inquiries liable to be made of a
+librarian, here is one which may give him more than a moment's pause,
+unless he is uncommonly well versed in American political
+history--namely, "What was the Ostend Manifesto?" To a mind not
+previously instructed these two words "Ostend Manifesto", convey
+absolutely no meaning. You turn to the standard encyclopaedias,
+Appleton's, Johnson's Universal, and the Britannica, and you find an
+account of Ostend, a little Belgian city, its locality, commerce, and
+population, but absolutely nothing about an Ostend manifesto. But in J.
+N. Larned's "History for Ready Reference", a useful book in five volumes,
+arranged in alphabetical order, you get a clue. It refers you from
+Ostend, under letter O, to Cuba, where you learn that this formidable
+Ostend manifesto was nothing more nor less than a paper drawn up and
+signed by Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Slidell, Ministers of the United
+States to Great Britain, France, and Spain, respectively, when at the
+watering-place of Ostend, in 1854, importing that the island of Cuba
+ought to, and under certain circumstances, must belong to the United
+States. Looking a little farther, as the manifesto is not published in
+Larned, you find the text of the document itself in Cluskey's "Political
+Text-Book", of 1860, and in some of the American newspapers of 1854. This
+is a case of pursuing a once notorious, but more recently obscure topic,
+through many works of reference until found.
+
+In many searches for names of persons, it becomes highly important to
+know before-hand where to look, and equally important where not to look,
+for certain biographies. Thus, if you seek for the name of any living
+character, it is necessary to know that it would be useless to look in
+the Encyclopaedia Britannica, because the rule of compilation of that work
+purposely confined its sketches of notable persons to those who were
+already deceased when its volumes appeared. So you save the time of
+hunting in at least one conspicuous work of reference, before you begin,
+by simply knowing its plan.
+
+In like manner, you should know that it is useless to search for two
+classes of names in the "Dictionary of National Biography," the most
+copious biographical dictionary of British personages ever published,
+begun in 1885, under Leslie Stephen, and reaching its sixty-first volume,
+and letter W in 1899, under the editorship of Sidney Lee. These two
+classes of names are first, all persons not British, that is, not either
+English, Scottish or Irish; and secondly, names of British persons now
+living. This is because this great work, like the Britannica, purposely
+confines itself to the names of notables deceased; and, unlike the
+Britannica, it further limits its biographies to persons connected by
+birth or long residence with the British kingdom. Knowing this fact
+before-hand, will save any time wasted in searching the Dictionary of
+National Biography for any persons now living, or for any American or
+European names.
+
+Another caveat may properly be interposed as regards searches for
+information in that most widely advertised and circulated of all works of
+reference,--the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The plan of that work was to
+furnish the reading public with the very best treatises upon leading
+topics in science, history, and literature, by eminent scholars and
+specialists in various fields. Pursuant to this general scheme, each
+great subject has a most elaborate, and sometimes almost exhaustive
+article--as, for example, chemistry, geology, etc., while the minor
+divisions of each topic do not appear in the alphabet at all, or appear
+only by cross-reference to the generic name under which they are treated.
+It results, that while you find, for example, a most extensive article
+upon "Anatomy", filling a large part of a volume of the Britannica, you
+look in vain in the alphabet for such subjects as "blood, brain,
+cartilage, sinew, tissue," etc., which are described only in the article
+"Anatomy." This method has to be well comprehended in order for any
+reader to make use of this great Cyclopaedia understandingly. Even by the
+aid of the English index to the work, issued by its foreign publishers,
+the reader who is in hasty quest of information in the Britannica, will
+most frequently be baffled by not finding any minor subject in the index.
+The English nation, judged by most of the productions of its literary and
+scientific men in that field, has small genius for indexing. It was
+reserved to an American to prepare and print a thorough index, at once
+alphabetical and analytical, to this great English thesaurus of
+information--an index ten times more copious, and therefore more useful
+to the student, than the meagre one issued in England. This index fills
+3,900 closely printed columns, forming the whole of volume 25 of the
+Philadelphia edition of the work. By its aid, every name and every topic,
+treated anywhere in this vast repository of human knowledge can be traced
+out and appropriated; while without it, the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
+with all its great merits, must remain very much in the nature of a
+sealed book to the reader who stands in need of immediate use and
+reference. We have to take it for what it is--a collection of masterly
+treatises, rather than a handy dictionary of knowledge.
+
+The usefulness and success of any library will depend very largely upon
+the sympathy, so to speak, between the readers and the librarian. When
+this is well established, the rest is very easy. The librarian should not
+seclude himself so as to be practically inaccessible to readers, nor
+trust wholly to assistants to answer their inquiries. This may be
+necessary in some large libraries, where great and diversified interests
+connected with the building up of the collection, the catalogue system,
+and the library management and administration are all concerned. In the
+British Museum Library, no one ever sees the Principal Librarian; even
+the next officer, who is called the keeper of the printed books, is not
+usually visible in the reading-room at all.
+
+A librarian who is really desirous of doing the greatest good to the
+greatest number of people, will be not only willing, but anxious to
+answer inquiries, even though they may appear to him trivial and
+unimportant. Still, he should also economise time by cultivating the
+habit of putting his answers into the fewest and plainest words.
+
+How far the librarian should place himself in direct communication with
+readers, must depend largely upon the extent of the library, the labor
+required in managing its various departments, the amount and value of
+assistance at his command, and upon various other circumstances,
+depending upon the different conditions with different librarians. But it
+may be laid down as a safe general rule, that the librarian should hold
+himself perpetually as a public servant, ready and anxious to answer in
+some way, all inquiries that may come to him. Thus, and thus only, can he
+make himself, and the collection of books under his charge, useful in the
+highest degree to the public. He will not indeed, in any extensive
+library, find it convenient, or even possible, to answer all inquiries in
+person; but he should always be ready to enable his assistants to answer
+them, by his superior knowledge as to the best sources of information,
+whenever they fail to trace out what is wanted. In any small library, he
+should be always accessible, at or near the place where people are
+accustomed to have their wants for books or information supplied: and the
+public resorting to the library will thus come not only to rely upon him
+for aid in their intellectual researches, but to appreciate and respect
+him for the wide extent of his knowledge, and to consider him, in time,
+an indispensable guide, if not leader, in the community. His reputation,
+in fact, will depend upon the extent to which he has been able to help
+others, as well as upon the number of people whom he has thus aided.
+
+In a very high sense, the true librarian is an educator; his school is as
+large as the town in which his library is situated. Very few people in
+that town know what he is always presumed to know,--namely--to what books
+to go to get answers to the questions they want answered. In supplying
+continually the means of answering these countless questions, the library
+becomes actually a popular university, in which the librarian is the
+professor, the tuition is free, and the course is optional, both as to
+study and as to time.
+
+Most persons who come to make any investigation in a public library
+require a good deal of assistance. For example, a reader is in need of
+the latest information as to the amount of steel and iron made in this
+country, and what State produces these important manufactures. He has not
+the faintest idea where to look for the information, except that it may
+be in the census, but the census is nine years old, and he wants recent
+facts. It is vain to turn him over to the cyclopaedias, for there is not
+one whose information upon such statistics comes anywhere near up to
+date. You have to put before him a pamphlet annual, published by the
+American Iron and Steel Association, which contains exactly what he
+wants; and no other source of information does contain it.
+
+Another inquirer seeks to know how to treat some disease. In such cases,
+of course, the librarian should not go farther than to put before the
+reader a work on domestic medicine, for it is not his function to deal in
+recommendations of this, that, or the other method of treatment, any more
+than it is to give legal opinions, if asked--although he may have studied
+law. So, if the reader wants to know about the religious tenets of the
+Presbyterians, or the Mormons, or the Buddhists, or the doctrines of the
+Catholic Church, and asks the librarian's opinion about any controverted
+question of belief, he is to be answered only by the statement that the
+library is there to supply information, not opinions, and then pointed to
+the religious cyclopaedias, which give full summaries of all the sects.
+
+He may frequently be asked for information on a subject which he knows
+nothing about; and I have heard a librarian declare, that he often found
+himself able to give fuller and better information on a subject of which
+he was previously ignorant, than upon one he had long been familiar with.
+The reason was that in the one case he had freshly looked up all the
+authorities, and put them before the reader, while in the other, giving
+the references from a memory, more or less imperfect, he had overlooked
+some of the most important means of information.
+
+The constant exercise of the habit of supplying helps to readers is a
+splendid intellectual school for the librarian himself. Through it, his
+memory is quickened and consequently improved, (as every faculty is by
+use) his habits of mental classification and analysis are formed or
+strengthened, and his mind is kept on the alert to utilize the whole
+arsenal of the knowledge he has already acquired, or to acquire new
+knowledge.
+
+Another very important benefit derived by the librarian from his
+constantly recurring attention to the calls of readers for aid, is the
+suggestion thereby furnished of the deficiencies in the collection in his
+charge. This will be a continual reminder to him, of what he most needs,
+namely, how to equip the library with the best and most recent sources of
+information in every field of inquiry. Whether the library be a large or
+a small one, its deficiencies in some directions are sure to be very
+considerable: and these gaps are more conspicuously revealed in trying to
+supply readers with the means of making what may be termed an exhaustive
+research upon a given subject, than in any other way. You find, for
+example, in looking up your authorities in what has come to be called
+Egyptology, that while you have Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt, and Lane's
+Modern Egyptians, both of which are very valuable works, you have not the
+more modern books of Brugsch-Bey, or of A. H. Sayce, or of Maspero. You
+may also find out, by mingling freely with a good part of the readers,
+what subjects are most frequently looked into or inquired about, and you
+can thus secure valuable information as to the directions in which the
+library most needs strengthening. Thus, in a community largely made up of
+people connected with manufacturing interests, the inquiries are liable
+to be much concerned with the mechanic arts; and you would therefore
+naturally seek to acquire a liberal selection of the best and latest
+works in technical science, or the useful arts. If you have, on the other
+hand, very few inquiries, indeed, for theological works, you take it as
+some evidence that that department of the collection needs little
+enlargement, and you may devote your funds in other directions. Then too,
+the great value of popularising the library by the hearty interest shown
+by the librarian in the wants of the people can hardly be over-rated.
+This interest, being a perennial one, and continued through a series of
+years, the number of citizens and their families assisted will be
+constantly on the increase, and the public opinion of the town will come
+in time, to regard the library as a great popular necessity. Hence, if it
+is an institution supported in whole or in part by town or municipal
+funds, its claims to liberal consideration will be immeasurably
+strengthened. If an enlargement of room for the books, or even a new
+library building comes to be needed, its chances for securing the funds
+requisite will be excellent. If a more liberal supply of new books, or an
+extended range of older ones of great value is reported by the librarian
+as wanted to increase the usefulness of the library, the authorities will
+more cheerfully consider the claim. And if it is proposed that additional
+and competent assistance shall be given to the librarian, or that he
+should be more liberally compensated for his highly useful and important
+labors, that, too, may be accomplished--especially if it has come to be
+recognized that by his wide knowledge, and skilful management, and
+helpful devotion to the service of the reading public, he has rendered
+himself indispensable.
+
+In the supply of information desired by readers, it is better to leave
+them to their own search, once you have put before them the proper
+authorities, than to spend your time in turning for them to the volume
+and page. This, for two reasons--first, it leaves your own time free to
+help other readers, or to attend to the ever-waiting library work; and,
+secondly, it induces habits of research and self-help on the part of the
+reader. It is enough for the librarian to act as an intelligent
+guide-post, to point the way; to travel the road is the business of the
+reader himself. Therefore, let the visitor in quest of a quotation, look
+it out in the index of the volumes you put before him. If he fails to
+find it, it will then be time for you to intervene, and lend the aid of
+your more practiced eye, and superior knowledge of how to search; or
+else, let the reader look for it in some more copious anthology, which
+you may put before him. There are multitudes of inquiries for the authors
+of poems, which are in no sense "familiar quotations," nor even select
+quotations, but which are merely common-place sentiments expressed in
+language quite unpoetic,--and not the work of any notable writer at all.
+They are either the production of some utterly obscure author of a volume
+of verse, quite unknown to fame, or, still more probably, the
+half-remembered verses of some anonymous contributor to the poet's corner
+of the newspaper or magazine. In such cases, where you see no poetic
+beauty or imaginative power in the lines, it is well to inform the
+inquirer at once that you do not think them the production of any noted
+writer, and thus end the fruitless search for memorizing what is not at
+all memorable. What may strike uncultivated readers as beautiful, may be
+set down as trash, by a mind that has been fed upon the masterpieces of
+poetry. Not that the librarian is to assume the air of an oracle or a
+censor, (something to be in all circumstances avoided) or to pronounce
+positive judgment upon what is submitted: he should inform any admiring
+reader of a passage not referred to in any of the anthologies, and not
+possessing apparent poetic merit, that he believes the author is unknown
+to fame. That should be sufficient for any reasonably disposed reader,
+who, after search duly completed, will go away answered, if not
+satisfied.
+
+I gave some instances of the singular variety of questions asked of a
+librarian. Let me add one, reported by Mr. Robert Harrison, of the London
+Library, as asked of him by William M. Thackeray. The distinguished
+author of Esmond and The Virginians wanted a book that would tell of
+General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. "I don't want to know about his
+battles", said the novelist. "I can get all that from the histories. I
+want something that will tell me the color of the breeches he wore."
+After due search, the librarian was obliged to confess that there was no
+such book.
+
+A librarian is likely to be constantly in a position to aid the
+uninformed reader how to use the books of reference which every public
+library contains. The young person who is new to the habit of
+investigation, or the adult who has never learned the method of finding
+things, needs to be shown how to use even so simple a thing as an index.
+Do not be impatient with his ignorance, although you may find him
+fumbling over the pages in the body of the book in vain, to find what
+you, with your acquired knowledge of indexes and their use, can find in
+half a minute or less. Practice alone can make one perfect in the art of
+search and speedy finding. The tyro who tries your patience this year,
+will very likely become an expert reader the next. Wide as is the domain
+of ignorance, there are few among those intelligent enough to resort to a
+library at all, who cannot learn. You will find some who come to the
+library so unskilled, that they will turn over the leaves even of an
+index, in a blind, hap-hazard way, evidently at a loss how to use it.
+These must be instructed first, that the index is arranged just like a
+dictionary, in the alphabetical order of the names or subjects treated,
+and secondly, that after finding the word they seek in it, they must turn
+to the page indicated by the figure attached to that word. This is the
+very primer of learning in the use of a library, but the library in any
+town, used as it is by many boys and girls of all ages, has to be a
+primary school for beginners, as well as a university for advanced
+students. Despise not the day of small things, however you may find it
+more agreeable to be occupied with great ones.
+
+On the other hand, you will find at the other extreme of intelligence,
+among your clientage of readers, those who are completely familiar with
+books and their uses. There are some readers frequenting public
+libraries, who not only do not need assistance themselves, but who are
+fully competent to instruct the librarian. In meeting the calls of such
+skilled readers, who always know what they require, it is never good
+policy to obtrude advice or suggestion, but simply to supply what they
+call for. You will readily recognize and discriminate such experts from
+the mass of readers, if you have good discernment. Sometimes they are
+quite as sensitive as they are intelligent, and it may annoy them to have
+offered them books they do not want, in the absence of what they require.
+An officious, or super-serviceable librarian or assistant, may sometimes
+prejudice such a reader by proffering help which he does not want,
+instead of waiting for his own call or occasion.
+
+Let us look at a few examples of the numerous calls at a popular library.
+For example, a reader asks to see a book, giving an account of the
+marriage of the Adriatic. You know that this concerns the history of
+Venice and its Doges, and you turn to various books on Venice, and its
+history, until you find a description of the strange festival. It may be,
+and probably is the case, that the books, like most descriptive works and
+narratives of travellers, are without index. This is a disability in the
+use of books which you must continually encounter, since multitudes of
+volumes, old and new, are sent out without a vestige of an index to their
+contents. Some writers have urged that a law should be made refusing
+copyright to the author of any book who failed to provide it with an
+index; a requirement highly desirable, but also highly impracticable. Yet
+you will find in most books, a division of the contents into chapters,
+and in the beginning of the volume a table of the contents of each
+chapter, giving its leading topics. This is a substitute for an index,
+although (not being arranged in alphabetical order) it is far less useful
+than that time-saving aid to research. But you have to learn to take
+advantage of even poor and inferior helps, when you cannot have the best,
+(as a poor guide is better than no guide at all, unless it misguides,)
+and so you run your eye quickly through the table of contents to find
+what you seek. In the case supposed, of the ceremony at Venice, you will
+be aided in the search by having in mind that the catch-words involved
+are "Adriatic," and "Doge," and as these begin with capital letters,
+which stand out, as it were, from the monotonous "lower case" type (as
+printers call all the letters that are not capitals) your search will be
+much abridged by omitting to read through all the sentences of your table
+of contents, and seizing only the passage or passages where "Doge," or
+"Adriatic," may occur.
+
+This remark will apply as well to numerous other searches which you will
+have to make in books. The table of contents will commonly take note of
+all the more salient topics that are treated in the book, whether of
+persons, of places, of notable scenes, historic events, etc., and so
+will aid you in finding what you seek. In the last resort only, in the
+books whose table of contents fails you, will you have to turn the leaves
+page by page, which, while not equivalent to reading the book through, is
+a time-consuming business.
+
+Of course no librarian can devote hours of his precious time to searches
+in such detail for readers. They are to be supplied with the books likely
+to contain what they are in search of, and left to seek it in their own
+way, with such hints and cautions as to saving time by taking the
+shortest road, as the experience of the librarian enables him to supply.
+The suggestions here given are not needed by scholarly readers, but are
+the fruits of long experience in searching books for what they contain.
+
+Again, let us take the case of a call by a reader who happens to be a
+decorative painter, for patterns which may furnish him hints in finishing
+an interior of a house. Of course he wants color--that is, not theory
+only, but illustration, or practical examples. So you put before him Owen
+Jones's Grammar of Ornament, or Racinet's _L'Ornement polychrome_, both
+illustrated with many beautiful designs in color, which he is delighted
+to find.
+
+Another reader is anxious to see a picture of "St. George and the
+Dragon." If you have the "Museum of Painting and Sculpture," in 17
+volumes, or Champlin's "Cyclopaedia of Painters and Painting," a
+dictionary of art in four volumes, you find it in either work, in the
+alphabet, under "St. George," and his want is satisfied.
+
+A youngster wants to know how to build a boat, and you find him Folkard
+on Boats, or Frazar's Sail-boats, which describe and figure various
+styles of water-craft.
+
+Perhaps an inquisitive reader wants to find out all about the families of
+the various languages, and what is known of their origin, and you supply
+him with W. D. Whitney's "Life and Growth of Language," or Max Mueller's
+"Science of Language," either of which furnishes full information.
+
+Another inquirer seeks for information about the aggregate debts of
+nations. You give him the great quarto volume of the last Census on
+Wealth and Indebtedness, or for still later information the Statesman's
+Year Book for 1899, or the Almanach de Gotha for the current year, both
+of which contain the comparative debts of nations at the latest dates.
+
+The inquirer who seeks to know the rates of wages paid for all kinds of
+labor in a series of several years, can be supplied with the elaborate
+Report on Labor and Wages for fifty-two years, published by the U. S.
+Government in 1893, in four volumes.
+
+Another reader wishes, we will suppose, to hunt up the drawings of all
+patents that have been issued on type-writers, and type-writing
+inventions. You put before him the many indexes to the Patent
+Specifications and Patent Office Gazette; he makes out from these his
+list of volumes wanted, which are at once supplied, and he falls to work
+on his long, but to him interesting job.
+
+A reader who has seen in the library or elsewhere a book he would much
+like to own, but cannot find a copy in town, wants to know what it will
+cost: you turn to your American or foreign catalogue, covering the year
+of publication, and give him not only the price, but the publisher's name
+from whom he can order it, and he goes on his way rejoicing.
+
+An artist engaged upon a painting in which he wishes to introduce a deer,
+or a group of rabbits, or an American eagle, or a peacock, asks for an
+accurate picture of the bird or animal wanted. You put before him J. S.
+Kingsley's Riverside Natural History, in six volumes, and his desire is
+satisfied.
+
+In dealing with books of reference, there will often be found very
+important discrepancies of statement, different works giving different
+dates, for example, for the same event in history or biography.
+
+Next to a bible and a dictionary of language, there is no book, perhaps,
+more common than a biographical dictionary. Our interest in our
+fellow-men is perennial; and we seek to know not only their
+characteristics, and the distinguishing events of their lives, but also
+the time of their birth into the world and their exit from it. This is a
+species of statistics upon which one naturally expects certainty, since
+no person eminent enough to be recorded at all is likely to have the
+epoch of his death, at least, unremarked. Yet the seeker after exact
+information in the biographical dictionaries will find, if he extends his
+quest among various authorities, that he is afloat on a sea of
+uncertainties. Not only can he not find out the date of decease of some
+famous navigators, like Sir John Franklin and La Perouse, who sailed into
+unexplored regions of the globe, and were never heard of more, but the
+men who died at home, in the midst of friends and families, are
+frequently recorded as deceased at dates so discrepant that no ingenuity
+can reconcile them.
+
+In Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, Sir Henry Havelock was said to have died
+November 25th, 1857, while Maunder's Treasury of Biography gives November
+21st, the London Almanac, November 27th, and the Life of Havelock, by his
+brother-in-law, November 24th. Here are four distinct dates of death
+given, by authorities apparently equally accredited, to a celebrated
+general, who died within forty years of our own time. Of the death of the
+notorious Robespierre, guillotined in 1794, we find in Chalmers'
+Biographical Dictionary that he died July 10th, in Rees's Cyclopaedia,
+July 28th, and in Alison's History of Europe, July 29th. Doubtless it is
+some comfort to reflect, in view of his many crimes, that the bloody
+tyrant of the Jacobins is really dead, irrespective of the date, about
+which biographers may dispute. Of the English mechanician Joseph Bramah,
+inventor of the Bramah lock, we learn from the English Cyclopaedia, that
+he died in 1814, and from Rose's Biographical Dictionary, that he died in
+1815.
+
+Now, although a large share of the errors and discrepancies that abound
+in biographical dictionaries and other books of reference may be
+accounted for by misprints, others by reckoning old style instead of new,
+and many more by carelessness of writers and transcribers, it is plain
+that all the variations cannot be thus accounted for. Nothing is more
+common in printing offices than to find a figure 6 inverted serving as a
+9, a 5 for a 3, or a 3 for an 8, while 8, 9, and O, are frequently
+interchanged. In such cases, a keen-eyed proof-reader may not always be
+present to prevent the falsification of history; and it is a fact, not
+sufficiently recognized, that to the untiring vigilance, intelligence,
+and hard, conscientious labors of proof-readers, the world owes a deeper
+debt of gratitude than it does to many a famous maker of books. It is
+easy enough to make books, Heaven knows, but to make them correct, "_Hic
+labor, hoc opus est_."
+
+A high authority in encyclopaedical lore tells us that the best
+accredited authorities are at odds with regard to the birth or death of
+individuals in the enormous ratio of from twenty to twenty-five per cent.
+of the whole number in the biographical dictionaries. The Portuguese poet
+Camoens is said by some authorities to have been born in 1517, and by
+others in 1525; a discrepancy of eight years. Chateaubriand is declared
+by the English Cyclopaedia to have been born September 4th, 1768;
+September 14th, 1768, by the Nouvelle Biographie generale of Dr. Hoefer;
+and September 4th, 1769, by the Conversations-Lexicon. Of course it is
+clear that all these authorities cannot be right; but which of the three
+is so, is matter of extreme doubt, leaving the student of facts perplexed
+and uncertain at the very point where certainty is not only most
+important, but most confidently expected.
+
+Of another kind are the errors that sometimes creep into works of
+reference of high credit, by accepting too confidently statements
+publicly made. In one edition of the Dictionary of Congress a certain
+honorable member from Pennsylvania, in uncommonly robust health, was
+astonished to find himself recorded as having died of the National Hotel
+disease, contracted at Washington in 1856. In this case, the editor of
+the work was a victim of too much confidence in the newspapers. In the
+Congressional Directory, where brief biographies of Congressmen are
+given, one distinguished member was printed as having been elected to
+Congress at a time which, taken in connection with his birth-date in the
+same paragraph, made him precisely one year old when he took his seat in
+Congress.
+
+Even in reporting the contents of public and private libraries,
+exaggeration holds sway. The library of George the Fourth, inherited by
+that graceless ignoramus from a book-collecting father, and presented to
+the British nation with ostentatious liberality only after he had failed
+to sell it to Russia, was said in the publications of those times to
+contain about 120,000 volumes. But an actual enumeration when the books
+were lodged in the King's library at the British Museum, where they have
+ever since remained, showed that there were only 65,250 volumes, being
+but little more than half the reported number. Many libraries, public
+and private, are equally over-estimated. It is so much easier to guess
+than to count, and the stern test of arithmetic is too seldom applied,
+notwithstanding the fact that 100,000 volumes can easily be counted in a
+day by a single person, and so on in the same proportion. Here, as in the
+statistics of population, the same proverb holds good, that the unknown
+is always the magnificent, and on the surface of the globe we inhabit,
+the unexplored country is always the most marvellous, since the world
+began.
+
+These discrepancies in authorities, and exaggerations of writers, are not
+referred to for the purpose of casting doubt upon all published history,
+but only to point out that we cannot trust implicitly to what we find in
+books. Bearing in mind always, that accuracy is perhaps the rarest of
+human qualities, we should hold our judgment in reserve upon controverted
+statements, trusting no writer implicitly, unless sustained by original
+authorities. When asked to recommend the best book upon any subject, do
+not too confidently assert the merits of the one you may think the best,
+but say simply that it is well accredited, or very popular. It is not
+always safe to recommend books, and the librarian does well to speak with
+proper reservations as to most of them, and to recommend only what are
+well known to him to be good, by his own intimate acquaintance with them,
+or, which is the surest test of all, by the verdicts of critical reviews,
+or by the constant reprinting of them in many successive years.
+
+It was the well-nigh unanimous report at a Conference of American
+librarians, upon the subject of "aids to readers", that "nothing can take
+the place of an intelligent and obliging assistant at the desk." This was
+after a thorough canvass of the relative merits of the various reference
+books and helps to readers in book form. Not only the casual reader, and
+the reader with a purpose may be constantly aided by the librarian's
+knowledge, and larger experience in the art of finding things, but
+teachers in the schools, clergymen preparing discourses, and every one
+seeking to know anything, should find the librarian a living catalogue.
+There is nothing so effective in the world as individual effort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11.
+
+ACCESS TO LIBRARY SHELVES.
+
+
+The matter of free or unrestricted access to the books on the shelves is
+a vexed question in libraries. Open and unprotected shelves, either in
+alcoves or the main reading room, while they appear to be a boon to
+readers, who can thus browse at will through the literary pastures, and
+turn over volumes at their pleasure, furnish by no means good security
+for the books. Some of the smaller public libraries protect their books
+from access by glass doors in front of the shelves, which form also a
+partial protection against dust. Others again, use wire screen doors,
+opened, like the others, by lock and key when books are wanted. Both of
+these arrangements give to readers the advantage of reading the titles on
+the backs of most of the books in the library, while protecting them from
+being handled, disarranged, or removed. But they are also open to the
+objection that they obstruct the prompt service of the books, by just the
+amount of time it takes to open the doors or screens, and close them
+again. This trouble and delay may overbalance the supposed advantages.
+Certainly they must do so in all large libraries, where the frequentation
+is great, and where every moment's delay in the book service works
+disadvantage to numerous readers. While private libraries, or quite small
+public ones, can indulge in the luxury of glass cases, no extensive
+collection can be managed with the requisite promptitude under their
+obstructions.
+
+But how to avoid the indiscriminate and usually careless handling of the
+books on shelves, by the people frequenting the library, and still
+extend to readers prompt and full service of all the books they wish to
+consult on any subject, is a problem. In a few of the great libraries,
+where that modern improvement, the stack system, prevails, the difficulty
+is solved by the storing of the books in the outside repositories, or
+iron book-stacks to which readers are not admitted. In this case the
+reading room is only for books in use by those frequenting it, or is
+supplied with a selection of reference books simply, the stacks being
+drawn upon for all the rest. This of course secures the books both from
+misplacement and from pillage.
+
+In smaller libraries which have no stack system (and this includes by far
+the greater number) a variety of treatment prevails. Most of them are
+unprovided with any effective means of guarding the books on the shelves
+from handling. The result is great insecurity, and inevitable
+misplacement of books, amounting often to confusion and chaos on the
+shelves, unless corrected by much daily re-arrangement by the librarian
+or assistants. This consumes much valuable time, which ought to be
+devoted to other pressing duties.
+
+One remedy is to guard the shelves by a railing of some kind, which
+cannot be passed, except at the gates or passage-ways provided for the
+attendants. This simple provision will protect the orderly arrangement as
+well as the safety of the library--two objects both of cardinal
+importance. Absolutely free access to all the shelves means, sooner or
+later, loss to the library. And the books most certain to be taken or
+mutilated are those which it is costly, or difficult, or in some cases,
+impossible to replace. The chances of abstracting engravings from books
+are much greater in the shadow of the shelves, than in the open
+reading-room, under the eyes of many. In any library but the smaller
+ones, the difficulties and dangers of unrestricted handling of all the
+books by the public will be developed in the direct ratio of the size of
+the library. Nor will it do to admit one class of readers to the shelves,
+and exclude others. It often happens that persons claiming to have
+special literary or scientific objects, and who profess that they cannot
+get along at all by having books brought to them, are favored in their
+wish to go to the shelves, while others are disfavored. This raises at
+once the just complaint that invidious distinctions are made. The only
+safe rule to follow is that of universal free access, or impartial and
+uniform exclusion from the shelves. In the latter case, no one can
+complain, especially when made aware that he can have all the works on a
+given subject brought to his seat in a brief time, and can work upon them
+to much greater comfort and advantage, seated where there is good light
+and ample room, than if standing up in the shadow of the shelves to
+pursue his researches.
+
+It is also to be considered that such disarrangement of books as
+inevitably follows free admission to the shelves deprives the very
+persons who claim this privilege, of finding what they seek, until a
+complete replacement takes place, throughout the library, and this is
+necessarily a work of time. That it involves much more time and
+consequent delay than is occasioned by the re-shelving of books used in a
+day, is apparent when we consider that in the latter case, only the
+number of volumes actually withdrawn from shelves by the library
+attendants have to be replaced, and that these are in conveniently
+assorted piles all ready to go to their respective shelves; while in the
+other case, the displacement is made by many hands, most of them careless
+of any convenience but their own, and moreover, the disarranged books
+are, or are liable to be, scattered on the wrong shelves, thus throwing
+the entire library into disorder, requiring great pains, knowledge, and
+time to repair.
+
+In any well-regulated library, the absence of any book from its place can
+almost always be accounted for. Thus it is either--1. In the reading
+room, in use; or 2. Charged out to a borrower; or 3. Sent to the binder
+for rebinding, or repair; or 4. Reserved for some reader's use; or 5. In
+temporary use by a cataloguer, or some other library assistant; or 6.
+Among the books not yet re-shelved from recent use.
+
+Now each of these is a legitimate reason for the absence of any book not
+found in its place. By search under each of these heads, _seriatim_,
+aided by the memory of librarian and assistants, the missing volume
+should be readily located, and soon availed of for use.
+
+But in the case of books misplaced by readers, no such tracing out of the
+whereabouts of any volume is effectual, for the reason that the book may
+have been (and probably is) put on some shelf where it does not belong.
+And the question, where in an extensive collection, a book-hunter
+admitted to freely range over all the shelves, and a stranger to the
+minute classification of books, has misplaced the missing volumes, is an
+insoluble problem, except by hunting over or handling the entire library.
+
+In this close practical view of the case we have to add to the long list
+of the enemies of books, formerly enumerated, those who demand a right to
+browse (as they term it) among the shelves of a public library, and who
+displace the books they take down to gratify, it may be, only an idle
+curiosity. Their offence consists, not in being anxious to see the books,
+but in preventing others from seeing them, by segregating them where
+neither librarian nor assistants may be able to find them, when called
+for. The whole question is summed up in the statement that the ability
+to produce library books when called for, depends strictly upon keeping
+them in their proper place: and this is quite incompatible with
+promiscuous handling upon the shelves.
+
+The preservation of order is alike in the interest of the reading public,
+of the librarian and his assistants, and of the very persons who complain
+of it as depriving them of library facilities. If library facilities
+consist in rendering the books in it unfindable, and therefore
+unavailable to any reader, then the argument for free range of the
+shelves arrives at a _reductio ad absurdum_. The true library facilities
+consist in a classification and a catalogue which arrange the books in
+systematic order, and keep them there, save when called into use. Thus,
+and thus only, can those who resort to a public library for actual
+research, be assured of finding what they want, just when they want it.
+The time saved to all readers by the sure and steady preservation of an
+orderly arrangement of the books, is simply incalculable. Multiply the
+number of volumes out of place by the number of readers who call for
+them, and you have some idea of the mischief that may be done through the
+carelessness of a few favored readers, to the whole community of
+scholars. Of course the considerations here set forth pre-suppose an
+active and intelligent librarian, and zealous and willing attendants, all
+ever ready to aid the researches of readers by the most prompt and
+helpful suggestions, and by dispatch in placing before them what they
+most need. The one cardinal design of a library--to supply the largest
+amount of information in the shortest time, is subverted by any
+disorganizing scheme. If the library be administered on the just
+principle of "the greatest good to the greatest number," then such
+individual favoritism should never be allowed.
+
+It may, indeed, be claimed that there is no rule without some valid
+exceptions; but these exceptions should never be permitted to defeat the
+cardinal object of the rule--which is to keep every book strictly in its
+own place. Let the exception be confined to allowing an occasional
+inspection of the shelves in the company of a library attendant, and
+there will be no trouble.
+
+But there is another danger, aside from the misplacement of books.
+Experience has shown that thefts or mutilations of books have been
+numerous, in direct proportion to the extension of freedom and
+opportunity to those frequenting the library. Literary men and
+book-lovers are frequently book-collectors also; and the temptation to
+take what is often too loosely considered public property is sometimes
+yielded to by persons whose character and standing may render them the
+least suspected. In one of the largest lending libraries in this country,
+the purloining of books had been carried so far, that the authorities had
+to provide a wire fence all around the reading room, to keep the readers
+from access to the shelves. The result was soon seen in the reduction of
+the number of books stolen from 700 volumes to 300 volumes a year.
+
+After several years' experience of the Astor Library in opening its
+alcoves to readers (amounting to practical free admission to the shelves
+to all calling themselves special students) the losses and mutilations of
+books became so serious, that alcove admissions have been greatly
+curtailed.
+
+At the Conference of Librarians in London, in 1877, the subject of
+admission or non-admission to the shelves was discussed with the result
+that opinions were preponderantly adverse to the free range of the
+library by readers. It was pointed out that libraries are established and
+maintained at great cost for serious purposes of reading and study, and
+that these ends are best subserved by systematic service at a common
+centre--not by letting the readers scatter themselves about the library
+shelves. To one speaker who held that every one in a free public library
+had the right to go to the shelves, and choose his books for himself, it
+was answered that this was equivalent to saying that it is the idler's
+right to stroll about in every place devoted to a special business, and
+interrupt that business at his pleasure.
+
+At the International Conference of 1897, an able defence of open shelves
+was presented, claiming that it saves much librarians' time in finding
+books, if readers are allowed to find them for themselves; that thefts
+and mutilations are inconsiderable; that it makes an appeal to the honor
+of people to respect the books; that the open shelf system does better
+educational work; that it is economical by requiring fewer library
+attendants; that it has grown steadily in favor in America, and that it
+gives the people the same right in the library which is their own, as the
+individual has in his own.
+
+On the other hand, it was urged that the arguments for open shelves were
+all arguments for anarchy; that the readers who want to rummage about for
+what they want lack proper discipline of the mind; that the number of
+books lost under it has been very large; that librarians are custodians
+and conservers, as well as dispensers of books; that all books misplaced
+are practically lost to the library for the time being; that the open
+shelf system requires far more space, and is more expensive; and that,
+however desirable, its general adoption is utterly impracticable.
+
+The practice of libraries in this particular of administration differs
+widely, as do the opinions of librarians regarding it. In most colleges
+and universities free access is allowed; and in some public free
+libraries, both east and west, the readers are allowed to handle the
+books on the shelves. This is comparatively safe in the smaller town
+libraries, where the books are in compact shape, and the unavoidable
+misplacement can be corrected daily in no long time. The experience of
+"open shelves" in such collections has been so favorable that their
+librarians have testified that the losses were insignificant when
+compared with the great public convenience resulting. But the difficulty
+and confusion arising from free handling of the books on shelves
+increases in the direct ratio of the size of the library, until, in an
+extensive collection, it reaches an intolerable result.
+
+What is encountered continually in enforcing the rule of exclusion from
+shelves is the almost universal conceit that some reader is entitled to
+exemption from such a rule. Explain to him never so courteously that
+experience has proved that a library is thrown into confusion by such
+admission; that while he may be careful to replace every book handled in
+the same spot, nearly all readers are careless, and he will insist that
+he is the exception, and that he is always careful. That is human nature,
+the world over--to believe that one can do things better than any one
+else. But if such importunities prevail, the chances are that books will
+be misplaced by the very literary expert who has solemnly asserted his
+infallibility.
+
+On the whole, open shelves may be viewed as an open question. It may be
+best for small libraries, as to all the books, and for all libraries as
+to some classes of books. But make it general, and order and arrangement
+are at an end, while chaos takes the place of cosmos. The real student is
+better served by the knowledge and aid of the librarian, thus saving his
+time for study, than he can be by ranging about dark shelves to find,
+among multitudes of books he does not want, the ones that he actually
+does want. The business of the librarian, and his highest use, is to
+bring the resources of the library to the reader. If this takes a hundred
+or more volumes a day, he is to have them; but to give him the right to
+throw a library into confusion by "browsing around," is to sacrifice the
+rights of the public to prompt service, to the whim of one man. Those who
+think that "browsing" is an education should reflect that it is like any
+other wandering employment, fatal to fixity of purpose. Like desultory
+reading of infinite periodicals, it tends rather to dissipate the time
+and the attention than to inform and strengthen the mind.
+
+In libraries of wide circulation in America, many have open shelves, and
+many more free access to certain classes of books. The Newark Free
+Library opens all departments except fiction; others open fiction and
+current literature only. Some libraries, notably in England, have a
+"safe-guarded" open-shelf system, by which the public are given free
+range inside the library, while the librarians take post at the outside
+railing, to charge books drawn, and check off depredations. This method
+may be styled "every one his own librarian," and is claimed by its
+originators to work well.
+
+At the Conference of the American Library Association in 1899, after
+discussion, votes were taken, showing 50 librarians in favor of free
+access to shelves for small libraries, as against only 10 for
+unrestricted access in large libraries.
+
+The debate brought out curious and instructive facts as to losses of
+books where free range is allowed. The Denver Public Library lost in one
+year 955 volumes; the Buffalo Public Library 700 books in seventeen
+months; the Minneapolis, 300 in a year; and the St. Louis Public Library
+1,062 volumes in two years, out of "a very limited open shelf
+collection." One librarian, estimating the loss of books at $1,000 worth
+in two years, said the library board were perfectly satisfied, and that
+"unless we lose $2,500 worth of books a year, the open-shelf system pays
+in its saving of the expenses of attendance." It does not appear to have
+occurred to them that a public library owes anything to the public
+morality, nor that a library losing its books by the thousand, to save
+the cost of proper management, may be holding out a premium to wholesale
+robbery.
+
+There is another precaution essential to be observed regarding the more
+costly and rare possessions of the library. Such books should not be
+placed upon the shelves with the ordinary books of the collection, but
+provided for in a repository under lock and key. In a large library,
+where many hundred volumes of books of especial rarity and value are to
+be found, a separate room should always exist for this class of books.
+They will properly include (1) Incunabula, or early printed books; (2)
+Manuscripts, or unique specimens, such as collections of autographs of
+notable people; (3) Illuminated books, usually written on vellum, or
+printed in color; (4) Early and rare Americana, or books of American
+discovery, history, etc., which are scarce and difficult to replace; (5)
+Any books known to be out of print; and (6) Many costly illustrated works
+which should be kept apart for only occasional inspection by readers.
+Where no separate room exists for safe custody of such treasures, they
+should be provided with a locked book-case or cases, according to their
+number. When any of these reserved books are called for, they should be
+supplied to readers under special injunctions of careful handling.
+Neglect of precaution may at any time be the means of losing to the
+library a precious volume. It is easy for an unknown reader who calls for
+such a rare or costly work, to sign his ticket with a false name, and
+slip the book under his coat when unobserved, and so leave the library
+unchallenged. But the librarian or assistant who supplies the book, if
+put on his guard by having to fetch it from a locked repository, should
+keep the reader under observation, unless well known, until the volume
+is safely returned. Designing and dishonest persons are ever hovering
+about public libraries, and some of the most dangerous among them are men
+who know the value of books.
+
+This class of reserved books should not be given out in circulation,
+under any circumstances. Not only are they subject to injury by being
+handled in households where there are children or careless persons, who
+soil or deface them, but they are exposed to the continual peril of fire,
+and consequent loss to the library. There are often books among these
+rarities, which money cannot replace, because no copies can be found when
+wanted. In the Library of Congress, there is a very salutary safe-guard
+thrown around the most valuable books in the form of a library regulation
+which provides that no manuscript whatever, and no printed book of
+special rarity and value shall be taken out of the library by any person.
+This restriction of course applies to Members of Congress, as well as to
+those officials who have the legal right to draw books from the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12.
+
+THE FACULTY OF MEMORY.
+
+
+To every reader nothing can be more important than that faculty of the
+mind which we call memory. The retentive memory instinctively stores up
+the facts, ideas, imagery, and often the very language found in books, so
+clearly that they become available at any moment in after life. The
+tenacity of this hold upon the intellectual treasures which books contain
+depends largely upon the strength of the impression made upon the mind
+when reading. And this, in turn, depends much upon the force, clearness
+and beauty of the author's style or expression. A crude, or feeble, or
+wordy, redundant statement makes little impression, while a terse, clear,
+well-balanced sentence fixes the attention, and so fastens itself in the
+memory. Hence the books which are best remembered will be those which are
+the best written. Great as is the power of thought, we are often obliged
+to confess that the power of expression is greater still. When the
+substance and the style of any writing concur to make a harmonious and
+strong impression on the reader's mind, the writer has achieved success.
+All our study of literature tends to confirm the conviction of the
+supreme importance of an effective style.
+
+We must set down a good memory as a cardinal qualification of the
+librarian. This faculty of the mind, in fact, is more important to him
+than to the members of any other profession whatever, because it is more
+incessantly drawn upon. Every hour in the day, and sometimes every minute
+in the hour, he has to recall the names of certain books, the authors of
+the same, including both their surnames and Christian or forenames, the
+subjects principally treated in them, the words of some proverb or
+quotation, or elegant extract in poetry or prose, the period of time of
+an author or other noted person, the standard measurements and weights in
+use, with their equivalents, the moneys of foreign nations and their
+American values, the time of certain notable events in history, whether
+foreign or American, ancient or modern, the names and succession of
+rulers, the prices of many books, the rules observed in the catalogue,
+both of authors and subjects, the names and schools of great artists,
+with their period, the meaning in various foreign languages of certain
+words, the geographical location of any place on the earth's surface, the
+region of the library in which any book is located--and, in short, an
+infinitude of items of information which he wants to know out of hand,
+for his own use, or in aid of Library readers or assistants. The immense
+variety of these drafts upon his memory seldom perplexes one who is well
+endowed with a natural gift in that direction. In fact, it seems actually
+true of such minds, that the more numerous the calls upon the memory, the
+more ready is the response.
+
+The metaphysicians have spent many words in attempting to define the
+various qualities of the mind, and to account for a strong or a weak
+memory; but after all is said, we find that the surprising difference
+between different memories is unaccounted for; as unaccountable, indeed,
+as what differences the man of genius from the mere plodder. The
+principle of association of ideas is doubtless the leading element in a
+memory which is not merely verbal. We associate in our minds, almost
+instinctively, ideas of time, or space, or persons, or events, and these
+connect or compare one with another, so that what we want is called up
+or recalled in memory, by a train of endless suggestion. We all have this
+kind of memory, which may be termed the rational or ideal, as
+distinguished from the verbal and the local memory. The verbal memory is
+that which retains in the mind, and reproduces at will what has been said
+in our hearing by others, or what we have read which has made a marked
+impression upon us. Thus, some persons can repeat with almost exact
+accuracy, every word of a long conversation held with another. Others can
+repeat whole poems, or long passages in prose from favorite authors,
+after reading them over two or three times, and can retain them perfectly
+in memory for half a century or more. There have even been persons to
+whom one single reading of any production was sufficient to enable them
+to repeat it _verbatim_. These instances of a great verbal memory are by
+no means rare, although some of them appear almost incredible. John Locke
+tells us of the French philosopher Pascal, that he never forgot anything
+of what he had done, said, or thought, in any part of his natural life.
+And the same thing is recorded of that great scholar of Holland, Hugo
+Grotius.
+
+The mathematician Euler could repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning
+to end, containing nearly nine thousand lines. Mozart, upon hearing the
+_Miserere_ of Allegri played in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, only once,
+went to his hotel, and wrote it all down from memory, note for note.
+
+Cardinal Mezzofanti both wrote and spoke thirty languages, and was quite
+familiar with more than a hundred. He said that if he once heard the
+meaning of a word in any language, he never forgot it. Yet he was of the
+opinion, that although he had twenty words for one idea, it was better to
+have twenty ideas for one word; which is no doubt true, so far as real
+intellectual culture is concerned. Lord Macaulay, who had a phenomenal
+memory, said that if all the copies of Milton's Paradise Lost were to be
+destroyed, he could reproduce the book complete, from memory. In early
+life he was a great admirer of Walter Scott's poetry, and especially the
+"Lay of the Last Minstrel", and could repeat the whole of that long poem,
+more than six hundred lines, from memory. And at the age of fifty-seven
+he records--"I walked in the portico, and learned by heart the noble
+fourth act of the Merchant of Venice. There are four hundred lines. I
+made myself perfect master of the whole in two hours." It was said of him
+that every incident he heard of, and every page he read, "assumed in his
+mind a concrete spectral form."
+
+But the memory for names and words has been sometimes called the lowest
+form of memory. Persons of defective or impaired intellect frequently
+have strong and retentive verbal memories. Mrs. Somerville records the
+case of an idiot who could repeat a whole sermon _verbatim_, after once
+hearing it, but who was stupid and ignorant as to every thing else. And
+there are many instances in the books to the same effect.
+
+Another kind of memory may be called, for want of a better name, the
+local memory. A person who has this strongly developed, if he once goes
+to a place, whether a room, or a street in a city, or a road in any part
+of the country, knows the way again, and can find it by instinct ever
+after. In the same way any one gifted with this almost unerring sense of
+locality, can find any book on any shelf in any part of a library where
+he has once been. He knows, in like manner, on which side of the page he
+saw any given passage in a book, which impressed him at the time,
+although he may never have had the volume in his hand more than once. He
+may not remember the number of the page, but he is sure of his
+recollection that it was the left or the right hand one, as the case may
+be, and this knowledge will abridge his labor and time in finding it
+again by just one half. This local memory is invaluable to a librarian or
+an assistant in shortening the labor of finding things. If you have a
+good local memory, you can, in no long time, come to dispense with the
+catalogue and its shelf-marks or classification marks, almost entirely,
+in finding your books. Although this special gift of memory--the sense of
+locality--is unquestionably a lower faculty of the mind than some others
+named, and although there are illiterate persons who can readily find and
+produce any books in a library which have often passed through their
+hands, yet it is a faculty by no means to be despised. It is one of the
+labor-saving, time-saving gifts, which should be welcomed by every
+librarian. The time saved from searching the catalogues for
+location-marks of the outside of books, will enable him to make many a
+research in their inside. This faculty, of course, is indefinitely
+strengthened and improved by use--and the same is true of the other
+branches of the sense which we call memory. The oftener you have been to
+any place, the better you know the way. The more frequently you have
+found and produced a given book from its proper receptacle, the easier
+and the quicker will be your finding it again.
+
+Another faculty or phase of memory is found in the ability to call up the
+impression made by any object once seen by the eye, so as to reproduce it
+accurately in speech or writing. This may be termed the intuitive memory.
+There are many applications or illustrations of this faculty. Thus, for
+example, you see a book on some shelf in your library. You take in its
+size, its binding, both the material and the color, and its title as
+lettered on the back. All this you absorb with one glance of the eye. You
+remember it by the principle of association--that is, you associate with
+that particular book, in connection with its title, a certain dimension,
+color, and style of binding. Now, when you have occasion to look up that
+special volume again, you not only go, aided by your memory of locality,
+to the very section and shelf of the library where it belongs, but you
+take with you instinctively, your memory or mental image of the book's
+appearance. Thus, you perhaps distinctly remember (1) that it was an
+octavo, and your eye in glancing along the shelf where it belongs,
+rejects intuitively all the duodecimos or books of lesser size, to come
+to the octavos. (2) Then you also remember that it was bound in leather,
+consequently you pass quickly by all the cloth bound volumes on the
+shelf. (3) in the third place you know that its color was red; and you
+pay no attention whatever to books of any other color, but quickly seize
+your red leather-bound octavo, and bear it off to the reading-room in
+triumph. Of course there are circumstances where this quick operation of
+the faculties of memory and intuition combined, would not be so easy. For
+example, all the books (or nearly all) on a given shelf might be octavos;
+or they might all be leather-bound; or a majority of them with red backs;
+and the presence of one or more of these conditions would eliminate one
+or more of the facilities for most rapidly picking out the book wanted.
+But take a pile of books, we will say returned by many readers, on the
+library counter. You are searching among them for a particular volume
+that is again wanted. There is no order or arrangement of the volumes,
+but you distinctly remember, from having handled it, its size both as to
+height and thickness, its color, and how it was bound. You know it was a
+thin 12mo. in green cloth binding. Do you, in your search, take up every
+book in that mass, to scrutinize its title, and see if it is the one you
+seek? By no means. You quickly thrust aside, one by one, or by the
+half-dozen, all the volumes which are not green, cloth-bound, thin
+duodecimos, without so much as glancing at them. Your special volume is
+quickly found among hundreds of volumes, and your faculty of memory and
+intuition has saved you perhaps a quarter of an hour of valuable time,
+which, without that faculty, might have been wasted in search.
+
+Again, another circumstance which might intervene to diminish the
+frequency of application of the memory referred to, as to the physical
+features or appearance of a book sought for, is where the
+shelf-arrangement is alphabetical, by authors' names, or by the names of
+the subjects of the books, if it is an alphabet of biographies. Here, the
+surest and the quickest guide to the book is of course the alphabetical
+order, in which it must necessarily be found.
+
+This memory of the aspect of any object once looked at, is further well
+illustrated in the very varied facilities for the spelling of words found
+in different persons. Thus, there are people who, when they once see any
+word (we will say a proper name) written or printed, can always
+afterwards spell that word unerringly, no matter how uncommon it may be.
+The mental retina, so to speak, receives so clear and exact an impression
+of the form of that word from the eye, that it retains and reproduces it
+at will.
+
+But there are others, (and among them persons of much learning in some
+directions) upon whom the form or orthography of a word makes little or
+no impression, however frequently it meets the eye in reading. I have
+known several fine scholars, and among them the head of an institution of
+learning, who could not for the life of them spell correctly; and this
+infirmity extended even to some of the commonest words in the language.
+Why this inaptitude on the part of many, and this extraordinary facility
+on the part of others, in the memorizing faculty, is a phenomenon which
+may be noted down, but not solved. That vivid mental picture which is
+seen by the inward eye of the person favored with a good memory, is
+wholly wanting, or seen only dimly and rarely in the case of one who
+easily forgets.
+
+So vital and important is memory, that it has been justly denominated by
+the German philosopher, Kant, "the most wonderful of our faculties."
+Without it, the words of a book would be unintelligible to us, since it
+is memory alone which furnishes us with the several meanings to be
+attached to them.
+
+Some writers on the science of mind assert that there is no such thing
+with any of us as absolutely forgetting anything that has once been in
+the mind. All mental activities, all knowledge which ever existed,
+persists. We never wholly lose them, but they become faint and obscure.
+One mental image effaces another. But those which have thus disappeared
+may be recalled by an act of reminiscence. While it may sometimes be
+impossible to recover one of them at the moment when wanted, by an act of
+voluntary recollection, some association may bring it unexpectedly and
+vividly before us. Memory plays us many strange tricks, both when we wake
+and when we dream. It revives, by an involuntary process, an infinite
+variety of past scenes, faces, events, ideas, emotions, passions,
+conversations, and written or printed pages, all of which we may have
+fancied had passed forever from our consciousness.
+
+The aids to memory supposed to be furnished by the various mnemonic
+systems may now be briefly considered. These methods of supplying the
+defects of a naturally weak memory, or of strengthening a fairly good
+one, are one and all artificial. This might not be a conclusive
+objection to them, were they really effective and permanent helps,
+enabling one who has learned them to recall with certainty ideas, names,
+dates, and events which he is unable to recall by other means. Theory
+apart, it is conceded that a system of memorizing which had proved widely
+or generally successful in making a good memory out of a poor one, would
+deserve much credit. But experience with these systems has as yet failed
+to show, by the stern test of practical utility, that they can give
+substantial (and still less permanent) aid in curing the defects of
+memory. Most of the systems of mnemonics that have been invented are
+constructed on the principle of locality, or of utilizing objects which
+appeal to the sight. There is nothing new in these methods, for the
+principle is as old as Simonides, who lived in the fifth century before
+Christ, and who devised a system of memorizing by locality. One of the
+most prevalent systems now taught is to select a number of rooms in a
+house (in the mind's eye, of course) and divide the walls and the floors
+of each room into nine equal parts or squares, three in a row. Then
+
+     "On the front wall--that opposite the entrance of the first
+     room--are the units, on the right-hand wall the tens, on the left
+     hand the twenties, on the fourth wall the thirties, and on the
+     floor the forties. Numbers 10, 20, 30, and 40, each find a place
+     on the roof above their respective walls. One room will thus
+     furnish 50 places, and ten rooms as many as 500, while 50
+     occupies the centre of the roof. Having fixed these clearly in
+     the mind, so as to be able readily and at once to tell the exact
+     position of each place or number, it is then necessary to
+     associate with each of them some familiar object (or symbol) so
+     that the object being suggested, its place may be instantly
+     remembered, or when the place is before the mind, its object may
+     immediately spring up. When this has been done thoroughly, the
+     objects can be run over in any order from beginning to end, or
+     from end to beginning, or the place of any particular one can at
+     once be given. All that is further necessary is to associate the
+     ideas we wish to remember with the objects in the various places,
+     by which means they are readily remembered, and can be gone over
+     in any order. In this way, one may learn to repeat several
+     hundred disconnected words or ideas in any order, after hearing
+     them only once."
+
+This rather complicated machinery for aiding the memory is quite too
+mechanical to commend itself to any one accustomed to reflect or to take
+note of his own mental processes. Such an elaborate system crowds the
+mind with a lot of useless furniture, and hinders rather than helps a
+rational and straightforward habit of memorizing. It too much resembles
+the feat of trying to jump over a wall by running back a hundred or more
+yards to acquire a good start or momentum. The very complication of the
+system is fitted to puzzle rather than to aid the memory. It is based on
+mechanical or arithmetical associations--not founded on nature, and is of
+very small practical utility. It does not strengthen or improve the habit
+of memorizing, which should always be based upon close attention, and a
+logical method of classifying, associating, and analyzing facts or ideas.
+
+Lord Bacon, more than two centuries ago, wisely characterized mnemonic
+systems as "barren and useless." He wrote, "For immediately to repeat a
+multitude of names or words once repeated before, I esteem no more than
+rope-dancing, antic postures, and feats of activity; and, indeed, they
+are nearly the same thing, the one being the abuse of the bodily, as the
+other is of mental powers; and though they may cause admiration, they
+cannot be highly esteemed."
+
+In fact, these mnemonical systems are only a kind of crutches, sometimes
+useful to people who cannot walk, but actual impediments to those having
+the use of their limbs, and who by proper exercise can maintain their
+healthy and natural use indefinitely.
+
+I have given you an account of one of these artificial systems of memory,
+or systems of artificial memory, as you may choose to call them. There
+have been invented more than one hundred different systems of mnemonics,
+all professing to be invaluable, and some claiming to be infallible. It
+appears to be a fatal objection to these memory-systems that they
+substitute a wholly artificial association of ideas for a natural one.
+The habit of looking for accidental or arbitrary relations of names and
+things is cultivated, and the power of logical, spontaneous thought is
+injured by neglecting essential for unessential relations. These
+artificial associations of ideas work endless mischief by crowding out
+the natural ones.
+
+How then, you may ask, is a weak memory to be strengthened, or a fairly
+good memory to be cultivated into a better one? The answer is, by
+constant practice, and for this the vocation of a librarian furnishes far
+more opportunities than any other. At the basis of this practice of the
+memory, lies the habit of attention. All memory depends upon the strength
+or vividness of the impression made upon the mind, by the object, the
+name, the word, the date, which is sought to be remembered. And this, in
+turn, depends on the degree of attention with which it was first
+regarded. If the attention was so fixed that a clear mental image was
+formed, there will be no difficulty in remembering it again. If, on the
+other hand, you were inattentive, or listless, or pre-occupied with other
+thoughts, when you encountered the object, your impression of it would be
+hazy and indistinct, and no effort of memory would be likely to recall
+it.
+
+Attention has been defined as the fixing of the mind intently upon one
+particular object, to the exclusion for a time, of all other objects
+soliciting notice. It is essential to those who would have a good memory,
+to cultivate assiduously the habit of concentration of thought. As the
+scattering shot hits no mark, so the scattering and random thoughts that
+sweep through an unoccupied brain lead to no memorable result, simply
+from want of attention or of fixation upon some one mental vision or
+idea. With your attention fastened upon any subject or object, you see it
+more clearly, and it impresses itself more vividly in the memory, as a
+natural consequence. Not only so, but its related objects or ideas are
+brought up by the principle of association, and they too make a deeper
+impression and are more closely remembered. In fact, one thing carefully
+observed and memorized, leads almost insensibly to another that is
+related to it, and thus the faculty of association is strengthened, the
+memory is stimulated, and the seeds of knowledge are deeply planted in
+that complex organism which we call the mind. This power of attention, of
+keeping an object or a subject steadily in view until it is absorbed or
+mastered, is held by some to be the most distinctive element in genius.
+Most people have not this habit of concentration of the mind, but allow
+it to wander aimlessly on, flitting from subject to subject, without
+mastering any; but then, most people are not geniuses. The habit to be
+cultivated is that of thinking persistently of only one thing at a time,
+sternly preventing the attention from wandering.
+
+It may be laid down as an axiom that the two corner-stones of memory are
+attention and association. And both of these must act in harmony, the
+habit of fixed attention being formed or guided by the will, before a
+normal or retentive memory becomes possible. What is called cultivating
+the memory, therefore, does not mean anything more than close attention
+to whatever we wish to remember, with whatever associations naturally
+cling to it, until it is actually mastered. If one has not an instinctive
+or naturally strong memory, he should not rest satisfied with letting the
+days go by until he has improved it. The way to improve it, is to begin
+at the foundation, and by the constant exercise of the will-power, to
+take up every subject with fixed attention, and one at a time, excluding
+every other for the time being. There is no doubt whatever that the
+memory is capable of indefinite improvement; and though one's first
+efforts in that direction may prove a disappointment, because only
+partially successful, he should try, and try again, until he is rewarded
+with the full fruits of earnest intellectual effort, in whatever field.
+He may have, at the start, instead of a fine memory, what a learned
+professor called, "a fine forgettery," but let him persevere to the end.
+None of us were made to sit down in despair because we are not endowed
+with an all-embracing memory, or because we cannot "speak with the
+tongues of men and of angels," and do not know "all mysteries and all
+knowledge." It rather becomes us to make the best and highest use, day by
+day, of the talents that are bestowed upon us, remembering that however
+short of perfection they may be, we are yet far more gifted than myriads
+of our fellow-creatures in this very imperfect world.
+
+There is no question that the proper cultivation of the memory is, or
+ought to be, the chief aim of education. All else is so dependent upon
+this, that it may be truly affirmed that, without memory, knowledge
+itself would be impossible. By giving up oneself with fixed attention to
+what one seeks to remember, and trusting the memory, though it may often
+fail, any person can increase his powers of memory and consequently of
+learning, to an indefinite degree. To improve and strengthen the memory,
+it must be constantly exercised. Let it be supplied with new knowledge
+frequently, and called on daily to reproduce it. If remembered only
+imperfectly or in part, refresh it by reference to the source whence the
+knowledge came; and repeat this carefully and thoroughly, until memory
+becomes actually the store-house of what you know on that subject. If
+there are certain kinds of facts and ideas which you more easily forget
+than others, it is a good way to practice upon them, taking up a few
+daily, and adding to them by degrees. Dr. W. T. Harris, the United States
+Commissioner of Education, gave his personal experience to the effect
+that he always found it hard to remember dates. He resolved to improve a
+feeble memory in this respect by learning the succession of English
+Kings, from William the Conqueror, down to Victoria. With his
+characteristic thoroughness, he began by learning three or four dates of
+accession only, the first day; two new ones were added the second day;
+then one new king added the third day; and thereafter even less frequency
+was observed in learning the chronology. By this method he had the whole
+table of thirty-six sovereigns learned, and made familiar by constant
+review. It had to be learned anew one year after, and once again after
+years of neglect. But his memory for dates steadily grew, and without
+conscious effort, dates and numbers soon came to be seized with a firmer
+grasp than before. This kind of memory, he adds, now improves or
+increases with him from year to year. Here is an instance of cultivation
+of memory by a notable scholar, who adds a monition to learners with weak
+memories, not to undertake to memorize too much at once. Learning a
+succession of fifty names slowly, he says, will so discipline the memory
+for names, as to partially or even permanently remove all embarrassment
+from that source. I may add that a long table of names or dates, or any
+prolonged extract in verse or prose, if learned by repeating it over and
+over as a whole, will be less tenaciously retained in memory, than if
+committed in parts.
+
+The highest form of memory is actually unconscious, _i. e._, that in
+which what we would recall comes to us spontaneously, without effort or
+lapse of time in thinking about it. It is this kind of memory that has
+been possessed by all the notable persons who have been credited with
+knowing everything, or with never forgetting anything. It is not to be
+reckoned to their credit, so much as to their good fortune. What merit is
+there in having a good memory, when one cannot help remembering?
+
+There is one caution to be given to those who are learning to improve a
+memory naturally weak. When such a one tries to recall a date, or name,
+or place, or idea, or book, it frequently happens that the endeavor fails
+utterly. The more he tries, the more obstinately the desired object fails
+to respond. As the poet Pope wrote about the witless author:
+
+    "You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
+     Knock as you please, there's nobody at home."
+
+In these cases, no attempt to force the memory should be made, nor should
+the attention be kept long on the subject, for this course only injures
+the faculty, and leads to confusion of mind. To persist in a constantly
+baffled effort to recover a word, or other forgotten link in memory, is a
+laborious attempt which is itself likely to cause failure, and induce a
+distrust of the memory which is far from rational. The forgotten object
+will probably recur in no long time after, when least expected.
+
+Much discursive reading is not only injurious to the faculty of memory,
+but may be positively destructive of it. The vast extent of our modern
+world of reviews, magazines and newspapers, with their immense variety of
+subjects, dissipates the attention instead of concentrating it, and
+becomes fatal to systematic thought, tenacious memory, and the
+acquirement of real knowledge. The mind that is fed upon a diet of
+morning and evening newspapers, mainly or solely, will become flabby,
+uncertain, illogical, frivolous, and, in fact, little better than a
+scatterbrains. As one who listens to an endless dribble of small talk
+lays up nothing out of all the palaver, which, to use a common phrase,
+"goes in at one ear, and out at the other," so the reader who
+continuously absorbs all the stuff which the daily press, under the
+pretext of "printing the news," inflicts upon us, is nothing benefited in
+intellectual gifts or permanent knowledge. What does he learn by his
+assiduous pursuit of these ephemeral will o' the wisps, that only "lead
+to bewilder, and dazzle to blind?" He absorbs an incredible amount of
+empty gossip, doubtful assertions, trifling descriptions, apocryphal
+news, and some useful, but more useless knowledge. The only visible
+object of spending valuable time over these papers appears to be to
+satisfy a momentary curiosity, and then the mass of material read passes
+almost wholly out of the mind, and is never more thought of. Says
+Coleridge, one of the foremost of English thinkers: "I believe the habit
+of perusing periodical works may be properly added to the catalogue of
+anti-mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory."
+
+If read sparingly, and for actual events, newspapers have a value which
+is all their own; but to spend hours upon them, as many do, is mere
+mental dissipation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13.
+
+QUALIFICATIONS OF A LIBRARIAN.
+
+
+In directing attention to some of the more important elements which
+should enter into the character and acquirements of a librarian, I shall
+perhaps not treat them in the order of their relative importance. Thus,
+some persons might consider the foremost qualification for one aspiring
+to the position of a librarian to be wide knowledge in literature and
+science: others would say that the possession of sound common sense is
+above all things essential; others an excellent and retentive memory;
+still others might insist that business habits and administrative faculty
+are all-important; and others again, a zeal for learning and for
+communicating it to others.
+
+I shall not venture to pronounce what, among the multitude of talents
+that are requisite to constitute a good librarian is the most requisite.
+Suffice it to say, that all of them which I shall notice are important,
+and that the order of their treatment determines nothing as to which are
+more and which are less important. So much is expected of librarians that
+it actually appears as if a large portion of the public were of the
+opinion that it is the duty of him who has a library in charge to possess
+himself, in some occult or mysterious way, unknown to the common mind, of
+all the knowledge which all the books combine.
+
+The Librarian of the British Museum, speaking to a conference of
+librarians in London, quoted a remark of Pattison, in his "Life of
+Casaubon," that "the librarian who reads is lost." This was certainly
+true of that great scholar Casaubon, who in his love for the contents of
+the books under his charge, forgot his duties as a librarian. And it is
+to a large degree true of librarians in general, that those who pursue
+their own personal reading or study during library hours do it at the
+expense of their usefulness as librarians. They must be content with such
+snatches of reading as come in the definite pursuit of some object of
+research incident to their library work, supplemented by such reading
+time as unoccupied evenings, Sundays, and annual vacations may give them.
+
+Yet nothing is more common than for applicants for the position of
+librarians or assistant librarians to base their aspiration upon the
+foolish plea that they are "so fond of reading", or that they "have
+always been in love with books." So far from this being a qualification,
+it may become a disqualification. Unless combined with habits of
+practical, serious, unremitting application to labor, the taste for
+reading may seduce its possessor into spending the minutes and the hours
+which belong to the public, in his own private gratification. The
+conscientious, the useful librarian, living amid the rich intellectual
+treasures of centuries, the vast majority of which he has never read,
+must be content daily to enact the part of Tantalus, in the presence of a
+tempting and appetizing banquet which is virtually beyond his reach.
+
+But he may console himself by the reflection that comparatively few of
+the books upon his shelves are so far worth reading as to be essential.
+"If I had read as many books as other men," said Hobbes of Malmesbury, "I
+should have been as ignorant as they."
+
+If the librarian, in the precious time which is indisputably his, reads a
+wise selection of the best books, the masterpieces of the literature of
+all lands, which have been consecrated by time and the suffrages of
+successive generations of readers, he can well afford to apply to the
+rest, the short-hand method recommended in a former chapter, and skim
+them in the intervals of his daily work, instead of reading them. Thus he
+will become sufficiently familiar with the new books of the day (together
+with the information about their contents and merits furnished by the
+literary reviews, which he must read, however sparingly, in order to keep
+up with his profession) to be able to furnish readers with some word of
+comment as to most books coming into the Library. This course, or as
+close an approximation to it as his multifarious duties will permit, will
+go far to solve the problem that confronts every librarian who is
+expected to be an exponent of universal knowledge. Always refraining from
+unqualified praise of books (especially of new ones) always maintaining
+that impartial attitude toward men and opinions which becomes the
+librarian, he should act the part of a liberal, eclectic, catholic guide
+to inquirers of every kind.
+
+And here let me emphasize the great importance to every librarian or
+assistant of early learning to make the most of his working faculties. He
+cannot afford to plod along through a book, sentence by sentence, like an
+ordinary reader. He must learn to read a sentence at a glance. The moment
+his eye lights upon a title-page he should be able to take it all in by a
+comprehensive and intuitive mental process. Too much stress cannot be
+laid upon the every-day habit or method of reading. It makes all the
+difference between time saved, and time wasted; between efficiency and
+inefficiency; between rapid progress and standing still, in one's daily
+work. No pains should be spared, before entering upon the all-engrossing
+work of a library, to acquire the habit of rapid reading. An eminent
+librarian of one of the largest libraries was asked whether he did not
+find a great deal of time to read? His reply was--"I wish that I could
+ever get as much as one hour a day for reading--but I have never been
+able to do it." Of course every librarian must spend much time in special
+researches; and in this way a good deal of some of his days will be spent
+in acquainting himself with the resources of his library; but this is
+incidental and not systematic reading.
+
+In viewing the essential qualifications of a librarian, it is necessary
+to say at the outset that a library is no place for uneducated people.
+The requirements of the position are such as to demand not only native
+talent above the average, but also intellectual acquirements above the
+average. The more a librarian knows, the more he is worth, and the
+converse of the proposition is equally true, that the less he knows the
+less he is worth. Before undertaking the arduous task of guiding others
+in their intellectual pursuits, one should make sure that he is himself
+so well-grounded in learning that he can find the way in which to guide
+them. To do this, he must indispensably have something more than a
+smattering of the knowledge that lies at the foundation of his
+profession. He must be, if not widely read, at least carefully grounded
+in history, science, literature, and art. While he may not, like Lord
+Bacon, take all knowledge to be his province, because he is not a Lord
+Bacon, nor if he were, could he begin to grasp the illimitable domain of
+books of science and literature which have been added to human knowledge
+in the two centuries and a half since Bacon wrote, he can at least, by
+wise selection, master enough of the leading works in each field, to make
+him a well-informed scholar. That great treasury of information on the
+whole circle of the sciences, and the entire range of literature, the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica, judiciously studied, will alone give what would
+appear to the average mind, a very liberal education.
+
+One of the most common and most inconsiderate questions propounded to a
+librarian is this: "Do you ever expect to read all these books through?"
+and it is well answered by propounding another question, namely--"Did
+_you_ ever read your dictionary through?" A great library is the
+scholar's dictionary--not to be read through, but to enable him to put
+his finger on the fact he wants, just when it is wanted.
+
+A knowledge of some at least of the foreign languages is indispensable to
+the skilled librarian. In fact, any one aspiring to become an assistant
+in any large library, or the head of any small one, should first acquire
+at least an elementary knowledge of French and Latin. Aside from books in
+other languages than English which necessarily form part of every
+considerable library, there are innumerable quotations or words in
+foreign tongues scattered through books and periodicals in English, which
+a librarian, appealed to by readers who are not scholars, would be
+mortified if found unable to interpret them. The librarian who does not
+understand several languages will be continually at a loss in his daily
+work. A great many important catalogues, and bibliographies, essential
+parts of the equipment of a library, will be lost to him as aids, and he
+can neither select foreign books intelligently nor catalogue them
+properly. If he depends upon the aid of others more expert, his position
+will be far from agreeable or satisfactory. How many and what foreign
+languages should be learned may be matter for wide difference of opinion.
+But so far-reaching is the prevalence of the Latin, as one of the
+principal sources of our own language, and of other modern tongues, that
+a knowledge of it is most important. And so rich is the literature of
+France, to say nothing of the vast number of French words constantly
+found in current English and American books and periodicals, that at
+least a fairly thorough mastery of that language should be acquired. The
+same may be said of the German, which is even more important in some
+parts of the United States, and which has a literature most copious and
+valuable in every varied department of knowledge. With these three
+tongues once familiar, the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and
+Scandinavian languages may be, through the aid of dictionaries, so far
+utilized as to enable one to read titles and catalogue books in any of
+them, although a knowledge of all, so as to be able to read books in
+them, is highly desirable.
+
+In the Boston Public Library, the assistants are required to possess an
+adequate knowledge of Latin, French, and German. And all candidates for
+positions in the reading-room of the British Museum Library must undergo
+a thorough test examination as to their knowledge of the Latin language.
+Opportunities for acquiring foreign languages are now so abundant that
+there is small excuse for any one who wants to know French, Latin or
+German, and yet goes through life without learning them. There are even
+ways of learning these languages with sufficient thoroughness for reading
+purposes without a teacher, and sometimes without a text-book. Two
+assistant librarians taught themselves French and German in their
+evenings, by setting out to read familiar works of English fiction in
+translations into those languages, and soon acquired a good working
+knowledge of both, so as to be able to read any work in either, with only
+occasional aid from the dictionary for the less common words. It is
+surprising how soon one can acquire a sufficient vocabulary in any
+language, by reading any of its great writers. A good way for a beginner
+to learn French without a master is to take a French New Testament, and
+read the four Gospels through. After doing this three or four times,
+almost any one who is at all familiar with the Scriptures, will be able
+to read most books in the French language with facility. In the great art
+of learning, all doors are easily unlocked--by those who have the key.
+
+It should go without saying that the librarian should possess a wide
+knowledge of books. This knowledge should include (1) an acquaintance
+with ancient and modern literature, so as to be able to characterize the
+notable writers in each of the leading languages of the world; (2) a
+knowledge of history extensive enough to enable him to locate all the
+great characters, including authors, in their proper century and country;
+(3) a knowledge of editions, so as to discriminate between the old and
+the new, the full and the abridged, the best edited, best printed, etc.;
+(4) an acquaintance with the intrinsic value or the subject and scope of
+most of the great books of the world; (5) a knowledge of commercial
+values, so as to be able to bid or to buy understandingly, and with
+proper economy; (6) a familiarity with what constitutes condition in
+library books, and with binding and repairing processes, for the
+restoration of imperfect volumes for use.
+
+The librarian should be one who has had the benefit of thorough
+preliminary training, for no novice is qualified to undertake the role of
+an expert, and any attempt to do so can result only in disappointment and
+failure. No one who has read little or nothing but novels since leaving
+school need ever hope to succeed.
+
+No librarian can know too much, since his work brings him into relation
+with the boundless domain of human knowledge. He should not be a
+specialist in science (except in the one science of bibliography) but
+must be content with knowing a little about a great many things, rather
+than knowing everything about one thing. Much converse with books must
+fill him with a sense of his own ignorance. The more he comes to know,
+the wider will open before him the illimitable realm of what is yet to
+be known. In the lowest deep which research the most profound can reach,
+there is a lower deep still unattained--perhaps, even, unattainable. But
+the fact that he cannot by any possibility master all human knowledge
+should not deter the student from making ever advancing inroads upon that
+domain. The vast extent of the world of books only emphasizes the need of
+making a wise selection from the mass. We are brought inevitably back to
+that precept by every excursion that we make into whatever field of
+literature.
+
+The librarian should possess, besides a wide acquaintance with books, a
+faculty of administration, and this rests upon careful business habits.
+He should have a system in all the library work. Every assistant should
+have a prescribed task, and be required to learn and to practice all the
+methods peculiar to library economy, including the economy of time. Each
+day's business should be so organized as to show an advance at the end.
+The library must of course have rules, and every rule should be so simple
+and so reasonable that it will commend itself to every considerate reader
+or library assistant. All questions of doubt or dispute as to the
+observance of any regulation, should be decided at once, courteously but
+firmly, and in a few words. Nothing can be more unseemly than a wrangle
+in a public library over some rule or its application, disturbing readers
+who are entitled to silence, and consuming time that should be given to
+the service of the public.
+
+When Thomas Carlyle, one of the great scholars of modern times, testified
+in 1848 before a Parliamentary Commission upon the British Museum
+Library, he thus spoke of the qualifications of a librarian:
+
+"All must depend upon the kind of management you get within the library
+itself. You must get a good pilot to steer the ship, or you will never
+get into the harbor. You must have a man to direct who knows well what
+the duty is that he has to do, and who is determined to go through that,
+in spite of all clamor raised against him; and who is not anxious to
+obtain approbation, but is satisfied that he will obtain it by and by,
+provided he acts ingenuously and faithfully."
+
+Another quality most important in a librarian is an even temper. He
+should be always and unfailingly courteous, not only to scholars and
+visitors of high consideration, but to every reader, however humble or
+ignorant, and to every employee, however subordinate in position. There
+is nothing which more detracts from one's usefulness than a querulous
+temper. Its possessor is seldom happy himself, and is the frequent cause
+of unhappiness in others. Visitors and questions should never be met with
+a clouded brow. A cheerful "good-morning" goes a great way oftentimes.
+Many library visitors come in a complaining mood--it may be from long
+waiting to be served, or from mistake in supplying them with the wrong
+books, or from errors in charging their accounts, or from some fancied
+neglect or slight, or from any other cause. The way to meet such
+ill-humored or offended readers is to gently explain the matter, with
+that "soft answer which turneth away wrath." Many a foolish and useless
+altercation may thus be avoided, and the complainant restored to
+cheerfulness, if not to courtesy; whereas, if the librarian were to meet
+the case with a sharp or haughty answer, it would probably end without
+satisfaction on either side. Whatever you do, never permit yourself to be
+irritable, and resolve never to be irritated. It will make you unhappy,
+and will breed irritation in others. Cheerfulness under all
+circumstances, however difficult, is the duty and the interest of the
+librarian. Thus he will cultivate successfully an obliging disposition,
+which is a prime requisite to his success with the public and his
+usefulness as a librarian.
+
+It ought not to be requisite to insist upon good health as a condition
+precedent for any one aspiring to be a librarian. So very much depends
+upon this, that it should form a part of the conscientious duty of every
+one to acquire and maintain a sound condition of physical health, as a
+most important adjunct of a thoroughly sound and healthy condition of the
+mind. This is easier than most persons are aware. If we except inherited
+constitutional weaknesses, or maladies of a serious character, there is
+almost no one who is not able by proper diet, regimen, and daily
+exercise, to maintain a degree of health which will enable him to use his
+brain to its full working capacity. It demands an intelligent and
+watchful care of the daily regimen, so that only simple and wholesome
+food and drink may be taken into the system, and what is equally
+important, adequate sleep, and habitual moderate exercise. No one can
+maintain perfect health without breathing good unadulterated air, and
+exercising in it with great frequency. One's walks to and from the
+library may be sufficient to give this, and it is well to have the motive
+of such a walk, since exercise taken for the mere purpose of it is of far
+less value. The habit of taking drugs, or going to a doctor for every
+little malady, is most pernicious. Every one, and especially a librarian,
+who is supposed (however erroneously) to know everything, should know
+more of his own constitution than any physician. With a few judicious
+experiments in daily regimen, and a little abstinence now and then, he
+can subdue head-aches, catarrhs and digestive troubles, and by exercising
+an intelligent will, can generally prevent their recurrence. If one finds
+himself in the morning in a state of languor and lassitude, be sure he
+has abused some physical function, and apply a remedy. An invalid will
+make a poorly equipped librarian. How can a dyspeptic who dwells in the
+darkness of a disease, be a guiding light to the multitudes who beset him
+every hour? There are few callings demanding as much mental and physical
+soundness and alertness as the care of a public library.
+
+Sound common sense is as essential to the librarian as sound health. He
+should always take the practical straightforward view of every item of
+library business and management, remembering that the straight road is
+always the shortest way between two points. While he may be full of
+ideas, he should be neither an idealist nor a dreamer. In library
+methods, the cardinal requisites to be aimed at, are utility and
+convenience. A person of the most perfect education, and the highest
+literary attainments, but destitute of common sense, will not succeed in
+the conduct of a library. That intuitive judgment, which sees the reason
+of everything at a glance, and applies the proper agencies to the case in
+hand, is wanting in his composition. Multitudes of emergencies arise in
+library service, where the prompt and practical sense of the librarian is
+required to settle a dispute, adjust a difficulty, or to direct what is
+to be done in some arrangement or re-arrangement of books, or some
+library appliance or repair. In such cases, the unpractical or
+impracticable man will be very likely to decide wrongly, choosing the
+inconvenient method instead of the convenient, the more costly instead of
+the more economical, the laborious in place of the obvious and easy; in
+short, some way of doing the work or settling the difficulty which will
+not permit it to stay settled, or will require the work to be done over
+again. The man of common-sense methods, on the other hand, will at once
+see the end from the beginning, anticipate every difficulty, and decide
+upon the proper course without trouble or hesitation, finding his
+judgment fully vindicated by the result.
+
+The librarian in whom the quality of common sense is well developed will
+be ever ready to devise or to accept improvements in library methods.
+Never a slave to "red tape," he will promptly cut it wherever and
+whenever it stands in the way of the readiest service of books and
+information to all comers.
+
+Another quality which every librarian or assistant in a library should
+possess is a thorough love of his work. He should cherish a noble
+enthusiasm for the success and usefulness of the institution with which
+he has chosen to be associated. Nor should this spirit be by any means
+limited to the literary and scientific aid which he is enabled to extend
+to others, nor to the acquisition of the knowledge requisite to meet the
+endless inquiries that are made of him. He should take as much interest
+in restoring a broken binding, or in seeing that a torn leaf is repaired,
+as in informing a great scholar what the library contains upon any
+subject.
+
+No one who is listless or indifferent in the discharge of daily duties is
+fit for a place in a public library. There should be an _esprit de
+corps_, a zeal for his profession, which will lead him to make almost any
+sacrifice of outside interests to become proficient in it. Thus only will
+he render himself indispensable in his place, and do the greatest amount
+of service to the greatest number of readers. I have seen employees in
+libraries so utterly careless of what belongs to their vocation, as to
+let books, totally unfit for use, ragged or broken, or with plates
+loosened, ready to drop out and disappear, go back to the shelves
+unrepaired, to pursue the downward road toward destruction. And I have
+been in many libraries in which the books upon the shelves exhibited such
+utter want of care, such disarrangement, such tumbling about and
+upside-down chaos, and such want of cleanliness, as fairly to make one's
+heart ache. In some cases this may have been due in great part to unwise
+free admission of the public to the shelves, and consequent inevitable
+disorder; in others, it may be partially excused by the librarian's
+absolute want of the needful help or time, to keep the library in order;
+but in others, it was too apparent that the librarian in charge took no
+interest in the condition of the books. Too many librarians (at least of
+the past, however it may now be) have been of the class described by Dr.
+Poole, the Chicago librarian. He said that library trustees too often
+appeared to think that anybody almost would do for a librarian; men who
+have failed in everything else, broken-down clergymen, or unsuccessful
+teachers, and the like.
+
+Passing now to other needful qualifications of librarians and library
+assistants, let me say that one of the foremost is accuracy. Perhaps I
+have before this remarked that exact accuracy is one of the rarest of
+human qualities. Even an approximation to it is rare, and absolute
+accuracy is still rarer. Beware of the person who is sure of every
+thing--who retails to you a conversation he has heard, affecting to give
+the exact words of a third person, or who quotes passages in verse or in
+prose, with glib assurance, as the production of some well-known writer.
+The chances are ten to one that the conversation is mainly manufactured
+in the brain of the narrator, and that the quotation is either not
+written by the author to whom it is attributed, or else is a travesty of
+his real language. It is Lord Byron who tells of that numerous class of
+sciolists whom one finds everywhere--
+
+    "With just enough of learning to misquote."
+
+The books one reads abound in erroneous dates, mistaken names, garbled
+extracts, and blundering quotations. So much the more important is it to
+the librarian, who is so continually drawn upon for correct information
+upon every subject, to make sure of his facts, before communicating them.
+When (as frequently happens) he has no way of verifying them, he should
+report them, not as his own conclusions, but on the authority of the book
+or periodical where found. This will relieve him of all responsibility,
+if they turn out to be erroneous. Whenever I find a wrong date or name in
+a printed book, or an erroneous reference in the index, or a mis-spelled
+word, I always pencil the correct date, or name, or page of reference in
+the margin. This I do as a matter of instinct, as well as of duty, for
+the benefit of future inquirers, so that they may not be misled. I speak
+here of errors which are palpable, or of the inaccuracy of which I have
+positive knowledge; if in doubt, I either let the matter go entirely, or
+write a query in pencil at the place, with the presumed correct
+substitute appended.
+
+Never be too sure of what you find in books; but prove all things and
+hold fast to those only which you find to be beyond dispute. Thus will
+you save yourself from falling into many errors, and from recanting many
+opinions. It is the method of ordinary education to take everything for
+granted; it is the method of science to take nothing for granted.
+
+I may refer here to another rule always to be observed, and pertaining to
+the theme of strict accuracy in your daily work. That is, the necessity
+of carefully examining every piece of work you may have done, before it
+leaves your hands, for the purpose of correcting errors. All of us are
+not only liable to make mistakes, but all of us do make them; and if any
+one has a conceit of his own accuracy, the surest way to take it out of
+him is to let him serve an apprenticeship in some library, where there
+is competent revision of all the labor performed. There are multitudes of
+assistants in libraries who cannot write a letter, even, without making
+one or more errors. How often do you leave out a word in your writing
+experience, which may change the meaning of a whole sentence? So, in
+writing titles, whether for the catalogue, or for a library order, or for
+the information of some inquirer, you are liable to make errors of date,
+or edition, or place of publication, or size, or to misplace or omit or
+substitute some word in the description of the book. There is nothing in
+the world quite so easy as to be mistaken: and the only remedy (and it is
+an all-essential one) is to go over every line and every word of what you
+have written, before it leaves your hands. As second thoughts are
+proverbially best, so a second careful glance over a piece of writing
+will almost always reveal some error or omission to be corrected. Think
+of the mortification you must feel at finding an unverified piece of work
+returned upon your hands, with several glaring mistakes marked by the
+reviser! Think, on the other hand, of the inward satisfaction experienced
+when you have done your best, written and revised your own work, and
+found it always passed as perfect. I have tried many persons by many
+tests, and while I have found a great number who were industrious,
+intelligent, zealous, conscientious, good-tempered, and expeditious, I
+have found scarcely one who was always accurate. One of the rarest things
+in a library is to find an assistant who has an unerring sense of the
+French accents. This knowledge, to one expert in that language, even if
+he does not speak it, should be as intuitive as the art of spelling
+correctly, either in English or French. He should write the proper accent
+over a letter just as infallibly as he writes the proper letters in a
+word. But, strange to say, it is very common, even with good French
+scholars (in the book-sense or literary sense of scholarship) to find
+them putting the acute accent for the grave over a vowel, or the grave
+instead of the acute, or omitting the circumflex accent entirely, and so
+on.
+
+Every one commits errors, but the wise man is he who learns by his
+mistakes, and applies the remedy. The best remedy (as I said in the case
+of memory in another chapter,) is to cultivate a habit of trained
+attention in whatever we do. Yet many people (and I am afraid we must say
+most people) go on through life, making the same blunders, and repeating
+them. It appears as if the habit of inaccuracy were innate in the human
+race, and only to be reformed by the utmost painstaking, and even with
+the aid of that, only by a few. I have had to observe and correct such
+numberless errors in the work of well-educated, adult, and otherwise
+accomplished persons, as filled me with despair. Yet there is no more
+doubt of the improvability of the average mind, however inaccurate at the
+start, than of the power of the will to correct other bad habits into
+which people unconsciously fall.
+
+One of the requisites of a successful librarian is a faculty of order and
+system, applied throughout all the details of library administration.
+Without these, the work will be performed in a hap-hazard, slovenly
+manner, and the library itself will tend to become a chaos. Bear in mind
+the great extent and variety of the objects which come under the care of
+the librarian, all of which are to be classified and reduced to order.
+These include not only books upon every earthly subject (and very many
+upon unearthly ones) but a possibly wide range of newspapers and
+periodicals, a great mass of miscellaneous pamphlets, sometimes of maps
+and charts, of manuscripts and broadsides, and frequently collections of
+engravings, photographs, and other pictures, all of which come in to form
+a part of most libraries. This great complexity of material, too,
+exhibits only the physical aspect of the librarian's labors. There are,
+besides, the preparation, arrangement and continuation of the catalogue,
+in its three or more forms, the charging and crediting of the books in
+circulation, the searching of many book lists for purchases, the library
+bills and accounts, the supervision and revision of the work of
+assistants, the library correspondence, often requiring wide researches
+to answer inquiries, the continual aid to readers, and a multitude of
+minor objects of attention quite too numerous to name. Is it any
+over-statement of the case to say that the librarian who has to organize
+and provide for all this physical and intellectual labor, should be
+systematic and orderly in a high degree?
+
+That portion of his responsible task which pertains to the arrangement
+and classification of books has been elsewhere treated. But there is
+required in addition, a faculty of arranging his time, so as to meet
+seasonably the multifarious drafts upon it. He should early learn not
+only the supreme value of moments, but how to make all the library hours
+fruitful of results. To this end the time should be apportioned with
+careful reference to each department of library service. One hour may be
+set for revising one kind of work of assistants; another for a different
+one; another for perusing sale catalogues, and marking _desiderata_ to be
+looked up in the library catalogue; another for researches in aid of
+readers or correspondents; still another for answering letters on the
+many subjects about which librarians are constantly addressed; and still
+another for a survey of all the varied interests of the library and its
+frequenters, to see what features of the service need strengthening, what
+improvements can be made, what errors corrected, and how its general
+usefulness can be increased. So to apportion one's time as to get out of
+the day (which is all too short for what is to be done in it) the utmost
+of accomplishment is a problem requiring much skill, as well as the
+ability to profit by experience. One has always to be subject to
+interruptions--and these must be allowed for, and in some way made up
+for. Remember, when you have lost valuable time with some visitor whose
+claims to your attention are paramount, that when to-morrow comes one
+should take up early the arrears of work postponed, and make progress
+with them, even though unable to finish them.
+
+Another suggestion; proper system in the management and control of one's
+time demands that none of it be absorbed by trifles or triflers; and so
+every librarian must indispensably know how to get rid of bores. One may
+almost always manage to effect this without giving offense, and at the
+same time without wasting any time upon them, which is the one thing
+needful. The bore is commonly one who, having little or nothing to do,
+inflicts himself upon the busy persons of his acquaintance, and
+especially upon the ones whom he credits with knowing the most--to wit,
+the librarians. Receive him courteously, but keep on steadily at the work
+you are doing when he enters. If you are skilful, you can easily do two
+things at once, for example, answer your idler friend or your bore, and
+revise title-cards, or mark a catalogue, or collate a book, or look up a
+quotation, or write a letter, at the same time. Never lose your good
+humor, never say that your time is valuable, or that you are very busy;
+never hint at his going away; but never quit your work, answer questions
+cheerfully, and keep on, allowing nothing to take your eyes off your
+business. By and by he will take the hint, if not wholly pachydermatous,
+and go away of his own accord. By pursuing this course I have saved
+infinite time, and got rid of infinite bores, by one and the same
+process.
+
+The faculty of organizing one's work is essential, in order to efficiency
+and accomplishment. If you do not have a plan and adhere to it, if you
+let this, that, and the other person interrupt you with trifling gossip,
+or unnecessary requests, you will never get ahead of your work; on the
+contrary, your work will always get ahead of you. The same result will
+follow if you interrupt yourself, by yielding to the temptation of
+reading just a page or a paragraph of something that attracts your eye
+while at work. This dissipation of time, to say nothing of its unfair
+appropriation of what belongs to the library, defeats the prompt
+accomplishment of the work in hand, and fosters the evil habit of
+scattering your forces, in idleness and procrastination.
+
+It ought not to be needful to urge habits of neatness and the love of
+order upon candidates for places in libraries. How much a neat and
+carefully arranged shelf of books appeals to one's taste, I need not say,
+nor urge the point how much an orderly and neatly kept room, or desk, or
+table adds to one's comfort. The librarian who has the proper spirit of
+his calling should take pains to make the whole library look neat and
+attractive, to have a place for everything, and everything in its place.
+This, with adequate space existing, will be found easier than to have the
+books and other material scattered about in confusion, thus requiring
+much more time to find them when wanted. A slovenly-kept library is
+certain to provoke public criticism, and this always tells to the
+disadvantage of the librarian; while a neatly kept, carefully arranged
+collection of books is not only pleasing to the eye, but elicits
+favorable judgment from all visitors.
+
+Among the qualities that should enter into the composition of a
+successful librarian must be reckoned an inexhaustible patience. He will
+be sorely tried in his endeavors to satisfy his own ideals, and sometimes
+still more sorely in his efforts to satisfy the public. Against the
+mistakes and short-comings of assistants, the ignorance of many readers,
+and the unreasonable expectations of others, the hamperings of library
+authorities, and the frequently unfounded criticisms of the press, he
+should arm himself with a patience and equanimity that are unfailing.
+When he knows he is right, he should never be disturbed at complaint, nor
+suffer a too sensitive mood to ruffle his feelings. When there is any
+foundation for censure, however slight, he should learn by it and apply
+the remedy. The many and varied characters who come within the
+comprehensive sphere of the librarian necessarily include people of all
+tempers and dispositions, as well as of every degree of culture. To be
+gracious and courteous to all is his interest as well as his duty. With
+the ignorant he will often have to exercise a vast amount of patience,
+but he should never betray a supercilious air, as though looking down
+upon them from the height of his own superior intelligence. To be always
+amiable toward inferiors, superiors, and equals, is to conciliate the
+regard of all. Courtesy costs so little, and makes so large a return in
+proportion to the investment, that it is surprising not to find it
+universal. Yet it is so far from being so that we hear people praising
+one whose manners are always affable, as if he were deserving of special
+credit for it, as an exception to the general rule. It is frequently
+observed that a person of brusque address or crusty speech begets
+crustiness in others. There are subtle currents of feeling in human
+intercourse, not easy to define, but none the less potent in effect. A
+person of marked suavity of speech and bearing radiates about him an
+atmosphere of good humor, which insensibly influences the manners and the
+speech of others.
+
+There will often come into a public library a man whose whole manner is
+aggressive and over-bearing, who acts and talks as if he had a right to
+the whole place, including the librarian. No doubt, being a citizen, he
+has every right, except the right to violate the rules--or to make
+himself disagreeable. The way to meet him is to be neither aggressive,
+nor submissive and deferential, but with a cool and pleasant courtesy,
+ignoring any idea of unpleasant feeling on your part. You will thus at
+least teach a lesson in good manners, which may or may not be learned,
+according to circumstances and the hopeful or hopeless character of the
+pupil.
+
+Closely allied to the virtue of patience, is that of unfailing tact. This
+will be found an important adjunct in the administration of a public
+library. How to meet the innumerable inquiries made of him with just the
+proper answer, saying neither too much, nor too little, to be civil to
+all, without needless multiplication of words, this requires one to hold
+his faculties well in hand, never to forget himself, and to show that no
+demand whatever can vex or fluster him. The librarian should know how, or
+learn how to adapt himself to all readers, and how to aid their
+researches without devoting much time to each. This requires a fine
+quality of tact, of adapting one's self quickly to the varied
+circumstances of the case in hand. One who has it well developed will go
+through the manifold labors and interviews and annoyances of the day
+without friction, while one who is without tact will be worried and
+fretted until life seems to him a burden.
+
+Need I mention, after all that has been said of the exacting labors that
+continually wait upon the librarian, that he should be possessed both of
+energy and untiring industry? By the very nature of the calling to which
+he is dedicated, he is pledged to earnest and thorough work in it. He
+cannot afford to be a trifler or a loiterer on the way, but must push on
+continually. He should find time for play, it is true, and for reading
+for his own recreation and instruction, but that time should be out of
+library hours. And a vigilant and determined economy of time in library
+hours will be found a prime necessity. I have dwelt elsewhere upon the
+importance of choosing the shortest methods in every piece of work to be
+accomplished. Equally important is it to cultivate economy of speech, or
+the habit of condensing instructions to assistants, and answers to
+inquiries into the fewest words. A library should never be a
+circumlocution office. The faculty of condensed expression, though
+somewhat rare, can be cultivated.
+
+In the relations existing between librarian and assistants there should
+be mutual confidence and support. All are equally interested in the
+credit and success of the institution which engages their services, and
+all should labor harmoniously to that end. Loyalty to one's employers is
+both the duty and the interest of the employed: and the reciprocal duty
+of faithfulness to those employed, and interest in their improvement and
+success should mark the intercourse of the librarian with his assistants.
+He should never be too old nor too wise to learn, and should welcome
+suggestions from every intelligent aid. I have suggested the importance
+of an even temper in the relations between librarians and readers; and it
+is equally important as between all those associated in the
+administration of a library. Every one has faults and weaknesses; and
+those encountered in others will be viewed with the most charity by those
+who are duly conscious of their own. Every one makes mistakes, and these
+are often provoking or irritating to one who knows better; but a mild and
+pleasant explanation of the error is far more likely to lead to
+amendment, than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness
+behind. Under no circumstances is peevishness or passion justifiable.
+Library assistants in their bearing toward each other, should suppress
+all feelings of censoriousness, fault-finding or jealousy, if they have
+them, in favor of civility and good manners, if not of good fellowship.
+They are all public servants engaged in a common cause, aiming at the
+enlightenment and improvement of the community; they should cherish a
+just pride in being selected for this great service, and to help one
+another in every step of the work, should be their golden rule.
+Everything should be done for the success and usefulness of the library,
+and all personal considerations should be merged in public ones.
+
+Turning now to what remains of suggestion regarding the qualities which
+should enter into the character, or form a part of the equipment of a
+librarian, let me urge the importance of his possessing a truly liberal
+and impartial mind. It is due to all who frequent a public library to
+find all those in charge ready and willing to aid their researches in
+whatever direction they may lie. Their attitude should be one of constant
+and sincere open-mindedness. They are to remember that it is the function
+of the library to supply the writings of all kinds of authors, on all
+sides of all questions. In doing this, it is no part of a librarian's
+function to interpose any judgments of his own upon the authors asked
+for. He has no right as a librarian to be an advocate of any theories, or
+a propagandist of any opinions. His attitude should be one of strict and
+absolute impartiality. A public library is the one common property of
+all, the one neutral ground where all varieties of character, and all
+schools of opinion meet and mingle. Within its hallowed precincts, sacred
+to literature and science, the voice of controversy should be hushed.
+While the librarian may and should hold his own private opinions with
+firmness and entire independence, he should keep them private--as regards
+the frequenters of the library. He may, for example, be profoundly
+convinced of the truth of the Christian religion; and he is called on, we
+will suppose, for books attacking Christianity, like Thomas Paine's "Age
+of Reason," or Robert G. Ingersoll's lectures on "Myth and Miracle." It
+is his simple duty to supply the writers asked for, without comment, for
+in a public library, Christian and Jew, Mahometan and Agnostic, stand on
+the same level of absolute equality. The library has the Koran, and the
+Book of Mormon, as well as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,
+and one is to be as freely supplied as the other. A library is an
+institution of universal range--of encyclopaedic knowledge, which gathers
+in and dispenses to all comers, the various and conflicting opinions of
+all writers upon religion, science, politics, philosophy, and sociology.
+The librarian may chance to be an ardent Republican or a zealous
+Democrat; but in either case, he should show as much alacrity in
+furnishing readers with W. J. Bryan's book "The First Battle," as with
+McKinley's speeches, or the Republican Hand-Book. A library is no place
+for dogmatism; the librarian is pledged, by the very nature of his
+profession, which is that of a dispenser of all knowledge--not of a part
+of it--to entire liberality, and absolute impartiality. Remembering the
+axiom that all errors may be safely tolerated, while reason is left free
+to combat them, he should be ever ready to furnish out of the
+intellectual arsenal under his charge, the best and strongest weapons to
+either side in any conflict of opinion.
+
+It will have been gathered from what has gone before, in recapitulation
+of the duties and responsibilities of the librarian's calling, that it is
+one demanding a high order of talent. The business of successfully
+conducting a public library is complex and difficult. It is full of
+never-ending detail, and the work accomplished does not show for what it
+is really worth, except in the eyes of the more thoughtful and discerning
+observers.
+
+I may here bring into view some of the drawbacks and discouragements
+incident to the librarian's vocation, together with an outline of the
+advantages which belong to it.
+
+In the first place, there is little money in it. No one who looks upon
+the acquisition of money as one of the chief aims of life, should think
+for a moment of entering on a librarian's career. The prizes in the
+profession are few--so few indeed, as to be quite out of the question for
+most aspirants. The salaries paid in subordinate positions are very low
+in most libraries, and even those of head-librarians are not such that
+one can lay up money on them. A lady assistant librarian in one city said
+she had found that one of a librarian's proper qualifications was to be
+able to live on two meals a day. This doubtless was a humorous
+exaggeration, but it is true that the average salaries hitherto paid in
+our public libraries, with few exceptions, do not quite come up to those
+of public school teachers, taking the various grades into account. Most
+of the newly formed libraries are poor, and have to be economical. But
+there is some reason to hope that as libraries multiply and their
+unspeakable advantages become more fully appreciated, the standard of
+compensation for all skilled librarians will rise. I say skilled, because
+training and experience are the leading elements which command the better
+salaries, in this, as in other professions.
+
+Another drawback to be recognized in the librarian's calling, is that
+there are peculiar trials and vexations connected with it. There are
+almost no limits to the demands made upon the knowledge and the time of
+the librarian. In other professions, teaching for example, there are
+prescribed and well-defined routines of the instruction to be given, and
+the teacher who thoroughly masters this course, and brings the pupils
+through it creditably, has nothing to do beyond. The librarian, on the
+other hand, must be, as it were, a teacher of all sciences and
+literatures at once. The field to be covered by the wants of readers, and
+the inquiries that he is expected to answer, are literally illimitable.
+He cannot rest satisfied with what he has already learned, however expert
+or learned he may have become; but he must keep on learning forevermore.
+The new books that are continually flooding him, the new sciences or new
+developments of old ones that arise, must be so far assimilated that he
+can give some account of the scope of all of them to inquiring readers.
+
+In the third place, there are special annoyances in the service of a
+public, which includes always some inconsiderate and many ignorant
+persons, and these will frequently try one's patience, however angelic
+and forbearing. So, too, the short-comings of library assistants or
+associates may often annoy him, but as all these trials have been before
+referred to, it may be added that they are not peculiar to library
+service, but are liable to occur in the profession of teaching or in any
+other.
+
+In the next place, the peculiar variety and great number of the calls
+incessantly made upon the librarian's knowledge, constitute a formidable
+draft upon any but the strongest brain. There is no escape from these
+continual drafts upon his nervous energy for one who has deliberately
+chosen to serve in a public library. And he will sometimes find, wearied
+as he often must be with many cares and a perfect flood of questions,
+that the most welcome hour of the day is the hour of closing the
+library.
+
+Another of the librarian's vexations is frequently the interference with
+his proper work by the library authorities. Committees or trustees to
+oversee the management and supervise expenditures are necessary to any
+public library. Sometimes they are quick-sighted and intelligent persons,
+and recognize the importance of letting the librarian work out everything
+in his own way, when once satisfied that they have got a competent head
+in charge. But there are sometimes men on a board of library control who
+are self-conceited and pragmatical, thinking that they know everything
+about how a library should be managed, when in fact, they are profoundly
+ignorant of the first rudiments of library science. Such men will
+sometimes overbear their fellows, who may be more intelligent, but not so
+self-asserting, and so manage as to overrule the best and wisest plans,
+or the most expedient methods, and vex the very soul of the librarian. In
+such cases the only remedy is patience and tact. Some day, what has been
+decided wrongly may be reversed, or what has been denied the librarian
+may be granted, through the conversion of a minority of the trustees into
+a majority, by the gentle suasion and skilful reasoning of the librarian.
+
+There are other drawbacks and discomforts in the course of a librarian's
+duties which have been referred to in dealing with the daily work under
+his charge. There remains the fact that the profession is no bed of
+roses, but a laborious and exacting calling, the price of success in
+which is an unremitting industry, and energy inexhaustible. But these
+will not appear very formidable requisites to those who have a native
+love of work, and it is a fact not to be doubted that work of some kind
+is the only salvation of every human creature.
+
+Upon the whole, if the calling of the librarian involves many trials and
+vexations, it has also many notable compensations. Foremost among these
+is to be reckoned the fact that it opens more and wider avenues to
+intellectual culture than any other profession whatever. This comes in a
+two-fold way: first, through the stimulus to research given by the
+incessant inquiries of readers, and by the very necessity of his being,
+as a librarian; and secondly, by the rare facilities for investigation
+and improvement supplied by the ample and varied stores of the library
+always immediately at hand. Other scholars can commonly command but few
+books, unless able to possess a large private library: their researches
+in the public one are hampered by the rule that no works of reference can
+be withdrawn, and that constitutes a very large and essential class,
+constantly needed by every scholar and writer. The librarian, on the
+other hand, has them all at his elbow.
+
+In the next place, there are few professions which are in themselves so
+attractive as librarianship. Its tendency is both to absorb and to
+satisfy the intellectual faculties. No where else is the sense of
+continual growth so palpable; in no other field of labor is such an
+enlargement of the bounds of one's horizon likely to be found. Compare it
+with the profession of teaching. In that, the mind is chained down to a
+rigorous course of imparting instruction in a narrow and limited field.
+One must perforce go on rehearsing the same rudiments of learning,
+grinding over the same Latin gerunds, hearing the same monotonous
+recitations, month after month, and year after year. This continual
+threshing over of old straw has its uses, but to an ardent and active
+mind, it is liable to become very depressing. Such a mind would rather be
+kept on the _qui vive_ of activity by a volley of questions fired at him
+every hour in a library, than to grind forever in an intellectual
+tread-mill, with no hope of change and very little of relief. The very
+variety of the employments which fill up the library hours, the
+versatility required in the service, contributes to it a certain zest
+which other professions lack.
+
+Again, the labors of the librarian bring him into an intimate knowledge
+of a wide range of books, or at least an acquaintance with authors and
+titles far more extensive than can be acquired by most persons. The
+reading of book catalogues is a great and never-ending fascination to one
+who has a love for books. The information thus acquired of the mighty
+range of the world's literature and science is of inestimable value. Most
+of it, if retained in a retentive memory, will enable its possessor to
+answer multitudes of the questions continually put to the librarian.
+
+Then, too, the service of a public library is a valuable school for the
+study of human nature. One comes in contact with scholars, men of
+business, authors, bright young people, journalists, professional men and
+cultured women, to an extent unequaled by the opportunities of any other
+calling. This variety of intercourse tends to broaden one's sympathies,
+to strengthen his powers of observation, to cultivate habits of courtesy,
+to develop the faculty of adapting himself to all persons--qualities
+which contribute much to social interest and success. The discipline of
+such an intercourse may sometimes make out of a silent and bashful
+recluse, a ready and engaging adept in conversation, able to command the
+attention and conciliate the regard of all. Farther than this, one
+brought into so wide a circle of communication with others, cannot fail
+to learn something from at least some among them, and so to receive
+knowledge as well as to impart it. The curious and diverse elements of
+character brought out in such intercourse will make their impress, and
+may have their value. All these many facilities for intellectual
+intercourse both with books and with men, contribute directly to keep
+the librarian in contact with all the great objects of human interest.
+They supply an unfailing stimulus to his intellectual and moral nature.
+They give any active-minded person rare facilities, not only for the
+acquisition, but for the communication of ideas. And there is one avenue
+for such communication that is peculiarly open to one whose mind is
+stored with the ripe fruits of reading and observation. I mean the field
+of authorship--not necessarily the authorship of books, but of writing in
+the form of essays, reviews, lectures, stories or contributions to the
+periodical press. There are in every community literary societies, clubs,
+and evening gatherings, where such contributions are always in demand,
+and always welcomed, in exact proportion to their inherent interest and
+value. Such avenues for the communication of one's thought are of great
+and sometimes permanent advantage. The knowledge which we acquire is
+comparatively barren, until it is shared with others. And whether this be
+in an appreciative circle of listeners, or in the press, it gives a
+certain stimulus and reward to the thinker and writer, which nothing else
+can impart. To convey one's best thought to the world is one of the
+purest and highest of intellectual pleasures.
+
+Let me add that there are two sides to the question of authorship, as
+concerns librarians. On the one hand, their advantages for entering that
+field are undoubtedly superior, both from the ready command of the most
+abundant material, and from experience in its use. On the other hand,
+while authorship may be said to be the most besetting temptation of the
+librarian, it is one that should be steadily resisted whenever it
+encroaches on the time and attention due to library duties. If he makes
+it a rule to write nothing and to study nothing for his own objects
+during library hours, he is safe. Some years since it was a common
+subject of reproach regarding the librarians of several university
+libraries in England that they were so engaged in writing books, that no
+scholar could get at them for aid in his literary researches. The
+librarians and assistants employed in the British Museum Library, where
+the hours of service are short, have found time to produce numerous
+contributions to literature. Witness the works, as authors and editors,
+of Sir Henry Ellis, Antonio Panizzi, Dr. Richard Garnett, Edward Edwards,
+J. Winter Jones, Thomas Watts, George Smith, and others. And in America,
+the late Justin Winsor was one of the most prolific and versatile of
+authors, while John Fiske, once assistant librarian at Harvard, Reuben A.
+Guild, William F. Poole, George H. Moore, J. N. Larned, Frederick
+Saunders and others have been copious contributors to the press.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a retrospective view of what has been said in respect to the
+qualifications of a librarian, it may appear that I have insisted upon
+too high a standard, and have claimed that he should be possessed of
+every virtue under heaven. I freely admit that I have aimed to paint the
+portrait of the ideal librarian; and I have done it in order to show what
+might be accomplished, rather than what has been accomplished. To set
+one's mark high--higher even than we are likely to reach, is the surest
+way to attain real excellence in any vocation. It is very true that it is
+not given to mortals to achieve perfection: but it is none the less our
+business to aim at it, and the higher the ideal, the nearer we are likely
+to come to a notable success in the work we have chosen.
+
+Librarianship furnishes one of the widest fields for the most eminent
+attainments. The librarian, more than any other person whatever, is
+brought into contact with those who are hungering and thirsting after
+knowledge. He should be able to satisfy those longings, to lead
+inquirers in the way they should go, and to be to all who seek his
+assistance a guide, philosopher and friend. Of all the pleasures which a
+generous mind is capable of enjoying, that of aiding and enlightening
+others is one of the finest and most delightful. To learn continually for
+one's self is a noble ambition, but to learn for the sake of
+communicating to others, is a far nobler one. In fact, the librarian
+becomes most widely useful by effacing himself, as it were, in seeking to
+promote the intelligence of the community in which he lives. One of the
+best librarians in the country said that such were the privileges and
+opportunities of the profession, that one might well afford to live on
+bread and water for the sake of being a librarian, provided one had no
+family to support.
+
+There is a new and signally marked advance in recent years, in the public
+idea of what constitutes a librarian. The old idea of a librarian was
+that of a guardian or keeper of books--not a diffuser of knowledge, but a
+mere custodian of it. This idea had its origin in ages when books were
+few, were printed chiefly in dead languages, and rendered still more dead
+by being chained to the shelves or tables of the library. The librarian
+might be a monk, or a professor, or a priest, or a doctor of law, or
+theology, or medicine, but in any case his function was to guard the
+books, and not to dispense them. Those who resorted to the library were
+kept at arm's length, as it were, and the fewer there were who came, the
+better the grim or studious custodian was pleased. Every inquiry which
+broke the profound silence of the cloistered library was a kind of rude
+interruption, and when it was answered, the perfunctory librarian resumed
+his reading or his studies. The institution appeared to exist, not for
+the benefit of the people, but for that of the librarian; or for the
+benefit, besides, of a few sequestered scholars, like himself, and any
+wide popular use of it would have been viewed as a kind of profanation.
+
+We have changed all that in the modern world, and library service is now
+one of the busiest occupations in the whole range of human enterprise.
+One cannot succeed in the profession, if his main idea is that a public
+library is a nice and easy place where one may do one's own reading and
+writing to the best advantage. A library is an intellectual and material
+work-shop, in which there is no room for fossils nor for drones. My only
+conception of a useful library is a library that is used--and the same of
+a librarian. He should be a lover of books--but not a book-worm. If his
+tendencies toward idealism are strong, he should hold them in check by
+addicting himself to steady, practical, every-day work. While careful of
+all details, he should not be mastered by them. If I have sometimes
+seemed to dwell upon trifling or obvious suggestions as to temper, or
+conduct, or methods, let it be remembered that trifles make up
+perfection, and that perfection is no trifle.
+
+I once quoted the saying that "the librarian who reads is lost"; but it
+would be far truer to say that the librarian who does not read is lost;
+only he should read wisely and with a purpose. He should make his reading
+helpful in giving him a wide knowledge of facts, of thoughts, and of
+illustrations, which will come perpetually in play in his daily
+intercourse with an inquiring public.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14.
+
+SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES.
+
+
+Let us now consider the subject of the uses of public libraries to
+schools and those connected with them. Most town and city libraries are
+supported, like the free schools, by the public money, drawn from the
+tax-payers, and supposed to be expended for the common benefit of all the
+people. It results that one leading object of the library should be to
+acquire such a collection of books as will be in the highest degree
+useful to all. And especially should the wants of the younger generation
+be cared for, since they are always not only nearly one half of the
+community, but they are also to become the future citizens of the
+republic. What we learn in youth is likely to make a more marked and
+lasting impression than what we may acquire in later years. And the
+public library should be viewed as the most important and necessary
+adjunct of the school, in the instruction and improvement of the young.
+Each is adapted to supply what the other lacks. The school supplies oral
+instruction and public exercises in various departments of learning; but
+it has few or no books, beyond the class text-books which are used in
+these instructions. The library, on the other hand, is a silent school of
+learning, free to all, and supplying a wide range of information, in
+books adapted to every age. It thus supplements, and in proportion to the
+extent and judicious choice of its collections, helps to complete that
+education, which the school falls short of. In this view, we see the
+great importance of making sure that the public library has not only a
+full supply of the best books in every field, avoiding (as previously
+urged) the bad or the inferior ones, but also that it has the best
+juvenile and elementary literature in ample supply. This subject of
+reading for the young has of late years come into unprecedented
+prominence. Formerly, and even up to the middle of our century, very
+slight attention was paid to it, either by authors or readers. Whole
+generations had been brought up on the New England Primer, with its
+grotesque wood-cuts, and antique theology in prose and verse, with a few
+moral narratives in addition, as solemn as a meeting-house, like the
+"Dairyman's Daughter," the "History of Sandford and Merton," or "The
+Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." Very dreary and melancholy do such books
+appear to the frequenters of our modern libraries, filled as they now are
+with thousands of volumes of lively and entertaining juvenile books.
+
+The transition from the old to the new in this class of literature was
+through the Sunday-school and religious tract society books, professedly
+adapted to the young. While some of these had enough of interest to be
+fairly readable, if one had no other resource, the mass were irredeemably
+stale and poor. The mawkishness of the sentiment was only surpassed by
+the feebleness of the style. At last, weary of the goody-goody and
+artificial school of juvenile books, which had been produced for
+generations, until a surfeit of it led to something like a nausea in the
+public mind, there came a new type of writers for the young, who at least
+began to speak the language of reason. The dry bones took on some
+semblance of life and of human nature, and boys and girls were painted as
+real boys and genuine girls, instead of lifeless dolls and manikins. The
+reformation went on, until we now have a world of books for the young to
+choose from, very many of which are fresh and entertaining.
+
+But the very wealth and redundancy of such literature is a new
+embarrassment to the librarian, who must indispensably make a selection,
+since no library can have or ought to have it all. Recurring to the
+function of the public library as the coadjutor of the school, let us see
+what classes of books should form essential parts of its stores.
+
+1. As geography, or an account of the earth on which we live, is a
+fundamental part of education, the library should possess a liberal
+selection of the best books in that science. The latest general gazetteer
+of the world, the best modern and a good ancient atlas, one or more of
+the great general collections of voyages, a set of Baedeker's admirable
+and inexpensive guide books, and descriptive works or travels in nearly
+all countries--those in America and Europe predominating--should be
+secured. The scholars of all grades will thus be able to supplement their
+studies by ready reference, and every part of the globe will lie open
+before them, as it were, by the aid of the library.
+
+2. The best and latest text-books in all the sciences, as geology,
+chemistry, natural history, physics, botany, agriculture, mechanic arts,
+mathematics, mental and moral science, architecture, fine arts, music,
+sociology, political science, etc., should be accessible.
+
+3. Every important history, with all the latest manuals or elementary
+books in general and national history should be found.
+
+4. The great collections of biography, with separate lives of all noted
+characters, should be provided.
+
+5. Dictionaries, cyclopaedias, statistical annuals, and other books of
+reference will be needed in abundance.
+
+6. A small but select number of approved works in law, medicine, and
+theology should be embraced in the library.
+
+7. I need not add that the poets and novelists should be well
+represented, as that goes without saying in all popular libraries.
+
+And special attention should be paid to building up a collection of the
+best books for juvenile readers, such as have passed the ordeal of good
+critical judgment among the librarians, as eminently fit to be read.
+There are several useful catalogues of such reading, as: Caroline M.
+Hewins' "Books for the Young," G. E. Hardy's "Five Hundred Books for the
+Young," and the admirable "List of Books for Girls and Women" by Augusta
+H. Leypoldt and Geo. Iles, contributed to by many experts, and copiously
+supplied with notes describing the scope and quality of the books. The
+last two are published by the Library Bureau.
+
+With this broad equipment of the best books in every field, and vigilance
+in constant exercise to add fresh stores from the constantly appearing
+and often improved text-books in every science, the library will be a
+treasury of knowledge both for teachers and pupils in the schools. And
+the fact should not be overlooked, that there will be found as much
+growth for teachers as for scholars in such a collection of books. Very
+few teachers, save those of well-furnished minds and of much careful
+reading, are competent to guide their scholars into the highways and
+byways of knowledge, as the librarian should be able to do.
+
+To establish a relation of confidence and aid with teachers is the
+preliminary step to be taken in order to make the library at once
+practically useful to them and to their scholars. In case there are
+several public schools in charge of a general superintendent, that
+officer should be first consulted, and tendered the free aid of the
+library and its librarian for himself and the teachers. In some public
+libraries, the school superintendent is made an _ex officio_ member of
+the library board. Then suitable regulations should be mutually agreed
+upon, fixing the number of books to be drawn on account of the schools at
+any one time, and the period of return to the library. It is most usual
+to charge such books on teachers' cards, or account, to fix
+responsibility, although the teachers loan them to the scholars at their
+option.
+
+In places where there are no school libraries proper, the public library
+will need to provide a goodly number of duplicates, in order to meet the
+special school demand. This, however, will usually be of low-priced
+rather than costly books, as the elementary text-books do not draw
+heavily upon library funds.
+
+A very attractive feature in providing books for the young is the large
+number of illustrated books now available to all libraries. All the
+kingdoms of nature are depicted in these introductory manuals of science,
+rendering its pursuit more interesting, and cultivating the habits of
+observation of form and of proportion, in the minds of the young. Pupils
+who have never accomplished anything in school have been roused by
+interest in illustrated natural histories to take an eager interest in
+learning all about birds and animals. This always leads on and up to
+other study, since the mind that is once awakened to observation and to
+thought, needs only a slight guidance to develop an unappeasable hunger
+for finding out all about things.
+
+The ancient maxim that "it is only the first step that costs" is
+especially true in the great art of education. It matters little what it
+is that first awakens the intellect--the great fact is that it is
+awakened, and sleeps no more thenceforward. A mottled bird's egg, found
+on the way to school, excites the little finder to ascertain the name of
+the bird that laid it. The school or the teacher supplies no means of
+finding out, but the public library has books upon birds, with colored
+plates of their eggs, and an eager search ensues, until the young student
+is rewarded by finding the very bird, with its name, plumage, habits,
+size, and season, all described. That child has taken an enormous step
+forward on the road to knowledge, which will never be forgotten.
+
+Instances might be multiplied indefinitely of such valuable aids to
+research, afforded by libraries, all along the innumerable roads
+travelled by students of every age in search of information. One of the
+most profitable of school exercises is to take up successively the great
+men and notable women of the past, and, by the effective and practical
+aid of the libraries, to find out what is best worth knowing about
+Columbus, Franklin, Walter Scott, Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, Longfellow,
+Hawthorne, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, Victor Hugo, or others too numerous
+to name. Reading Longfellow's Evangeline will lead one to search out the
+history and geography of Acadia, and so fix indelibly the practical facts
+concerned, as well as the imagery of a fine poem. So in the notable
+events of history, if a study is made of the English Commonwealth, or the
+French Revolution, or the war between the United States and England in
+1812-15, the library will supply the student with copious materials for
+illustration.
+
+Not alone in the fields of science, history, and biography, but in the
+attractive fields of literature, also, can the libraries aid and
+supplement the teachings of the school. A fine poem, or a simple,
+humorous, or pathetic story, told with artless grace or notable literary
+skill, when read aloud by a teacher in school, awakens a desire in many
+to have the same book at home to read, re-read, and perhaps commit to
+memory the finer passages. What more inspiring or pleasing reading than
+some of Longfellow's poems, or the Vicar of Wakefield, or Milton's
+L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, or Saintine's Picciola, or selections from
+the poems of Holmes, Whittier, Kipling, or Lowell? For all these and
+similar wants, the library has an unfailing supply.
+
+As a practical illustration of the extensive, use of books by schools in
+some advanced communities, I may note that Librarian Green, of the
+Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, said in 1891 that his average daily
+account of the books loaned to schools in two busy winter months showed
+over 1,600 volumes thus in daily use. This too, was in addition to all
+that were drawn out by pupils on their own independent cards as
+borrowers. Such a record speaks volumes.
+
+In the same city, where the Massachusetts State Normal School is located,
+sixty-four per cent. of the scholars visited the library to look up
+subjects connected with their studies.
+
+A forcible argument for librarians taking an interest in reading for
+schools is that both parents and teachers often neglect to see that the
+young get only proper books to read. The children are themselves quite
+ignorant what to choose, and if left to themselves, are likely to choose
+unwisely, and to read story papers or quite unimproving books. Their
+parents, busied as they are, commonly give no thought to the matter, and
+are quite destitute of that knowledge of the various classes of books
+which it is the province of the librarian to know and to discriminate.
+Teachers themselves do not possess this special knowledge, except in rare
+instances, and have to become far more conversant with libraries than is
+usual, in order to acquire it.
+
+That the very young, left to themselves, will choose many bad or
+worthless books is shown in the account of a principal of a school in San
+Francisco, who found that sixty per cent. of the books drawn from the
+public library by pupils had been dime novels, or other worthless
+literature. The wide prevalence of the dime novel evil appeared in the
+report of the reading of 1,000 boys in a western New York city. Out of
+this number, 472 (or nearly one-half) were in the habit of devouring this
+pernicious trash, procured in most cases by purchase at the news stands.
+The matter was taken up by teachers, and, by wise direction and by aid of
+the public library, the reading of these youthful candidates for
+citizenship was led into more improving fields. To lead a mind in the
+formative stage from the low to the high, from tales of wild adventure to
+the best stories for the young, is by no means difficult. Take a book
+that you know is wholesome and entertaining, and it will be eagerly read
+by almost every one. There is an endless variety of good books adapted to
+the most rudimentary capacity. Even young minds can become interested in
+the works of standard writers, if the proper selection is made. Wonderful
+is the stimulus which the reading of a purely written, fascinating book
+gives to the young mind. It opens the way for more books and for infinite
+growth. All that is needed is to set the youth in the right direction,
+and he will go forward with rapid strides of his own accord. This
+teaching how to read is really the most profitable part of any education.
+To recite endless lessons is not education: and one book eagerly read
+through, has often proved more valuable than all the text-books that ever
+were printed.
+
+
+THE USES OF THE LIBRARY TO THE UNIVERSITY.
+
+Closely allied to the benefits derived from the library by the teachers
+and scholars in public schools are its uses to all those engaged in the
+pursuit of higher education. For our colleges and universities and their
+researches, the library must have all that we have suggested as important
+for the schools, and a great deal more. The term university implies an
+education as broad as the whole world of books can supply: yet we must
+here meet with limitations that are inevitable. In this country we have
+to regret the application of the word "university" to institutions where
+the training is only academical, or at the highest, collegiate. The
+university, properly speaking, is an institution for the most advanced
+scholars or graduates of our colleges. Just as the college takes up and
+carries forward the training of those who have been through the academy,
+the seminary, or the high school, so it is the function of the university
+to carry forward (we will not say complete) the education of the graduate
+of the college. No education is ever completed: the doctor who has
+received the highest honors at the university has only begun his
+education--for that is to go on through life--and who knows how far
+beyond?
+
+Now the aid which a well equipped library can furnish to all these higher
+institutions of learning, the academy, the seminary, the college, and the
+university, is quite incalculable. Their students are constantly engaged
+upon themes which not only demand the text-books they study, but
+collateral illustrations almost without number. The professors, too, who
+impart instruction, perpetually need to be instructed themselves, with
+fuller knowledge upon the themes they are daily called upon to elucidate.
+There is no text-book that can teach all, or anywhere near all there is
+upon the subject it professes to cover. So the library, which has many
+books upon that subject, comes in to supply its deficiencies. And the
+librarian is useful to the professors and students just in proportion as
+he knows, not the contents, but the range of books upon each subject
+sought to be investigated. Here is where the subject catalogue, or the
+dictionary catalogue, combining the subjects and the authors under a
+single alphabet, comes into play. But, as no catalogue of subjects was
+ever yet up to date in any considerable library, the librarian should be
+able to supplement the catalogue by his own knowledge of later works in
+any line of inquiry.
+
+The most profitable studies carried on in libraries are, beyond all
+question, what we may term topical researches. To pursue one subject
+though many authorities is the true way to arrive at comprehensive
+knowledge. And in this kind of research, the librarian ought to be better
+equipped than any who frequent his library. Why? Simply because his
+business is bibliography; which is not the business of learned
+professors, or other scholars who visit the library.
+
+The late Librarian Winsor said that he considered the librarian's
+instruction far more valuable than that of the specialist. And this may
+be owing largely to the point of view, as well as to the training, of
+each. The specialist, perhaps, is an enthusiast or a devotee to his
+science, and so apt to give undue importance to the details of it, or to
+magnify some one feature: the librarian, on the other hand, who is
+nothing if not comprehensive, takes the larger view of the wide field of
+literature on each subject, and his suggestions concerning sources of
+information are correspondingly valuable.
+
+In those constantly arising questions which form the subjects of essays
+or discussions in all institutions of learning, the well-furnished
+library is an unfailing resource. The student who finds his unaided mind
+almost a blank upon the topic given out for treatment, resorts at once to
+the public library, searches catalogues, questions the librarian, and
+surrounds himself with books and periodicals which may throw light upon
+it. He is soon master of facts and reasonings which enable him to start
+upon a train of thought that bears fruit in an essay or discourse. In
+fact, it may be laid down as an axiom, that nearly every new book that is
+written is indebted to the library for most of its ideas, its facts, or
+its illustrations, so that libraries actually beget libraries.
+
+Some of the endlessly diversified uses of a well-equipped library, not
+only to scholars but to the general public, may here be referred to.
+Among the most sought for sources of information, the periodical press,
+both of the past and the current time, holds a prominent rank. When it is
+considered how far-reaching are the fields embraced in the wide range of
+these periodicals, literary, religious, scientific, political, technical,
+philosophical, social, medical, legal, educational, agricultural,
+bibliographical, commercial, financial, historical, mechanical, nautical,
+military, artistic, musical, dramatic, typographical, sanitary, sporting,
+economic, and miscellaneous, is it any wonder that specialists and
+writers for the press seek and find ready aid therein for their
+many-sided labors?
+
+To the skeptical mind, accustomed to undervalue what does not happen to
+come within the range of his pet idols or pursuits, the observation of a
+single day's multifold research in a great library might be in the nature
+of a revelation. Hither flock the ever-present searchers into family
+history, laying under contribution all the genealogies and town and
+county histories which the country has produced. Here one finds an
+industrious compiler intent upon the history of American duels, for which
+the many files of Northern and Southern newspapers, reaching back to the
+beginning of the century, afford copious material. At another table sits
+a deputation from a government department, commissioned to make a record
+of all notable strikes and labor troubles for a series of years, to be
+gleaned from the columns of the journals of leading cities.
+
+An absorbed reader of French romances sits side by side with a clergyman
+perusing homilies, or endeavoring to elucidate, through a mass of
+commentators, a special text. Here are to be found ladies in pursuit of
+costumes of every age; artists turning over the great folio galleries of
+Europe for models or suggestions; lawyers seeking precedents or leading
+cases; journalists verifying dates, speeches, conventions, or other
+forgotten facts; engineers studying the literature of railways or
+machinery; actors or amateurs in search of plays or works on the dramatic
+art; physicians looking up biographies of their profession or the history
+of epidemics; students of heraldry after coats of arms; inventors
+searching the specifications and drawings of patents; historical students
+pursuing some special field in American or foreign annals; scientists
+verifying facts or citations by original authorities; searchers tracing
+personal residences or deaths in old directories or newspapers; querists
+seeking for the words of some half-remembered passage in poetry or prose,
+or the original author of one of the myriad proverbs which have no
+father; architects or builders of houses comparing hundreds of designs
+and models; teachers perusing works on education or comparing text-books
+new or old; readers absorbing the great poems of the world; writers in
+pursuit of new or curious themes among books of antiquities or folk-lore;
+students of all the questions of finance and economic science;
+naturalists seeking to trace through many volumes descriptions of
+species; pursuers of military or naval history or science; enthusiasts
+venturing into the occult domains of spiritualism or thaumaturgy;
+explorers of voyages and travels in every region of the globe; fair
+readers, with dreamy eyes, devouring the last psychological novel;
+devotees of musical art perusing the lives or the scores of great
+composers; college and high-school students intent upon "booking up" on
+themes of study or composition or debate; and a host of other seekers
+after suggestion or information in a library of encyclopedic range.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15.
+
+THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES.
+
+
+The Library, from very early times, has enlisted the enthusiasm of the
+learned, and the encomiums of the wise. The actual origin of the earliest
+collection of books (or rather of manuscripts) is lost in the mists of
+remote antiquity. Notwithstanding professed descriptions of several
+libraries found in Aulus Gellius, Athenaeus, and others, who wrote
+centuries after the alleged collections were made, we lack the convincing
+evidence of eye-witnesses and contemporaries. But so far as critical
+research has run, the earliest monuments of man which approached
+collections of written records are found not in Europe, but in Africa and
+Asia.
+
+That land of wonders, Egypt, abounds in hieroglyphic inscriptions, going
+back, as is agreed by modern scholars, to the year 2000 before the
+Christian era. A Papyrus manuscript, too, exists, which is assigned to
+about 1600 B. C. And the earliest recorded collection of books in the
+world, though perhaps not the first that existed, was that of the
+Egyptian king Ramses I.--B. C. 1400, near Thebes, which Diodorus Siculus
+says bore the inscription "Dispensary of the soul." Thus early were books
+regarded as remedial agents of great force and virtue.
+
+But before the library of Ramses the Egyptian king, there existed in
+Babylonia collections of books, written not on parchment, nor on the more
+perishable papyrus, but on clay. Whole poems, fables, laws, and hymns of
+the gods have been found, stamped in small characters upon baked bricks.
+These clay tablets or books were arranged in numerical order, and the
+library at Agane, which existed about 2000 B. C. even had a catalogue, in
+which each piece of literature was numbered, so that readers had only to
+write down the number of the tablet wanted, and the librarian would hand
+it over. Two of these curious poems in clay have been found intact, one
+on the deluge, the other on the descent of Istar into Hades.
+
+The next ancient library in point of time yet known to us was gathered in
+Asia by an Assyrian King, and this collection has actually come down to
+us, _in propria persona_. Buried beneath the earth for centuries, the
+archaeologist Layard discovered in 1850 at Nineveh, an extensive
+collection of tablets or tiles of clay, covered with cuneiform
+characters, and representing some ten thousand distinct works or
+documents. The Assyrian monarch Sardanapalus, a great patron of letters,
+was the collector of this primitive and curious library of clay. He
+flourished about 1650 B. C.
+
+In Greece, where a copious and magnificent literature had grown up
+centuries before Christ, Pisistratus collected a library at Athens, and
+died B. C. 527. When Xerxes captured Athens, this collection, which
+represents the earliest record of a library dedicated to the public, was
+carried off to Persia, but restored two centuries later. The renowned
+philosopher Aristotle gathered one of the largest Greek libraries, about
+350 B. C. said to have embraced about 1400 volumes, or rather, rolls.
+Plato called Aristotle's residence "the house of the reader." This
+library, also, was carried off to Scepsis, and later by the victorious
+Sulla to Rome. History shows that the Greek collections were the earliest
+"travelling libraries" on record, though they went as the spoils of war,
+and not to spread abroad learning by the arts of peace.
+
+Rome having conquered Athens, we hear no more of the Athenian libraries,
+but the seat of ancient learning was transferred to Alexandria, where
+were gathered under the liberal sway of the Ptolemies, more books than
+had ever been assembled together in any part of the world. Marc Antony
+presented to Cleopatra the library of the Kings of Pergamus, said to have
+contained 200,000 rolls. There is no space to sketch the ancient
+libraries, so scantily commemorated, of Greece. Through Aristotle's
+enthusiasm for learning, as it is believed, the Ptolemies were fired with
+the zeal of book-collecting, and their capital of Alexandria became the
+seat of extensive libraries, stored in the Brucheion and the Serapeum.
+Here, according to general belief, occurred the burning of the famous
+Alexandrian library of 700,000 volumes, by the Saracens under Omar, A. D.
+640. If any one would have an object lesson in the uncertainties of
+history and of human testimony, let him read the various conflicting
+accounts of the writers who have treated upon this subject. The number of
+volumes varies from 700,000, as stated by Aulus Gellius, to 100,000 by
+Eusebius. The fact that in ancient times each book or division of an
+author's work written on a roll of papyrus was reckoned as a volume, may
+account for the exaggeration, since the nine books of Herodotus would
+thus make nine volumes, and the twenty-four of Homer's Iliad, twenty-four
+volumes, instead of one. So, by an arbitrary application of averages, the
+size of the Alexandrian Library might be brought within reasonable
+dimensions, though there is nothing more misleading than the doctrine of
+averages, unless indeed it be a false analogy. But that any library eight
+hundred years before the invention of printing contained 700,000 volumes
+in the modern sense of the word, when the largest collection in the
+world, three centuries after books began to be multiplied by types, held
+less than 100,000 volumes, is one of the wildest fictions which writers
+have imposed upon the credulity of ages.
+
+I cannot even touch upon the libraries of the Romans, though we have very
+attractive accounts, among others, of the literary riches of Lucullus, of
+Atticus, and of Cicero. The first library in Rome was founded 167 B. C.
+and in the Augustan age they multiplied, until there were twenty-nine
+public libraries in Hadrian's time, 120 A. D. The emperor Julian, in the
+fourth century, was a founder of libraries, and is said to have placed
+over the doors this inscription: "_Alii quidem equos amant, alii oves,
+alii feros; mihi vero a puerulo mirandum acquirendi et possidendi libros
+insedit desiderium._"
+
+The libraries of the middle ages were neither large nor numerous. The
+neglect of learning and of literature was wide-spread; only in the
+monasteries of Europe were to be found scholars who kept alive the sacred
+flame. In these were renewed those fruitful labors of the _scriptorium_
+which had preserved and multiplied so many precious books in classic
+times among the Romans. The monks, indeed, were not seldom creators as
+well as copyists, though the works which they composed were mainly
+theological (as became their sacred profession and ascetic life). The
+Latin, however, being the almost universal language for so many
+centuries, the love of learning conspired to widen the field of monastic
+study. Many zealous ecclesiastics were found who revived the classic
+authors, and copies of the works of poets, historians, philosophers and
+rhetoricians were multiplied. Then were gradually formed those monastic
+libraries to which so many thousands of mediaeval scholars owed a debt of
+gratitude. The order of Benedictines took a leading and effective part in
+this revival of learning. Taxes were levied on the inmates of monasteries
+expressly for furnishing the library with books, and the novices in many
+houses must contribute writing materials upon entering, and books at the
+close of their novitiate, for the enrichment of the library. Among
+notably valuable libraries, several of which still survive, were those of
+Monte Cassino in Italy, the Abbey of Fleury in France, St. Gall in
+Switzerland, and that of the illustrious congregation of St. Maur in
+France. The latter had at one time no less than one hundred and seven
+writers engaged in multiplying books.
+
+The first library in England is recorded (in the Canterbury Chartulary)
+to have been given by Pope Gregory the Great, and brought by St.
+Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, on his mission to England
+about A. D. 600. It consisted of nine precious volumes on vellum, being
+copies of parts of the Scriptures, with commentaries, and a volume of
+Lives of the Martyrs. The library of the Benedictine Monastery at
+Canterbury had grown in the 13th century to 3000 titles, being very rich
+in theology, but with many books also in history, poetry and science. At
+York had been founded, in the 8th century, a noble library by Archbishop
+Egbert, and the great scholar Alcuin here acquired, amidst that "infinite
+number of excellent books," his life-long devotion to literature. When he
+removed to Tours, in France, he lamented the loss of the literary
+treasures of York, in a poem composed of excellent hexameters. He begged
+of Charlemagne to send into Britain to procure books, "that the garden of
+paradise may not be confined to York."
+
+Fine libraries were also gathered at the monasteries of Durham, of
+Glastonbury, and of Croyland, and at the Abbeys of Whitby and
+Peterborough.
+
+Nor were the orders of Franciscans and Dominicans far behind as
+book-collectors, though they commonly preferred to buy rather than to
+transcribe manuscripts, like the Benedictines. "In every convent of
+friars," wrote Fitzralph to the Pope, in 1350, "there is a large and
+noble library." And Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Chancellor of
+England in 1334, whose "Philobiblon" is the most eloquent treatise in
+praise of books ever written, said, when visiting places where the
+mendicants had convents; "there amid the deepest poverty, we found the
+most precious riches stored up." The Pope, it appears, relaxed for these
+orders the rigor of their vows of poverty, in favor of amassing
+books--mindful, doubtless, of that saying of Solomon the wise--"Therefore
+get wisdom, because it is better than gold."
+
+Richard de Bury, the enthusiast of learning, wrote thus:
+
+"The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and
+nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it.
+Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of
+the truth, of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith,
+must of necessity make himself a lover of books."
+
+And said Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich--"I can wonder at nothing more
+than how a man can be idle--but of all others a scholar; in so many
+improvements of reason, in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety
+of studies, in such importunity of thoughts. To find wit in poetry; in
+philosophy profoundness; in history wonder of events; in oratory, sweet
+eloquence; in divinity, supernatural light and holy devotion--whom would
+it not ravish with delight?"
+
+Charles the Fifth of France amassed a fine library, afterwards sold to an
+English nobleman. Lorenzo de Medici, of Hungary, and Frederic Duke of
+Urbino, each gathered in the 15th century a magnificent collection of
+books. All of these became widely dispersed in later years, though the
+manuscripts of the Duke of Urbino's collection are preserved in the
+library of the Vatican.
+
+I may here note a very few of the most extensive library collections now
+existing in Europe and America.
+
+1. Of the great public libraries of Europe, which owe much of their
+riches to the government privilege of the copy-tax, the national library
+of France is the oldest and the largest, now numbering two million six
+hundred thousand volumes. Founded in the 15th century, it has had four
+hundred years of opportunity for steady and large increase. Paris abounds
+in other public libraries also, in which respect it is far superior to
+London.
+
+2. Next to the Bibliotheque nationale of France, comes the Library of the
+British Museum, with 2,000,000 volumes, very rich both in manuscripts and
+in printed books in all languages. A liberal Parliamentary grant of
+$60,000 a year for purchase of books and manuscripts keeps this great
+collection well up to date as to all important new works, besides
+enabling it constantly to fill up deficiencies in the literature of the
+past. Following this, among the great libraries having over half a
+million books, come in numerical order
+
+                                                  Volumes.
+ 3. Russian Imperial Library, St. Petersburg,    1,200,000
+ 4. Royal Library of Prussia, Berlin,            1,000,000
+ 5. Royal Library of Bavaria, Munich,              980,000
+ 6. Library of Congress, Washington City,          840,000
+ 7. Boston Public Library,                         734,000
+ 8. University Library, Strasburg, Germany,        700,000
+ 9. Imperial Public Library, Vienna,               575,000
+10. Bodleian Library, Oxford                       530,000
+
+It is a notable fact that among the richest monuments of learning that
+have been gathered by mankind, the University libraries hold a very high
+rank. Reckoned in number of volumes, there are many of them which far
+outrank the government libraries, except in six instances. Out of 174
+libraries, all exceeding 100,000 volumes, as reported in the annual
+_Minerva_, in October, 1898, no less than 72 are the libraries of
+universities. Strasburg heads the list, with a noble collection of
+700,000 volumes; then Oxford university, whose Bodleian library numbers
+530,000; Leipzig university, 504,000; Cambridge university, England,
+Goettingen university, and Harvard university, 500,000 each; the
+university of Vienna, 475,000; the universities of Heidelberg and of
+Munich, 400,000 each; Ghent and Wuerzburg universities, 350,000 each;
+Christiania, Norway, university, and Tuebingen, each 340,000; University
+of Chicago, 330,000; Copenhagen university, 305,000; Breslau, Cracow,
+Rostock and Upsala, 300,000 each; Yale university, New Haven, 280,000;
+St. Petersburg, 257,000; Bologna, 255,000; Freiburg and Bonn
+universities, 250,000 each; Prague, 245,000; Trinity, Dublin, 232,000;
+Koenigsberg, 231,000; Kiel, 229,000; Naples, 224,000; and Buda-Pest,
+210,000. I need not detain you by enumerating those that fall below
+200,000 volumes, but will say that the whole number of volumes in the 72
+university libraries embraced in my table is more than fifteen millions,
+which would be much enlarged if smaller libraries were included. A noble
+exhibit is this, which the institutions of the highest education hold up
+before us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We may now consider, somewhat more in detail as to particulars, the
+origin and growth of the libraries of the United States. The record will
+show an amazingly rapid development, chiefly accomplished during the last
+quarter of a century, contrasted with the lamentably slow growth of
+earlier years.
+
+Thirty years ago the present year, I was invited to give to the American
+Social Science Association, then meeting at New York, a discourse upon
+Public Libraries in the United States. On recurring to this address, I
+have been agreeably surprised to find how completely its facts and
+figures belong to the domain of ancient history. For, while it may excite
+a smile to allude to anything belonging to a period only thirty years
+back as ancient history, yet, so rapid has been the accumulation, not
+only of books, but of libraries themselves in that brief period of three
+decades, as almost to justify the term employed.
+
+Antiquarians must ever regard with interest the first efforts for the
+establishment of public libraries in the New World. The first record of
+books dedicated to a public purpose in that part of this country now
+occupied by the English-speaking race is, I believe, to be found in the
+following entry in the Records of the Virginia Company of London:
+
+"November 15, 1620.--After the Acts of the former Courte were read, a
+straunger stept in presentinge a Mapp of S^r Walter Rawlighes contayinge
+a Descripcon of Guiana, and with the same fower great books as the Guifte
+of one unto the Company that desyred his name might not be made knowne,
+whereof one booke was a treatise of St. Augustine of the Citty of God
+translated into English, the other three greate Volumes wer the works of
+Mr. Perkins' newlie corrected and amended, wch books the Donor desyred
+they might be sent to the Colledge in Virginia there to remayne in saftie
+to the use of the collegiates thereafter, and not suffered at any time to
+be sent abroade or used in the meane while. For wch so worthy a guifte my
+Lord of Southampton desyred the p'tie that presented them to returne
+deserued thanks from himselfe and the rest of the Company to him that had
+so kindly bestowed them."[1]
+
+The college here referred to was the first ever founded in America, and
+was seated at Henrico, at the confluence of the James River with the
+Chickahominy. It was designed not only for the education of the Virginia
+settlers, but to teach science and Christianity to the Indians. Large
+contributions were raised in England by Sir Edwin Sandys, and others of
+the Virginia Company, for its support. But this Virginia college and its
+incipient library were doomed to a speedy extinction. Like so many other
+brilliant "prospects for planting arts and learning in America," it did
+not survive the perils of the colonial epoch. It was brought to a period
+by the bloody Indian massacre of March 22, 1622, when three hundred and
+forty-seven of the Virginia settlers were slaughtered in a day, the new
+settlement broken up, and the expanding lines of civilization contracted
+to the neighborhood of Jamestown.
+
+Harvard University Library was founded in 1638 by the endowment of John
+Harvard, who bequeathed to the new college his library and half of his
+estate. Soon afterwards enriched by the zealous contributions of English
+Puritans and philosophers, of Berkeley, and Baxter, and Lightfoot, and
+Sir Kenelm Digby, the first university library in America, after a
+century and a quarter of usefulness, was totally destroyed with the
+college edifice in the year 1764 by fire. When we contemplate the ravages
+of this element, which has consumed so many noble libraries, destroying
+not only printed books of priceless value, but often precious manuscripts
+which are unique and irreplaceable, a lively sense of regret comes over
+us that these creations of the intellect, which should be imperishable,
+are even yet at the mercy of an accident in all the libraries of the
+world save a very few. The destruction of books in private hands is
+natural and inevitable enough, and goes on continually. Whole editions of
+books, now sought with avidity as the rarest volumes known to literature,
+have been gradually destroyed in innumerable fires, worn out in the hands
+of readers, used for waste paper by grocers and petty tradesmen,
+swallowed up in the sack of towns, or consumed by dampness, mould, or, in
+rare instances, by the remorseless tooth of time. Yet there have always
+existed public libraries enough, had they been fire-proof, to have
+preserved many copies of every book bequeathed to the world, both before
+the invention of printing and since. But, when your insurance office is
+bankrupt, what becomes of the insured? When nearly all our public
+libraries are so constructed as to become an easy prey to the flames, the
+loss of so many books which have completely perished from the earth
+ceases to be wonderful.
+
+The growth of Harvard University library, from its second foundation a
+century ago, has been steady, though at no time rapid. Select and
+valuable in its principal contents, it has received numerous benefactions
+from the friends of learning, and promises to become the best, as it
+already is much the largest, among the university libraries of the
+country. Its present strength is about 500,000 volumes.
+
+The year 1700 witnessed the birth of the first New York library open to
+public use. The Rev. John Sharp, then chaplain of His Majesty's forces in
+that city (it was in the days of good King William of Orange), bequeathed
+his private collection of books to found a "public library" in New York.
+The library thus organized was placed in charge of the corporation of the
+city, but the first city library of New York languished with little or no
+increase until 1754, when a society of gentlemen undertook to found a
+public library by subscription, and succeeded so well that the city
+authorities turned over to them what remained of the Public City Library.
+This was the beginning of the New York Society Library, one of the
+largest of the proprietary libraries of the country. It was then, and for
+a long time afterwards, commonly known as "The City Library." The
+Continental Congress profited by its stores, there being no other library
+open to their use; and the First Congress under the Constitution, which
+met in New York in 1789, received the free use of the books it contained.
+The library is conducted on the share system, the payment of twenty-five
+dollars, and an annual assessment of six dollars, giving any one the
+privilege of membership. It now contains about 100,000 volumes.
+
+The same year, 1700, in which the New York Library was founded, ten
+Connecticut ministers met together at Lyme, each bringing a number of
+books, and saying, "I give these books for the founding of a college in
+this colony." Such was the foundation of Yale University, an institution
+that has done inestimable service to the cause of letters, having been
+fruitful of writers of books, as well as of living contributions to the
+ranks of every learned profession. Thirty years later, we find the good
+Bishop Berkeley pausing from the lofty speculations which absorbed him,
+to send over to Yale College what was called "the finest collection of
+books that ever came together at one time into America." For a century
+and a half the growth of this library was very slow, the college being
+oppressed with poverty. In 1869, the number of volumes had risen only to
+50,000, but it is cheering to relate that the last thirty years have
+witnessed a growth so rapid that in 1899 Yale University Library had
+285,000 volumes.
+
+The fourth considerable library founded in the United States was due in a
+large degree to the industry and zeal for knowledge of the illustrous
+Franklin. As unquestionably the first established proprietary library in
+America, the Library Company of Philadelphia merits especial notice. Let
+us reverently take a leaf out of the autobiography of the
+printer-statesman of Pennsylvania:
+
+"And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a
+subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by
+our great scrivener, Brockden, and by the help of my friends in the Junto
+[the Junto was a club for mutual improvement, founded by Franklin]
+procured fifty subscribers at forty shillings each to begin with, and ten
+shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue.
+We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one
+hundred; this was the mother of all the North American subscription
+libraries now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and
+continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general
+conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as
+intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have
+contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the
+colonies in defence of their privileges."
+
+When this Philadelphia Library was founded, in 1731, not a single city or
+town in England possessed a subscription library. Even the library of the
+British Museum, since become the greatest collection of books in the
+world, save one, was not opened until 1759, more than a quarter of a
+century afterwards. Although not designed as a public library of
+circulation, save to its own subscribers, the Philadelphia Library has
+been kept free to all for reference and consultation. The record of the
+gradual increase of the first Philadelphia Library from its first few
+hundred volumes, when Franklin was but twenty-five years of age, to its
+present rank as the largest proprietary library in America, with 195,000
+volumes of books, is highly interesting. Its history, in fact, is to a
+large extent the history of intellectual culture in Philadelphia, which
+remained, until the second decade in the present century, the foremost
+city of the Union in population, and, from 1791 to 1800, the seat of
+government of the United States.
+
+The Philadelphia Library Company, in 1774, voted that "the gentlemen who
+were to meet in Congress" in that city should be furnished with such
+books as they might have occasion for; and the same privilege was
+exercised on the return of the Government to that city, in 1791, and
+until the removal of Congress to Washington in 1800. During the nine
+months' occupation of Philadelphia by the British army, it is refreshing
+to read that the conquerors lifted no spear against the Muses' bower, but
+that "the officers, without exception, left deposits, and paid hire for
+the books borrowed by them." The collection, in respect of early printed
+books, is one of the largest and most valuable in America, embracing some
+books and files of newspapers which are to be found in no other public
+library. The selection of new books has been kept unusually free from the
+masses of novels and other ephemeral publications which overload most of
+our popular libraries, and the collection, although limited in extent in
+every field, and purposely leaving special topics, such as the medical
+and natural sciences, to the scientific libraries which abound in
+Philadelphia, affords to the man of letters a good working library. The
+shares in the library cost forty dollars, with an annual assessment of
+four dollars to each stockholder.
+
+In 1869, the great bequest of Doctor James Rush to the Philadelphia
+Library of his whole property, valued at over $1,000,000, was accepted by
+its stockholders, by the bare majority of five votes in a poll of over
+five hundred. This lack of harmony is attributable to the fact that the
+bequest, so generous in itself, was hampered by the donor with numerous
+conditions, deemed by many friends of the library to be highly onerous
+and vexatious. Not the least among these was the following, which is
+cited from the will itself:
+
+"Let the library not keep cushioned seats for time-wasting and lounging
+readers, nor places for every-day novels, mind-tainting reviews,
+controversial politics, scribblings of poetry and prose, biographies of
+unknown names, nor for those teachers of disjointed thinking, the daily
+newspapers."
+
+Here is one more melancholy instance of a broad and liberal bequest
+narrowly bestowed. The spirit which animated the respectable testator in
+attempting to exclude the larger part of modern literature from the
+library which his money was to benefit may have been unexceptionable
+enough. Doubtless there are evils connected with a public supply of
+frivolous and trifling literature; and perhaps our periodicals may be
+justly chargeable with devoting an undue proportion of their columns to
+topics of merely ephemeral interest. But it should never be forgotten
+that the literature of any period is and must be largely occupied with
+the questions of the day. Thus, and thus only, it becomes a
+representative literature, and it is precious to posterity in proportion
+as it accurately reflects the spirit, the prejudices, and the
+personalities of a time which has passed into history, leaving behind it
+no living representatives. If we admit that the development of the human
+intellect at any particular period is worth studying, then all books are,
+or may become, useful. It is amazing that a person with any pretensions
+to discernment should denounce newspapers as unfitted to form a part of a
+public library. The best newspapers of the time are sometimes the best
+books of the time. A first-class daily journal is an epitome of the
+world, recording the life and the deeds of men, their laws and their
+literature, their politics and religion, their social and criminal
+statistics, the progress of invention and of art, the revolutions of
+empires, and the latest results of science. Grant that newspapers are
+prejudiced, superficial, unfair; so also are books. Grant that the
+journals often give place to things scurrilous and base; but can there be
+anything baser or more scurrilous than are suffered to run riot in books?
+There is to be found hidden away in the pages of some books such filth as
+no man would dare to print in a newspaper, from fear of the instant wrath
+of the passers-by.
+
+When I consider the debt which libraries and literature alike owe to the
+daily and weekly press, it is difficult to characterize with patience the
+Parthian arrow flung at it from the grave of a querulous millionaire, who
+will owe to these very newspapers the greater part of his success and his
+reputation. The father of the respectable testator, Doctor Benjamin Rush,
+has left on record many learned speculations concerning the signs and
+evidences of lunacy. We may now add to the number the vagaries of the
+author of a ponderous work on the human intellect, who gravely proposed
+to hand over to posterity an expurgated copy of the nineteenth century,
+with all its newspapers left out.
+
+The Library of Congress, or, as it was called in its first general
+catalogue in 1815, "The Library of the United States," was founded in
+1800, by the purchase of five thousand dollars' worth of books by act of
+Congress, upon the removal of the government to Washington. By the act of
+January 26, 1802, entitled "An act concerning the Library for the use of
+both Houses of Congress," this library was placed in charge of a joint
+committee of both Houses of Congress, consisting of three Senators and
+three Representatives, and a Librarian, to be appointed by the President
+of the United States. It had grown to the number of only 3,000 volumes in
+1814, when the British army made a bonfire of our national Capitol, and
+the library was consumed in the ruins. The first library of Congress
+being thus destroyed, ex-President Jefferson, then living, involved in
+debt, and in his old age, at Monticello, offered his fine private library
+of 6,700 volumes to Congress, through friends in that body, the terms of
+payment to be made convenient to the public, and the price to be fixed by
+a committee. The proposition met with able advocacy and also with some
+warm opposition. It is illustrative of the crude conceptions regarding
+the uses of books which prevailed in the minds of some members, that the
+library was objected to on the somewhat incongruous grounds of embracing
+too many editions of the Bible, and a number of the French writers in
+skeptical philosophy. It was gravely proposed to pack up this portion of
+the library, and return it to the illustrious owner at Monticello, paying
+him for the remainder. More enlightened counsels, however, prevailed, and
+the nation became possessed, for about $23,000, of a good basis for a
+public library which might become worthy of the country. The collection
+thus formed grew by slow accretion until, in 1851, it had accumulated
+55,000 volumes. On the 24th of December in that year, a defective flue
+in the Capitol set fire to the wood-work with which the whole library was
+surrounded, and the result was a conflagration, from which 20,000 volumes
+only were saved. Congress at once appropriated, with praiseworthy
+liberality, $75,000 for the purchase of new books, and $92,500 for
+rebuilding the library room in solid iron; the first instance of the
+employment of that safe and permanent material, so capable of the
+lightest and most beautiful architectural effects, in the entire interior
+structure of any public building. The appropriation of $75,000 was
+principally expended in the purchase of standard English literature,
+including complete sets of many important periodicals, and a selection of
+the more costly works in science and the fine arts. In 1866, two wings,
+each as large as the central library, and constructed of the same
+fire-proof material, were added to it, and quickly filled by the
+accession, the same year and the following, of two large libraries, that
+of the Smithsonian Institution, and the historical library of Peter
+Force, of Washington. The latter was the largest private library ever
+then brought together in the United States, but its chief value consisted
+in its possession of a very great proportion of the books relating to the
+settlement, history, topography, and politics of America, its 45,000
+pamphlets, its files of early newspapers of the Revolution, its early
+printed books, and its rich assemblage of maps and manuscripts, many of
+the latter being original autographs of the highest historical interest,
+including military letters and papers of the period of the American
+Revolution. The Smithsonian library, the custody of which was accepted by
+Congress as a trust, is rich in scientific works in all the languages of
+Europe, and forms an extensive and appropriate supplement to the Library
+of Congress, the chief strength of which lies in jurisprudence,
+political science, history, and books relating to America. Yet no
+department of literature or science has been left unrepresented in its
+formation, and the fact has been kept steadily in view that the Library
+of the Government must become, sooner or later, a universal one. As the
+only library which is entitled to the benefit of the copyright law, by
+which copies of each publication for which the Government grants an
+exclusive right must be deposited in the National Library, this
+collection must become annually more important as an exponent of the
+growth of American literature. This wise provision of law prevents the
+dispersion or destruction of books that tend continually to disappear; a
+benefit to the cause of letters, the full value of which it requires
+slight reflection to estimate.
+
+This National Library now embraces 840,000 volumes, besides about 250,000
+pamphlets. It is freely open, as a library of reference and reading, to
+the whole people; but the books are not permitted to be drawn out, except
+by Senators and Representatives and a few officials for use at the seat
+of government. Its new, commodious and beautiful building, which may
+fitly be called the book-palace of the American people, open day and
+evening to all comers, is a delight to the eye, and to the mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The library of the Boston Athenaeum originated, in the year 1806, with a
+society of gentlemen of literary tastes, who aimed at creating a
+reading-room for the best foreign and American periodicals, together with
+a library of books. To this a gallery of art was subsequently added. The
+undertaking proved at once successful, leaving us to wonder why
+cultivated Boston, though abounding in special and parish libraries,
+should so long have done without a good general library; New York having
+anticipated her by fifty-two years, and Philadelphia by three-quarters
+of a century. The Athenaeum Library is peculiarly rich in files of
+American newspapers, both old and new, and its collection of early
+pamphlets is one of the largest in the country. In literature and science
+it embraces a heavy proportion of the best books, its total number of
+volumes being reckoned at 190,000. Its collection of books, pamphlets,
+and newspapers relating to the recent civil war is among the completest
+known. The price of a share in the Athenaeum is three hundred dollars, a
+large sum when compared with that of other proprietary libraries; but it
+involves much more valuable property-rights than any other. The annual
+assessment is five dollars to shareholders, who alone possess the right
+to draw books. The proprietors have also the power to grant free
+admission to others, and the library and reading-room are thus thrown
+open for reference to a wide range of readers.
+
+The history of the Astor Library, opened in 1854, has been made too
+familiar by repeated publication to need repetition here. The generous
+founder gave two per cent. out of his fortune of $20,000,000 to create a
+free public library for the city which had given him all his wealth. The
+gift was a splendid one, greater than had ever before been given in money
+to found a library. Moreover, the $400,000 of Mr. Astor, half a century
+ago, appeared to be, and perhaps was, a larger sum relatively than four
+millions in New York of to-day. Yet it remains true that the bequest was
+but one-fiftieth part of the fortune of the donor, and that the growth
+and even the proper accommodation of the library must have stopped, but
+for the spontaneous supplementary gifts of the principal inheritors of
+his vast wealth.
+
+The growth of the Astor library has been very slow, the annual income
+from what was left of Mr. Astor's $400,000 bequest, after defraying the
+cost of the library building, and the $100,000 expended for books at its
+foundation in 1848, having been so small as to necessitate a pinching
+economy, both in salaries of the library staff, and in the annual
+purchase of books. It was an example of a generous act performed in a
+niggardly way. But after the lapse of half a century, enlightened public
+policy, building upon the Astor foundation, and on the Lenox and Tilden
+bequests for founding public libraries in New York city, is about to
+equip that long neglected city with a library worthy of the name. There
+has already been gathered from these three united benefactions, a
+collection of no less than 450,000 volumes, making the New York Public
+Library take rank as the fourth, numerically, in the United States.
+
+While no library in America has yet reached one million volumes, there
+are five libraries in Europe, which have passed the million mark. Some of
+these, it is true, are repositories of ancient and mediaeval literature,
+chiefly, with a considerable representation of the books of the last
+century, and but few accessions from the more modern press. Such, for the
+most part, are the numerous libraries of Italy, while others, like the
+Library of the British Museum, in London, and the National Library, at
+Paris, are about equally rich in ancient and modern literature. The one
+great advantage which European libraries possess over American consists
+in the stores of ancient literature which the accumulations of the past
+have given them. This advantage, so far as manuscripts and early printed
+books are concerned, can never be overcome. With one or two hundred
+thousand volumes as a basis, what but utter neglect can prevent a library
+from becoming a great and useful institution? The most moderate share of
+discrimination, applied to the selection of current literature, will keep
+up the character of the collection as a progressive one. But with nothing
+at all as a basis, as most of our large American libraries have started,
+it will take generations for us to overtake some of the vast collections
+of Europe--even numerically.
+
+In the "American Almanac" for 1837 was published the earliest statistical
+account of American libraries which I have found. It is confined to a
+statement of the numerical contents of twenty public and university
+libraries, being all the American libraries which then (sixty years
+since) contained over 10,000 volumes each. The largest library in the
+United States at that date was that of the Philadelphia Library Company,
+which embraced 44,000 volumes. The first organized effort to collect the
+full statistics of libraries in the United States was made in 1849, by
+Professor C. C. Jewett, then librarian of the Smithsonian Institution,
+and the results were published in 1851, under the auspices of that
+institution, in a volume of 207 pages. It contains interesting notices of
+numerous libraries, only forty of which, however, contained as many as
+10,000 volumes each. In 1859, Mr. W. J. Rhees, of the Smithsonian
+Institution, published "A Manual of Public Libraries, Institutions, and
+Societies in the United States," a large volume of 687 pages, filled with
+statistical information in great detail, and recording the number of
+volumes in 1338 libraries. This work was an expansion of that of
+Professor Jewett. The next publication of the statistics of American
+Libraries, of an official character, was published in "The National
+Almanac," Philadelphia, for the year 1864, pp. 58-62, and was prepared by
+the present writer. It gave the statistics of 104 libraries, each
+numbering 10,000 volumes or upwards, exhibiting a gratifying progress in
+all the larger collections, and commemorating the more advanced and
+vigorous of the new libraries which had sprung into life.
+
+The work of collecting and publishing the statistics of American
+Libraries has for years past been admirably performed by the United
+States Bureau of Education. Begun in 1875, that institution has issued
+four tabular statements of all libraries responding to its circulars of
+inquiry, and having (as last reported in 1897) one thousand volumes or
+upwards. Besides these invaluable reports, costing much careful labor and
+great expense, the Bureau of Education published, in 1876, an extensive
+work wholly devoted to the subject of libraries, bearing the title
+"Special Report on Public Libraries in the United States." This
+publication (now wholly out of print) consisted of 1222 pages, replete
+with information upon the history, management, and condition of American
+Libraries, under the editorship of S. R. Warren and S. N. Clark, of the
+Bureau of Education. It embraced many original contributions upon topics
+connected with library science, by experienced librarians, _viz._:
+Messrs. W. F. Poole, Justin Winsor, C. A. Cutter, J. S. Billings, Theo.
+Gill, Melvil Dewey, O. H. Robinson, W. I. Fletcher, F. B. Perkins, H. A.
+Homes, A. R. Spofford, and others.
+
+I have prepared a table of the numerical contents of the thirty-four
+largest libraries in this country in 1897, being all those having 100,000
+volumes each or upwards:
+
+Library of Congress, Washington,                          840,000
+Boston Public Library, Boston,                            730,000
+Harvard University Library, Cambridge,                    510,000
+New York Public Library, New York City,                   450,000
+University of Chicago Library,                            335,000
+New York State Library, Albany,                           320,710
+Yale University Library, New Haven,                       285,000
+New York Mercantile Library, New York,                    270,000
+Columbia University Library, New York,                    260,000
+Chicago Public Library,                                   235,385
+Cincinnati Public Library,                                223,043
+Cornell University Library, Ithaca, N. Y.,                220,000
+Sutro Library, San Francisco,                             206,300
+Newberry Library, Chicago,                                203,108
+Philadelphia Library Company,                             200,000
+Philadelphia Mercantile Library,                          190,000
+Boston Athenaeum Library,                                 190,000
+Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore,                           185,902
+Philadelphia Mercantile Library,                          183,000
+Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Mich.,                   148,198
+University of Pennsylvania Library, Phila.,               140,000
+Princeton University Library, Princeton, N. J.,           135,000
+Pennsylvania State Library, Harrisburg,                   134,000
+Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore,                     130,000
+Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, O.,                  129,000
+St. Louis Public Library,                                 125,000
+Mechanics and Tradesmen's Library, New York,              115,185
+Free Public Library, Worcester, Mass.,                    115,000
+San Francisco Public Library,                             108,066
+Philadelphia Free Library,                                105,000
+American Antiquarian Society Library, Worcester, Mass.,   105,000
+California State Library, Sacramento,                     100,032
+Massachusetts State Library, Boston,                      100,000
+New York Society Library, New York,                       100,000
+
+Public libraries endowed by private munificence form already a large
+class, and these are constantly increasing. Of the public libraries
+founded by individual bequest, some of the principal are the Public
+Library of New York, the Watkinson Library, at Hartford, the Peabody
+Institute Libraries, of Baltimore, and at Danvers and Peabody, Mass., the
+Newberry Library and the John Crerar Library at Chicago, the Sutro
+Library, San Francisco, the Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore, and the
+Carnegie Libraries at Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, Pa. Nearly all of
+them are the growth of the last quarter of a century. The more prominent,
+in point of well equipped buildings or collections of books, are here
+named, including all which number ten thousand volumes each, or upwards,
+among the public libraries associated with the founder's name.
+
+New York Public Library (Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations),  450,000
+Newberry Library, Chicago,                                     203,100
+Sutro Library, San Francisco,                                  206,300
+Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore,                                185,900
+Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore,                          130,000
+Davenport Library, Bath, N. Y.,                                 90,000
+Silas Bronson Library, Waterbury, Conn.,                        52,000
+Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, N. Y.,                  51,000
+Watkinson Library, Hartford, Conn.,                             47,000
+Sage Library, New Brunswick, N. Y.,                             43,000
+Case Library, Cleveland, Ohio,                                  40,000
+Grosvenor Library, Buffalo, N. Y.,                              39,000
+Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.,                             36,000
+Cooper Union Library, New York,                                 34,000
+Fisk Free Public Library, New Orleans,                          33,000
+Peabody Institute Library, Peabody, Mass.,                      33,000
+Reynolds Library, Rochester, N. Y.,                             33,000
+Carnegie Free Library, Allegheny, Pa.,                          30,000
+Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, Vt.,                         30,000
+Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans,                           26,000
+Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Pa.,                              25,000
+Sage Public Library, West Bay City, Mich.,                      25,000
+Hoyt Public Library, Saginaw, Mich.,                            24,000
+Osterhout Free Library, Wilkesbarre, Pa.,                       24,000
+Seymour Library, Auburn, N. Y.,                                 24,000
+Hackley Public Library, Muskegon, Mich.,                        22,000
+Willard Library, Evansville, Ind.,                              22,000
+Otis Library, Norwich, Conn.,                                   21,000
+Morrison-Reeves Library, Richmond, Ind.,                        21,000
+Baxter Memorial Library, Rutland, Vt.,                          20,000
+Cornell Library Association, Ithaca, N. Y.,                     20,000
+Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy, Mass.,                     19,000
+Dimmick Library, Mauch Chunk, Pa.,                              18,000
+Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill.,                        17,000
+Peabody Institute Library, Danvers, Mass.,                      17,000
+Tufts Library, Weymouth, Mass.,                                 17,000
+Warder Public Library, Springfield, Ohio,                       17,000
+Withers Public Library, Bloomington, Ill.,                      15,000
+Cary Library, Lexington, Mass.,                                 15,000
+Fritz Public Library, Chelsea, Mass.,                           15,000
+Turner Free Library, Randolph, Mass.,                           15,000
+Ames Free Library, North Easton, Mass.,                         14,000
+Bigelow Free Library, Clinton, Mass.,                           14,000
+Clarke Public Library, Coldwater, Mich.,                        14,000
+Harris Institute Library, Woonsocket, R. I.,                    14,000
+Merrick Public Library, Brookfield, Mass.,                      14,000
+Robbins Library, Arlington, Mass.,                              14,000
+Nevins Memorial Library, Methuen, Mass.,                        14,000
+Sturgis Library, Barnstable, Mass.,                             13,000
+Birchard Library, Fremont, Ohio,                                12,500
+James Prendergast Library, Jamestown, N. Y.,                    12,500
+Rogers Free Library, Bristol, R. I.,                            12,300
+Abbott Public Library, Marblehead, Mass.,                       12,000
+Armour Institute, Chicago, Ill.,                                12,000
+Beebe Town Library, Wakefield, Mass.,                           12,000
+Carnegie Free Library, Braddock, Pa.,                           12,000
+Goodnow Library, South Sudbury, Mass.,                          12,000
+Millicent Library, Fairhaven, Mass.,                            12,000
+Thayer Public Library, South Braintree, Mass.,                  11,000
+Dyer Library, Saco, Maine,                                      10,500
+Cossit Library, Memphis, Tenn.,                                 10,000
+Gloucester (Mass.) Sawyer Free Library,                         10,000
+Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn.,                              10,000
+Parlin Memorial Library, Everett, Mass.,                        10,000
+Jennie D. Haynes Library, Alton, Ill.,                          10,000
+Hornell Free Library, Hornellsville, N. Y.,                     10,000
+
+Besides the preceding list, purposely confined to free libraries chiefly
+founded by individuals, which have reached the ten thousand volume mark,
+there are a multitude of others, too numerous to be named, having a less
+number of volumes. In fact, the public spirit which gives freely of
+private wealth to enlarge the intelligence of the community may be said
+to grow by emulation. Many men who have made fortunes have endowed their
+native places with libraries. It is yearly becoming more and more widely
+recognized that a man can build no monument to himself so honorable or so
+lasting as a free public library. Its influence is well nigh universal,
+and its benefits are perennial.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We now come to consider the city or town libraries, created or maintained
+by voluntary taxation. These, like the class of libraries founded by
+private munificence, are purely a modern growth. While the earliest
+movement in this direction in Great Britain dates back only to 1850, New
+Hampshire has the honor of adopting the first free public library law, in
+America, in the year 1849. Massachusetts followed in 1851, and the
+example was emulated by other States at various intervals, until there
+now remain but fifteen out of our forty-five States which have no public
+library law. The general provisions of these laws authorize any town or
+city to collect taxes by vote of the citizens for maintaining a public
+library, to be managed by trustees elected or appointed for the purpose.
+
+But a more far-reaching provision for supplying the people with public
+libraries was adopted by New Hampshire (again the pioneer State), in
+1895. This was nothing less than the passage of a State law making it
+compulsory on every town in New Hampshire to assess annually the sum of
+thirty dollars for every dollar of public taxes apportioned to such town,
+the amount to be appropriated to establish and maintain a free public
+library. Library trustees are to be elected, and in towns where no public
+library exists, the money is to be held by them, and to accumulate until
+the town is ready to establish a library.
+
+This New Hampshire statute, making obligatory the supply of public
+information through books and periodicals in free libraries in every
+town, may fairly be termed the high-water mark of modern means for the
+diffusion of knowledge. This system of creating libraries proceeds upon
+the principle that intellectual enlightenment is as much a concern of the
+local government as sanitary regulations or public morality. Society has
+an interest that is common to all classes in the means that are provided
+for the education of the people. Among these means free town or city
+libraries are one of the most potent and useful. New Hampshire and
+Massachusetts, in nearly all of their towns and cities, have recognized
+the principle that public books are just as important to the general
+welfare as public lamps. What are everywhere needed are libraries open to
+the people as a matter of right, and not as a matter of favor.
+
+The largest library in the country, save one (that at Washington), owes
+its origin and success to this principle, combined with some private
+munificence. The Boston Public Library is unquestionably one of the most
+widely useful collections of books open to the public in this country. Of
+all the greater collections, it is the only one which lends out books
+free of charge to all citizens. Instituted in 1852, its career has been
+one of rapid progress and ever widening usefulness. I shall not dwell
+upon it at length, as the facts regarding it have been more widely
+published than those relating to any other library.
+
+Under the permissive library laws of thirty States, there had been formed
+up to 1896, when the last comprehensive statistics were gathered, about
+1,200 free public libraries, supported by taxation, in the United States.
+
+A still more widely successful means of securing a library foundation
+that shall be permanent is found in uniting private benefactions with
+public money to found or to maintain a library. Many public-spirited
+citizens, fortunately endowed with large means, have offered to erect
+library buildings in certain places, on condition that the local
+authorities would provide the books, and the means of maintaining a free
+library. Such generous offers, whether coupled with the condition of
+perpetuating the donor's name with that of the library, or leaving the
+gift unhampered, so that the library may bear the name of the town or
+city of its location, have generally been accepted by municipal bodies,
+or by popular vote. This secures, in most cases, a good working library
+of choice reading, as well as its steady annual growth and management,
+free of the heavy expense of building, of which the tax-payers are
+relieved. The many munificent gifts of library buildings by Mr. Andrew
+Carnegie, to American towns and cities, and to some in his native
+Scotland, are worthy of special note. And the reader will see from the
+long list heretofore given of the more considerable public libraries to
+be credited wholly or in part to private munificence, that American men
+of wealth have not been wanting as public benefactors.
+
+In some cases, whole libraries have been given to a town or village where
+a public library already existed, or liberal gifts or bequests of money,
+to be expended in the enrichment of such libraries, have been bestowed.
+Very interesting lists of benefactions for the benefit of libraries may
+be found in the volumes of the Library Journal, New York. It is with
+regret that candor requires me to add, that several proffers of fine
+library buildings to certain places, coupled with the condition that the
+municipal authorities would establish and maintain a free library, have
+remained without acceptance, thus forfeiting a liberal endowment. Where
+public education has been so neglected as to render possible such a
+niggardly, penny-wise and pound-foolish policy, there is manifestly
+signal need of every means of enlightenment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We now come to the various State libraries founded at the public charge,
+and designed primarily for the use of the respective legislatures of the
+States. The earliest of these is the New Hampshire State Library,
+established in 1790, and the largest is the New York State Library, at
+Albany, founded in 1818, now embracing 325,000 volumes, and distinguished
+alike by the value of its stores and the liberality of its management.
+The reason for being of a State library is obviously and primarily to
+furnish the legislative body and State courts with such ample books of
+reference in jurisprudence, history, science, etc., as will aid them in
+the intelligent discharge of their duties as law-makers and judges of the
+law. The library thus existing at each State capital may well be opened
+to the public for reading and reference, thus greatly enlarging its
+usefulness.
+
+Every State in the Union has now at least a legislative library, although
+the most of them consist chiefly of laws and legislative documents, with
+a few works of reference superadded; and their direct usefulness to the
+public is therefore very circumscribed. The New York State Library is a
+model of what a great public library should be in the capital of a State.
+In it are gathered a great proportion of the best books in each
+department of literature and science, while indefatigable efforts have
+been made to enrich it in whatever relates to American history and
+polity. Its reading-room is freely opened to the public during many hours
+daily. But a State library should never be made a library of circulation,
+since its utility as a reference library, having its books always in for
+those who seek them, would thereby be destroyed. Even under the existing
+system, with the privilege of drawing books out confined to the
+Legislature, some of the State libraries have been depleted and despoiled
+of many of their most valuable books, through loaning them freely on the
+orders of members. The sense of responsibility is far less in the case of
+borrowed books which are government property, than in other cases. The
+only safe rule for keeping a government library from being scattered, is
+strict refusal of orders for loaning to any one not legally entitled to
+draw books, and short terms of withdrawal to legislators, with
+enforcement of a rule of replacement, at their expense, as to all books
+not returned at the end of each session.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is one class of libraries not yet touched upon, namely, school
+district libraries. These originated for the first time in a legally
+organized system, through an act of the New York State Legislature in
+1835, authorizing the voters in each school district to levy a tax of
+twenty dollars with which to start a library, and ten dollars a year for
+adding to the same. These were not to be for the schools alone, but for
+all the people living in the district where the school was located. This
+was supplemented in 1838 by a State appropriation of $55,000 a year, from
+New York's share of the surplus revenue fund distributed by Congress to
+the States in 1837, and the income of which was devoted by New York to
+enlarging the school district libraries. After spending nearly two
+millions of dollars on these libraries in forty years, the system was
+found to have been so far a failure that the volumes in the libraries had
+decreased from 1,600,000 to 700,000 volumes.
+
+This extraordinary and deplorable result was attributed to several
+distinct causes. 1st. No proper responsibility as to the use and return
+of books was enforced. 2d. The insignificance of the sum raised by
+taxation in each district prevented any considerable supply of books from
+being acquired. 3d. The funds were largely devoted to buying the same
+books in each school district, instead of being expended in building up a
+large and varied collection. Thus the system produced innumerable petty
+libraries of duplicates, enriching publishers and booksellers, while
+impoverishing the community. The school district library system, in
+short, while promising much in theory, in the way of public intelligence,
+broke down completely in practice. The people quickly lost interest in
+libraries which gave them so little variety in books, either of
+instruction or of recreation.
+
+Although widely introduced in other States besides New York, from 1837 to
+1877, it proved an admitted failure in all. Much public money, raised by
+taxation of the people, was squandered upon sets of books, selected by
+State authority, and often of inferior interest and utility. Finally, it
+was recognized that school district libraries were an evanescent dream,
+and that town libraries must take their place. This instructive chapter
+in Library history shows an experience by which much was learned, though
+the lesson was a costly one.
+
+The Historical libraries of the country are numerous, and some of the
+larger ones are rich in printed Americana, and in historical manuscripts.
+The oldest is that of the Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in
+1791, and among the most extensive are those of the New York Historical
+Society, American Antiquarian Society, the Historical Society of
+Pennsylvania, the New England Historic-genealogical Society, and the
+Wisconsin State Historical Society. There are no less than 230 historical
+societies in the U. S., some forty of which are State associations.
+
+The Mercantile libraries are properly a branch of the proprietary, though
+depending mostly upon annual subscriptions. The earliest of these was the
+Boston Mercantile Library, founded in 1820, and followed closely by the
+New York Mercantile the same year, the Philadelphia in 1821, and the
+Cincinnati Mercantile in 1835.
+
+Next we have the professional libraries, law, medical, scientific, and,
+in several cities, theological. These supply a want of each of these
+professions seldom met by the public collections, and are proportionately
+valuable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most recent plan for the wide diffusion of popular books is the
+travelling library. This originated in New York in 1893, when the
+Legislature empowered the Regents of the State University (a body of
+trustees having charge of all library interests in that State) to send
+out selections of books to any community without a library, on request of
+25 resident taxpayers. The results were most beneficial, the sole
+expense being five dollars for each library.
+
+Travelling libraries, (mostly of fifty volumes each) have been set on
+foot in Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and other
+States, and, as the system appears capable of indefinite expansion, great
+results are anticipated in the direction of the public intelligence. It
+is pointed out that while the State, by its free school system, trains
+all the people to read, it should not leave the quality of their reading
+to chance or to utter neglect, when a few cents _per capita_ annually
+would help them to an education of inestimable value in after life.
+
+Some objections, on the other hand, have been urged to the system, as
+introducing features of paternalism into State government, and taking out
+of the hands of individual generosity and local effort and enterprise
+what belongs properly to such agencies. The vexed question of the proper
+function and limitations of State control in the domain of education
+cannot here be entered upon.
+
+In the volume last published of statistics of American libraries, that of
+1897, great progress was shown in the five years since 1891. The record
+of libraries reported in 1896 embraced 4,026 collections, being all which
+contained over 1,000 volumes each. The increase in volumes in the five
+years was a little over seven millions, the aggregate of the 4,026
+libraries being 33,051,872 volumes. This increase was over 27 per cent.
+in only five years.
+
+If the good work so splendidly begun, in New England, New York,
+Pennsylvania, and some of the Western States, in establishing libraries
+through public taxation and private munificence, can only be extended in
+the Southern and Middle States, the century now about to dawn will
+witness an advance quite as remarkable as we have seen in the latter
+years of the century about to close.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] MS. Records of the Virginia Company, in the Library of Congress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16.
+
+LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND FURNISHINGS.
+
+
+Proceeding now to the subject of library buildings, reading-rooms, and
+furnishings, it must be remarked at the outset that very few rules can be
+laid down which are of universal application. The architectural plans,
+exterior and interior, of such great institutions as the Library of
+Congress, or the Boston Public Library, with their costly marbles,
+splendid mural decorations, and electric book-serving machinery, afford
+no model for the library building in the country village. Where the
+government of a nation or a wealthy city has millions to devote for
+providing a magnificent book-palace for its library, the smaller cities
+or towns have only a few thousands. So much the more important is it,
+that a thoroughly well-considered plan for building should be marked out
+before beginning to build, that no dollars should be wasted, or costly
+alterations required, in order to fit the interior for all the uses of a
+library.
+
+The need of this caution will be abundantly evident, in the light of the
+unfit and inconvenient constructions seen in so many public libraries,
+all over the country. So general has been the want of carefully planned
+and well-executed structures for books, that it may fairly be said that
+mistakes have been the rule, and fit adaptation the exception. For twenty
+years past, at every meeting of the American Library Association, the
+reports upon library buildings have deplored the waste of money in
+well-meant edifices designed to accommodate the library service, but
+successful only in obstructing it. Even in so recent a construction as
+the Boston Public Library building, so many defects and inconveniences
+were found after it was supposed to have been finished, that rooms had to
+be torn out and re-constructed on three floors, while the pneumatic tube
+system had been found so noisy as to be a public nuisance, and had to be
+replaced by a later improved construction.
+
+One leading cause for the mistakes which are so patent in our library
+buildings is that they are not planned by librarians but mainly by
+architects. The library authorities commonly take it for granted that the
+able architect is master of his profession, and entrust him with the
+whole design, leaving out of account the librarian, as a mere
+subordinate, entitled only to secondary consideration. The result is a
+plan which exhibits, in its prominent features, the architect's skill in
+effective pilasters, pillars, architraves, cornices, and balustrades,
+while the library apartments which these features ornament are planned,
+not for convenient and rapid book-service, but mainly for show. It is the
+interest of architects to magnify their profession: and as none of them
+has ever been, or ever will be a librarian, they cannot be expected to
+carry into effect unaided, what they have never learned; namely, the
+interior arrangements which will best meet the utilities of the library
+service. Here is where the librarian's practical experience, or his
+observation of the successes or failures in the reading-room and delivery
+service of other libraries, should imperatively be called in. Let him
+demonstrate to the governing board that he knows what is needed for
+prompt and economical administration, and they will heed his judgment, if
+they are reasonable men. While it belongs to the architect to plan,
+according to his own ideas, the outside of the building, the inside
+should be planned by the architect in direct concert with the librarian,
+in all save merely ornamental or finishing work.
+
+We do not erect a building and then determine whether it is to be a
+school house or a church: it is planned from the start with strict
+reference to the utilities involved; and so should it always be with a
+library.
+
+In treating this subject, I shall not occupy space in outlining the
+proper scheme of building and interior arrangement for a great library,
+with its many distinct departments, for such institutions are the
+exceptions, while most libraries come within the rule of very moderate
+size, and comparatively inexpensive equipment. The first requisite for a
+public library, then, is a good location. It is important that this
+should be central, but it is equally important that the building should
+be isolated--that is, with proper open space on all sides, and not
+located in a block with other buildings. Many libraries have been
+destroyed or seriously damaged by fire originating in neighboring
+buildings, or in other apartments in the same building; while fires in
+separate library buildings have been extremely rare. It would be a wise
+provision to secure a library lot sufficiently large in area to admit of
+further additions to the building, both in the rear and at the side; and
+with slight addition to the cost, the walls and their supports may be so
+planned as to admit of this. Committees are seldom willing to incur the
+expense of an edifice large enough to provide for very prolonged growth
+of their collection; and the result is that the country is full of
+overcrowded libraries, without money to build, and prevented from
+expanding on the spot because no foresight was exercised in the original
+construction or land purchase, to provide for ready increase of space by
+widening out, and removing an outer wall so as to connect the old
+building with the new addition. If a library has 10,000 volumes, it would
+be very short-sighted policy to plan an edifice to contain less than
+40,000, which it is likely to reach in from ten to forty years.
+
+The next requisite to a central and sufficient site is that the location
+must be dry and airy. Any low site, especially in river towns, will be
+damp, and among the enemies of books, moisture holds a foremost place.
+Next, the site should afford light on all sides, and if necessary to
+place it near any thoroughfare, it should be set back so as to afford
+ample light and ventilation in front.
+
+It need hardly be said that every library building should be fire-proof,
+after the many costly lessons we have had of the burning of public
+libraries at home and abroad. The material for the outside walls may be
+brick or stone, according to taste or relative cost. Brick is good
+enough, and if of the best quality, and treated with stone trimmings, is
+capable of sufficiently ornate effects, and is quite as durable as any
+granite or marble. No temptation of cheapness should ever be allowed to
+introduce wood in any part of the construction: walls, floors, and roof
+should be only of brick, stone, iron, or slate. A wooden roof is nothing
+but a tinder-box that invites the flames.
+
+In general, two stories is a sufficient height for library buildings,
+except in those of the largest class, and the upper floors may be amply
+lighted by sky-lights. The side-lights can hardly be too numerous: yet I
+have seen library buildings running back from a street fifty to
+seventy-five feet, without a single window in either of the side walls.
+The result was to throw all the books on shelves into a gloomy shade for
+many hours of each day.
+
+The interior construction should be so managed as to effect the finding
+and delivery of books to readers with the greatest possible economy of
+time and space. No shelves should be placed higher than can be reached by
+hand without mounting upon any steps or ladders; _i. e._, seven to seven
+and a half feet. The system of shelving should all be constructed of iron
+or steel, instead of surrounding the books on three sides with
+combustible wood, as is done in most libraries. Shelves of oxidized metal
+will be found smooth enough to prevent any abrasion of bindings. Shelves
+should be easily adjustable to any height, to accommodate the various
+sizes of books.
+
+In calculating shelf capacity, one and a half inches thickness a volume
+is a fair average, so that each hundred volumes would require about
+thirteen feet of linear shelf measurement. The space between uprights,
+that is, the length of each shelf, should not exceed two and a half feet.
+All spaces between shelves should be 101/2 or 11 inches high, to
+accommodate large octavos indiscriminately with smaller sizes; and a base
+shelf for quartos and folios, at a proper height from the floor, will
+restrict the number of shelves to six in each tier.
+
+In the arrangement of the cases or book-stacks, the most economical
+method is to place book-cases of double face, not less than three feet
+apart, approached by aisles on either side, so as to afford free passage
+for two persons meeting or passing one another. The cases may be about
+ten feet each in length. There should be electric lights between all
+cases, to be turned on only when books are sought. The cases should be
+set at right angles to the wall, two or three feet from it, with the
+light from abundant windows coming in between them. The width of shelves
+may be from 16 to 18 inches in these double cases, thus giving about
+eight to nine inches depth to each side. No partition is required between
+the two sides.
+
+It should be stated that the light obtained from windows, when thrown
+more than twenty feet, among cases of books on shelves, becomes too
+feeble for effective use in finding books. This fact should be considered
+in advance, while plans of construction, lighting, and interior
+arrangement are being made. All experience has shown that too much light
+cannot be had in any public library.
+
+Railings and stair-cases for the second or upper floors should be of
+perforated iron.
+
+The reading-room should be distinct from the book delivery or
+charging-room, to secure quiet for readers at all hours, avoiding the
+pressure, hurry and noise of conversation inevitable in a lending library
+or department. In the reading-room should be shelved a liberal supply of
+books of reference, and bibliographies, open without tickets to the
+readers. Next the central desk there should be shelves for the deposit of
+books reserved day by day for the use of readers. The library chairs, of
+whatever pattern may be preferred, should always combine the two
+requisites of strength and lightness. The floor should be covered with
+linoleum, or some similar floor covering, to deaden sound. Woolen
+carpets, those perennial breeders of dust, are an abomination.
+
+In a library reading-room of any considerable size, each reader should be
+provided with table or desk room, not flat but sloping at a moderate
+angle, and allowing about three feet of space for each reader. These
+appliances for study need not be single pieces of furniture, but made in
+sections to accommodate from three to six readers at each. About thirty
+inches from the floor is a proper height.
+
+For large dictionaries, atlases, or other bulky volumes, the adjustable
+revolving case, mounted on a pedestal, should be used.
+
+For moving any large number of volumes about the library, book-trucks or
+barrows, with noiseless rubber wheels, are required.
+
+Every library will need one or more catalogue cases to hold the
+alphabetical card catalogue. These are made with a maximum of skill by
+the Library Bureau, Boston.
+
+The location of the issue-counter or desk is of cardinal importance. It
+should be located near the centre of the system of book-cases, or near
+the entrance to the stack, so as to minimize the time consumed in
+collecting the books wanted. It should also have a full supply of light,
+and this may be secured by a location directly in front of a large side
+window. Readers are impatient of delay, and the farther the books are
+from the issue-counter the longer they will have to wait for them.
+
+Among modern designs for libraries, that of Dr. W. F. Poole, adapted for
+the Newberry Library, Chicago, is notable for dividing the library into
+many departments or separate rooms, the book shelves occupying one half
+the height of each, or 71/2 feet out of 15, the remaining space being
+occupied by windows. This construction, of course, does not furnish as
+compact storage for books as the stack system. It is claimed to possess
+the advantage of extraordinarily good light, and of aiding the researches
+of readers. But it has the disadvantage of requiring readers to visit
+widely separated rooms to pursue studies involving several subjects, and
+of mounting in elevators to reach some departments. A system which brings
+the books to the reader, instead of the readers travelling after the
+books, would appear to be more practically useful to the public, with
+whom time is of cardinal importance.
+
+In all libraries, there should be a receiving or packing room, where
+boxes and parcels of books are opened and books mended, collated, and
+prepared for the shelves. This room may well be in a dry and well lighted
+basement. Two small cloak-rooms for wraps will be needed, one for each
+sex. Two toilet rooms or lavatories should be provided. A room for the
+library directors or trustees, and one for the librarian, are essential
+in libraries of much extent. A janitor's room or sleeping quarters
+sometimes needs to be provided. A storage room for blanks, stationery,
+catalogues, etc., will be necessary in libraries of much extent. A
+periodical room is sometimes provided, distinct from the reading-room or
+the delivery department. In this case, if several hundred periodicals are
+taken, an attendant should be always present to serve them to readers,
+from the shelves or cases where they should be kept in alphabetical
+order. Without this, and a ticket system to keep track of what are in
+use, no one can readily find what is needed, nor ascertain whether it is
+in a reader's hands when sought for. System and the alphabet alone will
+solve all difficulties.
+
+As to the space required for readers in a periodical room, it may be
+assumed that about five hundred square feet will accommodate twenty-five
+readers, and the same proportion for a larger number at one time. A room
+twenty-five by forty would seat fifty readers, while one twenty-five by
+twenty would accommodate twenty-five readers, with proper space for
+tables, &c. The files for newspapers are referred to in another chapter
+on periodicals.
+
+In a library building, the heating and ventilation are of prime
+importance. Upon their proper regulation largely depends the health and
+consequently the efficiency of all employed, as well as the comfort of
+the reading public. There is no space to enter upon specific
+descriptions, for which the many conflicting systems, with experience of
+their practical working, should be examined. Suffice it to say in
+general, that a temperature not far below nor above 70 degrees Fahrenheit
+should be aimed at; that the furnace, with its attendant nuisances of
+noise, dust, and odors, should be outside the library building--not under
+it; and that electric lighting alone should be used, gas being highly
+injurious to the welfare of books.
+
+In calculating the space required for books shelved as has been
+heretofore suggested, it may be approximately stated that every one
+thousand volumes will require at least eighty to one hundred square feet
+of floor measurement. Thus, a library of 10,000 volumes would occupy an
+area of nearly one thousand square feet. But it is necessary to provide
+also for the continual growth of the collection. To do this, experience
+shows that in any flourishing public library, space should be reserved
+for three or four times the number of volumes in actual possession. If
+rooms are hired for the books, because of inability to build, the library
+should be so arranged as to leave each alternate shelf vacant for
+additions, or, in the more rapidly growing divisions, a still greater
+space. This will permit accessions to be shelved with their related
+books, without the trouble of frequently moving and re-arranging large
+divisions of the library. This latter is a very laborious process, and
+should be resorted to only under compulsion. The preventive remedy, of
+making sure of space in advance, by leaving a sufficiency of unoccupied
+shelves in every division of the library, is the true one.
+
+In some libraries, a separate reading-room for ladies is provided. Mr. W.
+F. Poole records that in Cincinnati such a room was opened at the
+instance of the library directors. The result was that the ladies made it
+a kind of social rendezvous, where they talked over society matters, and
+exhibited the bargains made in their shopping excursions. Ladies who came
+to study preferred the general reading room, where they found every
+comfort among well conducted gentlemen, and the "ladies' reading-room"
+was abandoned, as not fulfilling its object. The same experiment in the
+Chicago Public Library had the same result.
+
+Some libraries in the larger towns provide a special reading-room for
+children; and this accomplishes a two-fold object, namely, to keep the
+public reading-room free from flocks of little people in pursuit of books
+under difficulties, and to furnish the boys and girls with
+accommodations of their own. It may be suggested as an objection, that
+the dividing line as to age is difficult to be drawn: but let each
+applicant be questioned, and if falling below twelve, or fifteen, or
+whatever the age limit may be, directed to the juvenile reading-room, and
+there need be no trouble. Of course there will be some quite young
+readers who are gifted with intelligence beyond their years, and who may
+dislike to be reckoned as children; but library rules are not made to
+suit exceptions, but for the average; and as no book need be refused to
+any applicant in the juvenile department, no just cause of complaint can
+arise.
+
+In some libraries, and those usually of the larger size, an art room is
+provided, where students of works on painting, sculpture, and the
+decorative arts can go, and have about them whatever treasures the
+library may contain in that attractive field. The advantages of this
+provision are, first, to save the necessity of handling and carrying so
+many heavy volumes of galleries of art and illustrated books to the
+general reading-room, and back again, and secondly, to enable those in
+charge of the art department to exercise more strict supervision in
+enforcing careful and cleanly treatment of the finest books in the
+library, than can be maintained in the miscellaneous crowd of readers in
+the main reading-room. The objections to it concern the general want of
+room to set apart for this purpose, and the desirability of concentrating
+the use of books in one main hall or reading-room. Circumstances and
+experience should determine the question for each library.
+
+Some public libraries, and especially those constructed in recent years,
+are provided with a lecture-hall, or a large room for public meetings,
+concerts, or occasionally, even an opera-house, in the same building with
+the library. There are some excellent arguments in favor of this; and
+especially where a public benefactor donates to a city a building which
+combines both uses. The building given by Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the
+Public Library of Washington will be provided with a small hall suited to
+meetings, &c. But in all cases, such a public hall should be so isolated
+from the library reading-room as not to annoy readers, to whom quiet is
+essential. This end can be effected by having the intervening walls and
+floors so constructed as completely to deaden sound. A wholly distinct
+entrance should also be provided, not communicating with the doors and
+passages leading to the library.
+
+Comparisons are sometimes made as to the relative cost of library
+buildings to the number of volumes they are designed to accommodate; but
+such estimates are misleading. The cost of an edifice in which
+architectural beauty and interior decoration concur to make it a
+permanent ornament to a city or town, need not be charged up at so much
+per volume. Buildings for libraries have cost all the way from
+twenty-five cents up to $4. for each volume stored. The Library of
+Congress, which cost six million dollars, and will ultimately accommodate
+4,500,000 volumes, cost about $1.36 per volume. But it contains besides
+books, some half a million musical compositions, works of graphic art,
+maps and charts, etc.
+
+The comparative cost of some library buildings erected in recent years,
+with ultimate capacity of each, may be of interest. Kansas City Public
+Library, 132+144, 125,000 vols., $200,000. Newark, N. J. Free Library,
+138+216, 400,000 vols., $188,000. Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.
+(granite), 107+137, 250,000 vols., $134,000. Fall River, Ms. Library,
+80+130, 250,000 vols., $100,000. Peoria, Ill. Public Library (brick),
+76+135, $70,000. Smiley Memorial Library, Redlands, Cal. (brick), 96+100,
+$50,000. Reuben Hoar Library, Littleton, Mass. (brick), 50+57, 25,000
+vols., $25,000. Rogers Memorial Library, Southworth, N. Y. 70+100, 20,000
+vols., $20,000. Belfast (Me.) Free Library (granite), 27+54, $10,000.
+Gail-Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill. (brick), 28+52, $9,000. Warwick,
+Mass. Public Library (wood), 45+60, 5,000 vols., $5,000.
+
+The largely increased number of public library buildings erected in
+recent years is a most cheering sign of the times. Since 1895, eleven
+extensive new library buildings have been opened: namely, the Library of
+Congress, the Boston Public Library, the Pratt Institute Library,
+Brooklyn, the Columbia University Library, New York, the Princeton, N. J.
+University Library, the Hart Memorial Library, of Troy, N. Y., the
+Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, the Chicago Public Library, the Peoria,
+Ill. Public Library, the Kansas City, Mo. Public Library, and the Omaha,
+Neb. Public Library.
+
+And there are provided for eight more public library buildings, costing
+more than $100,000 each; namely, the Providence, R. I. Public Library,
+the Lynn, Mass. Public Library, the Fall River, Mass. Public Library, the
+Newark, N. J. Free Public Library, the Milwaukee, Wis. Public Library and
+Museum, the Wisconsin State Historical Society Library, Madison, the New
+York Public Library, and the Jersey City Public Library.
+
+To these will be added within the year 1900, as is confidently expected,
+the Washington City Public Library, the gift of Andrew Carnegie, to cost
+$300,000.
+
+No philanthropist can ever find a nobler object for his fortune, or a
+more enduring monument to his memory, than the founding of a free public
+library. The year 1899 has witnessed a new gift by Mr. Carnegie of a one
+hundred thousand dollar library to Atlanta, the Capital of Georgia, on
+condition that the city will provide a site, and $5,000 a year for the
+maintenance of the library. Cities in the east are emulating one another
+in providing public library buildings of greater or less cost. If the
+town library cannot have magnificence, it need not have meanness. A
+competition among architects selected to submit plans is becoming the
+favorite method of preparing to build. Five of the more extensive
+libraries have secured competitive plans of late from which to
+select--namely, the New York Public Library, the Jersey City Public
+Library, the Newark Free Public Library, the Lynn Public Library, and the
+Phoebe Hearst building for the University of California, which is to be
+planned for a library of 750,000 volumes. It is gratifying to add that in
+several recent provisions made for erecting large and important
+structures, the librarian was made a member of the building
+committee--_i. e._, in the New York Public Library, the Newark Free
+Public Library, and the Lynn Public Library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17.
+
+LIBRARY MANAGERS OR TRUSTEES.
+
+
+We now come to consider the management of libraries as entrusted to
+boards of directors, trustees or library managers. These relations have a
+most intimate bearing upon the foundation, the progress and the
+consequent success of any library. Where a liberal intelligence and a
+hearty cooeperation are found in those constituting the library board, the
+affairs of the institution will be managed with the best results. Where
+a narrow-minded and dictatorial spirit is manifested, even by a portion
+of those supervising a public library, it will require a large endowment
+both of patience and of tact in the librarian, to accomplish those aims
+which involve the highest usefulness.
+
+Boards of library trustees vary in number, usually from three to nine or
+more. A board of three or five is found in practice more active and
+efficient than a larger number. The zeal and responsibility felt is apt
+to diminish in direct proportion to the increased numbers of the board.
+An odd number is preferable, to avoid an equal division of opinion upon
+any question to be determined.
+
+In town or city libraries, the mode of selection of library trustees
+varies much. Sometimes the mayor appoints the library board, sometimes
+they are chosen by the city council, and sometimes elected by the people,
+at the annual selection of school or municipal officers. The term of
+service (most usually three years) should be so arranged that retirement
+of any members should always leave two at least who have had experience
+on the board. Library trustees serve without salary, the high honor of so
+serving the public counting for much.
+
+The librarian is often made secretary of the trustees, and then he keeps
+the record of their transactions. He should never be made treasurer of
+the library funds, which would involve labor and responsibility
+incompatible with the manifold duties of the superintendent of a library.
+In case of a library supported by municipal taxation, the town treasurer
+may well serve as library treasurer also, or the trustees can choose one
+from their own board. The librarian, however, should be empowered to
+collect book fines or other dues, to be deposited with the treasurer at
+regular intervals, and he should have a small fund at disposal for such
+petty library expenses as constantly arise. All bills for books and
+other purchases, and all salaries of persons employed in the library
+should be paid by the treasurer.
+
+The meetings of the trustees should be attended by the librarian, who
+must always be ready to supply all information as to the workings of the
+library, the needs for books, etc. Frequently the trustees divide up the
+business before them, appointing sub-committees on book selections, on
+library finances, on administration, furnishings, &c., with a view to
+prompt action.
+
+If a library receives endowments, money gifts or legacies, they are held
+and administered by the trustees as a body corporate, the same as the
+funds annually appropriated for library maintenance and increase. Their
+annual report to the council, or municipal authorities, should exhibit
+the amount of money received from all sources in detail, and the amount
+expended for all purposes, in detail; also, the number of books purchased
+in the year, the aggregate of volumes in the library, the number of
+readers, and other facts of general interest.
+
+All accounts against the library are first audited by the proper
+sub-committee, and payment ordered by the full board, by order on the
+treasurer. The accounts for all these expenditures should be kept by the
+treasurer, who should inform the librarian periodically as to balances.
+
+The selection of books for a public library is a delicate and responsible
+duty, involving wider literary and scientific knowledge than falls to the
+lot of most trustees of libraries. There are sometimes specially
+qualified professional men or widely read scholars on such boards, whose
+services in recruiting the library are of great value. More frequently
+there are one or more men with hobbies, who would spend the library funds
+much too freely upon a class of books of no general interest. Thus, one
+trustee who plays golf may urge the purchase of all the various books
+upon that game, when one or at most two of the best should supply all
+needful demands. Another may want to add to the library about all the
+published books on the horse; another, who is a physician, may recommend
+adding a lot of medical books to the collection, utterly useless to the
+general reader. Beware of the man who has a hobby, either as librarian or
+as library trustee; he will aim to expend too much money on books which
+suit his own taste, but which have little general utility. Two mischiefs
+result from such a course: the library gets books which very few people
+read, and its funds are diverted from buying many books that may be of
+prime importance.
+
+Trustees, although usually, (at least the majority of them) persons of
+culture and intelligence, cannot be expected to be bibliographers, nor to
+be familiar with the great range of new books that continually pour from
+the press. They have their own business or profession to engage them, and
+are commonly far too busy to study catalogues, or to follow the journals
+of the publishing world. So these busy men, charged with the oversight of
+the library interests, call to their aid an expert, and that expert is
+the librarian. It is his interest and his business to know far more than
+they do both of what the library already contains, and what it most
+needs. It is his to peruse the critical journals and reviews, as well as
+the literary notices of the select daily press, and to be prepared to
+recommend what works to purchase. He must always accompany his lists of
+wants with the prices, or at least the approximate cost of each, and the
+aggregate amount. If the trustees or book committee think the sum too
+large to be voted at any one time from the fund at their disposal, the
+librarian must know what can best be postponed, as well as what is most
+indispensable for the immediate wants of the library. If they object to
+any works on the list, he should be prepared to explain the quality and
+character of those called in question, and why the library, in his
+judgment, should possess them. If the list is largely cut down, and he
+considers himself hardly used, he should meet the disappointment with
+entire good humor, and try again when the members of the committee are in
+better mood, or funds in better supply.
+
+It is very customary for boards of library officers to assume the charge
+of the administration so far as regards the library staff, and to make
+appointments, promotions or removals at their own pleasure. In most
+libraries, however, this power is exercised mainly on the advice or
+selection of the librarian, his action being confirmed when there is no
+serious objection. In still other cases, the librarian is left wholly
+free to choose the assistants. This is perhaps the course most likely to
+secure efficient service, since his judgment, if he is a person of tried
+capacity and mature experience, will lead to the selection of the fittest
+candidates, for the work which he alone thoroughly knows. No library
+trustee can put himself fully in the place of a librarian, and see for
+himself the multitude of occasions arising in the daily work of the
+library, where promptness, tact, and wide knowledge of books will make a
+success, and the want of any of these qualities a failure. Still less can
+he judge the competency or incompetency of one who is to be employed in
+the difficult and exact work of cataloguing books. Besides, there is
+always the hazard that trustees, or some of them, may have personal
+favorites or relatives to prefer, and will use their influence to secure
+the appointment or promotion of utterly uninstructed persons, in place of
+such candidates as are known to the librarian to be best qualified. In no
+case should any person be employed without full examination as to fitness
+for library work, conducted either by the librarian, or by a committee
+of which the librarian is a member or chief examiner. A probationary
+trial should also follow before final appointment.
+
+The power of patronage, if unchecked by this safeguard, will result in
+filling any library with incompetents, to the serious detriment of the
+service on which its usefulness depends. The librarian cannot keep a
+training school for inexperts: he has no time for this, and he
+indispensably needs and should have assistants who are competent to their
+duties, from their first entrance upon them. As he is held responsible
+for all results, in the conduct of the library, both by the trustees and
+by the public, he should have the power, or at least the approximate
+power, to select the means by which those results are to be attained.
+
+In the Boston Public Library, all appointments are made by the trustees
+upon nomination by the librarian, after an examination somewhat similar
+to that of the civil service, but by a board of library experts. In the
+British Museum Library, the selection and promotion of members of the
+staff are passed upon by the trustees, having the recommendation of the
+principal librarian before them. In the Library of Congress, appointments
+are made directly by the librarian after a probationary trial, with
+previous examination as to education, former experience or employments,
+attainments, and fitness for library service.
+
+In smaller libraries, both in this country and abroad, a great diversity
+of usage prevails. Instances are rare in which the librarian has the
+uncontrolled power of appointment, promotion and removal. The requirement
+of examinations to test the fitness of candidates is extending, and since
+the establishment of five or six permanent schools of library science in
+the United States, with their graduates well equipped for library work,
+there is no longer any excuse for putting novices in charge of
+libraries--institutions where wide knowledge and thorough training are
+more indispensable than in any other profession whatever.
+
+In State libraries, no uniformity prevails as to control. In some States,
+the governor has the appointment of the librarian, while in others, he is
+an elective officer, the State Legislature being the electors. As
+governors rarely continue in office longer than two or three years, the
+tenure of a librarian under them is precarious, and a most valuable
+officer may at any time be superseded by another who would have to learn
+all that the other knows. The result is rarely favorable to the efficient
+administration of the library. In a business absolutely demanding the
+very largest compass of literary and scientific knowledge, frequent
+rotation in office is clearly out of place. In a public or State library,
+every added year of experience adds incalculably to the value of a
+librarian's services, provided he is of active habits, and full of zeal
+to make his acquired knowledge constantly useful to those who use the
+library. Partizan politics, with their frequent changes, if suffered to
+displace a tried librarian and staff, will be sure to defeat the highest
+usefulness of any library. What can a political appointee, a man totally
+without either library training or library experience, do with the tools
+of which he has never learned the use? It will take him years to learn,
+and by the time he has learned, some other political party coming
+uppermost will probably displace him, to make room for another novice, on
+the principle that "to the victors belong the spoils" of office.
+Meanwhile, "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed," as Milton
+sings--that is, readers are deprived of expert and intelligent guidance.
+
+This bane of political jobbery has not been confined to the libraries of
+States, but has invaded the management of many city and town libraries
+also. We have yet to learn of any benefit resulting to those who use the
+libraries.
+
+In the case of a few of the State libraries, trustees or library
+commissioners or boards of control have been provided by law, but in
+others, a joint library committee, composed of members of both houses of
+the Legislature, has charge of the library interests. This is also the
+case in the Library of Congress at Washington, where three Senators and
+three Representatives constitute the Joint Committee of both Houses of
+Congress on the Library. The membership of this committee, as of all
+others in Congress, is subject to change biennially. It has been proposed
+to secure a more permanent and careful supervision of this National
+Library by adding to the Joint Committee of Congress three or more
+trustees of eminent qualifications, elected by Congress, as the Regents
+of the Smithsonian Institution now are, for a longer term of years. The
+trustees of the British Museum are appointed by the Crown, their tenure
+of office being for life.
+
+In several States the librarian is appointed by the supreme court, as the
+State libraries are composed more largely of law books, than of
+miscellaneous literature, and special knowledge of case law, and the
+principles of jurisprudence, is demanded of the librarian.
+
+Where the trustees of a public library are elected by the people, they
+have in their own hands the power of choosing men who are far above party
+considerations, and they should exercise it. In no department of life is
+the maxim--"the tools to the hands that can use them," more important
+than in the case of librarians and boards of managers of libraries. The
+value of skilled labor over the unskilled is everywhere recognized in the
+business of the world, by more certain employment and larger
+compensation: and why should it not be so in libraries?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18.
+
+LIBRARY REGULATIONS.
+
+
+No feature in library administration is more important than the
+regulations under which the service of the library is conducted. Upon
+their propriety and regular enforcement depends very much of the utility
+of the collection.
+
+Rules are of two kinds, those which concern the librarian and assistants,
+and those which concern the public resorting to the library. Of the first
+class are the regulations as to hours, division of labor, leaves or
+vacations of employees, &c. The larger the library, and consequently the
+force employed, the more important is a careful adjustment of relative
+duties, and of the times and seasons to be devoted to them. The
+assignment of work to the various assistants will naturally depend upon
+their respective qualifications. Those who know Latin, and two or more of
+the modern languages, would probably be employed upon the catalogue.
+Those who are familiar with the range of books published, in literature
+and science, will be best qualified for the service of the reading-room,
+which involves the supply of books and information. In direct proportion
+to the breadth of information possessed by any one, will be his
+usefulness in promptly supplying the wants of readers. Nothing is so
+satisfactory to students in libraries, or to the casual seekers of
+information of any kind, as to find their wants immediately supplied. The
+reader whom an intelligent librarian or assistant answers at once is
+grateful to the whole establishment; while the reader who is required to
+wait ten to twenty minutes for what he wants, becomes impatient and
+sometimes querulous, or leaves the library unsatisfied.
+
+One rule of service at the library desk or counter should be that every
+assistant there employed should deem it his duty to aid immediately any
+one who is waiting, no matter what other concerns may engage his
+attention. In other words, the one primary rule of a public library
+should be that the service of the public is always paramount. All other
+considerations should be subordinate to that.
+
+It is desirable that assistants in every library should learn all
+departments of library work, cataloguing, supplying books and
+information, preparing books for the shelves, etc. This will enable each
+assistant to take the place of another in case of absence, a most
+important point. It will also help to qualify the more expert for
+promotion.
+
+A second rule for internal administration in any library should be that
+all books are to be distributed, or replaced upon their shelves, daily.
+If this is not systematically done, the library will tend to fall into
+chaos. And even a small number of volumes not in their places will
+embarrass the attendants seeking them, and often deprive readers of their
+use--a thing to be always sedulously avoided.
+
+In the Library of Congress, the replacement of books upon the shelves is
+carried out much more frequently than once daily. As fast as books come
+in at the central desk by the returns of readers, they are sent back
+through the book-carriers, to the proper floors, where the outside
+label-numbers indicate that they belong, and replaced by the attendant
+there on their proper shelves. These mechanical book-carriers run all
+day, by electric power, supplied by a dynamo in the basement, and, with
+their endless chain and attached boxes constantly revolving, they furnish
+a near approach to perpetual motion. Thus I have seen a set of Macaulay's
+England, called for by ticket from the reading-room, arrive in three
+minutes from the outlying book-repository or iron stack, several hundreds
+of feet distant on an upper floor, placed on the reader's table,
+referred to, and returned at once, then placed in the book-carrier by the
+desk attendant, received back on its proper floor, and distributed to its
+own shelf by the attendant there, all within half an hour after the
+reader's application. Another rule to be observed by the reading-room
+attendants is to examine all call-slips, or readers' tickets, remaining
+uncalled for at the close of each day's business, and see if the books on
+them are present in the library. This precaution is demanded by the
+security of the collection, as well as by the good order and arrangement
+of the library. Neglect of it may lead to losses or misplacements, which
+might be prevented by careful and unremitting observance of this rule.
+
+Another rule of eminent propriety is that librarians or assistants are
+not to read newspapers during library hours. When there happen to be no
+readers waiting to be helped, the time should be constantly occupied with
+other library work. There is no library large enough to be worthy of the
+name, that does not have arrears of work incessantly waiting to be done.
+And while this is the case, no library time should be wasted upon
+periodicals, which should be perused only outside of library hours. If
+one person employed in a library reads the newspaper or magazine, the bad
+example is likely to be followed by others. Thus serious inattention to
+the wants of readers, as well as neglect of library work postponed, will
+be sure to follow.
+
+A fourth rule, resting upon the same reason, should prevent any long
+sustained gossip or conversation during library hours. That time belongs
+explicitly to the public or to the work of the library. The rule of
+silence which is enforced upon the public in the interest of readers
+should not be broken by the library managers themselves. Such brief
+question and answer as emergency or the needful business of the library
+requires should be conducted in a low tone, and soon ended. Library
+administration is a business, and must be conducted in a business way. No
+library can properly be turned into a place of conversation.
+
+All differences or disputes between attendants as to the work to be done
+by each, or methods, or any other question leading to dissension, should
+be promptly and decisively settled by the librarian, and of course
+cheerfully submitted to by all. Good order and discipline require that
+there should be only one final authority in any library. Controversies
+are not only unseemly in themselves, but they are time-consuming, and are
+liable to be overheard by readers, to the prejudice of those who engage
+in them.
+
+Another rule to be observed is to examine all books returned, as
+carefully as a glance through the volume will permit, to detect any
+missing or started leaves, or injury to bindings. No volume bearing marks
+of dilapidation of any kind should be permitted to go back to the
+shelves, or be given to readers, but placed in a bindery reserve for
+needful repairs.
+
+It should hardly be necessary to say that all those connected with a
+public library should be carefully observant of hours, and be always in
+their places, unless excused. The discipline of every library should be
+firm in this respect, and dilatory or tardy assistants brought to regard
+the rule of prompt and regular service. "No absence without leave" should
+be mentally posted in the consciousness and the conscience of every one.
+
+Another rule should limit the time for mid-day refreshment, and so
+arrange it that the various persons employed go at different hours. As to
+time employed, half-an-hour for lunch, as allowed in the Washington
+departments, is long enough in any library.
+
+Furloughs or vacations should be regulated to suit the library service,
+and not allow several to be absent at the same time. As to length of
+vacation time, few libraries can afford the very liberal fashion of
+twelve months wages for eleven months work, as prevalent in the
+Washington Departments. The average vacation time of business
+houses--about two weeks--more nearly corresponds to that allowed in the
+smaller public libraries. Out of 173 libraries reporting in 1893, 61
+allowed four weeks or more vacation, 27 three weeks, 54 two weeks, and 31
+none. But in cases of actual illness, the rule of liberality should be
+followed, and no deduction of wages should follow temporary disability.
+
+Where many library attendants are employed, all should be required to
+enter on a daily record sheet or book, the hour of beginning work. Then
+the rule of no absence without special leave should be enforced as to all
+during the day.
+
+We now come to such rules of library administration as concern the
+readers, or the public. The rule of silence, or total abstinence from
+loud talking, should be laid down and enforced. This is essential for the
+protection of every reader from annoyance or interruption in his
+pursuits. The rule should be printed on all readers' tickets, and it is
+well also to post the word SILENCE, in large letters, in two or more
+conspicuous places in the reading-room. This will give a continual
+reminder to all of what is expected, and will usually prevent any loud
+conversation. While absolute silence is impossible in any public library,
+the inquiries and answers at the desk can always be made in a low and
+even tone, which need attract no attention from any readers, if removed
+only a few feet distant. As there are always persons among readers who
+will talk, notwithstanding rules, they should be checked by a courteous
+reminder from the librarian, rather than from any subordinate. This--for
+the obvious reason that admonition from the highest authority carries the
+greatest weight.
+
+Another rule, which should always be printed on the call-slips, or
+readers' tickets, is the requirement to return books and receive back
+their tickets always before leaving the library. This duty is very
+commonly neglected, from the utter carelessness of many readers, who do
+not realize that signing their ticket for any book holds them responsible
+for it until it is returned. Many are unwilling to spend a moment's time
+in waiting for a ticket to be returned to them. Many will leave their
+books on tables or seats where they were reading, and go away without
+reclaiming their receipts. While complete observance of this rule is of
+course hopeless of attainment in a country where free and easy manners
+prevail, every librarian should endeavor to secure at least an
+approximate compliance with a rule adopted alike for the security and
+good order of the library, and the efficient service of the reader.
+
+All readers should be privileged to reserve books from day to day which
+they have not completed the use of, and instructed always to give notice
+of such reservation before leaving the library. This saves much time,
+both to the reader and to the librarian in sending repeatedly for books
+put away needlessly.
+
+In a circulating library, a fixed rule limiting the time for which a book
+may be kept, is essential. This may be from three days to two weeks,
+according to the demand for the book, but it should not exceed the latter
+period. Still, a renewal term may be conceded, provided the book is not
+otherwise called for. A small fine of so much a day for each volume kept
+out beyond the time prescribed by the rule, will often secure prompt
+return, and is the usage in most libraries where books are lent out. In
+the Boston Public Library no renewals are allowed. A rule requiring the
+replacement or repair of books damaged while in the hands of a reader
+should be printed and enforced. It may properly be waived where the
+damage is slight or unavoidable.
+
+In public circulating libraries, a rule of registration is required, and
+in some libraries of reference also; but in the Library of Congress all
+readers over sixteen are admitted without any formality or registration
+whatever.
+
+In popular libraries, the need of a registry list of those entitled to
+borrow books, is obvious, to prevent the issue to improper or
+unauthorized persons; as, for example, residents of another town, or
+persons under the prescribed age of admission to library privileges. A
+printed library card should be issued to each person privileged to draw
+books; corresponding in number to the page or index-card of the library
+record. Each card should bear the full name and address of the applicant,
+and be signed with an obligation to obey the rules of the library. On
+this card all books drawn may be entered, always with month and day date,
+and credited with date of return, the parallel entries being at the same
+time made in the library charging record.
+
+Library cards of registration should be issued for a limited period, say
+twelve months, in order to bring all persons to a systematic review of
+their privilege, and should be renewed annually, so long as the holder is
+entitled to registration. No books should be issued except to those
+presenting registration cards, together with a call-slip or ticket for
+the book wanted.
+
+Another rule should fix a limit to the number of volumes to be drawn by
+any reader. Two volumes out at any one time would be a fair limit. If
+made more to all readers, there is likely to be sometimes a scarcity of
+books to be drawn upon; and if a few readers are permitted to draw more
+than others, the charge of undue favoritism will be justified.
+
+Another rule should be that any incivility or neglect on the part of any
+library attendant should be reported to the librarian. In such cases, the
+attendant should always be heard, before any admonition or censure is
+bestowed.
+
+An almost necessary rule in most libraries is that no book should be
+taken from the shelves by any person not employed in the library. The
+exceptions are of course, the books provided expressly for the free and
+open reference of the readers.
+
+Another essential rule is that no writing or marks may be made in any
+library book or periodical; nor is any turning down of leaves permitted.
+A printed warning is important to the effect that any cutting or defacing
+of library books or periodicals is a penal offense, and will be
+prosecuted according to law.
+
+The regulations for admission to library privileges are important. In
+this country the age limitation is more liberal than in Europe. The
+Boston Public Library, for example, is free to all persons over twelve
+years of age. In the Library of Congress, the age limit is sixteen years
+or upward, to entitle one to the privileges of a reader. In the Astor
+Library, none are admitted under nineteen, and in the British Museum
+Library none below twenty-one years.
+
+The hours during which the library is open should be printed as part of
+the regulations.
+
+All the library rules should be printed and furnished to the public. The
+most essential of them, if carefully expressed in few words, can be
+grouped in a single small sheet, of 16mo. size or less, and pasted in the
+inside cover of every book belonging to the library. Better still, (and
+it will save expense in printing) let the few simple rules, in small but
+legible type, form a part of the book plate, or library label, which goes
+on the left-hand inner cover of each volume. Thus every reader will have
+before him, in daily prominence, the regulations which he is to observe,
+and no excuse can be pleaded of ignorance of the rules.
+
+As no law is ever long respected unless it is enforced, so no regulations
+are likely to be observed unless adhered to in every library. Rules are a
+most essential part of library administration, and it should be a primary
+object of every librarian or assistant to see that they are observed by
+all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19.
+
+LIBRARY REPORTS AND ADVERTISING.
+
+
+We now come to consider the annual reports of librarians. These should be
+made to the trustees or board of library control, by whatever name it may
+be known, and should be addressed to the chairman, as the organ of the
+board. In the preparation of such reports, two conditions are equally
+essential--conciseness and comprehensiveness. Every item in the
+administration, frequentation, and increase of the library should be
+separately treated, but each should be condensed into the smallest
+compass consistent with clear statement. Very long reports are costly to
+publish, and moreover, have small chance of being read. In fact, the wide
+perusal of any report is in direct proportion to its brevity.
+
+This being premised, let us see what topics the librarian's report should
+deal with.
+
+1. The progress of the library during the year must be viewed as most
+important. A statistical statement of accessions, giving volumes of
+books, and number of pamphlets separately, added during the year, should
+be followed by a statement of the aggregate of volumes and pamphlets in
+the collection. This is ascertained by actual count of the books upon the
+shelves, adding the number of volumes charged out, or in the bindery, or
+in readers' hands at the time of the enumeration. This count is far from
+a difficult or time-consuming affair, as there is a short-hand method of
+counting by which one person can easily arrive at the aggregate of a
+library of 100,000 volumes, in a single day of eight to ten hours. This
+is done by counting by twos or threes the rows of books as they stand on
+the shelves, passing the finger rapidly along the backs, from left to
+right and from top to bottom of the shelves. As fast as one hundred
+volumes are counted, simply write down a figure one; then, at the end of
+the second hundred, a figure two, and so on, always jotting down one
+figure the more for each hundred books counted. The last figure in the
+counter's memorandum will represent the number of hundreds of volumes the
+library contains. Thus, if the last figure is 92, the library has just
+9,200 volumes. This rapid, and at the same time accurate method, by which
+any one of average quickness can easily count two hundred volumes a
+minute, saves all counting up by tallies of five or ten, and also all
+slow additions of figures, since one figure at the end multiplied by one
+hundred, expresses the whole.
+
+2. Any specially noteworthy additions to the library should be briefly
+specified.
+
+3. A list of donors of books during the year, with number of volumes
+given by each, should form part of the report. This may properly come at
+the end as an appendix.
+
+4. A brief of the money income of the year, with sources whence derived,
+and of all expenditures, for books, salaries, contingent expenses, etc.,
+should form a part of the report, unless reported separately by a
+treasurer of the library funds.
+
+5. The statistics of a librarian's report, if of a lending library,
+should give the aggregate number of volumes circulated during the year,
+also the number of borrowers recorded who have used and who have not used
+the privilege of borrowing. The number of volumes used by readers in the
+reference or reading-room department should be given, as well as the
+aggregate of readers. It is usual in some library reports to classify the
+books used by readers, as, so many in history, poetry, travels, natural
+science, etc., but this involves labor and time quite out of proportion
+to its utility. Still, a comparative statement of the aggregate volumes
+of fiction read or drawn out, as against all other books, may be highly
+useful as an object lesson, if embodied in the library report.
+
+6. A statement of the actual condition of the library, as to books,
+shelving accommodations, furniture, etc., with any needful suggestions
+for improvement, should be included in the annual report.
+
+7. A well-considered suggestion of the value of contributions to the
+library in books or funds to enrich the collection, should not be
+overlooked.
+
+8. The librarian should not forget a word of praise for his assistants,
+in the great and useful work of carrying on the library. This will tend
+to excite added zeal to excel, when the subordinates feel that their
+services are appreciated by their head, as well as by the public.
+
+The preparation of an annual report affords some test of the librarian's
+skill and judgment. It should aim at plain and careful statement, and all
+rhetoric should be dispensed with. Divided into proper heads, a condensed
+statement of facts or suggestions under each should be made, and all
+repetition avoided.
+
+Such a library report should never fail to set forth the great benefit to
+the community which a free use of its treasures implies, while urging the
+importance of building up the collection, through liberal gifts of books,
+periodicals, or money, thus enabling it to answer the wants of readers
+more fully, year by year. It will sometimes be a wise suggestion to be
+made in a librarian's report, that the library still lacks some specially
+important work, such as Larned's "History for Ready Reference," or the
+extensive "Dictionary of National Biography," or Brunet's _Manuel du
+Libraire_, or a set of Congressional Debates from the beginning; and such
+a suggestion may often bear fruit in leading some public-spirited citizen
+to supply the want by a timely contribution.
+
+Of course, the annual report of every public library should be printed,
+and as pamphlets are seldom read, and tend rapidly to disappear, its
+publication in the newspapers is vastly more important than in any other
+form. While a pamphlet report may reach a few people, the newspaper
+reaches nearly all; and as a means of diffusing information in any
+community, it stands absolutely without rival. Whether the library
+reports shall be printed in pamphlet form or not is a matter of
+expediency, to be determined by the managing board. Funds are rarely
+ample enough, in the smaller town libraries, to justify the expense, in
+view of the small circulation which such reports receive, and it is much
+better to put the money into printing library catalogues, which every
+body needs and will use, than into library reports, which comparatively
+few will make any use of. A judicious compromise may be usefully made, by
+inducing some newspaper, which would print a liberal share of the report
+free of charge, as news, for public information, to put the whole in type
+and strike off a few hundred copies in sheet form or pages, at a moderate
+charge.
+
+This would enable the library officers to distribute a goodly number, and
+to keep copies of each annual report for reference, without the expense
+of a pamphlet edition.
+
+In some of the larger and more enterprising of city libraries, reports
+are made quarterly or monthly by the librarian. These of course are much
+more nearly up to date, and if they publish lists of books added to the
+library, they are correspondingly useful. Frequently they contain special
+bibliographies of books on certain subjects. Among these, the monthly
+bulletins of the Boston Public Library, Harvard University Library, New
+York Public Library, Salem, Mass., Public Library, and the Providence
+Public Library are specially numerous and important.
+
+The relations of a public library to the local press of the city or town
+where it is situated will now be noticed. It is the interest of the
+librarian to extend the usefulness of the library by every means; and the
+most effective means is to make it widely known. In every place are found
+many who are quite ignorant of the stores of knowledge which lie at their
+doors in the free library. And among those who do know it and resort to
+it, are many who need to have their interest and attention aroused by
+frequent notices as to its progress, recent additions to its stores, etc.
+The more often the library is brought before the public by the press, the
+more interest will be taken in it by the community for whose information
+it exists.
+
+It is of the utmost importance that the library conductors should have
+the active good will of all the newspaper editors in its vicinity. This
+will be acquired both by aiding them in all researches which the daily or
+frequent wants of their profession render necessary; and also, by giving
+them freely and often items of intelligence about the library for
+publication. Enterprising journals are perpetually on the hunt for new
+and varied matter to fill their columns. They send their reporters to the
+library to make "a story," as it is called, out of something in it or
+about it. These reporters are very seldom persons versed in books, or
+able to write understandingly or attractively about them. Left to
+themselves to construct "a story" out of a half hour's conversation with
+the librarian, the chances are that an article will be produced which
+contains nearly as many errors as matters of fact, with the names of
+authors or the titles of their books mis-spelled or altered, and with
+matters manufactured out of the reporter's fancy which formed no part of
+the interview, while what did form important features in it are perhaps
+omitted. The remedy, or rather the preventive of such inadequate reports
+of what the librarian would say to the public is to become his own
+reporter. The papers will willingly take for publication short "library
+notes," as they may be called, containing information about the library
+or its books, carefully type-written. This course at once secures
+accurate and authentic statements, and saves the time of the press
+reporters for other work.
+
+Bear in mind always that the main object of such library notices is to
+attract attention, and encourage people to use the library. Thus there
+should be sought frequent opportunities of advertising the library by
+this best of all possible means, because it is the one which reaches the
+largest number. To do it well requires some skill and practice, and to do
+it often is quite as essential as to do it well. Keep the library
+continually before the public. What are the business houses which are
+most thronged with customers? They are those that advertise most
+persistently and attractively. So with the library; it will be more and
+more resorted to, in proportion as it keeps its name and its riches
+before the public eye.
+
+A certain timeliness in these library notices should be cultivated. The
+papers are eager to get anything that illustrates what is uppermost in
+the public mind. If a local fair is in progress or preparing, give them a
+list of the best books the library has in that field; the history of the
+Philadelphia Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair, the Paris Expositions,
+&c. On another day, set forth the books on manufactures, horses, cattle,
+domestic animals, decorative art, &c. If there is a poultry exhibition,
+or a dog show, call public attention to the books on poultry or dogs. If
+an art exhibition, bring forward the titles of books on painting,
+sculpture, drawing, and the history of art, ancient and modern.
+
+If some great man has died, as Bismarck or Gladstone, give the titles of
+any biographies or books about him, adding even references to notable
+magazine articles that have appeared. When the summer vacation is coming
+around, advertise your best books of travel, of summer resorts, of ocean
+voyages, of yachting, camping, fishing and shooting, golf and other
+out-door games, etc. If there is a Presidential campaign raging, make
+known the library's riches in political science, the history of
+administrations, and of nominating conventions, lives of the Presidents,
+books on elections, etc. If an international dispute or complication is
+on foot, publish the titles of your books on international law, and those
+on the history or resources of the country or countries involved; and
+when a war is in progress, books on military science, campaigns, battles,
+sieges, and the history of the contending nations will be timely and
+interesting.
+
+Whatever you do in this direction, make it short and attractive. Organize
+your material, describe a specially interesting work by a reference to
+its style, or its illustrations, or its reputation, etc. Distribute your
+library notes impartially; that is, if several papers are published, be
+careful not to slight any of them. Find out the proper days to suit their
+want of matter, and never send in your notes when the paper is
+overcrowded. Always read a proof-slip of each article; time spent in
+going to a newspaper office to correct proof is well spent, for misprints
+always await the unwary who trusts to the accuracy of types.
+
+If the library acquires any extensive or notable book, whether old or
+new, do not fail to make it known through the press. If any citizen gives
+a number of volumes to the library, let his good deeds have an
+appreciative notice, that others may go and do likewise.
+
+Another feature of library advertising is the publication in the press of
+the titles of new books added to the library. As this is merely catalogue
+printing, however abbreviated in form the titles may be, it will usually
+(and very properly) be charged for by the newspapers. But it will pay, in
+the direction of inducing a much larger use of the library, and as the
+sole object of the institution is to contribute to public intelligence,
+it becomes library managers not to spare any expense so conducive to that
+result.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20.
+
+THE FORMATION OF LIBRARIES.
+
+
+In the widely extended and growing public interest in libraries for the
+people, and in the ever increasing gatherings of books by private
+collectors, I may be pardoned for some suggestions pertaining specially
+to the formation of libraries. I do not refer to the selection of books,
+which is treated in the first chapter, nor to the housing and care of
+libraries, but to some important points involved in organizing the
+foundation, so to speak, of a library.
+
+The problem, of course, is a widely different one for the private
+collector of an individual or family library, and for the organizers of a
+public one. But in either case, it is important, first of all, to have a
+clearly defined and well considered plan. Without this, costly mistakes
+are apt to be made, and time, energy and money wasted, all of which might
+be saved by seeing the end from the beginning, and planning accordingly.
+
+Let us suppose that a resident in a community which has never enjoyed the
+benefit of a circulating library conceives the idea of using every means
+to secure one. The first question that arises is, what are those means?
+If the State in which his residence lies has a Library law, empowering
+any town or city to raise money by taxation for founding and maintaining
+a free library, the way is apparently easy, at first sight. But here
+comes in the problem--can the requisite authority to lay the tax be
+secured? This may involve difficulties unforeseen at first. If there is a
+city charter, does it empower the municipal authorities (city council or
+aldermen) to levy such a tax? If not, then appeal must be made to a
+popular vote, at some election of municipal officers, at which the
+ballots for or against a Library tax should determine the question. This
+will at once involve a campaign of education, in which should be enlisted
+(1) The editors of all the local papers. (2) The local clergymen, lawyers
+and physicians. (3) All literary men and citizens of wealth or influence
+in the community. (4) All teachers in the public schools and other
+institutions of learning. (5) The members of the city or town government.
+These last will be apt to feel any impulse of public sentiment more
+keenly than their own individual opinions on the subject. In any case,
+the public-spirited man who originates the movement should enlist as many
+able coadjutors as he can. If he is not himself gifted with a ready
+tongue, he should persuade some others who are ready and eloquent talkers
+to take up the cause, and should inspire them with his own zeal. A public
+meeting should be called, after a goodly number of well-known and
+influential people are enlisted (not before) and addresses should be
+made, setting forth the great advantage of a free library to every
+family. Its value to educate the people, to furnish entertainment that
+will go far to supplant idleness and intemperance, to help on the work of
+the public schools, and to elevate the taste, improve the morals, quicken
+the intellect and employ the leisure hours of all, should be set forth.
+
+With all these means of persuasion constantly in exercise, and
+unremitting diligence in pushing the good cause through the press and by
+every private opportunity, up to the very day of the election, the
+chances are heavily in favor of passing the library measure by a good
+majority. It must be a truly Boeotian community, far gone in stupidity
+or something worse, which would so stand in its own light as to vote down
+a measure conducing in the highest degree to the public intelligence.
+But even should it be defeated, its advocates should never be
+discouraged. Like all other reforms or improvements, its progress may be
+slow at first, but it is none the less sure to win in the end. One defeat
+has often led to a more complete victory when the conflict is renewed.
+The beaten party gathers wisdom by experience, finds out any weakness
+existing in its ranks or its management, and becomes sensible where its
+greatest strength should be put forth in a renewal of the contest. The
+promoters of the measure should at once begin a fresh agitation. They
+should pledge every friend of the library scheme to stand by it himself,
+and to secure at least one new convert to the cause. And the chances are
+that it will be carried triumphantly through at the next trial, or, if
+not then, at least within no long time.
+
+But we should consider also the case of those communities where no State
+Library law exists. These are unhappily not a few; and it is a remarkable
+fact that even so old, and rich, and well-developed a State as
+Pennsylvania had no such provision for public enlightenment until within
+three years. In the absence of a law empowering local governments or
+voters to lay a tax for such a purpose, the most obvious way of founding
+a library is by local subscription. This is of course a less desirable
+method than one by which all citizens should contribute to the object in
+proportion to their means. But it is better to avail of the means that
+exist in any place than to wait an indefinite period for a State
+Legislature to be educated up to the point of passing measures which
+would render the formation of libraries easy in all places.
+
+Let the experiment be tried of founding a library by individual effort
+and concert. With only two or three zealous and active promoters, even
+such a plan can be carried into successful operation in almost any
+community. A canvass should be made from house to house, with a short
+prospectus or agreement drawn up, pledging the subscribers to give a
+certain sum toward the foundation of a library. If a few residents with
+large property can be induced to head the list with liberal
+subscriptions, it will aid much in securing confidence in the success of
+the movement, and inducing others to subscribe. No contributions, however
+small, should fail to be welcomed, since they stand for a wider interest
+in the object. After a thorough canvass of the residents of the place, a
+meeting of those subscribing should be called, and a statement put before
+them of the amount subscribed. Then an executive committee, say of three
+or five members, should be chosen to take charge of the enterprise. This
+committee should appoint a chairman, a secretary, and a treasurer, the
+latter to receive and disburse the funds subscribed. The chairman should
+call and preside at meetings of the committee, of which the secretary
+should record the proceedings in a book kept for the purpose.
+
+The first business of the Library committee should be to confer and
+determine upon the ways and means of organizing the library. This
+involves a selection of books suitable for a beginning, a place of
+deposit for them, and a custodian or librarian to catalogue them and keep
+the record of the books drawn out and returned. Usually, a room can be
+had for library purposes in some public building or private house,
+centrally located, without other expense than that of warming and
+lighting. The services of a librarian, too, can often be secured by
+competent volunteer aid, there being usually highly intelligent persons
+with sufficient leisure to give their time for the common benefit, or to
+share that duty with others, thus saving all the funds for books to
+enrich the library.
+
+The chief trouble likely to be encountered by a Library committee will
+lie in the selection of books to form the nucleus or starting point of
+the collection. Without repeating anything heretofore suggested, it may
+be said that great care should be taken to have books known to be
+excellent, both interesting in substance and attractive in style. To so
+apportion the moderate amount of money at disposal as to give variety and
+interest to the collection, and attract readers from the start, is a
+problem requiring good judgment for its solution. Much depends upon the
+extent of the fund, but even with so small a sum as two or three hundred
+dollars, a collection of the very best historians, poets, essayists,
+travellers and voyagers, scientists, and novelists can be brought
+together, which will furnish a range of entertaining and instructive
+reading for several hundred borrowers. The costlier encyclopaedias and
+works of reference might be waited for until funds are recruited by a
+library fair, or lectures, or amateur concerts, plays, or other evening
+entertainments.
+
+Another way of recruiting the library which has often proved fruitful is
+to solicit contributions of books and magazines from families and
+individuals in the vicinity. This should be undertaken systematically
+some time after the subscriptions in money have been gathered in. It is
+not good policy to aim at such donations at the outset, since many might
+make them an excuse for not subscribing to the fund for founding the
+library, which it is to the interest of all to make as large as possible.
+But when once successfully established, appeals for books and periodicals
+will surely add largely to the collection, and although many of such
+accessions may be duplicates, they will none the less enlarge the
+facilities for supplying the demands of readers. Families who have read
+through all or nearly all the books they possess will gladly bestow them
+for so useful a purpose, especially when assured of reaping reciprocal
+benefit by the opportunity of freely perusing a great variety of choice
+books, new and old, which they have never read. Sometimes, too, a
+public-spirited citizen, when advised of the lack of a good cyclopaedia,
+or of the latest extensive dictionary, or collective biography, in the
+library, will be happy to supply it, thereby winning the gratitude and
+good will of all who frequent the library. All donations should have
+inserted in them a neat book-plate, with the name of the donor inscribed,
+in connection with the name of the Library.
+
+Many a useful library of circulation has been started with a beginning of
+fifty to a hundred volumes, and the little acorn of learning thus planted
+has grown up in the course of years to a great tree, full of fruitful and
+wide-spreading branches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21.
+
+CLASSIFICATION.
+
+
+If there is any subject which, more than all others, divides opinion and
+provokes endless controversy among librarians and scholars, it is the
+proper classification of books. From the beginning of literature this has
+been a well-nigh insoluble problem. Treatise after treatise has been
+written upon it, system has been piled upon system, learned men have
+theorised and wrangled about it all their lives, and successive
+generations have dropped into their graves, leaving the vexed question as
+unsettled as ever. Every now and then a body of _savans_ or a convention
+of librarians wrestles with it, and perhaps votes upon it,
+
+    "And by decision more embroils the fray"
+
+since the dissatisfied minority, nearly as numerous and quite as
+obstinate as the majority, always refuses to be bound by it. No sooner
+does some sapient librarian, with the sublime confidence of conviction,
+get his classification house of cards constructed to his mind, and stands
+rapt in admiration before it, when there comes along some wise man of the
+east, and demolishes the fair edifice at a blow, while the architect
+stands by with a melancholy smile, and sees all his household gods lying
+shivered around him.
+
+Meanwhile, systems of classification keep on growing, until, instead of
+the thirty-two systems so elaborately described in Edwards's Memoirs of
+Libraries, we have almost as many as there are libraries, if the endless
+modifications of them are taken into account. In fact, one begins to
+realise that the schemes for the classification of knowledge are becoming
+so numerous, that a classification of the systems themselves has fairly
+become a desideratum. The youthful neophyte, who is struggling after an
+education in library science, and thinks perhaps that it is or should be
+an exact science, is bewildered by the multitude of counsellors, gets a
+head-ache over their conflicting systems, and adds to it a heart-ache,
+perhaps, over the animosities and sarcasms which divide the warring
+schools of opinion.
+
+Perhaps there would be less trouble about classification, if the
+system-mongers would consent to admit at the outset that no infallible
+system is possible, and would endeavor, amid all their other learning, to
+learn a little of the saving grace of modesty. A writer upon this subject
+has well observed that there is no man who can work out a scheme of
+classification that will satisfy permanently even himself. Much less
+should he expect that others, all having their favorite ideas and
+systems, should be satisfied with his. As there is no royal road to
+learning, so there can be none to classification; and we democratic
+republicans, who stand upon the threshold of the twentieth century, may
+rest satisfied that in the Republic of Letters no autocrat can be
+allowed.
+
+The chief difficulty with most systems for distributing the books in a
+library appears to lie in the attempt to apply scientific minuteness in a
+region where it is largely inapplicable. One can divide and sub-divide
+the literature of any science indefinitely, in a list of subjects, but
+such exhaustive sub-divisions can never be made among the books on the
+shelves. Here, for example, is a "Treatise on diseases of the heart and
+lungs." This falls naturally into its two places in the subject
+catalogue, the one under "Heart," and the second under "Lungs;" but the
+attempt to classify it on the shelves must fail, as regards half its
+contents. You cannot tear the book to pieces to satisfy logical
+classification. Thousands of similar cases will occur, where the same
+book treats of several subjects. Nearly all periodicals and transactions
+of societies of every kind refuse to be classified, though they can be
+catalogued perfectly on paper by analysing their contents. To bring all
+the resources of the library on any subject together on the shelves is
+clearly impossible. They must be assembled for readers from various
+sections of the library, where the rule of analogy or of superior
+convenience has placed them.
+
+What is termed close classification, it will be found, fails by
+attempting too much. One of the chief obstacles to its general use is
+that it involves a too complicated notation. The many letters and figures
+that indicate position on the shelves are difficult to remember in the
+direct ratio of their number. The more minute the classification, the
+more signs of location are required. When they become very numerous, in
+any system of classification, the system breaks down by its own weight.
+Library attendants consume an undue amount of time in learning it, and
+library cataloguers and classifiers in affixing the requisite signs of
+designation to the labels, the shelves, and the catalogues. Memory, too,
+is unduly taxed to apply the system. While a superior memory may be found
+equal to any task imposed upon it, average memories are not so fortunate.
+The expert librarian, in whose accomplished head the whole world of
+science and literature lies cooerdinated, so that he can apply his
+classification unerringly to all the books in a vast library, must not
+presume that unskilled assistants can do the same.
+
+One of the mistakes made by the positivists in classification is the
+claim that their favorite system can be applied to all libraries alike.
+That this is a fallacy may be seen in an example or two. Take the case of
+a large and comprehensive Botanical library, in which an exact scientific
+distribution of the books may and should be made. It is classified not
+only in the grand divisions, such as scientific and economic botany,
+etc., but a close analytical treatment is extended over the whole
+vegetable kingdom. Books treating of every plant are relegated to their
+appropriate classes, genera, and species, until the whole library is
+organised on a strictly scientific basis. But in the case, even of what
+are called large libraries, so minute a classification would be not only
+unnecessary, but even obstructive to prompt service of the books. And the
+average town library, containing only a shelf or two of botanical works,
+clearly has no use for such a classification. The attempt to impose a
+universal law upon library arrangement, while the conditions of the
+collections are endlessly varied, is foredoomed to failure.
+
+The object of classification is to bring order out of confusion, and to
+arrange the great mass of books in science and literature of which every
+library is composed, so that those on related subjects should be as
+nearly as possible brought together. Let us suppose a collection of some
+hundred thousand volumes, in all branches of human knowledge, thrown
+together without any classification or catalogue, on the tables, the
+shelves, and the floor of an extensive reading-room. Suppose also an
+assemblage of scholars and other readers, ready and anxious to avail
+themselves of these literary treasures, this immense library without a
+key. Each wants some certain book, by some author whose name he knows, or
+upon some subject upon which he seeks to inform himself. But how vain and
+hopeless the effort to go through all this chaos of learning, to find the
+one volume which he needs! This illustration points the prime necessity
+of classification of some kind, before a collection of books can be used
+in an available way.
+
+Then comes in the skilled bibliographer, to convert this chaos into a
+cosmos, to illumine this darkness with the light of science. He
+distributes the whole mass, volume by volume, into a few great distinct
+classes; he creates families or sub-divisions in every class; he
+assembles together in groups all that treat of the same subject, or any
+of its branches; and thus the entire scattered multitude of volumes is at
+length cooerdinated into a clear and systematic collection, ready for use
+in every department. A great library is like a great army: when
+unorganized, your army is a mere undisciplined mob: but divide and
+sub-divide it into army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and
+companies, and you can put your finger upon every man.
+
+To make this complete organization of a library successful, one must have
+an organising mind, a wide acquaintance with literature, history, and the
+outlines, at least, of all the sciences; a knowledge of the ancient and
+of various modern languages; a quick intuition, a ripe judgment, a
+cultivated taste, a retentive memory, and a patience and perseverance
+that are inexhaustible.
+
+Even were all these qualities possessed, there will be in the arrangement
+elements of discord and of a failure. A multitude of uncertain points in
+classification, and many exceptions will arise; and these must of
+necessity be settled arbitrarily. The more conversant one becomes with
+systems of classification, when reduced to practice, the more he becomes
+assured that a perfect bibliographical system is impossible.
+
+Every system of classification must find its application fraught with
+doubts, complications, and difficulties; but the wise bibliographer will
+not pause in his work to resolve all these insoluble problems; he will
+classify the book in hand according to his best judgment at the moment it
+comes before him. He can no more afford to spend time over intricate
+questions of the preponderance of this, that, or the other subject in a
+book, than a man about to walk to a certain place can afford to debate
+whether he shall put his right foot forward or his left. The one thing
+needful is to go forward.
+
+Referring to the chapter on bibliography for other details, I may here
+say that the French claim to have reached a highly practical system of
+classification in that set forth in J. C. Brunet's _Manuel du Libraire_.
+This is now generally used in the arrangement of collections of books in
+France, with some modifications, and the book trade find it so well
+adapted to their wants, that classified sale and auction catalogues are
+mostly arranged on that system. It has only five grand divisions:
+Theology, Law, Arts and Sciences, Belles-lettres, and History. Each of
+these classes has numerous sub-divisions. For example, geography and
+voyages and travels form a division of history, between the philosophy of
+history and chronology, etc.
+
+The classification in use in the _Bibliotheque nationale_ of France
+places Theology first, followed by Law, History, Philosophy and
+Belles-lettres. The grand division of Philosophy includes all which is
+classified under Arts and Sciences in the system of Brunet.
+
+In the Library of the British Museum the classification starts with
+Theology, followed by 2. Jurisprudence; 3. Natural History (including
+Botany, Geology, Zooelogy, and Medicine); 4. Art (including Archaeology,
+Fine Arts, Architecture, Music, and Useful Arts); 5. Philosophy
+(including Politics, Economics, Sociology, Education, Ethics,
+Metaphysics, Mathematics, Military and Naval Science, and Chemistry); 6.
+History (including Heraldry and Genealogy); 7. Geography (including
+Ethnology); 8. Biography (including Epistles); 9. Belles-lettres
+(including Poetry, Drama, Rhetoric, Criticism, Bibliography, Collected
+Works, Encyclopaedias, Speeches, Proverbs, Anecdotes, Satirical and
+facetious works, Essays, Folklore and Fiction); 10. Philology.
+
+Sub-divisions by countries are introduced in nearly all the classes.
+
+In the Library of Congress the classification was originally based upon
+Lord Bacon's scheme for the division of knowledge into three great
+classes, according to the faculty of the mind employed in each. 1.
+History (based upon memory); 2. Philosophy (based upon reason); 3. Poetry
+(based upon imagination). This scheme was much better adapted to a
+classification of ideas than of books. Its failure to answer the ends of
+a practical classification of the library led to radical modifications of
+the plan, as applied to the books on the shelves, for reasons of logical
+arrangement, as well as of convenience. A more thorough and systematic
+re-arrangement is now in progress.
+
+Mr. C. A. Cutter has devised a system of "Expansive classification," now
+widely used in American libraries. In this, the classes are each
+indicated by a single letter, followed by numbers representing divisions
+by countries, and these in turn by letters indicating sub-divisions by
+subjects, etc. It is claimed that this method is not a rigid unchangeable
+system, but adaptable in a high degree, and capable of modification to
+suit the special wants of any library. In it the whole range of
+literature and science is divided into several grand classes, which, with
+their sub-classes, are indicated by the twenty-six letters of the
+alphabet. Thus Class A embraces Generalia; B to D, Spiritual sciences
+(including philosophy and religion); E to G, Historical sciences
+(including, besides history and biography, geography and travels); H to
+K, Social sciences (including law and political science and economics); L
+to P, Natural sciences; Q, Medicine; and R to Z, Arts (including not only
+mechanical, recreative and fine arts, but music, languages, literature,
+and bibliography).
+
+The sub-divisions of these principal classes are arranged with
+progressive fullness, to suit smaller or larger libraries. Thus, the
+first classification provides only eleven classes, suited to very small
+libraries: the second is expanded to fifteen classes, the third to thirty
+classes, and so on up to the seventh or final one, designed to provide
+for the arrangement of the very largest libraries.
+
+This is the most elaborate and far-reaching library classification yet
+put forth, claiming superior clearness, flexibility, brevity of notation,
+logical cooerdination, etc., while objections have been freely made to it
+on the score of over-refinement and aiming at the unattainable.
+
+What is known as the decimal or the Dewey system of classification was
+originally suggested by Mr. N. B. Shurtleff's "Decimal system for the
+arrangement and administration of libraries," published at Boston in
+1856. But in its present form it has been developed by Mr. Melvil Dewey
+into a most ingenious scheme for distributing the whole vast range of
+human knowledge into ten classes, marked from 0 to 9, each of which
+sub-divides into exactly ten sub-classes, all divisible in their turn
+into ten minor divisions, and so on until the material in hand, or the
+ingenuity of the classifier is exhausted. The notation of the books on
+the shelves corresponds to these divisions and sub-divisions. The claims
+of this system, which has been quite extensively followed in the smaller
+American libraries, and in many European ones, are economy, simplicity,
+brevity of notation, expansibility, unchanging call-numbers, etc. It has
+been criticised as too mechanical, as illogical in arrangement of
+classes, as presenting many incongruities in its divisions, as
+procrustean, as wholly inadequate in its classification of jurisprudence,
+etc. It is partially used by librarians who have had to introduce radical
+changes in portions of the classification, and in fact it is understood
+that the classification has been very largely made over both in Amherst
+College library and in that of Columbia University, N. Y., where it was
+fully established.
+
+This only adds to the cumulative proofs that library classification
+cannot be made an exact science, but is in its nature indefinitely
+progressive and improvable. Its main object is not to classify knowledge,
+but books. There being multitudes of books that do not belong absolutely
+to any one class, all classification of them is necessarily a compromise.
+Nearly all the classification schemers have made over their schemes--some
+of them many times. I am not arguing against classification, which is
+essential to the practical utility of any library. An imperfect
+classification is much better than none: but the tendency to erect
+classification into a fetish, and to lay down cast-iron rules for it,
+should be guarded against. In any library, reasons of convenience must
+often prevail over logical arrangement; and he who spends time due to
+prompt library service in worrying over errors in a catalogue, or vexing
+his soul at a faulty classification, is as mistaken as those fussy
+individuals who fancy that they are personally responsible for the
+obliquity of the earth's axis.
+
+It may be added that in the American Library Association's Catalogue of
+5,000 books for a popular library, Washington, 1893, the classification
+is given both on the Dewey (Decimal) system, and on the Cutter expansive
+system, so that all may take their choice.
+
+The fixed location system of arrangement, by which every book is assigned
+by its number to one definite shelf, is objectionable as preventing
+accessions from being placed with their cognate books. This is of such
+cardinal importance in every library, that a more elastic system of some
+kind should be adopted, to save continual re-numbering. No system which
+makes mere arithmetical progression a substitute for intrinsic qualities
+can long prove satisfactory.
+
+The relative or movable location on shelves is now more generally adopted
+than the old plan of numbering every shelf and assigning a fixed location
+to every volume on that shelf. The book-marks, if designating simply the
+relative order of the volumes, permit the books to be moved along, as
+accessions come in, from shelf to shelf, as the latter become crowded.
+This does not derange the numbers, since the order of succession is
+observed.
+
+For small town libraries no elaborate system of classification can
+properly be attempted. Here, the most convenient grouping is apt to prove
+the best, because books are most readily found by it. Mr. W. I. Fletcher
+has outlined a scheme for libraries of 10,000 volumes or less, as
+follows:
+
+A. Fiction (appended, J. Juvenile books); B. English and American
+literature; C. History; D. Biography; E. Travels; F. Science; G. Useful
+arts; H. Fine and recreative arts; I. Political and social science; K.
+Philosophy and religion; L. Works on language and in foreign languages;
+R. Reference books.
+
+Numerous sub-divisions would be required to make such a scheme (or indeed
+any other) fit any collection of books.
+
+In arranging the main classes, care should be taken to bring those most
+drawn upon near to the delivery desk, or charging system of the library.
+
+The alphabet is usefully applied in the arrangement of several of the
+great classes of books, and in many sub-divisions of other classes. Thus,
+all English and American fiction may be arranged in a single alphabet of
+authors, including English translations of foreign works. All collected
+works, or polygraphy, may form an alphabet, as well as poetry, dramatic
+works, collections of letters, and miscellanea, arranged by authors'
+names. In any of these classes, sub-divisions by languages may be made,
+if desired.
+
+The class biography may best be arranged in an alphabet of the subjects
+of the biographies, rather than of writers, for obvious reasons of
+convenience in finding at once the books about each person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22.
+
+CATALOGUES.
+
+
+Catalogues of libraries are useful to readers in direct proportion to
+their fulfilment of three conditions: (1) Quick and ready reference. (2)
+Arranging all authors' names in an alphabet, followed by titles of their
+works. (3) Subjects or titles in their alphabetical order in the same
+alphabet as the authors. This is what is known as a "Dictionary
+catalogue"; but why is it preferable to any other? Because it answers
+more questions in less time than any other.
+
+The more prevalent styles of catalogues have been, 1. A list of authors,
+with titles of their works under each. 2. A catalogue of subjects, in a
+classified topical or alphabetical order, the authors and their works
+being grouped under each head. 3. A catalogue attempting to combine these
+two, by appending to the author-catalogue a classed list of subjects,
+with a brief of authors under each, referring to the page on which the
+titles of their works may be found; or else, 4. Appending to the
+subject-catalogue an alphabet of authors, with similar references to
+pages under subjects.
+
+Each of these methods of catalogue-making, while very useful, contrives
+to miss the highest utility, which lies in enabling the reader to put his
+finger on the book he wants, at one glance of the eye. The catalogue of
+authors will not help him to subjects, nor will the catalogue of
+subjects, as a rule, give the authors and titles with the fullness that
+may be needed. In either case, a double reference becomes necessary,
+consuming just twice the time, and in a two-column catalogue, three
+times the time required in a dictionary catalogue.
+
+The reader who wants Darwin's "Origin of Species" finds it readily enough
+by the author-catalogue; but he wants, at the same time, to find other
+works on the same subject, and all the author-catalogues in the world
+will not help him to them. But give him a dictionary catalogue, and he
+has, in the same alphabet with his Darwin, (if the library is large)
+dozens of books discussing the theory of that great naturalist, under
+species, evolution, Darwinism, etc.
+
+Thus he finds that there is no key which so quickly unlocks the stores of
+knowledge which a library contains, as a dictionary catalogue.
+
+The objections to it are chiefly brought by minds schooled in systems,
+who look askance on all innovations, and instinctively prefer round-about
+methods to short-hand ones.
+
+Ask such an objector if he would prefer his dictionary of the English
+language arranged, not alphabetically, but subjectively, so that all
+medical terms should be defined only under medicine, all species of fish
+described only under fishes, etc., and he will probably say that there is
+no analogy in the case. But the analogy becomes apparent when we find, in
+what are called systematic catalogues, no two systems alike, and the
+finding of books complicated by endless varieties of classification, with
+no common alphabet to simplify the search. The authors of systems
+doubtless understand them themselves, but no one else does, until he
+devotes time to learn the key to them; and even when learned, the
+knowledge is not worth the time lost in acquiring it, since the field
+covered in any one catalogue is so small. Alphabetical arrangement, on
+the other hand, strictly adhered to, is a universal key to the authors
+and subjects and titles of all the books contained in the library it
+represents. The devotee of a bibliographical system may be as mistaken as
+the slave of a scientific terminology. He forgets that bibliography is
+not a school for teaching all departments of knowledge, but a brief and
+handy index to books that may contain that knowledge. A student who has
+once made a thorough comparative test of the merits, as aids to wide and
+rapid research, of the old-fashioned bibliographies and the best modern
+dictionary catalogues, will no more deny the superiority of the latter,
+than he will contest the maxim that a straight line is the nearest road
+between two points. Meantime, "while doctors disagree, disciples are
+free;" and the disciples who would follow the latest guides in the art
+"how to make and use a catalogue," must get rid of many formulas.
+
+The reader will find in the chapter on bibliography, notes on some
+classes of catalogues, with the more notable examples of them. We are
+here concerned with the true method of preparing catalogues, and such
+plain rules as brevity will permit to be given, will be equally adapted
+to private or public libraries. For more ample treatment, with reasons
+for and against many rules laid down, reference is made to the able and
+acute work, "Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue," by C. A. Cutter,
+published by the U. S. Bureau of Education, 3d ed. 1891.
+
+
+CONDENSED RULES FOR AN AUTHOR AND TITLE CATALOGUE.
+
+_Prepared by the Co-operation Committee of the American Library
+Association._
+
+                 ENTRY.
+
+     Books are to be entered under the:
+
+     Surnames of authors when ascertained, the abbreviation "_Anon._"
+     being added to the titles of anonymous works.
+
+     Initials of authors' names when these only are known, the last
+     initial being put first.
+
+     Pseudonyms of the writers when the real names are not
+     ascertained.
+
+     Names of editors of collections, each separate item to be at the
+     same time sufficiently catalogued under its own heading.
+
+     Names of countries, cities, societies, or other bodies which are
+     responsible for their publication.
+
+     First word (not an article or serial number) of the titles of
+     periodicals and of anonymous books, the names of whose authors
+     are not known. And a motto or the designation of a series may be
+     neglected when it begins a title, and the entry may be made under
+     the first word of the real title following.
+
+     Commentaries accompanying a text, and translations, are to be
+     entered under the heading of the original work; but commentaries
+     without the text under the name of the commentator. A book
+     entitled "Commentary on ...." and containing the text, should be
+     put under both.
+
+     The Bible, or any part of it (including the Apocrypha), in any
+     language, is to be entered under the word Bible.
+
+     The Talmud and Koran (and parts of them) are to be entered under
+     those words; the sacred books of other religions are to be
+     entered under the names by which they are generally known;
+     references to be given from the names of editors, translators,
+     etc.
+
+     The respondent or defender of an academical thesis is to be
+     considered as the author, unless the work unequivocally appears
+     to be the work of the _praeses_.
+
+     Books having more than one author to be entered under the one
+     first named in the title, with a reference from each of the
+     others.
+
+     Reports of civil actions are to be entered under the name of the
+     party to the suit which stands first on the title page. Reports
+     of crown and criminal proceedings are to be entered under the
+     name of the defendant. Admiralty proceedings relating to vessels
+     are to be put under the name of the vessel.
+
+     Noblemen are to be entered under their titles, unless the family
+     name is decidedly better known.
+
+     Ecclesiastical dignitaries, unless popes or sovereigns, are to be
+     entered under their surnames.
+
+     Sovereigns (other than Greek or Roman), ruling princes, Oriental
+     writers, popes, friars, persons canonized, and all other persons
+     known _only_ by their first name, are to be entered under this
+     first name.
+
+     Married women, and other persons who have changed their names,
+     are to be put under the last well-known form.
+
+     A pseudonym may be used instead of the surname (and only a
+     reference to the pseudonym made under the surname) when an author
+     is much more known by his false than by his real name. In case of
+     doubt, use the real name.
+
+     A society is to be entered under the first word, not an article,
+     of its corporate name, with references from any other name by
+     which it is known, especially from the name of the place where
+     its headquarters are established, if it is often called by that
+     name.
+
+
+                 REFERENCES.
+
+     When an author has been known by more than one name, references
+     should be inserted from the name or names not to be used as
+     headings to the one used.
+
+     References are also to be made to the headings chosen:
+       asked for by their titles;
+
+       from other striking titles;
+
+       from noticeable words in anonymous titles, especially from the
+       names of subjects of anonymous biographies;
+
+       from the names of editors of periodicals, when the periodicals are
+       generally called by the editor's name;
+
+       from the names of important translators (especially poetic
+       translators) and commentators;
+
+       from the title of an ecclesiastical dignitary, when that, and not
+       the family name, is used in the book catalogued;
+
+       and in other cases where a reference is needed to insure the ready
+       finding of the book.
+
+
+                 HEADINGS.
+
+     In the heading of titles, the names of authors are to be given in
+     full, and in their vernacular form, except that the Latin form
+     may be used when it is more generally known, the vernacular form
+     being added in parentheses; except, also, that sovereigns and
+     popes may be given in the English form.
+
+     English and French surnames beginning with a prefix (except the
+     French de and d') are to be recorded under the prefix; in other
+     languages under the word following.
+
+     English compound surnames are to be entered under the last part
+     of the name; foreign ones under the first part.
+
+     Designations are to be added to distinguish writers of the same
+     name from each other.
+
+     Prefixes indicating the rank or profession of writers may be
+     added in the heading, when they are part of the usual designation
+     of the writers.
+
+     Names of places to be given in the English form. When both an
+     English and a vernacular form are used in English works, prefer
+     the vernacular.
+
+
+                 TITLES.
+
+     The title is to be an exact transcript of the title-page, neither
+     amended, translated, nor in any way altered, except that mottos,
+     titles of authors, repetitions, and matter of any kind not
+     essential, are to be omitted. Where great accuracy is desirable,
+     omissions are to be indicated by three dots (...). The titles of
+     books especially valuable for antiquity or rarity may be given in
+     full, with all practicable precision. The phraseology and
+     spelling, but not necessarily the punctuation, of the title are
+     to be exactly copied.
+
+     Any additions needed to make the title clear are to be supplied,
+     and inclosed by brackets.
+
+     Initial capitals are to be given in English:
+       noted events, and periods (each separate word not an article,
+       conjunction, or preposition, may be capitalized in these cases);
+
+       to adjectives and other derivatives from proper names when they
+       have a direct reference to the person, place, etc., from which
+       they are derived;
+
+       to the first word of every sentence and of every quoted title;
+
+       to titles of honor when standing instead of a proper name
+       (_e. g._, the Earl of Derby, but John Stanley, earl of Derby);
+
+       In foreign languages, according to the local usage;
+
+       In doubtful cases capitals are to be avoided.
+
+     Foreign languages.--Titles in foreign characters may be
+     transliterated. The languages in which a book is written are to be
+     stated when there are several, and the fact is not apparent from the
+     title.
+
+
+                 IMPRINTS.
+
+     After the title are to be given, in the following order, those in
+     [ ] being optional:
+
+       the place of publication;
+
+       [and the publisher's name] (these three in the language of
+       the title);
+
+       the year as given on the title-page, but in Arabic figures;
+
+       [the year of copyright or actual publication, if known to be
+       different in brackets, and preceded by c. or p. as the case may be];
+
+       the number of volumes, or of pages if there is only one volume;
+
+       [the number of maps, portraits, or illustrations not included in the
+       text];
+
+       and either the approximate size designated by letter, or the
+       exact size in centimeters;
+
+       the name of the series to which the book belongs is to be given in
+       parentheses after the other imprint entries.
+
+     After the place of publication, the place of printing may be
+     given if different. This is desirable only in rare and old books.
+
+     The number of pages is to be indicated by giving the last number
+     of each paging, connecting the numbers by the sign +; the
+     addition of unpaged matter may be shown by a +, or the number of
+     pages ascertained by counting may be given in brackets. When
+     there are more than three pagings, it is better to add them
+     together and give the sum in brackets.
+
+     These imprint entries are to give the facts, whether ascertained
+     from the book or from other sources; those which are usually
+     taken from the title (edition, place, publisher's name, and
+     series) should be in the language of the title, corrections and
+     additions being inclosed in brackets. It is better to give the
+     words, "maps," "portraits," etc., and the abbreviations for
+     "volumes" and "pages," in English.
+
+
+                 CONTENTS, NOTES.
+
+     Notes (in English) and contents of volumes are to be given when
+     necessary to properly describe the works. Both notes and lists of
+     contents to be in a smaller type.
+
+
+                 MISCELLANEOUS.
+
+     A single dash or indent indicates the omission of the preceding
+     heading; a subsequent dash or indent indicates the omission of a
+     subordinate heading, or of a title.
+
+     A dash connecting numbers signifies to and including; following a
+     number it signifies continuation.
+
+     A ? following a word or entry signifies probably.
+
+     Brackets inclose words added to titles or imprints, or changed in
+     form.
+
+     Arabic figures are to be used rather than Roman; but small
+     capitals may be used after the names of sovereigns, princes, and
+     popes.
+
+     A list of abbreviations to be used was given in the Library
+     journal, Vol. 3: 16-20.
+
+
+                 ARRANGEMENT.
+
+     The surname when used alone precedes the same name used with
+     forenames; where the initials only of the forenames are given,
+     they are to precede fully written forenames beginning with the
+     same initials (_e. g._, Brown, Brown, J.; Brown, J. L.; Brown,
+     James).
+
+     The prefixes M and Mc, S., St., Ste., Messrs., Mr., and Mrs., are
+     to be arranged as if written in full, Mac, Sanctus, Saint,
+     Sainte, Messieurs, Mister, and Mistress.
+
+     The works of an author are to be arranged in the following order:
+
+       2. Partial collections.
+
+       3. Single works, alphabetically, by the first word of the title.
+
+     The order of alphabeting is to be that of the English alphabet.
+
+     The German ae, oe, ue, are always to be written as ae, oe, ue, and
+     arranged as a, o, u.
+
+     Names of persons are to precede similar names of places, which in turn
+     precede similar first words of titles.
+
+A few desirable modifications or additions to these rules may be
+suggested.
+
+1. In title-entries, let the year of publication stand last, instead of
+the indication of size.
+
+2. Noblemen to be entered under their family names, with reference from
+their titles.
+
+3. Instead of designations of title, profession, residence, or family, to
+distinguish authors, let every name be followed by the chronology, as--
+
+    James (Henry) 1811-82.
+    James (Henry) 1843-
+
+It is highly desirable to give this information as to the author's period
+in every title-heading, without exception, when ascertainable. If
+unknown, the approximate period to be given, with a query.
+
+4. All titles to be written in small letters, and printed in lower case,
+whether in English, German, or any other language, avoiding capitals
+except in cases named in the rule.
+
+5. Works without date, when the exact date is not found, are to be
+described conjecturally, thus:
+
+    [1690?] or [about 1840.]
+
+6. In expressing collations, use commas rather than the sign + between
+the pagings, as--xvi, 452, vii pp.--not xvi+452+vii pp.
+
+7. Forenames should be separated from the surnames which precede them by
+parenthesis rather than commas, as a clearer discrimination: as--
+
+    Alembert (Jean Baptiste le Rond d')--not
+    Alembert, Jean Baptiste le Rond d'.
+
+The printed catalogue of the British Museum Library follows this method,
+as well as that in the preceding paragraph.
+
+8. All books of history, travels, or voyages to have the period covered
+by them inserted in brackets, when not expressed in the title-page.
+
+9. All collected works of authors, and all libraries or collections of
+different works to be analysed by giving the contents of each volume,
+either in order of volumes, or alphabetically by authors' names.
+
+Of course there are multitudes of points in catalogue practice not
+provided for in the necessarily brief summary preceding: and, as books on
+the art abound, the writer gives only such space to it as justice to the
+wide range of library topics here treated permits.
+
+Probably the most important question in preparing catalogue titles, is
+what space to give to the author's frequently long-drawn-out verbiage in
+his title-page. There are two extremes to be considered: (1) Copying the
+title literally and in full, however prolix; and (2) reducing all
+title-pages, by a Procrustean rule, to what we may call "one-line
+titles." Take an example:
+
+"Jones (Richard T.) A theoretical and practical treatise on the benefits
+of agriculture to mankind. With an appendix containing many useful
+reflections derived from practical experience. iv, 389 pp. 8 deg.. London,
+MDCCXLIV." As abridged to a short title, this would read: "Jones (Richard
+T.) Benefits of agriculture, iv, 389 pp. 8 deg.. Lond. 1744." Who will say
+that the last form of title does not convey substantially all that is
+significant of the book, stripped of superfluous verbiage? But we need
+not insist upon titles crowded into a single line of the catalogue,
+whether written or printed. This would do violence to the actual scope of
+many books, by suppressing some significant or important part of their
+titles. The rule should be to give in the briefest words selected out of
+the title (never imported into it) the essential character of the book,
+so far as the author has expressed it. Take another example:
+
+"Bowman (Thomas) A new, easy, and complete Hebrew course; containing a
+Hebrew grammar, with copious Hebrew and English exercises, strictly
+graduated: also, a Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew lexicon. In two
+parts. Part I. Regular verbs. Edinburgh, 1879."
+
+This might be usefully condensed thus:
+
+     Bowman, (Thomas) Hebrew course: grammar, exercises, lexicon,
+     [&c.] Part I. Regular verbs. Edinburgh, 1879.
+
+One objection brought against the dictionary catalogue is that it widely
+separates subjects that belong together. In the Boston Athenaeum
+catalogue, for example, the topic Banks is found in Vol. 1, while Money
+is in Vol. 3; and for Wages, one must go to Vol. 5, while Labor is in
+Vol. 3. But there are two valid reasons for this. First, the reader who
+wants to know about banks or wages may care nothing about the larger
+topics of money or of labor; and secondly, if he does want them, he is
+sent to them at once by cross-reference, where they belong in the
+alphabet; whereas, if they were grouped under Political Economy, as in
+classed catalogues, he must hunt for them through a maze of unrelated
+books, without any alphabet at all.
+
+It is often forgotten by the advocates of systematic subject catalogues
+rather than alphabetical ones, that catalogues are for those who do not
+know, more than for those who do. The order of the alphabet is settled
+and familiar; but no classification by subjects is either familiar or
+settled. Catalogues should aim at the greatest convenience of the
+greatest number of readers.
+
+It is noteworthy that the English Catalogue (the one national
+bibliography of the current literature of that country) has adopted,
+since 1891, the dictionary form of recording authors, titles and subjects
+in one alphabet, distinguishing authors' names by antique type. It is
+hoped that the American Catalogue, an indispensable work in all
+libraries, will adopt in its annual and quinquennial issues the
+time-saving method of a single alphabet.
+
+It is not claimed that the dictionary catalogue possesses fully all the
+advantages in educating readers that the best classed catalogues embody.
+But the chief end of catalogues being to find books promptly, rather than
+to educate readers, the fact that the dictionary catalogue, though far
+from perfect, comes nearer to the true object than any other system,
+weighs heavily in its favor. Edward Edwards said--"Many a reader has
+spent whole days in book-hunting [in catalogues] which ought to have been
+spent in book-reading." It is to save this wasted time that catalogues
+should aim.
+
+Nothing can be easier than to make a poor catalogue, while nothing is
+more difficult than to make a good one. The most expert French
+bibliographers who have distinguished themselves by compiling catalogues
+have been most severely criticised by writers who no doubt would have
+been victimized in their turn if they had undertaken similar work. Byron
+says
+
+    "A man must serve his time to every trade,
+     Save censure;--critics all are ready made."
+
+When De Bure and Van Praet, most accomplished bibliographers, published
+the catalogue of the precious library of the duke de La Valliere, the
+abbe Rive boasted that he had discovered a blunder in every one of the
+five thousand titles of their catalogue. Barbier and Brunet have both
+been criticised for swarms of errors in the earlier editions of their
+famous catalogues. The task of the exact cataloguer is full of
+difficulty, constantly renewed, and demanding almost encyclopaedic
+knowledge, and incessant care of minute particulars.
+
+The liability to error is so great in a kind of work which, more than
+almost any other, demands the most scrupulous accuracy, lest a catalogue
+should record a book with such mistakes as to completely mislead a
+reader, that rules are imperatively necessary. And whatever rules are
+adopted, a rigid adherence to them is no less essential, to avoid
+misapprehension and confusion. A singular instance of imperfect and
+misleading catalogue work was unwittingly furnished by Mr. J. Payne
+Collier, a noted English critic, author, and librarian, who criticised
+the slow progress of the British Museum catalogue, saying that he could
+himself do "twenty-five titles an hour without trouble." His twenty-five
+titles when examined, were found to contain almost every possible error
+that can be made in cataloguing books. These included using names of
+translators or editors as headings, when the author's name was on the
+title-page; omitting christian names of authors; omitting to specify the
+edition; using English instead of foreign words to give the titles of
+foreign books; adopting titled instead of family names for authors (which
+would separate Stanhope's "England under Queen Anne" from the same
+writer's "History of England," published when he was Lord Mahon); errors
+in grammar, etc. These ridiculous blunders of a twenty-five-title-an-hour
+man exemplify the maxim "the more haste, the worse speed," in
+catalogue-making.
+
+That our British brethren are neither adapted nor inclined to pose as
+exemplars in the fine art of cataloguing, we need only cite their own
+self-criticisms to prove. Here are two confessions found in two authors
+of books on catalogue-making, both Englishmen. Says one: "We are
+deficient in good bibliographies. It is a standing disgrace to the
+country that we have no complete bibliography of English authors, much
+less of English literature generally." Says another: "The English are a
+supremely illogical people. The disposition to irregularity has made
+English bibliography, or work on catalogues, a by-word among those who
+give attention to these matters."
+
+An American may well add, "They do these things better in France and
+Germany," while declining to claim the meed of superiority for the United
+States.
+
+Too much prominence should not be given to place-numbers in library
+catalogues. The tendency to substitute mere numerical signs for authors
+and subjects has been carried so far in some libraries, that books are
+called for and charged by class-numbers only, instead of their
+distinctive names. An English librarian testifies that assistants trained
+in such libraries are generally the most ignorant of literature. When
+mechanical or mnemonical signs are wholly substituted for ideas and for
+authors, is it any wonder that persons incessantly using them become
+mechanical? Let catalogue and classification go hand in hand in bringing
+all related books together, and library assistants will not stunt their
+intellects by becoming bond-slaves to the nine digits, nor lose the power
+of thought and reflection by never growing out of their _a b c's_.
+
+There are two forms of catalogue not here discussed, which are adjuncts
+to the library catalogue proper. The accession catalogue, kept in a large
+volume, records the particulars regarding every volume, on its receipt by
+the library. It gives author, title, date, size, binding, whence
+acquired, cost, etc., and assigns it an accession number, which it ever
+after retains. The shelf catalogue (or shelf-list) is a portable one
+divided into sections representing the cases of shelves in the library.
+It gives the shelf classification number, author, brief title and number
+of volumes of each book, as arranged on the shelves; thus constituting an
+inventory of each case, or stack, throughout the library.
+
+To check a library over is to take an account of stock of all the books
+it should contain. This is done annually in some libraries, and the
+deficiencies reported. All libraries lose some books, however few, and
+these losses will be small or great according to the care exercised and
+the safe-guards provided. The method is to take one division of the
+library at a time, and check off all books on the shelves by their
+numbers on the shelf-list, supplemented by careful examination of all
+numbers drawn out, or at bindery, or in other parts of the library. Not a
+volume should be absent unaccounted for. Those found missing after a
+certain time should be noted on the shelf-list and accession book, and
+replaced, if important, after the loss is definitely assured.
+
+The reason for writing and printing all catalogue titles in small
+letters, without capitals (except for proper names) is two-fold. First,
+there can be no standard prescribing what words should or should not be
+capitalized, and the cataloguer will be constantly at a loss, or will use
+capitals in the most unprincipled way. He will write one day, perhaps,
+"The Dangers of great Cities," and the next, "The dangers of Great
+cities"--with no controlling reason for either form. Secondly, the
+symmetry of a title or a sentence, whether written or printed, is best
+attained by the uniform exclusion of capitals. That this should be
+applied to all languages, notwithstanding the habit of most German
+typographers of printing all nouns with capitals, is borne out by no less
+an authority than the new Grimm's _Deutsches Woerterbuch_, which prints
+all words in "lower case" type except proper names. Nothing can be more
+unsightly than the constant breaking up of the harmony of a line by the
+capricious use of capitals.
+
+To discriminate carefully the various editions of each work is part of
+the necessary duty of the cataloguer. Many books have passed through
+several editions, and as these are by no means always specified on the
+title-page, one should establish the sequence, if possible, by other
+means. The first edition is one which includes all copies printed from
+the plates or the type as first set; the second, one which is reprinted,
+with or without changes in the text or the title. First editions often
+acquire a greatly enhanced value, in the case of a noted author, by
+reason of changes made in the text in later issues of the work. For
+though the latest revision may and should be the author's best improved
+expression, his earliest furnishes food for the hunters of literary
+curiosities. Every catalogue should distinguish first editions thus [1st
+ed.] in brackets.
+
+In the arrangement of titles in catalogues, either of the various works
+of the same writer, or of many books on the same subject, some compilers
+follow the alphabetical order, while others prefer the chronological--or
+the order of years of publication of the various works. The latter has
+the advantage of showing the reader the earlier as distinguished from the
+recent literature, but in a long sequence of authors (in a
+subject-catalogue) it is more difficult to find a given writer's work, or
+to detect its absence.
+
+The task of accurately distributing the titles in a catalogue of subjects
+would be much simplified, if the books were all properly named. But it is
+an unhappy failing of many writers to give fanciful or far-fetched titles
+to their books, so that, instead of a descriptive name, they have names
+that describe nothing. This adds indefinitely to the labor of the
+cataloguer, who must spend time to analyse to some extent the contents of
+the book, before he can classify it. This must be done to avoid what may
+be gross errors in the catalogue. Familiar examples are Ruskin's Notes on
+Sheep-folds (an ecclesiastical criticism) classified under Agriculture;
+and Edgeworth's Irish Bulls under Domestic animals.
+
+The work of alphabeting a large number of title-cards is much simplified
+and abbreviated by observing certain obvious rules in the distribution.
+(1) Gather in the same pile all the cards in the first letter of the
+alphabet, A, followed in successive parallel rows by all the B's, and so
+on, to the letter Z. (2) Next, pursue the same course with all the
+titles, arranging under the second letter of the alphabet, Aa, Ab, Ac,
+etc., and so with all the cards under B. C. &c. for all the letters. (3)
+If there still remain a great many titles to distribute into a closer
+alphabetic sequence, the third operation will consist in arranging under
+the third letter of the alphabet, _e. g._, Abb, Abc, Abd, etc. The same
+method is pursued throughout the entire alphabet, until all the
+title-cards are arranged in strict order.
+
+Too much care cannot be taken to distinguish between books written by
+different authors, but bearing the same name. Many catalogues are full of
+errors in this respect, attributing, for example, works written by
+Jonathan Edwards, the younger, (1745-1801) to Jonathan Edwards the elder,
+(1703-58); or cataloguing under Henry James, Jr., the works of his
+father, Henry James. The abundant means of identification which exist
+should cause such errors to be avoided; and when the true authorship is
+fixed, every author's chronology should appear next after his name on
+every card-title: _e. g._ James (Henry, 1811-82) Moralism and
+Christianity, New York, 1850. James (Henry, 1843- ) Daisy Miller, N. Y.
+1879.
+
+The designation of book sizes is a vexed question in catalogues. The
+generally used descriptions of size, from folio down to 48mo. signify no
+accurate measurement whatever, the same book being described by different
+catalogues as 12mo. 8vo, crown 8vo. &c., according to fancy; while the
+same cataloguer who describes a volume as octavo to-day, is very likely
+to call it a duodecimo to-morrow. Library catalogues are full of these
+heterogeneous descriptions, and the size-notation is the _bete noir_ of
+the veteran bibliographer, and the despair of the infant librarian. Yet
+it is probable that the question has excited a discussion out of all
+proportion to its importance. Of what consequence is the size of a book
+to any one, except to the searcher who has to find it on the shelves?
+While the matter has been much exaggerated, some concert or uniformity in
+describing the sizes of books is highly desirable.
+
+A Committee of the American Library Association agreed to a
+size-notation, figured below, adopting the metric system as the standard,
+to which we add the approximate equivalents in inches.
+
+                                           _Centimetres_
+                            _Size_           _outside_
+_Sizes._               _abbreviations._      _height._    _Inches._
+
+Folio, F deg..                     F                 40          16
+Quarto, 4 deg..                    Q                 30          12
+Octavo, 8 deg..                    O                 25          10
+Duodecimo, 12 deg..                D                 20           8
+Sixteen mo., 16 deg..              S                 17.5         7
+Twenty-four mo., 24 deg..          T                 15           6
+Thirty-two mo., 32 deg..          Tt                 12.3         5
+Forty-eight mo., 48 deg..         Fe                 10           4
+
+It will be understood that the figure against each size indicated
+represents the maximum measure: _e. g._ a volume is octavo when above 20
+and below 25 centimetres (8 to 10 inches high).
+
+As this question of sizes concerns publishers and booksellers, as well as
+librarians, and the metric system, though established in continental
+Europe, is in little use in the United States and England, it remains
+doubtful if any general adherence to this system of notation can be
+reached--or, indeed, to any other. The Publishers' Weekly (N. Y.) the
+organ of the book trade, has adopted it for the titles of new books
+actually in hand, but follows the publishers' descriptions of sizes as to
+others. Librarian J. Winter Jones, of the British Museum, recommended
+classing all books above twelve inches in height as folios, those
+between ten and twelve inches as quartos, those from seven to ten inches
+as octavos, and all measuring seven inches or under as 12mos. Mr. H. B.
+Wheatley, in his work, "How to Catalogue a Library," 1889, proposed to
+call all books small octavos which measure below the ordinary octavo
+size. As all sizes "run into each other," and the former classification
+by the fold of the sheets is quite obsolete, people appear to be left to
+their own devices in describing the sizes of books. While the metric
+notation would be exact, if the size of every book were expressed in
+centimetres, the size-notation in the table given is wholly wanting in
+precision, and has no more claim to be adopted than any other arbitrary
+plan. Still, it will serve ordinary wants, and the fact that we cannot
+reach an exact standard is no reason for refusing to be as nearly exact
+as we can.
+
+And while we are upon the subject of notation may be added a brief
+explanation of the method adopted in earlier ages, (and especially the
+years reckoned from the Christian era) to express numbers by Roman
+numerals. The one simple principle was, that each letter placed after a
+figure of greater equal value adds to it just the value which itself has;
+and, on the other hand, a letter of less value placed before (or on the
+left of) a larger figure, diminishes the value of that figure in the same
+proportion. For example:
+
+These letters--VI represent six; which is the same as saying V+I. On the
+contrary, these same letters reversed represent four; thus--IV: that is
+V-I=4. Nine is represented by IX, _i. e._, X-I, ten minus one. On the
+same principle, LX represents 60--or L+N: whereas XL means 40--being L-X.
+Proceeding on the same basis, we find that LXX=L+XX=70; and LXXX or L+XXX
+is 80. But when we come to ninety, instead of adding four X's to the L,
+they took a shorter method, and expressed it in two figures instead of
+five, thus, XC, _i. e._ 100 or C-X=90.
+
+The remarkable thing about this Roman notation is that only six letters
+sufficed to express all numbers up to one thousand, and even beyond, by
+skilful and simple combinations: namely the I, the V, the X, the L, the
+C, and the M, and by adding or subtracting some of these letters, when
+placed before or after another letter, they had a whole succession of
+numbers done to their hand--thus:
+
+   I,                1      XX,               20      CC,              200
+  II,                2     XXX,               30     CCC,              300
+ III,                3      XL,               40    CCCC,              400
+  IV,                4       L,               50       D,              500
+   V,                5      LX,               60      DC,              600
+  VI,                6     LXX,               70     DCC,              700
+ VII,                7    LXXX,               80    DCCC,              800
+VIII,                8      XC,               90      CM,              900
+  IX,                9       C (centum),     100       M, (mille),   1,000
+   X,               10
+
+Now, when the early printers came to apply dates of publication to the
+books they issued, (and here is where their methods of notation become
+most important to librarians) they used precisely these methods. For
+example, to express the year 1695, they printed it thus: MDCVC, that
+is--1000+500+100+100-5. But the printers of the 15th century and later,
+often used complications of letters, dictated by caprice rather than by
+any fixed principles, so that it is sometimes difficult to interpret
+certain dates in the colophons or title-pages of books, without
+collateral aid of some kind, usually supplied to the librarian by
+bibliographies. One of the simpler methods of departure from the regular
+notation as above explained, was to substitute for the letter D (500) two
+letters, thus--I[inverted C], an I and a C inverted, supposed to resemble
+the letter D in outline. Another fancy was to replace the M, standing for
+1,000, by the symbols CI[inverted C]--which present a faint approach to
+the outline of the letter M, for which they stand. Thus, to express the
+year 1610, we have this combination--CI[inverted C] I[inverted C] CX,
+which would be indecipherable to a modern reader, uninstructed in the
+numerical signs anciently used, and their values. In like manner, 1548 is
+expressed thus: MDXLIIX, meaning 1000+500+40+10-2. And for 1626, we have
+CI[inverted C] I[inverted C] C XXVI.
+
+As every considerable library has early printed books, a librarian must
+know these peculiarities of notation, in order to catalogue them
+properly, without mistake as to their dates. In some books, where a
+capricious combination of Roman numerals leaves him without a precedent
+to guide him to the true date, reference must be had to the
+bibliographies of the older literature, (as Hain, Panzer, etc.), which
+will commonly solve the doubt.
+
+As to the mechanics of catalogue-making, widely different usages and
+materials prevail. In America, the card or title-slip system is well nigh
+universal, while in England it is but slowly gaining ground, as against
+the ledger or blank book catalogue. Its obvious advantage lies in
+affording the only possible means of maintaining a strict alphabetical
+sequence in titles, whether of authors or subjects. The title-cards
+should be always of uniform size, and the measure most in vogue is five
+inches in length by three inches in breadth. They should not be too
+stiff, though of sufficient thickness, whether of paper or of thin card
+board, to stand upright without doubling at the edges. They may be ruled
+or plain, at pleasure, and kept in drawers, trays, or (in case of a small
+catalogue) in such paste-board boxes as letter envelopes come in.
+
+The many advantages of the card system, both for catalogues and indexes,
+should not lead us to overlook its palpable defects. These are (1) It
+obliges readers to manipulate many cards, to arrive at all the works of
+an author, or all the books on any subject, instead of having them under
+his eye at once, as in printed catalogues. (2) It can be used only in the
+library, and in only one place in the library, and by only one person at
+a time in the same spot, while a printed catalogue can be freely used
+anywhere, and by any numbers, copies being multiplied. (3) It entails
+frequent crowding of readers around the catalogue drawers, who need to
+consult the same subjects or authors at the same time. (4) It requires
+immeasurably more room than a printed catalogue, and in fact, exacts
+space which in some libraries can be ill afforded. (5) It obliges readers
+to search the title-cards at inconvenient angles of vision, and often
+with inadequate light. (6) It is cumbersome in itself, and doubly
+cumbersome to searchers, who must stand up instead of sitting to consult
+it, and travel from drawer to drawer, interfering with other searchers
+almost constantly, or losing time in waiting. (7) To this is added the
+inconvenience of constant insertion of new title-cards by members of the
+library staff, and the time-consuming process of working the rods which
+keep the cards in place, if they are used, and if not used, the risk of
+loss of titles, or misplacement equivalent to loss for a time.
+
+Says Mr. H. B. Wheatley: "I can scarcely imagine anything more maddening
+than a frequent reference to cards in a drawer." But it is to be
+considered that all systems have defects, and the problem of choosing the
+least defective is ever before us. Most of the suggested defects of the
+card catalogue, as concerns the readers, can be obviated by making a
+two-fold catalogue, the type-written titles being manifolded, and one set
+arranged in card-drawers for the use of the library staff, while another
+is mounted on large sheets in bound volumes for use of the public. This
+would secure the advantages of a printed catalogue, with no more expense
+than the manuscript titles would cost. If desired, a number of copies
+could be bound up for reading-room use. Accessions of new books could be
+incorporated from month to month, by leaving the right-hand pages blank
+for that purpose. This would be near enough to alphabetical order for
+most readers, with the immense advantage of opening at one glance before
+the eye, any author or subject. It would go far to solve the problem how
+to unite the flexibility and perfect alphabeting of the card system, with
+the superior comfort, safety, and ease of reference of the book. It would
+also be a safe-guard against the loss or displacement of titles, a danger
+inherent in the card system, as they could be replaced by copying missing
+titles from the catalogue volumes.
+
+While the undoubted merits of the card system have been much overrated,
+it would be as unwise to dispense with it as the complete official
+catalogue of the library, as it would be to tie down the public to its
+use, when there is a more excellent way, saving time and patience, and
+contributing to the comfort of all.
+
+To print or not to print? is a vital question for libraries, and it is in
+most cases decided to forego or to postpone printing, because of its
+great expense. Yet so manifest are the advantages of a printed catalogue,
+that all public libraries should make every effort to endow their readers
+with its benefits. These advantages are (1) Greater facility of reading
+titles. (2) Much more rapid turning from letter to letter of the
+catalogue alphabet. (3) Ability to consult it outside of the library. (4)
+Unlimited command of the catalogue by many readers at once, from the
+number of copies at hand, whereas card catalogues or manuscript volumes
+involve loss of time in waiting, or interfering with the researches of
+others. A part of these advantages may be realized by printing
+type-written copies of all titles in duplicate, or by carbon paper in
+manifold, thus furnishing the library with several copies of its
+catalogue: but why not extend this by multiplying copies through the
+ingenious processes now in use, by which the printing of titles can be
+effected far more cheaply than in any printing office? Might not every
+library become its own printer, thus saving it from the inconvenience and
+risk of sending its titles outside, or the great expense of copying them
+for the printer?
+
+The titles thus manifolded could be combined into volumes, by cutting
+away all superfluous margins and mounting the thin title-slips
+alphabetically on paper of uniform size, which, when bound, would be
+readily handled. All the titles of an author's works would be under the
+eye at a glance, instead of only one at a time, as in the card catalogue.
+And the titles of books on every subject would lie open, without slowly
+manipulating an infinite series of cards, one after another, to reveal
+them to the eye. The classification marks could be readily placed against
+each title, or even printed as a part of the manifold card titles.
+
+Not that the card catalogue system would be abolished: it would remain as
+the only complete catalogue of the library, always up to date, in a
+single alphabet. Daily accessions inserted in it would render it the
+standard of appeal as to all that the library contained, and it would
+thus supplement the printed catalogue.
+
+Of course, large and increasing accessions would require to be combined
+in occasional supplementary volumes of the catalogue; and in no long
+number of years the whole might be re-combined in a single alphabet,
+furnishing a printed dictionary catalogue up to its date.
+
+The experience of the great British Museum Library in this matter of
+catalogues is an instructive one. After printing various incomplete
+author-catalogues in the years from 1787 to 1841, the attempt to print
+came to a full stop. The extensive collection grew apace, and the
+management got along somehow with a manuscript catalogue, the titles of
+which (written in script with approximate fullness) were pasted in a
+series of unwieldy but alphabetically arranged volumes. To incorporate
+the accessions, these volumes had continually to be taken apart by the
+binder, and the new titles combined in alphabetical order, entailing a
+literally endless labor of transcribing, shifting, relaying and
+rebinding, to secure even an imperfect alphabetical sequence. In 1875,
+the catalogue had grown to over two thousand thick folio volumes, and it
+was foreseen, by a simple computation of the rate of growth of the
+library, that in a very few years its catalogue could no longer be
+contained in the reading-room. The bulky manuscript catalogue system
+broke down by its own weight, and the management was compelled to resort
+to printing in self defence. Before the printing had reached any where
+near the concluding letters of the alphabet, the MS. catalogue had grown
+to three thousand volumes, and was a daily and hourly incubus to
+librarians and readers.
+
+This printed catalogue of the largest library in the world, save one, is
+strictly a catalogue of authors, giving in alphabetical order the names,
+followed by the titles of all works by each writer which that library
+possesses. In addition, it refers in the case of biographies or comments
+upon any writer found in the index, to the authors of such works; and
+also from translators or editors to the authors of the translated or
+edited work. The titles of accessions to the library (between thirty and
+forty thousand volumes a year) were incorporated year by year as the
+printing went on. All claim to minute accuracy had to be ignored, and the
+titles greatly abridged by omitting superfluous words, otherwise its cost
+would have been prohibitory. The work was prosecuted with great energy
+and diligence by the staff of able scholars in the service of the Museum
+Library. As the catalogue embraces far more titles of books, pamphlets,
+and periodicals than any other ever printed, it is a great public boon,
+the aid it affords to all investigators being incalculable. And any
+library possessing it may find, with many titles of rare and unattainable
+works, multitudes of books now available by purchase in the market, to
+enrich its own collection. It is said to contain about 3,500,000 titles
+and cross-references. It is printed in large, clear type, double columns,
+well spaced, and its open page is a comfort to the eye. Issued in paper
+covers, the thin folios can be bound in volumes of any thickness desired
+by the possessor.
+
+It has several capital defects: (1) It fails to discriminate authors of
+the same name by printing the years or period of each; instead of which
+it gives designations like "the elder", "the younger", or the residence,
+or occupation, or title of the author. The years during which any writer
+flourished would have been easily added to the name in most cases, and
+the value of such information would have been great, solving at once many
+doubts as to many writers. (2) The catalogue fails to print the
+collations of all works, except as to a portion of those published since
+1882, or in the newer portions issued. This omission leaves a reader
+uncertain whether the book recorded is a pamphlet or an extensive work.
+(3) The letters I and J and U and V are run together in the alphabet,
+after the ancient fashion, thus placing Josephus before Irving, and Utah
+after Virginia; an arrangement highly perplexing, not to say
+exasperating, to every searcher. To follow an obsolete usage may be
+defended on the plea that it is a good one, but when it is bad as well as
+outworn, no excuse for it can satisfy a modern reader. (4) No analysis is
+given of the collected works of authors, nor of many libraries made up of
+monographs. One cannot find in it the contents of the volumes of any of
+Swift's Works, nor even of Milton's Prose Writings. (5) It fails to
+record the names of publishers, except in the case of some early or rare
+books.
+
+The printing of this monumental catalogue began in 1881, the volumes of
+MS. catalogue being set up by the printer without transcription, which
+would have delayed the work indefinitely, and it is now substantially
+completed. Its total cost will be not far from L50,000. There are about
+374 volumes or parts in all. Only 250 copies were printed, part of which
+were presented to large libraries, and others were offered for sale at
+L3.10 per annum, payable as issued, so that a complete set costs about
+L70. One learns with surprise that only about forty copies have been
+subscribed for. This furnishes another evidence of the low estate of
+bibliography in England, where, in a nation full of rich book-collectors
+and owners of fine libraries, almost no buyers are found for the most
+extensive bibliography ever published, a national work, furnishing so
+copious and useful a key to the literature of the world in every
+department of human knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23.
+
+COPYRIGHT AND LIBRARIES.
+
+
+The preservation of literature through public libraries has been and will
+ever be one of the most signal benefits which civilization has brought to
+mankind. When we consider the multitude of books which have perished from
+the earth, from the want of a preserving hand, a lively sense of regret
+comes over us that so few libraries have been charged with the duty of
+acquiring and keeping every publication that comes from the press. Yet we
+owe an immeasurable debt to the wisdom and far-sightedness of those who,
+centuries ago, provided by this means for the perpetuity of literature.
+
+The earliest step taken in this direction appears to have been in France.
+By an ordinance proclaimed in 1537, regulating the printing of books, it
+was required that a copy of each work issued from the press should be
+deposited in the royal library. And it was distinctly affirmed that the
+ground of this exaction was to preserve to posterity the literature of
+the time, which might otherwise disappear.[2] This edict of three
+centuries and a half ago was the seed-grain from which has grown the
+largest library yet gathered in the world--the _Bibliotheque Nationale_
+of France. It antedated by more than two hundred years, any similar
+provision in England for the preservation of the national literature.
+
+It is a notable fact that the United States of America was the first
+nation that ever embodied the principle of protection to the rights of
+authors in its fundamental law. "The Congress shall have power to promote
+the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to
+authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings
+and discoveries." Thus anchored in the Constitution itself, this
+principle has been further recognized by repeated acts of Congress, aimed
+in all cases at giving it full practical effect.
+
+If it is asked why the authors of the Constitution gave to Congress no
+plenary power, which might have authorized a grant of copyright in
+perpetuity, the answer is, that in this, British precedent had a great,
+if not a controlling influence. Copyright in England, by virtue of the
+statute of Anne, passed in 1710 (the first British copyright act), was
+limited to fourteen years, with right of renewal, by a living author, of
+only fourteen years more; and this was in full force in 1787, when our
+Constitution was framed. Prior to the British statute of 1710, authors
+had only what is called a common law right to their writings; and however
+good such a right might be, so long as they held them in manuscript, the
+protection to printed books was extremely uncertain and precarious.
+
+It has been held, indeed, that all copyright laws, so far from
+maintaining an exclusive property right to authors, do in effect deny it
+(at least in the sense of a natural right), by explicitly limiting the
+term of exclusive ownership, which might otherwise be held (as in other
+property) to be perpetual. But there is a radical distinction between the
+products of the brain, when put in the concrete form of books and
+multiplied by the art of printing, and the land or other property which
+is held by common law tenure. Society views the absolute or exclusive
+property in books or inventions as a monopoly. While a monopoly may be
+justified for a reasonable number of years, on the obvious ground of
+securing to their originators the pecuniary benefit of their own ideas, a
+perpetual monopoly is generally regarded as odious and unjust. Hence
+society says to the author or inventor: "Put your ideas into material
+form, and we will guarantee you the exclusive right to multiply and sell
+your books or your inventions for a term long enough to secure a fair
+reward to you and to your family; after that period we want your
+monopoly, with its individual benefits, to cease in favor of the greatest
+good of all." If this appears unfair to authors, who contribute so
+greatly to the instruction and the advancement of mankind, it is to be
+considered that a perpetual copyright would (1) largely increase the cost
+of books, which should be most widely diffused for the public benefit,
+prolonging the enhanced cost indefinitely beyond the author's lifetime;
+(2) it would benefit by a special privilege, prolonged without limit, a
+class of book manufacturers or publishers who act as middle-men between
+the author and the public, and who own, in most cases, the entire
+property in the works of authors deceased, and which they did not
+originate; (3) it would amount in a few centuries to so vast a sum, taxed
+upon the community who buy books, that the publishers of Shakespeare's
+works, for example, who under perpetual copyright could alone print the
+poet's writings, might have reaped colossal fortunes, perhaps unequalled
+by any private wealth yet amassed in the world.
+
+If it is said that copyright, thus limited, is a purely arbitrary right,
+it may be answered that all legal provisions are arbitrary. That which is
+an absolute or natural right, so long as held in idea or in manuscript,
+becomes, when given to the world in multiplied copies, the creature of
+law. The most that authors can fairly claim is a sufficiently prolonged
+exclusive right to guarantee them for a lifetime the just reward of their
+labors, with a reversion for their immediate heirs. That such exclusive
+rights should run to their remotest posterity, or, _a fortiori_, to mere
+merchants or artificers who had no hand whatever in the creation of the
+intellectual work thus protected, would be manifestly unjust. The
+judicial tribunals, both in England and America, have held that copyright
+laws do not affirm an existing right, but create a right, with special
+privileges not before existing, and also with special limitations.
+
+The earliest copyright enactment of 1790 granted the exclusive privilege
+of printing his work to the author or his assigns for 14 + 14, or
+twenty-eight years in all.
+
+The act further required entry of the title, before publication, in the
+office of the Clerk of the United States District Court in the State
+where the author or proprietor resided.
+
+This remained the law, with slight amendment, until 1831, when a new
+copyright act extended the duration of copyright from fourteen to
+twenty-eight years for the original, or first term, with right of renewal
+to the author (now first extended to his widow or children, in case of
+his decease) for fourteen additional years, making forty-two years in
+all.
+
+By the same act the privilege of copyright was extended to cover musical
+compositions, as it had been earlier extended (in 1802) to include
+designs, engravings, and etchings. Copyright was further extended in 1856
+to dramatic compositions, and in 1865 to photographs and negatives
+thereof. In 1870 a new copyright code, to take the place of all existing
+and scattered statutes, was enacted, and there were added to the lawful
+subjects of copyright, paintings, drawings, chromos, statues, statuary,
+and models or designs intended to be perfected as works of the fine
+arts. And finally, by act of March 3, 1891, the benefits of copyright
+were extended so as to embrace foreign authors. In 1897, Congress created
+the office of Register of Copyrights, but continued the Copyright office,
+with its records, in the Library of Congress.
+
+In 1846, the first enactment entitling the Library of the United States
+Government to a copy of every work protected by copyright was passed.
+This act, to establish the Smithsonian Institution, required that one
+copy of each copyright publication be deposited therein, and one copy in
+the Library of Congress. No penalties were provided, and in 1859, on
+complaint of the authorities of the Smithsonian Institution that the law
+brought in much trash in the shape of articles which were not books, the
+law was repealed, with the apparent concurrence of those in charge of the
+Congressional Library.
+
+This left that Library without any accessions of copyright books until
+1865, when, at the instance of the present writer, the Library Committee
+recommended, and Congress passed an act restoring the privilege to the
+Library of Congress. But it was found to require, in order to its
+enforcement, frequent visits to the records of the clerks of United
+States District Courts in many cities, with costly transcripts of records
+in more than thirty other offices, in order to ascertain what books had
+actually been copyrighted. To this was added the necessity of issuing
+demands upon delinquent authors or publishers for books not sent to the
+Library; no residence of the delinquents, however, being found in any of
+the records, which simply recorded those claiming copyright as "of the
+said District."
+
+It resulted that no complete, nor even approximate compliance with the
+law was secured, and after five years' trial, the Librarian was obliged
+to bring before the committees of Congress the plan of a copyright
+registry at the seat of government, as had been the requirement in the
+case of Patents from the beginning.
+
+The law of copyright, as codified by act of July 8, 1870, made an epoch
+in the copyright system of the United States. It transferred the entire
+registry of books and other publications, under copyright law, to the
+city of Washington, and made the Librarian of Congress sole register of
+copyrights, instead of the clerks of the District Courts of the United
+States. Manifold reasons existed for this radical change, and those which
+were most influential with Congress in making it were the following:
+
+1. The transfer of the copyright records to Washington it was foreseen
+would concentrate and simplify the business, and this was a cardinal
+point. Prior to 1870 there were between forty and fifty separate and
+distinct authorities for issuing copyrights. The American people were put
+to much trouble to find out where to apply, in the complicated system of
+District Courts, several of them frequently in a single State, to enter
+titles for publication. They were required to make entry in the district
+where the applicant resided, and this was frequently a matter of doubt.
+Moreover, they were required to go to the expense and trouble of
+transmitting a copy of the work, after publication, to the District
+clerk, and another copy to the Library of Congress. Were both copies
+mailed to Washington (post-free by law) this duty would be diminished by
+one-half.
+
+2. A copyright work is not an invention nor a patent; it is a
+contribution to literature. It is not material, but intellectual, and has
+no natural relation to a department which is charged with the care of the
+mechanic arts; and it belongs rather to a national library system than to
+any other department of the civil service. The responsibility of caring
+for it would be an incident to the similar labors already devolved upon
+the Librarian of Congress; and the receipts from copyright certificates
+would much more than pay its expense, thus leaving the treasury the
+gainer by the change.
+
+3. The advantage of securing to our national library a complete
+collection of all American copyright publications can scarcely be
+over-estimated. If such a law as that enacted in 1870 had been enforced
+since the beginning of the government, we should now have in the Library
+of Congress a complete representation of the product of the American mind
+in every department of science and literature. Many publications which
+are printed in small editions, or which become "out of print" from the
+many accidents which continually destroy books, would owe to such a
+library their sole chance of preservation. We ought to have one
+comprehensive library in the country, and that belonging to the nation,
+whose aim it should be to preserve the books which other libraries have
+not the room nor the means to procure.
+
+4. This consideration assumes additional weight when it is remembered
+that the Library of Congress is freely open to the public day and evening
+throughout the year, and is rapidly becoming the great reference library
+of the country, resorted to not only by Congress and the residents of
+Washington, but by students and writers from all parts of the Union, in
+search of references and authorities not elsewhere to be found. The
+advantage of having all American publications accessible upon inquiry
+would be to build up at Washington a truly national library,
+approximately complete and available to all the people.
+
+These considerations prevailed with Congress to effect the amendment in
+copyright registration referred to.
+
+By enactment of the statute of 1870 all the defects in the methods of
+registration and deposit of copies were obviated. The original records of
+copyright in all the States were thenceforward kept in the office of the
+Librarian of Congress. All questions as to literary property, involving a
+search of records to determine points of validity, such as priority of
+entry, names and residence of actual owners, transfers or assignments,
+timely deposit of the required copies, etc., could be determined upon
+inquiry at a single office of record. These inquiries are extremely
+numerous, and obviously very important, involving frequently large
+interests in valuable publications in which litigation to establish the
+rights of authors, publishers or infringers has been commenced or
+threatened. By the full records of copyright entries thus preserved,
+moreover, the Library of Congress (which is the property of the nation)
+has been enabled to secure what was before unattainable, namely, an
+approximately complete collection of all American books, etc., protected
+by copyright, since the legislation referred to went into effect. The
+system has been found in practice to give general satisfaction; the
+manner of securing copyright has been made plain and easy to all, the
+office of record being now a matter of public notoriety; and the test of
+experience during thirty years has established the system so thoroughly
+that none would be found to favor a return to the former methods.
+
+The Act of 1870 provided for the removal of the collection of copyright
+books and other publications from the over-crowded Patent Office to the
+Library of Congress. These publications were the accumulations of about
+eighty years, received from the United States District Clerks' offices
+under the old law. By request of the Commissioner of Patents all the law
+books and a large number of technical works were reserved at the
+Department of the Interior. The residue, when removed to the Capitol,
+were found to number 23,070 volumes, a much smaller number than had been
+anticipated, in view of the length of time during which the copy tax had
+been in operation. But the observance of the acts requiring deposits of
+copyright publications with the Clerks of the United States District
+Courts had been very defective (no penalty being provided for
+non-compliance), and, moreover, the Patent Office had failed to receive
+from the offices of original deposit large numbers of publications which
+should have been sent to Washington. From one of the oldest States in the
+Union not a single book had been sent in evidence of copyright. The
+books, however, which were added to the Congressional Library, although
+consisting largely of school books and the minor literature of the last
+half century, comprised many valuable additions to the collection of
+American books, which it should be the aim of a National Library to
+render complete. Among them were the earliest editions of the works of
+many well-known writers, now out of print and scarce.
+
+The first book ever entered for copyright privileges under the laws of
+the United States was "The Philadelphia Spelling Book," which was
+registered in the Clerk's Office of the District of Pennsylvania, June 9,
+1790, by John Barry as author. The spelling book was a fit introduction
+to the long series of books since produced to further the diffusion of
+knowledge among men. The second book entered was "The American
+Geography," by Jedediah Morse, entered in the District of Massachusetts
+on July 10, 1790, a copy of which is preserved in the Library of
+Congress. The earliest book entered in the State of New York was on the
+30th of April, 1791, and it was entitled "The Young Gentleman's and
+Lady's Assistant, by Donald Fraser, Schoolmaster."
+
+Objection has occasionally, though rarely, been made to what is known as
+the copy-tax, by which two copies of each publication must be deposited
+in the National Library. This requirement rests upon two valid grounds:
+(1) The preservation of copies of everything protected by copyright is
+necessary in the interest of authors and publishers, in evidence of
+copyright, and in aid of identification in connection with the record of
+title; (2) the library of the government (which is that of the whole
+people) should possess and permanently preserve a complete collection of
+the products of the American press, so far as secured by copyright. The
+government makes no unreasonable exaction in saying to authors and
+publishers: "The nation gives you exclusive right to make and sell your
+publication, without limit as to quantity, for forty-two years; give the
+nation in return two copies, one for the use and reference of Congress
+and the public in the National Library, the other for preservation in the
+copyright archives, in perpetual evidence of your right."
+
+In view of the valuable monopoly conceded by the public, does not the
+government in effect give far more than a _quid pro quo_ for the
+copy-tax? Of course it would not be equitable to exact even one copy of
+publications not secured by copyright, in which case the government gives
+nothing and gets nothing; but the exaction of actually protected
+publications, while it is almost unfelt by publishers, is so clearly in
+the interest of the public intelligence, as well as of authors and
+publishers themselves, that no valid objection to it appears to exist. In
+Great Britain five copies of every book protected by copyright are
+required for five different libraries, which appears somewhat
+unreasonable.
+
+Regarding the right of renewal of the term of copyright, it is a
+significant fact that it is availed of in comparatively few instances,
+compared with the whole body of publications. Multitudes of books are
+published which not only never reach a second edition, but the sale of
+which does not exhaust more than a small part of the copies printed of
+the first. In these cases the right of renewal is waived and suffered to
+lapse, from defect of commercial value in the work protected. In many
+other cases the right of renewal expires before the author or his assigns
+bethink them of the privilege secured to them under the law. It results
+that more than nine-tenths, probably, of all books published are free to
+any one to print, without reward or royalty to their authors, after a
+very few years have elapsed. On the other hand, the exclusive right in
+some publications of considerable commercial value is kept alive far
+beyond the forty-two years included in the original and the renewal term,
+by entry of new editions of the work, and securing copyright on the same.
+While this method may not protect any of the original work from
+republication by others, it enables the publishers of the copyright
+edition to advertise such unauthorized reprints as imperfect, and without
+the author's or editor's latest revision or additions.
+
+The whole number of entries of copyright in the United States since we
+became a nation considerably exceeds a million and a half. It may be of
+interest to give the aggregate number of titles of publications entered
+for copyright in each year since the transfer of the entire records to
+Washington in 1870.
+
+      COPYRIGHTS REGISTERED IN THE UNITED STATES,
+                   1870-1899.
+
+1870    5,600     1874   16,283     1878   15,798
+1871   12,688     1875   14,364     1879   18,125
+1872   14,164     1876   14,882     1880   20,686
+1873   15,352     1877   15,758     1881   21,075
+1882   22,918     1888   38,225     1894   62,762
+1883   25,273     1889   40,777     1895   67,572
+1884   26,893     1890   42,758     1896   72,470
+1885   28,410     1891   48,908     1897   74,321
+1886   31,241     1892   54,735     1898   76,874
+1887   35,083     1893   58,936     1899   86,492
+
+     Total, 30 years,                   1,079,445
+
+It will readily be seen that this great number of copyrights does not
+represent books alone. Many thousands of entries are daily and weekly
+periodicals claiming copyright protection, in which case they are
+required by law to make entry of every separate issue. These include a
+multitude of journals, literary, political, scientific, religious,
+pictorial, technical, commercial, agricultural, sporting, dramatic, etc.,
+among which are a number in foreign languages. These entries also embrace
+all the leading monthly and quarterly magazines and reviews, with many
+devoted to specialties--as metaphysics, sociology, law, theology, art,
+finance, education, and the arts and sciences generally. Another large
+class of copyright entries (and the largest next to books and
+periodicals) is musical compositions, numbering recently some 20,000
+publications yearly. Much of this property is valuable, and it is nearly
+all protected by entry of copyright, coming from all parts of the Union.
+There is also a large and constantly increasing number of works of
+graphic art, comprising engravings, photographs, photogravures, chromos,
+lithographs, etchings, prints, and drawings, for which copyright is
+entered. The steady accumulation of hundreds of thousands of these
+various pictorial illustrations will enable the government at no distant
+day, without a dollar of expense, to make an exhibit of the progress of
+the arts of design in America, which will be highly interesting and
+instructive. An art gallery of ample dimensions for this purpose is
+provided in the new National Library building.
+
+It remains to consider briefly the principles and practice of what is
+known as international copyright.
+
+Perhaps there is no argument for copyright at all in the productions of
+the intellect which is not good for its extension to all countries. The
+basis of copyright is that all useful labor is worthy of a recompense;
+but since all human thought when put into material or merchantable form
+becomes, in a certain sense, public property, the laws of all countries
+recognize and protect the original owners, or their assigns to whom they
+may convey the right, in an exclusive privilege for limited terms only.
+Literary property therefore is not a natural right, but a conventional
+one. The author's right to his manuscript is, indeed, absolute, and the
+law will protect him in it as fully as it will guard any other property.
+But when once put in type and multiplied through the printing-press, his
+claim to an exclusive right has to be guarded by a special statute,
+otherwise it is held to be abandoned (like the articles in a newspaper)
+to the public. This special protection is furnished in nearly all
+civilized countries by copyright law.
+
+What we call "copyright" is an exclusive right to multiply copies of any
+publication for sale. Domestic copyright, which is all we formerly had in
+this country, is limited to the United States. International copyright,
+which has now been enacted, extends the right of American authors to
+foreign countries, and recognizes a parallel right of foreign authors in
+our own. There is nothing in the constitutional provision which restrains
+Congress from granting copyright to other than American citizens. Patent
+right, coming under the same clause of the Constitution, has been
+extended to foreigners. Out of over 20,000 patents annually issued, about
+2,500 (or 12 per cent.) are issued to foreigners, while American patents
+are similarly protected abroad. If we have international patent right,
+why not international copyright? The grant of power is the same; both
+patent right and copyright are for a limited time; both rights during
+this time are exclusive; and both rest upon the broad ground of the
+promotion of science and the useful arts. If copyright is justifiable at
+all, if authors are to be secured a reward for their labors, they claim
+that all who use them should contribute equally to this result. The
+principle of copyright once admitted, it cannot logically be confined to
+State lines or national boundaries. There appears to be no middle ground
+between the doctrine of common property in all productions of the
+intellect--which leads us to communism by the shortest road--and the
+admission that copyright is due, while its limited term lasts, from all
+who use the works of an author, wherever found.
+
+Accordingly, international copyright has become the policy of nearly all
+civilized nations. The term of copyright is longer in most countries than
+in the United States, ranging from the life of the author and seven years
+beyond, in England, to a life term and fifty years additional in France
+and Russia. Copyright is thus made a life tenure and something more in
+all countries except our own, where its utmost limit is forty-two years.
+This may perhaps be held to represent a fair average lifetime, reckoned
+from the age of intellectual maturity. There have not been wanting
+advocates for a perpetual copyright, to run to the author and his heirs
+and assigns forever. This was urged before the British Copyright
+Commission in 1878 by leading British publishers, but the term of
+copyright is hitherto, in all nations, limited by law.
+
+Only brief allusion can be made to the most recent (and in some respects
+most important) advance step which has been taken in copyright
+legislation in the United States. This act of Congress is aimed at
+securing reciprocal protection to American and foreign authors in the
+respective countries which may comply with its provisions. There is here
+no room to sketch the hitherto vain attempt to secure to authors, here
+and abroad, an international protection to their writings. Suffice it to
+say that a union of interests was at last effected, whereby authors,
+publishers and manufacturers are supposed to have secured some measure of
+protection to their varied interests. The measure is largely
+experimental, and the satisfaction felt over its passage into law is
+tempered by doubt in various quarters as to the justice, or liberality,
+or actual benefit to authors of its provisions. What is to be said of a
+statute which was denounced by some Senators as a long step backward
+toward barbarism, and hailed by others as a great landmark in the
+progress of civilization?
+
+The main features added to the existing law of copyright by this act,
+which took effect July 1, 1891, are these:
+
+1. All limitation of the privilege of copyright to citizens and residents
+of the United States is repealed.
+
+2. Foreigners applying for copyright are to pay fees of $1 for record, or
+$1.50 for certificate of copyright.
+
+3. Importation of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs entered here
+for copyright is prohibited, except two copies of any book for use and
+not for sale.
+
+4. The two copies of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs deposited
+with the Librarian of Congress must be printed from type set, or plates,
+etc., made in the United States. It follows that all foreign works
+protected by American copyright must be wholly manufactured in this
+country.
+
+5. The copyright privilege is restricted to citizens or subjects of
+nations permitting the benefit of copyright to Americans on
+substantially the same terms as their own citizens, or of nations who
+have international agreements providing for reciprocity in the grant of
+copyright, to which the United States may at its pleasure become a party.
+
+6. The benefit of copyright in the United States is not to take effect as
+to any foreigner until the actual existence of either of the conditions
+just recited, in the case of the nation to which he belongs, shall have
+been made known by a proclamation of the President of the United States.
+
+One very material benefit has been secured through international
+copyright. Under it, authors are assured the control of their own text,
+both as to correctness and completeness. Formerly, republication was
+conducted on a "scramble" system, by which books were hastened through
+the press, to secure the earliest market, with little or no regard to a
+correct re-production. Moreover, it was in the power of the American
+publisher of an English book, or of a British publisher of an American
+one, to alter or omit passages in any work reprinted, at his pleasure.
+This license was formerly exercised, and imperfect, garbled, or truncated
+editions of an author's writings were issued without his consent, an
+outrage against which international copyright furnishes the only
+preventive.
+
+Another benefit of copyright between nations has been to check the
+relentless flood of cheap, unpaid-for fiction, which formerly poured from
+the press, submerging the better literature. The Seaside and other
+libraries, with their miserable type, flimsy paper, and ugly form, were
+an injury alike to the eyesight, to the taste, and in many cases, to the
+morals of the community. More than ninety per cent. of these wretched
+"Libraries" were foreign novels. An avalanche of English and translated
+French novels of the "bigamy school" of fiction swept over the land,
+until the cut-throat competition of publishers, after exhausting the
+stock of unwholesome foreign literature, led to the failure of many
+houses, and piled high the counters of book and other stores with
+bankrupt stock. Having at last got rid of this unclean brood, (it is
+hoped forever) we now have better books, produced on good paper and type,
+and worth preserving, at prices not much above those of the trash
+formerly offered us.
+
+At the same time, standard works of science and literature are being
+published in England at prices which tend steadily toward increased
+popular circulation. Even conservative publishers are reversing the rule
+of small editions at high prices, for larger editions at low prices. The
+old three-volume novel is nearly supplanted by the one volume,
+well-printed and bound book at five or six shillings. Many more
+reductions would follow in the higher class of books, were not the
+measure of reciprocal copyright thus far secured handicapped by the
+necessity of re-printing on this side at double cost, if a large American
+circulation is in view.
+
+The writers of America, with the steady and rapid progress of the art of
+making books, have come more and more to appreciate the value of their
+preservation, in complete and unbroken series, in the library of the
+government, the appropriate conservator of the nation's literature.
+Inclusive and not exclusive, as this library is wisely made by law, so
+far as copyright works are concerned, it preserves with impartial care
+the illustrious and the obscure. In its archives all sciences and all
+schools of opinion stand on equal ground. In the beautiful and ample
+repository, now erected and dedicated to literature and art through the
+liberal action of Congress, the intellectual wealth of the past and the
+present age will be handed down to the ages that are to follow.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] G. H. Putnam, "Books and their makers in the Middle Ages," N. Y.
+1897, vol. 2, p. 447.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24.
+
+POETRY OF THE LIBRARY.
+
+
+THE LIBRARIAN'S DREAM.
+
+                      1.
+    He sat at night by his lonely bed,
+      With an open book before him;
+    And slowly nodded his weary head,
+      As slumber came stealing o'er him.
+
+                      2.
+    And he saw in his dream a mighty host
+      Of the writers gone before,
+    And the shadowy form of many a ghost
+      Glided in at the open door.
+
+                      3.
+    Great Homer came first in a snow-white shroud,
+      And Virgil sang sweet by his side;
+    While Cicero thundered in accents loud,
+      And Caesar most gravely replied.
+
+                      4.
+    Anacreon, too, from his rhythmical lips
+      The honey of Hybla distilled,
+    And Herodotus suffered a partial eclipse,
+      While Horace with music was filled.
+
+                      5.
+    The procession of ancients was brilliant and long,
+      Aristotle and Plato were there,
+    Thucydides, too, and Tacitus strong,
+      And Plutarch, and Sappho the fair.
+
+                      6.
+    Aristophanes elbowed gay Ovid's white ghost,
+      And Euripides Xenophon led,
+    While Propertius laughed loud at Juvenal's jokes,
+      And Sophocles rose from the dead.
+
+                      7.
+    Then followed a throng to memory dear,
+      Of writers more modern in age,
+    Cervantes and Shakespeare, who died the same year,
+      And Chaucer, and Bacon the sage.
+
+                      8.
+    Immortal the laurels that decked the fair throng,
+      And Dante moved by with his lyre,
+    While Montaigne and Pascal stood rapt by his song,
+      And Boccaccio paused to admire.
+
+                      9.
+    Sweet Spenser and Calderon moved arm in arm,
+      While Milton and Sidney were there,
+    Pope, Dryden, and Moliere added their charm,
+      And Bunyan, and Marlowe so rare.
+
+                     10.
+    Then Gibbon stalked by in classical guise,
+      And Hume, and Macaulay, and Froude,
+    While Darwin, and Huxley, and Tyndall looked wise,
+      And Humboldt and Comte near them stood.
+
+                     11.
+    Dean Swift looked sardonic on Addison's face,
+      And Johnson tipped Boswell a wink,
+    Walter Scott and Jane Austen hobnobbed o'er a glass,
+      And Goethe himself deigned to drink.
+
+                     12.
+    Robert Burns followed next with Thomas Carlyle,
+      Jean Paul paired with Coleridge, too,
+    While De Foe elbowed Goldsmith, the master of style,
+      And Fielding and Schiller made two.
+
+                     13.
+    Rousseau with his eloquent, marvellous style,
+      And Voltaire, with his keen, witty pen,
+    Victor Hugo so grand, though repellent the while,
+      And Dumas and Balzac again.
+
+                     14.
+    Dear Thackeray came in his happiest mood,
+      And stayed until midnight was done,
+    Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, and Kingsley and Hood,
+      And Dickens, the master of fun.
+
+                     15.
+    George Eliot, too, with her matter-full page,
+      And Byron, and Browning, and Keats,
+    While Shelley and Tennyson joined youth and age,
+      And Wordsworth the circle completes.
+
+                     16.
+    Then followed a group of America's best,
+      With Irving, and Bryant, and Holmes,
+    While Bancroft and Motley unite with the rest,
+      And Thoreau with Whittier comes.
+
+                     17.
+    With his Raven in hand dreamed on Edgar Poe,
+      And Longfellow sweet and serene,
+    While Prescott, and Ticknor, and Emerson too,
+      And Hawthorne and Lowell were seen.
+
+                     18.
+    While thus the assembly of witty and wise
+      Rejoiced the librarian's sight,
+    Ere the wonderful vision had fled from his eyes,
+      From above shone a heavenly light:
+
+                     19.
+    And solemn and sweet came a voice from the skies,
+      "All battles and conflicts are done,
+    The temple of Knowledge shall open all eyes,
+      And law, faith, and reason are one!"
+
+    When the radiant dawn of the morning broke,
+    From his glorious dream the librarian woke.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LIBRARY.
+
+    That place that does contain my books,
+    My books, the best companions, is to me,
+    A glorious court, where hourly I converse
+    With the old sages and philosophers;
+    And sometimes, for variety I confer
+    With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels.
+                                BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The bard of every age and clime,
+    Of genius fruitful and of soul sublime,
+    Who from the glowing mint of fancy pours
+    No spurious metal, fused from common ores,
+    But gold to matchless purity refined,
+    And stamped with all the Godhead in his mind.
+                                              JUVENAL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Books, we know,
+    Are a substantial world, both pure and good;
+    Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
+    Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
+                                           WORDSWORTH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+QUAINT LINES ON A BOOK-WORM.
+
+        The Bokeworme sitteth in his celle,
+    He studyethe all alone,
+    And burnethe oute the oile,
+    'Till ye midnight hour is gone
+    Then gethe he downe upon his bedde,
+    Ne mo watch will he a-keepe,
+    He layethe his heade on ye pillowe,
+    And eke he tryes to sleepe.
+    Then swyfte there cometh a vision grimme,
+    And greetythe him sleepynge fair,
+    And straighte he dreameth of grislie dreames,
+    And dreades fellowne and rayre.
+    Wherefore, if cravest life to eld
+    Ne rede longe uppe at night,
+    But go to bed at Curfew bell
+    And ryse wythe mornynge's lyte.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER.
+
+        In torrid heats of late July,
+        In March, beneath the bitter _bise_,
+        He book-hunts while the loungers fly,--
+        He book-hunts, though December freeze;
+        In breeches baggy at the knees,
+        And heedless of the public jeers,
+        For these, for these, he hoards his fees,--
+        Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.
+
+        No dismal stall escapes his eye,
+        He turns o'er tomes of low degrees,
+        There soiled romanticists may lie,
+        Or Restoration comedies;
+        Each tract that flutters in the breeze
+        For him is charged with hopes and fears,
+        In mouldy novels fancy sees
+        Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.
+
+        With restless eyes that peer and spy,
+        Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees,
+        In dismal nooks he loves to pry,
+        Whose motto evermore is _Spes_!
+        But ah! the fabled treasure flees;
+        Grown rarer with the fleeting years,
+        In rich men's shelves they take their ease,--
+        Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!
+
+    Prince, all the things that tease and please,--
+      Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, jeers and tears,
+    What are they but such toys as these--
+      Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs?         ANDREW LANG.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'Tis in books the chief
+    Of all perfections to be plain and brief.
+                                      SAMUEL BUTLER.
+
+    Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
+    Nature's chief master-piece is writing well.
+                                         BUCKINGHAM.
+
+    Books should to one of these four ends conduce:
+    For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
+                                      SIR JOHN DENHAM.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MY BOOKS.
+
+    Oh, happy he who, weary of the sound
+    Of throbbing life, can shut his study door,
+    Like Heinsius, on it all, to find a store
+    Of peace that otherwise is never found!
+    Such happiness is mine, when all around
+    My dear dumb friends in groups of three or four
+    Command my soul to linger on the shore
+    Of those fair realms where they reign monarchs crowned.
+    To-day the strivings of the world are naught,
+    For I am in a land that glows with God,
+    And I am in a path by angels trod.
+    Dost ask what book creates such heavenly thought?
+    Then know that I with Dante soar afar,
+    Till earth shrinks slowly to a tiny star.
+                                          J. WILLIAMS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THOUGHTS IN A LIBRARY.
+
+    Speak low! tread softly through these halls;
+      Here genius lives enshrined;
+    Here reign in silent majesty
+      The monarchs of the mind.
+
+    A mighty spirit host they come
+      From every age and clime;
+    Above the buried wrecks of years
+      They breast the tide of time.
+
+    Here shall the poets chant for thee
+      Their sweetest, loftiest lays,
+    And prophets wait to guide thy steps
+      In Wisdom's pleasant ways.
+
+    Come, with these God-anointed kings
+      Be thou companion here;
+    And in the mighty realm of mind
+      Thou shalt go forth a peer!
+                                  ANNE C. LYNCH BOTTA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VERSES IN A LIBRARY.
+
+    Give me that book whose power is such
+    That I forget the north wind's touch.
+
+    Give me that book that brings to me
+    Forgetfulness of what I be.
+
+    Give me that book that takes my life
+    In seeming far from all its strife.
+
+    Give me that book wherein each page
+    Destroys my sense of creeping age.
+                                  JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A BOOK BY THE BROOK.
+
+    Give me a nook and a book,
+    And let the proud world spin round;
+    Let it scramble by hook or by crook
+    For wealth or a name with a sound.
+    You are welcome to amble your ways,
+    Aspirers to place or to glory;
+    May big bells jangle your praise,
+    And golden pens blazon your story;
+    For me, let me dwell in my nook,
+    Here by the curve of this brook,
+    That croons to the tune of my book:
+    Whose melody wafts me forever
+    On the waves of an unseen river.
+                                     WILLIAM FREELAND.
+
+    The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
+    And all the sweet serenity of books.
+                                     H. W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+    Oh for a booke and a shady nooke
+      Eyther in door or out,
+    With the greene leaves whispering overhead,
+      Or the streete cryes all about:
+    Where I maie reade all at my ease
+      Both of the newe and olde,
+    For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke
+      Is better to me than golde!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO DANIEL ELZEVIR.
+
+(_From the Latin of Menage._)
+
+    What do I see! Oh! gods divine
+    And Goddesses--this Book of mine--
+    This child of many hopes and fears,
+    Is published by the Elzevirs!
+    Oh Perfect publishers complete!
+    Oh dainty volume, new and neat!
+    The Paper doth outshine the snow,
+    The Print is blacker than the crow,
+    The Title-page, with crimson bright,
+    The vellum cover smooth and white,
+    All sorts of readers to invite;
+    Ay, and will keep them reading still,
+    Against their will, or with their will!
+    Thus what of grace the Rhymes may lack
+    The Publisher has given them back,
+    As Milliners adorn the fair
+    Whose charms are something skimp and spare.
+
+    Oh dulce decus, Elzevirs!
+    The pride of dead and dawning years,
+    How can a poet best repay
+    The debt he owes your House to-day?
+    May this round world, while aught endures,
+    Applaud, and buy, these books of yours.
+    May purchasers incessant pop,
+    My Elzevirs, within your shop,
+    And learned bards salute, with cheers,
+    The volumes of the Elzevirs,
+    Till your renown fills earth and sky,
+    Till men forget the Stephani,
+    And all that Aldus wrought, and all
+    Turnebus sold in shop or stall,
+    While still may Fate's (and Binders') shears
+    Respect, and spare, the Elzevirs!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
+    Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares!
+    The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
+    Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.
+                                           WORDSWORTH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COMPANIONS.
+
+    But books, old friends that are always new,
+    Of all good things that we know are best;
+    They never forsake us, as others do,
+    And never disturb our inward rest.
+    Here is truth in a world of lies,
+    And all that in man is great and wise!
+    Better than men and women, friend,
+    That are dust, though dear in our joy and pain,
+    Are the books their cunning hands have penned,
+    For they depart, but the books remain.
+                               RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PARADOX OF BOOKS.
+
+    I'm strange contradictions; I'm new and I'm old,
+    I'm often in tatters, and oft decked with gold.
+    Though I never could read, yet lettered I'm found;
+    Though blind, I enlighten; though loose, I am bound.
+    I'm always in black, and I'm always in white;
+    I am grave and I'm gay, I am heavy and light.
+    In form too I differ,--I'm thick and I'm thin;
+    I've no flesh and no bone, yet I'm covered with skin;
+    I've more points than the compass, more stops than the flute;
+    I sing without voice, without speaking confute;
+    I'm English, I'm German, I'm French, and I'm Dutch;
+    Some love me too fondly, some slight me too much;
+    I often die soon, though I sometimes live ages,
+    And no monarch alive has so many pages.
+                                          HANNAH MORE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    I love my books as drinkers love their wine;
+    The more I drink, the more they seem divine;
+    With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er,
+    And each fresh draught is sweeter than before:
+    Books bring me friends where'er on earth I be,--
+    Solace of solitude, bonds of society.
+
+    I love my books! they are companions dear,
+    Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere;
+    Here talk I with the wise in ages gone,
+    And with the nobly gifted in our own:
+    If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind,
+    Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find.
+                                      FRANCIS BENNOCH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MY LIBRARY.
+
+    All round the room my silent servants wait,--
+    My friends in every season, bright and dim
+    Angels and seraphim
+    Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low,
+    And spirits of the skies all come and go
+    Early and late;
+    From the old world's divine and distant date,
+    From the sublimer few,
+    Down to the poet who but yester-eve
+    Sang sweet and made us grieve,
+    All come, assembling here in order due.
+    And here I dwell with Poesy, my mate,
+    With Erato and all her vernal sighs,
+    Great Clio with her victories elate,
+    Or pale Urania's deep and starry eyes.
+    Oh friends, whom chance or change can never harm,
+    Whom Death the tyrant cannot doom to die,
+    Within whose folding soft eternal charm
+    I love to lie,
+    And meditate upon your verse that flows,
+    And fertilizes wheresoe'er it goes.
+                                 BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+RATIONAL MADNESS.
+
+_A Song, for the Lover of Curious and Rare Books._
+
+    Come, boys, fill your glasses, and fill to the brim,
+    Here's the essence of humor, the soul, too, of whim!
+    Attend and receive (and sure 'tis no vapour)
+    A "hap' worth of wit on a pennyworth of paper."
+
+    Those joys which the Bibliomania affords
+    Are felt and acknowledged by Dukes and by Lords!
+    And the finest estate would be offer'd in vain
+    For an exemplar bound by the famed Roger Payne!
+
+    To a proverb goes madness with love hand in hand,
+    But our senses we yield to a double command;
+    The dear frenzy in both is first rous'd by fair looks,--
+    Here's our sweethearts, my boys! not forgetting our books!
+
+    Thus our time may we pass with rare books and rare friends,
+    Growing wiser and better, till life itself ends:
+    And may those who delight not in black-letter lore,
+    By some obsolete act be sent from our shore!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM.
+
+    While others are asking for beauty or fame,
+    Or praying to know that for which they should pray,
+    Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame,
+    Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey,
+    The sage has found out a more excellent way--
+    To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,
+    And his humble petition puts up day by day,
+    For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+    Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,
+    And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray;
+    Philosophers kneel to the God without name,
+    Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;
+    The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,
+    The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours;
+    But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,
+    For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+    Oh grant me a life without pleasure or blame
+    (As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day
+    With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame)
+    O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,
+    Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play
+    With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!
+    And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,
+    For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+    Gods, grant or withhold it; your "yea" and your "nay"
+    Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours:
+    But life is worth living, and here we would stay
+    For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+                                          ANDREW LANG.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LIBRARY.
+
+    They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise,
+    Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise:
+    Their aid they yield to all: they never shun
+    The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:
+    Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud,
+    They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;
+    Nor tell to various people various things,
+    But show to subjects, what they show to kings.
+
+    Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind
+    To stamp a lasting image of the mind!
+
+    With awe, around these silent walks I tread;
+    These are the lasting mansions of the dead:--
+    "The dead!" methinks a thousand tongues reply;
+    "These are the tombs of such as cannot die!
+    Crown'd with eternal fame, they sit sublime,
+    And laugh at all the little strife of time."
+
+    Lo, all in silence, all in order stand,
+    And mighty folios first, a lordly band;
+    Then quartos their well-order'd ranks maintain,
+    And light octavos fill a spacious plain:
+    See yonder, ranged in more frequent rows,
+    A humbler band of duodecimos;
+    While undistinguished trifles swell the scene,
+    The last new play and fritter'd magazine.
+
+    Here all the rage of controversy ends,
+    And rival zealots rest like bosom friends:
+    An Athanasian here, in deep repose,
+    Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes;
+    Socinians here with Calvinists abide,
+    And thin partitions angry chiefs divide;
+    Here wily Jesuits simple Quakers meet,
+    And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet.
+                                        GEORGE CRABBE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ETERNITY OF POETRY.
+
+    For deeds doe die, however noblie donne,
+    And thoughts do as themselves decay;
+    But wise words, taught in numbers for to runne
+    Recorded by the Muses, live for ay;
+    Ne may with storming showers be washt away,
+    Ne bitter breathing windes with harmful blast,
+    Nor age, nor envie, shall them ever wast.
+                                              SPENSER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE OLD BOOKS.
+
+    The old books, the old books, the books of long ago!
+    Who ever felt Miss Austen tame, or called Sir Walter slow?
+    We did not care the worst to hear of human sty or den;
+    We liked to love a little bit, and trust our fellow-men.
+    The old books, the old books, as pure as summer breeze!
+    We read them under garden boughs, by fire-light on our knees,
+    They did not teach, they did not preach, or scold us into good;
+    A noble spirit from them breathed, the rest was understood.
+
+    The old books, the old books, the mother loves them best;
+    They leave no bitter taste behind to haunt the youthful breast:
+    They bid us hope, they bid us fill our hearts with visions fair;
+    They do not paralyze the will with problems of despair.
+    And as they lift from sloth and sense to follow loftier planes,
+    And stir the blood of indolence to bubble in the veins:
+    Inheritors of mighty things, who own a lineage high,
+    We feel within us budding wings that long to reach the sky:
+    To rise above the commonplace, and through the cloud to soar,
+    And join the loftier company of grander souls of yore.
+                                        THE SPECTATOR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25.
+
+HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY.[3]
+
+SOME THOUGHTS ON CLASSIFICATION.
+
+_By Librarian F. M. Crunden._
+
+    Classification is vexation,
+        Shelf-numbering is as bad;
+            The rule of D
+            Doth puzzle me;
+        Mnemonics drives me mad.
+
+_Air--The Lord Chancellor's Song._
+
+    When first I became a librarian,
+        Says I to myself, says I,
+    I'll learn all their systems as fast as I can,
+        Says I to myself, says I;
+    The Cutter, the Dewey, the Schwartz, and the Poole,
+    The alphabet, numeral, mnemonic rule,
+    The old, and the new, and the eclectic school,
+        Says I to myself, says I.
+
+    Class-numbers, shelf-numbers, book-numbers, too,
+        Says I to myself, says I,
+    I'll study them all, and I'll learn them clear thro',
+        Says I to myself, says I;
+    I'll find what is good, and what's better and best,
+    And I'll put two or three to a practical test;
+    And then--if I've time--I'll take a short rest,
+        Says I to myself, says I.
+
+    But art it is long and time it doth fly,
+        Says I to myself, says I,
+    And three or four years have already passed by,
+        Says I to myself, says I;
+    And yet on those systems I'm not at all clear,
+    While new combinations forever appear,
+    To master them all is a life-work, I fear,
+        Says I to myself, says I.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Classification in a Library in Western New York: Gail Hamilton's
+"Woolgathering," under Agriculture.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Book asked for. "An attack philosopher in Paris."
+
+A changed title. A young woman went into a library the other day and
+asked for the novel entitled "She combeth not her head," but she finally
+concluded to take "He cometh not, she said."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Labor-saving devices. The economical catalogue-maker who thus set down
+two titles--
+
+    "Mill on the Floss,
+      do. Political economy."
+
+has a sister who keeps a universal scrap-book into which everything goes,
+but which is carefully indexed. She, too, has a mind for saving, as
+witness:
+
+    "Patti, Adelina.
+      do. Oyster."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a New York auction catalogue:
+
+"267. Junius Stat Nominis Umbrii, with numerous splendid portraits."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the New York Free Circulating Library, a youth of twenty said
+Shakespeare made him tired. "Why couldn't he write English instead of
+indulging in that _thee_ and _thou_ business?" Miss Braddon he pronounced
+"a daisy". A pretty little blue-eyed fellow "liked American history best
+of all," but found the first volume of Justin Winsor's history too much
+for him. "The French and German and Hebrew in it are all right, but
+there's Spanish and Italian and Latin, and I don't know those."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A gentleman in Paris sent to the bookbinder two volumes of the French
+edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The title in French is "L'Oncle Tom," and
+the two volumes were returned to him marked on their backs:
+
+L'Oncle,               L'Oncle,
+Tome I.                Tome II.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW A BIBLIOMANIAC BINDS HIS BOOKS.
+
+    I'd like my favorite books to bind
+    So that their outward dress
+    To every bibliomaniac's mind
+    Their contents should express.
+
+    Napoleon's life should glare in red,
+    John Calvin's life in blue;
+    Thus they would typify bloodshed
+    And sour religion's hue.
+
+    The Popes in scarlet well may go;
+    In jealous green, Othello;
+    In gray, Old Age of Cicero,
+    And London Cries in yellow.
+
+    My Walton should his gentle art
+    In salmon best express,
+    And Penn and Fox the friendly heart
+    In quiet drab confess.
+
+    Crimea's warlike facts and dates
+    Of fragrant Russia smell;
+    The subjugated Barbary States
+    In crushed Morocco dwell.
+
+    But oh! that one I hold so dear
+    Should be arrayed so cheap
+    Gives me a qualm; I sadly fear
+    My Lamb must be half-sheep!
+                                        IRVING BROWNE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a Wisconsin library, a young lady asked for the "Life of National
+Harthorne" and the "Autograph on the breakfast table."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Have you a poem on the Victor of Manengo, by Anon?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Library inquiry--"I want the catalogue of temporary literature."
+
+Query--What did she want?
+
+A friend proposes to put Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundaries of Another
+World" in Travels. Shall we let him?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A poet, in Boston, filled out an application for a volume of Pope's
+works, an edition reserved from circulation, in the following tuneful
+manner:
+
+    "You ask me, dear sir, to a reason define
+    Why you should for a fortnight this volume resign
+    To my care.--_I am also a son of the nine._"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A worthy Deutscher, confident in his mastery of the English tongue, sent
+the following quaint document across the sea:
+
+"I send you with the Post six numbers, of our Allgemeine Militaer-Zeitung,
+which is published in the next year to the fifty times. Excuse my bath
+english I learned in the school and I forgot so much. If you have
+interest to german Antiquariatskataloge I will send to you some. I remain
+however yours truly servant."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A gentlemanly stranger once asked the delivery clerk for "a genealogy."
+"What one?" she asked. "Oh! any," he said. "Well--Savage's?" "No; white
+men."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Said Melvil Dewey: "To my thinking, a great librarian must have a clear
+head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. Such shall be
+greatest among librarians; and, when I look into the future, I am
+inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve this greatness
+will be women."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A LIBRARY HYMN.
+
+_By an Assistant Librarian._
+
+I have endeavored to clothe the dull prose of the usual Library Rules
+with the mantle of poetry, that they may be more attractive, and more
+easily remembered by the great public whom we serve.
+
+    Gently, reader, gently moving,
+    Wipe your feet beside the door;
+    Hush your voice to whispers soothing,
+    Take your hat off, I implore!
+    Mark your number, plainly, rightly,
+    From the catalogue you see;
+    With the card projecting slightly,
+    Then your book bring unto me.
+        Quickly working,
+        With no shirking,
+    Soon another there will be.
+
+    If above two weeks you've left me,
+    Just two cents a day I'll take,
+    And, unless my mind's bereft me,
+    Payment you must straightway make.
+    Treat your books as if to-morrow,
+    Gabriel's trump would surely sound,
+    And all scribbling, to your sorrow,
+    'Gainst your credit would be found.
+        Therefore tear not,
+        Spot and wear not
+    All these books so neatly bound.
+
+    These few simple rules abiding,
+    We shall always on you smile:
+    There will be no room for chiding,
+    No one's temper will you rile.
+    And when Heaven's golden portals
+    For you on their hinges turn,
+    With the books for all immortals,
+    There will be no rules to learn.
+        Therefore heed them,
+        Often read them,
+    Lest your future weal you spurn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TITLES OF BOOKS ASKED FOR BY WRITTEN SLIPS IN A POPULAR LIBRARY.
+
+    Aristopholus translated by Buckley.
+    Alfreri Tragedus.
+    Bertall Lavie Hors De Ches Soi.
+    Cooke M. C. M. A. L. L. D. their nature and uses.
+        Edited by Rev. J. M. Berkeley M. A. F. R. S. (Fungi.)
+    Caralus Note Book (A Cavalier's).
+    Gobden Club-Essays.
+    Specie the origin of Darwin.
+    An Epistropal Prayer Book.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BLUNDERS IN CATALOGUING.
+
+    Gasparin. The uprising of a great many people.
+    Hughes, Tom. The scouring of the White House.
+    Mayhew. The pheasant boy.
+    Wind in the lower animals (Mind.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+RECENT CALLS FOR BOOKS AT A WESTERN LIBRARY.
+
+    Account of Monte Cristo.
+    Acrost the Kontinent by Boles.
+    Bula.
+    Count of Corpus Cristy.
+    Dant's Infernal comedy.
+    Darwin's Descent on man.
+    Feminine Cooper's works.
+    Infeleese.
+    Less Miserable.
+    Some of Macbeth's writings.
+    Something in the way of friction.
+    Squeal to a book.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Vol. 3 of Laporte's "Bibliographie contemporaine," Dibdin's famous
+book is entered thus: "Bibliomania, or boock, madnss: a bibliographical
+romance...ilustrated with cats."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A well-known librarian writes:
+
+"The Catalogue of the Indiana State Library for the year 1859 has long
+been my wonder and admiration. "Bank's History of the Popes" appears
+under the letter B. Strong in the historical department, it offers a
+choice between the "Life of John Tyler, by Harper & Brothers," "Memoirs
+of Moses Henderson, by Jewish Philosophers," "Memoirs and Correspondence
+of Viscount Castlereach, by the Marquis of Londonderry," and "Memoirs of
+Benvenuto, by Gellini." In fiction, you may find "Tales of My Landlord by
+Cleishbotham," and "The Pilot, by the Author of the Pioneers;" while, if
+your passion for plural authorship is otherwise unappeasable--if Beaumont
+and Fletcher or Erckman-Chatrian seem to you too feeble a combination of
+talents--you may well be captivated by the title "Small Arms, by the
+United States Army."
+
+"The State of Indiana has undoubtedly learned a good many things since
+1859; but whosoever its present librarian may be, it is hardly probable
+that its highest flight in bibliography has surpassed the catalogue from
+which the above are quoted."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Books demanded at a certain public library:
+
+    "The Stuck-up Minister"--(Stickit Minister.)
+    "From Jessie to Ernest" (Jest to Earnest).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A country order for books called for "The Thrown of David," "Echo of
+Hummo" (Ecce Homo) and "Echo of Deas" (Ecce Deus).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Nation mentions as an instance of "the havoc which types can make
+with the titles of books, that a single catalogue gives us 'Clara Reeve's
+Old English Barn,' 'Swinburne's Century of Scoundrels,' and 'Una and her
+Papuse.' But this is outdone by the bookseller who offered for sale
+"Balvatzky, Mrs. Izis unveiled." Another goddess is offended in "Transits
+of Venice, by R. A. Proctor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a certain city, an examination of applicants for employment in the
+public library was held. The following is an exact copy of the answer to
+a question, asking for the title of a work written by each of the authors
+named: "John Ruskin, 'The Bread Winners;' William H. Prescott, 'The
+Frozen Pirate;' Charles Darwin, 'The Missing Link;' Thomas Carlyle,
+'Caesar's Column.'" The same man is responsible for saying that "B. C."
+stands for the Creation, and "A. D." for the Deluge.
+
+Who wants this bright young man?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A STORY ABOUT STORIES.
+
+    "When A Man's Single," all "Vanity Fair"
+     Courts his favor and smiles,
+     And feminine "Moths" "In Silk Attire"
+     Try on him "A Woman's Wiles."
+
+    "The World, the Flesh and the Devil"
+     Were "Wormwood" and gall to me,
+     Weary and sick of "The Passing Show,"
+     No "Woman's Face" was "Fair to See."
+
+     I fled away to "The Mill on the Floss"
+     "Two Years Ago," "In an Evil Hour,"
+     For "The Miller's Daughter" there I met,
+     Who "Cometh Up as a Flower."
+
+     She was a simple "Rose in June,"
+     And I was "An Average Man;"
+     "We Two" were "Far From the Madding Crowd"
+     When our "Love and Life" began.
+
+     It was but "A Modern Instance"
+     Of true "Love's Random Shot,"
+     And I, "The Heir of Redclyffe"
+     Was "Kidnapped": and "Why Not"?
+
+     We cannot escape the hand of "Fate,"
+     And few are "Fated to be Free,"
+     But beware of "A Social Departure"--
+     You'll live "Under the Ban," like me.
+
+     I tried to force the "Gates Ajar"
+     For my "Queen of Curds and Cream,"
+     But "The Pillars of Society"
+     Shook with horror at my "Dream."
+
+     I am no more "A Happy Man,"
+     Though blessed with "Heavenly Twins,"
+     Because "The Wicked World" maintains
+     "A Low Marriage" the worst of sins.
+
+    "Pride and Prejudice" rule the world,
+    "A Marriage for Love" is "A Capital Crime,"
+     Beware of "A Country Neighborhood"
+     And shun "Mad Love" in time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Says the Nation:
+
+A Philadelphia catalogue, whose compiler must have been more interested
+in current events than in his task, offers for sale "Intrigues of the
+Queen of Spain with McKinley, the Prince of Peace, Boston, 1809." How
+Godoy should become McKinley, or McKinley should become the Prince of
+Peace, is a problem for psychologists.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CONFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.
+
+The following are some specimens of answers to Examinations of candidates
+for Library employment, given within the past five years:
+
+"A sonnet is a poem which is adapted to music, as Petrarch's sonnets"; "a
+sonnet is a short poem sometimes and sometimes a long one and generally a
+reflection, or thoughts upon some inanimate thing, as Young's 'Night
+thoughts.'" "An epic is a critical writing, as 'Criticism on man'"; "an
+epic is a literary form written in verse, and which teaches us some
+lesson not necessarily of a moral nature"; "an epic is a dramatic poem."
+
+Epigrammatic writing is very clearly defined as "critical in a
+grammatical way." "Allegory is writing highly colored, as Pope's works";
+"allegory is writing of something that never happened, but it is purely
+imaginary, often a wandering from the main point." A common mistake
+regarding the meaning of the word bibliography results in such answers as
+"bibliography--a study of the Bible;" or "gives the lives of the people
+in the Bible." An encyclopaedia was aptly defined as "a storehouse of
+knowledge for the enlightenment of the public," while another answer
+reads "Book of Books, giving the life of famous persons, life and habits
+of animals and plants, and some medical knowledge." A collection of works
+of any author is termed "an anthropology." "Anthology is the study of
+insects." Folklore is defined as "giving to animals and things human
+sense"; an elegy means "a eulogy," oratory, "the deliverance of words."
+Belles-lettres is to one applicant "beautiful ideas," to another "the
+title of a book," to another "short stories"; again "are the letters of
+French writers," and still another writes "French for prominent
+literature and light literature." A concordance "is the explication or
+definition of something told in a simpler form," is the extremely lucid
+answer to one question, which was answered by another candidate as "a
+table of reference at back of book."
+
+The titles of books are too seldom associated with their authors' names,
+resulting in such answers as "Homer is the author of the Aeneid"; "Lalla
+Rookh" was written by James Blackmore; "Children of the Abbey," by Walter
+Besant (while another attributed it to Jane Porter); "Bow of orange
+Ribbon," by George Meredith; "Hon. Peter Stirling," by Fielding; "Quo
+Vadis," by Browning; "Pamela," by Frank Stockton (according to another by
+Marie Edgworth); "Love's Labour's Lost," by Bryant (another gives Thomas
+Reade as the author, while still another guesses Schiller); "Descent of
+Man," by Alexander Pope (another gives Dryden); "The Essay on Man," by
+Francis Bacon.
+
+One candidate believes "Hudibras" to be an early Saxon poem; another that
+"Victor Hugo's best known work is William Tell"; another that "Aesop's
+Fables is a famous allegory." Charlotte Bronte is described as an
+"American--nineteenth century--children's book." Cicero was "known for
+Latin poetry." "Dante is an exceedingly bitter writer; he takes you into
+hell and describes Satan and his angels. He wrote his play for the
+stage." Another's idea of the Divine Comedy is "a play which could be
+acted by the priests on the steps of a church for the benefit of the
+poorer class."
+
+Civil service in the mind of one young woman was "the service done by the
+government in a country, domesticly."
+
+A Christian socialist is "an advocate of Christian science." "A limited
+monarchy is a kingdom whose ruler is under the ruler of another country."
+Legal tender is "the legal rate of interest"; another considers it "Paper
+money." In economics, some of the answers were "profit-sharing, a term
+used in socialism, the rich to divide among the poor." "Monopolies is the
+money gained by selling church properties"; while "a trust is usually a
+place where a person puts some money where it will be safe to keep it."
+
+About noted personages and historic events and places the answers are
+equally startling. "Moliere was a French essayist and critic" (also "a
+French writer of the nineteenth century,") Cecil Rhodes, "the founder of
+Bryn Mawr College"; "Seth Low--England, eighteenth century;" Attila "a
+woman mentioned in the Bible for her great cruelty to her child;" Warren
+Hastings "was a German soldier" (also "was a discoverer; died about
+1870"); "Nero was a Roman emperor B. C. 450." Perhaps the most unique
+guess in this line was "Richard Wagner invented the Wagner cars;"
+Abbotsford is "the title of a book by Sir Walter Scott;" "Vassar College
+is a dream, high-up and unattainable;" "Tammany Hall is a political
+meeting place in London;" "the Parthenon, an art gallery in Athens."
+
+Pedagogy seemed one of the most perplexing of words. It was defined by
+one as "the science of religion," by another as "learned pomposity;" but
+the most remarkable of all was "pedagogy is the study of feet."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SONG OF SOME LIBRARY SCHOOL SCHOLARS.
+
+              Three little maids from school are we,
+              Filled to the brim with economy--
+              Not of the house but library,
+              Learnt in the Library School.
+
+    _1st Maid_--I range my books from number one.
+    _2nd Maid_--Alphabetically I've begun.
+    _3rd Maid_--In regular classes mine do run.
+         _All_--Three maids from the Library School.
+
+         _All_--Three little maidens all unwary,
+              Each in charge of a library,
+              Each with a system quite contrary
+                  To every other school.
+
+              Our catalogues, we quite agree,
+              From faults and errors must be free,
+              If only we our way can see
+                  To find the proper rule.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Boy's remark on returning a certain juvenile book to the library: "I
+don't want any more of them books. The girls is all too holy."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Half the books in this library are not worth reading," said a
+sour-visaged, hypercritical, novel-satiated woman.--"Read the other half,
+then," advised a bystander.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WOES OF A LIBRARIAN.
+
+    Let us give a brief rehearsal
+    Of the learning universal,
+    Which men expect to find
+    In Librarians to their mind.
+
+    He must undergo probation,
+    Before he gets a situation;
+    Must begin at the creation,
+    When the world was in formation,
+    And come down to its cremation,
+    In the final consummation
+    Of the old world's final spasm:
+    He must study protoplasm,
+    And bridge over every chasm
+    In the origin of species,
+    Ere the monkey wore the breeches,
+    Or the Simian tribe began
+    To ascend from ape to man.
+
+    He must master the cosmology,
+    And know all about psychology,
+    And the wonders of biology,
+    And be deep in ornithology,
+    And develop ideology,
+    With the aid of craniology.
+    He must learn to teach zooelogy,
+    And be skilled in etymology,
+    And the science of philology,
+    And calculate chronology,
+    While he digs into geology,
+    And treats of entomology,
+    And hunts up old mythology,
+    And dips into theology,
+    And grows wise in sociology,
+    And expert in anthropology.
+
+    He must also know geography,
+    And the best works on photography,
+    And the science of stenography,
+    And be well up on cosmography,
+    And the secrets of cryptography.
+    Must interpret blind chirography,
+    Know by heart all mens' biography,
+    And the black art of typography,
+    And every book in bibliography.
+
+    These things are all essential
+    And highly consequential.
+
+    If he's haunted by ambition
+    For a library position,
+    And esteems it a high mission,
+    To aspire to erudition;
+    He will find some politician
+    Of an envious disposition,
+    Getting up a coalition
+    To secure his non-admission,
+    And send him to perdition,
+    Before he's reached fruition.
+
+    If he gets the situation,
+    And is full of proud elation
+    And of fond anticipation,
+    And has in contemplation
+    To enlighten half the nation,
+    He may write a dissertation
+    For the public information
+    On the laws of observation,
+    And the art of conversation.
+
+    He must know each famed oration,
+    And poetical quotation,
+    And master derivation,
+    And the science of translation,
+    And complex pagination,
+    And perfect punctuation,
+    And binomial equation,
+    And accurate computation,
+    And boundless permutation,
+    And infinite gradation,
+    And the craft of divination,
+    And Scripture revelation,
+    And the secret of salvation.
+
+    He must know the population
+    Of every separate nation,
+    The amount of immigration,
+    And be wise in arbitration,
+    And the art of navigation,
+    And colonial annexation,
+    And problems Australasian.
+
+    He must take his daily ration
+    Of catalogue vexation,
+    And endless botheration
+    With ceaseless complication
+    Of decimal notation,
+    Or Cutter combination.
+
+    To complete his education,
+    He must know the valuation
+    Of all the publications
+    Of many generations,
+    With their endless variations,
+    And true interpretations.
+
+    When he's spent a life in learning,
+    If his lamp continues burning,
+    When he's mastered all philosophy,
+    And the science of theosophy,
+    Grown as learned as Mezzofanti,
+    As poetical as Dante,
+    As wise as Magliabecchi,
+    As profound as Mr. Lecky--
+    Has absorbed more kinds of knowledge
+    Than are found in any college;
+    He may take his full degree
+    Of Ph. or LL. D.
+    And prepare to pass the portal
+    That leads to life immortal.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Mostly from the Library Journal, New York.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26.
+
+RARE BOOKS.
+
+
+There is perhaps no field of inquiry concerning literature in which so
+large an amount of actual mis-information or of ignorance exists as that
+of the rarity of many books. The makers of second-hand catalogues are
+responsible for much of this, in describing the books which they wish to
+sell as "rare," "very scarce," etc., but more of it proceeds from
+absolute ignorance of the book-markets of the world. I have had
+multitudes of volumes offered for sale whose commercial value was hardly
+as many cents as was demanded in dollars by their ill-informed owners,
+who fancied the commonest book valuable because they "had never seen
+another copy." No one's ideas of the money value of any book are worth
+anything, unless he has had long experimental knowledge of the market for
+books both in America and in Europe.
+
+What constitutes rarity in books is a question that involves many
+particulars. Thus, a given book may be rare in the United States which is
+abundant in London; or rare in London, when common enough in Germany. So
+books may be rare in one age which were easily found in another: and
+again, books on certain subjects may be so absorbed by public demand when
+events excite interest in that subject, as to take up most of the copies
+in market, and enhance the price of the remainder. Thus, Napoleon's
+conquering career in Egypt created a great demand for all books on Egypt
+and Africa. The scheme for founding a great French colony in Louisiana
+raised the price of all books and pamphlets on that region, which soon
+after fell into the possession of the United States. President Lincoln's
+assassination caused a demand for all accounts of the murder of the heads
+of nations. Latterly, all books on Cuba, the West Indies, and the
+Philippines have been in unprecedented demand, and dealers have raised
+the prices, which will again decline after the recent public interest in
+them has been supplanted by future events.
+
+There is a broad distinction to be drawn between books which are
+absolutely rare, and those which are only relatively scarce, or which
+become temporarily rare, as just explained. Thus, a large share of the
+books published in the infancy of printing are _rare_; nearly all which
+appeared in the quarter century after printing began are _very_ rare; and
+several among these last are _superlatively_ rare. I may instance the
+Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg and Schoeffer (1455?) of which only
+twenty-four copies are known, nearly all in public libraries, where they
+ought to be; the Mentz Psalter of the same printers, 1457, the first book
+ever printed with a date; and the first edition of Livy, Rome [1469] the
+only copy of which printed on vellum is in the British Museum Library.
+
+One reason of the scarcity of books emanating from the presses of the
+fifteenth century is that of many of them the editions consisted of only
+two hundred to three hundred copies, of which the large number absorbed
+in public libraries, or destroyed by use, fire or decay, left very few in
+the hands of booksellers or private persons. Still, it is a great mistake
+to infer that all books printed before A. D. 1500 are rare. The editions
+of many were large, especially after about 1480, many were reprinted in
+several editions, and of such incunabula copies can even now be picked up
+on the continent at very low prices.
+
+Contrary to a wide-spread belief, mere age adds very little to the value
+of any book, and oft-times nothing at all. All librarians are pestered
+to buy "hundred year old" treatises on theology or philosophy, as dry as
+the desert of Sahara, on the ground that they are both old and rare,
+whereas such books, two hundred and even three hundred years old, swarm
+in unsalable masses on the shelves of London and provincial booksellers
+at a few pence per volume. The reason that they are comparatively rare in
+this country is that nobody wants them, and so they do not get imported.
+
+A rare book is, strictly speaking, only one which is found with
+difficulty, taking into view all the principal book markets of various
+countries. Very few books printed since 1650 have any peculiar value on
+account of their age. Of many books, both old and new, the reason of
+scarcity is that only a few copies actually remain, outside of public
+libraries, and these last, of course, are not for sale. This scarcity of
+copies is produced by a great variety of causes, most of which are here
+noted.
+
+(1) The small number of the books originally printed leads to rarity.
+This is by no means peculiar to early impressions of the press: on the
+contrary, of some books printed only last year not one tenth as many
+exist as of a multitude of books printed four centuries ago. Not only
+privately printed books, not designed for publication, but some family or
+personal memoirs, or original works circulated only among friends, and
+many other publications belong to this class of rarities. The books
+printed at private presses are mostly rare. Horace Walpole's Strawberry
+Hill press produced some thirty works from 1757 to 1789, in editions
+varying from fifty to six hundred copies. The Lee Priory press of Sir E.
+Brydges printed many literary curiosities, none of which had more than
+one hundred impressions. Most of the editions of the Shakespearean and
+other critical essays of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps were limited to forty
+copies, or even less. The genealogical and heraldic imprints of Sir
+Thomas Phillipps, at the Middle Hill press, 1819-59, numbering some
+hundreds of different works, were mostly confined to twenty copies each,
+and some to only six copies. Some of them are as rare as many
+manuscripts, of which several copies have been made, and sell at prices
+dictated by their scarcity. Most of them are in the Library of Congress.
+The Kelmscott press of William Morris printed in sumptuous style,
+improved upon the finest models of antique typography, a number of
+literary works, which now bring enhanced prices. Of the many historical
+and literary publications of the Roxburghe Club, the Percy Society, the
+Maitland, the Abbotsford, and the Bannatyne Clubs abroad, only thirty to
+one hundred copies were printed. Of those of the Prince Society, the
+Grolier Club, and others in America, only from 150 to 300 copies were
+printed, being for subscribers only. Rarity and enhanced prices
+necessarily result in all these cases. Of some books, only five to ten
+copies have been printed, or else, out of fifty or more printed, all but
+a very few have been ruthlessly destroyed, in order to give a fanciful
+value to the remainder. In these extreme instances, the rarity commonly
+constitutes almost the sole value of the work.
+
+(2) Even where many copies have been printed, the destruction of the
+greater part of the edition has rendered the book very rare. Printing
+offices and book binderies are peculiarly subject to fires, and many
+editions have thus been consumed before more than a few copies have been
+issued. The great theological libraries edited by the Abbe J. P. Migne,
+the _Patrologie Grecque, et Latine_, owe their scarcity and advanced
+prices to a fire which consumed the entire remainder of the edition. All
+the copies of a large edition of "Twenty years among our savage Indians,"
+by J. L. Humfreville, were destroyed by fire in a Hartford printing
+office in 1899, except two, which had been deposited in the Library of
+Congress, to secure the copyright. The whole edition of the _Machina
+coelestis_ of Hevelius was burned, except the few copies which the author
+had presented to friends before the fire occurred. The earlier issues in
+Spanish of the Mexican and Peruvian presses prior to 1600 are exceedingly
+rare. And editions of books printed at places in the United States where
+no books are now published are sought for their imprint alone and seldom
+found.
+
+(3) Many books have become rare because proscribed and in part destroyed
+by governmental or ecclesiastical authority. This applies more especially
+to the ages that succeeded the application of printing to the art of
+multiplying books. The freedom of many writers upon politics and popular
+rights led to the suppression of their books by kings, emperors or
+parliaments. At the same time, books of church history or doctrinal
+theology which departed, in however slight a degree, from the standard of
+faith proclaimed by the church, were put in the Index Expurgatorius, or
+list of works condemned in whole or in part as heretical and unlawful to
+be read. A long and melancholy record of such proscriptions, civil and
+ecclesiastical, is found in Gabriel Peignot's two volumes--_Dictionnaire
+des livres condamnes au feu, supprimes, ou censures_, etc. Works of
+writers of genius and versatile ability were thus proscribed, until it
+gave rise to the sarcasm among the scholars of Europe, that if one wanted
+to find what were the books best worth reading, he should look in the
+Index Expurgatorius. It appears to have been quite forgotten by those in
+authority that persecution commonly helps the cause persecuted, and that
+the best way to promote the circulation of a book is to undertake to
+suppress it. This age finds itself endowed with so many heretics that it
+is no longer possible to find purchasers at high prices for books once
+deemed unholy. Suppressed passages in later editions lead to a demand for
+the uncastrated copies which adds an element of enhanced cost in the
+market.
+
+(4) Another source of rarity is the great extent and cost of many works,
+outrunning the ability of most collectors to buy or to accommodate them
+on their shelves. These costly possessions have been commonly printed in
+limited numbers for subscribers, or for distribution by governments under
+whose patronage they were produced. Such are some of the notable
+collections of early voyages, the great folios of many illustrated
+scientific works on natural history, local geography, etc. That great
+scholar, Baron von Humboldt, used jocosely to say that he could not
+afford to own a set of his own works, most of which are folios
+sumptuously printed, with finely engraved illustrations. The collection
+known as the "_Grands et petits Voyages_" of De Bry, the former in 13
+volumes, relating to America, and finely illustrated with copper-plates
+produced in the highest style of that art, are among the rarest sets of
+books to find complete. The collection of voyages by Hulsius is equally
+difficult to procure. A really perfect set of Piranesi's great
+illustrated work on the art and architecture of ancient Rome is very
+difficult to acquire. The _Acta Sanctorum_, in the original edition, is
+very seldom found. But there is no room to multiply examples.
+
+(5) What adds to the rarity and cost of certain books is the peculiarly
+expensive style or condition in which they are produced or preserved.
+Some few copies of an edition, for example, are printed on vellum, or on
+China or India or other choice paper, in colored ink or bronze, on
+colored paper, (rose-tinted, or green, blue or yellow,) on large paper,
+with broad margins, etc. Uncut copies always fetch a higher price than
+those whose edges are trimmed down in binding. To some book-collecting
+amateurs cut edges are an abomination. They will pay more for a book "in
+sheets," which they can bind after their own taste, than for the finest
+copy in calf or morocco with gilt edges. Some books, also, are
+exceptionally costly because bound in a style of superior elegance and
+beauty, or as having belonged to a crowned head or a noble person,
+("books with a pedigree") or an eminent author, or having autographs of
+notable characters on the fly-leaves or title-pages, or original letters
+inserted in the volume. Others still are "extra-illustrated" works, in
+which one volume is swelled to several by the insertion of a multitude of
+portraits, autographs, and engravings, more or less illustrative of the
+contents of the book. This is called "Grangerising," from its origin in
+the practice of thus illustrating Granger's Biographical History of
+England. Book amateurs of expensive tastes are by no means rare,
+especially in England, France, and America, and the great commercial
+value placed upon uncut and rarely beautiful books, on which the highest
+arts of the printer and book-binder have been lavished, evinces the fact.
+
+(6) The books emanating from the presses of famous printers are more
+sought for by collectors and libraries than other publications, because
+of their superior excellence. Sometimes this is found in the beauty of
+the type, or the clear and elegant press-work; sometimes in the printers'
+marks, monograms, engraved initial letters, head and tail-pieces, or
+other illustrations; and sometimes in the fine quality of the choice
+paper on which the books are printed. Thus, the productions of the
+presses of Aldus, Giunta, Bodoni, Etienne, Elzevir, Froben, Gutenberg,
+Fust and Schoeffer, Plantin, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Bulmer, Didot,
+Baskerville, Pickering, Whittingham, and others, are always in demand,
+and some of the choicer specimens of their art, if in fine condition,
+bring great prices in the second-hand book-shops, or the auction room. An
+example of Caxton's press is now almost unattainable, except in
+fragmentary copies. There are known to be only about 560 examples of
+Caxtons in the world, four-fifths of which are in England, and thirty-one
+of these are unique. His "King Arthur" (1485) brought L1950 at auction in
+1885, and the Polychronicon (1482) was sold at the Ives sale (N. Y.) in
+1891, for $1,500.
+
+(7) In the case of all finely illustrated works, the earlier impressions
+taken, both of text and plates, are more rare, and hence more valuable,
+than the bulk of the edition. Thus, copies with "proofs before letters"
+of the steel engravings or etchings, sometimes command more than double
+the price of copies having only the ordinary plates. Each added
+impression deteriorates a little the sharp, clear outlines and brilliant
+impressions which are peculiar to the first copies printed.
+
+(8) Of some books, certain volumes only are rare, and very costly in
+consequence. Thus, Burk's History of Virginia is common enough in three
+volumes, but volume 4 of the set, by Jones and Girardin, (1816,) is
+exceedingly rare, and seldom found with the others. The fifth and last
+volume of Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History is very scarce,
+while the others are readily procured. Of De Bry's Voyages, the 13th or
+final part of the American voyages is so rare as to be quite
+unattainable, unless after long years of search, and at an unconscionable
+price.
+
+(9) The condition of any book is an unfailing factor in its price. Many,
+if not most books offered by second-hand dealers are shop-worn, soiled,
+or with broken bindings, or some other defect. A pure, clean copy, in
+handsome condition without and within, commands invariably an extra
+price. Thus the noted Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, a huge portly folio,
+with 2,250 wood-cuts in the text, many of them by Albert Duerer or other
+early artists, is priced in London catalogues all the way from L7.15 up
+to L35, for identically the same edition. The difference is dependent
+wholly on the condition of the copies offered. Here is part of a
+description of the best copy: "Nuremberg Chronicle, by Schedel, printed
+by Koberger, first edition, 1493, royal folio, with fine original
+impressions of the 2,250 large wood-cuts of towns, historical events,
+portraits, etc., very tall copy, measuring 181/2 inches by 121/2, beautifully
+bound in morocco super extra, full gilt edges, by Riviere, L35. All the
+cuts are brilliant impressions, large and spirited. The book is genuine
+and perfect throughout; _no washed leaves_, and all the large capitals
+filled in by the rubricator by different colored inks: it has the six
+additional leaves at end, which Brunet says are nearly always wanting."
+
+(10) The first editions printed of many books always command high prices.
+Not only is this true of the _editio princeps_ of Homer, Virgil, Tacitus
+and other Greek and Roman writers, published in the infancy of printing,
+but of every noted author, of ancient or modern date. The edition printed
+during the life of the writer has had his own oversight and correction.
+And when more than one issue of his book has thus appeared, one sees how
+his maturer judgment has altered the substance or the style of his work.
+First editions of any very successful work always tend to become scarce,
+since the number printed is smaller, as a rule, and a large part of the
+issue is absorbed by public libraries. The earliest published writings of
+Tennyson, now found with difficulty, show how much of emendation and
+omission this great poet thought proper to make in his poems in after
+years. A first edition of Ivanhoe, 3 vols., 1820, brings L7 or more, in
+the original boards, but if rebound in any style, the first Waverley
+novels can be had at much less, though collectors are many.
+
+(11) Another class of rare books is found in many local histories, both
+among the county histories of Great Britain, and those of towns and
+counties in the United States. Jay Gould's History of Delaware County, N.
+Y., published in 1856, and sought after in later times because of his
+note as a financier, is seldom found. Of family genealogies, too, printed
+in small editions, there are many which cannot be had at all, and many
+more which have risen to double or even quadruple price. The market value
+of these books, always dependent on demand, is enhanced by the wants of
+public libraries which are making or completing collections of these much
+sought sources of information.
+
+(12) There is a class of books rarely found in any reputable book shop,
+and which ought to be much rarer than they are--namely, those that belong
+to the domain of indecent literature. Booksellers who deal in such wares
+often put them in catalogues under the head of _facetiae_, thus making a
+vile use of what should be characteristic only of books of wit or humor.
+Men of prurient tastes become collectors of such books, many of which are
+not without some literary merit, while many more are neither fit to be
+written, nor printed, nor read.
+
+(13) There is a large variety of books that are sought mainly on account,
+not of their authors, nor for their value as literature, but for their
+illustrators. Many eminent artists (in fact most of those of any period)
+have made designs for certain books of their day. The reputation of an
+artist sometimes rests more upon his work given to the public in
+engravings, etchings, wood-cuts, etc., that illustrate books, than upon
+his works on canvas or in marble. Many finely illustrated works bear
+prices enhanced by the eagerness of collectors, who are bent upon
+possessing the designs of some favorite artist, while some amateurs covet
+a collection of far wider scope. This demand, although fitful, and
+sometimes evanescent, (though more frequently recurrent,) lessens the
+supply of illustrated books, and with the constant drafts of new
+libraries, raises prices. Turner's exquisite pictures in Rogers's Italy
+and Poems (1830-34) have floated into fame books of verse which find very
+few readers. Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz") designed those immortal Wellers in
+Pickwick, which have delighted two whole generations of readers. The
+"Cruikshankiana" are sought with avidity, in whatever numerous volumes
+they adorn. Books illustrated with the designs of Bartolozzi, Marillier,
+Eisen, Gravelot, Moreau, Johannot, Grandville, Rowlandson, Bewick,
+William Blake, Stothard, Stanfield, Harvey, Martin, Cattermole, Birket
+Foster, Mulready, Tenniel, Maclise, Gilbert, Dalziel, Leighton, Holman
+Hunt, Doyle, Leech, Millais, Rossetti, Linton, Du Maurier, Sambourne,
+Caldecott, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Haden, Hamerton, Whistler, Dore,
+Anderson, Darley, Matt Morgan, Thos. Nast, Vedder, and others, are in
+constant demand, especially for the early impressions of books in which
+their designs appear.
+
+(14) Finally, that extensive class of books known as early _Americana_
+have been steadily growing rarer, and rising in commercial value, since
+about the middle of the nineteenth century. Books and pamphlets relating
+to any part of the American continent or islands, the first voyages,
+discoveries, narratives or histories of those regions, which were hardly
+noted or cared for a century ago, are now eagerly sought by collectors
+for libraries both public and private. In this field, the keen
+competition of American Historical Societies, and of several great
+libraries, besides the ever increasing number of private collectors with
+large means, has notably enhanced the prices of all desirable and rare
+books. Nor do the many reprints which have appeared much affect the
+market value of the originals, or first editions.
+
+This rise in prices, while far from uniform, and furnishing many examples
+of isolated extravagance, has been marked. Witness some examples. The
+"Bay Psalm Book," Cambridge, Mass., A. D. 1640, is the Caxton of New
+England, so rare that no perfect copy has been found for many years. In
+1855, Henry Stevens had the singular good fortune to find this
+typographical gem sandwiched in an odd bundle of old hymn books, unknown
+to the auctioneers or catalogue, at a London book sale. Keeping his own
+counsel, he bid off the lot at nine shillings, completed an imperfection
+in the book, from another imperfect copy, had it bound in Bedford's best,
+and sold it to Mr. Lenox's library at L80. In 1868, Stevens sold another
+copy to George Brinley for 150 guineas, which was bought for $1,200 in
+1878, by C. Vanderbilt, at the Brinley sale.
+
+John Smith's folio "Historie of Virginia," 1st ed., 1624, large paper,
+was sold to Brinley in 1874 at $1,275, and re-sold in 1878 for $1,800 to
+Mr. Lenox. In 1884 a copy on large paper brought L605 at the Hamilton
+Library sale in London. In 1899, a perfect copy of the large paper
+edition was presented to the Library of Congress by Gen. W. B. Franklin.
+Perfect copies of Smith's Virginia of 1624 on small paper have sold for
+$1,000, and those wanting some maps at $70 to $150.
+
+The earlier English tracts relating to Virginia and New England, printed
+between 1608 and 1700, command large prices: _e. g._, Lescarbot's New
+France, [Canada,] 1609, $50 to $150; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635,
+$50 to $320; Hubbard's Present State of New England, Boston, 1677, $180
+to $316.
+
+It is curious to note, in contrast, the following record of prices at the
+sale of Dr. Bernard's Library in London, in 1686:
+
+T. Morton's New England, 1615, eight pence; Lescarbot's New France, 1609,
+ten pence; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635, and three others, 5 s. 8
+d.; nine Eliot Tracts, &c., 5 s. 2 d.; Hubbard's Present State of New
+England, 1677, 1 s.; Smith's Historie of Virginia, 1624, 4 s. 2 d.
+
+The numerous and now rare works of Increase and Cotton Mather, printed
+from 1667 to 1728, though mostly sermons, are collected by a sufficient
+number of libraries to maintain prices at from $4 to $25 each, according
+to condition. They number over 470 volumes.
+
+Several collections have been attempted of Frankliniana, or works printed
+at Benjamin Franklin's press, and of the many editions of his writings,
+with all books concerning the illustrious printer-statesman of America.
+His "Poor Richard's Almanacs," printed by him from 1733 to 1758, and by
+successors to 1798, are so rare that Mr. P. L. Ford found a visit to
+three cities requisite to see all of them. The Library of Congress
+possesses thirty-five years of these issues.
+
+A word may be added as to early newspapers, of some special numbers of
+which prices that are literally "fabulous" are recorded. There are many
+reprints afloat of the first American newspaper, and most librarians have
+frequent offers of the Ulster County, (N. Y.) Gazette of Jan. 10, 1800,
+in mourning for the death of Washington, a genuine copy of which is worth
+money, but the many spurious reprints (which include all those offered)
+are worth nothing.
+
+Of many rare early books reprints or facsimiles are rife in the market,
+especially of those having but few leaves; these, however, are easily
+detected by an expert eye, and need deceive no one.
+
+Of some scarce books, it may be said that they are as rare as the
+individuals who want them: and of a very few, that they are as rare as
+the extinct dodo. In fact, volumes have been written concerning extinct
+books, not without interest to the bibliomaniac who is fired with the
+passion for possessing something which no one else has got. Some books
+are quite as worthless as they are rare. But books deemed worthless by
+the common or even by the enlightened mind are cherished as treasures by
+many collectors. The cook-book, entitled _Le Pastissier francois_, an
+Elzevir of 1655, is so rare as to have brought several times its weight
+in gold. Nearly all the copies of some books have been worn to rags by
+anglers, devout women, cooks, or children.
+
+When a book is sold at a great price as "very rare," it often happens
+that several copies come into the market soon after, and, there being no
+demand, the commercial value is correspondingly depressed. The books most
+sure of maintaining full prices are first editions of master-pieces in
+literature. Fitzgerald's version of Omar Khayyam was bought by nobody
+when Quaritch first published it in 1859. After eight years, he put the
+remainder of the edition,--a paper-covered volume--down to a penny each.
+When the book had grown into fame, and the many variations in later
+issues were discovered, this first edition, no longer procurable, rose to
+L21, the price actually paid by Mr. Quaritch himself at a book auction in
+1898!
+
+Auction sales of libraries having many rare books have been frequent in
+London and Paris. The largest price yet obtained for any library was
+reached in 1882-3, when that of Mr. Wm. Beckford brought L73,551, being
+an average of nearly $40 a volume. But W. C. Hazlitt says of this sale,
+"the Beckford books realized perfectly insane prices, and were afterwards
+re-sold for a sixth or even tenth of the amount, to the serious loss of
+somebody, when the barometer had fallen."
+
+The second-hand bookseller, having the whole range of printed literature
+for his field, has a great advantage in dealing with book collectors over
+the average dealer, who has to offer only new books, or such as are "in
+print."
+
+It may be owned that the love of rare books is chiefly sentimental. He
+who delights to spend his days or his nights in the contemplation of
+black-letter volumes, quaint title-pages, fine old bindings, and curious
+early illustrations, may not add to the knowledge or the happiness of
+mankind, but he makes sure of his own.
+
+The passion for rare books, merely because of their rarity, is a low
+order of the taste for books. But the desire to possess and read wise old
+books which have been touched by the hoar frost of time is of a higher
+mood. The first impression of Paradise Lost (1667) with its quarto page
+and antique orthography, is it not more redolent of the author's age than
+the elegant Pickering edition, or the one illustrated by John Martin or
+Gustave Dore? When you hold in your hand Shakespeare's "Midsommer Night's
+Dream" (A. D. 1600) and read with fresh admiration and delight the
+exquisite speeches of Oberon and Titania, may not the thought that
+perhaps that very copy may once have been held in the immortal bard's own
+hand send a thrill through your own?
+
+When you turn over the classic pages of Homer illustrated by Flaxman,
+that "dear sculptor of eternity," as William Blake called him, or drink
+in the beauty of those delicious landscapes of Turner, that astonishing
+man, who shall wonder at your desire to possess them?
+
+The genuine book lover is he who reads books; who values them for what
+they contain, not for their rarity, nor for the preposterous prices which
+have been paid for them. To him, book-hunting is an ever-enduring
+delight. Of all the pleasures tasted here below, that of the book lover
+in finding a precious and long sought volume is one of the purest and
+most innocent. In books, he becomes master of all the kingdoms of the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+To the book collector and the Librarian, books of bibliography are the
+tools of the profession. Without them he would be lost in a maze of
+literature without a clue. With them, his path is plain, and, in exact
+proportion to his acquaintance with them, will his knowledge and
+usefulness extend. Bibliography may be defined as the science which
+treats of books, of their authors, subjects, history, classification,
+cataloguing, typography, materials (including paper, printing and
+binding) dates, editions, etc. This compound word, derived from two Greek
+roots, _Biblion_, book, and _graphein_, to write, has many analogous
+words, some of which, ignorantly used to express a bibliographer, may be
+set down for distinction: as, for example--Bibliopole--a seller of books,
+often erroneously applied to a librarian, who buys but never sells:
+Bibliophile, a lover of books, a title which he should always exemplify:
+Bibliopegist, a book-binder: Bibliolater, a worshipper of books:
+Bibliophobe, a hater of books: Bibliotaph, a burier of books--one who
+hides or conceals them: Bibliomaniac, or bibliomane, one who has a mania
+or passion for collecting books. (Bibliomania, some one has said, is a
+disease: Bibliophily is a science: The first is a parody of the second.)
+Bibliophage, or bibliophagist, a book-eater, or devourer of books.
+Bibliognost, one versed in the science of books. Biblioklept, a book
+thief. (This, you perceive, is from the same Greek root as kleptomaniac.)
+Bibliogist, one learned about books, (the same nearly as bibliographer);
+and finally, Bibliothecary, a librarian.
+
+This brings me to say, in supplementing this elementary list (needless
+for some readers) that _Bibliotheca_ is Latin for a library;
+_Bibliotheque_ is French for the same; _Bibliothecaire_ is French for
+Librarian, while the French word _Libraire_ means book seller or
+publisher, though often mistaken by otherwise intelligent persons, for
+librarian, or library.
+
+The word "bibliotechny" is not found in any English dictionary known to
+me, although long in use in its equivalent forms in France and Germany.
+It means all that belongs to the knowledge of the book, to its handling,
+cataloguing, and its arrangement upon the shelves of a library. It is
+also applied to the science of the formation of libraries, and their
+complete organization. It is employed in the widest and most extended
+sense of what may be termed material or physical bibliography.
+Bibliotechny applies, that is to say, to the technics of the librarian's
+work--to the outside of the books rather than the inside--to the
+mechanics, not the metaphysics of the profession. The French word
+"_Bibliotheconomie_," much in use of late years, signifies much the same
+thing as _Bibliotechnie_, and we translate it, not into one word, but
+two, calling it "library economy." This word "economy" is not used in the
+most current sense--as significant of saving--but in the broad, modern
+sense of systematic order, or arrangement.
+
+There are two other words which have found their way into Murray's Oxford
+Dictionary, the most copious repository of English words, with
+illustrations of their origin and history, ever published, namely,
+Biblioclast--a destroyer of books (from the same final root as
+iconoclast) and Bibliogony, the production of books. I will add that out
+of the fifteen or more words cited as analogous to Bibliography, only
+three are found used earlier than the last quarter century, the first use
+of most having been this side of 1880. This is a striking instance of the
+phenomenal growth of new words in our already rich and flexible English
+tongue. Carlyle even has the word "Bibliopoesy," the making of
+books,--from _Biblion_, and _poiein_--to make.
+
+Public libraries are useful to readers in proportion to the extent and
+ready supply of the helps they furnish to facilitate researches of every
+kind. Among these helps a wisely selected collection of books of
+reference stands foremost. Considering the vast extent and opulence of
+the world of letters, and the want of experience of the majority of
+readers in exploring this almost boundless field, the importance of every
+key which can unlock its hidden stores becomes apparent. The printed
+catalogue of no single library is at all adequate to supply full
+references, even to its own stores of knowledge; while these catalogues
+are, of course, comparatively useless as to other stores of information,
+elsewhere existing. Even the completest and most extensive catalogue in
+the world, that of the British Museum Library, although now extended to
+more than 370 folio volumes in print, representing 3,000 volumes in
+manuscript, is not completed so as to embrace the entire contents of that
+rich repository of knowledge.
+
+From lack of information of the aid furnished by adequate books of
+reference in a special field, many a reader goes groping in pursuit of
+references or information which might be found in some one of the many
+volumes which may be designated as works of bibliography. The diffidence
+and reserve of many students in libraries, and the mistaken fear of
+giving trouble to librarians, frequently deprives them of even those aids
+which a few words of inquiry might bring forth from the ready knowledge
+of the custodians in charge.
+
+That is the best library, and he is the most useful librarian, by whose
+aid every reader is enabled to put his finger on the fact he wants, just
+when it is wanted. In attaining this end it is essential that the more
+recent, important, and valuable aids to research in general science, as
+well as in special departments of each, should form a part of the
+library. In order to make a fit selection of books (and all libraries are
+practically reduced to a selection, from want of means to possess the
+whole) it is indispensable to know the relative value of the books
+concerned. Many works of reference of great fame, and once of great
+value, have become almost obsolete, through the issue of more extensive
+and carefully edited works in the same field. While a great and
+comprehensive library should possess every work of reference, old or new,
+which has aided or may aid the researches of scholars, (not forgetting
+even the earlier editions of works often reprinted), the smaller
+libraries, on the other hand, are compelled to exercise a close economy
+of selection. The most valuable works of reference, among which the more
+copious and extensive bibliographies stand first, are frequently
+expensive treasures, and it is important to the librarian furnishing a
+limited and select library to know what books he can best afford to do
+without. If he cannot buy both the _Manuel du libraire_ by Brunet, in
+five volumes, and the _Tresor des livres rares et precieux_ of Graesse,
+seven volumes, both of which are dictionaries of the choicer portions of
+literature, it is important to know that Brunet is the more indispensable
+of the two. From the 20,000 reference books lying open to the
+consultation of all readers in the great rotunda of the British Museum
+reading room, to the small and select case of dictionaries, catalogues,
+cyclopaedias, and other works of reference in a town or subscription
+library, the interval is wide indeed. But where we cannot have all, it
+becomes the more important to have the best; and the reader who has at
+hand for ready reference the latest and most copious dictionary of each
+of the leading languages of the world, two or three of the best general
+bibliographies, the most copious catalogue raisonne of the literature in
+each great department of science, the best biographical dictionaries, and
+the latest and most copious encyclopaedias issued from the press, is
+tolerably well equipped for the prosecution of his researches.
+
+Next in importance to the possession in any library of a good selection
+of the most useful books of reference, is the convenient accessibility of
+these works to the reading public. Just in proportion to the
+indispensability and frequency of use of any work should be the facility
+to the reader of availing himself of its aid. The leading encyclopaedias,
+bibliographies, dictionaries, annuals, and other books of reference
+should never be locked up in cases, nor placed on high or remote shelves.
+There should be in every library what may be termed a central bureau of
+reference. Here should be assembled, whether on circular cases made to
+revolve on a pivot, or on a rectangular case, with volumes covering both
+sides, or in a central alcove forming a portion of the shelves of the
+main library, all those books of reference, and volumes incessantly
+needed by students in pursuit of their various inquiries. It is important
+that the custodians of all libraries should remember that this ready and
+convenient supply of the reference books most constantly wanted, serves
+the double object of economizing the time of the librarian and assistants
+for other labor, and of accommodating in the highest degree the readers,
+whose time is also economized. The misplacement of volumes which will
+thus occur is easily rectified, while the possibility of loss through
+abstraction is so extremely small that it should not be permitted to
+weigh for a moment in comparison with the great advantages resulting from
+the rule of liberality in aiding the wants of readers.
+
+Bibliography, in its most intimate sense, is the proper science of the
+librarian. To many it is a study--to some, it is a passion. While the
+best works in bibliography have not always been written by librarians,
+but by scholars enamored of the science of books, and devotees of
+learning, it is safe to say that the great catalogues which afford such
+inestimable aid to research, have nearly all been prepared in libraries,
+and not one of the books worthy of the name of bibliography, could have
+been written without their aid.
+
+In viewing the extensive field of bibliographies, regard for systematic
+treatment requires that they be divided into classes. Beginning first
+with general bibliographies, or those claiming to be universal, we should
+afterwards consider the numerous bibliographies of countries, or those
+devoted to national literature; following that by the still more numerous
+special bibliographies, or those embracing works on specially designated
+subjects. The two classes last named are by far the most numerous.
+
+Although what may be termed a "universal catalogue" has been the dream of
+scholars for many ages, it is as far as ever from being realized--and in
+fact much farther than ever before, since each year that is added to the
+long roll of the past increases enormously the number of books to be
+dealt with, and consequently the difficulties of the problem. We may set
+down the publication of a work which should contain the titles of all
+books ever printed, as a practical impossibility. The world's literature
+is too vast and complex to be completely catalogued, whether on the
+cooeperative plan, or any other. Meanwhile the many thousands of volumes,
+each of which has been devoted to some portion of the vast and
+ever-increasing stores of literature and science which human brains have
+put in print, will serve to aid the researches of the student, when
+rightly guided by an intelligent librarian.
+
+Notwithstanding the hopeless nature of the quest, it is true that some
+men of learning have essayed what have been termed universal
+bibliographies. The earliest attempt in this direction was published at
+Zuerich in 1545, under the title of "Bibliotheca Universalis," by Conrad
+Gesner, a Swiss scholar whose acquisition of knowledge was so extensive
+that he was styled "a miracle of learning." This great work gave the
+titles of all books of which its author could find trace, and was
+illustrated by a mass of bibliographical notes and criticism. It long
+held a high place in the world of letters, though it is now seldom
+referred to in the plethora of more modern works of bibliography. In
+1625, the bookseller B. Ostern put forth at Frankfort, his _Bibliotheque
+Universelle_, a catalogue of all books from 1500 to 1624. In 1742, Th.
+Georgi issued in eleven folio volumes, his _Allgemeines Europaeisches_
+_Buecher-lexikon_, claiming to represent the works of nearly all writers
+from 1500 down to 1739. This formidable catalogue may perhaps be said to
+embrace more forgotten books than any other in the literary history of
+the world.
+
+Almost equally formidable, however, is the bibliography of that erudite
+scholar, Christian G. Joecher, who put forth in 1750, at Leipzig, his
+_Allgemeines Gelehrten-lexicon_, in which, says the title page, "the
+learned men of all classes who have lived from the beginning of the world
+up to the present time, are described." This book, with its supplement,
+by Adelung and Rotermund, (completed only to letter R), makes ten
+ponderous quarto volumes, and may fairly be styled a thesaurus of the
+birth and death of ancient scholars and their works. It is still largely
+used in great libraries, to identify the period and the full names of
+many obscure writers of books, who are not commemorated in the catalogues
+of universal bibliography, compiled on a more restrictive plan.
+
+We come now to the notable catalogues of early-printed books, which aim
+to cover all the issues of the press from the first invention of
+printing, up to a certain period. One of the most carefully edited and
+most readily useful of these is Hain, (L.) _Repertorium Bibliographicum_,
+in four small and portable octavo volumes, published at Stuttgart in
+1826-38. This gives, in an alphabet of authors, all the publications
+found printed (with their variations and new editions), from A. D. 1450
+to A. D. 1500.
+
+More extensive is the great catalogue of G. W. Panzer, entitled _Annales
+Typographici_, in eleven quarto volumes, published at Nuremberg from 1793
+to 1803. This work, which covers the period from 1457 (the period of the
+first book ever printed with a date) up to A. D. 1536, is not arranged
+alphabetically (as in Hain's Repertorium) by the names of authors, but in
+the order of the cities or places where the books catalogued were
+printed. The bibliography thus brings together in one view, the
+typographical product of each city or town for about eighty years after
+the earliest dated issues of the press, arranged in chronological order
+of the years when printed. This system has undeniable advantages, but
+equally obvious defects, which are sought to be remedied by many copious
+indexes of authors and printers.
+
+Next in importance comes M. Maittaire's _Annales Typographici, ab artis
+inventae origine ad annum 1664_, printed at The Hague (Hagae Comitum) and
+completed at London, from 1722-89, in eleven volumes, quarto, often bound
+in five volumes. There is besides, devoted to the early printed
+literature of the world, the useful three volume bibliography by La Serna
+de Santander, published at Brussels in 1805, entitled _Dictionnaire
+bibliographique choisie du quinzieme siecle_, Bruxelles, 1803, embracing
+a selection of what its compiler deemed the more important books
+published from the beginning of printing up to A. D. 1500. All the four
+works last named contain the titles and descriptions of what are known as
+_incunabula_, or cradle-books (from Latin _cunabula_, a cradle) a term
+applied to all works produced in the infancy of printing, and most
+commonly to those appearing before 1500. These books are also sometimes
+called fifteeners, or 15th century books.
+
+Of general bibliographies of later date, only a few of the most useful
+and important can here be named. At the head of these stands, deservedly,
+the great work of J. C. Brunet, entitled _Manuel du Libraire et de
+l'amateur des livres_, the last or 5th edition of which appeared at Paris
+in 1860-64, in five thick octavo volumes. The first edition of Brunet
+appeared in 1810, and every issue since has exhibited not only an
+extensive enlargement, but great improvement in careful, critical
+editorship. It embraces most of the choicest books that have appeared in
+the principal languages of Europe, and a supplement in two volumes, by P.
+Deschamps and G. Brunet, appeared in 1878.
+
+Next to Brunet in importance to the librarian, is J. G. T. Graesse's
+_Tresor des Livres rares et precieux_, which is more full than Brunet in
+works in the Teutonic languages, and was published at Dresden in six
+quarto volumes, with a supplement, in 1861-69. Both of these
+bibliographies aim at a universal range, though they make a selection of
+the best authors and editions, ancient and modern, omitting however, the
+most recent writers. The arrangement of both is strictly alphabetical, or
+a dictionary of authors' names, while Brunet gives in a final volume a
+classification by subjects. Both catalogues are rendered additionally
+valuable by the citation of prices at which many of the works catalogued
+have been sold at book auctions in the present century.
+
+In 1857 was published at Paris a kind of universal bibliography, on the
+plan of a _catalogue raisonne_, or dictionary of subjects, by Messrs. F.
+Denis, Pincon, and De Martonne, two of whom were librarians by
+profession. This work of over 700 pages, though printed in almost
+microscopic type, and now about forty years in arrears, has much value as
+a ready key to the best books then known on nearly every subject in
+science and literature. It is arranged in a complete index of topics, the
+books under each being described in chronological order, instead of the
+alphabetical. The preponderance is given to the French in the works cited
+on most subjects, but the literature of other nations is by no means
+neglected. It is entitled _Nouveau Manuel de Bibliographie universelle_,
+and being a subjective index, while Brunet and Graesse are arranged by
+authors' names, it may be used to advantage in connection with these
+standard bibliographies.
+
+While on this subject, let me name the books specially devoted to lists
+of bibliographical works--general and special. These may be termed the
+catalogues of catalogues,--and are highly useful aids, indeed
+indispensable to the librarian, who seeks to know what lists of books
+have appeared that are devoted to the titles of publications covering any
+period, or country, or special subject in the whole circle of sciences or
+literatures. The first notably important book of reference in this field,
+was the work of that most industrious bibliographer, Gabriel Peignot, who
+published at Paris, in 1812, his _Repertoire bibliographique
+universelle_, in one volume. This work contains the titles of most
+special bibliographies, of whatever subject or country, published up to
+1812, and of many works bibliographical in character, devoted to literary
+history.
+
+Dr. Julius Petzholdt, one of the most learned and laborious of
+librarians, issued at Leipzig in 1866, a _Bibliotheca bibliographica_,
+the fuller title of which was "a critical catalogue, exhibiting in
+systematic order, the entire field of bibliography covering the
+literature of Germany and other countries." The rather ambitious promise
+of this title is well redeemed in the contents: for very few catalogues
+of importance issued before 1866, are omitted in this elaborate book of
+931 closely printed pages. Most titles of the bibliographies given are
+followed by critical and explanatory notes, of much value to the
+unskilled reader. These notes are in German, while all the titles cited
+are in the language of the books themselves. After giving full titles of
+all the books in general bibliography, he takes up the national
+bibliographies by countries, citing both systematic catalogues and
+periodicals devoted to the literature of each in any period. This is
+followed by a distributive list of scientific bibliographies, so full as
+to leave little to be desired, except for later issues of the press. One
+of the curiosities of this work is its catalogue of all the issues of the
+"Index Librorum Prohibitorum", or books forbidden to be read, including
+185 separate catalogues, from A. D. 1510 to A. D. 1862.
+
+The next bibliographical work claiming to cover this field was in the
+French language, being the _Bibliographie des bibliographies_ of Leon
+Vallee, published in 1883 at Paris. This book, though beautifully
+printed, is so full of errors, and still fuller of omissions, that it is
+regarded by competent scholars as a failure, though still having its uses
+to the librarian. It is amazing that any writer should put forth a book
+seventeen years after the great and successful work of Petzholdt,
+purporting to be a catalogue of bibliographies, and yet fail to record
+such a multitude of printed contributions to the science of sciences as
+Vallee has overlooked.
+
+Some ten years later, or in 1897, there came from the French press, a far
+better bibliographical work, covering the modern issues of books of
+bibliography more especially, with greater fullness and superior plan.
+This is the _Manuel de Bibliographie generale_, by Henri Stein. This work
+contains, in 915 well-printed pages, 1st. a list of universal
+bibliographies: 2d. a catalogue of national bibliographies, in
+alphabetical order of countries: 3d. a list of classified bibliographies
+of subjects, divided into seventeen classes, namely, religious sciences,
+philosophical sciences, juridical, economic, social, and educational
+sciences, pure and applied sciences, medical sciences, philology and
+belles lettres, geographical and historical sciences, sciences auxiliary
+to history, archaeology and fine arts, music, and biography. Besides
+these extremely useful categories of bibliographical aids, in which the
+freshest publications of catalogues and lists of books in each field are
+set forth, M. Stein gives us a complete geographical bibliography of
+printing, on a new plan. This he entitles "_Geographie bibliographique_,"
+or systematic lists of localities in every part of the world which
+possessed a printing press prior to the 19th century. It gives, after the
+modern or current name of each place, the Latin, or ancient name, the
+country in which located, the year in which the first printed publication
+appeared in each place, and finally, the authority for the statement.
+This handy-list of information alone, is worth the cost of the work,
+since it will save much time of the inquirer, in hunting over many
+volumes of Panzer, Maittaire, Hain, Dibdin, Thomas, or other authors on
+printing, to find the origin of the art, or early name of the place where
+it was introduced. The work contains, in addition, a general table of the
+periodicals of all countries, (of course not exhaustive) divided into
+classes, and filling seventy-five pages. It closes with a "repertory of
+the principal libraries of the entire world," and with an index to the
+whole work, in which the early names in Latin, of all places where books
+were printed, are interspersed in the alphabet, distinguished by italic
+type, and with the modern name of each town or city affixed. This
+admirable feature will render unnecessary any reference to the _Orbis
+Latinus_ of Graesse, or to any other vocabulary of geography, to identify
+the place in which early-printed books appeared. Stein is by no means
+free from errors, and some surprising omissions. One cardinal defect is
+the absence of any full index of authors whose books are cited.
+
+There are also quite brief catalogues of works on bibliography in J.
+Power's Handy Book about Books, London, 1870, and in J. Sabin's
+Bibliography: a handy book about books which relate to books, N. Y.,
+1877. The latter work is an expansion of the first-named.
+
+We come now to the second class of our bibliographies, _viz._: those of
+various countries. Here the reader must be on his guard not to be misled
+into too general an interpretation of geographical terms. Thus, he will
+find many books and pamphlets ambitiously styled "_Catalogue
+Americaine_", which are so far from being general bibliographies of books
+relating to America, that they are merely lists of a few books for sale
+by some book-dealer, which have something American in their subject. To
+know what catalogues are comprehensive, and what period they cover, as
+well as the limitations of nearly all of them, is a necessary part of the
+training of a bibliographer, and is essential to the librarian who would
+economize his time and enlarge his usefulness.
+
+Let us begin with our own country. Here we are met at the outset by the
+great paucity of general catalogues of American literature, and the utter
+impossibility of finding any really comprehensive lists of the books
+published in the United States, during certain periods. We can get along
+tolerably well for the publications within the last thirty years, which
+nearly represent the time since systematic weekly bibliographical
+journals have been published, containing lists of the current issues of
+books. But for the period just before the Civil War, back to the year
+1775, or for very nearly a century, we are without any systematic
+bibliography of the product of the American press. The fragmentary
+attempts which have been made toward supplying an account of what books
+have been published in the United States from the beginning, will
+hereafter be briefly noted. At the outset, you are to observe the wide
+distinction that exists between books treating of America, or any part of
+it, and books printed in America. The former may have been printed
+anywhere, at any time since 1492, and in any language: and to such books,
+the broad significant term "_Americana_" may properly be applied, as
+implying books relating to America. But this class of works is wholly
+different from that of books written or produced by Americans, or printed
+in America. It is these latter that we mean when we lament the want of a
+comprehensive American catalogue. There have been published in the United
+States alone (to go no farther into America at present) thousands of
+books, whose titles are not found anywhere, except widely scattered in
+the catalogues of libraries, public and private, in which they exist.
+Nay, there are multitudes of publications which have been issued in this
+country during the last two hundred years, whose titles cannot be found
+anywhere in print. This is not, generally, because the books have
+perished utterly,--though this is unquestionably true of some, but
+because multitudes of books that have appeared, and do appear, wholly
+escape the eye of the literary, or critical, or bibliographical
+chronicler. It is, beyond doubt true even now, that what are commonly
+accepted as complete catalogues of the issues of the press of any year,
+are wofully incomplete, and that too, through no fault of their
+compilers. Many works are printed in obscure towns, or in newspaper
+offices, which never reach the great eastern cities, where our principal
+bibliographies, both periodical and permanent, are prepared. Many books,
+too, are "privately printed," to gratify the pride or the taste of their
+authors, and a few copies distributed to friends, or sometimes to
+selected libraries, or public men. In these cases, not only are the
+public chroniclers of new issues of the press in ignorance of the
+printing of many books, but they are purposely kept in ignorance. Charles
+Lamb, of humorous and perhaps immortal memory, used to complain of the
+multitudes of books which are no books; and we of to-day may complain, if
+we choose, of the vast number of publications that are not published.
+
+Take a single example of the failure of even large and imposing volumes
+to be included in the "American Catalogue," for whose aid, librarians are
+so immeasurably indebted to the enterprise of its publishers. A single
+publishing house west of New York, printed and circulated in about four
+years time, no less than thirty-two elaborate and costly histories, of
+western counties and towns, not one of which was ever recorded by title
+in our only comprehensive American bibliography. Why was this? Simply
+because the works referred to were published only as subscription books,
+circulated by agents, carefully kept out of booksellers' hands, and never
+sent to the Eastern press for notice or review. When circumstances like
+these exist as to even very recent American publications (and they are
+continually happening) is it any wonder that our bibliographies are
+incomplete?
+
+Perhaps some will suggest that there must be one record of American
+publications which is complete, namely, the office of Copyright at
+Washington. It is true that the titles of all copyright publications are
+required by law to be there registered, and copies deposited as soon as
+printed. It is also true that a weekly catalogue of all books and other
+copyright publications is printed, and distributed by the Treasury, to
+all our custom-houses, to intercept piratical re-prints which might be
+imported. But the books just referred to were not entered for copyright
+at all, the publishers apparently preferring the risk of any rival's
+reprinting them, rather than to incur the cost of the small copyright
+fee, and the deposit of copies. In such cases, there is no law requiring
+publishers to furnish copies of their books. The government guarantees no
+monopoly of publication, and so cannot exact a _quid pro quo._, however
+much it might inure to the interest of publisher and author to have the
+work seen and noticed, and preserved beyond risk of perishing (unless
+printed on wood-pulp paper) in the Library of the United States.
+
+If such extensive omissions of the titles of books sometimes important,
+can now continually occur in our accepted standards of national
+bibliography, what shall we say of times when we had no critical
+journals, no publishers' trade organs, and no weekly, nor annual, nor
+quinquennial catalogues of American books issued? Must we not allow, in
+the absence of any catalogues worthy of the name, to represent such
+periods, that all our reference books are from the very necessity of the
+case deplorably incomplete? Only by the most devoted, indefatigable and
+unrewarded industry have we got such aids to research as to the existence
+of American publications, as Haven's Catalogue of American publications
+prior to 1776, Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, and the American Catalogues
+of Leypoldt, Bowker, and their coadjutors.
+
+These illustrations are cited to guard against the too common error of
+supposing that we have in the numerous American catalogues that exist,
+even putting them all together, any full bibliography of the titles of
+American books. While it cannot be said that the _lacunae_ or omissions
+approach the actual entries in number, it must be allowed that books are
+turning up every day, both new and old, whose titles are not found in any
+catalogue. The most important books--those which deserve a name as
+literature, are found recorded somewhere--although even as to many of
+these, one has to search many alphabets, in a large number of volumes,
+before tracing them, or some editions of them.
+
+One principal source of the great number of titles of books found
+wanting in American catalogues, is that many books were printed at places
+remote from the great cities, and were never announced in the columns of
+the press at all. This is especially true as to books printed toward the
+close of the 18th century, and during the first quarter of the 19th. Not
+only have we no bibliography whatever of American issues of the press,
+specially devoted to covering the long period between 1775 and 1820, but
+multitudes of books printed during that neglected half-century, have
+failed to get into the printed catalogues of our libraries. As
+illustrations we might give a long catalogue of places where
+book-publication was long carried on, and many books of more or less
+importance printed or reprinted, but in which towns not a book has been
+produced for more than three-quarters of a century past. One of these
+towns was Winchester, and another Williamsburg, in Virginia; another was
+Exeter, New Hampshire, and a fourth was Carlisle, Pa. In the last-named
+place, one Archibald Loudon printed many books, between A. D. 1798, and
+1813, which have nearly all escaped the chroniclers of American
+book-titles. Notable among the productions of his press, was his own
+book, A History of Indian Wars, or as he styled it in the title page, "A
+selection of some of the most interesting narratives of outrages
+committed by the Indians in their wars with the white people." This
+history appeared in two volumes from the press of A. Loudon, Carlisle,
+Pa., in 1808 and 1811. It is so rare that I have failed to find its title
+anywhere except in Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, Field's Indian
+Bibliography, and the Catalogue of the Library of Congress. Not even the
+British Museum Library, so rich in Americana, has a copy. Sabin states
+that only six copies are known, and Field styles it, "this rarest of
+books on America," adding that he could learn of only three perfect
+copies in the world. A Harrisburg reprint of 1888 (100 copies to
+subscribers) is also quite rare.
+
+Continuing the subject of American bibliography, and still lamenting the
+want of any comprehensive or finished work in that field which is worthy
+of the name, let us see what catalogues do exist, even approximating
+completeness for any period. The earlier years of the production of
+American books have been partially covered by the "Catalogue of
+publications in what is now the United States, prior to 1776." This list
+was compiled by an indefatigable librarian, the late Samuel F. Haven, who
+was at the head of the Library of the American Antiquarian Society, at
+Worcester, Mass. It gives all titles by sequence of years of publication,
+instead of alphabetical order, from 1639 (the epoch of the earliest
+printing in the United States) to the end of 1775. The titles of books
+and pamphlets are described with provoking brevity, being generally
+limited to a single line for each, and usually without publishers' names,
+(though the places of publication and sometimes the number of pages are
+given) so that it leaves much to be desired. Notwithstanding this, Mr.
+Haven's catalogue is an invaluable aid to the searcher after titles of
+the early printed literature of our country. It appeared at Albany, N.
+Y., in 1874, as an appendix [in Vol 2] to a new (or second) edition of
+Isaiah Thomas's History of Printing in America, which was first published
+in 1810. In using it, the librarian will find no difficulty, if he knows
+the year when the publication he looks for appeared, as all books of each
+year are arranged in alphabetical order. But if he knows only the
+author's name, he may have a long search to trace the title, there being
+no general alphabet or index of authors. This chronological arrangement
+has certain advantages to the literary inquirer or historian, while for
+ready reference, its disadvantages are obvious.
+
+While there were several earlier undertakings of an American bibliography
+than Haven's catalogue of publications before the American revolution,
+yet the long period which that list covers, and its importance, entitled
+it to first mention here. There had, however, appeared, as early as the
+year 1804, in Boston, "A Catalogue of all books, printed in the United
+States, with the prices, and places where published, annexed." This large
+promise is hardly redeemed by the contents of this thin pamphlet of 91
+pages, all told. Yet the editor goes on to assure us--
+
+     "This Catalogue is intended to include all books of general sale
+     printed in the United States, whether original, or reprinted;
+     that the public may see the rapid progress of book-printing in a
+     country, where, twenty years since, scarcely a book was
+     published. Local and occasional tracts are generally omitted.
+     Some of the books in the Catalogue are now out of print, and
+     others are scarce. It is contemplated to publish a new edition of
+     this Catalogue, every two years, and to make the necessary
+     additions and corrections; and it is hoped the time is not far
+     distant, when useful Libraries may be formed of American editions
+     of Books, well printed, and handsomely bound.
+
+     Printed at Boston, for the Book sellers, Jan., 1804."
+
+The really remarkable thing about this catalogue is that it was the very
+first bibliographical attempt at a general catalogue, in separate form,
+in America. It is quite interesting as an early booksellers' list of
+American publications, as well as for its classification, which is as
+follows: "Law, Physic, Divinity, Bibles, Miscellanies, School Books,
+Singing Books, Omissions."
+
+The fact that no subsequent issues of the catalogue appeared, evinces the
+very small interest taken in bibliographic knowledge in those early days.
+
+This curiosity of early American bibliography gives the titles of 1338
+books, all of American publication, with prices in 1804. Here are
+samples: Bingham's Columbian Orator, 75 cts.: Burney's Cecilia, 3 vols.
+$3: Memoirs of Pious Women, $1.12: Belknap's New Hampshire, 3 vols. $5:
+Mrs. Coghlan's Memoirs, 621/2 cts.: Brockden Brown's Wieland, $1:
+Federalist, 2 vols. $4.50: Dilworth's Spelling Book, 121/2 cts.: Pike's
+Arithmetic, $2.25.
+
+The number of out-of-the-way places in which books were published in
+those days is remarkable. Thus, in Connecticut, we have as issuing books,
+Litchfield, New London and Fairhaven: in Massachusetts, Leominster,
+Dedham, Greenfield, Brookfield, and Wrentham: in New Hampshire, Dover,
+Walpole, Portsmouth, and Exeter: in Pennsylvania, Washington, Carlisle,
+and Chambersburg: in New Jersey, Morristown, Elizabethtown, and
+Burlington. At Alexandria, Va., eight books are recorded as published.
+
+This historical nugget of the Boston bookmongers of a century ago is so
+rare, that only two copies are known in public libraries, namely, in the
+Library of Congress, and in that of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
+It was reprinted in 1898, for the Dibdin Club of New York, by Mr. A.
+Growoll, of the Publishers' Weekly, to whose curious and valuable notes
+on "Booktrade Bibliography in the United States in the 19th century," it
+forms a supplement.
+
+The next catalogue of note claiming to be an American catalogue, or of
+books published in America, was put forth in 1847, at Claremont, N. H.,
+by Alexander V. Blake. This was entitled, "The American Bookseller's
+complete reference trade-list, and alphabetical catalogue of books,
+published in this country, with the publishers' and authors' names, and
+prices." This quarto volume, making 351 pages (with its supplement issued
+in 1848) was the precursor of the now current "Trade List Annual,"
+containing the lists of books published by all publishers whose lists
+could be secured. The titles are very brief, and are arranged in the
+catalogue under the names of the respective publishers, with an
+alphabetical index of authors and of anonymous titles at the end. It
+served well its purpose of a book-trade catalogue fifty years ago, being
+the pioneer in that important field. It is now, like the catalogue of
+1804, just noticed, chiefly interesting as a bibliographical curiosity,
+although both lists do contain the titles of some books not elsewhere
+found.
+
+Mr. Orville A. Roorbach, a New York bookseller, was the next compiler of
+an American bibliography. His first issue of 1849 was enlarged and
+published in 1852, under this title: "Bibliotheca Americana: a catalogue
+of American publications, including reprints and original works, from
+1820 to 1852, inclusive." This octavo volume of 663 pages, in large,
+clear type, closely abbreviates nearly all titles, though giving in one
+comprehensive alphabet, the authors' names, and the titles of the books
+under the first word, with year and place of publication, publisher's
+name, and price at which issued. No collation of the books is given, but
+the catalogue supplies sufficient portions of each title to identify the
+book. It is followed in an appendix by a catalogue of law books, in a
+separate alphabet, and a list of periodicals published in the United
+States in 1852.
+
+Roorbach continued his catalogue to the year 1861, by the issue of three
+successive supplements: (1) covering the American publications of 1853 to
+1855: (2) from 1855 to 1858: (3) from 1858 to 1861. These four
+catalogues, aiming to cover, in four different alphabets, the issues of
+the American press for forty years, or from 1820 to 1861, are extremely
+useful lists to the librarian, as finding lists, although the rigorously
+abbreviated titles leave very much to be desired by the bibliographer,
+and the omissions are exceedingly numerous of books published within the
+years named, but whose titles escaped the compiler.
+
+Following close upon Roorbach's Bibliotheca Americana in chronological
+order, we have next two bibliographies covering American book issues
+from 1861 to 1871. These were compiled by a New York book dealer named
+James Kelly, and were entitled The American Catalogue of Books, (original
+and reprint) published in the United States from Jan., 1861, to Jan.,
+1866, [and from Jan., 1866, to Jan., 1871] with date of publication,
+size, price, and publisher's name. The first volume contained a
+supplement, with list of pamphlets on the civil war, and also a list of
+the publications of learned societies. These very useful and important
+catalogues cover ten years of American publishing activity, adding also
+to their own period many titles omitted by Roorbach in earlier years.
+Kelly's catalogues number 307 and 444 pages respectively, and, like
+Roorbach's, they give both author and title in a single alphabet. Names
+of publishers are given, with place and year of publication, and retail
+price, but without number of pages, and with no alphabet of subjects.
+
+Next after Kelly's catalogue came the first issue of the "American
+Catalogue," which, with its successive volumes (all published in quarto
+form) ably represents the bibliography of our country during the past
+twenty-five years. The title of the first volume, issued in 1880, reads
+"American Catalogue of books in print and for sale (including reprints
+and importations) July 1, 1876. Compiled under direction of F. Leypoldt,
+by L. E. Jones." This copious repository of book-titles was in two parts:
+(1) Authors, and (2) Subject-index. Both are of course in alphabetical
+order, and the titles of books are given with considerable abbreviation.
+The fact that its plan includes many titles of books imported from Great
+Britain, (as supplying information to book-dealers and book-buyers)
+prevents it from being considered as a bibliography of strictly American
+publications. Still, it is the only approximately full American
+bibliography of the publications current twenty-five years ago. As such,
+its volumes are indispensable in every library, and should be in its
+earliest purchase of works of reference. The limitation of the catalogue
+to books still in print--_i. e._, to be had of the publishers at the time
+of its issue, of course precludes it from being ranked as a universal
+American bibliography.
+
+The first issue in 1880 was followed, in 1885, by the "American
+Catalogue, 1876-1884: books recorded (including reprints and
+importations), under editorial direction of R. R. Bowker, by Miss A. I.
+Appleton." This appeared in one volume, but with two alphabets; one being
+authors and titles, and the other an alphabet of subjects. As this volume
+included eight years issues of the American press, the next bibliography
+published covered the next ensuing six years, and included the books
+recorded from July, 1884 to July, 1890. This appeared in 1891, edited
+with care by Miss Appleton and others.
+
+In 1896 appeared its successor, the "American Catalogue, 1890-95.
+Compiled under the editorial direction of R. R. Bowker." This catalogue
+records in its first volume, or alphabet of authors: (1) author; (2) size
+of book; (3) year of issue; (4) price; (5) publisher's name. The names of
+places where published are not given with the title, being rendered
+unnecessary by the full alphabetical list of publishers which precedes,
+and fixes the city or town where each published his books. This same
+usage is followed in succeeding issues of the American Catalogue.
+
+This indispensable bibliography of recent American books, in addition to
+its regular alphabets of authors and titles (the latter under first words
+and in the same alphabet with the authors) and the succeeding alphabet of
+subjects, prints a full list of the publications of the United States
+government, arranged by departments and bureaus; also a list of the
+publications of State governments, of Societies, and of books published
+in series.
+
+This last issue has 939 pages. Its only defects (aside from its
+inevitable omissions of many unrecorded books) are the double alphabet,
+and the want of collation, or an indication of the number of pages in
+each work, which should follow every title. Its cost in bound form is
+$15, at which the two preceding American catalogues 1876-84, and 1884 to
+1890 can also be had, while the catalogue of books in print in 1876,
+published in 1880, is quite out of print, though a copy turns up
+occasionally from some book-dealer's stock.
+
+The American Catalogue has now become a quinquennial issue, gathering the
+publications of five years into one alphabet; and it is supplemented at
+the end of every year by the "Annual American Catalogue," started in
+1886, which gives, in about 400 pages, in its first alphabet, collations
+of the books of the year (a most important feature, unfortunately absent
+from the quinquennial American Catalogue.) Its second alphabet gives
+authors, titles, and sometimes subject-matters, but without the
+distribution into subject-divisions found in the quinquennial catalogue;
+and the titles are greatly abridged from the full record of its first
+alphabet. Its price is $3.50 each year.
+
+And this annual, in turn, is made up from the catalogues of titles of all
+publications, which appear in the _Publishers' Weekly_, the carefully
+edited organ of the book publishing interests in the United States. This
+periodical, which will be found a prime necessity in every library,
+originated in New York, in 1855, as the "American Publishers' Circular,"
+and has developed into the recognized authority in American publications,
+under the able management of R. R. Bowker and A. Growoll. For three
+dollars a year, it supplies weekly and monthly alphabetical lists of
+whatever comes from the press, in book form, as completely as the titles
+can be gathered from every source. It gives valuable notes after most
+titles, defining the scope and idea of the work, with collations,
+features which are copied into the Annual American Catalogue.
+
+I must not omit to mention among American bibliographies, although
+published in London, and edited by a foreigner, Mr. N. Truebner's
+"Bibliographical Guide to American literature: a classed list of books
+published in the United States during the last forty years." This book
+appeared in 1859, and is a carefully edited bibliography, arranged
+systematically in thirty-two divisions of subjects, filling 714 pages
+octavo. It gives under each topic, an alphabet of authors, followed by
+titles of the works, given with approximate fullness, followed by place
+and year of publication, but without publishers' names. The number of
+pages is also given where ascertained, and the price of the work quoted
+in sterling English money. This work, by a competent German-English
+book-publisher of London, is preceded by a brief history of American
+literature, and closes with a full index of authors whose works are
+catalogued in it.
+
+We come now to by far the most comprehensive and ambitious attempt to
+cover not only the wide field of American publications, but the still
+more extensive field of books relating to America, which has ever yet
+been made. I refer to the "Bibliotheca Americana; a dictionary of books
+relating to America," by Joseph Sabin, begun more than thirty years ago,
+in 1868, and still unfinished, its indefatigable compiler having died in
+1881, at the age of sixty. This vast bibliographical undertaking was
+originated by a variously-gifted and most energetic man, not a scholar,
+but a bookseller and auctioneer, born in England. Mr. Sabin is said to
+have compiled more catalogues of private libraries that have been
+brought to the auctioneer's hammer, than any man who ever lived in
+America. He bought and sold, during nearly twenty years, old and rare
+books, in a shop in Nassau street, New York, which was the resort of book
+collectors and bibliophiles without number. He made a specialty of
+Americana, and of early printed books in English literature, crossing the
+Atlantic twenty-five times to gather fresh stores with which to feed his
+hungry American customers. During all these years, he worked steadily at
+his _magnum opus_, the bibliography of America, carrying with him in his
+many journeys and voyages, in cars or on ocean steamships, copy and
+proofs of some part of the work. There have been completed about ninety
+parts, or eighteen thick volumes of nearly 600 pages each; and since his
+death the catalogue has been brought down to the letter S, mainly by Mr.
+Wilberforce Eames, librarian of the Lenox Library, New York. Though its
+ultimate completion must be regarded as uncertain, the great value to all
+librarians, and students of American bibliography or history, of the work
+so far as issued, can hardly be over-estimated. Mr. Sabin had the benefit
+in revising the proofs of most of the work, of the critical knowledge and
+large experience of Mr. Charles A. Cutter, the librarian of the Boston
+Athenaeum Library, whose catalogue of the books in that institution, in
+five goodly volumes, is a monument of bibliographical learning and
+industry. Sabin's Dictionary is well printed, in large, clear type, the
+titles being frequently annotated, and prices at auction sales of the
+rarer and earlier books noted. Every known edition of each work is given,
+and the initials of public libraries in the United States, to the number
+of thirteen, in which the more important works are found, are appended.
+In not a few cases, where no copy was known to the compiler in a public
+collection, but was found in a private library, the initials of its owner
+were given instead.
+
+This extensive bibliography was published solely by subscription, only
+635 copies being printed at $2.50 a part, so that its cost to those
+subscribing was about $225 unbound, up to the time of its suspension. The
+first part appeared January 1, 1867, although Vol. I. bears date New
+York, 1868. It records most important titles in full, with (usually)
+marks denoting omissions where such are made. In the case of many rare
+books relating to America (and especially those published prior to the
+18th century) the collations are printed so as to show what each line of
+the original title embraces, _i. e._ with vertical marks or dashes
+between the matter of the respective lines. This careful description is
+invaluable to the bibliographical student, frequently enabling him to
+identify editions, or to solve doubts as to the genuineness of a
+book-title in hand. The collation by number of pages is given in all
+cases where the book has been seen, or reported fully to the editor. The
+order of description as to each title is as follows: (1) Place of
+publication (2) publisher (3) year (4) collation and size of book. Notes
+in a smaller type frequently convey information of other editions, of
+prices in various sales, of minor works by the same writer, etc.
+
+The fullness which has been aimed at in Sabin's American bibliography is
+seen in the great number of sermons and other specimens of pamphlet
+literature which it chronicles. It gives also the titles of most early
+American magazines, reviews, and other periodicals, except newspapers,
+which are generally omitted, as are maps also. As an example of the often
+minute cataloguing of the work, I may mention that no less than eight
+pages are occupied with a list of the various publications and editions
+of books by Dr. Jedediah Morse, an author of whom few of the present
+generation of Americans have ever heard. He was the earliest American
+geographer who published any comprehensive books upon the subject, and
+his numerous Gazetteers and Geographies, published from 1784 to 1826,
+were constantly reprinted, until supplanted by more full, if not more
+accurate works.
+
+Upon the whole, Sabin's great work, although so far from being finished,
+is invaluable as containing immeasurably more and fuller titles than any
+other American bibliography. It is also the only extensive work on the
+subject which covers all periods, although the books of the last thirty
+years must chiefly be excepted as not represented. As a work of
+reference, while its cost and scarcity may prevent the smaller public
+libraries from possessing it, it is always accessible in the libraries of
+the larger cities, where it is among the foremost works to be consulted
+in any research involving American publications, or books of any period
+or country relating to America, or its numerous sub-divisions.
+
+I may now mention, much more cursorily, some other bibliographies
+pertaining to our country. The late Henry Stevens, who died in 1886,
+compiled a "Catalogue of the American Books in the Library of the British
+Museum." This was printed by the Museum authorities in 1856, and fills
+754 octavo pages. Its editor was a highly accomplished bibliographer and
+book-merchant, born in Vermont, but during the last forty years of his
+life resided in London, where he devoted himself to his profession with
+great learning and assiduity. He published many catalogues of various
+stocks of books collected by him, under such titles as "Bibliotheca
+historica," "Bibliotheca Americana," etc., in which the books were
+carefully described, often with notes illustrating their history or their
+value. He became an authority upon rare books and early editions, and
+made a valuable catalogue of the Bibles in the Caxton exhibition at
+London, in 1877, with bibliographical commentary. He was for years chief
+purveyor of the British Museum Library for its American book purchases,
+and aided the late James Lenox in building up that rich collection of
+Americana and editions of the Scriptures which is now a part of the New
+York Public Library. His catalogue of the American books in the British
+Museum, though now over forty years old, and supplanted by the full
+alphabetical catalogue of that entire library since published, is a
+valuable contribution to American bibliography.
+
+Mr. Stevens was one of the most acute and learned bibliographers I have
+known. He was a man of marked individuality and independent views; with a
+spice of eccentricity and humor, which crept into all his catalogues, and
+made his notes highly entertaining reading. Besides his services to the
+British Museum Library, in building up its noble collection of Americana,
+and in whose rooms he labored for many years, with the aid of Panizzi and
+his successors, whom he aided in return, Stevens collected multitudes of
+the books which now form the choice treasures of the Lenox library, the
+Carter Brown library, at Providence, the Library of Congress, and many
+more American collections. To go with him through any lot of Americana,
+in one of his enterprising visits to New York, where he sometimes came to
+market his overflowing stores picked up in London and on the continent,
+was a rare treat. Every book, almost, brought out some verbal criticism,
+anecdote or reminiscence of his book-hunting experiences, which began in
+America, and extended all over Europe.
+
+He was not only an indefatigable collector, but a most industrious and
+accurate bibliographer, doing more work in that field, probably, than any
+other American. He wrote a singularly careful, though rapid hand, as
+plain and condensed as print, and in days before modern devices for
+manifolding writing were known, he copied out his invoices in duplicate
+or triplicate in his own hand, with titles in full, and frequent
+descriptive notes attached. His many catalogues are notable for the
+varied learning embodied. He was a most intelligent and vigilant book
+collector for more than forty years, his early labors embracing towns in
+New York and New England, as purveyor for material for Peter Force, of
+Washington, whose American Archives were then in course of preparation.
+Among the library collectors who absorbed large portions of his gathered
+treasures, were James Lenox, Jared Sparks, George Livermore, John Carter
+Brown, Henry C. Murphy, George Brinley, the American Geographical
+Society, and many historical societies. He was an authority on all the
+early voyages, and wrote much upon them. No one knew more about early
+Bibles than Henry Stevens.
+
+His enterprise and ambition for success led him to bold and sometimes
+extensive purchases. He bought about 1865, the library of Baron von
+Humboldt, and this and other large ventures embarrassed him much in later
+years. He became the owner of the Franklin manuscripts, left in London by
+the great man's grandson, and collected during many years a library of
+Frankliniana, which came to the Library of Congress when the Franklin
+manuscripts were purchased for the State Department in 1881.
+
+He was proud of his country and his State, always signing himself "Henry
+Stevens, of Vermont." His book-plate had engraved beneath his name, the
+titles, "G. M. B.: F. S. A." The last, of course, designated him as
+Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, but the first puzzled
+even his friends, until it was interpreted as signifying "Green Mountain
+Boy." His brother used jocosely to assure me that it really meant
+"Grubber of Musty Books."
+
+As to his prices for books, while some collectors complained of them as
+"very stiff," they appear, when compared with recent sales of Americana,
+at auction and in sale catalogues, to be quite moderate. The late
+historian Motley told me that Mr. Stevens charged more than any one for
+Dutch books relating to America; but Mr. Motley's measure of values was
+gauged by the low prices of Dutch booksellers which prevailed during his
+residence in the Netherlands, for years before the keen demand from
+America had rendered the numerous Dutch tracts of the West India Company,
+etc., more scarce and of greater commercial value than they bore at the
+middle of this century.
+
+As treating of books by American authors, though not so much a complete
+bibliography of their works, as a critical history, with specimens
+selected from each writer, Duyckinck's "Cyclopaedia of American
+Literature" deserves special mention. The last edition appeared at
+Philadelphia, in 1875, in two large quarto volumes. Equally worthy of
+note is the compilation by E. C. Stedman and Ellen M. Hutchinson, in
+eleven volumes, entitled "Library of American Literature," New York,
+1887-90. A most convenient hand-book of bibliographical reference is
+Oscar F. Adams's "Dictionary of American Authors," Boston, 1897, which
+gives in a compact duodecimo volume, the name and period of nearly every
+American writer, with a brief list of his principal works, and their date
+of publication, in one alphabet.
+
+Of notable catalogues of books relating to America, rather than of
+American publications, should be named White Kennet's "Bibliotheca
+Americana primordia," the earliest known catalogue devoted to American
+bibliography, London, 1713; O. Rich, Catalogue of Books relating to
+America, 1500-1700, London, 1832; Rich, "Bibliotheca Americana nova,"
+books printed between 1700 and 1844, two volumes, London, 1835-46; H.
+Harrisse, "Bibliotheca Americana vetustissima," New York, 1866, and its
+supplement, Paris, 1872, both embracing rare early Americana, published
+from 1492 to 1551. This is a critically edited bibliography of the rarest
+books concerning America that appeared in the first half century after
+its discovery.
+
+The important field of American local history has given birth to many
+bibliographies. The earliest to be noted is H. E. Ludewig's "Literature
+of American Local History," New York, 1846. Thirty years later came F. B.
+Perkins's "Check List for American Local History," Boston, 1876; followed
+by A. P. C. Griffin's "Index of articles upon American Local History in
+historical collections," Boston, 1889, and by his "Index of the
+literature of American local history in collections published in
+1890-95," Boston, 1896. Closely allied to the catalogues of city, town,
+and county histories, come the bibliographies of genealogies and family
+histories, of which the last or 4th edition of D. S. Durrie's
+"Bibliographia genealogica Americana; an alphabetical index to American
+genealogies in county and town histories, printed genealogies, and
+kindred works," Albany, 1895, is the most comprehensive and
+indispensable. This work gives us an alphabet of family names, under each
+of which are grouped the titles of books in which that special name is
+treated, with citation of the page. It also gives the name and date of
+publication of the special family genealogies which are separately
+printed, whether book or pamphlet, with number of pages in each. The
+work is by a librarian, to whose laborious diligence Americans are deeply
+indebted.
+
+Among other bibliographies of genealogy are Munsell's "American
+Genealogist: a catalogue of family histories," Albany, 1897. This work
+aims to give the titles of all separately printed American genealogies,
+in an alphabet of family names, giving titles in full, with place and
+year of publication, name of publisher, and collation, or number of
+pages.
+
+For the multitudinous public documents of the United States, consult B.
+P. Poore's "Descriptive catalogue of the government publications of the
+United States, 1775-1881," Washington, 1885, and F. A. Crandall, Check
+list of public documents, debates and proceedings from 1st to 53d
+Congress (1789-1895), Washington, 1895; also,
+
+Comprehensive index to the publications of the United States government,
+1889-1893. The same--United States Catalogue of Public Documents, 1893 to
+1895, Washington, 1896. Several biennial or annual lists of United States
+Documents have followed.
+
+As supplementing these extensive catalogues, we have in the Appendix to
+the "American Catalogue" of 1885 a List of United States Government
+publications from 1880 to 1884; in that of 1891 a List from 1884 to 1890;
+and in that of 1896 a List covering the years 1891 to 1895.
+
+A most important recent bibliography is found in H. C. Bolton's
+"Catalogue of Scientific and Technical Periodicals, 1665-1895,"
+Washington, 1897.
+
+There are also many sale catalogues of American books, with prices, some
+of which may be noted, _e. g._ J. R. Smith, Bibliotheca Americana,
+London, 1865; F. Mueller, Catalogue of books and pamphlets relating to
+America, Amsterdam, 1877, and later years. Ternaux-Compans, "Bibliotheque
+Americaine;" books printed before 1700, Paris, 1837: P. Troemel,
+"Bibliotheque Americaine," Leipzig, 1861: D. B. Warden, "Bibliotheque
+Americaine," Paris, 1840: R. Clarke & Co., "Bibliotheca Americana,"
+Cincinnati, 1874, 1878, 1887, 1891, and 1893.
+
+There are, besides, important catalogues of some private libraries,
+devoted wholly or chiefly to books relating to America. Among these, the
+most extensive and costly is John R. Bartlett's catalogue of the library
+of J. Carter Brown, of Providence, in four sumptuous volumes, with
+fac-similes of early title-pages, of which bibliography only fifty copies
+were printed. It is entitled, "Bibliotheca Americana: a catalogue of
+books relating to North and South America," 1482-1800, 4 vols. large
+8vo., Providence, 1870-82. The Carter Brown Library is now the richest
+collection of Americana in any private library in the world.
+
+Among catalogues of libraries sold by auction, and composed largely of
+American books, are those of John A. Rice, New York, 1870: W. Menzies,
+New York, 1875: George Brinley, in five volumes, sold 1878 to 1886: Henry
+C. Murphy, New York, 1884: S. L. M. Barlow, New York, 1889: and Brayton
+Ives, New York, 1891.
+
+The wide field of bibliography of English literature has given birth to
+many books. Only the more comprehensive can here be noted.
+
+R. Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, in four quarto volumes, Edinburgh,
+1824, although now old, is still an indispensable work of reference,
+giving multitudes of titles of English books and pamphlets not found in
+any other bibliography. It of course abounds in errors, most of which
+have been copied in Allibone's Dictionary of English literature. This
+extensive work is a monument of labor, to which the industrious compiler
+devoted many years, dying of too intense study, at Glasgow, at the early
+age of forty-five, in the year 1819. The issue of the work in 1824, being
+thus posthumous, its errors and omissions are largely accounted for by
+the author's inability to correct the press. The plan of the work is
+unique. Vols. 1 and 2 contain the alphabet of authors and titles, with
+dates and publishers' prices when known. Vols. 3 and 4 contain an
+alphabet of subjects, in which the titles re-appear, with a key alphabet
+in italic letters attached to each title, by which reference is made to
+the author-catalogue, at a fixed place, where all the works of the author
+are recorded.
+
+The work is printed in small type, with two crowded columns on a page,
+thus containing an enormous amount of matter. The key is quickly learned,
+and by its aid, and the alphabet of subjects, the librarian can find out
+the authors of many anonymous books. Watt is the only general
+bibliography of English literature which gives most of the obscure
+writers and their works.
+
+Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, in its second
+edition, enlarged by H. G. Bohn, is a most indispensable bibliography.
+This work is arranged alphabetically by authors' names, and aims to
+record all important books published in Great Britain, from the earliest
+times to about A. D. 1834. It is in eleven parts, or 6 vols. 16 mo. of
+very portable size, Lond., 1857-65. While it gives collations of the more
+important works, with publishers and dates, it fails to record many
+editions of the same work. Its quoted prices represent the original
+publisher's price, with very frequent additions of the sale prices
+obtained at book auctions. The chief defect of Lowndes' Manual is its
+total lack of any index of subjects.
+
+S. Austin Allibone's "Critical Dictionary of English literature,"
+Philadelphia, 1858-71, 3 volumes, with supplement by John F. Kirk, in 2
+vols., Philadelphia, 1891, is a copious reference book, which, in spite
+of its many errors and crudities, should be in all libraries. It contains
+in abbreviated form most of the titles in Watt and Lowndes, with the
+addition of American authors, and of British books published since the
+period covered by Lowndes. The three volumes of Allibone accompany the
+titles of works by noted authors with many critical remarks, copied
+mostly from reviews and literary journals. This feature of the book,
+which makes it rather a work of literary history and criticism than a
+bibliography pure and simple, has been dropped in Mr. Kirk's supplement,
+which thus becomes properly a bibliography. The publications of England
+and America, from about 1850 to 1890, are more fully chronicled in this
+work of Kirk than in any other bibliography.
+
+The important "English Catalogue of Books," from A. D. 1835 to 1897, in 5
+vols., with its valuable Index of Subjects, in 4 vols., from 1857 up to
+1889, is so constantly useful as to be almost indispensable in a public
+library. It records, in provokingly brief one-line titles, with
+publisher's name, year of issue, and price, all books published in Great
+Britain whose titles could be secured. It thus subserves the same purpose
+for English publications, which the American Catalogue fulfills for those
+of the United States. Both are in effect greatly condensed
+bibliographies, enabling the librarian to locate most of the published
+literature in the English language for many years back. The English
+catalogue, from 1897 to date, is supplemented by its annual issues,
+entitled "the English Catalogue of Books for 1898," etc.
+
+I have said that accuracy should be one of the cardinal aims of the
+librarian: and this because in that profession it is peculiarly
+important. Bibliography is a study which approaches very nearly to the
+rank of an exact science; and the practice of it, in application to the
+daily work of the librarian, is at once a school of accuracy, and a test
+of ability. A habit of analytical methods should be assiduously
+cultivated, without which much time will be lost in fruitless searches in
+the wrong books to find what one wants. As a single illustration of this
+need of method, suppose that you want to find the title of a certain book
+with its full description, a want likely to occur every hour in the day,
+and sometimes many times an hour. The book is perhaps Sir Walter Scott's
+Life of Napoleon,--9 vols., London, 1827, and your object is to trace its
+title, published price, etc., among the numerous bibliographies of
+literature. You begin by a simple act of analysis--thus. This is a
+London, not an American book--hence it is useless to look in any American
+catalogue. It is written in English, so you are dispensed from looking
+for it in any French or other foreign bibliography. Its date is 1827,
+London. Therefore among the three leading English reference books in
+bibliography, which are Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, Lowndes'
+Bibliographer's Manual, and the English Catalogue, you at once eliminate
+the former as not containing the book. Why do you do this? Because Watt's
+great work, in four huge quartos, though invaluable for the early English
+literature, stops with books published before the date of its issue,
+1824. Your book is published in 1827, and of course could not appear in a
+catalogue of 1824. Shall you refer then to the English Catalogue for its
+title? No, because the five volumes of that useful work (though some
+imperfect book lists were published earlier), begin with the year 1835,
+and the book you seek bears date of 1827. You are then reduced, by this
+simple process of analyzing in your mind the various sources of
+information, and rejecting all except one, namely Lowndes'
+Bibliographer's Manual, to a search in a single catalogue for your title.
+This simplifies matters greatly, and saves all the time which might
+otherwise have been lost in hunting fruitlessly through several works of
+reference. Lowndes' invaluable Manual was published in 1834, and though a
+second edition, edited by Bohn, appeared thirty years later, it does not
+contain books published after that date, unless they are later editions
+of works issued earlier. You find in it your Scott's Napoleon, date 1827,
+with its published price, L4. 14. 6, and an account of other later
+editions of the book. Of course you will observe that it is necessary to
+know what period of years is covered by the various bibliographies, and
+to carry those dates perpetually in your memory, in order thus to
+simplify searches, and save time. Once learned, you will have the comfort
+of knowing where to turn for light upon any book, and the faculty of
+accurate memory will reward the pains taken to acquire it.
+
+I must not omit to include, in noting the more useful and important
+English bibliographies, the very copious list of works appended to each
+biography of British writers, in the new "Dictionary of National
+Biography," Lond., 1885-1900. This extensive work is nearly finished in
+about 65 volumes, and constitutes a rich thesaurus of information about
+all British authors, except living ones.
+
+Living characters, considered notable, and brief note of their books, are
+recorded in "Men and Women of the Time," 15th ed. London, 1899--but this
+book, although highly useful, is far from being a bibliography.
+
+I should not omit to mention among useful librarians' aids, the "Book
+Prices Current; record of prices at which books have been sold at
+auction." This London publication began with the year 1887. No sales are
+reported of books bringing less than one pound sterling. The book-sales
+of 1898 were reported in 1899 of this issue, and the book is published in
+each case the next year. The similar catalogue entitled "American Book
+Prices Current" was begun with 1895, being compiled from the sale
+catalogues of American auctioneers, for that year, and the prices brought
+at auction in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, are recorded
+for all notable books, but limited to works bringing as much as $3 or
+upward. Five years' reports, in as many volumes, have now been issued,
+and the publication is to be continued. Its utility of course consists in
+informing librarians or collectors of the most recent auction values of
+books. At the same time, a word of caution is required, since it is not
+safe to judge of average commercial values, from any isolated bid at an
+auction sale.
+
+A very useful classed catalogue, published by the British Museum library,
+and edited by G. K. Fortescue, an assistant librarian, is the so-called
+"Subject-index to modern works," of which three volumes have appeared,
+beginning with the accessions of 1880-85, each covering five years
+additions of new works, in all European languages, to that library. The
+third volume embraces the years 1890 to 1895, and appeared in 1896. As
+this is not confined to works in English, it should be classed with
+universal bibliography. As containing most of the latest books of any
+note, all three volumes are important aids to research. They are printed
+in large type, in which it is a refreshment to the eye to read titles,
+after the small and obscure print of Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, and
+the but little better type of Lowndes' Manual, and of the English
+Catalogue. A collation of pages is also added in most cases, and the
+importance of this can hardly be overrated. These catalogues of the
+British Museum Library abound in pamphlets, English, French, German,
+Italian, etc., evincing how large a share of attention is given to the
+minor literature coming from the press in the more recent years.
+
+W. H. D. Adams's "Dictionary of English Literature," London, 1880, and
+later, in a compact volume, gives authors and titles of the more
+important English and American books. Also, in the same alphabet, an
+index to the titles, as well as authors, by the first word, and to many
+sayings or quotations, with their original sources. It is a highly useful
+book, although its small bulk leaves it far from being a comprehensive
+one.
+
+Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature, in 2 vols., London, 1876,
+has an account of the most notable British writers, with specimens of
+their works, and forms what may be termed an essential part of the
+equipment of every public library.
+
+The Library Association of the United Kingdom, since 1888, the date of
+its organization, has published Transactions and Proceedings; also, since
+1889, "The Library," a periodical with bibliographical information.
+
+It may be noted, without undue expression of pride, that America first
+set the example of an organized national association of Librarians
+(founded in 1876) followed the same year by a journal devoted to Library
+interests. That extremely useful periodical, the _Library Journal_, is
+now in its twenty-fourth volume. Its successive issues have contained
+lists of nearly all new bibliographical works and catalogues published,
+in whatever language.
+
+The London Publisher's Circular, first established in 1838, is a weekly
+organ of the book-publishing trade, aiming to record the titles of all
+British publications as they appear from the press. It gives, in an
+alphabet by authors' names, the titles in much abbreviated form, with
+publisher, size in inches, collation, price, and date, with a fairly good
+index of titles or subjects, in the same alphabet. Covering much the same
+ground, as a publishers' periodical, is "The Bookseller," issued monthly
+since 1858, with lists of the new issues of the British press, and
+critical notices. In addition to the English catalogue, there is the
+extensive Whitaker's "Reference catalogue of current literature,"
+published every year, which now makes two large volumes, and embraces the
+trade catalogues of English publishers, bound up in alphabetical order,
+with a copious index, by authors and titles, in one alphabet, prefixed.
+
+While on English bibliographies, I must note the important work on local
+history, by J. P. Anderson, "Book of British Topography," London, 1881.
+This gives, in an alphabet of counties, titles of all county histories or
+descriptive works of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, followed in
+each county by a list of town histories or topographical works. The
+arrangement under each town is chronological. Its only want is a
+collation of the books. British genealogy, or the history of families, is
+treated bibliographically in G. W. Marshall's "The Genealogist's Guide,"
+London, 1893, which gives an alphabet of family names, with references in
+great detail to county and town histories, pedigrees, heralds'
+visitations, genealogies, etc., all over Great Britain, in which any
+family is treated.
+
+The wide field of foreign bibliography, by countries, cannot here be
+entered upon, nor can I now treat of the still more extensive range of
+works devoted to the bibliography of various subjects.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+    Access to shelves, 215-225
+    Accuracy, rarity of, 254-257
+    Adams (O. F.) Dictionary of American authors, 490
+    Adams (W. H. D.) Dictionary of English literature, 499
+    Administration, faculty of, 249
+    Advertising, library, 353-356
+    Aids to readers, 190-214
+    Alexandrian library, 107, 289
+    Allibone (S. A.) Critical dictionary of English literature, 494-495
+    Alphabeting titles, 380, 388-389
+    American book prices, current, 1895-99, 498
+    American catalogue, 1876-1899, 481-484
+    American Library Association
+        catalogue of 5,000 books, 25, 371
+        foundation of, 499
+        list of novelists, 22
+        on open shelves, 223
+        on size-notation, 390
+    Americana,
+        bibliographies of, 472-493
+        rare, 454-456
+        what are, 473
+    Anderson (J. P.) book of British topography, 500
+    Arabic figures, 81
+    Art of reading, 171-189
+    Art, lesson from, 24
+    Assistants in libraries
+        appointment of, 337-339
+        qualifications of, 242-274
+        regulations for, 341-345
+    Astor library, N. Y., 35, 306
+        mutilation in, 137, 140
+    Auction sales, 38-40, 45-47, 457
+    Authorship, 271-2
+
+    Bad books, 20-24, 281-2
+    Bartlett (J. R.) catalogue of J. Carter Brown library, 493
+    Bay Psalm book, 455
+    Beckford library sale, 74, 457-8
+    Beecher (H. W.) on books, 15
+    Bibliography, 459-500
+        accessibility of, 463-464
+        bibliographies of, 469-471
+        classification of, 464-5
+        definition of, 459
+        earliest American, 478
+        early works in, 465
+        no full American, 475
+        of American publications, 472-493
+        selection of works in, 462
+    Binding of books, 50-87, 93-94
+        colors in, 57
+        desiderata in, 52
+        how a bibliomaniac binds, 432
+        importance of, 87
+        lettering titles, 72, 78-83
+        machine methods, 62-3
+        marbling and gilding, 68-69, 73
+        materials for, 53
+        rebinding methods, 64
+    Biography, 4-7, 17
+        discrepancies in, 210-212
+        living characters, 197
+    Blake (A. V.) American booksellers' trade-list catalogue, 479
+    Boccaccio of 1471, sale of, 46
+    Bolton (H. C.) catalogue of scientific and technical periodicals, 492
+    Book binding, 50-87, 93-94
+    Book buying, 33-49
+    Book covering, 97
+    Book-marks, 115
+    Book plates, 90-93, 97-100
+    Book prices
+        current, 1887-99, 497-498
+        American, 1895-99, 498
+    Book shops, second hand, 42-45, 458
+    Book supports, 96, 110
+    Book worms, 108
+    Books, cheap and poor editions of, 30
+    Books, choice of, 3-32
+    Books for public libraries, selection of, 15-32, 361
+    Books of reference, 16, 462-463
+    Books, three classes of, 182
+    Books which have helped me, 183
+    Books,--_see_ Reading
+    Bores, how to treat, 259
+    Boston Athenaeum library, 305, 485
+        early pamphlets in, 149
+    Boston public library, 315
+        appointments in, 338
+        languages demanded, 247
+    Bowker (R. R.)
+        American catalogue, 482-483
+        Publishers' weekly, 483
+    British Museum library
+        appointments in, 338
+        catalogue of, 396-399, 498
+            its defects, 398
+        classification, 367
+        mutilation in, 137-138
+        trustees of, 340
+    Brown (J. Carter) library of Americana, 493
+    Brunet (J. C.) Manuel du libraire, 467
+    Bry (De) Voyages, 449, 451
+    Buildings, library, 321-333
+        cost of, 331
+        light in, 325
+        location of, 323-324
+        many mistakes in, 321
+        materials for, 324
+        periodical room, 328
+        shelving, 325
+    Bulwer-Lytton (E. L.) writings of, 23, 174
+    Burnham (T. O. H. P.), 44
+    Bury, Richard de, 292
+    Buying of books, 33-49
+        methods of, 36-37
+
+    Calf binding, 55
+    Campbell (John), 45
+    Capitals, how to be used in catalogues, 378, 387
+    Card catalogue system, 393
+        its defects, 393-394
+        how obviated, 394-396
+    Cards, for catalogues, 393
+    Carlyle (Thomas)
+        life of Cromwell, 148
+        on librarians, 249
+        on reading, 171
+    Carnegie (Andrew) gifts to libraries, 315
+    Catalogue of all books printed in the U. S. 1804, 478-479
+    Catalogues, 373-399
+        abridging titles, 382-383
+        accession, 386
+        auction, 38-39
+        card system for, 393
+        chronology of authors, 381, 389, 398
+        classed, 374-5, 383
+        collations in, 379
+        cross references, 377
+        Cutter's rules for, 375
+        deficiencies of American, 473-476
+        dictionary, 373-5, 383-384
+        English, 383, 495
+        errors in, 384-385, 388
+        imprints, how given, 379
+        kinds of, 373
+        of British Museum library, 396-399, 498
+        printing, advantages of, 395-396
+        rules for, 375-381
+        sale, value of, 33-34, 37
+        shelf, 386
+        size-notation in, 389-391
+        use of capitals in, 378, 387
+    Caxton's press, books, 451
+    Census of wealth, futility of, 194-196
+    Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English literature, 499
+    Children's books, 276, 278
+        reading-rooms, 329-330
+    Choice of books, 3-32, 277, 335
+    Chronology of authors, 381, 398
+    Classic authors, 30
+    Classification of books, 362-372
+        application of, 366
+        Bibliotheque nationale, system of, 368
+        British museum, system of, 368
+        Brunet's system of, 367
+        close classification, 364-365
+        conflict of systems, 362-363
+        Crunden's verses on, 430
+        Cutter, system of, 369
+        Dewey, system of, 370
+        Fletcher, system of, 372
+        fixed shelf location, 371
+        Library of Congress, system of, 368
+    Cleaning books, 103-104, 127-130
+    Clergymen, some book-abusing, 138, 140
+    Cleveland public library
+        fiction experience, 27
+        methods of selections, 31
+    Cogswell (J. G.), 35
+    Collation, 61, 379
+    Collier, J. Payne, as a cataloguer, 385
+    Congressional library--_see_ Library of Congress
+    Copy tax,
+        origin of, 400
+        rationale of, 406, 409
+    Copyright
+        and libraries, 400-416
+        aggregate copyrights entered, 410
+        and Library of Congress, 404-411
+        books not entered, 474
+        duration of, 413
+        foundation of, 402, 412
+        history of, 403
+        in the Constitution, 401
+        international, why, 412-413
+        origin of, 401
+        perpetual, 402, 413
+        provisions of, 414
+    Counting a library, 350, 386
+    Courtesy, in libraries, 250, 261
+    Croton bug, 109
+    Crowding of books on shelves, 116-117
+    Crunden (F. M.) verses on classification, 430
+    Cutter (C. A.) Boston Athenaeum catalogue, 485
+        classification, 430
+        rules for catalogue, 375
+        Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, 485
+    Cutting edges, 60-61, 67
+
+    Damage to books, _see_ Injuries
+    Damp, an enemy of books, 104
+    Dates, errors in, 210-212
+    Dates of books, ancient expression of, 391-393
+    Decimal system, 370, 390
+    Denis (F.) Nouveau manuel de bibliographie, 468-469
+    Dewey (Melvil)
+        classification, 370
+        remark by, 433
+    Dictionary catalogues, 373-375, 383-384
+    Dictionary of national biography, 197, 497
+    Dime novels, 21, 281
+    Documents (U. S. public) catalogues, 492
+    Dogs-earing books, 114
+    "Dont's," list of proper warnings, 134
+    Duplicates in libraries, 31, 167-168
+    Durrie (D. S.) Bibliographia genealogica Americana, 491
+    Dust,
+        in libraries, 101-103
+        to remove from books, 103
+    Duyckink's Cyclopaedia of American literature, 490
+
+    Eames (W.) continuation of Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana, 485
+    Editions,
+        to be always noted, 387
+        first, 46, 388, 452
+    Education, 245, 282-283
+    Egypt, libraries of, 287-289
+    Elzevirs, 424, 457
+    Emerson (R. W.) cited, 172, 185
+    Encyclopaedia Britannica, scope and limitations of, 14, 197-199, 245
+    Enemies of books, 101-118
+    English catalogue,
+        1835-1899, 383, 495
+        uses dictionary form, 383
+    Errors
+        in books, 210-212, 255
+        in librarians, 256-257
+    Essays, 9, 17
+
+    Facsimile reproduction, 132-134
+    Fiction, 12, 18-28, 179
+    Fires,
+        in libraries, 106-108, 131, 297
+        destruction of books by, 448-449
+    First editions, 46, 388, 452
+    Fletcher (W. I.),
+        classification, 372
+        index to periodicals, 169
+    Force (Peter) historical library of, 304
+        rich in pamphlets, 150
+    Formation of libraries, 357-362
+    Franklin (B.)
+        collections of Frankliniana, 456
+        his manuscripts, 489
+        on Philadelphia library, 299
+    French language, need of, 246-248, 257
+    Furnishings of libraries, 326
+
+    Gas, an enemy of books, 105
+    Genealogy, bibliographies of, 491-492, 500
+    George IV, library of, 212
+    Georgi (T.) Allgemeines Europaeisches buecher-lexikon, 465
+    Gesner (C.) Bibliotheca universalis, 465
+    Gould (Jay) History of Delaware county, N. Y., 453
+    Gowans (William), 43
+    Graesse, Tresor des livres rares et precieux, 468
+    Grangerising, 450
+    Greece, libraries of, 288-289
+    Griffin (A. P. C.) indexes of American local history, 491
+    Grolier bindings, 73, 75
+    Grolier club, N. Y., 85, 447
+    Growoll (A.)
+        Book trade bibliography in the U. S., 479
+        Publishers' weekly, 483
+
+    Hain (L.) Repertorium bibliographicum, 466
+    Halliwell-Phillipps (J. O.), privately printed books, 446
+    Harris (W. T.) experience with memory, 239
+    Harrisse (H.) Bibliotheca Americana, 491
+    Harvard university library, 296
+    Haven (S. F.) Catalogue of American publications, 1639-1775, 477
+    Heat, an enemy of books, 104
+    Heber library, 34
+    Helps to readers, 191-214
+    History, 7-8, 17
+        of libraries, 287-320
+        (local) bibliography, 491, 500
+    Homer, 173, 184, 458
+    Horace, perfection of his odes, 184
+    Humboldt (Baron von), 449
+    Humors of the library, 430-443
+    Hurst (J. F.) on choice books, 15
+
+    Illustrated books, 279, 450, 451, 453-454
+    Immoral books, 20, 22, 453
+    Index expurgatorius, 448, 470
+    Indexes,
+        use of, 205-206
+        how to make, 388-389
+        substitutes for, 207
+    Injuries to books, _See_ Crowding, Cutting, Dogs-earing, Enemies,
+            Ink, Margins, Mutilations, Soiling, Tracing, Torn leaves
+    Ink,
+        use of, 113
+        how removed, 128-129
+    Inquiries, innumerable, 191-201
+    International copyright, 412-416
+    Iron construction, 106
+
+    Joecher (C. G.) Allgemeines gelehrten-lexikon, 466
+    Juvenile books, 276, 278, 279
+
+    Kelly (J.) American catalogue, 1861-1871, 481
+    Khayyam (Omar), 457
+    Kirk (J. F.) Supplement to Allibone, 1850-1890, 495
+
+    La Bedoyere, French revolution collection, 149
+    Labelling books, 90-93
+    Ladies' reading-rooms, 329
+    Languages, foreign, 246-248
+    La Serna de Santander, Dictionnaire bibliographique, 467
+    Law books, binding, 76
+    Letters, 8-9
+    Leypoldt (F.) Books of all time, 481
+    Librarian
+        a constant aid, 200
+        ancient idea of, 273
+        as an author, 271-272
+        as preserver and restorer of books, 120-121
+        benefits to, of inquiries, 202
+        high standard for, 272
+        indispensable, how to become, 200, 203
+        intercourse with readers, 199
+        librarian's dream, 417
+        qualifications of, 242-274
+            accuracy, 254
+            business habits, 249, 258
+            courtesy, 250, 261
+            energy and industry, 262
+            foreign languages, 246-248
+            good temper, 250
+            habits of order, 257-260
+            health, 251
+            impartial liberality, 264-265
+            knowledge of books, 248
+            love of his work, 253
+            patience inexhaustible, 261
+            sound common sense, 252
+            tact unfailing, 262
+        reserve in recommending books, 213
+        "who reads is lost," 242, 274
+        woes of a, 441-443
+    Librarianship,
+        attractions of, 193, 268-271
+        drawbacks attending, 266-268
+        opens avenues to growth, 269
+        school of human nature, 270
+
+    Libraries,
+        ancient, of clay, 287-288
+        and copyright, 400-416
+        and schools, 275, 282
+        and universities, 282, 293
+        annual reports of, 349-356
+        catalogues of, 373-399
+        classification of, 362-372
+        exaggeration of volumes in, 212-213
+        formation of, 357-362
+        founded by individual gift, 311-313
+        history of, 287-320
+        historical, 319
+        list of, over 100,000 vols., 309-310
+        mercantile, 319
+        monastic, 290-292
+        picture of ancient, 273
+        poetry of, 417-430
+        professional, 319
+        prompt service in, 341-342
+        readers in, 186, 285-286
+        special report on, 1876, 309
+        state libraries, 316-317
+        statistics of American, 308
+        subscription libraries, 360
+        ten largest, 293
+        travelling libraries, 319-320
+        uses of, 275-286
+    Library, how to count a, 350, 386
+    Library, humors of the, 430
+    Library, poetry of the, 417
+    Library advertising, 353-356
+    Library association of United Kingdom, 499
+    Library buildings and furnishings, 321-333
+        _See_ Buildings
+    Library bulletins, 353
+    Library commissioners, 345
+    Library committees, 333-340, 360
+    Library donations, 361
+    Library Journal, N. Y., 1876-99, 499
+    Library laws (State), 357, 359
+    Library of Congress
+        and copyright books, 404-411, 416
+        appointments in, 338
+        joint committee on, 340
+        our national conservatory of books, 181-182
+        restriction of MSS. and rare books, 225
+        sketch of its history, 303-305
+    Library regulations, 341-349, 433-434
+    Library reports, 349
+    Library science schools, 338
+    Library trustees or boards of managers, 333-340
+    Literature, history of, 12-14
+    Loudon (A.) History of Indian wars, 476
+    Lowndes (W. T.) Bibliographer's Manual, 494
+
+    Macaulay (T. B.) memory, 229
+    Maittaire (M.) Annales typographici, 467
+    Marbling, 68
+    Margins, writing or marking on, 114, 124-125, 136
+    Mazarin Bible, 46, 445
+    Memory,
+        the faculty of, 226-241
+        attention and association, its corner-stones, 236-237
+        cardinal qualification of a librarian, 226-227
+        discursive reading impairs it, 240-241
+        improvement of, 236-240
+        intuitive memory, 230
+        local memory, 229
+        verbal memory, 228
+    Migne (J. P. _abbe_) Patrologie, 447
+    Milton, 11, 147, 184, 187, 458
+    Mnemonic systems, 234-236
+    Morocco binding, 56
+    Morris (William) Kelmscott press, 447
+    Mutilation of books, 111, 124-126
+        penal laws for, 135-136
+        posting offenders, 138
+
+    New Hampshire library law, 314
+    Newspapers, _see_ Periodicals
+    New York Mercantile Library, selections for, 32
+    New York Public library, 307
+    Notation
+        of book sizes, 390
+        of book dates, 381, 391
+    Novels, _see_ Fiction
+    Nuremberg chronicle, 452
+
+    Omar (Caliph) sentence imputed to, 107, 171, 289
+    Omniscience, no human, 172
+    Open shelves, 215-225
+        American library association on, 223
+        an open question, 222
+        benefits of, 215-222, 224
+        evils of, 216-224
+        international library conference on, 220-221
+    Opinions on books, 27
+    Ostend manifesto, 196-197
+
+    Pamphlets,
+        literature of, 145-156
+        binding of, 153-155
+        British museum, wealth in, 149, 499
+        classification of, 152, 155
+        definitions of, 145
+        dignity and power of, 148
+        embarrassments of, 146
+        great works printed as, 147
+        how to acquire, 151
+        La Bedoyere collection of, 149
+        Peter Force, collection of, 150
+        swift disappearance of, 151
+        Thomason collection of, 148
+    Panzer (G. W.) Annales typographici, 466
+    Parchment, 54
+    Peignot (G.)
+        Repertoire bibliographique universelle, 469
+        Dictionnaire des livres condamnes, 448
+    Periodicals,
+        literature of, 157-170
+        binding of, 84-85
+        cardinal importance of, 153-154, 157, 161, 285
+        check list for, 168
+        compared with books, 164
+        completeness of, 158-159
+        continuous reading of impairs the memory, 241
+        indexes to, 169-170
+        lettering by Poole index, 84
+        limited library circulation, 167-168
+        newspapers
+            abuses of, 180
+            destruction of, 62
+            filing for readers' use, 166
+            library notices in, 353-356
+            mutilation of, 112
+            number of, 157, 160
+            over-reading of, 180, 241
+            percentage of, to books, 157
+            syndicate publication, 165
+            value of, 301-302
+    Perkins (F. B.) check-list for American local history, 491
+    Petzholdt (J.) Bibliotheca bibliographica, 469
+    Philadelphia library company's library, 299-302
+    Philadelphia Mercantile Library fire, 131-132
+    Phillipps (Sir T.) privately printed books, 447
+    Plato, reading of, 172, 178
+    Plutarch's lives, 3, 184
+    Poetical quotations, 193, 204-205
+    Poetry, 9-11, 18
+    Poetry of the library, 417-429
+    Politics in libraries, 265
+    Poole (W. F.)
+        plan of library building, 327
+        on ladies' reading-rooms, 329
+    Poole's indexes to periodical literature, 169
+    Poor Richard's almanac, 456
+    Pratt Institute library, thefts in, 144
+    Preparation for the shelves, 88-97
+    Press, the, and the library, 353-356
+    Prices of books, 36, 46-48, 444-451, 455-456, 497-498
+    Privately printed books, 446-447, 473
+    Problems, insoluble, 194-196
+    Pseudonyms, 376-377
+    Publishers' Circular (London), 499
+    Publishers' Weekly, N. Y., 483
+
+    Qualifications of librarians, 242-274
+    Questions asked, innumerable, 191, 204, 206-209
+    Quotations, search for, 193, 204
+
+    Rare books, 113, 114, 224, 444-459
+        causes of rarity, 445-457
+        mere age not a cause, 446
+    Readers,
+        aids to, 190-214
+        classification of, 186-187, 190-191, 206, 285-286
+        favoritism among, 217
+        limitations of aid, 204, 208
+    Reading,
+        art of, 171-189
+        best, not the latest, 178-179
+        choice of, 3-32, 181-2, 277-278
+        formative power of, 183-185
+        passion for, 458-459
+        inspiration of, 183-185
+        librarian's, 121, 243-244, 248
+        methods of, 175-178, 186-187
+            the literal, 175
+            the intuitive, 176
+        novel reading, 179
+        over-much reading of newspapers, 180, 241
+        perils of too great absorption in, 185-186
+        pleasures of, 182-189
+        reading aloud, 177-178, 280
+        taste in, 181
+        time to read, 173
+    Reading rooms, 326
+    Reclamation of books, 119-144
+    Recommending books, 32
+        to be done sparingly, 213, 244
+    Reference, books of, 16, 461-463
+    Religion, questions about, 201, 265
+    Reports, librarians', 349-356
+        comprehensive, 349
+        printing of, 352
+    Reserved books, 224-245
+    Restoration and reclamation of books, 119-144
+    Rich (O.) Bibliotheca Americana, 491
+    Roman libraries, 290
+    Roman numerals, 81, 391-392
+    Roorbach (O. A.) Bibliotheca Americana, 1820-1861, 480
+    Rubber bands, untrustworthy, 155
+    Rules, library, 341-349
+        call slips or tickets, 346
+        circulation, limit, 346-347
+        done into verse, 433-434
+        hours, 344
+        prompt service, 341-342
+        registration, 347
+        vacations, 345
+    Rush (James) bequest to Philadelphia Library Co., 301-302
+    Ruskin on collecting books, 14
+    Russia binding, 56
+
+    Sabin (J.) Bibliotheca Americana, 484-487
+    School district libraries a failure, 317-319
+    Schools and libraries, 275-282
+    Science, books of, 11, 18
+    Scott's Napoleon, bibliographical object-lesson, 496-497
+    Second-hand book shops, 42-45
+    Selection of books, 3-32, 277
+        _See_ Choice of books
+    Shakespeare, 10, 46, 184, 188, 458
+    Sheep binding, 55
+    Shelves, library, 325
+        access to, 215
+        preparation of books for, 88
+    Shelves, open, 215-225
+    Signatures, 65
+    Size-notation of books, 389-391
+    Sizing paper, 128
+    Smith's Historie of Virginia, 455
+    Smithsonian Institution
+        collection in Library of Congress, 304
+        copyright privilege of, 404
+    Soiling of books, 116
+        how removed, 127
+    Spelling, facility in, 232
+    Stack system, 216, 325
+    Stamps in books, 88-90, 114
+    State libraries, 316-317
+        appointments in, 339
+    Stealing of books, 111
+        _See_ thefts
+    Stedman (E. C.) Library of American literature, 490
+    Stein (H.) Manuel de bibliographie, 470-471
+    Stevens (Henry) characteristics of, 487, 489
+    Story (A) about stories, 436-437
+    Style,
+        importance of, 175-176, 226
+        sample of prose run mad, 26
+    Sunday-school books, 276
+    Syndicate publishing, 165-166
+
+    Teaching, 269
+    Tennyson (Alfred) early editions of poems, 452
+    Thackeray (W. M.) curious question of, 205
+    Thefts,
+        book, 111, 136-144
+        leniency in case of, 142-144
+        methods of reclamation, 141-144
+    Time, use of, 173-174, 258-259
+    Titles,
+        abridgment of, 382-383
+        alphabeting of, 388-389
+        entry of, in catalogues, 375-377
+        headings of, 377
+        lettering of, 72-73, 78-83
+        use of capitals in, 378, 381, 387
+    Titles of novels, done into verse, 436-437
+    Torn leaves, how repaired, 122
+    Tracing of maps or plates, 113
+    Travels, 11, 18
+    Tree calf binding, 74
+    Truebner (N.) Bibliographical guide to American literature, 484
+    Trustees, boards of library, 268, 333-340
+    Turner's illustrations, 454, 458
+
+    Ulster Co. Gazette, 1800, 456
+    Universal catalogue, 465
+    Universities, use of the library to, 282-285
+    University libraries, 294
+    Uses of libraries, 275-286
+
+    Vallee (L.) Bibliographie des bibliographies, 470
+    Vellum binding, 54
+    Voyages, 11, 18
+
+    Walpole (Horace) Strawberry hill press, 446
+    Washing soiled books, 127, 129
+    Watt (R.) Bibliotheca Britannica, 493-494
+    Wealth, all estimates of, futile, 194-196
+    Winsor (Justin)
+        a prolific author, 272
+        on librarians' instructions, 284
+    Woes of a librarian, 441-443
+    Worcester, Massachusetts, public library
+        methods of selection, 31
+        theft in, 143
+        use of by schools, 281
+
+    Yale university library, 298
+
+
+
+
+Books for Authors
+
+
+AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS
+
+[Sidenote: Authors and Publishers]
+
+A MANUAL OF SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS IN LITERATURE
+
+Comprising a description of publishing methods and arrangements,
+directions for the preparation of MSS. for the press, explanations of the
+details of book-manufacturing, instructions for proof-reading, specimens
+of typography, the text of the United States Copyright Law, and
+information concerning International Copyrights, together with general
+hints for authors. By G. H. P. and J. B. P.
+
+_Seventh Edition, re-written with additional material._
+_8 deg., gilt top_              _net, $1.75_
+
+CHIEF CONTENTS
+
+  PART I.--Publishing arrangements--Books published at the risk and
+  expense of the publisher--Books published for the account of the
+  author, _i. e._, at the author's risk and expense, or in which he
+  assumes a portion of the investment--Publishing arrangements for
+  productions first printed in periodicals or cyclopaedias--The
+  literary agent--Authors' associations--Advertising--On securing
+  copyright.
+
+  PART II.--The Making of
+  Books--Composition--Electrotyping--Presswork--Bookbinding--Illustrations.
+
+  "Full of valuable information for authors and writers. . . . A
+  most instructive and excellent manual."--GEORGE WM. CURTIS in
+  _Harper's Magazine_.
+
+  "This handy and useful book is written with perfect fairness and
+  abounds in hints which writers will do well to 'make a note of.'
+  . . . There is a host of other matters treated succinctly and
+  lucidly which it behoves beginners in literature to know, and we
+  can recommend it most heartily to them."--_London Spectator._
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+BY GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES
+
+A Sketch of Literary Conditions and of the Relations with the
+Public of Literary Producers, from the Earliest Times to the Fall
+of the Roman Empire.
+
+Second edition, revised, 12 deg., gilt top, $1.50.
+
+The book abounds in information, is written in a delightfully succinct
+and agreeable manner, with apt comparisons that are often humorous, and
+with scrupulous exactness to statement, and without a sign of partiality
+either from an author's or a publisher's point of view.--_New York
+Times._
+
+
+BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
+
+A Study of the Conditions of the Production and Distribution of
+Literature from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Close of the
+Seventeenth Century.
+
+In two volumes, 8 deg., cloth extra (sold separately), each $2.50
+Vol. I., 476-1600--Vol. II., 1500-1709.
+
+It is seldom that such wide learning, such historical grasp and insight,
+have been employed in their service.--_Atlantic Monthly._
+
+It is a book to be studied rather than merely praised. . . . That its
+literary style is perfect is acceptable as a matter of course, and
+equally of course is it that the information it contains bears the stamp
+of historical verification.--_N. Y. Sun._
+
+
+THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT
+
+Comprising the text of the Copyright Law of the United States,
+and a summary of the Copyright laws at present in force in
+the chief countries of the world; together with a report of the
+legislation now pending in Great Britain, a sketch of the contest
+in the United States, 1837-1891, in behalf of International
+Copyright, and certain papers on the development of the
+conception of literary property and on the results of the
+American law of 1891.
+
+Second edition, revised, with additions, and with the record of
+legislation brought down to March, 1896. 8 deg., gilt top, $1.75.
+
+A perfect arsenal of facts and arguments, carefully elaborated and very
+effectively presented. . . . Altogether it constitutes an extremely
+valuable history of the development of a very intricate right of
+property, and it is as interesting as it is valuable.--_N. Y. Nation._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+NEW YORK: 27 West 23rd Street.     LONDON: 24 Bedford St., Strand.
+
+
+BY MOSES COIT TYLER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE DURING THE COLONIAL TIME
+
+New Edition, revised, in two volumes.
+Volume I.--1607-1676. Volume II.--1676-1765. Each $2.50.
+Agawam edition, 2 vols. in one. 8 deg., half leather, $3.00.
+
+"In the execution of his work thus far, Professor Tyler has evinced a
+skill in the arrangement of his materials, and a masterly power of
+combination, which will at once place it in a very eminent rank among
+American historical compositions. It is not so much the history of a
+special development of literature, as a series of profound and brilliant
+studies on the character and genius of a people of whom that literature
+was the natural product. The work betrays acute philosophical insight, a
+rare power of historical research, and a cultivated literary habit, which
+was perhaps no less essential than the two former conditions, to its
+successful accomplishment. The style of the author is marked by vigor,
+originality, comprehensiveness, and a curious instinct in the selection
+of words. In this latter respect, though not in the moulding of
+sentences, the reader may perhaps be reminded of the choice and fragrant
+vocabulary of Washington Irving, whose words alone often leave an
+exquisite odor like the perfume of sweet-brier and arbutus."--GEORGE
+RIPLEY, in _The Tribune_.
+
+
+THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
+
+1763-1783
+
+Two volumes, large octavo. Sold separately.
+Volume I.--1763-1776. Volume II.--1776-1783. Each $3.00.
+
+This work is the result of an altogether new and original treatment of
+the American Revolution. The outward history of that period has been many
+times written, and is now, by a new school of American historians, being
+freshly re-written in the light of larger evidence, and after a more
+disinterested and judicial method. In the present work, for the first
+time in a systematic and complete way, is set forth the inward history of
+our Revolution,--the history of its ideas, its spiritual moods, its
+passions, as these uttered themselves at the time in the writings of the
+two parties of Americans who either promoted or resisted that great
+movement.
+
+
+THREE MEN OF LETTERS
+
+Chapters in Literary Biography and Criticism devoted to
+George Berkeley, Timothy Dwight, and Joel Barlow.
+
+12 deg., gilt top, $1.25.
+
+"Though more lengthy than most of the sketches in Professor Tyler's
+well-known 'History,' these monographs have much of the brevity of their
+original purpose; and they are marked by the same picturesqueness of
+treatment, the same vivacity of expression, and the same felicity of
+statement, that characterize the author's larger volumes."--_The Nation._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON.
+
+
+LANGUAGE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SOME COMMON ERRORS OF SPEECH.
+
+Suggestions for the Avoiding of Certain Classes of Errors, together with
+Examples of Bad and of Good Usage. By ALFRED G. COMPTON,
+Professor in College of the City of New York. 12 deg.     $ .75
+
+"The book calls up many interesting, not to say fascinating, lapses from
+strict grammar, and is very valuable. In its index expurgatorius will be
+found many surprises by the self-supposed learned."--_Chicago
+Times-Herald._
+
+
+A SIMPLE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH NOW IN USE.
+
+By JOHN EARLE, A.M., LL.D., Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University
+of Oxford, author of "English Prose: Its Elements, History, and
+Usage." 12 deg.         $1.50
+
+"The book is a clear, careful, and scholarly treatise on the English
+Language and its use, rather than a work of science. It is a book that
+will be valuable to teachers and to students of language
+everywhere."--_Washington Times._
+
+
+THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
+
+An Historical Study of the Sources, Development, and Analogies of the
+Language, and of the Principles Covering its Usages. Illustrated
+by Copious Examples by Writers of all Periods. By SAMUEL
+RAMSEY. 8 deg.      $2.00
+
+"Mr. Ramsey's work will appeal especially to those that desire to know
+something more about the history and philology, the growth and
+mistakes of their native tongue than is given in the ordinary
+text-books."--_Baltimore Sun._
+
+
+ORTHOMETRY.
+
+A Treatise on the Art of Versification and the Technicalities of Poetry,
+with a New and Complete Rhyming Dictionary. By R. F. BREWER,
+B.A. 12 deg., pp. xv. + 376        $2.00
+
+"It is a good book for its purpose, lucid, compact, and well arranged. It
+lays bare, we believe, the complete anatomy of poetry. It affords
+interesting quotations, in the way of example, and interesting comments
+by distinguished critics upon certain passages from the distinguished
+poets."--_N. Y. Sun._
+
+
+MANUAL OF LINGUISTICS.
+
+An Account of General and English Phonology. By JOHN CLARK, A.M.
+8 deg., pp. lxiii. + 314        $2.00
+
+"Mr. Clark has traced the English language back to its foundations in his
+work 'Manual of Linguistics.' It is an interesting theme, and his book
+will prove very useful for reference, for he has culled from many sources
+and gone over a wide territory."--_Detroit Free Press._
+
+
+COMPOSITION IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.
+
+A Practical Treatise. By E. GALBRAITH. 16 deg., cloth      $1.00
+
+"The author has drawn fully from the best writers on the subject, and her
+book is an epitome of the best thought of all."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+1. Punctuation for abbreviations such as per cent., viz. has been
+standardised.
+
+2. There are spelling inconsistencies in proper and place names as well
+as within accented characters and hyphenated words. These have been left
+as printed.
+
+3. Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected.
+
+4. The remaining corrections are:
+
+Page 36, "Edinburg" changed to "Edinburgh"
+Page 153, "faciliate" changed to "facilitate"
+Page 202, "conspiciously" changed to "conspicuously"
+Page 258, "responsibile" changed to "responsible"
+Page 269, "reasearches" changed to "researches"
+Page 342, "adminstration" changed to "administration"
+Page 392, "substracting" changed to "subtracting"
+Page 393, "univeral" changed to "universal"
+Page 404, "ieft" changed to "left"
+Page 441, "pyschology" changed to "psychology"
+Page 452, "polittics" changed to "politics"
+Page 457, "at" changed to "as"
+Page 470, "Thus" changed to "This"
+Page 471, "vocabularly" changed to "vocabulary"
+Page 478, "Columbiau" changed to "Columbian"
+Page 481, "approxmiately" changed to "approximately"
+Page 490, "guaged" changed to "gauged"
+Page 490, "Duyckincks" changed to "Duyckinck's"
+Page 493, "Meuzies" changed to "Menzies"
+Page 494, "I" changed to "1"
+Page 497, "pubished" changed to "published"
+Page 504, "Allgemeinas" changed to "Allgemeines"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Book for All Readers, by Ainsworth Rand Spofford
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #22608 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22608)