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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 sen ling 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 handed. All the titles of an author's works would be under the eve at a glance, instead of only one at a time, as in the cari 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 es h 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 h brary, always up to date, in a single alphabet. Daily ac cessions inserted in it would render it the standard of appeal as to all that the library contained, and it wou.i 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 whe 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 fu stop. The extensive collection grew apace, and the man

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 accestons, 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 ample 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 ;rinting 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 n alphabetical order the names, followed by the titles of al works by each writer which that library possesses. In - id tion, it refers in the case of biograph

es or comments

on any writer found in the index, to the authors of such works; and also from translators or editors to the authors f the translated or edited work. The titles of accesscons to the library (between thirty and forty thousand volumes a year) were incorporated year by year as the print ing went on. All claim to minite accuracy had to be ig

red, and the titles greatly abr led by omitting wiperfiscus words, otherwise its cost wou'd have been prohibitory. The work was prosecuted with great energy and ligence by the staff of a'de scholars on 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 unat tainable works, multitudes of books now available by par chase in the market, to enrich its own collection. said to contain about 3,500,000 titles and cross-references It is printed in large, clear type, double columns, spaced, and its open page is a comfort to the eye. Imed in paper covers, the thin folios can be bound in volumes of any thickness desired by the possessor.

It

It has several capital defects: (1) It fails to discrimi nate 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 craps. tion, or title of the author. The years during which are writer flourished would have been easily added to the name in most cases, and the value of such information wos have been great, solving at once many doubts as to many writers. (2) The catalogue fails to print the collat ne of all works, except as to a portion of those pull ded since 18×2, or in the newer portions issued. This om sion leaves a reader uncertain whether the book recor1..2 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 perplex a not to say exasperating, to every searcher. To flow an obsolete usage may be defended on the plea that it is a g one, but when it is bad as well as outworn, no excise it can satisfy a modern reader. (4) No anals is gen of the collected works of authors, nor of many 1. ra made up of monographs. One cannot find in it the

tents of the volumes of any of Swift's Works, nor even of M..ton'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 11, the volumes of MS, catalogue being set up by the printer without transer pt.on, which would have deased the work indefinitely, and it is now substantially

leted. Its total cost will be not far from £50,000, T. are about 374 volumes or parts in all. Only 250 copes were printed, part of which were presented to large 1 'rar.es, and others were offered for sale at £3.10 per attem, payable as issued, so that a complete set costs about £70. One learns with surprise that only about forty e pies have been subscribed for. This furmishes another evdence of the low estate of bography in England, where, in a nation full of rich book collectors and owners ffre libraries, almost no buyers are found for the most stens ve bibliography ever published, a nationa' work, ashing so copious and useful a key to the bterature of the world in every department of haman knowledge.

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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 procla.med 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. 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 bandred years, any similar provision in England for the pres ervation of the national literature.

It is a notable fact that the United States of Amer a

*G. H. Putnam, "Books and their makers in the M Agen" N. Y. 1897, vol. 2, p. 447.

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