PRIZE ESSAYS RESULT.

The Adjudicator has awarded the Senior Prize for the best essay on "The Planning and Arrangement of a Public Library to W. J. HARRIS, Stroud Green Branch of the Hornsey Public Libraries.

The Junior Prize for the best essay on "Charging Systems has been awarded to DOUGLAS ALLAN GILLESPIE, Buckingham Palace Road Library, City of Westminster.

NEW MEMBERS.

Senior.-Mr. J. C. SCOTT, Kendal; Mr. C. WELLS, Hove. Junior. Mr. E. J. BELL, Fulham; Mr. H. DIXON, Kendal; Mr. A. J. GLENN, West Ealing; Mr. J. D. Young, Fulham ; Mr. G. VALE, St. George, Stepney.

APPOINTMENTS.

PHILIP, Mr. A. J., of Hampstead, has been appointed Librarian of the Gravesend Public Library.

APPOINTMENTS VACANT.

Junior Assistant required, age 16 to 17 years, some experience essential, to take up a position in the Hampstead Branch of Bookshops, Ltd. Salary to commence, £50 per annum. Apply by letter to F. Whelen, Esq., Bookshops, Ltd., 1 Arundel Street, Strand, W.C.

NOTICES.

All matter for December Journal should be sent to the Hon. Editor before November 19th.

All other communications should be addressed to the Hon. Secretary, Mr. G. E. Roebuck, PUBLIC LIBRARY, 236, CABLE STREET, E.

The Library Assistant:

The Official Organ of the Library Assistants' Association.

No. 72.

DECEMBER, 1903.

DECEMBER MEETING.

Published Monthly.

The next Ordinary Monthly Meeting will be held on Wednesday, December 16th, at Headquarters (No. 2 Room), St. Bride Institute, Bride Lane, E.C., when Mr. L. Stanley Jast, Chief Librarian, Croydon Public Libraries, will address the members on "Committee Work."

Mr. Jast will deal with the delegation of powers; the librarian as secretary; committee procedure; the librarian and his chairman; sub-committees; the librarian's book list; various local practices; and so on. Mr. R. F. Bullen is down to open the discussion, and as an outline of Mr. Jast's address is given here, it is hoped that many assistants will take the opportunity of speaking on one or other of the points raised. The subject, by the way, has never yet been dealt with before this Association. The room will be open at 7.30 p.m.; the meeting will commence at 8 p.m.

Visitors (especially library assistants) are welcome.

NORTH-WESTERN BRANCH.

NOVEMBER MEETING.

By kind invitation of Mr. Ben H. Mullen, M.A., Chief Librarian and Curator, the meeting was held in Salford. The members first met at the Irlams o' th' Heights Branch Library, where they were received by Mr. Mullen and Mr. Hargreaves, the Librarian, under whose guidance an inspection of the Library and Public Hall was made.

The Library is a model branch library; architecture, arrangement and fittings make a satisfactory combination, and there is an air of comfort and an absence of stiffness and formality that must be appreciated by those who use the place. It was a pleasure to learn that the figures for 1902-3 show the issue of fiction to have decreased, while that of all other classes has practically doubled, save biography, which, however, has a good percentage. These satisfactory results are attributed to University Extension Lectures and careful selection of books. The Librarian makes a special point of topical lists, and all new books are exhibited and can be examined for a short time before being put into circulation.

From Th' Heights the members went by electric car to the

Central Library and Museum at Peel Park, where the meeting proper was held, Mr. Mullen being in the chair. He extended a hearty welcome on behalf of the Libraries Committee, himself and the staff, to the members of the N.W. Branch of the L.A.A. The address of Mr. J. K. Hosmer, President of the American Library Association, delivered at the Niagara Falls Conference in this year, was read by Mr. Swann. It dealt with "Some things that are uppermost," and touched in an interesting manner upon "dead" books, fiction, and the ideal librarian. It will be found in the July number of the "American Library Journal."

A short discussion followed, to which Mr Mullen contributed some helpful words, in particular advising the wise use of occasional snatches of spare time and pointing out the necessity for making determined efforts to overcome difficulties and not shirking them.

Hearty votes of thanks to the Libraries' Committee, to Mr. Mullen and his staff, were passed unanimously. Before leaving, the members were entertained to light refreshments.

DECEMBER MEETING.

The next meeting is fixed for Tuesday, December 8th, at 8 p.m. This should be the Annual Meeting, but, owing to a proposal to hold this in June, the Committee have to discuss the question, after which they will notify members re December meeting.

MEETING AT THE PATENT OFFICE.

At this meeting some fifty members and friends were present, Mr. Rees occupying the chair. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed, after which five vacancies on the committee were dealt with. There being no other nominations, Messrs. Coltman (Woolwich), Green (Shoreditch), Hawkins (Fulham), McDouall (Hammersmith), and Smith (Bishopsgate), were elected. Mr. Hulme then read his paper, which, together with the discussion, appears on another page herein. Mr. Chambers, seconded by Mr. Thorne, moved a vote of thanks to Mr. Hulme for his excellent address and hospitality, to which Mr. Hulme suitably responded. A vote of thanks to the Comptroller for his kind permission in allowing the meeting was passed on the motion of Mr. Harris, seconded by Mr. Savage. This finished, the party proceeded in small companies, attended by Mr. Hulme and his staff, to view the Library.

This immense and interesting place, 138 feet long, has two galleries, there being to the shelves on both, as with ground floor, open access. The book stacks, which are Lambert's Adjustable, surround the galleries and the ground floor, the middle of the floor

containing cases in which periodicals are kept in boxes, and at the end of each case small guides or catalogues may be found. There is a circular desk for the use of the staff, and a barrier further on; all the stacks beyond this on the ground floor are kept for British patents, which date from about 1657. The galleries have each a division in which patents of other countries are kept, viz., United States, Canada, Cape Colony, Switzerland, Germany and Japan, etc. As one might expect, the Japanese patents are often amusing. On the right gallery at the north end there is a special collection of German patents. There was also an exhibition of rare books and old specifications, including facsimiles of Caxton's works; autograph letters of Dr. S. Johnson; and an old book of patents printed upon linen, its contents being mainly drawings of steam engines, traction engines, and flying machines of great variety, one patent being that of training birds to take flight whilst fastened to a carriage with a driver seated upon it. There were several specimens of the leather used for binding, together with examples of the styles of binding; these, with other items, proved of great interest to all who viewed them. Those of the party who in passing round noticed anything of special interest now made further investigations, but the time having drawn on the party dispersed, after a most enjoyable and highly interesting evening. D. J. B.

CLASSIFICATION IN THE PATENT OFFICE LIBRARY.

BY E. WYNDHAM HULME.

Classification in the Patent Office Library is essentially in a transition stage. That of the Periodical collection which occupies the first and second galleries is perhaps in the most advanced stage: here, at least, we have a detailed division of subject-matter, with a chronological arrangement of the units and relative class marks. For the text books on the ground floor we still retain the old system of fixed marks, but in the course of the next few years we shall have formulated a new scheme based upon certain principles which I shall explain to you to-night.

No general subject catalogue of the library has been published since 1883, but the materials for a new edition are rapidly approaching completion, and already ten sectional catalogues have been issued which represent about one half of the future subject catalogue. However, it is not about ourselves and our doings that I am going to speak. Rather I wish to introduce you to some hard thinking about the principles of classification which are of universal application, and which can and should be discussed quite apart from the results obtained by their adoption in a particular establishment.

I must also warn you that the views I am about to express are not those which you will find in your text books, and may be opposed to those which you will hear in your lecture rooms. I want you, therefore, to accept nothing, but to reserve your judgment upon all points until you have had an opportunity of consulting others upon the subject.

Book classification consists of three operations :

I. Definition, or the formulation of class headings,

II. Co-ordination, or the assertion of some order between the

classes.

III. Notation, which may be described as a shorthand system of symbolising classes without reciting their definition and relative position in the classification.

It is with the two former operations alone that I propose to deal.

NATURE OF CLASSES.

The subject of definition belongs to Logic, and Logic forms no part of your prescribed course of study. Hence the subject of definition and of the nature of classes, is excluded, I believe, entirely from your text books. These plunge you into the deep waters of classification before you have been initiated into the mysteries of language which is the instrument by which classes are perpetuated. Classes are created by thinking, by observing resemblances, and are perpetuated by definition, or class names. From the librarian's standpoint, definitions, class names, class headings, are interchangeable terms. A class consists of the number of objects composing the class just as a company consists of the number of its members. The test of membership of a class is the possession by the individual member of the attributes common to the class and formulated in the class heading. Class names and individual names are opposite terms. Let us see if we can at once pick out these elements in our library catalogues.

CLASS ELEMENTS IN LIBRARY CATALOGUES.

66

The Author Catalogue, for instance, is a class catalogue, although the fact is to some extent concealed by the elliptical nature of its headings. Thus the heading, “William Shakespeare," although at first sight merely descriptive of an individual, is in reality, when expanded, the class heading. Shakespeare's Works," and all the items assembled thereunder, are there in virtue of their being works by or attributed to Shakespeare. Form headings, such as Encyclopædias, Periodicals, etc., and all subject headings are class headings. Indeed, with the exception of the first-word entries of anonymous works which are the names or part of the names of individual works, the whole of cataloguing is grouping works under class headings, and the difference between catalogue systems is a difference between the order of the classes. It is evident, therefore, that to call that type of catalogue which disposes of its classes in class order a class catalogue, and to refuse that title to other types of catalogue, is a serious blunder. The distinction should be between class order and alphabetical class catalogues.

Now let us consider more closely the essential differences between the alphabetical and class order subject catalogues.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE SUBJECT CATALOGUE.

The first rule of definition and the only one with which I will trouble you is that the class heading or definition must be clear and unequivocal. An equivocal heading is one which can be used in two or more senses, and denotes, therefore, two or more classes. Most words in the Englishlanguage are equivocal; hence the difficulty of correct definition is considerable. For instance, if writers on chemistry have at different periods used this term to denote (i.) the art of transmuting metals, (ii.) the art of preparing chemical medicines, (iii.) chemistry in its modern sense, then a catalogue which does not differentiate between these classes is to that extent guilty of equivocal definition. This difficulty of accurate definition is of course common to both types of Subject Catalogue.

Now in the old Title Subject Catalogue works were grouped under the catchwords of their titles arranged alphabetically. The effect of this was to bring together works of an extremely dissimilar character, e.g., Canal Locks and Locks and Keys, and to separate works on the same subject,