A synoptical table of contents should be prefixed to the catalogue.
For those who desire a rough outline of headings into which a library usually classifies itself, I will name one. The briefest is as follows:—(1) Theology, (2) Philosophy and Science, (3) Art, (4) Political Economy, (5) Law, (6) History and Literature.
Bookcases.
The chief faults of bookcases arise from their being designed and made by men who have never used a book. A first requisite in bookcases is simplicity, bearing in mind that the books are the ornament and not the bookcases. The cabinet-maker, among other things, is too fond of embellishments, and sacrifices space to what seem odd angularities and irregularities.
No bookcase should be above eight and a half feet in height. No ladder should be necessary to get at books. If books are 'skied' up to the ceiling they must suffer from the heated air. It is heat, not gas merely, which damages books.
A room may be made to look very beautiful by being surrounded with fumed oak bookcases, eight feet high. The shelves should be made movable with Tonks' patent.[42] Mr. Gladstone[43] speaks of the looseness and the tightness of movable shelves, the weary arms, the aching fingers, and the broken finger-nails. This can be avoided by the use of the patent here named. The bottom cases should be deeper and wider, to take quartos and folios, but there should always be an extra shelf for turning a folio section into an octavo section. Nineteen-twentieths of the books in circulation are octavos and smaller volumes. On each side of the fireplace there should be an arm projecting about four feet and a half. The inner side of this should have a comfortable reading-seat, and on the outer side, farthest from the fire, there may be shelves for books. If the structural arrangements of the room admit of these projecting arms being placed, without sacrifice of comfort, at a greater distance from the fireplace, the books may be placed on the upper part of the inner side as well, the lower part being used as a lounge.
It must be remembered that heat and excessive dryness are fatal to good bindings and, indeed, to all parts of a book, and therefore no bookcase should approach too near a fireplace, nor should bookcases be placed backing upon hot-water pipes. The shelves should be edged with leather and such leather must not be stiffened by cardboard or brown paper—simply leather, and there should be a roller shutter of silk to draw down in front of the books during absence from home. The cases[44] should everywhere be perfectly flush, without any sort of protruding ornament. It will be found a great advantage to make the framework of the various cases of equal dimensions, so that the shelves can be made transferable. In estimating the extent of shelving which it may be necessary to provide, we may calculate that in an ordinary library a space two feet high and two feet wide will, on an average, contain about thirty-five volumes, and it may be estimated roughly that every thousand volumes in a library will require about a hundred square feet of shelving.
If fixed shelves are made, the usual height will be—[45]
| For | folios | 18 | to | 21 | inches. |
| " | quartos | 12 | " | 15 | " |
| " | octavos | 10 | " | ||
| " | smaller sizes | 7 | " |
