250. Under countries arrange titles as under any other author.
That is, put first the country’s own works (governmental publications), then the works about the country; and as we put the criticisms on a voluminous author after the separate writings to which they respectively apply, so we put accounts of or attacks upon any branch of government after the entry of the branch.
251. In arranging government publications make all necessary divisions but avoid subdivision. {91}
It is much clearer—and it is the dictionary plan—to make the parts of a division themselves independent divisions, referring from the including division to the subordinate one. E. g. (to take part of the headings under United States):
- Subordination.
- United States.
- Department of the Interior.
- Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- Patent Office.
- Pension Office.
- Public Land Office.
- Department of the Navy.
- Bureau of Navigation.
- Bureau of Navy-Yards and Docks.
- Department of War.
- Adjutant-General’s Office.
- Bureau of Engineers.
- Bureau of Topographical Engineers.
- Commissary-General’s Office.
- Freedmen’s Bureau.
- Military Academy.
- Department of the Interior.
- United States.
- Better order.
- U. S.
- Adjutant-General.
- Bureau of Engineers.
- Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- Bureau of Navigation.
- Bureau of Navy Yards and Docks.
- Bureau of Topographical Engineers.
- Commissary-General.
- Department of the Interior.
- Department of the Navy.
- Department of War.
- Freedmen’s Bureau.
- Hydrographic Office.
- Military Academy.
- Naval Academy.
- Naval Asylum.
- Naval Observatory.
- Patent Office.
- Pension Office.
- Public Lands.
- U. S.
The subordination of bureaus and offices to departments is adopted simply for convenience, and is changed from time to time as the exigencies of the public service demand. There is no corresponding convenience in preserving such an order in a catalogue, but inconvenience, especially in the case of the above-mentioned changes. The alphabetical arrangement has here all its usual advantages without its usual disadvantage of wide separation.
252. Insert a synopsis of the arrangement whenever there are enough titles under a heading to require it.
This applies chiefly to the larger countries (as France, Great Britain, United States), the more voluminous authors (as Cicero, Shakespeare), one title-entry (Bible), and possibly some subjects not national. The arrangement of titles under Bible will be governed by §§ [240], [242], [245], and [247]; but it can be best understood from an example in some catalogue which has many titles under that heading. The synopsis in the Boston Athenæum catalogue is as follows:
- Whole Bibles (first Polyglots, then single languages arranged alphabetically).
- Works illustrating the whole Bible (under the heads Analysis, Antiquities, Bibliography, Biography, Canon, Catechisms, historical and theological, Commentaries, Concordances, Criticism, Dictionaries, Evidences, authority, etc., Geography, Hermeneutics, History, Inspiration, Introductions, Natural history, Science and the Bible, Theology, morals, etc., Miscellaneous illustrative works).
- Selections from both Testaments.
- Prophetical books of both Testaments.
- Old Testament.
- Illustrative works. {92}
- Parts of the Old Testament (arranged in the order of the English version), and works severally illustrating them.
- Apocrypha.
- New Testament.
- Illustrative works.
- Parts of the New Testament, and works illustrating them.