255. Under subject-headings group titles topically when it can be done, otherwise arrange them by the authors’ names.
Alphabetical arrangement by authors’ names is useful when a subject-entry is a substitute for a title-entry, but otherwise is as useless as it is inappropriate. If the author’s name is known the book should be looked for under that, not under the subject; if it is not known, what good can an arrangement by authors do? Sometimes, if one has forgotten the Christian name of an author, it may be easier to find him under a subject than in a crowd of Smiths or Joneses or Müllers, and this use of a subject-heading is impaired by grouping or by chronological order; but such use is infrequent, and the main design of a subject-entry should not be subordinated to this side advantage.
It is even urged that it is harder to find a work treating of the subject in any special way among subdivisions than when there is only one alphabet, which is absurd. On the one hand one must look over a list of books embracing five or six distinct divisions of a subject and select from titles often ambiguous or provokingly uncommunicative those that seem likely to treat of the matter in the way desired. On the other plan he must run over five or six headings given by another man, and representing that man’s ideas of classification, and decide under which of them the treatise he is in search of is likely to be put. Which system gives the least trouble and demands the least brain-work? Plainly the latter. In three cases out of four he can comprehend the system at a glance. And if in the fourth there is a doubt, and he is compelled after all to look over the whole list or several of the divisions, he is no worse off than if there were no divisions; the list is not any longer. The objection then to subdivisions is not real, but fanciful. The reader at first glance is frightened by the appearance of a system to be learned, and perversely regards it as a hinderance instead of an assistance. But if anyone has such a rooted aversion to subdivisions it is very easy for him to disregard them altogether, and read the list as if they were not there, leaving them to be of service to wiser men.
As the number of titles under each heading increases in number so does the opportunity and need of division. The first and most usual groups to be made are Bibliography and its companion History, and the “practical-form” groups Dictionaries and Periodicals Under countries the first grouping will be Description and Travels, History and Politics, Language and Literature, followed by Natural history, etc. For examples of further subdivisions see the longer catalogues. It is not worth while in a printed catalogue to make very minute divisions. The object aimed at,—enabling the enquirer to find quickly the book that treats of the branch of the subject which he is interested in,—is attained if the mass of titles is broken up into sections containing from half a dozen to a score. Of course there are masses of titles which can not be so broken up because they all treat of the same subject in the same way, or at least show no difference of treatment that admits of classification. The general works on the Fine Arts in a library of 100,000 volumes may number 100 titles, even after Periodicals and Dictionaries have been set aside.
There is one objection to grouping,—that books can seldom be made to fill any classification exactly, their contents overrunning the classes, so that they must be entered in several places, or they will fail to be found under some of the subdivisions of which they treat. Thus in the chronological arrangement of History, whether we arrange by the first date, the average, or the last date of each work, the books cover periods of such various length that one can never get all that relates to one period together. {94}
There is another objection,—that it is much harder to make a catalogue with subdivisions, which of course require a knowledge of the subject and examination of the books; and the difficulty increases in proportion to the number of the books and the minuteness of the divisions.
256. The subarrangement in groups will often be alphabetical by authors; but in groups or subjects of a historical character it should be chronological, the order being made clear by putting the dates first or by printing them in heavy-faced type.
Thus under countries the division History will be arranged according to the period treated of, the earliest first; so under Description, for England as seen by foreigners in the days of Elizabeth was a very different country from the England seen by Prince Pückler-Muskau in 1828, or satirized by Max O’Rell in 1883. So Statistics and Literature, and other divisions, should be treated when they are long enough.
257. When there are many cross-references classify them.
Ex. Architecture. See also Arches;—Baths;—Bridges;—Cathedrals;—Fonts;—[and many other things built];