How to Catalogue a Library

by Henry B. Wheatley

Another advantage of this plan is that a practically new library catalogue may be made up from old printed catalogues. Some five-and-twenty years ago, the Athenæum Club possessed a worn-out catalogue of its library. Supplements were printed, and I laid down in one alphabet a catalogue of the whole, which has lasted to the present time, although I believe it is pretty well worn out now. There were certain difficulties to be overcome, for the catalogue and its supplements were not made on the same system.

Card catalogues have been strongly advocated by some, and they present many advantages if used while the catalogue is growing in completeness; but for use when the catalogue is completed they cannot compete in convenience with the plan just described. It takes much longer to look through a series of cards representing the works of a given author than it does to run the eye down a page of titles.[19]

Professor Otis Robinson, in his article on "College Library Administration" (United States Report on Public Libraries, p. 512), writes thus on the adoption of card catalogues in the United States:—

"In some of the largest libraries of the country the card system has been exclusively adopted. Several of them have no intention of printing any more catalogues in book form. In others cards are adopted for current accessions, with the expectation of printing supplements from them from time to time. I think the tendency of the smaller libraries is to adopt the former plan, keeping a manuscript card catalogue of books as they are added, without a thought of printing."

This system of cataloguing has not taken hold of the English mind, although it has been adopted at the Bodleian Library by Mr. Nicholson, and at the Guildhall Library. The growth of this fashion appears to me as something almost incomprehensible, and one can only ask why such a primitive mode of arrangement should be preferred to a book catalogue. I can scarcely imagine anything more maddening than a frequent reference to cards in a drawer; and my objection is not theoretical, but formed on a long course of fingering slips or cards. If the arrangement of the catalogue is constantly being altered, it may be convenient to have cards; but when a proper system has been settled at the beginning, this cannot be necessary. When additions only have to be considered, these can be inserted into the book catalogue, so that the catalogue may last for many years. The use of a duplicate set of titles on cards for use in arrangement, which can be arranged and rearranged as often as required, is quite another matter. This plan is adopted at the Bodleian.

Varieties of type help the eye to choose out what it requires, and there is much saving of time in consulting a good printed catalogue instead of a good manuscript one. This is not a matter of opinion merely, but can be proved at once by consulting the printed volumes of the British Museum Catalogue against the volumes still in manuscript.

Before the details of printing are finally settled it is well to pay particular attention to the typographical arrangement, as a catalogue will be all the more useful as it is well set out.

A very ingenious scheme for the stereotyping of catalogue titles was published by Mr. C. C. Jewett, Librarian of the Smithsonian Institution, in 1850.[20]

The mode of carrying out the plan is explained as follows:—

"1. The Smithsonian Institution to publish rules for the preparation of catalogues.

"2. To request other institutions intending to publish catalogues of their books to prepare them according to these rules, with a view to their being stereotyped under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution.

"3. The Smithsonian Institution to pay the whole extra expense of stereotyping, or such part thereof as may be agreed on.

"4. The stereotyped titles to remain the property of the Smithsonian Institution.

"5. Every library uniting in this plan to have the right of using all the titles in the possession of the Smithsonian Institution, as often as desired for the printing of its own catalogue by the Institution; paying only the expense of making up the pages, of the press work, and of distributing the titles to their proper places.

"6. The Smithsonian Institution to publish as soon as possible, and at stated intervals, general catalogues of all libraries coming into this system."