It is not necessary here to explain how the stereotyped slips were to be manufactured, as the explanation will be found in the original paper.
A scheme of an allied character was propounded by the late Mr. Henry Stevens, who read a very interesting and amusing paper before the Conference of Librarians in 1877 on "Photo-Bibliography; or, A Central Bibliographical Clearing House" (Transactions, pp. 70-81). Mr. Stevens wrote:—
"My notion is that every book, big and little, that is published, like every child, big and little, that is born, should be registered, without inquiry into its merits or character.... I ask the attention of this Conference of Librarians to a word on the necessity of cataloguing every book printed; the importance of printed card catalogues of old, rare, beautiful, and costly books, and how to make them on a co-operative or universal system, which, for lack of a better term, I shall for the present call 'photo-bibliography.' For carrying out this project a Central Bibliographical Bureau or Clearing House for Librarians is suggested."
The author goes on to say:—
"From the days of Hipparchus to the present time, the stars have been catalogued; and to-day every bird, beast, fish, shell, insect, and living thing, yea every tree, shrub, flower, rock, and gem, as they become known are scientifically, systematically, and intelligently named, described, and catalogued. In all these departments of human knowledge there is a well-ascertained and generally acknowledged system, which is dignified as a science."
But no such system of registering books has ever been attempted. The cure for this negligence is then suggested:—
"This isolation and waste of vain repetition, it is believed, is wholly unnecessary. There is no royal road, it has been said, to knowledge. He who would attain the goal must learn to labour and to wait, for knowledge is locked up mainly in books, appropriately termed works. There is, however, a short cut with a pass-key in universal or co-operative bibliography, a simple system of arrangement by which may be economized the labours of hundreds who are cataloguing over and over the same books."
Mr. Stevens's special contribution to this great object was the use of reduced photographs of the title-pages of rare and curious books. The adoption of this plan would help on vastly the study of bibliography.