Sir Frederick Madden, when under examination, said: "The first point in the statement I wish to make is with reference to the cataloguing of anonymous works; that the plan adopted is founded altogether upon a mistaken notion, so much so that I should say in nine cases out of ten the books cannot be found. I cannot understand upon what principle it is that a book is to be entered by the first substantive or the first word rather than the last. It seems to me that the principle is entirely fallacious." I entirely agree with Sir F. Madden, and I can speak from bitter experience of the great difficulty there is in finding anonymous books in the British Museum Catalogue.
Lord Mahon (afterwards Earl Stanhope), one of the trustees, dealt with this matter very satisfactorily in his examination. He said:—
"I will take the heading 'Account' as I find it in the Catalogue of the Letter A, printed in 1841. Under that heading I find seventeen entries of different books, and I am of opinion with respect to all the seventeen that the heading 'Account' is one of the least convenient under which they could stand. The entries are such as these:—
An Account of Several Workhouses for Employing and Maintaining the Poor. London, 1725. 4o.
An Account of the Constitution and Security of the General Bank of Credit. London, 1683. 4o.
An Exact Account of Two Real Dreams which happened to the Same Person. London, 1725. 8o.
An Impartial Account of the Prophets, in a Letter to a Friend. Edinburgh. 4o.
An Account of the Proceedings in Order to the Discovery of the Longitude. London, 1765. 4o.
It seems to me, that these works could be entered far more conveniently under the headings respectively of 'Workhouses,' 'Banks,' 'Dreams,' 'Prophets,' and 'Longitude.' Now, to take only the last case, the book upon the longitude, it should be considered that probably a reader would only be directed to that book through one of two channels. In the first place, he might desire, by means of the Catalogue, to have an opportunity of examining all the publications that have appeared on the subject of the longitude; and if he do not find these publications collected under the heading 'Longitude,' in what a labyrinth of perquisitions must he become involved![24] Or, secondly, he may have seen the book in question referred to by some other writer on science. But in such a case the reference is seldom given at full length; it is far more commonly comprised in some such words as the following: "The proceedings to discover the longitude up to 1763 are well described in an anonymous tract published in the same year;' or, 'An essay, without the author's name, published in 1763, gives a good summary of the proceedings so far towards the discovery of the longitude;' or again, 'For these facts, see the Proceedings towards the Discovery of the Longitude (London, 1763).' Now with such a reference, if the book in question had been entered under 'Longitude,' it would be found readily and at once; but if not, how is the inquirer to know that he should seek it under 'Account' rather than under 'Essay,' 'Treatise,' 'Dissertation,' 'Remarks,' 'Observations,' 'Letter,' 'History,' 'Narrative,' 'Statement,' or any other similar heading?" (p. 812).
Mr. C. Tomlinson referred in his evidence to the effects of rule XXXIV., by which the name of a country is adopted as a heading. He instanced the anonymous work (known, however, to have been written by John Holland) entitled, The History and Description of Fossil Fuel; the Collieries and Coal Trade of Great Britain. He says: "This book has occasioned me a great deal of search. I looked under the head of 'Coal,' I looked under 'Collieries,' and I looked under 'Fuel,' and it is not to be found under any of those titles, but it is found under 'Great Britain and Ireland'" (p. 305).
Mr. Panizzi alludes to this in his reply to criticisms. He says that under his own rule it would appear under "History," but under the system of taking the main subject it properly comes under "Great Britain" (p. 677).
Mr. John Bruce objected to L'Art de Vérifier les Dates, The Art of Cookery, and The Art of Love all coming under the heading of "Art," and here I should agree with him; but when he proceeded to suggest that a book entitled, Is it Well with You? should be entered under "Well" because that is the emphatic word (p. 423), I think he is wrong. This is a distinctive title similar to the title of a novel, and likely to be completely quoted and to remain on the memory, and therefore the book should be entered under "Is."
I hope enough has been said to show that the system adopted by Mr. Panizzi, however clear and logical, is not a convenient one for the person who wishes to discover the title of an anonymous book in the catalogue.
There seem to have been two reasons for adopting this system: first, that it was simple; and, secondly, that the other plan of putting a title under a subject-heading was confusing classification with alphabetization. Lord Wrottesley put this point as a question: "Any other system of cataloguing anonymous works than the system which you recommend does in point of fact confound two different things, a classed catalogue and an alphabetical catalogue?" To which Mr. Panizzi answered, "Yes."