How to Make an Index

by Henry B. Wheatley

The indexer, however, has a great advantage over the cataloguer, because the latter is bound by bibliographical etiquette not to alter the title of a book, while the indexer is at liberty to alter the title as he likes, so as to bring together books on the same subject, however different the titles may be. Herein consists the great objection to the index composed of short titles, as in Dr. Crestadoro's Index to the Manchester Free Library Catalogue. Books almost entirely alike in subject are separated by reason of the different wording of the titles. It is much more convenient to gather together under one entry books identical in subject, and there is no utility in separating an "elementary treatise" on electricity from "the elements" of electricity. One important point connected with indexes to catalogues is to add the date of the book after the name of the author, so that the seeker may know whether the book is old or new.

An index ought not to supersede the table of contents, as this is often useful for those who cannot find what they want in the index, from having forgotten the point of the heading under which it would most likely appear in the alphabet.

In the year 1900 there was a controversy in The Times on a proposed subject index to the catalogue of the library of the British Museum. It was commenced on October 15th by a letter signed "A Scholar," and closed on November 19th by the same writer, who summed up the whole controversy. "A Scholar" expressed himself strongly against the proposal, and as he himself confesses he used very arrogant language. In consequence of which, most readers must have desired to find him proved to be in the wrong. This desire was satisfied when Mr. Fortescue, the keeper of the printed books at the British Museum, delivered his address as President of the Library Association on August 27th last.

The two points made by the "Scholar" were: (1) That the making of a general subject index to the catalogue proposed by the authorities of the British Museum would be a waste of money; (2) That it was a great evil for the five-yearly indexes originated by Mr. Fortescue to be discontinued.

Now let us see what is to be said with authority on these points.

Mr. Fortescue said:

"Last Autumn ... I read with respectful astonishment a letter to 'The Times' from a writer who preferred to veil his identity under the modest signature of 'a Scholar.' There I read that 'the studious public of this country and Europe in general have been surprised by the news that the authorities of the British Museum seriously contemplate the compilation of a subject index to the vast collection of printed books in that library.' I can assure you that the surprise of the studious public and of Europe in general cannot have surpassed my own when I thus learned of what the authorities were seriously contemplating. Nevertheless, it left me able, I thought, to discern that their vast conceptions had not been so fortunate as to gain the approval of 'a Scholar' and to marvel whence The Times and other great journals had drawn their truly surprising information. Some of the arguments put forth in sundry criticisms of the 'scheme' showed how much thought had been bestowed upon matters which then first dazzled my bewildered imagination. It may come some day (who shall say what will not?), this General Index, or it may never come. But up to the present moment I am aware of no authority who is seriously contemplating so large a venture unless perhaps it be 'a Scholar' himself."

Then as to the five-yearly indexes Mr. Fortescue said:

"Experience has taught us that there is no form of subject-index which the public values so highly as one which gives the most recent literature on every possible subject. And to meet this manifest want we shall certainly continue to issue, with all the latest improvements I hope, the modest Indexes which we have hitherto published in five-yearly (I am afraid as President of The Library Association I should say 'in quinquennial') volumes. The Museum sweeps its net so wide and in such remote seas that a more or less complete collection of books on almost every subject or historical event is gathered within it for future students. To take only two incidents from the last year or two, the next index will contain not less than a hundred and forty books and pamphlets, in almost every European tongue, on the Dreyfus case, and from four to five hundred books on the present war in South Africa. Such bibliographical tests have more than an ephemeral or immediate value. They will remain as records of events or phases of thought long after their causes shall have faded from all but the page of history."

Of late years the dictionary catalogue has come very largely into use in public libraries. This consists of a union of catalogue of authors and index of subjects which is found to be very useful and illuminating to the readers in free libraries, most of whom are probably not versed in the niceties of bibliographical arrangement, but are more likely to want a book on a particular subject than to require a special book which they know. Mr. Cutter has written the history of the dictionary catalogue in the United States Special Report (pp. 533-539), and he traces it back in America to about the year 1815.