414. Pamphlets.
414. Pamphlets.—Pamphlets and magazine excerpts form a large part of every reference library and are often difficult to deal with effectively. When not bound in volumes, they may be stitched in manila wrappers, and stored in boxes of various sizes, such as 8vo, 4to, etc., of the kind specified in [Section 306]. Each pamphlet should be lettered on the side of its wrapper, with its author, title, date, class letter and number and accession number. The collection might be commenced with an 8vo box for each class, and gradually extended from this nucleus as the stock increased, the contents of boxes being divided and subdivided, and placed in new boxes with changed lettering. As these would be arranged in class order, there would be no more difficulty in finding a single pamphlet than in finding a book. With miscellaneous collections of pamphlets bound in volumes, the best plan is to renumber them in a progressive series, and carry the volume number against the catalogue or other entry. It is not advisable to run more than one series of numbers, and if by chance a collection is acquired which is already numbered, these should be covered over with the continuation numbers of the library’s own progressive series. On the whole it is better not to bind pamphlets, partly owing to their miscellaneous nature, which prevents any real classification or even approximate subject order in the volumes composed of them, partly because of their very temporary value as a rule and because of the impossibility of inserting new ones into bound volumes. A student or discoverer frequently advances his first conclusions in a pamphlet, and sooner or later these are superseded by books, and many pamphlets are merely statements of views upon political and other questions of much immediate but usually quite passing interest. In the average library they become dead stock in a few months or years. Pamphlet collections should be weeded out more frequently than book collections.
415.
415. The vertical file is the most adequate method of dealing with cuttings, broadsides and similar separate matter. If the folders are closely classified, the ordinary printed index to the classification scheme used is a fairly good key; but a slip index of some kind will exhaust the file better and accelerate reference. If a brief index entry is made before the cutting is dropped into its folder, in some such form as follows, the work will not be unduly burdensome:
Atlantic Flight.
U.S. Seaplane, NC4, flies to Lisbon.
D. Chron., 28.5.19-1.629.
Fig. 158.—Clippings-index Slip ([Section 415]).