The last two might very well be entered under a heading of "Statistics"; although not on statistics, they contain much statistical information. General directories are not entered under a heading "Directories," but under the names of the places or classes with which they are concerned.
CHAPTER XIV.
Miscellaneous.
Title-Entries. Classics. Specific Subject. Concentration of Subject. Definite Headings. Popular Terms. Historical Fiction. Novels in Series. Sequels. Fiction Known by Special Titles. Books with Changed Titles. Annotations. Form Entries. Summary Hints.
Without dwelling too much on the various points that seem to need emphasis, some may be recapitulated with advantage.
There is a great tendency among cataloguers to overdo the title-entries in a dictionary catalogue, thereby adding to its bulk and cost without gaining any compensating advantage. One of the chief objections to the dictionary catalogue is superfluous first-word title-entries. To give a title-entry is an easy method of disposing of a book when its precise subject is not readily discerned. To enter books with titles like Factors in modern history under "Factors," The Winter Queen under "Winter," Romance of the renaissance chateaux under "Romance," Wanderings by Southern waters under "Wanderings," England's case against Home Rule under "England's," serves no practical purpose; in fact often leads to "hotch-potch" like the following:
Dutch at Home. By Esquiros
— Dialogues. By Harlen
— Dictionary
— Figure Painters. By Gower
— Guiana. By Palgrave
— Painters. By Stanley
— Pictures. By Sala
— Republic: Address on. By Harrison
— — Rise of the. By Motley
— School of Painting. By Havard
The second of these alone needed a title-entry, the others should have been allocated to their proper subjects. Title-entries of this type are seldom necessary outside works of fiction, volumes of essays or of poems with specific titles, and a few books that are specially known by their titles, of which Eothen, Sesame and lilies, Sartor resartus, are types. Title-entries should be the exception, not the rule. In the case of classics—that is "classics" in a wide sense, not merely the Greek and Latin—there is rarely any occasion to give more than the principal entries, the authors being so thoroughly well known that title-entries or references are redundant. None of Shakespeare's plays requires a title-entry; no entries are needed under "Iliad" or "Odyssey," or under "Inferno," or "Divine Comedy," or even under "Paradise Lost" or "Faust" (for Goethe's).