are put in order as, “One million,” “Ninety-seventh,” and “Two hundred” respectively.
116.—It is necessary to repeat the instructions to ignore the articles “A,” “An” and “The” in alphabetical arrangement, when they lead in a title or are transposed for alphabetical purposes, but not otherwise. In the middle of a title they must be reckoned with, and therefore “Under a strange mask” comes before “Under Drake’s flag,” and “Mr. and Mrs. Faulconbridge” before “Mr. Baker’s money.” The possessive is to be treated as spelled, and so “Miners and their works” comes before “Miner’s right, The,” and “Boys’ and Girls’ Book of Games” comes between “Boys’ adventures” and “Boys and I.”
Sometimes entries upon quite different subjects, which are spelled alike are, in the work of sorting, inadvertently amalgamated under a single heading, and so books like “The Great Seals of England” by Wyon; “Seals of the British Seas” by Southwell; and “Catalogue of seals in the British Museum” by Birch, are brought together to the confusion of the naturalist or the antiquarian. Fortunately there are not many such subjects, or the rule-of-thumb mechanical cataloguer would oftener create laughter than he now does.
Occasionally it will be found advisable to ignore the alphabetical order of the titles of the books under an author’s name, as in the case where a number of books with varying titles are intended to be read in a particular order when it is of more advantage to so arrange them than to adhere to the alphabetical order. A note should be added, stating that the arrangement is according to sequence.
CHAPTER XIV.
PRINTING.
117.—The slips being sorted into alphabetical order if a dictionary catalogue, or into classes and divisions if a classified catalogue, are to be laid down on sheets of paper to send to the printer. These sheets of paper should be thin, tough, and uniform in size, but the colour and quality is of little importance and brown or cheap printing paper will do. The slips are first prepared by cutting away any part of the entry not to be printed, as the author’s name from the second and subsequent entries under his name, and in the same way cutting off the subject-heading from those slips where there are more entries than one under the subject. This is better than laying all down, and then afterwards marking out what is not to be printed. The sheets of paper should be first pasted all over, the slips laid upon them in order, usually in two columns, and then all pressed over. A little marginal space should be left for the insertion of additional entries.
If the entries are written upon cards, and it is wished to avoid the work of laying them down on sheets of paper, the names and headings not to be printed should be scored through, and the cards strung together in batches of a hundred or so by means of the hole usually perforated in them, numbering them through from beginning to end for order and safety. If the “copy” consists of the printed pages of a former catalogue with new additions to be inserted, the page should first be laid down on the sheet and the new entries below, these being numbered consecutively on each sheet separately with a corresponding number marked upon the page at the exact place where the new entry goes. Should there be a comparatively large number of such insertions, it is a much safer plan and fairer to the printer to cut up the printed page and place the additional entries in their correct order before laying them down on the sheet of paper.
118.—The sheets as they are got ready must be consecutively numbered throughout with a bold figure on the right hand top corner, and before sending them to the printer they should be finally looked through for revision. This is the most convenient time for marking the “copy,” for variations in type. The marking is usually as follows: