Accession Book.—The accession book, which corresponds to the invoice book of a business house, is the first of all records to be made of a book after it has been acquired by a library. The accession book aims to show the additions of each day in the exact order of their reception, without classification of any kind. One turns to it to learn what price was paid for a book, when and where it was bought, how much was paid for binding it, if it was bound after being acquired by the library, how much was paid for replacement if lost, etc. Each volume is entered on a separate line, and secures a separate accession number. By means of this number the history of any particular book can be traced. The accession book is the most permanent of the library records; entries cannot disappear as from a card shelf list, and it is of the greatest value in case of books lost or destroyed by fire. Each book should be entered immediately after it is collated and found to agree with the order and bill. The entries must be kept up to date in order to avoid loss and confusion. An accession number should be given each separate volume. Giving a single accession number to a set leads to endless confusion. A numbering machine will save time and help to prevent errors.
CHAPTER IV.
CLASSIFICATION.
Definition.—Classification consists of putting like things together. We do this every day, and the classification of books is only one special phase of this general process. Thus, a man who owns a hardware store does not place his goods helter skelter,—a stove, a box of nails, some saws and then a furnace, but he runs over his stock and classifies it, putting stoves in one place, nails in another. By this classification he gains two things: first, he can find any one thing he wants more quickly; secondly, he can tell how much of any one article he has on hand and so decide whether he must lay in a new supply. Likewise, the zoologist classifies all members of the animal kingdom, so that he can learn what the different kinds of animals are and study the relationship between them. Without the help afforded by classification he would be overwhelmed by the immense number of facts brought before him and without the aid of classification he would never have known of evolution, the guiding star of modern investigation.
First Principles.—In our every-day life we lose much time hunting for things for which we have no definite place. We have put them in the place which was most convenient for us at the moment when we put them away. Think for yourself how it is with your knowledge. From observation, from conversation, from reading, you learn a little about many subjects like electricity, botany, astronomy or politics, but in this desultory way you do not learn very much about any one of these subjects. Therefore you do not feel any special need of classifying your information, but when you take up any of these subjects and pursue it seriously you learn thousands of facts and relations, and then is the time that you feel the need of some plan of arrangement of your knowledge.
Private vs. Institutional Libraries.—One has the same experience in regard to books. A person having a library of from fifty to three hundred books does not feel the need of classifying them. The ordinary arrangement is based upon size, color or convenience. The books in the average house are so placed as to look their best. The classification, as far as it exists, is an esthetic one. The owner knows the exact appearance of every volume in his library and when he wants Longfellow’s poems he can tell at a glance where it is. In a small private library there is no occasion for all the history being in one place or all the poems in another. As the library grows, the esthetic principle of classification can be followed until the owner can no longer readily remember how each book looks.
But our institutional libraries contain so many books that the librarian cannot know them in the same way that he can the books in his own private library and consequently he has to study the question of classification and devise a method by which not only he, but his assistants and also such readers as have access to the books, can readily find them as wanted. Classification, the putting of like things together, would, therefore, mean in a large library, putting histories together in one place, the medical books together in another place, and so with all other distinctive subjects. Each of these large classes will, however, have to be subdivided. Thus, histories of Greece are put together in one place, histories of Rome in another, histories of the United States in still another. The subdivision in the larger libraries is carried still farther and books on the period of the discovery of America are put first, followed by books on the Colonial period of the United States, the Revolutionary War, etc. United States history, if well represented, is classified geographically. This process of subdivision into separate groups of books on each state can be carried still farther if necessary.
Advantages of Classification.—The following questions may arise: What advantages come from the classification, and who are benefited? The advantages come to those having access to the books. If one goes to a library to get a volume by Arnold Bennett it makes no difference to the individual whether the library is classified or not if he cannot go to the shelves and pick out the book for himself. Likewise, if he wants Young’s Astronomy he will probably get the book more quickly if he asks the attendant to get it than if he tries to get it himself, supposing he does have access to the shelves. But the time when the reader gets the most help from the classification is when he wants to examine a number of books on astronomy and can go to the shelves and find the books on that subject all in one place. Then he can easily find what different writers have to say about the habitability of Mars or he can find what book appeals to him as being the most interesting and can borrow it for home use. Any investigator finds access to the shelves of a well classified library an immense help.
An Aid to the Librarian.—Another person who is greatly benefited by classification is the librarian, and it is just as important that he be helped as that the reader be helped. He is, however, helped in a different way. He knows what the system of classification in use in the library is and with the outlines of this scheme in mind he goes through the library and finds out where it is strong and where it is weak and can plan future purchases accordingly. If, for example, he finds on the shelves little of value on photography he will make a note of it and buy more books on that subject when funds are available. If he finds that there is an undue supply of travel on hand, he will note that also and buy fewer books in that class in the future. Without the help of classification the librarian would overlook many such irregularities. In an unclassified library they would be discovered only through a long and tedious investigation. His only recourse would be the catalog and that is not so well adapted to answer such questions.
Basis of Classification.—The next question is, what shall be the basis of classification. It is obvious that this basis should be sought in the character of the books themselves and should be applied with constant reference to the reader and his needs. In regard to the first point, character of the books, we know that books have been written on all kinds of subjects,—religion, law, history, medicine, etc. and that those subjects form the only rational basis for classification. A classification based on these distinctions is the only one that helps the reader. If a man comes to the library to investigate a particular point in medicine, it is clear that it will help him if he finds all the medical books together rather than all the books grouped according to their date of purchase by the library.