Mr. Hanson: I cannot think of any library printing cards that would care to print any lower than the round hole. On the other hand, the library must have three-quarters of an inch at the top of the card for headings. Will that leave sufficient space for taking away from top and bottom?
Mr. Andrews: They accepted it by that first vote.
Mr. Hanson: Then they must punch the hole in the margin.
Chairman: Or lose the part they punch out. If you will excuse me, I will put forth a little argument of my own.
Apropos of another report I had to make some time ago, I had heard that the greatest library in this country, certainly in some respects, was changing its plan to accommodate itself to the 33 card. I wrote to Mr. Whitney, of the Boston Public Library, which as you know uses a card larger than the 33, and it is a fact that with their immense catalog running for so many years, and with so large a number of cards which they cannot now cut down to the 33 size, they have found it advisable so to modify their plan for titles henceforth that the cards may be cut down to the 33 size on reprinting the old titles. Here is the letter, the report from his cataloger. [Mr. Hopkins here read the letter.] If they do not think it likely that ultimately they will use the 33 card why should they take all that trouble? Now, the problem they had to deal with was 10 times more difficult than that which the users of the 32 cards have to deal with. All you have to do with a 32 card to make it a 33 size is to paste it on something big enough and provide space to hold it. With such evidence as this before us why should we fret ourselves to provide a 32 card when the change to the 33 can be so easily and so cheaply made?
Mr. Bowker: May I add a word which Dr. Billings said to me? He said that he preferred a printed catalog card to a written catalog card any time, without reference to any question of uniformity. So he was actually replacing his written catalog cards with the Library of Congress cards or Library Bureau cards. I think that there is growing in the great libraries a desire for some general method which will supply printed catalog cards.
Chairman: Is there any further discussion on this topic? If not we will pass to the next.
Notes and Contents. I read from the official report made by the Committee on Rules to the Publishing Board: "The position of the collation and series note to be on a separate line immediately after the date and preceding other notes." Now we cannot take up the whole question of notes, nor the question of the minority report which Mr. Hopkins was asked to submit; but the question I would submit to you is this: Is not the contents note really, logically, sensibly, a part of the title? Is it not actually, in almost nine cases out of ten, more important than the title itself? If it were not, would it not be nonsense to print the contents note? If it is so, why separate the contents note from the title by other relatively unimportant matter? Has anybody anything to say?
Mr. Hanson: It seems to me it would be well to say here, collation is used for pagination, illustrations, maps, plates, etc., and size. That is the imprint, as we have for convenience's sake called collation; and the idea is that this information is to be paragraphed, on a separate line, so as to set out the date and make the date end the line in twelve point.
Mr. Biscoe: I want to say a word on the other side. It seems to me that it would be unfortunate to put the collation after the contents, particularly where the contents are long. It would throw the collation on the second card. To find out whether you had more than one volume you would have to turn to another card. If you are looking for duplicates you want to see at once not only the author of the book, but also the number of pages, to show whether the edition is the same. And if for all those purposes you have got to turn to a second card, it seems to me it would be unfortunate.