A Book for All Readers Part 24

The German ae, oe, ue, are always to be written as a, o, u, and arranged as a, o, u.

Names of persons are to precede similar names of places, which in turn precede similar first words of t.i.tles.

A few desirable modifications or additions to these rules may be suggested.

1. In t.i.tle-entries, let the year of publication stand last, instead of the indication of size.

2. n.o.blemen to be entered under their family names, with reference from their t.i.tles.

3. Instead of designations of t.i.tle, profession, residence, or family, to distinguish authors, let every name be followed by the chronology, as--

James (Henry) 1811-82.

James (Henry) 1843-

It is highly desirable to give this information as to the author's period in every t.i.tle-heading, without exception, when ascertainable. If unknown, the approximate period to be given, with a query.

4. All t.i.tles to be written in small letters, and printed in lower case, whether in English, German, or any other language, avoiding capitals except in cases named in the rule.

5. Works without date, when the exact date is not found, are to be described conjecturally, thus:

[1690?] or [about 1840.]

6. In expressing collations, use commas rather than the sign + between the pagings, as--xvi, 452, vii pp.--not xvi+452+vii pp.

7. Forenames should be separated from the surnames which precede them by parenthesis rather than commas, as a clearer discrimination: as--

Alembert (Jean Baptiste le Rond d')--not Alembert, Jean Baptiste le Rond d'.

The printed catalogue of the British Museum Library follows this method, as well as that in the preceding paragraph.

8. All books of history, travels, or voyages to have the period covered by them inserted in brackets, when not expressed in the t.i.tle-page.

9. All collected works of authors, and all libraries or collections of different works to be a.n.a.lysed by giving the contents of each volume, either in order of volumes, or alphabetically by authors' names.

Of course there are mult.i.tudes of points in catalogue practice not provided for in the necessarily brief summary preceding: and, as books on the art abound, the writer gives only such s.p.a.ce to it as justice to the wide range of library topics here treated permits.

Probably the most important question in preparing catalogue t.i.tles, is what s.p.a.ce to give to the author's frequently long-drawn-out verbiage in his t.i.tle-page. There are two extremes to be considered: (1) Copying the t.i.tle literally and in full, however prolix; and (2) reducing all t.i.tle-pages, by a Procrustean rule, to what we may call "one-line t.i.tles." Take an example:

"Jones (Richard T.) A theoretical and practical treatise on the benefits of agriculture to mankind. With an appendix containing many useful reflections derived from practical experience. iv, 389 pp. 8. London, MDCCXLIV." As abridged to a short t.i.tle, this would read: "Jones (Richard T.) Benefits of agriculture, iv, 389 pp. 8. Lond. 1744." Who will say that the last form of t.i.tle does not convey substantially all that is significant of the book, stripped of superfluous verbiage? But we need not insist upon t.i.tles crowded into a single line of the catalogue, whether written or printed. This would do violence to the actual scope of many books, by suppressing some significant or important part of their t.i.tles. The rule should be to give in the briefest words selected out of the t.i.tle (never imported into it) the essential character of the book, so far as the author has expressed it. Take another example:

"Bowman (Thomas) A new, easy, and complete Hebrew course; containing a Hebrew grammar, with copious Hebrew and English exercises, strictly graduated: also, a Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew lexicon. In two parts. Part I. Regular verbs. Edinburgh, 1879."

This might be usefully condensed thus:

Bowman, (Thomas) Hebrew course: grammar, exercises, lexicon, [&c.] Part I. Regular verbs. Edinburgh, 1879.

One objection brought against the dictionary catalogue is that it widely separates subjects that belong together. In the Boston Athenaeum catalogue, for example, the topic Banks is found in Vol. 1, while Money is in Vol. 3; and for Wages, one must go to Vol. 5, while Labor is in Vol. 3. But there are two valid reasons for this. First, the reader who wants to know about banks or wages may care nothing about the larger topics of money or of labor; and secondly, if he does want them, he is sent to them at once by cross-reference, where they belong in the alphabet; whereas, if they were grouped under Political Economy, as in cla.s.sed catalogues, he must hunt for them through a maze of unrelated books, without any alphabet at all.

It is often forgotten by the advocates of systematic subject catalogues rather than alphabetical ones, that catalogues are for those who do not know, more than for those who do. The order of the alphabet is settled and familiar; but no cla.s.sification by subjects is either familiar or settled. Catalogues should aim at the greatest convenience of the greatest number of readers.

It is noteworthy that the English Catalogue (the one national bibliography of the current literature of that country) has adopted, since 1891, the dictionary form of recording authors, t.i.tles and subjects in one alphabet, distinguishing authors' names by antique type. It is hoped that the American Catalogue, an indispensable work in all libraries, will adopt in its annual and quinquennial issues the time-saving method of a single alphabet.

It is not claimed that the dictionary catalogue possesses fully all the advantages in educating readers that the best cla.s.sed catalogues embody.

But the chief end of catalogues being to find books promptly, rather than to educate readers, the fact that the dictionary catalogue, though far from perfect, comes nearer to the true object than any other system, weighs heavily in its favor. Edward Edwards said--"Many a reader has spent whole days in book-hunting [in catalogues] which ought to have been spent in book-reading." It is to save this wasted time that catalogues should aim.

Nothing can be easier than to make a poor catalogue, while nothing is more difficult than to make a good one. The most expert French bibliographers who have distinguished themselves by compiling catalogues have been most severely criticised by writers who no doubt would have been victimized in their turn if they had undertaken similar work. Byron says

"A man must serve his time to every trade, Save censure;--critics all are ready made."

When De Bure and Van Praet, most accomplished bibliographers, published the catalogue of the precious library of the duke de La Valliere, the abbe Rive boasted that he had discovered a blunder in every one of the five thousand t.i.tles of their catalogue. Barbier and Brunet have both been criticised for swarms of errors in the earlier editions of their famous catalogues. The task of the exact cataloguer is full of difficulty, constantly renewed, and demanding almost encyclopaedic knowledge, and incessant care of minute particulars.

The liability to error is so great in a kind of work which, more than almost any other, demands the most scrupulous accuracy, lest a catalogue should record a book with such mistakes as to completely mislead a reader, that rules are imperatively necessary. And whatever rules are adopted, a rigid adherence to them is no less essential, to avoid misapprehension and confusion. A singular instance of imperfect and misleading catalogue work was unwittingly furnished by Mr. J. Payne Collier, a noted English critic, author, and librarian, who criticised the slow progress of the British Museum catalogue, saying that he could himself do "twenty-five t.i.tles an hour without trouble." His twenty-five t.i.tles when examined, were found to contain almost every possible error that can be made in cataloguing books. These included using names of translators or editors as headings, when the author's name was on the t.i.tle-page; omitting christian names of authors; omitting to specify the edition; using English instead of foreign words to give the t.i.tles of foreign books; adopting t.i.tled instead of family names for authors (which would separate Stanhope's "England under Queen Anne" from the same writer's "History of England," published when he was Lord Mahon); errors in grammar, etc. These ridiculous blunders of a twenty-five-t.i.tle-an-hour man exemplify the maxim "the more haste, the worse speed," in catalogue-making.

That our British brethren are neither adapted nor inclined to pose as exemplars in the fine art of cataloguing, we need only cite their own self-criticisms to prove. Here are two confessions found in two authors of books on catalogue-making, both Englishmen. Says one: "We are deficient in good bibliographies. It is a standing disgrace to the country that we have no complete bibliography of English authors, much less of English literature generally." Says another: "The English are a supremely illogical people. The disposition to irregularity has made English bibliography, or work on catalogues, a by-word among those who give attention to these matters."

An American may well add, "They do these things better in France and Germany," while declining to claim the meed of superiority for the United States.

Too much prominence should not be given to place-numbers in library catalogues. The tendency to subst.i.tute mere numerical signs for authors and subjects has been carried so far in some libraries, that books are called for and charged by cla.s.s-numbers only, instead of their distinctive names. An English librarian testifies that a.s.sistants trained in such libraries are generally the most ignorant of literature. When mechanical or mnemonical signs are wholly subst.i.tuted for ideas and for authors, is it any wonder that persons incessantly using them become mechanical? Let catalogue and cla.s.sification go hand in hand in bringing all related books together, and library a.s.sistants will not stunt their intellects by becoming bond-slaves to the nine digits, nor lose the power of thought and reflection by never growing out of their _a b c's_.

There are two forms of catalogue not here discussed, which are adjuncts to the library catalogue proper. The accession catalogue, kept in a large volume, records the particulars regarding every volume, on its receipt by the library. It gives author, t.i.tle, date, size, binding, whence acquired, cost, etc., and a.s.signs it an accession number, which it ever after retains. The shelf catalogue (or shelf-list) is a portable one divided into sections representing the cases of shelves in the library.

It gives the shelf cla.s.sification number, author, brief t.i.tle and number of volumes of each book, as arranged on the shelves; thus const.i.tuting an inventory of each case, or stack, throughout the library.

To check a library over is to take an account of stock of all the books it should contain. This is done annually in some libraries, and the deficiencies reported. All libraries lose some books, however few, and these losses will be small or great according to the care exercised and the safe-guards provided. The method is to take one division of the library at a time, and check off all books on the shelves by their numbers on the shelf-list, supplemented by careful examination of all numbers drawn out, or at bindery, or in other parts of the library. Not a volume should be absent unaccounted for. Those found missing after a certain time should be noted on the shelf-list and accession book, and replaced, if important, after the loss is definitely a.s.sured.

The reason for writing and printing all catalogue t.i.tles in small letters, without capitals (except for proper names) is two-fold. First, there can be no standard prescribing what words should or should not be capitalized, and the cataloguer will be constantly at a loss, or will use capitals in the most unprincipled way. He will write one day, perhaps, "The Dangers of great Cities," and the next, "The dangers of Great cities"--with no controlling reason for either form. Secondly, the symmetry of a t.i.tle or a sentence, whether written or printed, is best attained by the uniform exclusion of capitals. That this should be applied to all languages, notwithstanding the habit of most German typographers of printing all nouns with capitals, is borne out by no less an authority than the new Grimm's _Deutsches Worterbuch_, which prints all words in "lower case" type except proper names. Nothing can be more unsightly than the constant breaking up of the harmony of a line by the capricious use of capitals.

To discriminate carefully the various editions of each work is part of the necessary duty of the cataloguer. Many books have pa.s.sed through several editions, and as these are by no means always specified on the t.i.tle-page, one should establish the sequence, if possible, by other means. The first edition is one which includes all copies printed from the plates or the type as first set; the second, one which is reprinted, with or without changes in the text or the t.i.tle. First editions often acquire a greatly enhanced value, in the case of a noted author, by reason of changes made in the text in later issues of the work. For though the latest revision may and should be the author's best improved expression, his earliest furnishes food for the hunters of literary curiosities. Every catalogue should distinguish first editions thus [1st ed.] in brackets.

In the arrangement of t.i.tles in catalogues, either of the various works of the same writer, or of many books on the same subject, some compilers follow the alphabetical order, while others prefer the chronological--or the order of years of publication of the various works. The latter has the advantage of showing the reader the earlier as distinguished from the recent literature, but in a long sequence of authors (in a subject-catalogue) it is more difficult to find a given writer's work, or to detect its absence.

The task of accurately distributing the t.i.tles in a catalogue of subjects would be much simplified, if the books were all properly named. But it is an unhappy failing of many writers to give fanciful or far-fetched t.i.tles to their books, so that, instead of a descriptive name, they have names that describe nothing. This adds indefinitely to the labor of the cataloguer, who must spend time to a.n.a.lyse to some extent the contents of the book, before he can cla.s.sify it. This must be done to avoid what may be gross errors in the catalogue. Familiar examples are Ruskin's Notes on Sheep-folds (an ecclesiastical criticism) cla.s.sified under Agriculture; and Edgeworth's Irish Bulls under Domestic animals.

The work of alphabeting a large number of t.i.tle-cards is much simplified and abbreviated by observing certain obvious rules in the distribution.

(1) Gather in the same pile all the cards in the first letter of the alphabet, A, followed in successive parallel rows by all the B's, and so on, to the letter Z. (2) Next, pursue the same course with all the t.i.tles, arranging under the second letter of the alphabet, Aa, Ab, Ac, etc., and so with all the cards under B. C. &c. for all the letters. (3) If there still remain a great many t.i.tles to distribute into a closer alphabetic sequence, the third operation will consist in arranging under the third letter of the alphabet, _e. g._, Abb, Abc, Abd, etc. The same method is pursued throughout the entire alphabet, until all the t.i.tle-cards are arranged in strict order.

Too much care cannot be taken to distinguish between books written by different authors, but bearing the same name. Many catalogues are full of errors in this respect, attributing, for example, works written by Jonathan Edwards, the younger, (1745-1801) to Jonathan Edwards the elder, (1703-58); or cataloguing under Henry James, Jr., the works of his father, Henry James. The abundant means of identification which exist should cause such errors to be avoided; and when the true authorship is fixed, every author's chronology should appear next after his name on every card-t.i.tle: _e. g._ James (Henry, 1811-82) Moralism and Christianity, New York, 1850. James (Henry, 1843- ) Daisy Miller, N. Y.

1879.

The designation of book sizes is a vexed question in catalogues. The generally used descriptions of size, from folio down to 48mo. signify no accurate measurement whatever, the same book being described by different catalogues as 12mo. 8vo, crown 8vo. &c., according to fancy; while the same cataloguer who describes a volume as octavo to-day, is very likely to call it a duodecimo to-morrow. Library catalogues are full of these heterogeneous descriptions, and the size-notation is the _bete noir_ of the veteran bibliographer, and the despair of the infant librarian. Yet it is probable that the question has excited a discussion out of all proportion to its importance. Of what consequence is the size of a book to any one, except to the searcher who has to find it on the shelves?

While the matter has been much exaggerated, some concert or uniformity in describing the sizes of books is highly desirable.

A Committee of the American Library a.s.sociation agreed to a size-notation, figured below, adopting the metric system as the standard, to which we add the approximate equivalents in inches.

_Centimetres_ _Size_ _outside_ _Sizes._ _abbreviations._ _height._ _Inches._

Folio, F. F 40 16 Quarto, 4. Q 30 12 Octavo, 8. O 25 10 Duodecimo, 12. D 20 8 Sixteen mo., 16. S 17.5 7 Twenty-four mo., 24. T 15 6 Thirty-two mo., 32. Tt 12.3 5 Forty-eight mo., 48. Fe 10 4

It will be understood that the figure against each size indicated represents the maximum measure: _e. g._ a volume is octavo when above 20 and below 25 centimetres (8 to 10 inches high).