LOCAL COLLECTIONS
=424. General.=--Of the departments of reference, other than the general
working department, prior consideration may be given to the Local
Collection on the ground that every municipal public library must have a
collection of this kind. At any rate it should have as complete a
collection as possible of material relating to its town. County
collections are a much more serious matter and should only be attempted
by towns of county rank, or the town in each county where the majority
of the population is. There is hardly a county in England which can
support two county collections, because rival collections are mutually
inimical, and their competition for certain items causes the price of
the latter to increase absurdly. The town is another matter. The one
place where copies of books, pamphlets, photographs, etc., relating to a
town ought to be found is its public library; and there are several
principles, warnings and suggestions that may be enunciated in connexion
with the work. The relative value of the material to be collected is
hardly a matter for the librarian; often most despised material has
great value when brought into relation to other material. The best
general principle is: “Get everything and leave its evaluation to
posterity.”
=425. Material collected.=--Primarily the words local collection are
co-extensive with local bibliography. This last term, however, is too
narrow, and the broad headings embraced by the collection may be set
out, and then considered in detail. These are:
(_a_) Printed records.
(_b_) Written records.
(_c_) Pictorial records.
(_d_) Engraved records.
All or most of these are found in every local collection, and their
statement immediately raises the question: Can pictorial records,
although undoubtedly a part of local history, come into the province of
the library? Are they not rather in that of the art gallery? Similarly
are not engraved records (bronze coins, tokens, rubbings of monumental
brasses and seals) better placed in the museum? It may be urged that the
art gallery is concerned with art, the museum with science, and the
library (in this connexion) with history. Pictures and engraved articles
are not collected by the librarian because of their artistic
qualities--in fact, many of his most cherished possessions are artistic
atrocities--but because they are records. On this argument a good case
can be made for their retention in the library. No doubt, where a town
has the three institutions named, and where the local collecting spirit
is at work in each, and is definitely co-ordinated, it would be wise and
economical to sub-divide the field; but where there is only the library,
there can be only one principle, and that the one already
emphasized--”get everything.”
=426.= When we come to consider the printed records of any locality, we
are surprised at their extent. These, again, can be set out in a brief
tabular form:
A. Books _of_ the locality.
1. By local authors.
2. Locally printed.
3. Newspapers and periodicals.
4. Public material: parliamentary, legal, etc.
5. Public material: municipal.
6. Trade material.
7. Programmes: theatre, cinema, music hall, concert hall, etc.
8. Posters.
B. Books _on_ the locality.
1. Topography.
2. History.
3. Biography.
4. Public material: parliamentary, legal, etc.
5. Novels, poems, and plays with local setting.
6. Newspaper and periodical references.
These headings cover a wide area, but the presence of every form of
material named is desirable in the local collection.
=427.= For the purposes of the local collection an author may be defined
as 1, a writer who is born, and educated in whole or part, in a town, or
whose family is indigenous in it; 2, residents of some years’ standing
or whose works reflect the locality; 3, authors of utterances or
writings made in, or upon, or addressed to the locality; 4, public men,
officials, etc.; 5, any minister, public speaker, etc., who holds office
or meetings in the town; 6, all local bodies, public or private--the
municipality, churches, societies, clubs, etc.; and 7, all local
tradesmen--catalogues, etc.
It is a prime duty of every public library to collect locally printed
books; the _lacunæ_ in our national bibliography have been lamentable in
the past in regard to locally and privately printed books, owing to the
lack of such collecting, and they are not likely to decrease if this
duty is not vigorously undertaken by the librarian of to-day. The search
must be specially eager for the privately issued volume, but however
limited the author intends his circulation to be, he is usually quite
persuadable as far as a copy for the local collection goes. Local
newspapers, it is obvious, are material of cardinal value. Every one of
them must be collected, bound, and to some extent indexed. And similar
if somewhat lesser value attaches to every periodical whatsoever--be it
the issue of a sect, school, institution, trader, party, club, or any
other body--published in the town. It is a curious fact that few
libraries possess, for instance, sets of the various church magazines.
These are, usually, of course, made up of a London-published religious
periodical inset in sheets dealing with the particular church that
distributes them. The inset may be discarded, but the local part should
certainly be collected from every such periodical issued locally. Few
records are more important than this.
The local collection must certainly include all local acts, bye-laws,
orders in Council that have a local bearing. It is remarkable how many
of these there are for even supposedly insignificant areas.
Novels and other imaginative literature, which have a local setting,
come clearly into the collection. It is a curious fact that the modern
novel of this character is frequently missed. It seems all the more
important to collect it when we know that the average “selling life” of
a six-shilling novel is about six weeks, and its public life quite often
not much longer. Only the local library can--or ought--to save much of
this fiction and imaginative writing.
References to the district in outside newspapers and periodicals should
always be kept. Even when they are founded on the material in the local
newspapers they are usually coloured by the outside view, or are in
better perspective than the local writer can bring to bear upon whatever
is under discussion.
=428.= The basic records of a town, and, therefore, from the point of
view of the local collection, its most important, are its written ones;
and in these, generally speaking, libraries are most deficient, for the
obvious reason that the ordinary municipal library is a newcomer, and
that in modern days the printed record has largely superseded the
written one. Not altogether, however, as we shall see. Written records
are almost of as many types as are the printed--there are parliamentary,
municipal, parochial, private business and personal manuscripts, of
which every librarian should strive to obtain possession. A copy of the
Domesday Book for his area, albeit impossible, except by successful
burglary of the Public Record Office, would be a desirable beginning to
the collection. After that, we may tabulate a list of the classes of
written material which should be sought:
1. Parochial Records: Tithe Registers, Parish Registers, Rate Books.
2. Municipal Records: Rate Books, Assessment Registers, Minute Books.
3. Private business records: Leases, indentures, agreements.
4. Manuscripts, autographs, etc.
Parochial registers of all kinds, tax books, etc., were until
comparatively recent years kept in the charge of the Church. Modern
vicars have, as a rule, little interest in them, and are often willing
to hand them over to the public library. Such books have an obvious
value in resolving the whereabouts, rateable value and occupants of
various types of property; and very interesting questions may be settled
by their means. The actual parish registers--of births, marriages and
deaths--are another matter, and the originals cannot, we believe, be
transferred to the library. In some cases the staffs of libraries have
obtained permission to transcribe these verbatim, and have actually done
so.[14] It is undoubtedly a useful work, but scarcely comes into the
province of the librarian as such; his work is to collect existing
material, not to create material, although there are infrequent
exceptions to the rule. In general we must wait until one of the
publishing societies produces these registers, and in the meanwhile
refer inquirers to the Church. All we need to emphasize here is the fact
that for centuries the corporate life centred in the Church, and it is
to the Church that we must look for our primary written records.
[14] At Walthamstow this was done by a member of the Libraries staff.
We reach somewhat surer ground when we endeavour to collect municipal
records. The older municipalities--Coventry, Stratford-on-Avon,
etc.--have had some regard for their records, and have at least
preserved them. Modern municipalities preserve them, too--that is to
say, theoretically. A visit to the basement or attics of the average
municipal building is, however, a woeful experience for the collector.
Usually, in cob-webbed chaos, he will find the records that in a century
(or much less) will have immeasurable interest for the student of local
affairs. There are written minutes as distinct from printed ones of
municipal committees, rate, assessment, receipt, wages, work, and
numerous other books to be found in the confusion. It is not always easy
to persuade the people concerned to hand over these books, and indeed
the more recent of them probably ought not to be handed over; but a
little persuasive tact has in more than one case secured the right of
the librarian to take charge of and to classify and catalogue them.
Sometimes limitations are placed upon their use (for example, books of
the last ten years may not be exposed to general consultation), but in
any case they ought to be secured for the collection if it is in any
way possible. The records, it must be mentioned, are voluminous and
bulky, and if in addition to the right of custody the municipality can
be induced to provide a room for their reception, the relief will
generally be a welcome one.
In some ways the most attractive of written records, the most human, are
the private ones; and these are also the most difficult to obtain.
Leases, wills, agreements, indentures, and similar deeds are naturally
not stored systematically anywhere in the average town, and they must be
searched out. Old inns are likely places, as are old solicitors’
offices, and auctions sometimes bring them to light. There are, of
course, dealers who specialize in them, and most desirable deeds have
been obtained cheaply from London dealers. Such documents throw more
light on the changes, customs, and language of a locality than do any of
the more formal records mentioned above.
Local literary manuscripts, autographs, manuscripts of local authors,
letters, and similar written documents are so obviously desirable that
more than a mention of them is superfluous; but we want, in this
connexion, to urge that to-day will very quickly belong to the past, and
that the collection of these things from the hands of living men is to
be desired. When a librarian receives a letter from the mayor, a
prominent alderman, or similar local celebrity, he does not as a rule
think of it as something to be preserved in the local collection. Why
not?
=429. Pictorial and Graphic Material.=--In recent years librarians have
given systematic attention to the collection of pictorial records,
although, indeed, they have long been recognized as a part of the
collector’s province. These naturally divide into:
1. Painted records.
2. Prints.
3. Photographs.
4. Maps.
(We think we can extend the word “pictorial” to cover maps.) The
presence of painted records may be questioned, but their value as
records is undoubted, seeing that they give colour, atmosphere, and have
other interpretative values which are absent from the more meticulously
accurate photograph. Local prints and photographs should be collected
without special regard to their artistic value; record is always the
motto of the collector, not beauty, however much we may desire it
personally. Care should be taken to secure photographs in a permanent
process, but it is better to have them in the more evanescent processes,
and to take special care of them, than not to have them at all. All
gas-light photographic prints (with a distinct preference for
platinotype, bromide and velox papers in this descending order) are
practically permanent; but the finest photographic paper extant will not
endure direct sunlight everlastingly. The question of the treatment of
prints and photographs generally, however, deserves separate treatment,
and here we are concerned only with what should be collected. The
pictures, then, must represent distinctive things, interpretative of the
life of the district. Pictures of individual flowers, which grow
anywhere, trees which are not peculiar to the place, “pretty bits” which
might be matched in any place in the kingdom, are of little or no value.
Omitting these inessential things, practically everything else from the
portrait of the Member of Parliament to that of the local amœba comes
within the scope of the collection. The cheapest print from the cheapest
periodical need not be despised. It may serve its turn.
=430.= Special endeavour should be made to secure a complete set of the
maps of the region covered. In spite of the conventionality and
inaccuracy of many early maps they are our original source of
information on many points vital to the collection. For some counties
the maps have been scheduled with exemplary thoroughness, and by basing
his collection on one of these schedules the collector will be helped
greatly, seeing that the old cartographers usually worked on several
counties, and the map bibliography of Yorkshire, for example, may be
expected to furnish useful clues to the maps of Kent. Old gazetteers,
topographies, histories, encyclopædias and periodicals of general scope
often contain maps, and the least prepossessing of such works should be
consulted in order to obtain them.
=431.= Engraved records are fewer than any previously mentioned. They
include local seals, crests, coins and tokens, and similar articles.
Tokens, it may not be generally known, were coins, usually having the
values of a farthing, a halfpenny, and a penny, which local traders were
permitted to issue to supply the scarcity of a small coinage from the
national treasury. These were issued mainly from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth centuries and generally had a local exchange value only,
although a number were accepted in many counties. Clearly these tokens,
which often carry the trade marks, signs, etc., of the trader issuing
them, are a valuable and interesting part of local material. The
Coventry Public Libraries possess what we believe to be an unique
collection of tokens relating to that city. Various local medals should
also be sought.
=432. Sources of Supply.=--There is something trite and unoriginal in
the discussion of the methods of obtaining books for the local
collection, but perhaps something useful may emerge from a
recapitulation of the principal ones. So far as the municipal library is
concerned, the common method must be by purchase, although much will be
secured from private generosity when the collection has become known. It
is important, in our opinion, not to leave the collection unmentioned in
the annual estimates; a definite appropriation should be made for it,
the amount of which will of course depend upon the resources of the
library and upon the area covered. We have found at Croydon, where the
collection covers extra-metropolitan Surrey, that much may be done on an
appropriation of £35 a year. This need not be spent entirely upon the
collection, nor should the collecting be limited to the purchasing power
of this sum, but it seems to be very desirable to have money so
ear-marked in order that attention may be focussed upon the collection
as an important part of the activities of the library.
It is also essential, if the collection is to be successful, that the
librarian should have discretionary power in the spending of the
appropriation. Local literature disappears with a rapidity that is
sometimes astonishing, and keen collectors on making discoveries in the
catalogues of booksellers and dealers, usually secure the coveted books
by telephone or telegram. The library would be a greatly handicapped
competitor if the sanction of the libraries committee had to be awaited
before purchases could be made. In some towns the discretionary power is
vested in the chairman, and where he is immediately accessible to the
librarian there are distinct advantages in this method, especially if he
is sympathetic. It is a good axiom for the librarian to avoid
responsibilities which can judiciously be distributed!
A certain amount of judicious advertisement of the needs of the library
is desirable in this matter. Care should be taken that a note to the
effect that local material is purchased should appear in Clegg’s
_Directory of Booksellers_, and in other similar publications. On the
notepaper of the library some such note as the following might be given
in small type: “The librarian will be glad to hear of written or printed
material relating to Selsey, either as a gift or for purchase.” This is
especially useful, as the notepaper circulates mostly in the district
itself, where much literature may be hidden, unvalued and neglected,
which its owners would willingly add to the collection. With the
directory entry before him the bookseller will generally report
individual items, but in any case he will send his catalogues, and these
must be perused diligently. As a rule the bookseller is sufficiently
master of his business to enter likely material, under county and town
headings, but not infrequently books which have a local appeal appear in
other parts of the catalogue. In this work the librarian will naturally
and wisely make use of his whole staff, and every inducement should be
held out to assistants to help in the discovering of local material and
to make suggestions for the extension of the collection. Generally,
however, little inducement will be needed, as library workers as a whole
are both keenly interested in and proud of the local collection.
Other sources of supply may be dealt with briefly. Donations will
account for many of the most curious and useful, and these are best
induced by exhibitions of material from the collection, by references
made to the collection in books in the lending library (a slip can be
inserted in all topographical books, for example, calling attention to
the existence and scope of the collection), and by paragraphs, articles,
etc., built up from local material, which may appear in the public
press, and which the local press is only too glad to publish.
=433. Photographic Surveys.=--The current pictorial records, the
photographs, can usually be obtained, by the expense of much energy and
little money, through a Photographic Survey Society. As this matter has
just lately received systematic and authoritative treatment,[15] it is
unnecessary here to enlarge upon it further than to say that a
photographic survey society is usually a band of photographers,
professional and (mainly) amateur, who make photographic records in a
systematic manner of a particular district, its history, antiquities,
natural features, architecture, industries, current activities, and, in
fact, everything that presents or interprets its life. Such societies
are increasing in number, and have a social side in the shape of
photographic excursions, reunions, etc., which make them rather more
than gatherings where the cacophanous jargon of the dark-room pervades
everything; hence they band together many people who are interested in a
district and the preservation of its memories. As a rule the whole of
the work of the survey, except the cataloguing and classifying--which
are the business of the librarian--is done by members of the survey. The
library usually supplies mounts, storage and cataloguing requisites.
[15] Gower, H. D., Jast, L. S., and Topley, W. W. _The Camera as
Historian: A Handbook to Photographic Record Work._ 1916. Sampson
Low.
=434. Regional Surveys.=--Similarly, but more recently, regional (or
civic) survey societies have come into existence, which parcel out
certain local areas, and study everything in them, from their geology to
the last manifestations of the human intellect working in them, and
record the results on maps.[16] Thus maps of the local strata,
water-bearing beds, flora, rainfall, industries, old inns, milestones,
boundary marks, and so on, have been made for the circle of twenty
miles, centering in Croydon. This is a new form of work of the utmost
value for providing data of current utility, and for preserving the
record of local features. Such societies are already recognizing that
the municipal reference library is the natural storing-place of such
material.
[16] See _Library World_, vol. xix., pp. 32-34.
=435. Cost.=--Naturally the most important factor in collecting is the
price of the material collected. This, not remarkably, often gives us
considerable pause, as the present-day cost of local literature does not
seem to bear any relation to its original cost; and to appraise the
value of manuscript material, deeds and similar matter, is almost
impossible. Scarcity and competition are the two factors in creating
prices. In local literature the demand can be controlled if librarians
do not traverse other fields than their own district in making their
collection. A little consultation with brother librarians should bring
about a workable division of any given county, with the result that the
individual collection would be satisfactory, and the duplication of
effort and expense would be avoided. Only the very large towns should
attempt county collections. Moreover, this avoidance of competition
would lessen the demand for the same book, and so help to bring down its
market value. The competitor who can completely out-distance the average
library is the keen private collector with a generous purse and
unlimited leisure. In his case the librarian can only hope that his will
contains a clause in which his collection and the library are in happy
juxtaposition. With relation to actual buying, it is a good axiom never
to purchase anything except “on approval.” It is really wonderful how
attractive a commonplace and almost valueless item can appear to be in
an agent’s catalogue. In few cases this “sending on approval” is refused
by booksellers, but the majority are only too glad to do it, especially
if the prospective purchaser undertakes to pay postage both ways in the
event of rejecting the material. By this means large bundles of stuff
which have only a nucleus of useful matter can be weeded out, and the
price arranged according to the result. This is particularly desirable
when dealing with deeds, which often prove to be incomplete, or of far
less interest than (say) the entry, “Forty Surrey Deeds, 1542-1816,”
would imply. One does not suppose that dealers in these things are one
whit less honest than other men, but their prices are often in the
region of the absurd. If the collector has reason to think that this is
so, he should make a reasonable offer for the books he wants, and it
will generally be found that the bookseller is amenable to this sort of
argument. Naturally we are speaking of the general items for the
collection. In every district individual items have a definite high
value which cannot be reduced, and it is the lot of most local
collectors to be compelled regretfully to pass by, as beyond their
means, many things that they would gladly possess.
=436. Mounting of Prints, etc.=--It remains to devote some attention to
the mounting, cataloguing and storage of material. Books and pamphlets
are treated as in the general library, as are broadsides, cuttings and
similar separate material. The photograph may be treated in various
ways. At Birmingham, for example, the prints are mounted, and stored in
what are virtually loose-leaf albums, which permit perfect
classification and the insertion of any new photograph without
dislocation. The more usual method is to mount the photographs on a
uniform size mount--17 in. by 13½ in. for large prints, and 12½ in. by
10½ in. for smaller (and the great majority of) prints have been found
satisfactory. Nature papers of double strength have been used, and every
effort should be made to secure an acid-free paper. When it is obtained
the prints should be fixed by the dry-mounting process, if possible;
nearly all adhesives have injurious chemical action upon photographic
papers. The mounted prints and photographs are stored in boxes such as
that shown in Fig. 118, or in the drawers of a vertical file.
=437. Classification.=--The classification of the local collection
demands a much closer arrangement than any general scheme provides. Up
to the present most librarians have constructed one for their own use;
and there are two methods. One, and that most readily used, is a
topographical arrangement with a subject sub-arrangement; the other is
the converse--a subject arrangement with topographical sub-division. The
choice may be determined by the answer the reader gives to the question:
Which are users more likely to want--
1. The churches of a county or town as a whole? or
2. Material, including the church, relating to a town (in a county) or
parish or ward (in a town)?
The topographical arrangement of (say) a county survey is usually
secured by adding to the subject number the number of the square on the
key Ordnance Survey map of the county. That is, when the main
arrangement is subjectival. When it is topographical the ordnance number
precedes the subject number. A detailed example of the working of a
local collection classification is given in Gower, Jast and Topley’s
_The Camera as Historian_.
Every mount should bear upon it a label showing particulars of the
subject, number, photographer, process, date, etc. This goes well into
the left-top corner. The example given is that of the Surrey
Photographic Survey. A similar label with the necessary adaptations is
advisable on all prints which are not the property of such Surveys. In
the case of surveys the label is filled in by the photographer, except
the space for the class-mark, and the upper part is detached by the
Survey Secretary and is pasted up in a guard-book to form his record.
Only the label within the thick squared lines is affixed to the mount.
+-----+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+-----+
| | =THE PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY | =Access to collection.= | |
| | AND RECORD OF SURREY.= | | |
| | |The collection is permanently | |
| | |housed at the Public Library, | |
| |=Slip to accompany prints and |Town Hall, Croydon, under regu-| |
| |lantern slides.= |lations making it accessible to| |
| | |the public. | |
|-----+ | +-----+
| | =Copyright.= |
|It is requested that you will fill in| |
|the required particulars on this slip|The Copyright of a photograph remains|
|and forward it and your print or lan-|the property of the contributor, un- |
|tern slide to the Hon. Survey Sec., |less specially ceded to the Associa- |
|Mr H. D. GOWER, 55 Benson Road, |tion. |
|Croydon. | |
| |
+-------------------+---------------+------------+----------+---------------+
|CLASS NO.[1] |LOCALITY |No. of 6 in.|SUBJECT |SURVEY NO[1] |
| |Ord. mp. ¼ | | | |
| |sheet. | | | |
| | | | | |
+--------+----------+-------------+-+--------+---+--------+-+---------------+
|SIZE |PROCESS |DATE |TIME |[2]COMPASS |DATE RECEIVED[1] |
| | |PHOTOGRAPHED | a.m. p.m.|POINT | |
| plate| | | | | |
| | | | | | |
+--------+----------+-------------+----------+------------+-----------------+
|DESCRIPTION |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
|NAME AND ADDRESS OF CONTRIBUTOR |MEMBER OF THE FOLLOWING AFFILIATED |
| |SOCIETY-- |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
|Use one form for each print. Write clearly. Make description brief.|
|[1] Leave blank. [2] The compass point towards which camera is pointing.|
| PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY AND RECORD OF SURREY. |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
FIG. 163.--Label of Photographic Survey Prints (Section 437).
=438. Cataloguing.=--The cataloguing of the local collection should, of
course, follow the code in general use; but certain amplifications are
desirable. The size, pagination, date of publication, town of
publication, and the names both of printer and publisher (if they are
different) should be given. Omissions from titles should be as
infrequent as possible, and when made should be indicated. The object is
to make this catalogue as fully bibliographical as possible.
=439.= The cataloguing of prints is a fairly simple matter if treated in
common-sense fashion. Inquirers only occasionally require the works of
artist or photographer in connexion with such prints as are stocked by
libraries. A subject-index appears to be the best form, with a local
index; thus
+-----------------------------+
| |
| GOLF COURSE, REIGATE. 263.5 |
| |
+-----------------------------+
1
+-----------------------------+
| |
| REIGATE. GOLF COURSE. 263.5 |
| |
+-----------------------------+
2
FIG. 164.--Print-index Slips (Section 439).
are a sufficient cataloguing of a particular print. All the detail
beyond that can be found on the prints, which themselves are in their
arrangement a classified catalogue. Of course special prints would go
under the artists’ names, or under their titles if their value warranted
that course. Usually it does not.
=440. Maps.=--It is appropriate to deal with maps here, as the largest
number of maps will probably be local ones. The classification methods
suggested for prints apply to maps as well; that is to say, the
predominating arrangement should be topographical, and the
sub-arrangement subjectival, and the ultimate arrangement may be
chronological. Thus a map of the geology of a particular town would
arrange--
Class No. of Town. | Geology No. | Date.
=441.= The cataloguing of maps may follow the Anglo-American rule, which
runs:
Enter maps under the cartographer. If the name of the cartographer is
not found, enter under the publisher; thus:
GREGORY, C. C. M’Millan’s map of New Brunswick. Drawn by C. C.
Gregory. Scale of statute miles _ca._ 8 to the inch.
JOHNSTON, W. _and_ A. K., _pub._ Johnston’s commercial and library
chart of the world on Mercator’s projection.
This simple rule needs some amplification for a large collection of
maps; and the following simple rules have been found to be satisfactory:
1. The _Arrangement_ of entries is in chronological order, and where
two entries occur under one date they are arranged alphabetically by
the _heading_.
2. _The Name adopted for Heading_ is that of the cartographer where
found; where the cartographer is not found, the publisher, or
engraver, or title (in this order) forms the entry word.
3. The unit of _Scale_ wherever possible should be the inch.
4. Give the _Size_, measured from one inner margin to another,
vertical measurements first, to the nearest quarter-inch below the
actual size.
5. The _Date_ of arrangement is that printed on the map; but modern
maps illustrating places at a past period in history arrange under the
period, the publication date being added to the entry merely as
information. Undated maps from atlases or other works take the date of
the work in which they appear.
All catalogues so arranged require topographical and subject indexes.
The filing of maps was dealt with in the chapter on Filing and Indexing.
=442. Deeds.=--Deeds are difficult to handle and store because of their
shape and size, the seals attached to them, and for other reasons. For
ordinary purposes flat filing in boxes similar to those used for maps
will serve. The cataloguing of deeds has been variously done, but for
local purposes a topographical arrangement, with a chronological
sub-arrangement, is recommended. Examples of typical entries may be
given:
=Bagshot.=
1715 21 June (i. George I.). LEASE OF COTTAGE AND LAND. BAGSHOT. From
Walter of Busbridge to Grayham of Bagshot, 99 years at 4/- per ann.
(consid. £24.3.0.).
dS69(333)
Cottage, barn, and 3a. land. Special condition under penalty of
forfeiture of lease if broken.
“And goeing with sd. John Walter his heirs and assns. to the Eleccon
of the sd. Co. of Surrey att any time when any Eleccon for Knights of
the Shire shall be held, _and vote for_ such person as the said John
Walter his heirs, exors., admors., and assignes shall direct. . . .”
=Beddington.=
1490 2 July (v. Henry VII.). BOND FOR £500 (Latin). From James and
Richard Carru [old spelling of Carew] to John Iwardby and Chris.
Troppenell.
dS655(333)
Securities: The manors of Bedyngton, Bandon and Norbury; and other
lands and tenements in Bedyngton, Croydon, Streteham, Bristowe
[Burstow] and Horne; and the manor of Maitham in Kent.
Such a catalogue must be equipped with a name index at least, and an
index of places is also desirable; these may be combined in one
alphabet.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
=443. Local Collections:=
No monograph. For articles see Cannons: G 56, Local Collections and
Surveys; G 59, Maps; I 17, Cataloguing Rules; H 78, Classification; L
45, Bibliography.
=444. Photographic and Regional Surveys:=
Gower, Jast, and Topley. The Camera as Historian: a handbook for
survey or record societies, 1916.
Fagg, C. C. The Regional Survey and Local Natural History Societies.
_In_ South-Eastern Naturalist, 1915, p. 20.
Westell, W. P. The New Doomsday. _In_ My Life as a Naturalist, 1918.
For articles see Cannons: I 24, Cataloguing; H 85, Classification,
etc.