No code of cataloguing could be adopted in all points by every one,
because the libraries for study and the libraries for reading have
different objects, and those which combine the two do so in different
proportions. Again, the preparation of a catalogue must vary as it is
to be manuscript or printed, and, if the latter, as it is to be merely
an index to the library, giving in the shortest possible compass clues
by which the public can find books, or is to attempt to furnish more
information on various points, or finally is to be made with a certain
regard to what may be called style. Without pretending to exactness, we
may divide dictionary catalogues into short-title, medium-title, and
full-title or bibliographic; typical examples of the three being, 1º,
the Boston Mercantile (1869) or the Cincinnati Public (1871); 2º, the
Boston Public (1861 and 1866), the Boston Athenæum (1874–82); 3º, the
author-part of the Congress (1869) and the Surgeon-General’s (1872–74)
or least abridged of any, the present card catalogue of the Boston
Public Library. To avoid the constant repetition of such phrases as
“the full catalogue of a large library” and “a concise finding list,” I
shall use the three words Short, Medium, and Full as proper names, with
the preliminary caution that the Short family are not all of the same
size, that there is more than one Medium, and that Full may be Fuller
and Fullest. Short, if single-columned, is generally a title-a-liner;
if printed in double columns, it allows the title occasionally to
exceed one line, but not, if possible, two; Medium does not limit
itself in this way, but it seldom exceeds four lines, and gets many
titles into a single line. Full usually fills three or four lines and
often takes six or seven for a title.
The number of the following rules is not owing to any complexity of
system, but to the number of cases to which a few simple principles
have to be applied. They are especially designed for Medium, but may
easily be adapted to Short by excision and marginal notes. The almost
universal practice of printing the shelf-numbers or the class-numbers
renders some of them unnecessary for town and city libraries. {8}