Few persons, except librarians, are aware of the nature and extent
of the difficulties, which have been encountered, in attempting
to furnish suitable printed catalogues of growing libraries;
difficulties apparently insurmountable, and menacing a common
abandonment of the hope of affording guides, so important, to the
literary accumulations of the larger libraries of Europe.
It is, of course, entirely practicable to publish a complete and
satisfactory catalogue of a library which is stationary. But most
public libraries are constantly and rapidly increasing. This
circumstance, so gratifying on every other account, is the source of
the difficulties alluded to.
While the catalogue of such a library is passing through the press,
new books are received, the titles of which it is impossible, in the
ordinary manner of printing, to incorporate with the body of the
work. Recourse must then be had to a supplement. In no other way can
the acquisitions of the library be made known to the public. If
the number of supplements be multiplied, as they have been in the
library of Congress, the student may be obliged to grope his weary
way through ten catalogues, instead of one, in order to ascertain
whether the book which he seeks be in the library. He cannot be
certain, even then, that the book is not in the collection, for
it may have been received, since the last appendix was printed.
Supplements soon become intolerable. The whole catalogue must then be
re-arranged and re-printed. The expense of this process may be borne,
so long as the library is small, but it soon becomes burdensome, and,
ere long, insupportable, even to national establishments.
There is but one course left--not to print at all. To this no scholar
consents, except from necessity. But to this alternative, grievous as
it is, nearly all the large libraries of Europe have been reluctantly
driven.
More than a century has passed, since the printing of the catalogue
of the Royal Library at Paris was commenced. It is not yet finished.
No one feels in it the interest which he would, if he could hope to
have its completeness sustained, when once brought up to a given date.
Dr. Pertz, chief librarian of the Royal Library at Berlin, declares,
that to print the catalogue of a large library, which is constantly
increasing, is to throw away money. His opinion is founded upon the
supposed impossibility of keeping up the catalogue, so as continually
to represent the actual possessions of the library.
The commissioners, lately appointed by the Queen of England, to
inquire into the constitution and management of the British Museum,
have, in their report, expressed an opinion decidedly against the
printing of the catalogue at all, and principally on the ground that
it must ever remain imperfect.
One of the witnesses, (the Right Honorable J. W. Croker,) examined
before the commissioners, thus strongly states the case with respect
to printing:
"You receive, I suppose, into your library every year some
twenty thousand volumes, or something like that. Why, if
you had a printed catalogue dropped down from Heaven to you
at this moment perfect, this day twelve-month your twenty
thousand interlineations would spoil the simplicity of that
catalogue; again the next year twenty thousand more; and
the next year twenty thousand more; so that at the end of
four or five years, you would have your catalogue just in
the condition that your new catalogue is now [the manuscript
part greater than the printed part]. With that new catalogue
before your eyes, I am astonished that there should be
any discussion about it, for there is the experiment; the
experiment has been made and failed."
Not one European library, of the first class, has a complete
printed catalogue, in a single work. The Bodleian Library is not an
exception. It may be necessary to search six distinct catalogues, in
order to ascertain whether any specified book were or were not in
that collection, at the close of the year 1847.
This is, surely, a disheartening state of things. It has been felt
and lamented by every one who has had the care of an increasing
library.