_The Library Series_
EDITED BY
DR. RICHARD GARNETT
V
ESSAYS IN LIBRARIANSHIP
AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
_The Library Series_
EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTIONS, BY DR. RICHARD GARNETT, LATE KEEPER OF
PRINTED BOOKS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
I. THE FREE LIBRARY: Its History and Present Condition. By J.
J. OGLE, of Bootle Free Library.
II. LIBRARY CONSTRUCTION, ARCHITECTURE, AND FITTINGS. By F.
J. BURGOYNE, of the Tate Central Library, Brixton. With 141
Illustrations.
III. LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION. By J. MACFARLANE, of the British
Museum.
IV. PRICES OF BOOKS. By HENRY B. WHEATLEY, of the Society of
Arts.
V. ESSAYS IN LIBRARIANSHIP AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. By RICHARD
GARNETT, C.B., LL.D., late Keeper of Printed Books, British
Museum.
ESSAYS IN
LIBRARIANSHIP AND
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BY
RICHARD GARNETT, C.B., LL.D.
LATE KEEPER OF PRINTED BOOKS, BRITISH MUSEUM
[Illustration: George Allen colophon]
NEW YORK: FRANCIS P. HARPER
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN
1899
PREFACE
The essays collected in this volume are for the most part occasional and
desultory, produced in compliance with requests of friends, or the
appeals of editors of bibliographical journals or organisers of library
congresses, to meet some special emergency, and treating of whatever
appropriate matter came readiest to hand. The most important of them,
however, though composed at considerable intervals, and devoid of any
conscious relation to each other, are yet united by the presence of a
pervading idea, which may be defined as the importance of scientific
processes as auxiliaries to library management.
It seems almost preposterous to speak of typography as a scientific
process, yet such it is in its relation to the graphic art which it
superseded as an agent in the production of books. It would be the
merest surplusage to advocate the application of printing to any class
of manuscript books but one; and that, strangely enough, is the book of
books, the catalogue. When it is considered how few of the great
libraries of Europe have as yet managed to get their catalogues printed,
and in how many the introduction of print is as yet resisted, or beset
with impediments hitherto insurmountable, it is clear that the benefits
of printing may even now be set forth with profit. Fortunately, however,
the question is but historical as regards the only library of which the
present writer can presume to speak. Typography has now reigned at the
British Museum for nearly twenty years, and any discussion of its
advantages or disadvantages contained in the following essays may be
regarded as out of date. It is hoped, nevertheless, that the historical
interest attaching to the subject may excuse the reproduction of these
papers. "Public Libraries and their Catalogues" (1879) depicts the
hesitations of a transition period when the subject was in the air, but
when the precise manner in which the introduction of print would take
place was as yet uncertain. "The Printing of the British Museum
Catalogue" (1882) describes the results of nearly two years of actual
work; and "The Past, Present, and Future of the British Museum
Catalogue" (1888) reviews the entire subject, both historically and with
a view to the eventual republication of the catalogue. A fourth paper,
contributed to the American Library Conference of 1885, has been
withheld, to minimise the repetition which may be justly alleged as a
defect in the essays now reprinted. The indulgent reader will consider
that it was impossible to travel repeatedly over the same ground
without frequent recurrence to the same facts and arguments: and it has
been thought better to tolerate an admitted literary blemish than to run
any risk of impairing the documentary value of the articles. If the
writer had once begun to alter, he might have been tempted to alter
much. Readers of the present day may feel surprise at the tentative
character of some portions of the first essay in order of date, and at
what seems almost a discouragement of the idea of a complete printed
catalogue. The principal reason was the moderate expectation then
entertained of any substantial help from the Treasury. As a matter of
fact, the annual grant bestowed in the first instance would have kept
the catalogue forty years at press; and, had a strictly alphabetical
order of publication been adopted, it would after some years have been
pointed out with derision that the great British Museum Catalogue was
still in its A B C. The writer, therefore, exerted what influence he
possessed to keep the idea of a complete printed catalogue in the
background, and to enforce that of the publication of single articles
complete in themselves which would be valuable as special
bibliographies. A mere fragment of letter A, it was manifest, could be
of little use beyond the walls of the Museum, but a separate issue of
the article Aristotle might have great worth. The situation was entirely
altered when the Treasury so increased their grant as to afford a
reasonable prospect of finishing the catalogue in twenty years instead
of forty. The fragmentary system of publication was thereupon quietly
dropped, and printing went on in steady alphabetical sequence. It is due
to the Treasury to state that, since this augmentation of the grant,
their treatment of this branch of the Museum service has been uniformly
liberal. It is to be hoped that this bountiful spirit will not expire
with the completion of the catalogue, but will find expression in a
reprint incorporating all the accessions which have grown up while it
has been at press, as proposed in a very able article in the _Quarterly
Review_ for October 1898.
After the application of print to the catalogue, mechanical process has
rendered no such service to the British Museum Library as the
introduction of the sliding-press, the subject of another essay. While,
however, printing was the result of half a century of incessant
controversy, the sliding-press seemed to fall from the clouds. Its
introduction was a _coup d'état_; five minutes sufficed to convince the
Principal Librarian of the soundness of the idea, and the thing was
virtually done. No more striking contrast can be conceived than that
between the condition of the Library the day before this feasibility was
demonstrated, oppressed by the apparently insoluble problem how to find
room for its books, and the condition of the Library the day after
solution, suddenly endowed with a practically indefinite capacity for
expansion, save only in the department of newspapers. No one
unacquainted with the internal economy of the Museum will fully
appreciate the saving of public money, to say no more, effected by this
simple contrivance.
Print and the sliding-press are now, along with the electric light,
undisputed possessions of the Museum; but telegraphy and photography,
the two other applications of scientific ingenuity recommended in this
volume, have not yet been enlisted in her service. When the printing
telegraph obtains a footing, ample occupation will be found for it. Its
most useful as well as most striking application, however, will probably
always be the one principally dwelt upon here, the enabling every demand
for a book made in the reading-room to be simultaneously registered in
the Library, thus abolishing at a stroke the vexatious delays that now
intervene between the writing of a ticket and its delivery in the proper
quarter. The advantage alike to the public and to the staff is so
obvious that the only question ought to be as to the applicability of
electrical power to the transmission of legible messages under the
special circumstances, which an intelligent course of experiments would
speedily determine.
If telegraphy has been neglected, the same cannot be said of
photography. The most perfect unanimity exists within and outside the
Museum with respect to the benefit which the adoption of photography as
a department of the regular work of the institution would confer alike
upon it and upon the public. Nevertheless, not a single step has been
taken since the writer brought the subject forward in 1884, preceded as
this had been by the successful introduction of photography at the
Bodleian Library in connection with the Oxford University Press.
Government seems unable to perceive the public benefit to be derived
from the cheap reproduction and unlimited multiplication with infallible
accuracy of historical documents and current official papers; and
although the Museum has of late successfully resorted to photography for
its own publications, this has necessarily involved the employment of a
professional photographer, whose charges are an insuperable impediment
to any considerable extension of the system. It cannot be too
emphatically reiterated that the question is entirely one of expense. So
long as the photographer is a private tradesman he must of necessity be
paid by his customers, and for any extensive undertaking must inevitably
charge prices embarrassing to public institutions and prohibitive to
private individuals. Make him a public salaried officer, and by far the
larger part of the cost is eliminated at a stroke. What may be done is
shown by the recent exploit of the Newbery Library at Chicago, referred
to in a note at page 86, which has turned the bewildering multitude of
the "accession" parts of the British Museum Catalogue into a single
alphabetical series by simply photographing the titles singly, and then
combining the copies in a catalogue. It is quite possible that the
enterprise may prove financially unremunerative, but this would not be
the case if it had been executed as a portion of the work of a national
institution controlled by the State, which on its part would have been
recouped, or nearly so, by the patronage of private customers. It is
only necessary to add that the State should on no account seek to make a
profit out of photography, and that all transactions between the Museum
or any other public department and the nation, where money is concerned,
should be conducted on the principle of affording the greatest possible
public advantage at the smallest possible cost.
Of the essays and addresses unconnected with this particular group not
much need be said. As before mentioned, they are in general mere
occasional pieces, called into being by the casual need for a literary
contribution or a speech. On such occasions the writer has always
endeavoured to select some subject somewhat out of the common track,
with a distinctly bibliographical flavour if possible, but not quite so
dry as an exact collation of all the known copies of the Gutenberg
Bible. In such a line he would have been little likely to distinguish
himself. The Pope is not always a theologian, nor need the Keeper of
Printed Books inevitably be a devotee of black-letter lore. The
bibliographical erudition apparent in the essay on South American
bibliography is entirely derived from Señor Medina's classic work upon
the subject.
The biographical notices at the end of the volume have afforded the
writer a welcome opportunity of paying a just tribute to men of eminence
in the world of librarianship. The memoir of Sir Anthony Panizzi may
demand some apology on the ground of the haste and slightness almost
inseparable from an obituary notice indited _currente calamo_. The fame,
however, of the man universally recognised as the second founder of the
British Museum, can well dispense with polished eulogy. The notices of
his successors, composed more at leisure, embody the writer's cordial
appreciation of public service, and grateful sense of personal kindness.
In conclusion, the author has to acknowledge his obligations to the
Council of the Library Association, to Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co., and to
others, by whose permission these essays are reprinted.
R. GARNETT.
_May 18, 1899._
CONTENTS
PAGE
ADDRESS TO THE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 1
PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THEIR CATALOGUES 32
THE PRINTING OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE 67
THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE 87
THE BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE AS THE BASIS OF A UNIVERSAL
CATALOGUE 109
INTRODUCTION OF EUROPEAN PRINTING INTO THE EAST 115
PARAGUAYAN AND ARGENTINE BIBLIOGRAPHY 127
THE EARLY ITALIAN BOOK TRADE 141
SOME BOOK-HUNTERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 161
LIBRARIANSHIP IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 174
THE MANUFACTURE OF FINE PAPER IN ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY 191
ON SOME COLOPHONS OF THE EARLY PRINTERS 197
ON THE SYSTEM OF CLASSIFYING BOOKS ON THE SHELVES FOLLOWED AT
THE BRITISH MUSEUM 210
SUBJECT-INDEXES TO TRANSACTIONS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES 225
PHOTOGRAPHY IN PUBLIC LIBRARIES 234
THE TELEGRAPH IN THE LIBRARY 253
ON THE PROTECTION OF LIBRARIES FROM FIRE 258
THE SLIDING-PRESS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 262
ON THE PROVISION OF ADDITIONAL SPACE IN LIBRARIES 272
PREFACE TO BLADES' "ENEMIES OF BOOKS" 283
SIR ANTHONY PANIZZI, K.C.B. 288
THE LATE JOHN WINTER JONES, V.P.S.A. 304
THE LATE HENRY STEVENS, F.S.A. 325
THE LATE SIR EDWARD A. BOND, K.C.B. 335
INDEX 341
ESSAYS IN LIBRARIANSHIP
AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADDRESS TO THE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION[1:1]
There are times in the lives of institutions as well as individuals when
retrospect is a good thing; when it is desirable to look back and see
how far one has travelled, and by what road; whether the path of
progress has always been in the right direction; whether it may not have
been sometimes unnecessarily devious; whether valuable things may not
have been dropped or omitted, in quest of which it may be desirable to
travel back; whether, on the other hand, the journey may not have been
fertile in glad surprises, and have led to acquisitions and discoveries
of which, at starting, one entertained no notion. The interval of
sixteen years which has elapsed since the first meeting of this
Association at London, suggests that such a time may well have arrived
in its history. There is yet another reason why the present meeting
invites to retrospection. We can look back in every sense of the term.
All our past is behind us in a physical as well as in an intellectual
sense. We are as far north as ever we can go. There are, I rejoice to
think, British libraries and librarians even farther north than
Aberdeen, but it is almost safe to predict that there never will be
congresses. We are actually farther north than Moscow, almost as far as
St. Petersburg. Looking back in imagination we can see the map of Great
Britain and Ireland—and we must not forget France—dotted over with the
places of our meetings, all alike conspicuous by the cordiality of our
reception, each specially conspicuous by some special remembrance, as—
"Each garlanded with her peculiar flower,
Danced into light, and died into the shade."
The temptation to linger upon these recollections is very strong, but I
must not yield to it, because more serious matters claim attention, and
because time would not suffice, and because the interest of our members
and any other auditors must necessarily be in proportion to the number
of meetings they have themselves attended, while the time, alas! slowly
but certainly approaches when the first meetings will not be remembered
by any one. Yet in a retrospective address it would be impossible to
pass without notice the first two meetings of all, for it was by them
that the character, since so admirably maintained, was impressed upon
the Association. We first met at the London Institution in Finsbury
Circus under the auspices of the man who, above all men, has the best
right to be accounted our founder—the present Bodleian Librarian, Mr.
Nicholson. Meetings in London, I may say for the information of our
northern friends, labour under a serious defect as compared with
Aberdeen and other more favoured places—a deficiency in the accessories
of sight-seeing and hospitality. Not that Londoners are any less
hospitable than other citizens, but there are reasons patent to all
why in that enormous metropolis—till lately under such a very
anomalous system or no system of municipal government, and where
innumerable objects of interest are for the most part common
property—entertainments cannot be systematically organised, especially
at seasons of the year when unless, under the present dispensation, one
is an unpaired member of Parliament, it is almost a reproach to be found
in the metropolis. For all that, I scarcely think that any meeting was
enjoyed with zest equal to the gathering in that amphitheatre and
lecture room, nearly as subdued in light but nowise as cool as a
submarine grot. For we were doing then what we could not do afterwards
in the majestic hall of King's College, Cambridge, or in the splendid
deliberative chamber accorded to us by the liberality of the corporation
of Birmingham. We were legislating, we were tracing the lines of the
future; most interesting and important of all, we were proving whether
the conception of a Library Association, so attractive on paper, was
really a living conception that would work. That this question was so
triumphantly answered I have always attributed in great measure to the
presence among us of a choice band of librarians from the United States.
These gentlemen knew what we only surmised; they had been accustomed to
regard themselves as members of an organised profession; they felt
themselves recognised and honoured as such; they had ample experience of
congresses and public canvasses and library journals; they were just the
men to inspire English librarians, not with the public spirit which they
possessed already, but with the _esprit de corps_ which, in their then
dispersed and unorganised condition, they could not possess. They came
to me at least as a revelation; the horizon widened all round, and the
life and spirit they infused into the meeting contributed largely to
make it the success it was. Had we gone away then with the sensation of
failure, it is not likely that I should now be addressing you in
Aberdeen or elsewhere. But there was another ordeal to be faced. Critics
say that the second book or picture is very commonly decisive of the
future of an author or artist whose _début_ has been successful—it
shows whether he possesses staying power. Well, when next year we came
to Oxford, in that sense of the term we did come to stay. The variety
and the interest of the papers, and the spirit of the discussions,
showed that there existed both ample material for our deliberations and
ample interest and ability to render deliberation profitable. Here again
we were largely indebted to individuals, and my words will find an echo
in all who knew the late Mr. Ernest Chester Thomas, when I say that
never did he exhibit his gifts to such advantage, never did he render
such services to the Association, as on this occasion. His courtesy,
tact, and good humour all can emulate; the advantages which he enjoyed
in finding himself so thoroughly at home could have been shared by any
other member of the University; but the peculiar brightness with which
he enlivened and irradiated the proceedings was something quite his own.
I must not suffer myself to dwell on other gatherings—all equally
agreeable, some almost as memorable; but, lest I seem forgetful of a
very important branch of the work of the Association, I must briefly
allude to the monthly meetings held in London, where so many valuable
papers have been read—subsequently made general property by publication
in the Journal of the Association, if originally delivered to audiences
probably very fit, certainly very few. It is greatly to be regretted
that provincial members cannot participate in these gatherings, but this
is practically impossible, save by the annihilation of time and
space—the modest request, says Pope, of absent lovers.
I shall now proceed to take up some of the more interesting themes
broached at the first meeting of the Association, time not allowing me
to proceed further, and to remark upon the progress which may appear to
have been made in the interval towards accomplishing the objects then
indicated. I shall then venture some brief remarks on the library
movement at the present day, as concerns public feeling and public
sympathy in their effect on the status of librarianship as a profession.
My observations must of course be very desultory and imperfect, for an
adequate treatment of these subjects would absorb the entire time of the
present meeting. I have also always felt that the President's address,
though certainly an indispensable portion of our proceedings, is in one
aspect ornamental, and that the real business of a meeting, apart from
its legislative and administrative departments, is the reading of papers
and the discussion to which these give rise. I hope that these
discussions will be, like the Thames, "without o'erflowing, full."
Overflow we must not. It will be a great satisfaction to me if, when the
meeting is over, it should be found that everything written for it has
been heard by it, and that nothing has been "taken as read."
The most important subject introduced at the Conference of 1877 was that
of free libraries in small towns, but any remarks which I may offer on
this will come more appropriately into a review of the progress which
libraries are now making. Next in importance, perhaps, certainly in
general interest, were the discussions on cataloguing. In this
department I may congratulate the Association on material progress, to
which its own labours have, in great measure, contributed. There is much
more unanimity than there used to be respecting the principles on which
catalogues should be made. Admirable catalogues have been issued, and
continue to be kept up by the principal libraries throughout the
country, and if now and then some very small and benighted library
issues a catalogue whose _naïvetés_ excite derision, such cases are
very exceptional. Rules have been promulgated both here and in the
United States which have met with general assent, and I do not
anticipate that any material departure from them will be made. I only
wish to say, as every librarian is naturally supposed to regard his own
catalogue as a model, that I do not regard the British Museum Catalogue
in this light so far as concerns libraries of average size and type. The
requirements of large and small libraries are very different, and that
may be quite right in one which would be quite wrong in another. I can,
perhaps, scarcely express this difference more accurately than by
remarking that while the catalogue of a small, and more especially of a
popular, library, should be a finding catalogue, that of a large library
representing all departments of literature must be to a great extent a
literary catalogue. It is not meant merely to enable the reader to
procure his book with the least possible delay, but also to present an
epitome of the life-work of every author, and to assist the researches
of the literary historian. Hence the explanation and justification of
some points which have on specious grounds been objected to in the
Museum Catalogue. It has been thought strange, for instance, that
anonymous books of which the authorship is known—such as the first
editions of the Waverley Novels—should not be entered under the names
of the authors. Two excellent reasons may be given: because by so
entering the book the character of the catalogue as a bibliographical
record would be destroyed; and because by entering one description of
anonymous books in one way and another in another, there would be an end
to the uniformity of rule which is necessary to prevent a very extensive
catalogue from getting into confusion. Another instance is the
cataloguing of academical transactions and periodicals under the
respective heads of Academies and Periodical Publications, which has
been much criticised. It is quite true that the _Quarterly Review_ can
be found more easily under that head than under "Periodical
Publications, London," but it is also true that the grouping of all
academical and all periodical publications under these two great heads
is invaluable to the bibliographer, the literary historian, and the
statistician, who must be exceedingly thankful that the information of
which they are in quest is presented to them in a concentrated form,
instead of having to be sought for through an enormous catalogue. These
observations do not in any way apply to libraries of an essentially
popular character, and I merely make them by way of enforcing the
proposition that the works of such libraries and those of national or
university libraries are different, and that we must beware of a
cast-iron uniformity of rule. There is yet another intermediate class of
library, the comparatively small but highly select, such as college and
club libraries, which will probably find it more advantageous to pursue
an intermediate course, as I imagine they do, judging from the very
excellent specimens of cataloguing for which we are indebted to some of
them. And there is yet another class, the libraries of the collectors
of exceedingly rare literatures, such as the Chatsworth Library, Mr.
Huth's, and Mr. Locker-Lampson's. In such catalogues minuteness of
bibliographical detail is rightly carried to an extent uncalled for in
great miscellaneous catalogues like that of the British Museum, and
which, it is to be hoped, may never be attempted there, for if it were
it would disorganise the establishment. It is not the business of
librarians as public servants to provide recondite bibliographical
luxuries. These things are excellent, but they lie in the department of
specialists and amateurs, who may be expected to cultivate it in the
future as they have done in the past. The limits of public and private
enterprise must be kept distinct.
Another question of cataloguing which occupied the attention of the
Conference of 1877 was the important one of subject catalogues. In this
I am able to announce the most satisfactory progress. In the face of the
mass of information continually pouring in, the world has become alive
to the importance of condensing, distributing, and rendering generally
available the information which it possesses already. Three very
remarkable achievements of this kind may be noticed. The first is
Poole's Index to Periodicals, with its continuation, a work so
invaluable that we now wonder how we could have existed without it, but
so laborious that we could hardly have hoped to see it exist at all,
especially considering that it is an achievement of co-operative
cataloguing. In illustration of the want it supplies, I may mention that
it has been found necessary at the British Museum to reproduce the
preliminary tables by photography in a number of copies, the originals
having been worn to pieces. The next work I shall mention is the subject
index to the modern books acquired by the British Museum since 1880—two
bulky volumes, prepared in non-official time, with the greatest zeal and
devotion, by the superintendent of the Reading Room, Mr. Fortescue, and
continued by him to the present time. They are simply invaluable, and it
is only to be regretted that they have been issued at too high a price
to be generally available to the public. This is not the case with the
third publication which I have to mention—the classed catalogue issued
by Mr. Swan Sonnenschein, the utility of which is very generally known.
A cognate feature of the times is the great comparative attention now
paid to indexing, which is sometimes carried to lengths almost
ludicrous. The author of a work of information who does not give an
index is sure to be called over the coals, and with reason, for how else
is the reviewer to pick out the plums unless he actually reads the book?
I am not sure that this extreme facilitation of knowledge is in all
respects a good thing, but it is at present a necessary thing, and
correlated with that prevalence of abridged histories and biographies
which it is easy to criticise, but which has at least two good
points—the evidence it affords of the existence of a healthy appetite
for information among a large reading class, and the fact that
information is thus diffused among many to whom it would have been
inaccessible under other circumstances.
Connected with the subject of indexes is that of dictionary catalogues,
in which the alphabetical and the subject catalogues are found in a
single list. I retain the opinion I have always held, that this plan may
answer where the library and the catalogue are not extensive, but that
where they are, confusion results; the wood cannot be seen for the
trees. I therefore recommend the librarian of even a small library, in
planning his catalogue, as well as everything else, to make sure whether
his library may not be destined to become a great one. Half the
difficulties under which great libraries labour arise from the failure
to take from the first a sufficiently generous view of the possibilities
and prospects of the institution. With this view of dictionary
catalogues, it is not likely that they will be adopted at the British
Museum, but I have already explained more than once the facilities which
the Museum possesses for forming an unequalled series of subject
catalogues by simply, when the great general catalogue has been printed,
cutting up copies printed on one side only, and arranging them in a
number of indexes. There is no doubt that the Museum can amply provide
for its own needs in this manner, and thus remove the reproach under
which it has always laboured, and still labours, of having no subject
catalogue except Mr. Fortescue's. The question is whether the indexes
thus created are to become available for the service of libraries and
students all over the world by being published and circulated. The
solution of this question rests with the Government, and I have alluded
to it here principally in the hope of eliciting that expression of
public opinion without which Government is hardly likely to act. The
question will probably become an actual one towards the end of the
present century.
Mention of this question naturally leads to another, which occasioned
one of the most interesting discussions of the Conference of 1877—the
subject of the British Museum in its relation to provincial culture.
This was ably introduced by our friend Mr. Axon, who dwelt especially on
two points in which provincial culture could be promoted by the
Museum—the distribution of duplicates and the printing of the
catalogue. On both these I am enabled to announce the most satisfactory
progress since they were ventilated in 1877. As regards the distribution
of duplicates, indeed, further progress is impossible, for we have
distributed all we can spare. The subject was energetically taken up by
the present Principal Librarian, Mr. Maunde Thompson, shortly after his
accession to office, and the result has been that almost all the
principal libraries throughout the country have received important
benefactions from the Museum. Libraries of the rank of the Bodleian and
the Guildhall have, of course, received the first consideration; but
nearly all have had some accession, and in some instances provision has
been made for a regular supply of duplicate parliamentary papers. Since
the distribution of these duplicates the opportunity has further
presented itself, through the extensive purchases made at the sale of
the Hailstone Library, for enriching Yorkshire libraries with duplicate
tracts relating to that county, and I am sure that the trustees will
readily avail themselves of any subsequent occasions. I am aware that
some think that distribution might be carried even further, but I am
certain that this is not the case. We are bound in honour not to give
any presented books; valuable presented books must be protected by
second copies; copyright books cannot be parted with because receipts
have been given for them which, if the books disappeared, there would be
nothing to justify, while the books and the stamp showing the date of
reception may be required for legal purposes; finally, the international
copyright which used to provide the Museum with so many duplicates of
foreign books has now become utterly extinct in consequence of the Berne
Convention. The progress made in the far more important department of
the printing of the catalogue is already well known to you. I have been
able to give the Association a satisfactory report of progress on two
occasions, and I am now able to state that we have entered into letter
P. Some important gaps remain to be filled up, but on the other hand the
latter part of the catalogue is printed and published from U to the end.
If the Treasury continues its aid, I have little doubt that the whole
will be published some time before the end of the century. Mr. Axon
certainly did not exaggerate the value which such a publication would
possess for general culture, and I am only sorry that it is not as yet
properly recognised. Every large town ought to have a copy of the Museum
Catalogue, and the supply of the accession parts ought to be regularly
kept up. It is too late now to do what might have been done if the
importance of the undertaking had been recognised from the first: but
the oversight can soon be repaired if the catalogue is reprinted as soon
as completed, with the inclusion of all the additional titles that have
since grown up. The edition can then be made as large as is necessary to
accommodate every important town in the United Kingdom. But this will
not be done without the application of considerable pressure to the
Government, and this will not come without a much more general interest
on the part of the public than there is any reason to suppose exists at
present. This might, however, be created by judicious stimulus, which
must come in the first instance from librarians, who, though not
collectively a highly influential body, have many means of privately
influencing persons of weight, and making themselves directly and
indirectly heard in the public press.
I will take the opportunity of adding a few words for the honour of a
late eminent librarian. In the numerous papers which I have written on
the subject of the Museum Catalogue, I have always made a point of
bringing forward the inestimable services of the late Principal
Librarian, Mr. Edward Augustus Bond, in relation to it. Everything
which I have said I repeat. Without Mr. Bond the catalogue would not now
exist in print, or its appearance would at any rate have been
indefinitely deferred. In examining, however, non-official papers, I
have lately ascertained that Mr. Thomas Watts, one of my predecessors as
Keeper of Printed Books, advocated the printing of the catalogue as
early as 1855. Like myself, when I recommended printing, not on abstract
grounds, but from the impossibility of any longer finding space for the
catalogue in the Reading Room, Mr. Watts was led to adopt his view by
collateral considerations, which it would take too much time to explain
now, but which will be understood when I publish his paper, which I
purpose doing. Meanwhile I am glad to have paid this passing tribute to
the memory of the most learned and the most widely informed librarian
that the Museum or the country ever possessed.
Speaking of the publication of Museum catalogues since the foundation of
this Association, I ought not to forget that of the early English books
prior to 1640, edited by Mr. Bullen; or that of the maps, edited by
Professor Douglas; or the various catalogues of Oriental books and
manuscripts. The latter, prepared by Dr. Rieu, are treasures of
information, very much more than ordinary catalogues.
Another subject was introduced at the Conference of 1877, which admits
of wider development than any of those already mentioned, and in which
very much more remains to be done. I allude to the question of the
employment of photography as an auxiliary to bibliography, broached by
our lamented friend the late Mr. Henry Stevens, in his paper on
"Photo-Bibliography." Though the ideas suggested by Mr. Stevens were
highly ingenious, they were perhaps better adapted for development by
private enterprise than by library organisations. But they led up
directly to another matter of much greater importance, which I had
myself the honour of bringing before the Dublin Conference—the
feasibility of making book-photography national by the creation of a
photographic department at the British Museum. I need not repeat at
length what was then said by myself and other speakers respecting the
immense advantage of providing a ready and cheap means for the
reproduction of books in facsimile, by which rare books and perishing
manuscripts could be multiplied to any extent; by which press copies
could be provided at a nominal expense for anything that it was desired
to reprint; by which legal documents could be placed beyond the reach of
injury, and the vexed question of the custody of parish registers solved
for ever; by which a great system of international exchange could be
established for the historical manuscripts of all countries. The one
point which cannot be too often repeated or enforced is that the essence
of the scheme consists in the abolition of the private photographer, at
present an inevitable and most useful individual, but who is sadly in
the way of larger public interests. So long as a private profit has to
be made, photography cannot be cheap. Transfer this duty to a public
officer paid by a public salary, and the chief element of expense has
disappeared; while the slight expense of this salary and cost of
material, if it is thought worth while to insist upon its repayment,
will be repaid over and over by a trifling charge imposed upon the
public. Our Association took the matter up, but nothing tangible has as
yet resulted from its efforts, nor can much be fairly expected. We are
not a body adapted for public agitation, nor can we be; we have too
little influence as individuals; as a corporation we are too dispersed;
our general meetings are necessarily infrequent; we want organisation
and momentum. Nevertheless, very important progress in this direction
may be recorded, or I should not have been able to include it in my
address. It is due to the University of Oxford, which has established a
photographic department in connection with the Bodleian Library and the
University Press, which has shown the practicability of the undertaking,
and has already rendered important services to private persons and
public institutions, the British Museum among the latter. We are as yet
far from the ideal, for the University must of necessity make a higher
charge than would be requisite in a Government department, which might
indeed be but nominal. But an important step has been taken, and Oxford
will always have the honour of having taken the lead in the systematic
application of photography to library purposes, as the sister University
has that of having been the first, not merely to print a catalogue but
to keep a catalogue up in print.
Another subject which naturally attracted the attention of the
Association from the first was that of binding. There are few matters of
more consequence, and the increasing degeneracy of the bindings of
ordinary books, as issued by the publishers, renders it of more
importance to librarians than ever. This deterioration is, of course,
likely to extend to books bound for libraries, if librarians are not
very vigilant. I was amused the other day with the remark of an American
librarian, that he bound his newspapers in brown. I thought he exercised
a wise discretion, for the newspapers which were bound in green at the
Museum have become brown, like the withered leaf, and might as well have
been so from the first. I do not know that any important progress has
been made in ordinary binding, although our American friends, in their
_Library Journal_, are continually giving us ingenious hints which may
prove very useful. The buckram recommended by Mr. Nicholson has, I
think, maintained its ground; we use it to some extent at the Museum,
and are well satisfied. Goatskin also has been recently employed; it is
a beautiful binding, but liable to injury when a volume is subjected to
much wear and tear—a point which should always be carefully considered
before the binding of a book is decided upon. The better descriptions of
cloth seem to be improved, and very recommendable for books in moderate
use. I am continually struck with the excellence of the vellum bindings
we get from abroad, especially of old books, and wish very much that
means could be found of cheapening this most excellent material. In one
very important description of binding—roan and sheepskin—I fear we are
going back; not from any fault of the binders, but from the conditions
of modern life. I am informed that owing to the early age at which the
lives of sheep are now prematurely terminated, it is impossible to
obtain sheepskin of the soundness requisite for binding purposes, and
that books for which it is used must be expected to wear out much sooner
than formerly. It is also said, however, that this does not apply to the
sheep slaughtered in Australia and New Zealand, and if this is the case
it may be worth the while of librarians and bookbinders to enter into
communication with the farmers of those parts, through the medium of the
Colonial Agents General or otherwise.
Any positive progress that can be reported in binding rather relates to
the study, appreciation, and reproduction of old and precious bindings,
especially of foreign countries, and is mainly summed up in the record
of the exhibitions of bindings which have been held here, the literary
labours of Miss Prideaux and others, the numerous splendid reproductions
in chromo-lithography, published or to be published here or abroad, and
the tasteful designs of Mr. Zaehnsdorf, Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, and other
artists in this branch, which I am glad to see encouraged by the Arts
and Crafts Exhibition. The very deterioration of the bindings for the
many, to which I have had occasion to refer, stimulates the production
of choice bindings for the few. Liberal patronage will not be wanting,
and there is no reason why we should not have among us now Bedfords,
Roger Paynes, and even craftsmen of a more purely artistic type. Among
the signs of the times in this respect is to be noted the establishment
of the Grolier Club at New York, celebrated for the admirable examples
it has collected, and the interest and value of its publications.
There is another subject which came before the Conference of 1877,
which, but for our American friends, I should be unable to include in my
survey without infringing my principle of touching upon those subjects
alone in which substantial progress can be reported. It is that of
co-operative cataloguing, the subject of a note by M. Depping, and
indirectly of the late Mr. Cornelius Walford's paper on a general
catalogue of English literature. The success of Poole's Index has proved
that co-operative cataloguing, or at least indexing, is feasible. I
doubt if there is another instance, except one—a work of great national
importance, whose long condition of suspended animation and eventual
successful prosecution eloquently evince under what conditions
co-operation is practicable or impracticable. This is Dr. Murray's great
English dictionary, originally a project of the Philological Society.
Until Dr. Murray was invented, the Philological Society could do
nothing. The scheme absolutely required some one of competent ability
who would go into it heart and soul, sacrifice everything else to it,
and devote his whole time to it. When such a man was found in Dr. Murray
it is astonishing how soon willing co-workers abounded, and how readily
the mass of unorganised material already collected was got into shape.
So it will be, I believe, with all co-operative schemes. They will
require a head, a single directing mind. Whether this will be
forthcoming for the very useful work projected by the Association, the
completion of the British Museum Catalogue of early English printed
books by the preparation of a supplementary catalogue of such of these
books as are not in the Museum, is to me problematical, but time will
show. I am, for my part, of opinion that the undertaking had better be
delayed until the publication of the second edition of the Museum
Catalogue, which it is intended to issue as soon as the printing of the
general catalogue is complete, as this would considerably abridge the
labour of preparing the supplement. I have already, in the paper read at
Paris last year, expressed my opinion that the Museum Catalogue, when
complete, will afford the only practicable basis for the far more
important and extensive undertaking of a universal catalogue. Success in
such an undertaking would indeed be the triumph of successful
co-operation, but when the enormous difficulties of establishing
co-operation among the libraries, not of a single country only, but of
the whole civilised world, are considered, the difficulty may well
appear insuperable, until the various countries shall have approximated
much more nearly to the condition of a single country than they have
done as yet. Such, however, is the unquestionable tendency of the times,
depending upon causes which, so far as can be foreseen, appear likely to
operate with augmented intensity, and this movement may proceed far
enough to eventually bring with it the universal catalogue along with
the universal language, the universal coin, and the universal stamp.
Till within a short time ago I had reason to believe that a co-operative
catalogue, which I myself proposed several years ago, was on the point
of being undertaken. Some may remember that I once read a paper at a
London monthly meeting on the preparation of an index of subjects to the
Royal Society's catalogue of scientific papers, without which that great
store of information is in a measure useless. This paper was
re-published in _Nature_, the idea was taken up by Mr. Collins of
Edgbaston, the compiler of the indexes to Herbert Spencer's works, and a
few weeks ago success seemed about to crown his efforts. I now learn
with regret that the scientific men who met in conclave on the project
have not been able to agree, and I suppose it will remain in abeyance
until some Hercules-Littré arises and does it by himself.