matter of much less urgency to the Museum itself, but one of even
greater importance to the public. It could not be undertaken without
special assistance from the State, but would probably repay its cost in
a great degree, and has in any event the very strongest claims upon the
support of an enlightened government. It is moreover much less
formidable than appears at first sight. We have already explained how
the way for a more exact classification has been prepared by arranging
one copy of the catalogue in the order of the shelves. The apparent
magnitude of the task is further diminished by the following
considerations: 1. It requires no cross-references. 2. Titles may be
abbreviated to the utmost. 3. It can be temporarily suspended upon the
completion of any section. 4. The section of biography is classified
already, merely requiring the cross-references from the subjects of
biographies to be brought together; and several other extensive sections
need not be classified at all. Nobody, at least nobody worth taking into
account, wants catalogues of the titles of novels, plays, and sermons.
Classified lists of some other subjects, on the other hand, would be of
inestimable value, and there is one which, in the interests of the
Museum itself, should be undertaken without delay. Among the
inconveniences attending the ill-considered removal of the Natural
History collections to South Kensington—a measure forced on by the
Government against the wish of the working Trustees of the Museum—is
the injury likely to be inflicted upon them from want of access to a
library. Naturalists cannot study without books any more than without
specimens; but the Government which gratuitously created the want seems
in no hurry to supply it. The principle of a grant appears indeed to be
admitted; but at the rate at which this grant seems likely to be doled
out, English Natural Science will be placed at a serious disadvantage
for many years. Something may possibly be done by transferring
duplicates from Bloomsbury (a question, however, not to be decided in
haste), and some anonymous writers in scientific journals have modestly
suggested that all books on Natural History might go to Kensington; so
that a student of the physiology of colour, for example, would have to
read his Wallace at one end of the town and his Tyndall at the other.
We should, however, just as soon expect Parliament to decree on similar
grounds the cutting of the zoological articles out of the encyclopædias
as to enact that the national library of England should be the only
professedly imperfect library in the world. Indeed the argument cuts two
ways, for if it is fair that the mineral department should have
Cresconius Corippus to illustrate its gems, it must be equally fair that
the library should have the mineralogist's gems to illustrate its
Cresconius Corippus. Until then, the Natural History departments can
acquire a library of their own, it must be desirable for them to possess
a catalogue of everything relating to their subjects extant in the
British Museum. An abridged list, classified according to subject, might
be speedily furnished if Government would provide the compilers, and
would be an invaluable boon to the scientific world at large, abroad
quite as much as in England. Scientific authorities, of course, would be
consulted respecting the principles of classification, and we may take
this opportunity of repeating that while probably no subject-index has
been or can be free from inconsistency and ambiguity, none has ever been
too bad to be useful. That a high degree of excellence is attainable is
shown by Messrs. Low & Marston's alphabet of subjects to the London
Catalogue. The meritorious compiler, we should suppose, can hardly have
seen all the books he indexes; yet, so far as we are aware, he has only
committed one positive error, the very pardonable one of enumerating
Mr. Gosse's "On Viol and Flute" among works on musical instruments.
In connection with the subject of classification, reference should be
made to the excellent classified catalogue of manuscripts prepared by
the present Principal Librarian when keeper of the MS. department. It is
not yet printed or entirely complete, but is sufficiently advanced to be
exceedingly serviceable. Like most of Mr. Bond's reforms, it has been
achieved so quietly and unostentatiously, with no help from paragraphic
puffery, that few know of it except those whom it actually concerns. The
scholar goes to the Museum with no expectation of finding any such aid
to his pursuits, and hardly realises the boon until he finds himself
profiting by it. A perfect contrast in every point of view is afforded
by the remarkable proposal emanating from the Society of Arts that the
Museum should make and publish a catalogue of English books before 1641,
or just the period when books were beginning to be useful. The project
bespeaks a very imperfect appreciation of the needs of the institution
and the public. When the great problem of the Museum is to diminish the
pressure on its space, it is proposed to afflict it with yet another
catalogue. When the public is crying out for classified lists as aids to
knowledge, it is offered an alphabetical list with no attempt at
classification, and containing nothing worth classifying. When libraries
are becoming more and more valuable in proportion as they subserve
educational purposes, it is proposed to employ money and labour in
telling a few specialists what they already know. When the overworked
library is unable to discharge some of its most obvious duties, it is
proposed to detach not a little of its best strength for an utter
superfluity. Not only are new books to remain uncatalogued, but even the
final revision of the old books is to be delayed indefinitely, that what
has been already catalogued may be catalogued again.[59:1] The project
would hardly demand discussion, but for the possibility that it may
after all be forced upon the Museum, notwithstanding its repugnance to
the common-sense of the late and the present Principal Librarian. If
ridicule could kill, it could hardly have survived the discussion which
arose among its advocates at the late Oxford Conference. Those external
to the Museum suggested that the Museum should catalogue not only the
old English books it possessed, but also those it did not possess. The
Museum representatives, enamoured with the project as they were, pleaded
that it would be unreasonable to expect them to describe what they had
never seen. The other side concurred, but represented in turn that a
catalogue of such English books only as happened to be in a particular
library would be very imperfect, and of very little use. Having thus
mutually demonstrated the unreasonableness of the proposal from one
point of view, and its inutility from another, they agreed that it
should by all means be persevered with, and went home.
The subject of the classification of books within the library itself—a
matter of even more importance to the librarian than the preparation of
classified lists—has received a great impulse from the ingenious system
contrived by the principal editor of the _Library Journal_, Mr. Melvil
Dewey. Mr. Dewey—a remarkable instance of the combination of
disinterested enthusiasm with thorough business capacity—is devoted to
several other causes beside the causes of libraries, and among these is
the cause of the decimal system. His experience in the latter field has
given him the idea of dividing the departments of human knowledge
decimally. His scheme provides for a thousand divisions. Every tenth
number embraces some important section of knowledge, and the following
nine as many subjections or allied subjects admitting of classification
under the principal head. Thus number 500 might represent mathematics in
general, and 501 conic sections, analytical geometry, or any other
branch of the general subject. Further subdivisions, if needed, would be
made by appending letters to these numerals, as 501_a_, 501_b_. Each
book would be numbered in the order of its accession to the library, and
receive its place upon the shelves accordingly, so that there never
would be any doubt as to the press-mark or position of a book that had
once been properly classed. Our space does not permit us to dwell upon
many other points connected with the working of this ingenious scheme,
which, if inapplicable to the great old libraries whose catalogues, like
the Abbé Vertot's siege, are already done, deserves the most careful
consideration on the part of the founders of new institutions. It must,
as the inventor admits, receive some modification in practice from the
impossibility of accommodating books of all sizes upon the same shelf;
it is only to be feared that these and similar necessary condescensions
to the prosaic exigencies of space might in process of time throw it out
of gear altogether. Space is the librarian's capital enemy, and the more
cruel as it turns his own weapons against himself. The more ample the
catalogue, the more liberal the expenditure, the more comprehensive the
classification, the greater, sooner or later, are the difficulties from
lack of space. It is not too early to direct the earnest attention of
the public to the question of the accommodation of the national library.
The pressure upon its capacity, now merely beginning to be felt, will
soon become serious. It cannot from the nature of the case be divided or
dispersed; books required by readers must be within reach of the Reading
Room, or they might as well be nowhere. If the library does not receive
its fair share of the space about to be vacated by the Natural History
departments, the consequence will most assuredly be, first some years of
confusion and deadlock as regards all new acquisitions, and then a large
expenditure, superfluous with better management, upon new buildings,
whose space will be mortgaged before they are completed. It does not
seem to us very difficult to devise means for economising the existing
space to the utmost, and reconciling the interests of all the
departments concerned—but we must not be seduced into a disquisition
upon architecture.[62:1]
Free libraries and public reading-rooms are among the most important
departments of library administration in our day, and constitute the
most distinct expression of the growing conviction that the librarian is
called upon to be a great popular educator. This sentiment has attained
its fullest development in the United States, where the great free
libraries have taken a most important place among national institutions.
Not merely are such cities as Chicago and Cincinnati provided with
libraries of which any city might be proud, but the custodians have in
many instances gone beyond the strict limits of professional duty by not
merely furnishing reading for the people, but instructing the people
what to read. "They have tried," says Mr. Axon in the paper cited
already, "and with no small measure of success, to lead readers to
higher levels of intellectual interest, and to help all students to the
fullest acquaintance with the capabilities of the library." There are no
more remarkable examples of popular bibliography than the various
catalogues and helps published by the Boston Public Library. These
sheets, prepared by Mr. Justin Winsor, have been continued at Harvard
since the indefatigable editor's removal thither as professor of
bibliography. They include lists of the most important books in all
departments of literature, with a selection of the notices of the press
best adapted to explain their purport. Special bibliographies of great
value are frequently interspersed, and when it is considered that the
whole is rather a labour of love than of duty on Professor Winsor's
part, his diligence and acumen will appear not more worthy of praise
than his disinterested zeal. It might be well for the directors of
English free libraries to consider whether something similar could not
be produced by co-operation. The list of scientific books recommended to
students at the Radcliffe Library, Oxford, is most useful and creditable
as far as it goes. Generally speaking, the condition of free public
libraries in England may be considered satisfactory; among the directors
are many men not merely of administrative quality, but of high
bibliographical attainments. The principal obstacles to their usefulness
may be briefly characterised as the popular and municipal parsimony. Of
the former we have spoken; the latter requires to be dealt with
tenderly, and is not equally applicable to every locality; it is
nevertheless the fact that in many towns the allotted grant is
insufficient to maintain the library and librarian together. Nowhere is
the cause of free libraries so backward as in London, although the
Guildhall library is an honour to the city. The other metropolitan
districts, notwithstanding, continue deaf to Mr. Nicholson's earnest
expostulations; and although the number of readers at the British Museum
is as large as that institution can well deal with, it seems small in
comparison with the vastness of the metropolis and the occasions for
reference to books which continually arise in the daily life of even the
least lettered members of the community. The suggested opening at night
by the aid of the electric light would almost certainly attract a new
and valuable class of students, at present virtually excluded. It would
be premature to say much about the recent experiments with the electric
lamp; but we believe it may be stated that they have been highly
encouraging as far as they have gone, and that the question is safe in
the hands of Mr. Bond, to whom the public are already indebted for so
many signal improvements.[64:1] Should the experiments result in perfect
success, it is to be hoped that their object will not be frustrated by
the propensity of all governments to save where they ought to spend,
that they may spend where they ought to save. To allow the infinitesimal
risk of accident to the institution to obstruct the full development of
its usefulness would indeed be _propter vitam vivendi perdere causas_.
We have left ourselves no space for any observations upon the
circumstances of libraries on the Continent, although there is ample
evidence both of the activity of librarians and the public recognition
of their functions in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Nor can we
remark at length, as we gladly should have done, upon the tendency of
the peculiar circumstances of the United States to develop a most
valuable type of librarian, destined to exert more and more influence in
Europe as libraries become more and more the possession of the people at
large. Every advance in general knowledge tends to make them so, and the
whole movement towards improvement in library administration—some only
of whose features we have imperfectly striven to indicate—rests on the
more or less conscious perception of librarians that the growth of human
knowledge necessitates a strict classification with a view to facility
of reference; that this important function devolves to a considerable
extent upon them; and that, to qualify themselves for its discharge,
they must begin by perfecting their own systems.
NOTE.—The advocacy of printing in this essay may appear
somewhat undecided, and the tone towards the catalogue of the
early English books altogether unjustifiable. The former
peculiarity is explained by the writer's uncertainty what turn
the negotiations with the Treasury for the introduction of
printing might take, and his dread of compromising the plans
of Sir Edward Bond, who knew nothing of the article until it
was in type, when he read it, and returned it without remark.
(See also pp. 75, 76, of this volume.) The observations
respecting the early English catalogue were dictated by no
hostility towards that undertaking in the abstract, but by
indignation at the largeness of the staff employed upon a
non-essential, while the final revision of the catalogue, the
indispensable preliminary to a complete printed catalogue, was
so languidly prosecuted that it seemed in danger of coming to
a standstill. So matters continued until 1882, when the
decided interference of the Principal Librarian, and the
adoption of a suggestion tendered by the present writer,
brought the final revision to a speedy completion, and removed
the principal objection to the English catalogue.
FOOTNOTES:
[32:1] _New Quarterly Review_, April 1879.
[43:1] A revised edition of these rules, substantially the same in
principle, but different in wording and arrangement, was prepared in
the Department of Printed Books in 1895, and printed privately in the
following year.
[59:1] The line was drawn here to eliminate the Thomason tracts,
a special catalogue of which would be really valuable: just as in
"Erewhon," the date of operation of the retrospective enactment
prohibiting machinery was fixed in the middle of the fifteenth century,
in order to include a certain mangle.
[62:1] Within a few years the difficulty was solved by the introduction
of the sliding-press, the subject of another paper in this volume.
[64:1] It is almost needless to remark that soon after these lines were
printed the electric light was in successful operation at the Reading
Room.
THE PRINTING OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE[67:1]
The subject of my paper is one which has for many years attracted a
large share of attention from the world of letters. It formed a topic of
discussion at the first meeting of this Association; when few
anticipated within how short a period it would be possible to state that
not merely was a printed catalogue of books already in the Museum in
progress, but that the titles of all books received were also printed,
and issued in the form of an Accession Catalogue. Having already had the
honour of giving some account of the latter department of the
undertaking to the Conference at Manchester, I shall on the present
occasion confine myself principally to the printed catalogue of books
actually in the Library. I propose to offer a brief retrospect of what
has been done during the half-century over which the discussions
respecting the Museum Catalogue have extended; to indicate with
corresponding brevity what is doing now; to answer some natural
inquiries by anticipation; and, finally, having shown, I trust, that the
Museum is performing its part, to appeal for the national support
requisite to expedite the progress of this truly national undertaking.
Though compelled to withhold much illustrative matter of great interest,
I cannot forbear to remark upon the signal fitness of such a theme being
brought forward for discussion in the halls of the University of
Cambridge, whose library has, I believe, the honour of being the first
to demonstrate the practicability, not merely of printing a catalogue,
but of keeping a catalogue up in print. Three particulars will, I think,
clearly appear from this brief retrospect. That the initiation of the
British Museum Catalogue was the act of the Trustees of the British
Museum themselves. That, having prematurely commenced the publication of
an imperfect catalogue, they acted wisely and rightly in suspending it
until it could be resumed with effect. That, acting under the guidance
of Mr. Bond, whose name will ever be the name especially connected with
the Museum Catalogue in its aspect of a catalogue in print, they have
resumed it at the right time, and in the right manner.
I am unable to ascertain that any public demand for a printed catalogue
of the Museum Library existed in the year 1834. On April 12 of that
year, the Trustees of their own motion called upon Mr. Baber, then
keeper of printed books, to report upon the subject. This he did on
April 26. On April 30 he attended personally before them, stated his
views, and in particular offered the earnest advice to send no portion
of the catalogue to press until the whole was ready. During the
remainder of his keepership, and the early portion of that of his
successor Mr. Panizzi, the catalogue was the theme of constant
communication between these officers and the Trustees. On December 17,
1838, the Trustees announced their determination to commence not merely
the compilation but the printing of a catalogue, comprising all books
then in the Library, in the following year. Mr. Panizzi, though entirely
concurring with Mr. Baber's views as to the inexpediency of going thus
prematurely to press, accepted the responsibility imposed upon him by a
letter dated the next day. In the spring of 1839 the famous ninety-one
rules of cataloguing were framed by him, with the assistance of Messrs.
Winter Jones, Watts, Parry, and Edwards. On July 13 these rules were
sanctioned by the Trustees, and on August 8 the commencement of the
undertaking was formally announced by Mr. Panizzi, in a circular
addressed to the whole department. In July 1841, the first, and last,
volume of the catalogue was issued to the public. It was an admirable
catalogue, reflecting high credit upon all who had taken part in it,
especially Mr. Winter Jones, who had exercised a general
superintendence, Mr. Bullen, who had prepared the extensive and
difficult article Aristotle, and Mr. Rye, who had read the whole in
proof. But, although the catalogue continued to be actively prosecuted
in manuscript, the Trustees ceased to urge the continuance of the
printing, and not another sheet ever went to press.
Whence this abortive result? Mainly because the entire undertaking was
premature. The unfortunate determination to print letter A before the
whole catalogue was ready, excluded a considerable portion of letter A
itself. As other letters were proceeded with, it was inevitably
discovered that numerous books which in the old catalogue had been
entered under headings commencing with other letters required to be
brought under A, according to the new rules. Cross-references under A
were continually springing up, of course too late to be printed. In
fact, however, the publication of a printed catalogue at that time was
inexpedient for a more weighty reason. The Library was too deficient in
most branches of literature to deserve one; and it was not until these
deficiencies had been remedied by the unexampled exertions of Mr.
Panizzi, that an exact register of its contents could be contemplated
with satisfaction.