proceeding, the character of the catalogue itself was undergoing
modification. Great additions were daily being made to the number of
books. The new entries thus rendered requisite were at first made in the
old manuscript catalogue of additions interleaved with the original
printed catalogue of Sir Henry Ellis and Mr. Baber. Two alphabetical
series of titles, one printed and the other manuscript, were thus
comprised within the same volumes. The amalgamation of these two sets of
titles, and the consequent absorption of the catalogue commenced in 1839
into a more extensive general catalogue, was effected by the ingenious
and admirable suggestion, made independently in 1849 by Mr. Wilson
Croker and Mr. Roy, of the Library, that the entries, instead of being
written upon the leaf itself, should be written upon movable slips
pasted upon it, so that insertions might be made without any disturbance
of alphabetical order. The suggestion was promptly adopted, transcribers
were engaged to copy the great mass of accumulated titles, and, all
thoughts of printing the catalogue commenced in 1839 being laid aside
for the present, the titles prepared for it were also transcribed and
incorporated with those written for the books newly acquired. In 1851
this new catalogue, transcribed fourfold by the "carbonic" process, and
with copious space provided for insertions and interleavings, was placed
in the Reading Room in 150 volumes, or about as many as are now occupied
by letter B alone. The catalogue of 1839 and the supplementary catalogue
were thus put into a fair way to become one, and it became obvious that
printing must be deferred until the amalgamation was complete. It was
still, however, a fair question whether the catalogue might not be kept
up in print; whether it was better to transcribe titles fourfold as we
did then, or to multiply them indefinitely by print as we do now. I
cannot find that the practicability of keeping up a continually
augmenting catalogue in print was seriously considered, until, in
October 1861, it was proved by the introduction of print into the
University Library of Cambridge. Some years afterwards the system was
strongly pressed upon the attention of the Museum by the Treasury,
which had remarked the gradual and inevitable increase of expenditure in
binding, breaking up, interleaving and relaying the volumes of the
manuscript catalogue, increased by this time from 150 to 1500. I well
remember the pains which Mr. Rye, then keeper of the printed books, took
in investigating the subject, and I believe I may say that had it
depended upon him, the transition to print would have been effected
immediately. Other views, however, prevailed for the time; and when, in
October 1875, the subject was again brought forward by the Treasury, it
fell to my lot to treat it from a new point of view, suggested by my
observations in my capacity as superintendent of the Reading Room. I saw
that, waiving the question as to the advantage or disadvantage of print
in the abstract, it would soon be necessary to resort to it for the sake
of economy of space. There were by this time 2000 volumes of manuscript
catalogue in the Reading Room, exclusive of the catalogues of maps and
music. There would be 3000 by the time that the incorporation of the
general and supplementary catalogues was complete. Hundreds of these
volumes in the earlier letters of the alphabet were already swollen with
entries, and required to be broken up and divided into three. Sooner or
later every volume would have undergone this process. By that time there
would be 9000 volumes of manuscript catalogue, three times as many as
the Reading Room could contain, or the public conveniently consult. The
only remedy was to put a check upon the growth of the catalogue by
printing all new entries for the future, and to mature meanwhile a plan
for converting the entire catalogue into a printed one. I prepared, at
the request of Mr. Bullen, a memorandum embodying these ideas, and
entered into the subject more fully when, in January 1878, it was again
brought forward by the Treasury. These views, however, did not find
acceptance at the time. Mr. Winter Jones, and Mr. Newton, acting on the
latter occasion as deputy Principal Librarian, were, indeed, both
theoretically in favour of print; but it was thought that the desired
financial economy, the only point on which the Treasury laid any stress,
could be better obtained by the employment of Civil Service writers. The
question was thus left for Mr. Bond, who became Principal Librarian in
the following August. As keeper of the manuscripts, Mr. Bond's attention
had never been officially drawn to the catalogue of printed books, but,
as a man of letters, he had formed an opinion respecting it; and I am
able to state that he came to the Principal Librarianship as determined
to bestow the boon of print upon the catalogue and the public, as to
effect the other great reforms that have signalised his administration.
From the moment of his accession the question may be said to have been
virtually decided. In April 1879, I published an article in the _New
Quarterly Magazine_, foreshadowing almost everything that has since been
accomplished. In the summer of the same year, Mr. Bond, having secured
the concurrence of the Trustees, proposed to the Treasury to substitute
print for transcription in the case of all additions henceforth made to
the catalogue, a proposal which the Treasury could not refuse to
entertain, as it had originally come from itself. It was accordingly
accepted; the details of the scheme were settled by Mr. Bond in concert
with Mr. Bullen and the assistant keepers; the general supervision of
the printing was entrusted to my colleague Professor Douglas; and by the
beginning of the new year the press was fully at work. We had thus
successfully introduced print into the catalogue, and by diminishing the
size of the entries checked the enormous pressure upon our space which
threatened to swamp the catalogue altogether. We had also, by providing
for the issue of the new printed titles in parts at regular intervals,
enabled any subscriber to obtain a complete list of future additions to
the Museum. But this related to the future only; nothing had yet been
done to meet the public demand for a printed catalogue of all books
already in the Library. The satisfaction of this demand was the second
item in Mr. Bond's programme. In recommending his proposal to the
Treasury, he relied upon the same grounds that had been shown to exist
in the case of the Accession Catalogue. He pointed out the enormous
number of manuscript volumes, the ponderous unwieldiness of many among
them, the expense of perpetual breaking up, rebinding, and relaying; the
manifest advantage of compressing many volumes into one, and providing
space for additions for a practically indefinite period. On these
grounds, and not on literary grounds, the Treasury assented to the
proposal, and agreed to devote, for as long as they should see fit, a
certain annual sum for the gradual conversion of the manuscript into a
printed catalogue. It is desirable that this should be thoroughly
understood, as it affords the answer to some questions which may very
naturally be asked respecting the method of publication adopted for the
catalogue. Why is it not brought out at once, complete from A to Z?
Because the Treasury have not granted £100,000 for the purpose. They
simply make an annual allowance of limited amount, liable to be
withdrawn at any time. Might not, however, the allotted sum be employed
as far as it will go in printing the catalogue consecutively from the
beginning, instead of in selected portions? To this there are several
things to be said. The grant is made upon condition that it shall before
all things be employed in remedying the defects signalised by ourselves,
bringing cumbrous, overgrown volumes into a handy form, and putting a
stop to the perpetual rebinding and relaying. The most bulky volumes,
therefore, must in general be those selected for printing. An equally
powerful consideration is that we thus escape all danger of the reproach
that has hitherto attached to almost every similar undertaking, "This
man began, and was not able to finish." The funds on which we relied
might at any time fail us, and we might never progress beyond our A, B,
C. By making the printing a portion of the daily life of the
institution, a piece of administrative routine like cataloguing or
binding, we escape alike ambitious professions and ambitious failures.
Once more, a strictly alphabetical procedure would destroy one of the
most valuable features of the scheme, the separate issue of important
special articles, not merely to our limited body of subscribers, but
offered on a large scale to the public generally. We have already the
article Virgil in the press on this principle, and it is hoped that
Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, Dante, Academies, Periodicals, and
others, may ere long be added to the list. Even our ordinary volumes
frequently contain articles better printed now than twenty years hence:
one of the last completed, for instance, contains the article Gladstone.
It would indeed be well if our resources admitted of these three
operations being carried on simultaneously, the consecutive publication
of the catalogue, the compression of overgrown volumes wherever
occurring, the independent issue of important special articles. With
sufficient means to defray the additional cost of printing and provide
the needful literary revision, all three might very well go on _pari
passu_. I hope that the liberality of the Treasury, of which I desire to
speak with every acknowledgment, will rise still nearer to the height of
the occasion, and I believe it will. It will be seen that, granting the
principle of the conversion of the manuscript catalogue into a printed
one, there is no economy, but the reverse, in spreading the operation
over a long period. The longer it lasts, the greater will be the
accumulation of titles for accessions, to be included in the general
catalogue when the volumes to which they belong come to be printed in
their turn. Supposing that the whole catalogue could be put into type
to-morrow by the stroke of an enchanter's wand, we should have printed
three millions of titles. If the metamorphosis were deferred for forty
years, we should then print five millions. But if the work of printing
goes on during the forty years, as at its present rate of progress it
will, we shall have printed and paid for six millions, because half of
the two million accession titles will have been printed and paid for
twice over, first as accession titles, and again after their
incorporation into the general. It is not, however, so much upon such
economical considerations that I rely, as upon the conviction that the
Government will ultimately recognise our work as a truly national one;
to which end the people itself must contribute by a wider and warmer
recognition and a more liberal pecuniary support than has as yet been
accorded. Before entering further into this department of the subject, I
will briefly state what has been effected already, and describe the
method of procedure. Of the Accession Catalogue I have already spoken at
Manchester, and I have little to add to my observations upon that
occasion. The titles written for new acquisitions, instead of being
transcribed fourfold, are now sent to the printer as soon as a
sufficient number have accumulated. They are divided into three
principal sections; new English and foreign books; old English books;
old foreign books. They come back printed in regular alphabetical order,
and after the press has been corrected are distributed to subscribers
and such institutions as receive them gratuitously. Four copies are cut
up, and the titles inserted into the General Catalogue in their proper
places, occupying a mere fraction of the room required for the old
manuscript entries. The arrangements are under the superintendence of
Professor Douglas, and up to the present time about 130,000 entries have
passed under his inspection. The publication of the General printed
Catalogue proceeds as follows. Three or four volumes of the manuscript
catalogue having been selected to be combined in a volume of print, they
undergo in the first place a literary revision. Queries respecting
headings, authorship, and date are raised and settled, mistranscriptions
and wrong punctuation corrected, and the catalogue is weeded of its
practically duplicate entries by cutting these down to the mere phrase
"another edition; another copy," as the case may require. A second and
more troublesome revision then becomes necessary, for the order of the
entries frequently admits of great improvement. The titles having been
incorporated by a variety of persons, and the process of insertion
having now gone on for more than thirty years, many errors and
inconsistencies have inevitably crept in, and these require to be
rectified by an assistant of especial ability and experience in this
department of work, whose researches frequently originate a new set of
catalogue queries. At last, however, the copy goes to press, the proof
is promptly returned and corrected (we are content with a single
revise), and the three or four bulky volumes of manuscript are condensed
into a single handy and portable volume of type, printed in double
columns and on ordinary paper for subscribers, but for reading-room use
in single column on a strong vellum paper, adapted to bear rough
handling, the opposite column being left blank for insertions, and the
book supplied with guards to allow of interleaving. There have hitherto
been on the average 220 columns or 110 folios to a volume. On the
average of twenty entries to a column, which is rather under the mark,
this gives 4400 titles to each volume. The blank space left for
insertions and the provision for interleaving would allow of this number
of titles being quadrupled, but the weight of the paper prescribes a
limit which it would be inconvenient to transgress. Supposing that each
volume will take 9000 titles only, then, as the Reading Room will
accommodate 2000 volumes of catalogue without encroachment on the
reference library, sufficient space will have been provided for eighteen
millions of titles, or for three centuries' accumulations at the present
annual rate of increase. A year or two ago we were at an utter loss how
to accommodate less than three million titles. Several volumes are now
(September 1882) in hand in various stages of progress. The number fully
completed and placed in the Reading Room is twenty-two, which comprise
the contents of about 70 manuscript volumes, including, with many
others, all in letter A after the article Aristotle to the end. They
have cost, in round figures, £2450, or about £110 each. Arrangements
lately completed will diminish this cost by nearly a sixth, and the sum
economised will be available for additional printing. It ought to be
stated that all the extra work entailed by printing has been performed
by the ordinary Museum staff, with no addition to its resources, except
an arrangement by which two gentlemen work two or three hours' overtime.
It is of course apparent that if a large portion of the catalogue is to
be put within reach of the present generation the scale of operations
must be greatly enlarged. We may one day see the whole of the printing
of the Museum a special department, like the Clarendon or Cambridge
University press, with a head and a staff of its own, and carrying on
operations by the side of which those I have been describing will appear
diminutive. At present the Museum force and the Museum grant are nicely
adapted to each other. With a stronger staff we could easily spend much
more money, with a weaker staff we could not spend what we do. Every
effort is of course made to expend the full amount within the year, not
only that it may not return unused into the Exchequer, but, from
consideration to the just claims of our printers, who have engaged a
number of extra hands whom they cannot afford to keep idle. Hence, as I
have stated, we are content with a single revise, and deliberately
prefer systematic energy to minute accuracy. Misprints and other
oversights will, no doubt, be detected, which a more deliberate
procedure would have obviated. I do not desire to have the air of
apologising for a catalogue which, even if tried by a severe standard,
will, I am persuaded, be pronounced a creditable work; but I wish it to
be understood that these blemishes, as well as some defects of
arrangement manifested in long sets of cross-references, are not unknown
or overlooked. They will diminish as the work proceeds; confident,
meanwhile, of a generous construction, we are deliberately of opinion
that it is infinitely better to run the risk of letting them pass than
to open a door to the capital enemy of all good administration—arrear.
Other shortcomings are necessitated by the fact that the Museum Library
is not an inert mass, but a living organism. You have not to deal with a
closed collection of books like the King's Library, whose authors are
dead, and to which no addition can ever be made. The very titles before
you have been prepared during the last forty years by twice forty
persons of various idiosyncrasies, whose work, with every care, it is
often no easy matter to harmonise. While the product of their
heterogeneous authorship is at press, the Accession Catalogue is in
progress under independent management; thousands of titles are annually
written and entered which will one day have to be amalgamated with the
general series, and discrepancies must sometimes occur. Moreover, the
catalogue of the world's literature partakes of the mobility of the
world itself. Designations are altered, as when successful generals
become barons, or popular churchmen bishops; anonymous authors are
brought to light; periodicals and works in progress are completed or
relinquished; errors are detected and corrected; improvements and
modifications are introduced. The catalogue of an institution like the
British Museum, dealing with a mass of matter already accumulated, and
intended to register an ever-accumulating mass of matter for ever and
ever, must not aspire to absolute perfection, and can never attain
finality.
A few words, in conclusion, upon the duty and interest of the public to
support the Museum undertakings, and the practical end at which, as it
seems to me, we ought to aim. The catalogue cannot, at the present rate
of progress, be completely printed in much less than forty years. We
shall all agree that this progress ought to be accelerated, but this can
only be by increased liberality from the Treasury. This will be accorded
in proportion to the Treasury's conviction of the value of our work, and
this conviction will greatly depend upon the appreciation of this
usefulness manifested by the public. If we are to do a national work, we
must have national recognition. I am not at all using the language of
complaint or disappointment. It would be well worth the Museum's while
to print the catalogue for its own sake, even if it did not dispose of a
single copy; and in fact the number of subscriptions is very much what
was expected. I wish, however, that we could succeed in this, as in some
other things, beyond expectation. Something is probably to be ascribed
to the peculiarly quiet manner in which this great change was effected.
Mr. Bond's reforms "come not with observation." A question which had
been so long and clamorously agitated while unripe was, being ripe,
settled in a few conversations, and with a little official
correspondence, so noiselessly and unostentatiously, that many of those
most interested in the matter have never heard of it. Many who have
heard of it are probably under the impression that the original high
terms of subscription have been maintained. This is not so. All the
sections of the Accession Catalogue are now issued for an annual
subscription of £3; and all volumes of the General Catalogue for an
annual subscription of £3, 10s. This does not bring it within the reach
of every purse: still there must be many students and men of letters in
easy circumstances who would find it well worth their while to secure on
such terms a register of the literature of the world. Our late lamented
friend and colleague, Professor Jevons, was a type of the class I have
in my mind; and I know that on the eve of his death he had determined to
become a subscriber. From another point of view it may be urged that to
support the Museum Catalogue is to take a long step towards the
attainment of the still grander object of a Universal Catalogue. At
present a Universal Catalogue is a Utopian Catalogue. I have the
greatest respect for those who have advocated it as an undertaking
immediately practicable. I have no doubt that the twentieth century will
speak of them as men before their age. But they _are_ before it. Their
project is at present intricate, indefinite, intangible. They want a
base of operations. As Sir Henry Cole himself discerned when he made his
not altogether fortunate experiment of printing a specimen article from
the Museum Catalogue, this catalogue supplies such a base. Let us know
clearly what is in it and what is not; let whatever it contains be put
clearly before the world in type; and we shall be able to proceed
systematically and intelligently to fill up its lacunæ from the
catalogues of other libraries, and from the special bibliographies which
are increasing and multiplying year by year. In saying "then" I would
not foreshadow a date which many of this generation may not hope to see.
My aspiration is that the completion of the Museum Catalogue in print
may coincide with the completion of the present century. This is an age
of anniversary demonstrations. When a great man dies he bequeaths to his
country—his centenary. It may be predicted that if the twentieth
century finds the world at peace it will be inaugurated with more
displays and solemnities than all preceding centuries together. Well, I
do not know how we could offer it a more acceptable gift than a register
of almost all the really valuable literature of all former centuries.
Such a register the British Museum Catalogue, if then completed, would
afford; and a precedent would be set for a similar issue every
succeeding century, or half or quarter century, as might be found most
expedient, which would show at one view what that particular interval of
time had effected for mankind in literature. Evidently, however, the
catalogue cannot at the close of this century be absolutely complete as
respects the Museum, as a host of accession titles will have been
growing up, a great part of which, coming after the volume which would
otherwise have included them has been printed, will be too late to be
comprised in the general alphabetical series. It may not, perhaps, be
too much to hope that the claims of culture upon the State will by that
time be sufficiently recognised to induce the Government to bear the
cost of reprinting the whole catalogue with these titles, that the
literary register may be as complete as possible, and to provide for the
regular repetition of the process at definite intervals. If, however,
this is not done, there is still another agent that may be invoked. When
the Museum shall have adopted Photography as it has adopted Electricity;
when it shall possess—and I trust that long ere that period it will
possess—a photographic department, an established branch of its
organisation in which, the salaries of the staff being defrayed as in
other departments by the State, there will be no expense to be
considered beyond the mere cost of chemicals, there need be no limit to
the reproduction of its treasures. Sculptures, coins, and prints can be
disseminated over every hamlet; manuscripts can be multiplied
indefinitely and exchanged with foreign libraries for corresponding
donations, illustrative of English history and antiquities; foreign and
country scholars will be able to consult rare books and unique
manuscripts without leaving their arm-chairs; and, above all, the
scattered portions of the nearest approach the world will have made to a
Universal Catalogue may be brought together, digested into alphabetical
order, and, reproduced in facsimile by this beautiful art—fit mate of
Printing in that she too preserves what would else perish, and brings
light into many a dark place—be given to the world.[86:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[67:1] Read before the Library Association, Cambridge, Sept. 1882.
[86:1] This forecast of the service which photography might render to
library catalogues would seem to have been inspired by the very spirit
of prophecy. See, in the _American Library Journal_ for March 1899,
an account by A. J. Rudolph of the success of the Newberry Library,
Chicago, "in printing a catalogue of the accessions accumulated in
the British Museum since 1880 to date, in one general alphabet by the
so-called blue-print process, a method of photo-printing." If the
Newberry Library can do this, the British Museum ought to be able
to incorporate its accession-titles with the general catalogue, and
reissue the latter from time to time, as frequently recommended in
this volume, and in a remarkable article in the _Quarterly Review_ for
October 1898.
THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE[87:1]
The present and the future of the British Museum Catalogue are so much
more important than its past, that this part of our subject must be
touched with brevity. Resisting, therefore, every temptation to
expatiate upon the desert of ancient cataloguers, further than by the
observation that Moses and Homer were of the brotherhood, we begin with
June 21, 1759, when the Trustees of the British Museum, which
institution had been opened to the public in the preceding January,
recorded the following remarkable minute:—
"The Committee think proper to add that the requiring the attendance of
the officers during the whole six hours that the Museum is kept open is
not a wanton or useless piece of severity, as the two vacant hours (if
it is not thought a burden upon the officers) might very usefully be
employed by them in better ranging the several collections; especially
in the Department of Manuscripts, and preparing catalogues for
publication, which last the Committee think so necessary a work that
till it is performed the several collections can be but imperfectly
useful to the public."