which I have undertaken to describe. I have no fear but that it will be
pronounced in essentials logical and philosophical. It has undoubtedly
proved eminently convenient in practice. That it should be open to
revision on some points is inevitable from the nature of things, and
from two circumstances more especially—its gradual development as
subject after subject was added to the library, and the degree in which
it represents the idiosyncrasy of a single mind. Some minor oversights
must be admitted. Geology, for example, should unquestionably have
preceded Botany. I venture more extensive criticisms with hesitation,
yet I cannot help remarking that I perceive no valid reason for the
severance of so manifest a branch of History as Biography from the
parent stem by the intrusion of the entire department of Geography;
while it appears to me that the Useful Arts would have formed, through
Domestic Economy, a more natural sequel to Medicine than Fine Art, and
in arranging the latter department I should have assigned the last
instead of the first place to Archæology and its allied subjects.
Forensic Medicine might also have been conveniently placed at the _end_
of Law, to connect that subject with Natural Science. I should further
feel much inclined to form a class for Encyclopædias immediately after
Philology; both because dictionaries of general knowledge seem
legitimate successors to dictionaries of languages, and that the end of
the classification might be answerable in dignity to the beginning. I am
aware how much room for diversity of opinion may exist on these and
similar points. On a more serious defect there can be no difference of
opinion, but it is a defect inherent in all finite things. In an ideal
classification by book-press one separate press, at least, would be
provided for each subject, however minute. But an ideal library would
also have room for each subdivision. We cannot have the ideal
classification without the ideal library, and, although I hazard nothing
in saying that, thanks to the genius of the designer, Sir Anthony
Panizzi, economy of space in the new buildings of the Museum has been
carried to the utmost extent conceivable, space is still insufficient to
provide a distinct niche for every well-marked division of a subject.
Upwards of five hundred such subdivisions are provided for; nevertheless
this large number is not exhaustive. Without such an exhaustive
distribution, the actual classification on the shelves, which is all I
have undertaken to describe here, can never be conterminous with the
ideal classification of the study. If, however, the Museum library has
been unable to achieve an infinity of space, it has secured a
practically indefinite numerical expansiveness by the elastic system
referred to in our President's address, in further illustration of which
I may be allowed a few words. On the removal of the books from Montague
House, about 1838, the cumbrous and antiquated, but I imagine then
nearly universal system of press-notation by Roman letters was exchanged
for one by Arabic numerals.[221:1] These numbers were nevertheless
consecutive, and thus no space was left for insertions. Supposing, for
example, that you have three presses standing together, numbered 1, 2,
and 3, and respectively occupied by Botany, Horticulture, and
Agriculture, it is clear that when your press of Botany is full, you
must either duplicate your No. 1, or commence your subject afresh with
No. 4. Mr. Watts, however, set his numbers loose, leaving a set of spare
numbers after each, for future employment, proportioned to the probable
extent of the subject. Thus, in the case supposed, while his Botany
would still have been 1, his Horticulture might have been 10, and his
Agriculture 15. When more room is wanted for Botany, the other two
subjects are moved one press farther on, leaving the press formerly
occupied by Horticulture vacant for the Botanical additions. The
numbering of the presses is altered, but not the numbering of the books,
and the catalogue is not interfered with. The respective subjects thus
never get out of due numerical succession; and when, on the opening of
the new library in 1857, the books thus numbered were brought from their
former confined quarters, and spread over a far larger area, the
removal was effected without the alteration of a single press-mark. As
the books in any one press may thus come to occupy another, it is, as
observed by Mr. Winter Jones, essential that all presses should be
exactly of the same dimensions.
There is one incidental circumstance connected with the Museum
press-arrangement of such importance that I may hope to be allowed a few
words respecting it, although I adverted to it in the course of the
discussion yesterday. I allude to the fourth copy of the catalogue. It
is generally known that the titles of books catalogued at the Museum are
transcribed trebly on carbonic tissue-paper by a manifold writer, and
that the catalogue is thus kept up in triplicate. But I suspect it was
not generally known until the delivery of the President's address that a
fourth copy is taken at the same time. These fourth slips are kept in
boxes, and then arranged, _not_ in alphabetical order as in the
catalogue, but according to the position of the books upon the shelves.
Now, as each shelf is restricted to a single subject, it follows that an
arrangement by shelves is tantamount to an arrangement by subjects—that
is, a classed catalogue. A great deal, of course, remains to be done
both in the way of subdivision and of incorporation; it is nevertheless
the fact that—thanks to the foresight of Sir Anthony Panizzi and Mr.
Winter Jones—the foundation of a classed Index to Universal Literature
has been laid by simply putting away titles as fast as transcribed,
without the nation having hitherto incurred any cost beyond that of the
pasteboard boxes. The apparently gigantic task being thus far
simplified, I earnestly trust that public aid may be forthcoming for its
completion, ere the accumulation of titles shall have rendered it too
arduous. Fully sympathising with our friend Mr. Axon's wish to see the
Museum Catalogue in print, I am yet averse to attempting to print it
just as it stands: in the first place, because I regard the undertaking
as beyond our strength; and in the second place, because, although such
a catalogue would tell the student at a distance what books by
particular _authors_ were in the library, it would not tell him what
books on particular _subjects_ existed there; the latter, as it appears
to me, being the more urgent necessity of the two. I should therefore be
inclined to recommend the preparation of an abridged classified index,
compiled from the fourth-copy slips I have been describing, and its
publication from time to time in sections severally complete in
themselves, as affording the best means for a gradual solution of the
problem. Most of these sections, I have little doubt, would by their
sale nearly repay the expense of publication, which a complete
alphabetical catalogue of the library certainly would not. These
remarks, it will be perceived, coincide with those made yesterday by Mr.
Vickers, which struck me as eminently sensible and practical.
I have prepared a list of the subjects comprised in the classification
of the Museum, which I put in for your examination. For a list of the
principal systems proposed for the classification of libraries, I may
refer to Petzholdt's "Bibliotheca Bibliographica." It is in so far
deficient that it necessarily contains no reference to the recent
labours of our American friends and colleagues, who, coming to the
subject with unbiased minds and an inventive ingenuity and fertility
equalled by no other nation, have already done so much to advance the
frontiers of the librarian's science.
FOOTNOTES:
[210:1] Read before the London Conference of Librarians, October 1877.
[221:1] It deserves to be recorded that at this period, and for some
time afterwards, books were not labelled externally, but merely
press-marked inside the covers. When labels were introduced, at the
suggestion of Mr. Winter Jones, the printing of the first set cost £800.
SUBJECT-INDEXES TO TRANSACTIONS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES[225:1]
We all remember the excellent paper read at the Oxford Conference by Mr.
J. B. Bailey, sub-librarian at the Radcliffe Library, upon the advantage
of a subject-index to scientific periodicals. Mr. Bailey spoke with just
praise of the splendid alphabetical catalogue issued by the Royal
Society, but observed that from the nature of the case this is "nearly
useless in making a bibliography of any given subject, unless one is
familiar with the names of all the authors who have written thereon."
This is manifestly the case. As an illustration both of the value and
the deficiencies of the Royal Society's index, I may mention that while
on the one hand it has enabled me to discover that my father, chiefly,
celebrated as a philologist, has written a paper on the curious and
perplexing subject of the formation of ice at the bottoms of rivers, the
existence of which was wholly unknown to his family, it does not on the
other hand assist me to ascertain, without a most tedious search, what
other writers may have investigated the subject, or, consequently, how
far his observations are in accordance with theirs. Multiply my little
embarrassment by several hundred thousand, and you will have some idea
of the amount of ignorance which the classified index suggested by Mr.
Bailey would enlighten. We may well believe that the only objection he
has heard alleged is the magnitude of the undertaking, and must
sympathise with his conviction that, granting this, it still ought not
to be put aside, merely because it is difficult. I hope to point out,
however, that so far as concerns the scientific papers, to which alone
Mr. Bailey's proposal relates, the difficulty has been over-estimated,
that the literary compilation need encounter no serious obstacle, and
that the foundation might be laid in a short time by a single competent
workman, such as Mr. Bailey himself. Of an index to literary papers I
shall speak subsequently; and, there, I must acknowledge, the
difficulties are much more formidable. But as regards scientific papers,
it appears to me that the only considerable impediment is the financial.
When the others are overcome, then, and not till then, we shall be in a
favourable position for overcoming this also. The reason why the
formation of a classified index to scientific papers is comparatively
easy, is that the groundwork has been already provided by the
alphabetical index of the Royal Society. We have the titles of all
scientific papers from 1800 to 1865 before us, and shall soon have them
to 1873. Though it might be interesting, it is not essential to go
further back. We have now to consider how best to distribute this
alphabetical series into a number of subject-indexes. To take the first
step we merely require a little money (the first condition of success in
most undertakings), and some leisure on the part of a gentleman
competent to distinguish the grand primary divisions of scientific
research from each other, and avoid the errors which cataloguers have
been known to commit in classing the star-fish with constellations, and
confusing Plato the philosopher with Plato a volcano in the moon. I need
only say that very many of our body would bring far more than this
necessary minimum of scientific knowledge to the task. I may instance
Mr. Bailey himself. The money would be required to procure two copies of
the alphabetical index (which, however, the Royal Society would very
likely present), and to pay an assistant for cutting these two copies up
into strips, each strip containing a single entry of a scientific paper,
and pasting the same upon cardboard. It would be necessary to have two
copies of the alphabetical catalogue, as this is printed on both sides
of the paper; and as the name of the writer is not repeated at the head
of each of his contributions, and would therefore have to be written on
the card, close supervision would be required, or else a very
intelligent workman. When this was done, the entire catalogue would
exist upon cards, in a movable form instead of an immovable. The work of
the arranger or arrangers would now begin. All that he or they would
have to do would be to write somewhere upon the card, say in the left
hand upper corner, the name of the broad scientific division, such as
astronomy, meteorology, geology, to which the printed title pasted upon
the card appertained, and to put each into a box appropriated to its
special object, preserving the alphabetical order of each division. We
should then have the classed index already in the rough, at a very small
relative expenditure of time, money, and labour. For the purposes of
science, however, a more minute subdivision would be necessary. Here the
functions of our Council would come into play, and it would have a great
opportunity of demonstrating its usefulness as an organising body by
inducing, whether by negotiation with individuals or with scientific
corporations like the Royal Society, competent men of science to
undertake the task of classifying the papers relating to their own
special studies. Men of science, we may be certain, are fully aware of
the importance of the undertaking, which is indeed designed for their
special benefit; and although they are a hard-worked race, I do not
question that a sufficient number of volunteers would be forthcoming.
When one looks, for example, at the immense labour of costly and
unremunerated research undertaken by a man like the late Mr. Carrington,
one cannot doubt that men will be found to undertake the humbler but
scarcely less useful and infinitely less onerous task of making the
discoveries of the Carringtons generally available. I am sure, for
instance, that such men as Mr. Knobel and Mr. Carruthers would most
readily undertake the classification of the astronomical and the
botanical departments respectively, provided that their other
engagements allowed; as to which, of course, I cannot affirm anything.
Supposing our scientific editors found, they would proceed exactly in
the same manner as the editor who had already accomplished the
classification in the rough. Each would take the cards belonging to his
own section, and would write opposite to the general subject-title
written by the first classifier the heading of the minor sub-section to
which he thought it ought to be referred; thus, opposite Botany—Lichen,
and so on. He would then put the title into the box or drawer belonging
to its sub-section, and when the work was complete, we should have the
whole catalogue in a classified form, digested under a number of
sub-headings. Some preliminary concert among the scientific editors
would, no doubt, be necessary, and a final revision in conformity with
settled rules. It might be questioned, for example, whether a
dissertation on camphor properly belonged to botany, chemistry, or
materia medica; whether the subject of the gymnotus was ichthyological,
anatomical, or electrical; whether in such dubious cases a paper should
be entered more than once. It would save time and trouble if these
points could be determined before the classification in the rough was
commenced; in any case considerable delay from unavoidable causes must
be anticipated. It is to be remembered, on the other hand, that the work
could under no circumstances be completed until the publication of the
Royal Society's alphabetical index of papers from 1865 to 1873 was
finished, which, I suppose, will not be the case for two or three years.
There will, therefore, be sufficient time to meet unforeseen causes of
delay. If the classified index could be ready shortly after the
alphabetical, if we could show the world that the work was not merely
talked about as desirable, but actually done in so far as depended upon
ourselves and the representatives of science; that it already existed in
the shape of a card catalogue, and needed nothing but money to be made
accessible to everybody—then we should be in a very different position
from that which we occupy at present. I cannot think that so much good
work would be allowed to be lost. The catalogue, not being confined to
papers in the English language, would be equally useful in every country
where science is cultivated, and would find support all over the
civilised world. Either from the Government, or from learned societies,
or the universities, or the enterprise of publishers, or the interest of
individual subscribers, or private munificence, means would, sooner or
later, be forthcoming to bring the work out, and thus erect a most
substantial monument to the utility of our Association. It would
obviously be important to provide that scientific papers should be
indexed not only for the past, but for the future. If, as I trust, the
Royal Society intends to continue the publication of its alphabetical
index from time to time, the compilers of the classified index will
continue to enjoy the same facilities as at present. There must be some
very effectual machinery at the Society for registering new scientific
papers as they are published. What it is we may hope to learn from our
colleague, its eminent librarian, who must be the most competent of all
authorities on the subject. Mr. Bailey draws attention to several
scientific periodicals as useful for bibliographical purposes, and I may
mention one which seems to be very complete.[231:1] It is published at
Rome. The number for last December, which I have just seen, is so
complete that, among a very great number of scientific papers from all
quarters, it records those on the telephone and the electric light, in
the "Companion to the British Almanac," which, I think, had then been
only announced here, not published, omitting the other contributions as
non-scientific. It further gives a complete index to the contents of the
_Revista Cientifica_, a Barcelona periodical, which had apparently just
reached the editor, from its commencement in the preceding April. By
this list I learn that the electric pen, the subject of our colleague
Mr. Frost's recent paper, had been the theme of a communication to a
Barcelona society in May last. It certainly seems as if any library that
took this periodical in, and transcribed the entries in its
bibliographical section on cards properly classed, would be able to
keep up a pretty fair subject-index to scientific papers for the future.
I must, in conclusion, say a few words on a subject-index to the
transactions of literary societies. The prospect is here much more
remote, from the want of the almost indispensable groundwork of a
general alphabetical index. We have seen what an infinity of trouble in
collecting, in cataloguing, and in transcribing will be saved by the
Royal Society's list in the case of scientific papers, and are in a
position to appreciate the impediments which must arise from the want of
one in this instance. The work could be done by the British Museum if it
had a proportionate addition to its staff, or by a continuance of the
disinterested efforts which are now devoted to the continuance of Mr.
Poole's index to periodicals. Failing these, the most practical
suggestion appears to me Mr. Bailey's, that the undertaking might be to
a considerable extent promoted by the respective societies themselves.
If the secretaries of the more important of these bodies would cause the
titles of the papers occurring in their transactions to be transcribed
upon cards and deposited with this Association, we should accumulate a
mass of material worth working upon, and which could be arranged while
awaiting a favourable opportunity for publication. In some instances
even more might be done. The library of the Royal Asiatic Society, for
example, contains not merely its own transactions, but those of every
important society devoted to Oriental studies, as well as all similar
periodicals. Our friend, Mr. Vaux, could probably, in process of time,
not only procure transcripts of the papers contained in these
collections, but could induce competent Orientalists to prepare a scheme
of classification, and such a classified list, complete in itself and of
no unwieldy magnitude, could be published as a sample and forerunner of
the rest. The initiative in such proposals, as well as those referring
to scientific papers, should be taken by our Association, which can
negotiate with eminent men and learned bodies upon equal terms, and
speak with effect where the voice of an individual would be lost. The
desideratum of a classed index, in a word, affords our Society a great
opportunity of distinguishing itself. It is this aspect of the matter,
no less than the importance of the matter itself, that has encouraged me
to bring it under your notice.
NOTE.—This paper, the first on the subject, so far as known
to the author, attracted the attention of a gentleman of great
ability, Mr. Collins of Edgbaston, known as the indexer and
tabulator of Mr. Herbert Spencer's writings. He pressed the
necessity of a classed index of scientific papers upon the
attention of the Royal Society, which at one period seemed
about to take the matter up; but the plan, so far as concerned
Mr. Collins, was ultimately laid aside. Ere long, however, it
was revived, and the task of classification is now being
actively carried out, upon what precise system the writer is
not aware, but doubtless upon one which has received mature
consideration.
FOOTNOTES:
[225:1] Read at the March Monthly Meeting of the Library Association of
the United Kingdom, and published in _Nature_, October 9, 1897.
[231:1] _Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze
matematiche e fisiche._ Pubbl. da B. Boncompagni (Rome, 1868), &c.
PHOTOGRAPHY IN PUBLIC LIBRARIES[234:1]
The subject of my paper has been already most advantageously introduced
to you by the precious broadside of William de Machlinia, exhibited
yesterday by Lord Charles Bruce; which, but for photography enlisted in
the cause of scholarship, few of us would ever have beheld. It is
equally commended by the pithy remark which fell from Mr. Bradshaw, "The
best description of a book is the book itself." It is, nevertheless, my
desire to bring under your notice the advantage of annexing a
photographic department to national libraries or other similar
institutions of first-class importance, as an integral portion of the
institution. The significance of the proposal consists in the last
clause. At the present moment any public library can have almost
anything it wishes photographed by paying for it, and so can any private
individual. But private individuals do not fill their houses with
photographic reproductions of nature and art; and in comparison with the
enormous results which might be obtained, public libraries, and, indeed,
public institutions of any kind, have as yet hardly made more use of the
potent agent which science has put into their hands than the Coreans,
of whom Mr. Bullen has told us, made of the invention of movable type.
Sure as I am of an indulgent audience, I shall perhaps yet more
powerfully bespeak your attention if I tell you that the special cause
which has determined me to bring this question forward at Dublin is a
recent occurrence particularly interesting to Ireland—the transfer, by
direction of the Government, of the Irish portion of the Ashburnham MSS.
from the British Museum to the Royal Irish Academy. I am not here to
protest against this decision. I accept it as an accomplished fact: and
may sincerely profess that, so far as the interests of Celtic scholars
in Ireland are promoted, I am glad of it. But on the same principle I
must condole with the Celtic scholars in England, many of them Irishmen,
who must, at least until the distant period when Mr. Gilbert's truly
national undertaking is complete, repair to Dublin to consult what they
might have seen in London. The point to be insisted upon is, that if the
Museum had possessed a photographic department, the question whose
interests were to be sacrificed could not have arisen at all. Though, as
recently pointed out by Dr. Hessels, the photograph may not be
absolutely unerring in the reproduction of minute facsimile, if made
with due care it is practically adequate in the vast majority of
instances. We have just heard the Dean of Armagh's testimony to the
accuracy as well as the beauty of the facsimiles of ancient Irish MSS.
made under the direction of Mr. Gilbert. The photographic reproduction
is sometimes even preferable to the original manuscript, bringing out
and restoring faded letters. Given such a facsimile, and, save as a
matter of sentiment, it would be almost indifferent whether the original
reposed upon the shelves of London or of Dublin. With it, the scholar
need rarely brace himself up for a long and expensive journey to one
city or the other. With it, the national treasure is doubly, trebly,
tenfold, or a hundredfold if you like, protected against theft, injury,
or destruction. With it, Ireland might soon possess, at a nominal cost,
facsimiles of all MSS. illustrating her ancient language or history, and
not merely the Ashburnham. But if these propositions are true of the
British Museum, they are true of every national institution. If they
apply to Celtic scholars, they apply to all scholars. If they apply to
the Ashburnham MSS., they apply to all MSS., including parish registers
and public documents; if to these, then to printed books of rarity and
value; and no less to every picture and statue, engraving and medal.
Think of the boundless field thus opened up for the dissemination of
instruction and enjoyment, for the insurance of irreplaceable wealth,
and great must be the wonder that scarcely a corner of it should
hitherto have been occupied.