1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
-----------+--------+-------+----+-----+-------+---------+-----++--------
Progressive|Title of| Class | | |Date of| Name of | No. ||
No. | Book. |Letter.|No. |Vols.|Return.|Borrower.| of || Fines.
| | | | | | |Card.||
-----------+--------+-------+----+-----+-------+---------+-----++--+--+--
1 | | | | | | | || | |
| | | | | | | || | |
2 | | | | | | | || | |
| | | | | | | || | |
3 | | | | | | | || | |
But after a time certain economies were introduced, columns 2, 7, and
9 being omitted, and day-books in this later form, perhaps with the
arrangement slightly altered, are in common use now. Of course it is
plain that a book on issue was entered in the first vacant line of the
day-book, and the progressive number, borrower’s number, and date were
carried on to its label. On return, the particulars on the label pointed
out the day and issue number, and the book was duly marked off. It will
at once be seen that this form of ledger only shows what books are out,
but cannot readily show the whereabouts of any particular volume without
some trouble. As to what book any reader has is another question which
cannot be answered without much waste of time. A third disadvantage is
that as borrowers retain their tickets there is very little to prevent
unscrupulous persons from having more books out at one time than they
should. A fourth weakness of this ledger is that time is consumed in
marking off, and books are not available for re-issue until they are
marked off. For various reasons some librarians prefer a system of
charging direct to each borrower instead of journalising the day’s
operations as above described. These records were at one time kept in
ledgers, each borrower being apportioned a page or so, headed with full
particulars of his name, address, guarantor, date of the expiry of his
borrowing right, &c. These ledgers were ruled to show date of issue,
number of book, and date of return, and an index had to be consulted at
every entry. Now-a-days this style of ledger is kept on cards arranged
alphabetically or numerically, and is much easier to work. Subscription
and commercial circulating libraries use the system extensively. The main
difficulty with this system was to find out who had a particular book;
and “overdues” were hard to discover, and much time was consumed in the
process. To some extent both these defects could be remedied by keeping
the borrowers’ cards and arranging them in dated trays, so that as books
were returned and the cards gradually weeded out from the different days
of issue, a deposit of overdue borrowers’ cards pointing to their books
would result. Another form of ledger is just the reverse of the last, the
reader being charged to the book instead of the book to the reader. This
is a specimen:—