In this section will be noticed only catalogue-holders, or
accession-frames, together with any mechanical apparatus used in the
production of catalogues. Cabinets for holding card-catalogues are made
in a variety of styles, some being drawers fitted into the fronts of
counters, and others being independent stands of drawers. The usual style
of cabinet at present used provides for the cards being strung through
oval or rounded holes on to brass rods, which are fixed, to prevent
readers from removing them and so upsetting the order of the cards. The
drawers themselves are made to pull out only as far as necessary, in
order to prevent careless users from pulling them out altogether and
working destruction to both fittings and arrangement. The construction
of these cabinets should only be entrusted to skilled workmen, and only
oak, walnut, or other hard woods should be used. As every librarian has
his or her own opinion as to how such cabinets should be made and their
contents safeguarded, it will be best to refer inquirers to examples
of such catalogues in actual work, in different styles, at Liverpool,
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Nottingham; the Royal College of Surgeons, Guildhall,
Battersea, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and Clerkenwell, London, and
elsewhere. A special cabinet is made by Messrs. Stone of Banbury, Oxon.,
but its safeguards require to be improved. A half-falling front locked on
to the rod which secures the cards is a very simple and effective plan
of keeping order in isolated cabinets. In cases where the backs of the
drawers are get-at-able from the staff side of the counter, even more
simple methods of securing the cards, while giving every facility in the
way of making additions, can be adopted. Projecting guides to show in
index style the whereabouts of particular parts of the alphabet should be
made either of tin or linen-mounted cards. Tin lasts best, although the
lettering sometimes rubs off. Nothing will satisfy a librarian, who has a
card-catalogue in contemplation, so much as the comparison of the kinds
adopted in different libraries. The chief objection to card cabinets
or drawers is the insurmountable one of limitation to public use being
fixed by the number of drawers or cabinets. With drawers in a counter
front one consulter monopolises one drawer, while with tiers of three
or four drawers in cabinet form never more than two persons can use it
with any comfort. The exposure of only one title at a time is another
serious drawback, while the peculiar daintiness of touch requisite for
the proper manipulation of the cards makes the use of the catalogue a
labour and a perplexity to working people with hardened finger-tips. We
think it likely, therefore, that catalogues in a large series of handy
guard-books, or in volumes or boxes provided with an arrangement for
inserting slips of additions, will in the future come to be recognised
as that best adapted for general use. A card-catalogue for staff use
ought in any case to be kept, either in boxes or covered trays. Another
catalogue appliance is the accession-frame, or device for making public
all recent additions to the library. Of these there are several, but
we need only mention a few as typical of the rest. At some libraries
a glazed case with shelves is placed on the counter, and in this new
books are displayed with their titles towards the public. It seems to
work very well, and has been used with success at Birmingham, Lambeth,
and elsewhere, to make known different classes of literature which are
not so popular as they should be. Liverpool has, or had, a series of
frames in which were movable blocks carrying the titles of additions,
and at Rotherham a somewhat similar plan has been adopted. Cardiff
shows additions in a frame holding title cards which can be removed by
readers and handed over the counter as demand notes. Guard-books like
those in use at the British Museum are common, both for additions and
general catalogues; while cards or leaves in volumes laced on cords or
rods have been used at Manchester, in Italy, and generally in Europe
and America. A neat box with falling sides for holding catalogue cards
is used in the University Library of Giessen in Germany, and seems well
adapted for staff use, or for private and proprietary libraries. Latest
of all is the ingenious cylindrical catalogue-holder or stand invented by
Mr. Mason, of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London. It consists of a broad
revolving cylinder, upon the outer rim of which are placed a number of
wooden bars, each wide enough to take a written or printed author and
title entry. These bars are movable, being designed to slide round the
whole circumference of the cylinder, so that additions can be inserted
at any part of the alphabet. Each bar represents a book-title, and the
plan of using is that the titles of additions should be mounted on the
bars, leaving spaces for additions, and so afford a convenient and easily
worked accession list in strict alphabetical order. The cylinder is
intended to be fixed in a counter front or special stand, and to be all
covered in with the exception of a portion about equal to the size of
a demy octavo page, which will show under glass. The reader turns the
cylinder round to the part of the alphabet he wants by simply turning
a handle, and so the whole is shown to him without any waste of public
space.