A Book for All Readers: An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private LibrariesSpofford, Ainsworth Rand
Science
A Book for All Readers: An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries
Spofford, Ainsworth Rand
Books; Library science
The binding of pamphlets is a mooted point in all libraries. While the
British Museum and the Library of Congress treat the pamphlets as a book,
binding all separately, this is deemed in some quarters too vexatious and
troublesome, as well as needlessly expensive. It must be considered,
however, that the crowding together of a heterogenous mass of a dozen or
twenty pamphlets, by different authors, and on various subjects, into a
single cover, is just as objectionable as binding books on unrelated
subjects together. Much time is consumed in finding the pamphlet wanted,
among the dozen or more that precede or follow it, and, if valuable or
much sought-for pamphlets are thus bound, many readers may be kept
waiting for some of them, while one reader engrosses the volume
containing all. Besides, if separately bound, a single pamphlet can be
far more easily replaced in case of loss than can a whole volume of them.
Pamphlets may be lightly bound in paste-board, stitched, with cloth
backs, at a small cost; and the compensating advantage of being able to
classify them like books upon the shelves, should weigh materially in the
decision of the question. If many are bound together, they should
invariably be assorted into classes, and those only on the same general
topic should be embraced in the same cover. The long series of annual
reports of societies and institutions, corporations, annual catalogues,
etc., need not be bound separately, but should be bound in chronological
series, with five to ten years in a volume, according to thickness. So
may several pamphlets, by the same writer, if preferred, be bound
together. Libraries which acquire many bound volumes of pamphlets should
divide them into series, and number them throughout with strict reference
to the catalogue. There will thus be accumulated a constantly increasing
series of theological, political, agricultural, medical, educational,
scientific, and other pamphlets, while the remaining mass, which cannot
be thus classified, may be designated in a consecutive series of volumes,
as "Miscellaneous Pamphlets." When catalogued, the title-page or
beginning of each pamphlet in the volume, should be marked by a thin slip
of unsized paper, projected above the top of the book, to facilitate
quick reference in finding each one without turning many leaves to get at
the titles. In all cases, the contents of each volume of pamphlets should
be briefed in numerical order upon the fly-leaf of the volume, and its
corresponding number, or sequence in the volumes written in pencil on the
title page of each pamphlet, to correspond with the figures of this brief
list. Then the catalogue of each should indicate its exact location,
thus: Wilkeson (Samuel) How our National Debt may become a National
Blessing, 21 pp. 8vo. Phila., 1863 [Miscellaneous pamphlets, v. 347:3],
meaning that this is the third pamphlet bound in vol. 347.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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