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
To print or not to print? is a vital question for libraries, and it is in
most cases decided to forego or to postpone printing, because of its
great expense. Yet so manifest are the advantages of a printed catalogue,
that all public libraries should make every effort to endow their readers
with its benefits. These advantages are (1) Greater facility of reading
titles. (2) Much more rapid turning from letter to letter of the
catalogue alphabet. (3) Ability to consult it outside of the library. (4)
Unlimited command of the catalogue by many readers at once, from the
number of copies at hand, whereas card catalogues or manuscript volumes
involve loss of time in waiting, or interfering with the researches of
others. A part of these advantages may be realized by printing
type-written copies of all titles in duplicate, or by carbon paper in
manifold, thus furnishing the library with several copies of its
catalogue: but why not extend this by multiplying copies through the
ingenious processes now in use, by which the printing of titles can be
effected far more cheaply than in any printing office? Might not every
library become its own printer, thus saving it from the inconvenience and
risk of sending its titles outside, or the great expense of copying them
for the printer?
The titles thus manifolded could be combined into volumes, by cutting
away all superfluous margins and mounting the thin title-slips
alphabetically on paper of uniform size, which, when bound, would be
readily handled. All the titles of an author's works would be under the
eye at a glance, instead of only one at a time, as in the card catalogue.
And the titles of books on every subject would lie open, without slowly
manipulating an infinite series of cards, one after another, to reveal
them to the eye. The classification marks could be readily placed against
each title, or even printed as a part of the manifold card titles.
Not that the card catalogue system would be abolished: it would remain as
the only complete catalogue of the library, always up to date, in a
single alphabet. Daily accessions inserted in it would render it the
standard of appeal as to all that the library contained, and it would
thus supplement the printed catalogue.
Of course, large and increasing accessions would require to be combined
in occasional supplementary volumes of the catalogue; and in no long
number of years the whole might be re-combined in a single alphabet,
furnishing a printed dictionary catalogue up to its date.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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