Essays in Librarianship and BibliographyGarnett, Richard
Science
Essays in Librarianship and Bibliography
Garnett, Richard
Bibliography -- Methodology; British Museum; Library science
The solution of these perplexities will be found, we think, in a strict
adherence to the principle that administrative arrangements must
primarily have respect to the advantage of the institution, which will
in the long run prove to be the advantage of the public. The Museum is
not bound to undertake the publication of an enormous printed catalogue
merely for the convenience of persons at a distance; but it will
introduce print in so far as print tends to economise its own funds, and
to obviate confusion and encumbrance in its own rooms. The two vital
points are to stop the waste incurred by transcribing what must
ultimately be printed, and to put an effectual check upon the portentous
growth of the catalogue. The first object may be attained by simply
resorting to print for the future, and pasting the printed slips into
the catalogue as the MS. slips are pasted now. The second can best be
accomplished by tolerating the mixture of printed and MS. slips in each
volume of the catalogue, until the volume has arrived from constant
accessions at such a bulk as to require breaking up, then printing the
MS. entries in that volume, and profiting by the economy in space of
print over MS. to rearrange the contents in double columns, which would
afford room for additions for an indefinite period. In this manner the
cost of printing would be spread over a long series of years, and the
catalogue would insensibly be transformed into a printed one by much the
same process as that by which Sir John Cutler's worsted stockings became
silk. Any requisite number of printed slips might be produced, and
offered by subscription to public institutions and private individuals.
The former might thus in process of time acquire the whole catalogue
without any violent strain upon their resources; the latter might
procure what they wanted without being compelled to take what they did
not want. It would at the same time be beneficial to the Museum and to
literature, if some of the most important articles were printed entire
and brought out as soon as possible for the sake of relieving the
pressure upon the catalogue. Such articles as Bible, Shakespeare,
Luther, Homer, embracing nearly complete bibliographies of the
respective subjects, would probably command a fair sale, and effect
something towards diminishing the inevitable cost of print.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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