Essays in Librarianship and BibliographyGarnett, Richard
Science
Essays in Librarianship and Bibliography
Garnett, Richard
Bibliography -- Methodology; British Museum; Library science
Four copies are cut
up, and the titles inserted into the General Catalogue in their proper
places, occupying a mere fraction of the room required for the old
manuscript entries. The arrangements are under the superintendence of
Professor Douglas, and up to the present time about 130,000 entries have
passed under his inspection. The publication of the General printed
Catalogue proceeds as follows. Three or four volumes of the manuscript
catalogue having been selected to be combined in a volume of print, they
undergo in the first place a literary revision. Queries respecting
headings, authorship, and date are raised and settled, mistranscriptions
and wrong punctuation corrected, and the catalogue is weeded of its
practically duplicate entries by cutting these down to the mere phrase
"another edition; another copy," as the case may require. A second and
more troublesome revision then becomes necessary, for the order of the
entries frequently admits of great improvement. The titles having been
incorporated by a variety of persons, and the process of insertion
having now gone on for more than thirty years, many errors and
inconsistencies have inevitably crept in, and these require to be
rectified by an assistant of especial ability and experience in this
department of work, whose researches frequently originate a new set of
catalogue queries. At last, however, the copy goes to press, the proof
is promptly returned and corrected (we are content with a single
revise), and the three or four bulky volumes of manuscript are condensed
into a single handy and portable volume of type, printed in double
columns and on ordinary paper for subscribers, but for reading-room use
in single column on a strong vellum paper, adapted to bear rough
handling, the opposite column being left blank for insertions, and the
book supplied with guards to allow of interleaving. There have hitherto
been on the average 220 columns or 110 folios to a volume. On the
average of twenty entries to a column, which is rather under the mark,
this gives 4400 titles to each volume. The blank space left for
insertions and the provision for interleaving would allow of this number
of titles being quadrupled, but the weight of the paper prescribes a
limit which it would be inconvenient to transgress. Supposing that each
volume will take 9000 titles only, then, as the Reading Room will
accommodate 2000 volumes of catalogue without encroachment on the
reference library, sufficient space will have been provided for eighteen
millions of titles, or for three centuries' accumulations at the present
annual rate of increase. A year or two ago we were at an utter loss how
to accommodate less than three million titles. Several volumes are now
(September 1882) in hand in various stages of progress. The number fully
completed and placed in the Reading Room is twenty-two, which comprise
the contents of about 70 manuscript volumes, including, with many
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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