=The Cataloger’s Training.=—“The modern library movement is young, and it is therefore not surprising that the subject of library work in general and of cataloging in particular is not fully understood,” writes Miss Theresa Hitchler in the eighth annual report of the Brooklyn Public Library. “The average man does not know and cannot realize the demands of the work, and has no idea, seemingly, that any training or special aptitude is necessary. By way of contrast to this average man’s view might be recorded the plaint of a prominent librarian at a recent library club meeting that so great a per cent of the talent of the library profession had to be diverted to the cataloging department, to the detriment of the circulating desk. The moral to be pointed out is that the catalog must be good as a first requisite to a library. In the words of the old comparison, the catalog is the key to the otherwise hidden material buried in books. In a library of any size, the best desk attendant in the world is almost helpless, or at best constantly handicapped, without a convenient and rational classification of the volumes of the collection and the bibliographical aid of a catalogue. The born bibliographer is as rare as the born teacher or poet. The cataloging expert must have the quick mind, sound common sense, broad view and good judgment of the book-reviewer joined with the slow and solid qualities of the bibliographer. The former qualities are needed for rapid classification of books in all the various fields of human knowledge, from abstruse to practical, from grave to gay, and for placing them under subject headings in the catalog useful and specific, to student, scholar and every day reader alike, and are by far the more important and indispensable. The latter qualities are needed for recording accurately the data of the books so classed, in a bibliographical catalog of a form useful to people of all grades of intelligence. It stands to reason that to cope with these requirements, a solid educational training that gives an intelligent outlook on the various fields of knowledge must be joined to a natural aptitude for bibliographical detail, and added to these a technical training in such work. The head of such a department must possess these requirements in an ever greater degree, with an executive ability and knowledge of human nature above the ordinary, since the results, good or bad, depend directly on her ability and on her management, successful or unsuccessful, of the varied material entrusted to her guidance.” ----- Footnote 1: Cataloging; suggestions for the small public library, 1908. CHAPTER VI. =REFERENCE WORK AND CIRCULATION.=