We now proceed to consider the needs of those for whom our catalogues are prepared.

It may be presumed that most of those who use this book are engaged in municipal or similar libraries, where the requirements of the many must be taken into account rather than the special needs of the few. For those who have yet to acquire experience it is as well to state that in cataloguing, as in most other departments of library work, a definite decision as to the form and methods to be adopted must be made at the outset, as it is impossible to start upon one form and then change to another without confusion or the sacrifice of work already done. Then, again, readers as a rule are extremely conservative, and not only dislike a change but are quick to resent it even when the advantages are sufficiently obvious to warrant it. Librarians and their assistants, too, get accustomed to a particular method, and after several years of working find it difficult to make a change to another without it affecting their work, often unconsciously.

The spread of education and reading nowadays would lead us to suppose that most people possess a sufficient amount of general knowledge to enable them to make an intelligent use of a catalogue, provided it is compiled upon well-defined and logical principles. Should the compiler happen to have all the accomplishments named in Chapter I., and yield to the temptation to air them by the production of a highly scientific catalogue, he will find that his labours are unappreciated, and that he must adapt his work to the needs of the average "man in the street." Mr. H. B. Wheatley says as to this "that some persons seem to think that everything is to be brought down to the comprehension of the fool; but if by doing this we make it more difficult for the intelligent person, the action is surely not politic. The consulter of a catalogue might at least take the trouble to understand the plan upon which it is compiled before using it." Mr. Wheatley's experience is not that of public librarians generally, as not one person in a thousand does take this trouble.

However this may be, there is no difficulty in attaining the happy medium whereby the ignorant (speaking, of course, comparatively) finds his wants met as readily as the most learned, and with simplicity and thoroughness. It has been put in other words thus: "The right doctrine for a public library catalogue is that it should be made not from the scientific cataloguer's point of view, with a minimum of indulgence for ignoramuses, but from the ignoramus's point of view with a minimum, of indulgence for the scientific cataloguer. That the person who not only does not know but does not even know how to search should be primarily provided for." Therefore this idea of suiting the needs of the particular public using the library must never be overlooked by the cataloguer.

Besides considering what are likely to be the needs of the majority of the readers who will use the library to be catalogued, we must decide what is the maximum amount of information that the catalogue should afford them, also which form will give the most of this information with the least trouble and delay to the inquirer.

What are the questions likely to be asked that a catalogue can be reasonably expected to answer? These do not exceed a dozen, and are as follows:—

The first and second questions will be answered by a catalogue consisting of author-entries, that is a dictionary of authors, or if compiled under the British Museum rules it will answer these and the third also to a large extent. In addition it should answer No. 12. Questions 4, 5, 6, and 10 can be answered by means of the catalogue known as classified—the entries being arranged in general classes and sub-divided as necessary, but logically, according to the scientific relations of the subjects of the books. If an author-index is added other questions also would be answered with a little trouble. The same questions will be answered by the form known as alphabetico-classed—that is a catalogue of subject, class, and form entries arranged alphabetically.

No one style of catalogue, however, will answer all of these questions, but the one that will answer most of them with the least trouble and loss of time to the user is that known as the dictionary catalogue. It consists of an arrangement of author, subject, and (to a limited extent) title entries in a single alphabetical sequence, and is by far the most popular form. It is neither economical nor the most logical, but its convenience for ready reference compensates for these defects. It ordinarily answers questions 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, and can be made to answer questions 3, 7, 11, and 12—that is nine questions out of the twelve.

The two most common forms of catalogues are the dictionary and the classified. For many years much controversy has arisen respecting their comparative usefulness, and there is much to be said in favour of both, each having merits, as already shown, not possessed by the other. The late C. A. Cutter points out the advantages of the classified catalogue, thus: "One who is pursuing any general course of study finds brought together in one part of the catalogue most of the books he needs. He sees not merely books on the particular topic in which he is interested, but in immediate neighbourhood works on related topics, suggesting to him courses of investigation which he might otherwise overlook. He finds it an assistance to have all these works spread out before him, so that he can take a general survey of the ground before he chooses his route; and as he goes back, day after day, to his particular part of the catalogue he becomes familiar with it, turns to it at once, and uses it with ease. The same is true of the numerous class who are not making any investigation or pursuing any definite course of study, but are merely desultory readers. Their choice of books is usually made from certain kinds of literature or classes of subjects. Some like poetry or essays or plays [curiously he omits novels]; others like religious works, or philosophical works, or scientific works, not caring about the particular subject of the book so much as whether it be well-written or interesting. To these persons it is a convenience that their favourite kind of reading should all be contained in one or two parts of the catalogue, and freed from the confusing admixture of titles of a different sort. An alphabetical list of specific subjects is to them little more suggestive than an alphabetical list of authors. It is true that by following up all the references of a dictionary catalogue under Theology, for example, a man may construct for himself a list of the theological literature in the library; but to do this requires time and a mental effort, and it is the characteristic of the desultory reader that he is averse to mental effort. What is wanted by him and by the busy man when now and then he has the same object, is to find the titles from which he would select brought together within the compass of a few pages; few, that is, in comparison with the whole catalogue. It may be 500 pages, but 500 pages are better than 10,000. The classed catalogue is better suited also than any other to exhibit the richness of the library in particular departments."

Cutter, at the same time, proceeds to name some of the disadvantages of this style of catalogue. "A large part of the public are not pursuing general investigations. They want to find a particular book or a particular subject quickly; and the necessity of mastering a complex system before using the catalogue is an unwelcome delay or an absolute bar to its use." Then, again, there is the difficulty of want of agreement as to classifications. The simple remedy for such difficulty is an alphabetical index of all the subjects appearing in the catalogue, whereby an inquirer is directed to the particular part of the catalogue in which he will find books upon the subject or topic he wants. There are very few, if any, catalogues of the kind without indexes now, though in the early days they were seldom provided.

As said already, early catalogues of libraries were mostly either classified or simply author catalogues. The classification was, often enough, very poor, the sub-division not being carried very far, and this led to the invention or evolution of the dictionary catalogue and brought the classified, such as it was, into disrepute.

The cataloguing of a library is one of the most troublesome and expensive departments of its administration. The cost of printing is greater than ordinary printing, and the expense to a library with its limited income is always serious, because people will not buy a catalogue even at half the cost price of printing but prefer to make use of the copies provided at the desks. Moreover, at the end of six or even fewer months after publication the public usually regard it as out of date and decides to wait for the next edition. In this respect the classified catalogue has the advantage, as it costs less to print, and for this reason, as well as owing to the custom of admitting readers to the shelves of public libraries, there has been a revival of this style of catalogue in late years, especially as it serves as a key or guide to the arrangement of the books upon the shelves of "open access" libraries. It can moreover be printed and issued in sections without affecting its completeness in the end.

The dictionary form, as distinguished from a mere alphabetical list of authors, consists of entries of books under their specific subjects, instead of their classes. To quote Cutter again: "Thus if a book treats of Natural History it is put under that heading; if it treats of Zoology alone that word is the rubric; if it is on Mammals it will be found under mammals; and, finally, if one is looking for a treatise on the elephant, he need not know if that animal is a mammal; he need not even be sure that it is an animal; he has merely to be sufficiently acquainted with his alphabet to find the word Elephant, under which will appear all the separate works that the library contains on that subject. Nothing, one would think, can be more simple, easy to explain, easy and expeditious to use than this. No matter what he wants he will find it at once provided that the library has a book on just that subject and that it has been entered under the very word which he is thinking of. If these conditions are not fulfilled, however, there is more trouble. If the library has no book or article sufficiently important to be catalogued on that topic he must look in some more comprehensive work in which he will find it treated (as the history of Assyrian art is related in the histories of Art), in which case he will get no help whatever from any dictionary catalogue yet made, in finding the general work, he must trust to his own knowledge of the subject and of ordinary classification to guide him to the including class, or there may be something to his purpose in less general works (as books on Iron bridges or Suspension bridges might be better than nothing to a man who was studying the larger subject Bridges), but in this case also he will very seldom get any assistance from dictionary catalogues, and must rely entirely upon his previous knowledge of the possible branches of his subject. Even in those catalogues which relieve him of this trouble by giving cross-references, he must look twice, first for his own word and then for the word to which he is referred from that."

A judicial statement of the merits of both these styles of catalogue is contained in a paper by Mr. F. T. Barrett, of Glasgow, entitled "The Alphabetical and Classified Forms of Catalogues compared," printed in the Transactions of the Second International Library Conference, 1897. In the Library Association Record, 1901 (pt. 1), pp. 514-531, there is a verbal and friendly duel between Mr. W. E. Doubleday and the author upon the matter, mainly from the practical point of view.

The Alphabetico-Classed catalogue, as its name denotes, is an attempt at a classified catalogue in alphabetical order of subjects or classes, and is a mixture of the two systems already spoken of, and about as satisfactory as hybrids usually are. The late Prof. Justin Winsor characterised it as "the mongrel alphabetico-classed system, a primarily classed system with an alphabetical graft upon it is a case of confusion worse confounded." The great difficulty both to compiler and user is to know where the subjects leave off and the classes begin—in other words, whether a subject or a class entry is likely to be the one wanted. One of the best examples of this kind of catalogue is the late Mr. Fortescue's "Subject Index to the British Museum Catalogue," and he apparently experienced the difficulty of deciding, as for instance a book on the elephant appears under Elephant, but a work upon the Elk must be looked for under "Deer." The usefulness of this particular catalogue cannot be gainsaid as its value is too well known, mainly because there is no other form of subject-catalogue for the library of the British Museum. Besides it has such a comprehensive series of cross-references that difficulty is largely obviated, and then again it is only meant as a subject supplement to the principal catalogue. Admirable as it is, we may see how it works out in practice. Suppose we are interested in Law. Under the heading "Law" we find a large number of entries divided into particular kinds of law as "Commercial," "Criminal," "Ecclesiastical," &c., and these are further sub-divided under the names of countries. One would suppose that the subject would be here treated in a most exhaustive manner. But that is not so, as if we require books on the Laws of England we must turn to the word "England." Thus we have books on English criminal law under "Law"; a book upon English general law under "England"; and a book say upon English election law under "Elections, Law of." If it is right to put books on the law of elections under Elections it might be assumed that books on criminal law would go under "Criminal law," but there is not even a reference to say where they are to be found. Admittedly "Law" is a large and complex subject, and would fill many pages if the books upon it were brought together. As it is the searcher must take a long time to ascertain in any exhaustive manner what books upon the subject are contained in Mr. Fortescue's Indexes. Even if the inquiry is narrowed down to say Italian law, searches must be made in many places without touching special Italian law at all. However there is no system but has its drawbacks, though probably the alphabetico-classed has the most.

There is such a thing as a dictionary system that combines an unseen but systematically classified system. Its root method would be to adopt some thorough scheme of classification permitting of the finest possible detail in topic and adjust thereto any necessary cross-references to cover synonymous names and double subjects. The cataloguer would keep the complete scheme in all its details before him and, by means of an alphabetical index to every adopted name, he would have a list of the subject-headings in dictionary order and to these he would adhere. There would still be specific entry. This is the method that should be pursued in the compilation of dictionary catalogues. The classification may exist only in the mind of the cataloguer and be formulated in no other way unless he relies upon headings already fixed in his catalogue. By trying to adjust headings in such catalogues to any logical classification one can soon ascertain whether they are systematic or haphazard.

The following definitions should be noted before proceeding to the next chapter:—

Author-Catalogue is one in which the entries are arranged alphabetically according to the names of the authors (a dictionary of authors).

Title-Catalogue is one in which the entries are arranged alphabetically according to some word of the title, especially the first (a dictionary of titles).

Subject-Catalogue is one in which the entries are arranged according to the subjects of the books, alphabetically by the words selected to denote those subjects (dictionary arrangement). If these subject entries are not arranged alphabetically, but are formed into classes philosophically according to the scientific relations of the subjects, then it is a classed or classified catalogue.

Form-Catalogue is one in which the entries are arranged according to the forms of literature and the languages in which the books are written, either alphabetically or according to the relations of the forms to one another.

Apart from these there is a style of catalogue in which the entries are selected to suit the kind of person for whom the books are designed. A catalogue of books for children would be of this order. While it would include books in all classes of literature written to suit juvenile capacity, yet it may reasonably be regarded as a class in itself, and a place is usually assigned to it in a classified catalogue.

When a catalogue of a particular class of literature is separately published it is called a Class-List. A catalogue of novels, or of poetry, or of music would be so termed.

By the term Dictionary Catalogue we understand a combination of the first three, viz., Author, Title, and Subject catalogues in a single alphabet.

The last two forms when thrown together, not in alphabetical but in logical arrangement, make the Classified Catalogue.

The same two if arranged alphabetically and not logically form the Alphabetico-Classed Catalogue. With this last form the author-catalogue could be combined without any disturbance of its arrangement. It can only be added to the classified as an index or appendix.