1.—Most people are satisfied to believe that there is no department of a librarian’s work so easily managed as that of compiling catalogues. The catalogue of a library is often regarded as a mere list of books, calling for no more mental effort in its production than is required in that of a furniture auctioneer, or similar trade list. Professor John Fiske, in his essay on “A Librarian’s Work,”[1] says “Generally I find a library catalogue is assumed to be a thing that is somehow ‘made’ at a single stroke, as Aladdin’s palace was built, at intervals of ten or a dozen years, or whenever a ‘new catalogue’ is thought to be needed,” instead of, as he proceeds to show, being a never-ending work calling for the exercise of all the power and knowledge at the command of the cataloguer.

2.—There are varieties of library catalogues, from the simple inventories made by private persons for their own collection of books, to the mammoth “Catalogue of Printed Books in the British Museum,” so great in its size and extensive in the field it covers that its entries have to be almost exclusively limited to a single item for each book.

The catalogues to be compiled upon the lines laid down in this work come between these two extremes, and are intended to serve as a key to the treasure-house of knowledge and disclose its contents in a ready, but orderly, manner to all inquirers. Carlyle says, “a big collection of books, without a good catalogue, is a Polyphemus with no eye in his head.”

3.—A good library is virtually useless without an adequate and properly compiled catalogue, but even an indifferent collection of books can be made to render good service by means of a good catalogue. In order to compile such a catalogue it is necessary that certain particulars be given descriptive of the books, but in such a way that, while the entries afford all needful information to the person well-versed in books, they shall at the same time be so simple in character as to be understood with very little effort by anyone of average intelligence. At the same time the particulars given should be so comprehensive that a searcher in the catalogue may be able to obtain a clear idea of the nature and scope of the book described without actually examining it, though the descriptions in this respect are not expected to be of the very full order looked for in special bibliographies intended only for the use of experts.

The value of a good catalogue does not depend upon its extent or size any more than does a good book, but rather upon the exactness of the method by which the information given is digested and concentrated. There are library catalogues so elaborately compiled that they are most imposing in appearance, and very often, as a consequence, are considered to be most erudite productions by those who do not understand the art of cataloguing, whereas the persons who have to use them too often find out that they are so ill-arranged as to be little better than a hotch-potch of book titles—pedantic without being learned. “Infinite riches in a little room” might, on the other hand, be often adopted as the motto for many an insignificant-looking catalogue.

4.—It is a common occurrence to find a small library with quite a big catalogue. This does not always arise from the wish to make the most of the library, but often from the fact that the compilation has been undertaken by some over-zealous member of a committee who fancied he had a penchant for such work, or that it has been compiled by an amateur with no experience, whose friends have secured him his appointment as librarian. Such people do not know that it is as easy, if not easier, to over-catalogue a library as to do it judiciously, and a fearful and wonderful work is often the result. There would not be much trouble in giving illustrative examples of this, but that catalogue may be cited where Green’s “Short History of the English People” obtained five entries, viz., under Green, Short, History, English History, and People (English), instead of the two entries that would have sufficed. Many of the first catalogues of the smaller free libraries are of this order. This, however, is not always the result of the above-named causes, but as often as not is brought about by committees of new libraries postponing the appointment of a librarian, to save his salary, until a few weeks before the library is announced to be opened, and then expecting him to purchase the books and produce a printed catalogue in the meantime. The conception of the matter is, far too often, that books can be selected, arranged, and listed in bulk, as groceries are bought, displayed, and ticketed, and in as short a time. The result, of course, is that the librarian, being rushed, must select and buy the books as quickly as he can, and relegate the work of cataloguing them to an assistant, who most likely has no training, and the best has to be made of a bad job. In very few instances can it be considered that the first catalogue of a new library fairly represents the ability of the librarian as a cataloguer.

5.—With the rapid rise of the standard of education more exact and better work is at present demanded in libraries than was the case during the first quarter of a century after the Public Libraries’ Act came into operation. The slipshod rule-of-thumb cataloguing at one time in vogue does not pass muster unnoticed now, as it did then, and consequently there is less use than ever before for the bald lists of books, compiled upon no principle in particular, sent forth to bewilder and hinder rather than help an inquiring public. The student, and that interesting personage, “the general reader,” are each year coming to a better understanding of the uses and peculiarities of books, and so look for more precise information concerning them. No better evidence is needed of the manner in which the demand for information about books has grown than is found in the large place which the reviewing of them now takes in the columns of the newspaper press, so that even minor journals cannot afford to ignore it. The dictum that a cataloguer has no right to go behind the information contained on the title-page of a book does not now find acceptance, as it did in the past.

Those persons who are possessed of even a little experience in the matter know that it is impossible to compile a catalogue in a hap-hazard fashion, and that clear and definite rules must be laid down before any part of the work is attempted, otherwise confusion and want of proportion will result. Happily of late years the rules governing the proper compilation of catalogues have been codified, particularly those for the form at present in most general use, known as the “dictionary catalogue.”