BOOK III. Chapter III. The use of printed forms for writing titles By printing such forms on paper of a different colour for each principal Class of the Catalogue, a portion of the preliminary work of sorting becomes simply mechanical. And by including an index-form with that intended for the body of the Catalogue both text and index will proceed simultaneously. But on the preparation of Indexes further details will have to be considered hereafter. I pass now to the important question of Printing Catalogues for public use. CHAPTER IV. TO PRINT, OR, NOT TO PRINT? The want of a printed Catalogue of the books in the THOMAS CARLYLE (Minutes of Evidence before the Com- Q. Have you made any calculation of the probable bulk of such a Catalogue, supposing it were printed?— Answer: No; but I am quite prepared to say that be the bulk what it may, the use that it will be of to Literature will fully justify the Trustees of the Museum in ordering the execution of it. The merely enabling persons to look at the Catalogue, without reference to their going afterwards to the Museum for books, would be of the greatest use to inquirers. AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN (Ibid., 5772*-5774*, 381). BOOK III. Chapter IV. not to print? WHEN the plan and principal details of the chief Catalogue of a great Library have been at length settled, To print, or, ther ecomes the question-Shall it be left in Manuscript or be sent to the Press? Than this, no question in the whole economy of Libraries is more important. BOOK III. Chapter IV. To priut, or, not to print? How this question was dis The cost of printing an extensive Catalogue is formidable; but were this the chief difficulty, it would seldom, I think, have much weight, in the scale, against the obvious advantages of print as compared with manuscript. It must be evident, at the first glance, that the printed catalogue is of easy use, and easily to be replaced when worn out; that it offers facilities to an indefinite number of students at the same moment; and may be rendering good service (as a help to literary history.) in India or in Australia, whilst it is subserving the duties of the Officers, and the researches of the Public, in the Library at home. Not the cost, but the anticipated deterioration of the Catalogue of a rapidly growing Library has been the prevailing obstacle to printing. Here lies the pith of a much controverted question, which has nowhere received such thorough discussion as was obtained for it in the course of the Inquiry into the affairs of the British Museum, in 1848-49. Such an attempt to epitomize that discussion as I may be able to make will, I believe, bring out both sides of the question with more fairness and fulness than would be likely to result from any other course of mine in regard to it. It must, however, be premised that the discussion recussed in the ferred to was unavoidably hampered by three extraneous British Museum circumstances, the elimination of which (as far as possible.) Inquiry on the is the indispensable condition of a truthful estimate of its results. The first of these was the fact, that the Catalogue immediately under view, (the printing of which had been suspended,) was an alphabetical one, in which author's names and the headings of anonymous books. INQUIRY INTO BRIT. MUSEUM CATALOGUES, 1849. 853 were mixed up in a medley; the second, that this Catalogue had also been thrown (so to speak) into an artificial arrear, by expressly excluding from any portion of it, however long it might be in passing through the press, all books of later acquisition than an assigned date prior to the commencement of the task,-over and above that other arrear which would have accrued inevitably; and the third, that it had also been framed, by a Resolution of the Trustees, upon the basis of an arbitrary and insufficient examination of the books, carried on simultaneously with the actual printing of the Catalogue, instead of having proceeded, (as Mr. Panizzi had recommended) upon a thorough, preliminary, and completed review of them, shelf by shelf, from one end of the Library to the other. It will be obvious, therefore, on the one hand, that if the balance of evidence should seem to throw doubt on the wisdom of printing the Catalogue immediately in question, it will not follow, conclusively, that the same testimony would condemn the printing of a Catalogue from which those accidental disadvantages had been excluded. And it will also be obvious, on the other hand, that if the balance of evidence shall plainly incline in favour of printing the Catalogue, even with those disadvantages cleaving to it, that evidence will have still greater force in favour of printing another Catalogue, which, to the acknowledged merits of this one, should add those of simpler plan and surer execution. BOOK III. Chapter IV. To print, or, not to print? BOOK III. Chapter IV. To print, or, not to print? chief evidence advantages of Printed and of The witnesses whose testimony was distinctly unfavourable to printing were Mr. Hallam, Mr. Panizzi, and the late Mr. John Wilson Croker. Professor De Analysis of the Morgan and Dr. S. R. Maitland had doubts on the subon the relative ject, but neither of them was prepared to speak decidedly against printing. Resolutely in favour of it, were Mr. Bruce, Professor Craik, Mr. Peter Cunningham, Mr. Bolton Corney, the late Professor Forbes, the late Lord Strangford, Mr. Payne Collier, Mr. W.D. Cooley, the late Sir R. H. Inglis, Lord Stanhope (then Lord Mahon), Professor Owen, and Mr. Carlyle. MS. Catalogues, taken in 1849. Mr. Hallam said: "It is a question of considerable difficulty; and when I first considered it I was, as most persons would be, in favour of a printed Catalogue. I have changed my mind... by seeing strongly the difficulties... and thinking the advantages much less than at first sight they appear to be. The objection that I have to a printed Catalogue of a Library in progress, and in rapid progress, like that of the British Museum, is that long before the Catalogue can be finished, a supplement would be required almost as long as the Catalogue itself. The expense also and the delay would be very great. Mr. Panizzi presented to the Library Committee, two or three years ago, a statement of the time which he calculated would be required to complete a Catalogue, on the principle of that of which one letter only has been printed. It would have been a work of many years; I forget how many. ..... Then what are the advantages? ... It appears to me that there are but two. One, is for those in the ReadingRoom. It is certainly easier to read print than ma |