LIBRARY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM : THE CATALOGUE-
As a correct printed list of a great library is indispensable for its use, we shall notice the Catalogue of the Printed Books in the British Museum, now in progress, before we point out the impedi- ments that have been unnecessarily imposed upon the public in consulting that librarf),eeour those defects in the library itself, to which attention has recently called by Mr. Panizzi's letter to the Trustees. It may, however, be first observed, that the Catalogue actually in use in the Reading-room was printed in 1813, in seven volumes octavo ;* but it is so extended by being interleaved to contain the innumerable additions since made to the library, that it now forms forty-eight large folio volumes. Thus, the printed part is almost lost among the additional ma- nuscript pages,- and the difficulty of referring to it may be easily imagined, when it is remembered that there is only one copy—that about 230 persons daily attend the Reading-room- and that no book, however small or however well known, can be obtained, unless its title, &c , (according to the regulation introduced by the • present Keeper, and to which we shall on another occasion particularly advert,) has been copied from this cumbrous Catalogue. The absolute want of a new printed Catalogue is therefore so obvious and so imperative, that no one can doubt that it ought to be completed at the earliest possible moment. Neither the exotic capriccios of a Librarian nor the pedantic whims - of a Trustee should be allowed to- delay its progress; and what the public requires, in the first .instance at least, is simply a practical catalogue, having the titles or authors' names placed in alphabetical order, and not a catalogue formed upon so abstruse a plan as to require ninety-one rules for its construction ; most if not all of winch rules, occupying five folio pages, must be committed to memory, before any person can be aware under what head he will find even the commonest book in our language. The first volume of the new Catalogue, containing the letter A, (but not including any book acquired by the Library since 1838, i. e. during the last eight years,) has lately been published ; and to show its absurd plan, let it be supposed that a volume of the Annual Register is wanted. A man of plain understanding would naturally expect to find it under " Annual," or failing that, certainly under " Re- gister." So direct a process would, however, be inconsistent with this recondite compilation ; for under "Annual" he finds only this notice—" Annual, see Periodical Publications." As to seeing the volume containing " Periodical Publications," it is so entirely out of the question, that he might almost as well be referred to the Millennium, for who can tell when either will appear? Wishing, however, to learn why one of the best known and most useful publications in this country should not be entered under its proper title, he refers to the ninety-one rules ; and having come to the eighty-first, he finds that all " Periodical Publicatione are to be placed under that general head, "embracing reviews, ma- gazines, newspapers, journals, gazettes, annuals, and all works of a similar nature, in whatever language and under whatever denomi- nation they may be published!" Hence., the Quarterly and Edin- burgh Reviews, and every kind of magazine and newspaper, printed not only in Great Britain but throughout the whole world, will be thrown together, under one general head ; subdivided, we pre- sume, into countries and classes. Common sense would suggest that the fewer general heads there may be in a large catalogue the better ; and that reviews, magazines, and newspapers, are in these days of periodical literature sufficiently generic to have each a class of its own. With a similar disregard of simplicity, all the publications of the innumerable societies and institutions throughout Europe are placed under the general head of " Aca- demies." What person, wanting a volume of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, for example, on turning to "Philosophical Transactions" would expect to be referred back to the first volume, " A," because it has pleased the Trustees to allow these works to be placed under Academies " As that part of the Catalogue is printed, we can easily show the folly of such general classifications of books that have nothing whatever to do with each other, not even a similiarity of title, and which are not, in most cases, published by any "academy," but by societies or clubs. The entries under "Academies, &c.," fill no less • This useful Catalogue was made by Sir Henry Ellis with the assistance of Only one person! than seventy-eight folio pages which are subdivided into countries and again subdivided into cities, towns, &c. Having at last dis- covered that the Philosophical Transactions may be found among the publications of " Academies " the inquirer has next to ascer- tain whether the work is entered under " England" or under " Great Britain "; and he finds it under the latter. His trou- bles are now, he flatters himself, at an end ; but alas ! there is yet another subdivision, because all such books, printed in Great Bri- tain, are entered under the name of the city or place in which the society or association existed. After alighting in Great Britain, he has therefore to inform himself where the society had its habitat: in the supposed case he will of course know it was in London, but if it were a book printed by the Spalding or Surtees Society, he may have much trouble in discovering the locality, and when it is is discovered he has to set out upon another journey. Passing through Aberdeen, Bath, Belfast, Cambridge, Canterbury, and Dublin, back again to Edinburgh, then to Eton and Exeter, return- ing to Glasgow, visiting Lichfield, and touching at Liverpool, he at last (not certainly by railway) reaches London. He has then to look through eleven folio pages, filled with the publications of every imaginable institution, such as the Army Medical Board, British Museum, Camden Society, Record Commission, &c.; and eventually, to his great joy, he finds " Royal Society," and " Phi- losophical Transactions " I To obtain a copy of any volume of the Quarterly or Edinburgh Review, Monthly Review, Gentleman's Magazine, &c., or Times or Spectator newspapers, or of any pub- lication whatever of a periodical nature, a similar process must be adopted. And all this trouble, this loss of time, this turning from one folio volume to another, and looking through page after page, is to discover, not a rare nor a foreign work, but one which may be found in every circulating and in most private libraries, solely
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because the book is not entered under its own title. We may be told that other catalogues have been compiled on a similar plan but such precedents should have been avoided instead of fol- lowed ; and if a catalogue is intended to enable persons to find the books they want with the least possible difficulty or delay, then we assert, without hesitation, that the plan which has been adopted for a catalogue of an immense collection like that of the British Museum is not merely extremely inconvenient, but that for practical purposes it is perfectly absurd. But while reviews, magazines, and newspapers, are not classed by them- selves, nor their usual title made the principal entry, many words, not merely insignificant, but under which no sane man would think of seeking for a book, appear as separate titles : for example, " Accounts," because the books are called " An Account of" someplace or subject : thus, under that word there are seven- teen entries, consisting of " An account of Workhouses for em- ploying the Poor," "An account of some remarkable passages in the life of a Private Gentleman," " An account of the constitution and security of a general Bank of Credit," "An account of pro- ceedings to discover the Longitude," "An account of Coal-tar," &c. Now, to suppose that there are only seventeen anony- mous works in the Museum the first words of the title of which are "An Account of," is impossible : hence, the plan cannot have been carried into effect. But who would look for an account of a subject under any other head than that of the subject itself; namely, in these instances—" Workhouses," " Gentleman," "Bank," " Coal-tar," "Longitude," &c. As well might anony- mous books be entered under the indefinite or definite article, or under the prepositions " of," "on," " to," &c., as under such a head. To take for another example the word " Abstract,"—though there are many works called " An Abstract" of this or that, there is only one solitary entry under that word, and this too of a work which has no business there, but should have appeared under " Poor." There are only two entries under " Answer "; one of which belongs to " Pretender," and the other to " Motion." There are only eight under " Appeal," not one of which should have been inserted there ; and while " cross-references " abound, there is none to the printed cases of "Appeals in the House of Lords," though there is a reference to "Appeals in Prize Causes." Under " Ad- miral," "Admiralty," "Astrology," and "Astronomy," there are no entries whatever; whence it must be inferred, however in- credible, that there is not a single anonymous work in the Museum on these fertile subjects. Under "Admiralty," there are cross-references to "England, Admiralty," "Great Britain, Admiralty," "Great Britain and Ireland, Admiralty":. helmet, all the Departments of the public service are, we suppose, to be entered under one of these three general heads, divided and subdivided, and filling very many pages, like "Academies" and " Periodical Publications."
Every literary person is aware that the more condensed a cata- logue can be made the more useful it will be, inasmuch as the book sought for will be the sooner discovered ,• to say nothing of economy of time, labour, and money, in its formation. All un- necessary statements ought therefore to be rigidly excluded : but these obvious principles have been so entirely lost sight of in the Catalogue of the British Museum Library, that a large portion of this volume is occupied with separate entries of duplicate, triplicate, or quadruplicate copies of the same work and of the same edition. Turn, for instance, to the article " .pp. 385-386, where the words "another copy " fill no less than nine- teen distinct lines. What reader cares to know how many copies there may be of the same edition of the same work large part of the volume is occupied with cross-references, which, under Rule 55, are " to be divided into three classes—from name to name, from name to work, and from work to work." With respect to Periodical Publications, and Almanacks, Calendars, dr,C.,—which, by the by, are placed, not under their titles, but under the head " Ephemerides,"—there would seem to be no end to cross-references : for, says Rule 83, " There shall be cross-references from the name of any author, editor, or con- tniontor, to any of the above works, appearing in any of the titlepagea of any of the volumes, as well as from the peculiar name or designation of any of the so- ages, from the place at which they hold their meetings, from any dace forming past of the peculiar name of a journal, almanack, calendar, &c., • the name muter which such publications are generally known, to the main entries of such alad Rules 87 and 91 also relate to " cross-references." 'These eternal cross-references are deserving of attention. They Ire said to be the principal cause of the delay in making the Cate- e; and they are mainly caused by the complex and inju- dicious plan which has been adopted. All these cross-references Amid be printed in volumes by themselves, and put together after the alphabetical catalogue is finished, to which they would form a sort of classed index. The Catalogue was properly intended to be alithabetical ; and the second Rule directs that the titles shall be arranged alphabetically, according to the English alphabet only, under the surname of the author, whenever it appears printed in the title or in any other part of the book : and this, in the case of authors' names, (subject, however, to some arbitrary, and, we think, unwise directions—such as entering the works published by Commoners, who afterwards became Peers, not under the name in the titlepage, but under that of the title they afterwards obtained,t) has been done. Why, then, was not the same prin- ciple adopted respecting anonymous books, reviews, works printed by societies, &c., by placing them under their titles, instead of
arranging them under the general heads of " Publications," Academies," " Pe- riodical blications," " Ephemerides," &c.? The plan is there-
fore inconsistent, for the Catalogue is alphabetical with respect to authors, and classed with respect to some of the subjects ; whereas, were every book entered in strict alphabetical order un- der the name of the author as it occurs in the titlepage, or under its proper subject when anonymous, the arrangement would have been intelligible in itself, and have saved all the elaborate trifling., bibliographical pedantry, loss of time, and heavy expense, which characterize the present scheme. It is impossible, in the limited space we can afford, to point out all the objections to the plan which has been adopted ; but its defects seem to be sufficiently manifested by the necessity of stopping the progress of the print- ing/ of the Catalogue, by the naïve confession of the Keeper of the Printed Books that it cannot be completed in manuscript for eight more years ; and that even then it will be in arrears for six- teen years! If common sense do not induce the Trustees to put an end to a scheme that involves a heavy waste alike of time and of the public money, andretards the completion of the Cata- logue, it may be hoped that the-subject will attract the attention of some of the very few Members of the Rouse of Commons who really care for literature. We say advisedly, that there is no difficulty in forming and printing a complete alphabetical Catalogue of the Library of the British Museum, which would answer every practical purpose; provided that the plan of the present volume, its ninety-one rules, its eternal cross-references, its "another copy," " another copy," and all similar frivolities, be :discontinued. It would be far better to print the Catalogue which is now in use in the Reading-room, slightly revised, and completed up to the present time, and to make a classed Cata- logue hereafter, than to keep the public without a new Catalogue until it may please Mr. Panizzi to permit the Trustees to print one. The idea of its requiring, as he says, eight more years to form the Catalogue, in manuscript only, is, we repeat, an insult to the common sense of the country.
The Regulations for the use of the Library, which have been imported by the present Keeper of the Printed Books, and the ,defects in the Library pointed out in his letter to the Trustees, will be discussed on another occasion.
" Rule 14. Surnames of noblemen, though not expressed in the book, to be ascertained and written out as the heading of the entry. A person who has as- sumed titles not generally acknowledged, to have the words, calling himself,' between brackets, to precede the assumed title. " Buie 17. An author's rank in society, in cases in which he enjoyed any hono- may distinction or office for life, not lower than that of Knight, Admiral, or Gene- ral, to be stated in Italics. Younger sons of Dukes, Marquises, and Earls, when not enjoying a distinct title, to have the designation Lord or Lady prefixed to the Christian name. All other branches of the nobility to have the word Ilan. Cefixed. The words Right Hon., in the same situation, to distinguish Privy ouncillors. Knights to be indicated merely by the appellation Sir prefixed to their first name. Titles of inferior rank, whether ecclesiastical, military, or civil, to be given only when necessary to make a distinction between authors having the same surname and Christian name."
An unlearned Englishman will perhaps be surprised to find, that if be wants tswork of Voltaire, (by which name he took the liberty of describing himself in the titlepages of his own books,) and seeks it under Voltaire, he will be referred back to the first volume, where they occur under ".A.rouet "; thus, " Arouet de Voltaire, (Francois Mane)."
3 Upon this subject the following statement occurs in the Parliamentary 13e- turn— " The Keeper of the Printed Books has represented to the Trustees, that 'no.pert of a work of the nature of the Catalogue, alphabetically arranged, ought Ito be printed till the whole of the manuscript from the first to the last article is assay for the press; that is to say, not only each article written out, but also 'carefully arranged in the strict order and Rrecise form in which it is to be printed. He states that this is required to insure correctness as well as corn- pkteness; that the books catalogued under the last letters of the alphabet require cross-references from among the entries in the early letters, which cross-references cannot be inserted if such early letters be already printed; and that on revising the old titles, entries perpetually occur in the latter letters of the old Catalogue, which entries have to be inserted among the earlier parts of the alphabet, fr= which they would be omitted if these parts ware previously printed. Upon the e representations, the Trustees have consented for the present to suspend the print- ing of the Catalogue."
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