"stacks," classification should be insisted on: a proper system of subject-indexes, he would say, is all that is required.[1] The librarian, too, knows well enough that if the size of the books to be arranged were the only thing to be taken into account it would be infinitely more easy to keep together books of the same sizes, and so save space.
This very unassuming view of the matter is taken by the authorities of the Royal Library at Brussels, the Nazionale at Florence, and the Vittorio Emanuele at Rome, where for some years past the books have been put on the shelves according to sizes only. It might perhaps be thought that this haphazard system would somehow react on the orderliness of the staff, but we do not think that this result can be noticed in the cases mentioned.[2] However, a certain portion of every library, and, with the growth of the open-access system, the whole of many libraries, are available for the personal inspection of readers, so that systems of classification, admittedly necessary under these circumstances, will have to be considered.
It remains, then, to be seen how far the systems
- ↑ Of course if there are no subject-indexes the shelf-catalogue of a classified library is of great bibliographical service, as, for instance, that of the books constituting the British Museum library before 1879, when the subject-indexes were begun.
- ↑ The classification of libraries has been carried out with great zeal and knowledge in Germany; but at least one librarian there (Dr. Kerler, of the University of Würzburg) is opposed to the practice in libraries where the public does not visit the shelves. (Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 1884.)
