number in most libraries should be 1%, and in some 2 cm. wide. The book-number column 1 or 11⁄2 cm. ; the volume 1⁄2 or 1 cm. A 1⁄2 cm. column may be put in before each date column to enter the month, which it makes so distinct that it is necessary to enter it only once, leaving the spaces blank for the remaining entries of that month. This column can be omitted if space does not accommodate it. The month should then be put in in letters rather than figures and across the column. Some libraries have use for a column of remarks at the right, e.g., for the initial of the attendant issuing the book, the name of the person drawing the book, if not that to which it is charged, notes as to condition, etc. Most of these items are needed only occasionally, and an extra cross line can then be used, so the column can be omitted. The first three columns should be separated by red lines. Here is the entry of the book, its class, book and volume numbers. Then heavy blue lines inclose the column of month and day drawn, a light red line separating month from day column. Another heavy blue line marks off dates returned, and double heavy blue lines should separate each group of columns from the next on the page. Narrow books will have two, common books three, and wide ledgers four or more of these sets of columns. I should prefer for a small library, and no other would use this system, a book about 30 × 20 cm., with 50 lines to the page and 3 columns. Each page would then hold 150 v. Practical use of the ledger will make plain the advantage of these detailed directions.

LEDGER-CARD READER - ACCOUNT.The same rulings as in the book, on a card 10x15 cm., give 52 entries to the 4 columns of 13 lines each. This is filled exactly like the book. It cannot be handled quite as quickly, but saves time in

being its own index, for the cards are arranged alphabetically. Some, however, number them, and require each borrower to give his number, the same as in the book system. The number can be found much quicker than the name, specially where there are many similar names. The danger of charging on the wrong card may compensate for the trouble of giving the card number, and make this the better system. This number should be very plainly written or printed on the upper left corner. These cards are most convenient arranged in a double-columned box about 32 cm. wide, and of proper depth for the number of cards required, or to fit the place where it is to stand. Partitions (stout iron is good) in this box at intervals of 5 cm. made the handling of the cards easier. The cards are placed and handled like a card catalogue, but must be removed in making entries. A thin ivory paper-folder is a great convenience. It can be inserted behind the card better than the finger, and being left when the card is withdrawn, there is no danger of putting it back in the wrong place, the great bane of this system. When the entries are made the card can be instantly and rapidly replaced by pressing it against the ivory, till it opens the place into which it drops. A slide-cover 10 cm. wide can be easily fitted to the top of the box, so as to give a smooth surface on which to rest the card when making entries. Some get along very well by resting the cards on the edges of the other cards. Guideboards are necessary in this system. They may be of zinc, like those for the card catalogue; of board, with edges marked; or of colored cards a trifle higher (3 to 5mm.), so the name or catch-words can be writ

ten on the projecting edge. After many experiments at Amherst College we preferred this system of charging, and have been using it for three years. It has spe

cial advantages for a college library, where it is desired to preserve a record of the reading of each of the students. As fast as cards are filled they are replaced by fresh ones and filed away. Each card is numbered, so that a student having number 5 in use has drawn 200 books on the 4 previous cards. Filed alphabetically, the complete history of each student's reading is preserved in one place. It was our custom there to remove the card of any one who had in any way forfeited his right to draw books, a convenient and effectual way of cancelling library privileges. The P. size, 71⁄2 × 121⁄2 cm., could be used for this ledger-card system, using narrower rulings for the columns, and putting only 40 entries to a card. Many, if not most, will prefer this smaller card because of its compactness, and because it fits boxes, trays, postal-card files, etc. Either style of card can be had of the Supply Department, as can also a 15× 121⁄2 size. Ruled like the P. size, this large card would hold 80 entries, and would occupy no more space on the table or desk, except as it required a deeper box. Or the card may be ruled across the other way, giving 2 cm. to class and book number, 1⁄2 cm. to vol., 21⁄2 cm. to loaned and returned. This gives three columns instead of two to the 15 cm.

Fine ruling gives for 121⁄2 cm. high 25 lines, and the card would hold 150 entries. This is the finest ruliug at all practicable. A larger size than this would hardly be convenient. My preference is decidedly for the P size holding. 40 entries. The 10 × 15 gives three 5 cm. columns too narrow for rapid charging, or only two 72 columns which are wider than really needed. The reader's name is entered on the first line, no special ruling being needed. There are great merits in this plan, and if handled by thoroughly careful persons, who will use the

paper-folder, or something similar, to prevent disarrangement, it will give great satisfaction.

LACED LEDGER SHEETS READER-ACCOUNT.-This plan is simply the shelf catalog binder, with sheets ruled as in the book ledger. Some libraries have used the shelf sheets ruled in this way, and they give good results. If any change were made, it should be to a larger size, but it is a doubtful improvement. It combines the merits of the book with those of the ledger-card and box. above described. While never getting out of order, it involves much more labor in adding, removing, or changing sheets. I should either use the book, and endure its slight disadvantages, or else the box, and secure by extra care all its advantages. The laced ledger sheets will, however, work admirably, as I have proved by a year's use.

When removed they are filed

away alphabetically the same as the cards. They are of course less convenient to handle when removed from the binder. The shelf sheet ruled in three columns of 40 lines each, and laced in the regular shelf binder, will be preferred by many small libraries to any other possible device for charging. This alone combines the great merits of a book, with strict alphabetical arrangement at all times. Shelf sheets can be furnished ruled in this way for 15 cents per 100 extra, making their cost 75 cents per 100, or $6.50 per 1000.

TEMPORARY SLIPS READER-ACCOUNT. Still another plan of keeping the account with the borrower is to charge each book on a separate slip, which must of course be small and cheap, and to arrange these slips as the ledger cards are arranged in that system, either alphabetically or by numbers with an index. Where the slip is signed by num

ber instead of name, the arrangement by numbers would of course be requisite. If signed by name, either the number should be added to the slip, or the arrangement should be alphabetical. In practice I believe no library arranges these cheap slips by themselves, but by means of larger slips of stiff card. The stiff slips are arranged as in the other system, as if to be written on. Then, instead of making the charge on the stiff card, where it will be preserved, no writing is done, but the slip on which the reader calls for the book is simply dropped in against his card and the book is charged. When returned, the slip is taken out and thrown away, or preserved for statistics. This system saves writing, and is quickly managed, but it sacrifices all the advantages of a record of each reader's books, and though it has found great favor in many libraries, specially subscription, I should prefer the slight extra labor of making the permanent entry. There are libraries of course where this is out of the question. The quickest and cheapest method that will possibly answer must be adopted. I am not writing for them when I say I should prefer the ledger-card system rather than the temporary slips. In this plan the stiff card contains full name, address, date of joining, time to which paid, etc., etc. The case of cards is a great nest of compressed pigeon-holes, any one of which may be opened by separating the adjoining cards. Each reader has one, and when he takes out a book its ticket is dropped into his pigeon-hole. The plan is simple, cheap, rapid, and in careful hands reasonably accurate. I should not use for the stiff divisions a card larger than the P-size. The regular catalogcard answers well. If changed it should be to a stiffer stock.

It is practicable, of course, to arrange the slips in a check-box as in the accounts VOL. III., No. 7.

with the books. The divisions of the slipbox are then marked for the letters or numbers of the borrowers. Except in small libraries, confusion will result from alphabetical order because of several persons of the same name and initials. The number is safer and usually faster. For the temporary slip used either with stiff cards or alone, I prefer the 5×5 to the 5×7 cm. I note a growing tendency to use this smallest size, in the same way that the catalog-card size was gradually reduced from a quarter cap sheet, 15 × 20 cm., till few libraries now use any thing larger than the standard card, 5 × 12, one fifth the size. I should be glad to know the experience of any library that may have tried this plan.

These four systems-book-ledger, laced slips or sheets, ledger-cards and box, temporary slips and cards-I believe comprise all the systems for keeping accounts with the borrower. A librarian desiring to keep such an account must consider the advantages and disadvantages of each as applying to his special case, and choose for himself. I can imagine cases where each may be better than either of the other three. There are cases where, I am sure, it does not pay to keep any account with the reader. There are others where I am equally sure that it cannot be wisely omitted. Of the methods of keeping the account with the book, I shall present a similar summary, with notes, in another article.*

* These articles are printed because of many questions which could not well be answered in writing. The subject is of great importance, and merits careful attention. The main object of the articles will be served if they bring out free criticism and suggestion. Every thing bearing on the subject will be thankfully received; if brief and of value will be printed in the JOURNAL, and in any case will be submitted to the Co-operation Committee when they recommend to the libraries a model charging system.

28

SEPTEMBER, 1878.

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THE selection of a new Principal Librarian for the British Museum involved, as we said last month, so critical a decision for library progress in Great Britain that the appointment has been the chief event of interest for the month. The Museum Library occupies the commanding position, practically as well as officially, in the British library system, and while the lack of its help might not absolutely cripple the present movements, its hearty cooperation is capable of giving an impetus such as could not come from elsewhere. The choice of Mr. Bond gives general satisfaction, and though his specialty in the library has brought him into contact rather with antiquities than with progress, his association with the Museum catalogue suggests that in him the Library Association will have a sympathetic co-worker.

THE Oxford Conference, occupying the first days of October, will find its chief work in dealing with the questions arising from a year's experience of working hand in hand for library co-operation and progress. Those who come together may well be astonished at the results already accomplished-still more at the plans well under way. If so much can be done as a beginning, what may not be accomplished by continued endeavor! Many of these questions are international in their scope, and American

discussions and decisions upon them at Oxford. There is good reason to hope that such action will be taken as may lead, after such further consultation on both sides as the spring meeting at Boston should afford opportunity for, to a practical agreement between both branches, we may say, of library organization, the British and the American. Mr. Wheatley's

pamphlet, issued just in time for the Oxford Conference, affords a basis of discussion for one class of these questions, as well as a platform on which future useful work of the valuable Index Society may now be built up.

THE Co-operative movement has now crossed not only the Atlantic but the Channel, which is practically the wider of the two. The Société Bibliographique, at its recent general meeting, recommended, as noted in our last issue, that a general conference of French librarians should be assembled next year in Paris to discuss very much the same questions as have come up before the American and English gatherings. The Italians have already shown much enterprise in associated work, and library conferences will soon, we trust, be the order of the day both in Italy and Germany. An interesting example of the spread of useful ideas from one nation to another is afforded, in the department of trade bibliography, by the growing adoption of the Publishers' Trade-List compilation. The first, in 1873, was an American enterprise; England, and now Italy, have taken up the idea; and like volumes are projected in France and Germany.

THE question of general cataloguing having occupied so much attention recently in the JOURNAL, we turn in this number to several practical details of library administration, which will be found discussed in the leading articles. How to arrange and keep track of the books on their shelves is one of the most important questions to a librarian, not least to those whose libraries are small but growing, and who may now take time by the forelock and arrange a satisfactory system before they are embarrassed by numbers. The question of charging systems is still more important, because this is a point where a library comes into direct relationship with its constituency, and on which its smooth and satisfactory working largely depends. Librarians should carefully consider these articles, and submit their own criticisms or suggestions now, while the subjects are thus prominent.