The Washington times., 1901-10-16
PROGRESS IN BOOK CATALOGUE.
Libraries of the Country Unite in
Co-operntiOn.


| Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress-
| has returned from attending in New York,
| Chicago, and other places, several library
| conventions He says the most import
ant Improvement noted in connection with
the library world is the progress made in
perfecting a plan of cooperation in book
! cataloguing.
u attended one of the association Of
New York State, said Mr.. Putnam yes
terday, held ~ lake Placid one of the
| association of Ohio. held at Sandusky
and one Of The association of Iowa, held
at Burlington. / attended also a meeting
representing the library interests OF Chi
cago and vicinity and incidentally Wis
| tied the University of Illinois at Cham
| paigu. where there is the largest school
for library training west of Philadelphia.
! and one Of the largest and most efficient
in the United States. There is an associa-
ton representing the library interests of
/ the country as a whole. That is the
American Library Association, which
| holds an annual meeting. 1t was this
| year held at Waukesha, Wis. This has
not proved sufficient to provide for all
| the necessary discussions Of problems in
| library economy and practical projects in
library work, especially cooperative work.
so that associations have been formed in
each of many States, and even within
these in each of several of the largest
cities. Their most important meetings
are held in the autumn. In addition to
those which / attended, Indiana, for in
stance is to hold its meeting toward the
end of this month, Massachusetts and
Rhode Island on October IL, Pennsylvania
on November 13. Each such meeting
-tr.sr-
hundred delegates engaged in the active
conduct of Libraries"
Mr. Putnam said that at each meet
ing projects were discussed for the pro-
motion of greater efficiency in the effort
to advance the higher research To
these particularly he said the Library of
Congress owed a duty.
The Library of Congress, he said, has
the largest collection Of books in the
Western Hemisphere. 1T has now,' he
continued, "a corps of cataloguers who
are experts, who are engaged in classi-
flying and cataloguins the material on
hand. 1t has within its walls a printing
office, a branch of the Government Print !
ing Office, to print the product of this |
work. These products can be multiplied !
in such a way as to be available to other |
libraries at a cost which is only the cost !
in the case of catalogue cards. the addi- |
uonal stock and the pressWoTk. LIBRA |
ries securing The benefit Of this work |
through these additional copies will. of /
course. reimburse to the Government the /
expense of producing them. but the eN- |
pense viii be but a small fraction of the |
far greater expense which they have in !
CURED in an attempt to do the whole |
work individually.
Practically all American libraries to- |
day have card catalogues. In these every |
book appears under its author. under the |
subjects of which it treats, and some
times under its title, if the title differs {
from the subject. Some books have to ap-
pear in, perhaps, only two places, others
in forty or fifty, where there are many
authors and many subjects treated by
them. On an average book appears. IN
from three to five different places. Now.
the cards that libraries have used were
in the first instance written; then they
came to be typewriter. ard, in recent
years they have in some libraries come
to be printed. Printing is possible. of
course, only for the larger libraries which
are handling a large number of books and
making elaborate catalCgues-the New
York Public Library prints. the Boston
Public Library the Harvard College Lii
brary, the John Crerar, Of Chicago. and
even the Carnegie at Pittsburg.
The distribution of cards for the cur
rent publications may begin very shortly.
Very likely IL VIII cover also the publica- I
tiOns Of the present calendar year so that
the undertaking will be coeVal with the
century. The cards first issued will doubt
less be those for the current american
copyrighted books. These are listed in
brary, but issued by the Treasury De-
partment entitled The Weekly Cata-
logue' of books, etc, entered under the
copyright law