IMPROVEMENTS IN CATALOGUING, CALENDARING, OR REGISTERING THE CONTENTS OF LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS, AND IN THE APPARATUS OR MEANS EMPLOYED THEREIN
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Stevens at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 30th
September 1871.
I, HENRY STEVENS, of Trafalgar Square, in the County of Middlesex,
Author, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN CATALOGUING, CALENDARING, OR REGISTERING THE CONTENTS
OF LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS, AND IN THE APPARATUS OR MEANS EMPLOYED
THEREIN," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object a simple, expeditious, accurate,
compact, and inexpensive mode or method of cataloguing the contents
of libraries, galleries, and museums, substituting wholly or partly for
manuscript descriptions photographic copies of the objects catalogued.
For instance, of books, I collect the titles, sample pages, illustrations, or
whatever else is required, more or less reduced, but usually to one-third
the dimensions of the original, by so arranging and combining the books
behind plate glass frames, and with fixed camera and frame I photograph
them according to convenience, but usually from ten to fifty (or even

page_text: more) at a time on one plate. The frame or frames are made so as to be
changed or set up as fast as the books can be arranged and the plates
prepared.
The frames I have found to answer well in practice consist of plate
glass sliding in grooves in the upper and lower sides of a frame left open
at the ends, so as to facilitate the introduction of bound books which
will not bend freely, or the photographing of such part only as may be
required. The books when arranged on the glass are pressed down flat
In some frames a
by means of padding, cross bars, and thumb screws.
space may be left at the bottom or either end between the edge of the
glass and the frame by sliding the glass more or less away from the
frame, the object of such space being to allow of the introduction
through it of that portion of a book or other article not required, and
at the same time to ensure the focusing of the portion which is required
to be photographed.
I also propose to employ revolving frames composed of two or more
plates (by preference four) and two or more cameras, according to the
amount of work to be performed in a given time.
The headings, press marks, and other descriptions can be photographed
with the titles or be added afterwards by hand when the titles have been
trimmed and mounted on slips of paper or cards, as is usual in large
libraries. From the negatives at small cost as many copies may be taken as
are required for alphabetical, classed accessions, shelf or other catalogues,
as well as for exchange or sale. The same almost may be said of my
mode of preparing catalogues of maps, charts, manuscripts, engravings,
woodcuts, early typography, paintings, drawings, antiquities, gems,
coins, medals, carvings, specimens of minerals, fossils, porcelain, botany,
natural history.
Among the advantages of this mode of cataloguing over all others
that have hitherto been devised or practised may be mentioned the
following:-
1. Accuracy so perfect as in a great measure to dispense with linguists
and highly educated cataloguers, as well as revisers and transcribers.
When the catalogues are to be printed this method makes the best
very
Jainn aith almost all the

page_text: the printed titles without the necessity of resorting to the books
described. Books or objects in one library may be compared with those
in another, however remote, and be readily identified in case of loss.
2. Its great rapidity, beauty, simplicity, uniformity, and compactness,
giving more information in less space.