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contradiction in nomenclature to which it leads. Thus, the 4to of a large sheet may stand taller than a small folio, while certain 8vos will overtop certain 4tos. This is true, but it need not, I think, lead to any confusion. In the matter of size-notation the evidences afforded by the wires of the paper-mould are some of the natural laws in the science of books. In this portion of bibliography we have fixed laws; the sizes of all these books are simply natural facts, and not the haphazard productions of a capricious printer, and we have no more the right than we have the power to alter them. It is because this law has not been attended to that our greatest bibliographers have made such mistakes as have driven students to despair. Here, for instance, is a true 4to book, as proved by the water-mark and chain lines-the "Aretinus de Bello Italico," by Jenson, of Venice, in 1471; and yet all the authorities call it a folio because it appears so to the eye. Even the accurate Van Praet erred in the size of a book printed by his hero, Colard Mansion, and, because the volume had been much cropped, called the "Purgatoire des Mauvais Maris" a small 4to, when the water-marks prove it to be the common folio used by that printer. This seductive, but deceptive, plan of eye-measurement has been a fruitful source of error in our catalogues. This volume, the "Effigies virorum doctorum," Antwerp, 1572, would be catalogued generally as a small 4to, but other copies of the same book are folio, and if we examine this we shall find the down chain wires and the water-mark in the middle-it should therefore be entered as small folio, much cropped. Let it be understood that our old printers used paper as large as medium or demy, like the great Gutenburg Bible, and as small as pott-a paper much in vogue in the 17th century—and we at once have a scale giving an idea of size near enough for general cataloguing. Medium and demy will give a large folio, large 4to, &c.; the posts will give without any prefix folio, 4to, and 8vo, and foolscap and pott will give small folio, small 4to, small 8vo, &c. The introduction of any arbitrary system of measurement to denote the sizes of all, including old books, would lead to dire confusion as to identity of edition, and the utmost good it would effect would be a slight sav ing of time by mechanically measuring instead of intelligently cataloguing. On such a plan no two catalogues would agree, though made on the same system; for we meet the same volume in all stages of bad treatment, and we should find a folio of one collection appearing as an 8vo in another. Whatever system may be adopted for the abnormal no-sized books of the modern steam press, let us hold to the natural system of notation by the paper where we can. This is permanent, however ill-treated the volume may have been. Cropping may altogether change the look of a book, but it can never eliminate those signs of size which must form the true scientific basis of all correct description.

I have but little to say about the size-notation of recent books. About 1750, Baskerville, by a modification of the paper-mould, did away with the chain wires and water-marks, making what was

styled vellum paper, because it was without any marks and well rolled. This paper, after some years, became the fashion for finely printed books, and in them we lose our old data for determining size by water-marks; but at that time, fortunately, the old-fashioned odd sizes of a previous generation had gone out of use, and there being now but one signature to a sheet and no quiring, the signatures show the size with sufficient ease. Thus, at this period, eight leaves show 8vo, twelve leaves 12mo, and so on. About 1800, the paper machine was invented, and gradually improved until paper fine enough for book-work was produced. This ushered in great confusion as to sizes, for publishers demanded paper to so many inches, irrespective of the old sizes, while printers were able to print sheets four times as large as of yore. So it has come to pass that development in the manufacture of paper, and in the accuracy and capabilities of our printing machines, has so completely changed the processes by which the modern book is made, that the technical terms which accurately defined to past generations the sizes of books have no longer any definite meaning. Papers are made by the mile and cat up to eighths of an inch, obeying no law but the caprice of the consumer, and to catalogue such papers by the fold, would compel us to call the Athenaeum, for instance (supposing it to agree with any old size), a quad super-royal 16mo. Papers made in moulds of fixed sizes can have nothing in common with such anomalous products, and no system will ever be devised which will adapt a true notation to suit both old and new volumes. Some librarians, of weight and authority, advocate a metrical scale and the measurement of every volume. This extreme accuracy seems to me uncalled for; surely it is near enough for any reader or borrower to be told that the book he requires is a large, middling, or small 8vo. Size-notation by measurement must to a great extent render catalogues untrue outside their own library, and so long as binders form a necessary part of a librarian's staff, the size of books issued the same day will not remain constant. Even if all librarians determined henceforth never to allow any book to be ploughed, they cannot recall the past; and unless uniformity of treatment for both old and new can be arranged on some intelligible basis, the uprooting of our old nomenclature by the proposed revolution seems hardly warrantable. As modern development has landed the great majority of our modern books outside any natural law, I would respectfully suggest that the most philosophical plan will be to treat them as near as we can upon the old basis, and, whatever the true size, or rather no size of the modern book may be, to call it after that size of the old real notation to which it may

be nearest.

Mr. TEDDER called attention to the confusion arising from the use of "size" to denote "format," and suggested "form."-Prof. W. S. JEVONS asked whether the system proposed would apply to modern books ?-Mr. BLADES said it would, to all books on handmade paper; with others it would seem that the only way would be to take the apparent size.-Mr. WALFORD asked whether size-nota

tion was for library purposes only ?-Mr. HARRISON said that there were two objects, one to guide to the discovery of the book on the shelf, the other as to the edition. Mr. OVERALL thought that the best mode was to keep to the old notation, and when that failed take apparent size; a person who asks for a book seldom cares about the size of the volume.-Mr. GARNETT considered this a difficult subject, and thought it better to keep to the signatures. At the British Museum the size is of little use in finding the books. If undertaking the subject de novo, he would say follow signatures and give size separately. Henceforth the number of pages will be given in the British Museum catalogue.

Votes of thanks to Messrs. AXON and BLADES for their papers were carried unanimously.

FEBRUARY MONTHLY MEETING.

THE fourth Monthly Meeting of the third year of the Association was held at the London Institution on February 6, 1880, at 8 p.m., Mr. B. R. WHEATLEY in the chair.

The minutes of the previous meeting having been read and confirmed, Mr. R. HARRISON read a paper on paper on "Dr. Priestley and his relation to Proprietary Libraries," which will be printed in full in our next number.

The CHAIRMAN then called on the Secretary to read the following paper by Mr. J. B. BAILEY, on

SOME POINTS TO BE CONSIDERED IN PREPARING CATALOGUES OF TRANSACTIONS AND PERIODICALS.

The

There are some points on which there seems to be no agreement among cataloguers; this is well illustrated by the fact that the three most recent catalogues of scientific transactions and periodicals are arranged on different plans. It therefore seemed desirable to bring the subject before the Association, in order to provoke a discussion which would enable the Committee on Title-entries to add some rules to those submitted to the Manchester meeting. three catalogues referred to are:-1. Catalogue of Scientific Serials, 1633-1876, by S. H. Scudder, Cambridge, U.S., 1879, 8vo. 2. Catalogue of the Library of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, by B. R. Wheatley, London, 1879, 3 vols., 8vo; vol. 2, containing transactions of societies, journals, &c. 3. Catalogue of the Library of the Museum of Practical Geology and Geological Survey, by H. White and T. W. Newton, London, 1878, 8vo. Mr. Scudder's catalogue contains serial publications only; Mr. Wheatley's and Messrs. White and Newton's are general catalogues of their respective libraries, including books as well as serials. Messrs. White and Newton have arranged their serials under the two headings of "Journals and 66 Transactions of Societies," alphabetically placed under J and T respectively. Mr. Wheatley divides them into "Transactions of Societies," "Journals, Magazines, Reviews," and "Reports," but puts them all together at the end of the catalogue. In this respect I think Mr. Scudder's

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arrangement preferable; he draws no distinction between transactions and journals; and in using a catalogue prepared on his plan the reader has not first to consider the head under which the com. piler would be most likely to enter the object of his search. This is a real difficulty, as may be proved from Messrs. White and Newton's catalogue, for there we find the Journal published by the Godeffroy Museum treated as a "Journal," and the Mittheilungen issued by the Museum at Dresden entered under "Transactions." Hospital reports would in most catalogues be found under "Transactions," but some might consider them "Journals;" Mr. Wheatley has chosen a third heading, "Reports," with a note under "Hospitals in "Transactions," stating that they "are placed in the catalogue of reports as being more agreeable bibliographically to the wording of their title-pages." These differences make a catalogue more difficult to use than if the entries were in alphabetical order without respect to "Transactions" or Journals." The difficulty of using the British Museum catalogue, where transactions and periodicals are put under various headings, is forcibly pointed out in an article in Nature, of Jan. 16, 1879, reprinted in the Library Journal, vol. 4, p. 161. In that article there is a complaint of the quantity of material that must be waded through to come to the transactions or proceedings of the society, and I think it would be well to obtain the opinion of the Association as to what should be entered in a catalogue of transactions under the head of each society. Should the catalogues of their libraries be entered under the head of "Transactions"? Mr. Wheatley and Messrs. White and Newton say "Yes," Mr. Scudder says "No," and I for one agree with Mr. Scudder. The proper place for the catalogue of any library seems to me to be under the name of the society in the general catalogue, with a cross-reference from "Catalogues," or vice versa. The plan of Messrs. Newton and White is very confusing, as the information is scattered about the volume without any system of cross-references. Again, should rules of a society, list of members, &c., be entered as "Transactions"? I would again venture to say "No," and suggest that they should be placed in the body of the catalogue. One objection to this arrangement is the inconvenience of looking in two places to find a complete list of what has been published by any society; but, in reply to this, I would ask how many people refer to a catalogue for this purpose, compared with those who wish to find the transactions, journals, or memoirs? Another objection is, that in catalogues where the transactions and journals take their place in the general alphabet it would be impossible to have two headings. To meet this difficulty, I would suggest that the transactions, journals, proceedings or memoirs, should always stand first after the name of the society. This would prevent the inconvenience spoken of by the writer in Nature, before referred to, who com plained that in the British Museum Catalogue, "First are given the press-marks of charter, laws, bye-laws, notices of annual meetings, lists of members, and such like things, and page after page has to be turned over to get to the publications of the society. If there

are two sets of publications, such as 4to transactions and an 8vo journal, these are generally separated by some pages of other references." If more evidence is required of the incon. venience caused by this mode of cataloguing, it can be obtained in plenty from Messrs. White and Newton's catalogue. But perhaps the most curious transaction recorded by Messrs. White and Newton, is that on page 544, under the heading "London." It runs thus: "Museum Regalis Societatis; whereunto is subjoined the Comparative Anatomy of Stomachs and Guts, folio, London, 1681." And this is not, so far as I can make out, entered anywhere else in the catalogue, although the author's name, Nehemiah Grew, appears on the title-page. Another question is, what should be done with those societies which do not issue any transactions or proceedings, but publish a regular account of their meetings in some other journal? Mr. Wheatley and Mr. Scudder give, under the name of the society, a reference to the journal containing its proceedings. This is so obviously right that the point may be thought hardly worth notice; but, as Messrs. White and Newton have not done this, the practice cannot be said to be universal. In Mr. Wheatley's catalogue we are told exactly where we shall find the proceedings of the Royal Microscopical Society, and in Mr. Scudder's we can find the information by cross-references; but Messrs. White and Newton have no entry of the society, although their library has the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, which up to 1868 con. tained the official report of the proceedings; so that a reader knowing that a paper had been read before the Royal Microscopical Society, and using Messrs. White and Newton's catalogue to see if he could obtain it in their library, would come to the conclusion that he was unable to do so, unless he was aware that the society had no separate proceedings; and from the number of times I have been asked for the proceedings of the Royal Microscopical Society I can say with certainty that many students are unaware of the fact, or perhaps I should say were unaware, as the society has lately started a journal of its own. Another point where I venture to think the catalogue of Messrs. White and Newton is faulty is in not giving cross-references where a periodical has changed its name; this is generally done, and I would suggest that a rule to this effect should be added to those prepared by the Committee of this Association. An instance is to be found at p. 270 of the last-mentioned catalogue, the Annalen der Chemie, afterwards called Liebig's Annalen; but there are no cross-references, and as the original title, Annalen der Pharmacie, was discontinued in 1839, there are very few students who would look under this head to find what for some years has been generally known as Liebig's Annalen. When a journal has acquired a popular name, a crossreference should be given from that to the actual title. The American Journal of Science and Arts is frequently referred to as Silliman's Journal, but is not so entered in Messrs. White and Newton's catalogue, so that it is quite useless to a reader who does not know the exact title. There seems also to be a variety of prac

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