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MONTHLY NOTES

OF THE

Library Association

Of the United Kingdom.

Ir has been found somewhat inconvenient that all accounts of the proceedings of the LIBRARY ASSOCIATION should reach members only from America, and in the course of last year a Committee was appointed to consider the question. This Committee recommended that, while the Library Journal should remain the official organ of the Association, it would be advisable to circulate a Monthly Report, to include announcements with other interesting information. At the Manchester meeting in September last a specimen number of "Monthly Notes" was distributed. The idea was favourably received, and the following resolution was passed in consequence: "That this Association approves of a monthly or quarterly journal being established, and that the Council carry it into effect if possible."

The "Notes" will be issued on the 15th of each month, and will contain a full report of the proceedings of the meetings, together with the papers read and an abstract of the discussions thereon. It is hoped that members may at once communicate any observations they may consider likely to prove of interest to their fellowlibrarians, such as library-statistics or news, notes and queries concerning library work, bibliographical memoranda, situations vacant, &c. Letters, books and catalogues for review, &c., may be addressed either to the Secretaries direct, or to the Editor, care of Messrs. TRÜBNER & Co., 57 and 59, Ludgate Hill, E.C.

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These Notes" are not intended in any way to rival the Library Journal but only to serve as a ready means of communication among members in this country. The "Journal" has much wider scope, and English librarians owe so much already to the spirit and enterprise of its conductors that the Council trust members will think it their duty to support that valuable professional organ to the best of their power.

Members are reminded that, besides the usual meetings on the first Friday of each month, there are meetings on each third Friday, for the consideration of the special subjects of a General Catalogue

of English Literature, and Cataloguing Rules including Size Notation.

At the meeting on February 6, the following papers will be read: 1. "Some points to be considered in preparing Catalogues of Transactions and Periodicals," by Mr. J. B. BAILEY. 2. "Dr. Priestley and his relation to Proprietary Libraries," by Mr. R. HARRISON.

JANUARY MONTHLY MEETING.

THE third Monthly Meeting of the third year of the Association was held at the London Institution on January 2, 1880, at 8 p.m., Mr. ROBERT HARRISON, Treasurer, in the chair.

The minutes of the previous meeting having been read and confirmed, the Chairman called on one of the Secretaries to read a paper by Mr. W. E. A. AXON, on

THE FUNCTIONS OF A NATIONAL LIBRARY, IN REPLY TO MR. W. P. COURTNEY'S ARTICLE IN THE "FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW."

Mr. AxON objected to the proposal to open branch libraries in London, that it would be to supply the local needs of the metropolis at the expense of the nation, and urged the establishment of local libraries at the expense of the localities, remarking on the inconvenience that would be caused if a person who came from the country to consult a scarce work at the Museum were to find that it had been removed to Bethnal Green. If the library was to be more than it is now the library of the nation, there should be an extension of the time in which it was open, and its use might be increased by correspondence. He also noticed the improvements recently introduced, and the intended publication of a list of accessions, suggested by a memorial of the Manchester Literary Club in 1875; concluding with the remark that the British Museum is great, not because it stands in Bloomsbury, but because it is the national library of a great people.

Mr. TEDDER wished to know in what way the use of the British Museum is to be increased by correspondence, and asked whether the officials were to be pestered with correspondence on all subjects. -Mr. GARNETT said that they already had a good deal of correspondence at the British Museum, and if it were much increased it would be necessary to have a correspondence department.—Mr. OVERALL mentioned a letter that he had received, asking him to send the books by bearer, as the writer was unable to come to the library to consult them.-Mr. HARRISON on one occasion had received a letter asking if the " Adventures of Purley" was an interesting book!-Mr. WILLIAM BLADES then read his paper on

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BOOKS AND THEIR SIZE NOTATION. Mr. BLADES said: I feel some diffidence in coming before you this evening, because you, as librarians, with a daily experience of books in their various aspects and public uses, must be much more familiar with the difficulties of cataloguing all varieties of sizes, as well as

It

with the actual needs of a public library, than myself. At the same time, a MAKER of books may be supposed sometimes to be more conversant with certain technical peculiarities than the custodian. There are, too, always side branches to every subject-in bibliography they are numerous-and if, by the pursuing only of one of these, you should think that I have thrown any light upon the librarian's method of working, especially in cataloguing his old books, I shall feel highly gratified. The doctrines of Development and the Survival of the Fittest have thrown floods of light upon many departments of natural history, and, I believe, may be usefully applied to the study of bibliography. The penny steamprinted volumes of to-day, although differing in all points from the vellum MSS. of the middle ages, are the lineal descendants from them, and only parted with their family likeness by degrees. may not be a useless task just to note one or two early developments of the printed sheet, as they serve to explain apparent anomalies of signature in old books. At the time when Gutenberg was working out his typographical ideas in Mayence, the demand for books had increased so much that the manufacture of manuscripts had become an important branch of commerce, being carried on by communities of Book-makers, chiefly in Paris and Bruges. In commencing a new book the first thing was to obtain the requisite quantity of vellum from the parchementier, the sheets being of one size and thickness. The sheets were then all folded in half and put quirewise in sections of four, five, or six each, according to the size of the book. Each section was then signed at the very bottom of the first recto of each sheet before beginning to write; then, if the section had four sheets, there would be eight leaves, and the first four were signed respectively aj, aij, aiij, aiiij. The reason for signing first was to assist the manuscript writer, who used the sheets singly as he wrote, and required a plain clue to their sequence. To the binder it was simply a necessity, for he depended upon them, and them only, for the sequence of the sheets. When he had checked their proper succession and found all right, he bound the book, ploughing off the MS. signatures, which on that account are nearly always wanting in MSS. In some cases, however, these signatures may still be seen, either whole or partly cut away. The first printers were under the same necessity as the scribes, and it is interesting to note how, in the infancy of the art, they pursued the same plan, not only of cutting up their paper if they had to print a less size than folio, just as the scribe cut his vellum, but that they, too, signed every sheet in MS. at the very bottom, just as their predecessors the scribes had done. In the celebrated sale of the Perkins' Library there was an uncut copy of the "Mazarine Bible" so signed; and in the Royal Library, Windsor, is "Le Recueil des Histoires de Troye," where every sheet has a MS. signature at the very foot of the first recto. Here is a book printed about 1470, at Cologne, entitled "Eusebius de morte sancti Jeronimi," and you will see that each section is signed in manuscript, and that several have

been cut away by the binder. It was not long, however, before the printers determined to rid themselves of that trouble by adopting the easy though ugly plan of printing the signatures at the same time as the text, and placing them immediately under the bottom line. The changed position was a matter of technical convenience, as a signature standing alone at a distance from the text would be sure to break off. What I wish to impress upon you is that signatures in some shape were necessary. The notion that books were bound without signatures is a bibliographical delusion and historically erroneous. The dates given by some writers for the first use of signatures can only apply to the period when printed signatures superseded those written by hand. The scribes had (so far as I can learn) no names for the different sizes of their vellum books. Various catalogues of great libraries in the 14th and 15th centuries have come down to us, but although the MSS. are carefully described as to the character of the writing, the illuminations and bindings, yet no sizes are affixed. In some cases, however, an approach to size is made where a great "History of the World" is called " un grand livre" and a small Horse "un petit livre." When, however, the demand for books had given a great impetus to the paper-makers, and when, just before the invention of printing, the more common books were written upon paper, then for the first time the sub-division of sheets into 4to, 8vo, or 16mo, came into use. As with vellum so with paper, the scribes cutting up the material of both to size before using it. And as with the scribes so with the early printers, who also cut up their sheets first if they printed smaller than folio. Soon, however, a development took place in the direction of cheapness, and the printers devised a plan of printing four 4to pages at a time instead of two, by making a double pull-that is, by printing two pages by the first pull, and then, without lifting the tympan, rolling the table further in and pulling the other two. This developed a form of signature which has been a trial to a good many bibliographers, who have puzzled themselves when finding a 4to volume signed on the first and third rectos only. When this occurs, which is but seldom, it is evidence that the sheets were printed whole and so arranged that, when folded, one sheet should quire within the other; thus making for a 4to, eight leaves, but with the first recto only of each sheet signed. Take two sheets and fold in 4to, and sign the first recto of each, and you obtain naturally a signature on the 1st and 3rd rectos, quite sufficient as a guide to the binder. The plan, however, most commonly adopted was to sign every recto as far as the centre of the quire, and to leave the other rectos unsigned. When, as in the infancy of the art, the printer cut up his paper, before printing, to 4to or 8vo, and then printed only two pages at a time, this was necessary; but a custom once established has great vitality, and so for a long time the same method of signing was retained, even though, the eight leaves being all part of one sheet and printed at the same time, this excess of signing was un

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