- About Bookbinding -

SOME THOUGHTS ON CLASSIFICATION.
By Ubrarian F. M. Crullden.

Classification is vexation,
Shelf-numbering is as bad;
The rule of D
Doth puzzle me;
Mnemonics drives me mad,
Air-The Lord Chancellur's Song,
When first I became a librarian,
Says I to myself, says I,
I'll learn all their systems as fast as I can,
Says I to myself, says I;
The Cutter, the Dewey, the Schwartz, and the Poole,
The alphabet, numeral, mnemonic rule,
The old, and the new, and the eclectic school,
Says I to myself, says I,
Class-numbers, shelf-numbers, book-numbers, too,
Says I to myself, says I,
I'll study them all, and I'll learn them clear thro',
Says I to myself, says I;
I'll find what is good, and what's better and best,
And I'll put two or three to a practical test;
And then-if I've time-I'll take a short rest,
Says I to myself, says I.
But art it is long and time it doth fly,
Says I to myself, says I,
And three or four years have already passed by,
Says I to myself, says I;
And yet on those systems I'm not at ail clear,
While new combinations forever appear,
To master them all is a life-work, I fear,
Says I to myself, says I.

Classification in a Library in Western New York: Gail Hamilton's "Woolgathering," under Agriculture.

Book asked for. "An attack philosopher in Paris." A changed title. A young woman went into a library the other day and asked for the novel entitled "She combeth not her head," but she finally concluded to take "He cometh not, she said."

Labor-saving devices. The economical catalogue-maker who thus set down two titles -
"Mill on the Floss,"
do. Political economy."
has a sister who keeps a universal scrap-book into which everything goes, but which is carefully indexed. She, too, has a mind for saving, as witness:
"Patti, Adelina.
do. Oyster."

From a New York auction catalogue:
"267. Junius Stat Nominis Umbrii, with numerous splendid portraits."

At the New York Free Circulating Library, a youth of twenty said Shakespeare made him tired. "Why couldn't he write English instead of indulging in that thee and thou business?" Miss Braddon he pronounced "a daisy". A pretty little blue-eyed fellow "liked American history best of all," but found the first volume of Justin Winsor's history too much for him. "The French and German and Hebrew in it are all right, but there's Spanish and Italian and Latin, and I don't know those."

A gentleman in Paris sent to the bookbinder two volumes of the French edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The title in French is "L'Oncle Tom," and the two volumes were returned to him marked on their backs:
L’Oncle, L’Oncle,
Tome I. Tome II

Back