Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/122

 findable that a more rigid system would tend to hide, but must, on the other hand, make it extremely difficult to assert, of a given anonymous book with a complicated title, that the Bodleian Library does not possess it. Appended is the direction : " If the name of a writer occur in a work but not on the title-page, the work is also to be regarded for the purpose of headings as anonymous, except in the case of works without separate title-page. This, however weak-kneed in point of theory, is practically superior to the British Museum system, under which a book apparently anonymous may have its author's name hidden away in the 'privilege,' or an acrostic. Books published under initials or a pseudonym are to be regarded as anonymous, but cross-references are to be given from such initials or pseudonym. Liturgical books are to be entered under the names by which they are commonly known in England, such as Prayer {Book of Common), Baptism {Order of), &c. No treatment is prescribed for the numerous liturgical works that have no specific name, such as the many hundreds of books to be found in the British Museum catalogue under Liturgies with the sub-sub-heading of Particular Services.

"Noblemen are to be entered under the title, except when the family name is better known, a cross-reference from the one to the other being made in every case." This rule substitutes occasional expediency for universal certainty, and takes no count of the rise and fall in popularity of the successive forms of an author's name.