Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/137

 indicated by 0.27, which would of course have been found at once by looking under the heading Libraries in the general index. The geographical number for limiting the heading Libraries to the geographical division Venice is ingeniously obtained from the main heading "History," of which the subdivisions are necessarily geographical, by suppressing the characteristic first figure 9, the mark of History. Thus Venetian History is 945.3 ; the "geographical number" for Venice will be 453, and this added to the figures denoting Libraries will give 027.0453, the figures for "Venetian Libraries." The cypher following the decimal point is intended to show that no subdivision according to kinds of libtraries takes place, the new principle of geographical subdivision being introduced.

The two characteristics of the system on which the contriver lays special stress are the index and the system of notation, both of which he believes to be novel. The index, it must be admitted, is a most valuable adjunct to a classified catalogue, since the position of many subjects in a general scheme of human knowledge is sure to be arbitrary. Mr. Dewey's classification, where, by his own admission, much is sacrificed in order to secure the continual subdivisions into tens, stands in especial need of one. It would be of little use, we should think, to the educated reader as soon as he had grasped the general arrangement of the catalogue before him, but to the ill-informed it would be a continual benefit. We are not able to say how large a library