Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/100

76 colours, and overdues are roughly indicated by them. The readers' tickets for books issued during any given period, say, a fortnight, have, for example, a red end to the front, and those issued during the next fortnight a black end. On the last day of the second fortnight a list is made of the books showing the red end, which will be all overdue, and in a fortnight's time a similar process is gone through for the black-edged tickets.

It will be noted in this description that the whole of the process of issue must be finished for each book as it is issued. The entries on the reader's ticket must be made at the moment of issue, and the ticket placed in the indicator to show to other readers that the book is not available. At busy times, in libraries where there is but a small staff, this causes some delay, and in the rush and hurry it may happen that a ticket is occasionally placed on the wrong tin shelf of the indicator, an error which causes much annoyance both to the reader who returns the book, and whose ticket cannot be found, and to other readers who may ask for the book which is out, but which by the displacement of the ticket is shown to be in.

The "Cotgreave" Indicator (Fig. 26) was invented some twenty years ago by Mr. A. Cotgreave, now of the West Ham libraries, and is that in use in the majority of the British free libraries. It consists of a metal frame with narrow wood uprights 1¼ inches apart, the shelves connecting them at a distance of ⅜ of an inch from each other. On