Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/82

 yo The Library. which is at the rate of about thirteen shillings a volume. It may be mentioned in passing that the popular element in library work has been more recently supplied in Baltimore by the establishment of the Enoch Pratt Free Libraries. Happy the city which has had two such benefactors. The preparation of the catalogue was commenced in 1869. When the first volume was issued in 1883 the library contained 80,000 volumes. By the time the last was issued in 1892 that number had been increased to more than 100,000, an addition during the printing of the catalogue of more than 30,000 volumes. As all entries of new books were inserted in the part of the alphabet not reached at the date of their acquirement, it follows that the later volumes contain entries of many works which do not appear in their places in the earlier parts of the alphabet. These entries, together with those of new books still being added, will form a series of supplementary volumes on the same excellent lines, but, as one of the staff promises, with improve- ments. As now completed, the catalogue consists of five volumes in imperial octavo, containing together more than 5,000 pages, each in two columns. A rough calculation shows that on an average one of these large and closely-printed pages is devoted to the cataloguing of every twenty volumes. This fact alone is testimony to the very thorough way in which the contents of collective or miscellaneous volumes have been brought into view. The total number of references is 357,429, or about three and a half references to each volume. The general arrangement is alphabetical, all kinds of entries author, subject, or title being, as is usual, thrown into one alphabet. The entries under authors are full, and where necessary the contents are freely detailed ; under the titles there are abundant references, and at the various subject headings throughout the catalogue there will be found cited in many cases an array of authorities not often paralleled elsewhere. The principal periodicals are not set out ; that is to say, there is not under the title any list of the contents. But each article is indexed and inserted in its proper place in the general alphabet, under the appropriate subject word, and under the author's name where that is known. The entry includes a fairly full title of the article, the name of the periodical, the volume number and date of the appearance of the article, the page in the volume at which it occurs, and the number of pages it covers.