Page:The small library. A guide to the collection and care of books (IA smalllibraryguid00browiala).pdf/100

 cataloguing err on the side of allowing too many exceptions and alternatives to the general principle of particular rules, and this weakness is discussed in the Manual of Practical Bibliography, pp 47-57, by the present writer. Rules for promoting uniformity of method should not permit of exceptions of any kind, and the person applying them should not be allowed discretionary power to catalogue a book under a heading which strikes him as being preferable to some other form which is also allowed by the code. Such a rule as that which enjoins the use of an author's best-known name is simply ridiculous when critically examined. The rules attached to this chapter are just as necessary for small as for large libraries, and they have the advantage of being brief, compact and rigid. They also claim to be based upon the reasonable and natural principle of regarding family or blood names as the most accurate and proper for cataloguing purposes, especially as they agree with the headings used in most good biographical dictionaries. One of the most surprising anomalies in connexion with library cataloguing is the persistency with which certain librarians cling to the plan of entering living authors under pseudonyms, while ignoring entirely those of older writers. Although it is notorious that Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel L. Clemens, and that baptismal name is printed on all his recent title-pages, there are hundreds of cataloguers who insist upon using Twain as the chief entry, instead of Clemens, with a bare reference from Twain. Yet these same gentlemen will