524 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SCIENTIFIC HEADING IN A PUBLIC LIBEARY. 



By ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, 



CHIEF OF CIRCULATING DEPARTMENT, NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY. 



PUBLIC libraries usually divide their circulation into ten or a dozen 

 broad classes and so report it. This division is interesting, 

 but a subdivision of each class would be still more so. For instance 

 the scientific man is interested to know that a given library circulates 

 four per cent, of science, but he would be still more interested to know 

 exactly what is included in 'science' and how much of the circulation 

 is to be credited to each subclass. Those libraries that use the decimal 

 classification of Melvil Dewey, which has been so generally adopted in 

 this country, often report together as 'science' the classes 300 

 (sociology), 400 (philology) and 500 (natural science) and they ex- 

 clude the applications of the last-named sciences, which are placed 

 under useful arts. It is evident that in order to mean anything, a 

 report of circulation should be more closely subdivided. This is true 

 of many other classes, of course, as well as of science. 



Percentage of Scientific Books Circulated by Various Public Libraries. 



Brooklyn 4.0 New York* 9.0' 



Buffalo 5.3 Philadelphia 5.9' 



Chicago (including Arts) 5.3 Pittsburgh 5.9 



Cleveland 8.4 Providence 7.6 



Los Angeles 11.5 Salem, Mass 3.3 



Newark 3.4 San Francisco 7.1 



And yet a public library cannot systematically classify its circu- 

 lation more closely than it does. To do so would involve a great 

 amount of labor which would be more profitably expended in other 

 directions. It is quite possible, however, to do this extra work for a 

 short period and in a single class of literature and the result, even if 

 partial and perhaps not typical, can not fail to interest those whose 

 studies and work lie in the particular line of literature that is under 

 investigation. Such a classification of the scientific circulation was 

 made for this purpose in all of the circulating branches of the New 

 York Public Library (11 in number at that time) during the month 

 of May, 1901, with the result shown in the accompanying table. For 

 purposes of comparison the circulation is accompanied by figures show- 

 ing the number of volumes in each subclass, in each branch library. 



* Percentage for the entire year. That given in the larger table is for one 

 month only. 



