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After the stereotyping of the Antiquarian Library, and the Library of 

 Congress, we should have perhaps eighty-five thousand stereotyped titles. 

 Of course the third institution adoptino; the plan would be likely to find a 

 very large number of its titles identical with those already stereotyped' 

 The amount saved by the use of titles already stereotyped would soon, 

 (perhaps in the third Library) be sufficient to counterbalance the extra 

 expenditure for stereotyping for that Library. At any rate, the extra 

 expense would be a quantity constantly and rapidly diminishing, and it 

 would soon (certainly after the fourth or fifth large Library) vanish entirely. 

 The Smithsonian Listitution would not therefore be required to assume the 

 charge of an enterprise which might involve it in great and increasing 

 expense, but rather, and solely, to lielp put in operation, and to guide a 

 system which \yil\ almost immediately pay its own way, and will soon 

 save enormous sums of money to our pul)lic libraries. 



That the ago-regafe economy of this iilan would be very great, may be 

 seen from the following statement : 



We have in our library fifteen thousand pages, mostly in octavo, of cata- 

 logues of public libraries in the United States. These contain at least four 

 hundred and fifty thousand titles. But according to the best estimate which 

 I can malce from a comparison of these catalogues, there are among them, 

 not more than one hundred and fifty thousand different titles. Two-thirds 

 then of the whole cost of printing the catalogues the first time, might have 

 been saved by assuming the extra expersa of stereotyping the remaining third. 



I have put thus prominently forward the economy to be expected from 

 the proposed enterprise, not because this, in my estimation, is the most 

 ])Owerful argument in fiivor of it ; nor because I should entirely despair 

 of its adoption were it not advantageous in a pecuniary point of view ; 

 but because, even if there were no other reasons for it, (provided there 

 were none against it,) the fact of its great economy w-ould be decisive ; 

 and because in the present poverty of our institutions of learning, and in 

 the vast number of plans for the extension of their usefulness, which present 

 themselves for consideration, and claim approval, this might stand a 

 much smaller chance of success if it rested entirely upon other grounds 

 than the saving of money. 



Having now, however, shown its economy when employed by a single 

 Library, and its great economy in connection with a general system, I 

 ])roceed to suggest a few, among the many benefits to the cause of 

 Knowledge, which this i)lan ]iromises, if generally adoped. 



It can hardly be necsssary for me to dwell at length upon the benefits to 

 be expected from a general printed catalogue of all books in the public 

 Libraries of America. By means of it, every student in America would 

 have the means of knowing the full extent of his resources for investi- 

 gation. The places where the book could be found, would be indicated 

 in the catalogue. A correspondence would be kept up between this Insti- 

 tution ami every other library in the country. A system of exchange and 

 of general loans mio-ht, with certain stringent conditions, be established, 

 so that all the literary treasures of the country would be measurably ac- 

 cessible to every scholar. When the loan of a book would be impos- 

 sible, extracts could be copied, quotations verified, and researches made, 

 through the intervention of this Institution, which would in many cases 

 be nearly as valuable to the student as the personal examination of the 

 book. 



