304 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



of articles in serial publications. The card catalogue, however, in a 

 library like that of the Forest Service, which indexes the various for- 

 estry articles contained in its periodicals and serials separately, brings 

 together everything the library has to offer on a given topic. 



As to Mr. Korstian's suggestion of applying his scheme to a card 

 catalogue, he probably has in mind the classed catalogue still in use 

 in some libraries, where the cards are arranged in the drawers by 

 classes rather than alphabetically. Mr. Korstian's subjects might be 

 converted to the use of a dictionary catalogue, however, by rearranging 

 them alphabetically and perhaps changing the wording of some of them 

 so that they would fit into a dictionary arrangement. 



In the Forest Service library, the classification scheme used is the 

 one prepared by the main library of the Department of Agriculture, 

 especially for a collection of books on agricultural and related subjects. 

 Within the last few years this scheme has been expanded in some parts, 

 forestry being one of the branches subdivided. There are now 27 

 main forestry classes, and perhaps 80 subclasses, which are found to 

 be ample for the needs of the library and probably will be for some 

 years to come. The subject headings used in the card catalogue, how- 

 ever, number several thousand, and this number is being added to all 

 the time. 



By Mary A. Biver, Librarian, Yale School of Forestry 



The article by Mr. Clarence F. Korstian on this subject, in the April 

 number of the Journal, is a very suggestive and valuable one; but 

 the writer feels that there is still room for discussion of the proposed 

 scheme and that to adopt it as it stands would be, in some respects, 

 a mistake. On that account these remarks are presented, hoping that 

 the matter may be further discussed, either in the pages of the Journal 

 or in a committee of the Society of American Foresters. 



It is quite true, as Mr. Korstian says, that the classification sug- 

 gested by the Yale Forest 'School in its Bulletin No. i is not detailed 

 enough for the specialist, nor was it intended to be. But it is capable 

 of expansion and has seen some service, at least in our own library, and 

 therefore some criticisms of his scheme suggested by experience with 

 ours may not be useless. These criticisms will, however, refer almost 

 entirely to the classifying of books and pamphlets on the shelves of 

 a library. Mr. Korstian claims that his scheme will work equally well 

 for this or for cards in a catalogue or clippings in a file, etc., but as 

 the requirements are somewhat dififerent, the claim may need further 

 examination. 



I suppose it goes without saying that the main purpose of any library 



