[Burpre] MODERN PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THEIR METHODS 31 
Mr. C. A. Cutter devised some years ago a system which he calls 
the Expansive Classification. Briefly it consists of seven tables of classi- 
fication, of progressive fulness, designed to meet the needs of a library 
at its successive stages of growth, and so arranged that the transfer from 
one classification to a closer or more minute one, can be made with com- 
paratively little trouble. The main classes are: General Works, Phil- 
osophy, Religion, Biography, History, Geography and Travels, Social 
Sciences, Natural Sciences, Medicine, Useful Arts, Fine Arts, Arts of 
Communication by Language. Fiction, Poetry, etc., are included in 
the last section. 
From the point of view of the practical librarian, catalogues are 
subject to still another division. In addition to the classes of catalogues 
which are open to the public, and with which we are all familiar, there 
are several which belong to the internal economy of the library, and are 
used only by the staff. 
The first of these is the Accession Catalogue, in which the history 
of every book acquired either by purchase or gift, is recorded; when it 
was acquired, its accession number, its class, book and volume number, 
a short title, place and date of publication, size, binding, cost, etc., with 
a remarks column in which is noted its subsequent history, whether it 
is rebound, transferred, lost, sold, condemned or exchanged. 
The index is the official authors’ catalogue, for use by the librarians 
in checking the public authors’ catalogue, which is prepared from it. 
The shelf list is the official subject catalogue. It represents the actual 
arrangement of the books on the shelves. It is generally on loose 
sheets, laced together, and gives the class, book and volume number of 
each volume, together with its accession number, author, and short title. 
It is used in the annual examination of the library, and also serves as 
the librarian’s subject catalogue, giving a compact list of all the books 
which the library has on any given subject. 
The greatest of all catalogues is, of course, the Catalogue of Printed 
Books in the British Museum, the printing of which was begun in 1880 
and completed by the end of the century. The catalogue contains 
separate entries of every book, pamphlet, magazine, newspaper and 
broadside or single-sheet in the library, with the exception of a few 
collections of books and pamphlets which are covered by special 
catalogues. . 
Up to 1897 the British Museum was the only library of the first rank 
that had printed its general catalogue, either by author or subject. In 
August of that year there appeared the first volume of the general alpha- 
betical catalogue of the Bibliothéque Nationale. The catalogue is 
preceded by a learned introduction by M. Léopold Delisle, giving the 
history of the library and its various catalogues, and describing the 
