222 THE LIBRARY 



phrases written on palm-leaves by the last survivor of a band of 

 cannibals. The great abundance of modern production will render 

 ever more rare and more valuable ancient examples of the book, 

 just as the progress of industrialism has enhanced the value of work 

 produced by the hand of man. 



Thought as it develops is undergoing the same transformation 

 which has occurred in manual labor; mental work also has assumed 

 a certain mechanical character visible in formalism, in imitation, 

 in the influence of the school or of the surrounding. Industrialism 

 has made its way into science, literature, and art, giving rise to work 

 which is hybrid, mediocre, without any originality, and destined, 

 therefore, soon to perish. The parasites of thought flourish at the 

 expense of the greater talents, and they will constitute, alas, the 

 larger part of future bibliographical production. The greatest 

 difficulty of future librarians will be to recognize and classify these 

 hybrid productions, in choosing from among the great mass the few 

 books worthy of a place apart. 



The appraisal of literature which has already been discussed in books 

 and congresses will continue to increase in importance; and in this 

 work of discrimination we shall need the aid of critics to read for other 

 men and to light up the path for those who shall come after. " The 

 records of the best that has been thought and done in the world," 

 said George lies, " grow in volume and value every hour. Speed the 

 day when they may be hospitably proffered to every human soul, 

 the chaff winnowed from the wheat, the gold divided from the clay." 



One of the special characteristics of the library of the future will 

 be .cooperation and internationalism applied to the division of labor. 

 We may already see premonitory symptoms of this in the Catalogue 

 of Scientific Literature now being compiled by the Royal Society of 

 London, in the Concilium Bibliographicum of Zurich, in the Institut 

 de Bibliographic of Brussels, and in the Card Catalogue printed and 

 distributed by the Library of Congress at Washington. This co- 

 operation, however, will have to be more widely extended and must 

 assert itself not only by exchanges of -cards and of indices, but also 

 by means of the lending of books and manuscripts, of the repro- 

 duction of codices or of rare and precious works. The government 

 libraries of Italy are united under the same rules and correspond 

 with all institutions of public instruction and with several town and 

 provincial libraries, with free postage, so that books and manu- 

 scripts journey from one end to the other of the peninsula, from 

 Palermo to Venice, without any expense to those who use them, and 

 the different libraries of the state become, in this way, one single 

 library. And so the day will come when the libraries of Europe and 

 of America and of all the states in the Postal Union will form, as it 

 were, one single collection, and the old books, printed when America 



