A Librarian s Work. 357 



ally printed in capitals throughout. Our own 

 practice is to follow in capitalizing the usage of 

 the language in which the title is written ; but 

 many libraries adopt the much simpler rule of re 

 jecting capitals altogether except in the case of 

 proper names, and this I believe to be practically 

 the better because the easier method, 1 though the 

 result may not seem quite so elegant. 



After the transcription of the entire title, the 

 number of volumes, or other divisions of the 

 book, is set down ; and next in order follows the 

 &quot; imprint,&quot; or designation of the place and date 

 of publication. Finally, the size of the book 

 (whether folio, or quarto, octavo, etc.) is desig 

 nated, after an examination of the &quot; signature 

 marks ; &quot; the number of pages (if less than one 

 hundred or more than six hundred) is stated ; 2 

 plates, woodcuts, maps, plans, diagrams, photo 

 graphs, etc., are counted and described in general 

 terms. Any peculiarities relating not to the edi 

 tion, but to the particular copy catalogued, are 



1 Since this article was written, I have adopted the simpler rule, 

 applying the French system of capitalization to all languages, with 

 the sole concession to our English prejudices of capitalizing proper ad 

 jectives in English titles. Much time is thereby saved, and much ut 

 terly useless vexation avoided. 



2 In order to point out books, of an exceptionally large or small 

 size. I oelieve, however, it would be better to state the number of 

 pages in every case. 



