LIBRARIES 



LIBRARIES 



HI 



of UN atriM of a Catalan*, it > easiest answered by 



pliahw copies of them under several divisions. 



* TbTnMUtod of arranging book* in a library hai also been the 

 object of much consideration. Great importance has been attached 

 to th opinion, of Delia SanU, a Florentine, who gained a reputation 

 by UK. original idea* which he promulgated in 1810 in an ingeniout 

 pamphlet on the subject of libraries. Delia Santa wa* the tint to 

 attack with force of argument the old and favourite notion that it was 

 necessary to accommodate a library, like a picture gallery, with a 

 suite of elegant apartment* fit to be shown to strangers ; and he pro- 

 n otad jnilrt-t that a collection of book* ahould be packed aa closely at 

 passible in the mo*t convenient proximity attainable to a reading- 

 room, to which alone any attention need be given for mere appearance. 

 He abw maintained the proposition that the attempt to arrange book* 

 in any kind of scientific order wai a "mockery, a delusion, and 



snare," and certain to lead to nothing but confusion. Hi* doctrine 

 WM that it did not matter in the slightest degree where a book 

 was placed provided it could be found on the instant by means of 

 its prMt-mark, and that all scientific arrangement should be reserved 

 for ilio catalogues. The same views have been advanced in a pamphlet 



!i French and Russian, by M. Sobolshchikov, one of the Uhranaul 

 Petersburg, published in 1859 ; and it appears that the library 

 of St. Petersburg is arranged, if it may be so called, on this principle of 

 non-arrangement. The books are placed on the shelves without any 

 attempt to class them, and the press-mark is all in all. It has been 

 already explained in another article of this Cyclopaedia [BRITISH 

 Mi'sti M], that there the attempt to class the library has been made, and 

 Is considered to have succeeded. Certain it is that while the books are, 

 by nxans of the press-marks, found by the attendants without any 

 difficulty, the different rlisnrn of books are kept together in scientific 

 order, and that as fast as fresh books on any subject come in, iu any 

 quantity, they are placed aide by side with their predecessors of the 

 same class. The method which is adopted is to have presses or book- 

 case* of equal size, so that the books in one can be shifted when 

 required into another, and to have the number-marks of the presses 

 loose and renioveable, so that when the books are shifted, the number- 

 mark may be removed with them. Thus the books on chess will 

 constantly stand in press 7915, though press 7915 may at one period 

 stand in the north-east wing, and at auother period in the south-west. 

 The numbers of the presses are inconsecutive, so that though the presses 

 always stand in the order of sequence, the opportunity is left of 

 inserting between any two of them such additional presses with appro- 

 priate numbers as the increase of the library may render requisite. 

 At Berlin, the same freedom of movement and fixedness of marks are 

 aimed at by a different method ; instead of the presses it is the books 

 which are numbered with inconsecutive numbers, a plan which is 

 followed at the Museum, in marking the periodical publication*, but 

 is found to present many inconveniences which are avoided by the 

 other system. When applied to single books it certainly imposes 

 much more trouble on the librarians, and does not lessen the labour 

 of the attendants who have to find the books by the press-mark. A 

 favourite system in Munich, and many of the continental libraries, is 

 to divide all the books into about forty different sections, such as 

 Ancient History, Jurisprudence, ic., denoted by the letters of the 

 alphabet, single and double, to take the books of each class according 

 to their sizes, folio, quarto, and octavo, or under, and to arrange 

 them in alphabetical order according to the authors' names or other 

 headings. Thus, if a ' Lingard's England ' be wanted in quarto, the 

 librarian goes to the range of quarto* in the division History, and 

 finds it in it* alphabetical order under the latter L. In such an 

 arrangement volume* with authors' names may be found even with- 

 out the aid of a press-mark and a catalogue; but in the London 

 Institution in Finsbury Circus, which is mainly arranged on this prin- 

 ciple, it was thought some year* ago that press-marks might be 

 usefully added. 



One of the great differences in the management of libraries consists 

 in the regulations of admission. In foreign public libraries in general 

 admission is given at stated times to all who present themselves, subject 

 to certain rules a* to age, dress, and demeanour; in the Chetham 

 library, at Manchester, and in the " Free Libraries" which have been 

 recently established in England, the rule is the same; but in other 

 English institutions, and even at the British Museum, admission is 

 more restricted. At the Museum it is necessary, in order to procure a 

 reading-ticket, to apply for it in writing to the principal librarian, and 

 to send in conjunction with the application a letter of recommendation 

 from a householder. Practically a ticket of admission has for many 

 years past been in the reach of almost every one who chose to take the 

 trouble of applying for it, but some complaints have been made of the 

 UlibcralHy of requiring any ticket at all Several years ago, in 1836, a 

 suggestion was made by a writer who is now an officer of the Museum, 

 that two distinct reading-rooms should be provided, one open to the 

 public in general, like the galleries of Antiquities and Natural History, 

 til* other as before for readers who bad received a ticket from the 

 principal librarian. The public reading-room was to be p: 

 with a separate catalogue, to contain every work of use and informa- 

 tion, but nt work* of exceptional value. All those who entered it 

 would thus have scons, for instance, to several good editions of the 

 works of Shaksper*, but not to the early quarto* of his separate plays, 



which are often worth more than their weight in gold. The readers 

 with ticket* in the special reading-room would have the same catalogues 

 as at present, and would, as now, be able to have anything they pleased. 

 This plan of two distinct reading-rooms for one library hai never been 

 entertained in England, but it was proposed in 1858 in France, by M. 

 Prosper MtSrimeV, in a report on the imperial library iu Paris, and 

 adopted forthwith >>y the Emperor, who gave orders that it should !. 

 carried into effect in the new buildings for that library now in course 

 of erection. The complaint at Paris had been precisely the reverse of 

 that at London. It was, that by indiscriminate admission of the 

 population of Paris it was found that those who wished really to study 

 were placed at a disadvantage ihat tho tables of the reading-room 

 were often occupied in winter by those who came merely for the sake 

 of warmth, and tome of whom might be seen holding a book in tin ir 

 hands bottom upwards. The universally open reading-room would be 

 the novelty at London, the select reading-room will be the novelty at 

 Paris at least as a "part of the regulations, for we can report from 

 personal observation in 1840, that at that time little knots of select 

 readers were admitted to a librarian's table in an inner room. I 

 be observed that, with all restrictions, gome classes of readers are more 

 numerously represented at London than at Paris. There are nirc 

 ladies, in proportion, in the Museum reading-room, where there are 

 two tables provided for their exclusive accommodation, and \\ln , 

 are also at liberty to take their seats at auy other table. At tl. 

 public library at Boston, in Massachusetts, attention to the fair sex has 

 been carried still further, as a separate room is provided for them with a 

 hundred seats, while the reading-room for the gentlemen has no more 

 than twice as many. 



There has been occasional discussion for many years past in I. 

 respecting the advantages of an evening reading-room at the Mi: 



eiiing being undoubtedly the time at which the other literary 

 institutions of London are most frequented. The main objection 

 to it appears to be the risk of conflagration, and it was suggested 

 that the evening reading-room should be in a building entirely separated 

 fniiii the main body of the library, except by a narrow well j; 

 fireproof passage, easily to be cut off from communication in case of 

 fire. In the magnificent reading-room in the centre of the Museum, 

 which has since been erected at Mr. Panizzi's suggestion, the light of 

 diy is admitted by a range of twenty lofty windows, through wi 

 necessary the light of gas might be admitted at night, the gas being 

 in standards outside, and at some distance from the building. A 

 the question has been solved without these precautions. The library 

 of St. Uihidvieve, at Paris, which was rebuilt in 1851, was constructed 

 with an express view to the employment of gas, and the magi, 

 room which contains it, one of the finest library rooms in the world, iu 

 now open in the evening throughout the year. At the library of St. 

 Petersburg the hours have also been extended from ten in the morning 

 to nine in the evening all the year round. In high northern latitudes, 

 to exclude the use of light and fire, as is done in many < f the 

 libraries of Italy, would bo to limit most materially the utility of such 

 institutions; some alteration in that respect is demanded by tho 

 climate ; but it seems surprising that, with the great calamity of the 

 conflagration of the Winter Palace before them, the authorities at St. 

 Petersburg should be bold enough to risk the destruction of their 

 immense repository of literature by unnecessary daring. A separate 

 reading-room for the time of artificial light would afford an additional 

 security which it would surely be no idle precaution to take. 



The question if books should be lent out from great public libraries 

 is generally decided differently in foreign countries and in England. 

 It is perhaps a consequence of this that " circulating libraries" in their 

 modern sense that is, shops in which books are lent for hire are, 

 apparently, an English, or rather a Scotti h, invention. In their larger 

 sense they may be traced as far back as the days of St. Jerome, iu the 4th 

 century. St. Jerome expressly mentions that St. Pamphilus, presbyter 

 of Cicsarca, who died A.D. SOU, made a collection of books amounting to 

 30,000 volumes, chiefly of a religious character, with ti 

 lending them out to religiously disposed people to read. " This," says 

 Dr. Adam Clarke, " is, if I mistake not, the first notice wo have of a 

 circulating library." There are, however, some traces in Aulus (iellius 

 tliat it was permitted to borrow books from the public libraries ; though 

 probably the usage of having libraries at the public baths, where so 

 many of the people spent their time, and the habit of living in public 

 common among the ancient as well as modern nations of the south . 

 it far from a prevalent practice to borrow books to read at home. In the 

 middle ages there are frequent traces in the history of the universities 

 of Bologna and Paris that it was customary for booksellers to lend books 

 for hire to the students, who would otherwise have hardly been able 

 to obtain the requisite number for study. In Busch's ' Uandbuch der 

 Erfindungen,' circulating libraries are said to have been originally 

 invented by Or. Franklin, when a journeyman printer at Bom 

 1 720. In 1 7-". Fi anklin was a boy of fourteen, and the institution that 

 is meant is doubtless the subscription library established by him at 

 Philadelphia iu 17"1, which in generally considered as the < 

 subscription library, but the invention of which is not unequivocally 

 claimed for Franklin in his Autobiography, though t: . h !," 



uses are consistent with that supposition. Tho first circulating library 

 in Urcat Britain is said in the ' Picture of London,' to have been begun 

 by Allan Kamsay at Edinburgh in 1725, the year in which he pub- 



