xii.] A LIBRARIAN'S WORK. 239 



time, throughout the year ; large boxes of pamphlets, 

 newspapers, broadsides, trade-catalogues, and all 

 manner of woful rubbish (the refuse of private libra- 

 ries and households) are sent in from time to time ; 

 and books from Europe arrive every few weeks in 

 lots of from fifty to three or four hundred. It is in 

 the case of foreign books that our process is most 

 thoroughly systematised, and here let us take up our 

 illustrative example. 



When a box containing three or four hundred 

 foreign books has been unpacked, the volumes are 

 placed, backs uppermost, on large tables, and are 

 then looked over by the principal assistant, with two 

 or three subordinates, to ascertain if the books at 

 hand correspond with those charged in the invoice. 

 As the titles are read from the invoice, the volumes 

 are hunted out and arranged side by side in the order 

 in which their titles are read, while the entry on the 

 invoice is checked in the margin with a pencil. 

 These pencil-checks are afterwards copied into the 

 margins of the book in which our lists of foreign 

 orders are registered, so that we may always be able 

 to determine, by a reference to this book, whether 

 any particular work has been received or not. This 

 order-book, with its marginal checks, is the only im- 

 mediate specific register of accessions kept by us, as 



