xii.] A LIBRARIAN'S WORK. 265 



at once, and when this has been done the long card 

 is ready to take its place in the catalogue. 



In this account of the career of a book, from its 

 reception to the time when it is duly entered on all 

 the catalogues, we find some explanation of the way 

 in which a librarian employs his time. For while 

 the work of cataloguing is done almost entirely by 

 assistants, yet unless every detail of it passes under 

 the librarian's eye there is no adequate security for 

 systematic unity in the results. The librarian must 

 not indeed spend his time in proof-reading or in 

 verifying authors' names ; it is essential that there 

 should be some assistants who can be depended 

 upon for absolute accuracy in such matters. Never- 

 theless, the complexity of the questions involved 

 requires that appeal should often be made to him, 

 and that he should always review the work, for the 

 correctness of which he is ultimately responsible. 

 As for the designation of the proper entry on 

 the subject-catalogue, the cases are rare in which 

 this can be entrusted to any assistant. To classify 

 the subject-matter of a book is not always in 

 itself easy, even when the reference is only to 

 general principles of classifications ; but a subject- 

 catalogue, when once in existence, affords a vast 

 mass of precedents which, while they may lighten the 



