xii.] A LIBRARIAN'S WORK. 271 



or three duplicates. One per cent, is perhaps not an 

 extravagant allowance to make for human perversity, 

 in any of the affairs of life in which the ideal standard 

 is that of complete intelligence and efficiency. 



The danger of buying a duplicate because a 

 card-title does not happen to be in its place is one 

 illustration of the practical inconvenience of card- 

 catalogues. The experience of the past fifty years 

 has shown that on the whole such catalogues are far 

 better than the old ones which they have superseded ; 

 but they have their shortcomings nevertheless, and 

 here we have incidentally hit upon one of them. 

 Besides this, a card-catalogue, even when constructed 

 with all the ingenuity that is displayed in our own, 

 is very much harder to consult than a catalogue 

 that is printed in a volume. On a printed page 

 you can glance at twenty titles at once, whereas in 

 a drawer of cards you must plod through the 

 titles one by one. Moreover, a card-catalogue 

 occupies an enormous space. Professor Abbot's twin 

 catalogue of authors and subjects, begun fourteen 

 years ago, is already fifty-one feet in length, and 

 contains three hundred and thirty-six drawers ! 

 During the past six weeks some four thousand cards 

 have been added to it. What will its dimensions be 

 a century hence, when our books will probably have 



