280 The Smithsonian Institution 



Mr. George Watson Cole * says : 



"We shall come back to Professor Jewett's ideas upon 

 these points as being in all respects the most satisfactory. 

 The recent revival of his method of printing by separate 

 stereotyped titles, by the Publishers Weekly, attests the 

 soundness of his judgment." 



The experiments with materials continued, the plan receiv- 

 ing the heartiest support and approval, both on the part of 

 the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and the Board 

 of Regents. Inasmuch as the Institution had not then a suffi- 

 ciently large library on which an experiment could be made, 

 it was decided that it would be advisable to attempt to pub- 

 lish a catalogue of the Library of Congress upon this plan, 

 and the Secretary and the Regents called the attention of the 

 Library Committee of Congress to the matter. Congress 

 promptly appropriated $3,000 to begin the preparation of a 

 catalogue of its library on the plan proposed by Professor 

 Jewett. The work was immediately begun, and in 1853 

 Professor Jewett reported that upwards of 6,000 volumes had 

 already been catalogued. 



It has frequently been asked what became of this plan. 

 No better description has ever been given of the causes of 

 its failure than that of Doctor Poole before the American 

 Library Association in 1886. He said: 



"The material he [Jewett] used was a sort of clay from 

 Indiana. Congress made an appropriation for executing the 

 plan. I recollect that the librarians of the country generally 

 favored it, and that I did not. I remember that I spoke of it 

 at the time as ' Professor Jewett's mud catalogue.' My views 

 concerning it were based on some practical knowledge of 

 legitimate typography, and from specimens of the work which 



1 " The Future of Cataloguing," The Library Journal, Volume xv, 1890, page 174. 



