A Librarian's Work. 343 



alphabets, the old printed catalogue, the first 

 or printed supplement, the second or card supple- 

 ment, and the eight ugly folios of pamphlet titles. 

 These later supplements, moreover, being accessi- 

 ble only to the librarian and his assistants, were 

 of no use to the general public, who, for the 

 135,000 titles added since 1833, were obliged to 

 get their information from some of the officials. 

 To remedy this state of things, a new card cata- 

 logue, freely accessible to the public, and destined 

 to embrace in a single alphabet all the titles in 

 the library without distinction, was begun in 1861 

 by my predecessor, Professor Ezra Abbot. This 

 catalogue was not intended to supersede the pri- 

 vate card supplement begun in 1833, which for 

 many reasons it is found desirable to keep up. 

 But for the use of the public it will, when fin- 

 ished, supersede everything else, and become the 

 sole authoritative catalogue of the library. Since 

 1861 all new accessions have been put into this 

 catalogue, while the work of adding to it the older 

 titles has gone on with varying speed ; in 1869 it 

 came nearly to a standstill, but was resumed in 

 1874, and is now proceeding with great rapidity. 

 About fifty thousand titles of volumes, and as 

 many more of pamphlets, still remain to be added 



