A Librarian's Work. 347 



room or to the labour of the librarian and assist- 

 ants is an expense which can be justified only by 

 the prospect of very decided advantages. In most 

 cases, the subject-catalogue answers the purposes 

 of those who remember the title of a work, but 

 have forgotten the author. In the very heteroge- 

 neous classes of Drama and Fiction, where this is 

 not so likely to be the case, the exigency is pro- 

 vided for in Professor Abbot's system by a full set 

 of cross-references from titles to authors. 



From this account it will be seen that any new 

 book received to-day by our library must be en- 

 tered on three catalogues, first on the card sup- 

 plement which continues the old printed cata- 

 logue, secondly on the new all -comprehensive 

 alphabet of authors, thirdly on the classified in- 

 dex of subjects. In our technical slang the first 

 of these catalogues is known under the collective 

 name of " the long cards," the second as " the red 

 cards," the third as " the blue cards," names 

 referring to the shape of the cards and to certain 

 peculiarities of the lines with which they are 

 ruled. When our lot of three or four hundred 

 books is portioned out among half a dozen assist- 

 ants to be catalogued, the first thing in order is 

 to write the "long cards." Each book must have 

 at least one long card ; but most books need more 



