A Librarian's Work. 355 



To treat more extensively of such points as 

 these, in which none but cataloguers are likely to 

 feel a strong interest, would not be consistent 

 with the purpose of this article. For those who 

 wonder what a librarian can find to do with his 

 time, enough hints have been given to show that 

 the task of " just cataloguing a book" is not, per- 

 haps, quite so simple as they may have supposed. 

 These hints have nevertheless been chosen with 

 reference to the easier "portions of a librarian's 

 work, for a description of the more intricate 

 problems of cataloguing could hardly fail to be 

 both tedious and unintelligible to the uninitiated 

 reader. Enough has been said to show that a 

 cataloguer's work requires at the outset consider- 

 able judgment and discrimination, and a great 

 deal of slow, plodding research. The facts which 

 we take such pains to ascertain may seem petty 

 when contrasted with the dazzling facts which are 

 elicited by scientific researches. But in reality 

 the grandest scientific truths are reached only 

 after the minute scrutiny of facts which often 

 seem very trivial. And though the little details 

 which encumber a librarian's mind do not minis- 

 ter to grand or striking generalizations, though 

 their destiny is in the main an obscure one, yet 

 if they were not duly taken care of the usefulness 



