PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 27 



The International Scientific Catalogue. By James Bain, Jr. 



(Read 17th December, iSyS) 



The discussion of the subject of a Scientific Catalogue is singuhirly appro- 

 priate in the Institute at this time, when the Library is being placed on a new 

 footing and arranged for scientific work. The fifty years which have elapsed since 

 the formation of this Institute have witnessed the establishment of an enormous 

 number of similar societies, specializing their scope more and more, until few 

 departments of scientific w^ork are without their organization and printed transac- 

 tions. It is estimated that there are now published, more or less regularly, 30,000 

 scientific journals, partly the production of 565 medical and 6,000 scientific societies, 

 and partly published independently. The total number of papers included in these 

 journals, transactions and memoirs is further estimated at 600,000 annually, or 

 an issue of nearly 2,000 per day. 



The reasons for the immense increase in this class of publication are not hard 

 to find, anfl give no indications of a decrease in the immediate future. They are, 

 first, the increasing number of abstruse, valuable papers, which journals dependent 

 on subscriptions cannot see their way to print. These can only be of value to the 

 few, and as scientific men are. as a rule, not wealthy, they are glad to get either 

 tlie assistance of some society or direct aid from Government. This, freely given, 

 has encouraged the development of memoirs in pure science. Secondly, our uni- 

 versities have so largely adopted the system of post-graduate courses, in which 

 each graduate is encouraged to produce his thesis, and which are published under 

 the name of university studies. And, thirdly, because science has become so 

 specialized that men engaged on minute portions of the work are drawn together 

 to support a special journal where their discoveries and discussions may be certain 

 of a small but appreciative audience. 



It is quite evident that no person is able to follow all the scientific publica- 

 tions of the day, even when restricted to one of the great divisions, and that the 

 necessity exists for some means of obtaining a knowledge of at least the titles of 

 those published within a fixed period, and that the catalogue produced by any one 

 society would be both imperfect and expensive. Let us take the Canadian Institute 

 Library as an illustration of what can be done with limited means. We have, in 

 addition to the unbound Transactions, about 8.000 bound volumes, containing on 

 an average twenty papers each. These would require, with a single entry under 

 the atithor's name, 160.000 entries. An average cataloguer cannot do more than 

 thirty per hour, df allowance be made for all necessary stoppages. This, at seven 

 hours per day, is 210, which, divided into 160.000. gives as the time required for 

 the completion 762 days, or. allowing for holidays, nearly three years. But every 

 student knows that an author's catalogue is only of partial value, and that it must 

 be supplemented by a subject catalogue. This. then, doubles the period, and shows 

 the impossibility of doing such a work single-handed. Many of the older societies, 

 such as the Royal Antiquarian. Civil Engineers, or .\rch;eological. have, at inter- 

 vals of 25 or so years, printed an index volume to their publications: but the num- 

 ber of these and the long intervals at which they appear, render them useless lor 

 the ordinary student. Practical men have seen that the only escape from the diffi- 

 culty wias by co-operation in a joint catalogue. Professor Henry. Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, was the first to propose a combined catalogue, in 1847. 



