November 24, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



737 



good weight of strawboard faced on the in- 

 side with white paper and entirely covered on 

 the outside with black binder's cloth, have been 

 found to give excellent results. These seem 

 even more durable than cases with wooden 

 tops and bottoms, as they have a slight " give " 

 which seems to make them more lasting. A 

 set of cases of this sort has been in constant 

 use at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of 

 the University of California for more than six 

 years without showing appreciable wear. 

 The size suggested will take all octavo publi- 

 cations and even the smaller quartos, and when 

 completely filled the weight is still not too 

 great for easy handling. Cases measuring 

 more than 2J inches in width are not satis- 

 factory; they soon break to pieces under pres- 

 sure of the greater weight of the material they 

 hold. They often, moreover, hold too many 

 papers for quick reference, while the narrower 

 boxes permit of a finer classification. With 

 the smaller size additional boxes may be 

 interpolated as necessity arises, before a com- 

 plete revision of the collection is required. 



Three methods of filing the pamphlets of a 

 collection are in general use; filing by subject, 

 by author's surname, and by date of accession. 

 For a small collection with which the worker 

 is well acquainted and where there are few if 

 any papers of such a nature as not to fall 

 readily into one class or another, or in very 

 large collections comprising papers on such 

 distinct subjects as geography, geology and 

 zoology, the subject classification is possibly 

 the most convenient. But in large collections 

 devoted to a narrower field the alphabetical 

 segregation by authors is much more satis- 

 factory. With papers so arranged and those of 

 single authors in chronological order, no 

 author index is needed. A third system, used 

 somewhat more rarely, is to file pamphlets in 

 the order of their receipt, giving them serial 

 numbers, and maintaining both author and 

 subject indexes for reference purposes. Such 

 an arrangement has the advantage of not being 

 disturbed by later accessions, these being 

 added at the end of the collection. Under this 

 system, however, the papers must be kept abso- 

 lutely in order if they are to be found at all. 



If cases are used to shelter the collection, 

 some kind of case inscription is necessary, 

 whatever system is adopted. When the cloth- 

 covered cases described above are used, pieces 

 of white paper, about If inches square, are 

 pasted on the fronts of the boxes near their 

 tops. On these labels are placed inscriptions 

 designating the case contents. If the subject 

 arangement is used, the title is made compre- 

 hensive enough to include all papers which 

 are or may be filed in that case. If the author 

 classification is used, a large initial letter is 

 placed at the top and below it abbreviations 

 indicating the names of the authors whose 

 papers are filed in that case. Thus, for the 

 case containing papers from Brown to Burns 

 the inscription would be 

 B 

 Br-Bu. 



If one author's papers are sufficiently numer- 

 ous to require one or more complete cases 

 their fronts bear his initial and name and an 

 indication of the years covered by the papers 

 included, thus: 



O O 



Oberholser, H. C. Oberholser, H. C. 



1905-1914 1914 



When first arranging or when revising the ar- 

 rangement of a pamphlet collection, sufficient 

 room should be left in individual cases to anti- 

 cipate considerable expansion — no case should 

 be more than two thirds filled at first, save for 

 a single author, unless the collection is al- 

 ready large and the expense of additional cases 

 is an object for consideration. Thus a large 

 number of papers can be added to the collec- 

 tion before it need be completely revised and 

 relabelled. 



Whatever method of arrangement is adopted 

 some sort of finding index is necessary to make 

 all the papers readily accessible. If any sys- 

 tem other than that of filing by authors' names 

 is adopted a catalogue of authors is needed. 

 If the subject classification is adopted a card 

 should be used for each author, the entries 

 being made as follows : 

 Bidgway, B. 



1892. Hummingbirds (Avea: systematic) 



1897. Galapagos Is. birds (Faunal: S. Amer.) 



