72 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII, No. 181 



cised the proposed building on tlie ground of sup- 

 posed structural weakness, the unavoidable dark- 

 ness of the stack when its roof might be under 

 deep snows, and the impossibility of thorough 

 ventilation, as no side vvindows or apertures could 

 be provided. 



The subject of the electric lighting and heat- 

 regulation in libraries was next taken up. Dr. 

 Poole relating his experience with both gas and 

 electricity, and characterizing the latter as a 

 luxury which none but the wealthier libraries 

 could afford ; while Mr. Dewey pronounced un- 

 equivocally in favor of electricity from experience 

 with the Edison incandescent system in the new 

 Columbia college library. Its absence of heat is 

 greatly in its favor in the summer illumination of 

 libraries ; it gives off no products of combustion 

 which, like gas, may injure the bindings of the 

 finer volumes ; and Mr. Dewey had found many 

 people coming into the library to read by the 

 electric light who were sufferers from eye-troubles 

 if they tried to read by gas, or even petroleum 

 illumination. No member of the association, 

 however, could give precise information of the 

 relative cost of gas and electric light, owing to 

 the running of the dynamos for steam boilers used 

 for other purposes. In recent issues of Science, 

 the results of English experiments in this direc- 

 tion placed the electric light at very great disad- 

 vantage in point of expense, and made it cost at 

 present about twice as much as gas. Mr. Cutter 

 (Boston athenaeum) and Sir. Linderfelt (Mil- 

 waukee public library) explained the action of the 

 apparatus employed in their libraries for the 

 automatic regulation of the heat-supply, and pro- 

 nounced it thoroughly satisfactory. The system 

 involves the electric control of the registers and 

 the openings in the windows, and is found to be 

 competent to maintain the rooms at any desired 

 temperature for which the indicator is easily set, 

 as wen as to effect a considerable saving of fuel. 

 A delegate from Kansas said, that in his region 

 natural gas is used over a large area, furnishing 

 the library with both heat and light. 



The other papers presented at the Friday ses- 

 sion were by Mr. Woodruff (Cornell university 

 Library), on ' The relation of university seminaries 

 to the university library ; ' and by Mr. Utley of 

 Detroit, on ' The relation of the public library to 

 the public schools,' in which it was stated that the 

 supreme court of Michigan had ruled that the 

 library is a part of the apparatus of the school, 

 and the plan of reading and discussing the books 

 in the schools during recitation hours had given 

 admirable results. A vigorous discussion of the 

 subject of binding books in libraries ensued ; and 

 the third day's session closed with the adoption 



of a resolution cf mmending to states and institu- 

 tions the trial of a plan for the collection and 

 redistribution of documents, which had succeeded 

 admirably under the direction of the secretary of 

 the interior. 



The untransacted business of the meeting neces- 

 sitated a session on the fourth day (Saturday), 

 when Mr. Green of the committee on public docu- 

 ments presented a report embodying the bill, now 

 in the hands of the senate committee on printing, 

 which will instruct the public printer to deliver to 

 the interior department a sufificient number of 

 copies of every government publication to enable 

 every depositary of imblic documents to receive 

 one. The measure is ably supported by Senator 

 Hoar, for whom a vote of thanks was passed by 

 the association. Mr. Green's report provoked 

 animated discussion, and was followed by a paper 

 by Mr. J. Schwartz (Apprentices' library, Nevv 

 York), which was mainly a satire on various pre- 

 vailing systems of classification. 



The secretary read a thoughtful paper on 

 bibliography in general, and especially on the 

 bibliography of the literature of science, by Mr. 

 Mann of Washington, who remarked first the 

 rapid rate of increase within the last few years of 

 the application of bibliography to the work of the 

 student of science — who is, nevertheless, apt to 

 set too little value uj^on the refinements of the 

 art of bibliography. The necessity of providing 

 some method of indexing is the first lesson to be 

 learned in the making of a useful bibliography, 

 and such index should be very detailed. To 

 secure the advantages of a condensed method of 

 reference, some symbolism should be employed. 

 The usual method of making citations in scientific 

 writings is to refer to individual or separate woi-ks 

 by the name of author, title, and page ; to articles 

 in periodicals by title of periodical, date (some- 

 times), and page. A very useful device is to give 

 in a preface or appendix a list of all the works 

 cited, with some symbol attached, and to refer to 

 this symbol whenever references are to be made. 

 Some authors have undertaken to accept some 

 bibliography, the catalogue of the Royal society, 

 for instance, as a standard, and to refer to tlie 

 symbols employed in that ; but there are many 

 difficulties in the way of its use as such. Mr. 

 Mann regards the arrangement of titles in a cur- 

 rent bibliography as a matter of very little conse- 

 quence. Nothing should be allowed to interfere 

 with the practice of appending to each title a cur- 

 rent numeral, the series of which should be con- 

 tinuous from volume to volume. As an aid to 

 scientific investigation, the works enumerated in 

 a bibliography should be analyzed, this analysis 

 indicating the special phase of the subject treated 



