268 A Librarian's Work. [xn. 



the aid of such dictionaries as those of Hain, Panzer, 

 and Graesse. One such book may afford work for a 

 whole day. An old manuscript is likely to give even 

 more trouble. There is nothing especially difficult 

 in Greek titles, save for the fact that our assistants 

 are all women, who for the most part know little or 

 nothing of the language.^ In general these assistants 

 are acquainted with French, and with practice can 

 make their way through titles in Latin and German. 

 There are some who can deal with any Romanic or 

 Teutonic language, though more or less advice is 

 usually needed for this. But all languages east of 

 the Roman-German boundary require the eye of a 

 practised linguist. To decipher a title, or part of a 

 preface, in a strange language, it is necessary that one 

 should understand the character in which it is printed, 

 and should be able to consult some dictionary either 

 of the language in question or of some closely related 

 dialect. One day I had to catalogue a book of 

 Croatian ballads, and, not finding any Croatian dic- 

 tionary in the library, set up a cross-fire on it with 

 the help of a Serbian and a Slovenian dictionary. 

 This served the purpose admirably, for where a cog- 

 nate word did not happen to occur in the one language 



^ We have since, I am glad to say, found an exception to this rule, 

 and Greek titles are now disposed of in regular course. 



