I 



A Gtdcie to the Use of the Beading Boom. 11 



enable students througliout the world to learn what books are to 

 be found in the British Museum up to the year 1899. The printed 

 titles can, moreover, be consulted with greater certainty and 

 speed than the transcribed titles, and they occupy much less space 

 than those of the former manuscript Catalogue. Thus, the 

 manuscript Catalogue, which was in nearly three thousand 

 volumes and was increased by from thirty to forty volumes 

 each year, has been reduced by printing to less than one thousand 

 interleaved volumes, increasing by a varying but small number 

 each year. 



The only respect in which the printed Catalogue is inferior to 

 the Catalogue in manuscript is in the difficulty of inserting each 

 fresh entry in its exact place. This difficulty has been surmounted 

 thus : — 



Each page of the printed Catalogue consists of two columns. 

 Each of these columns has been separately mounted on one 

 side of the page of an interleaved' volume. Every month a part 

 of "Accessions to the General Catalogue" is published. Each 

 part contains all the titles of books catalogued during the 

 preceding month. These titles are inserted by the side of the 

 entries in the interleaved Catalogue as nearly as possible 

 opposite to the title in the printed column which they should 

 follow. As soon as an interleaved volume is full of these 

 entries they are incorporated in their proper place in the ^ 

 columns to which they belong, and the volume is rebound in two 

 or more volumes. The process of adding fresh titles from the 

 Accession Parts then begins anew. 



The number of entries in the Interleaved Catalogue exceeds 

 4,000,000, and grows at the rate of about 30,000 additional titles 

 each year. 



The General Catalogue is, as far as possible, a catalogue of 

 x\uthors, whose names are arranged in strictly alphabetical order. 

 Anonymous books are entered in accordance with the rules of the 

 Catalogue, a synopsis of which is given below on pp. 45-48. 



The reader who is acquainted with the name of the author, or, 

 if anonymous, with the title of the book required, should, under 

 ordinary circumstances, have no difficulty in finding it in the 

 General Catalogue. It is, however, inevitable that, among so vast 

 a number of entries, difficulties (especially in searching for anony- 

 mous books) should be encountered which cannot be solved 

 without expert aid. In such cases the reader should consult the 

 Superintendent. 



The following suggestions may be useful to those who use the 

 General Catalogue : — 



1. In looking for the titles of books the reader should examine 

 both tl^e column on one side of the page and the titles on the other 

 side. If the insertions of fresh titles are very numerous he should 

 also turn to the next page, which may contain additional titles for 

 which, there is no room on the preceding page. 



