y
may be purchased in sheets, or cut apart, as convenient handling may
dictate. Having first written in ink in plain figures, as large as the
labels will bear, the proper locality marks, take a label moistener (a
hollow tube filled with water, provided with a bit of sponge at the end
and sold by stationers) and wet the label throughout its surface, then
fix it on the back of the book, on the smooth part of the binding near
the lower end, and with a piece of paper (not the fingers) press it down
firmly to its place by repeated rubbings. If thoroughly done, the labels
will not peel off nor curl up at the edges for a long time. Under much
usage of the volumes, however, they must occasionally be renewed.

When the books being prepared for the shelves have all been duly
collated, labelled and stamped, processes which should precede
cataloguing them, they are next ready for the cataloguer. His functions
having been elsewhere described, it need only be said that the books when
catalogued and handed over to the reviser, (or whoever is to scrutinize
the titles and assign them their proper places in the library
classification) are to have the shelf-marks of the card-titles written on
the inside labels, as well as upon the outside.

When this is done, the title-cards can be withdrawn and alphabeted in the
catalogue drawers. Next, all the books thus catalogued, labelled, and
supposed to be ready for the shelves, should be examined with reference
to three points:

1st. Whether any of the volumes need re-lettering.

2nd. Whether any of them require re-binding.

3rd. If any of the bindings are in need of repair.

In any lot of books purchased or presented, are almost always to be found
some that are wrongly or imperfectly lettered on the back. Before these
are ready for the shelves, they should be carefully gone through with,
and all errors or shortcomings corrected. It is needful to send to the
binder

1st. All books which lack the name of the author on the back. This should
be stamped by the binder at the head, if there is room--if not, in the
middle panel on the back of the book.

2nd. All books lettered with mis-spelled words.

3rd. All volumes in sets, embracing several distinct works--to have the
name of each book in the contents plainly stamped on the outside.

4th. All books wholly without titles on the back, of which many are
published--the title being frequently given on the side only, or in the
interior alone.