of any volume is effectual, for the reason that the book may
have been (and probably is) put on some shelf where it does not belong.
And the question, where in an extensive collection, a book-hunter
admitted to freely range over all the shelves, and a stranger to the
minute classification of books, has misplaced the missing volumes, is an
insoluble problem, except by hunting over or handling the entire library.

In this close practical view of the case we have to add to the long list
of the enemies of books, formerly enumerated, those who demand a right to
browse (as they term it) among the shelves of a public library, and who
displace the books they take down to gratify, it may be, only an idle
curiosity. Their offence consists, not in being anxious to see the books,
but in preventing others from seeing them, by segregating them where
neither librarian nor assistants may be able to find them, when called
for. The whole question is summed up in the statement that the ability
to produce library books when called for, depends strictly upon keeping
them in their proper place: and this is quite incompatible with
promiscuous handling upon the shelves.

The preservation of order is alike in the interest of the reading public,
of the librarian and his assistants, and of the very persons who complain
of it as depriving them of library facilities. If library facilities
consist in rendering the books in it unfindable, and therefore
unavailable to any reader, then the argument for free range of the
shelves arrives at a _reductio ad absurdum_. The true library facilities
consist in a classification and a catalogue which arrange the books in
systematic order, and keep them there, save when called into use. Thus,
and thus only, can those who resort to a public library for actual
research, be assured of finding what they want, just when they want it.
The time saved to all readers by the sure and steady preservation of an
orderly arrangement of the books, is simply incalculable. Multiply the
number of volumes out of place by the number of readers who call for
them, and you have some idea of the mischief that may be done through the
carelessness of a few favored readers, to the whole community of
scholars. Of course the considerations here set forth pre-suppose an
active and intelligent librarian, and zealous and willing attendants, all
ever ready to aid the researches of readers by the most prompt and
helpful suggestions, and by dispat