nd a given writer's work, or
to detect its absence.

The task of accurately distributing the titles in a catalogue of subjects
would be much simplified, if the books were all properly named. But it is
an unhappy failing of many writers to give fanciful or far-fetched titles
to their books, so that, instead of a descriptive name, they have names
that describe nothing. This adds indefinitely to the labor of the
cataloguer, who must spend time to analyse to some extent the contents of
the book, before he can classify it. This must be done to avoid what may
be gross errors in the catalogue. Familiar examples are Ruskin's Notes on
Sheep-folds (an ecclesiastical criticism) classified under Agriculture;
and Edgeworth's Irish Bulls under Domestic animals.

The work of alphabeting a large number of title-cards is much simplified
and abbreviated by observing certain obvious rules in the distribution.
(1) Gather in the same pile all the cards in the first letter of the
alphabet, A, followed in successive parallel rows by all the B's, and so
on, to the letter Z. (2) Next, pursue the same course with all the
titles, arranging under the second letter of the alphabet, Aa, Ab, Ac,
etc., and so with all the cards under B. C. &c. for all the letters. (3)
If there still remain a great many titles to distribute into a closer
alphabetic sequence, the third operation will consist in arranging under
the third letter of the alphabet, _e. g._, Abb, Abc, Abd, etc. The same
method is pursued throughout the entire alphabet, until all the
title-cards are arranged in strict order.

Too much care cannot be taken to distinguish between books written by
different authors, but bearing the same name. Many catalogues are full of
errors in this respect, attributing, for example, works written by
Jonathan Edwards, the younger, (1745-1801) to Jonathan Edwards the elder,
(1703-58); or cataloguing under Henry James, Jr., the works of his
father, Henry James. The abundant means of identification which exist
should cause such errors to be avoided; and when the true authorship is
fixed, every author's chronology should appear next after his name on
every card-title: _e. g._ James (Henry, 1811-82) Moralism and
Christianity, New York, 1850. James (Henry, 1843- ) Daisy Miller, N. Y.
1879.

The designation of book sizes is a vexed question in catalogues. The
generally used descriptions of size, from folio down to 48mo. signify no
accurate measurement whatever, th