"_Bibliotheconomie_," much in use of late years, signifies much the same
thing as _Bibliotechnie_, and we translate it, not into one word, but
two, calling it "library economy." This word "economy" is not used in the
most current sense--as significant of saving--but in the broad, modern
sense of systematic order, or arrangement.

There are two other words which have found their way into Murray's Oxford
Dictionary, the most copious repository of English words, with
illustrations of their origin and history, ever published, namely,
Biblioclast--a destroyer of books (from the same final root as
iconoclast) and Bibliogony, the production of books. I will add that out
of the fifteen or more words cited as analogous to Bibliography, only
three are found used earlier than the last quarter century, the first use
of most having been this side of 1880. This is a striking instance of the
phenomenal growth of new words in our already rich and flexible English
tongue. Carlyle even has the word "Bibliopoesy," the making of
books,--from _Biblion_, and _poiein_--to make.

Public libraries are useful to readers in proportion to the extent and
ready supply of the helps they furnish to facilitate researches of every
kind. Among these helps a wisely selected collection of books of
reference stands foremost. Considering the vast extent and opulence of
the world of letters, and the want of experience of the majority of
readers in exploring this almost boundless field, the importance of every
key which can unlock its hidden stores becomes apparent. The printed
catalogue of no single library is at all adequate to supply full
references, even to its own stores of knowledge; while these catalogues
are, of course, comparatively useless as to other stores of information,
elsewhere existing. Even the completest and most extensive catalogue in
the world, that of the British Museum Library, although now extended to
more than 370 folio volumes in print, representing 3,000 volumes in
manuscript, is not completed so as to embrace the entire contents of that
rich repository of knowledge.

From lack of information of the aid furnished by adequate books of
reference in a special field, many a reader goes groping in pursuit of
references or information which might be found in some one of the many
volumes which may be designated as works of bibliography. The diffidence
and reserve of many students in libraries, and the mistaken fear of
giving trouble to l