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A Book for All Readers

by Ainsworth Rand Spofford · English · Gutenberg #22608 · 962,292 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Book for All Readers

Author: Ainsworth Rand Spofford


        
Release date: September 15, 2007 [eBook #22608]
                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK FOR ALL READERS ***




Produced by Michael Ciesielski and the booksmiths at
http://www.eBookForge.net





A BOOK FOR ALL READERS

DESIGNED AS AN AID TO THE

COLLECTION, USE, AND PRESERVATION

OF BOOKS

AND THE

FORMATION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES


BY

AINSWORTH RAND SPOFFORD

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
1900


COPYRIGHT 1900

BY

A R SPOFFORD




TABLE OF CONTENTS.


Chapter                                               Page
 1. THE CHOICE OF BOOKS,                                 3
 2. BOOK BUYING,                                        33
 3. THE ART OF BOOK BINDING,                            50
 4. PREPARATION FOR THE SHELVES: BOOK PLATES, &C.,      88
 5. THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS,                              101
 6. RESTORATION AND RECLAMATION OF BOOKS,              119
 7. PAMPHLET LITERATURE,                               145
 8. PERIODICAL LITERATURE,                             157
 9. THE ART OF READING,                                171
10. AIDS TO READERS,                                   190
11. ACCESS TO LIBRARY SHELVES,                         215
12. THE FACULTY OF MEMORY,                             226
13. QUALIFICATIONS OF LIBRARIANS,                      242
14. SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES,                     275
15. THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES,                          287
16. LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND FURNISHINGS,                 321
17. LIBRARY MANAGERS OR TRUSTEES,                      333
18. LIBRARY REGULATIONS,                               341
19. LIBRARY REPORTS AND ADVERTISING,                   349
20. THE FORMATION OF LIBRARIES,                        357
21. CLASSIFICATION,                                    362
22. CATALOGUES,                                        373
23. COPYRIGHT AND LIBRARIES,                           400
24. POETRY OF THE LIBRARY,                             417
25. HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY,                             430
26. RARE BOOKS,                                        444
27. BIBLIOGRAPHY,                                      459
    INDEX,                                             501




A BOOK FOR ALL READERS




CHAPTER 1.

THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.


When we survey the really illimitable field of human knowledge, the vast
accumulation of works already printed, and the ever-increasing flood of
new books poured out by the modern press, the first feeling which is apt
to arise in the mind is one of dismay, if not of despair. We ask--who is
sufficient for these things? What life is long enough--what intellect
strong enough, to master even a tithe of the learning which all these
books contain? But the reflection comes to our aid that, after all, the
really important books bear but a small proportion to the mass. Most
books are but repetitions, in a different form, of what has already been
many times written and printed. The rarest of literary qualities is
originality. Most writers are mere echoes, and the greater part of
literature is the pouring out of one bottle into another. If you can get
hold of the few really best books, you can well afford to be ignorant of
all the rest. The reader who has mastered Kames's "Elements of
Criticism," need not spend his time over the multitudinous treatises upon
rhetoric. He who has read Plutarch's Lives thoroughly has before him a
gallery of heroes which will go farther to instruct him in the elements
of character than a whole library of modern biographies. The student of
the best plays of Shakespeare may save his time by letting other and
inferior dramatists alone. He whose imagination has been fed upon Homer,
Dante, Milton, Burns, and Tennyson, with a few of the world's
master-pieces in single poems like Gray's Elegy, may dispense with the
whole race of poetasters. Until you have read the best fictions of
Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne, George Eliot, and Victor Hugo, you
should not be hungry after the last new novel,--sure to be forgotten in a
year, while the former are perennial. The taste which is once formed upon
models such as have been named, will not be satisfied with the trashy
book, or the spasmodic school of writing.

What kind of books should form the predominant part in the selection of
our reading, is a question admitting of widely differing opinions. Rigid
utilitarians may hold that only books of fact, of history and science,
works crammed full of knowledge, should be encouraged. Others will plead
in behalf of lighter reading, or for a universal range. It must be
admitted that the most attractive reading to the mass of people is not
scientific or philosophical. But there are many very attractive books
outside the field of science, and outside the realm of fiction, books
capable of yielding pleasure as well as instruction. There are few books
that render a more substantial benefit to readers of any age than good
biographies. In them we find those personal experiences and adventures,
those traits of character, that environment of social and domestic life,
which form the chief interest in works of fiction. In fact, the novel, in
its best estate, is only biography amplified by imagination, and
enlivened by dialogue. And the novel is successful only when it succeeds
in depicting the most truly the scenes, circumstances, and characters of
real life. A well written biography, like that of Dr. Johnson, by
Boswell, Walter Scott, by Lockhart, or Charles Dickens, by Forster, gives
the reader an insight into the history of the times they lived in, the
social, political, and literary environment, and the impress of their
famous writings upon their contemporaries. In the autobiography of Dr.
Franklin, one of the most charming narratives ever written, we are taken
into the writer's confidence, sympathize with his early struggles,
mistakes, and successes, and learn how he made himself, from a poor boy
selling ballads on Boston streets, into a leader among men, whom two
worlds have delighted to honor. Another most interesting book of
biography is that of the brothers William and Robert Chambers, the famous
publishers of Edinburgh, who did more to diffuse useful knowledge, and to
educate the people, by their manifold cheap issues of improving and
entertaining literature, than was ever done by the British Useful
Knowledge Society itself.

The French nation has, of all others, the greatest genius for personal
memoirs, and the past two centuries are brought far more vividly before
us in these free-spoken and often amusing chronicles, than in all the
formal histories. Among the most readable of these (comparatively few
having been translated into English) are the Memoirs of Marmontel,
Rousseau, Madame Rémusat, Amiel, and Madame De Staël. The recently
published memoirs by Imbert de St. Amand, of court life in France in the
times of Marie Antoinette, Josephine, Marie Louise, and other periods,
while hastily written and not always accurate, are lively and
entertaining.

The English people fall far behind the French in biographic skill, and
many of their memoirs are as heavy and dull as the persons whom they
commemorate. But there are bright exceptions, in the lives of literary
men and women, and in some of those of noted public men in church and
state. Thus, there are few books more enjoyable than Sydney Smith's
Memoirs and Letters, or Greville's Journals covering the period including
George IV to Victoria, or the Life and Letters of Macaulay, or Mrs.
Gaskell's Charlotte Brontë, or the memoirs of Harriet Martineau, or
Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson. Among the briefer biographies worthy of
special mention are the series of English Men of Letters, edited by John
Morley, and written by some of the best of contemporary British writers.
They embrace memoirs of Chaucer, Spenser, Bacon, Sidney, Milton, De Foe,
Swift, Sterne, Fielding, Locke, Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Gray, Addison,
Goldsmith, Burke, Hume, Gibbon, Bunyan, Bentley, Sheridan, Burns, Cowper,
Southey, Scott, Byron, Lamb, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, De
Quincey, Macaulay, Landor, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Carlyle.
These biographies, being quite compendious, and in the main very well
written, afford to busy readers a short-hand method of acquainting
themselves with most of the notable writers of Britain, their personal
characteristics, their relation to their contemporaries, and the quality
and influence of their works. Americans have not as yet illustrated the
field of biographic literature by many notably skilful examples. We are
especially deficient in good autobiographies, so that Dr. Franklin's
stands almost alone in singular merit in that class. We have an abundance
of lives of notable generals, professional men, and politicians, in which
indiscriminate eulogy and partisanship too often usurp the place of
actual facts, and the truth of history is distorted to glorify the merits
of the subject of the biography. The great success of General Grant's own
Memoirs, too, has led publishers to tempt many public men in military or
civil life, into the field of personal memoirs, not as yet with
distinguished success.

It were to be wished that more writers possessed of some literary skill,
who have borne a part in the wonderful drama involving men and events
enacted in this country during the century now drawing to a close, had
given us their sincere personal impressions in autobiographic form. Such
narratives, in proportion as they are truthful, are far more trustworthy
than history written long after the event by authors who were neither
observers nor participants in the scenes which they describe.

Among American biographies which will help the reader to gain a tolerably
wide acquaintance with the men and affairs of the past century in this
country, are the series of Lives of American Statesmen, of which thirty
volumes have been published. These include Washington, the Adamses,
Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Henry,
Gallatin, Morris, Randolph, Jackson, Van Buren, Webster, Clay, Calhoun,
Cass, Benton, Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Stevens, and Sumner. While these
Memoirs are of very unequal merit, they are sufficiently instructive to
be valuable to all students of our national history.

Another very useful series is that of American Men of Letters, edited by
Charles Dudley Warner, in fifteen volumes, which already includes
Franklin, Bryant, Cooper, Irving, Noah Webster, Simms, Poe, Emerson,
Ripley, Margaret Fuller, Willis, Thoreau, Taylor, and Curtis.

In the department of history, the best books for learners are not always
the most famous. Any mere synopsis of universal history is necessarily
dry reading, but for a constant help in reference, guiding one to the
best original sources, under each country, and with very readable
extracts from the best writers treating on each period, the late work of
J. N. Larned, "History for Ready Reference," five volumes, will be found
invaluable. Brewer's Historic Note Book, in a single volume, answers many
historic queries in a single glance at the alphabet. For the History of
the United States, either John Fiske's or Eggleston's is an excellent
compend, while for the fullest treatment, Bancroft's covers the period
from the discovery of America up to the adoption of the constitution in
1789, in a style at once full, classical, and picturesque. For
continuations, McMaster's History of the People of the United States
covers the period from 1789 to 1824, and is being continued. James
Schouler has written a History of the United States from 1789 to 1861, in
five volumes, while J. F. Rhodes ably covers the years 1850 to the Civil
War with a much more copious narrative.

For the annals of England, the Short History of England by J. R. Green is
a most excellent compend. For more elaborate works, the histories of Hume
and Macaulay bring the story of the British Empire down to about 1700.
For the more modern period, Lecky's History of England in the 18th
century is excellent, and for the present century, McCarthy's History of
Our Own Time, and Miss Martineau's History of England, 1815-52, are well
written works. French history is briefly treated in the Student's History
of France, while Guizot's complete History, in eight volumes, gives a
much fuller account, from the beginnings of France in the Roman period,
to the year 1848. Carlyle's French Revolution is a splendid picture of
that wonderful epoch, and Sloane's History of Napoleon gives very full
details of the later period.

For the history of Germany, Austria, Russia, France, Spain, Italy,
Holland, and other countries, the various works in the "Story of the
Nations" series, are excellent brief histories.

Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic and his United Netherlands are highly
important and well written historical works.

The annals of the ancient world are elaborately and ably set forth in
Grote's History of Greece, Merivale's Rome, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire.

Another class of books closely allied to biography and history, is the
correspondence of public men, and men of letters, with friends and
contemporaries. These familiar letters frequently give us views of
social, public, and professional life which are of absorbing interest.
Among the best letters of this class may be reckoned the correspondence
of Horace Walpole, Madame de Sévigné, the poets Gray and Cowper, Lord
Macaulay, Lord Byron, and Charles Dickens. Written for the most part with
unstudied ease and unreserve, they entertain the reader with constant
variety of incident and character, while at the same time they throw
innumerable side-lights upon the society and the history of the time.

Next, we may come to the master-pieces of the essay-writers. You will
often find that the best treatise on any subject is the briefest, because
the writer is put upon condensation and pointed statement, by the very
form and limitations of the essay, or the review or magazine article.
Book-writers are apt to be diffuse and episodical, having so extensive a
canvas to cover with their literary designs. Among the finest of the
essayists are Montaigne, Lord Bacon, Addison, Goldsmith, Macaulay, Sir
James Stephen, Cardinal Newman, De Quincey, Charles Lamb, Washington
Irving, Emerson, Froude, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. You may spend
many a delightful hour in the perusal of any one of these authors.

We come now to poetry, which some people consider very unsubstantial
pabulum, but which forms one of the most precious and inspiring portions
of the literature of the world. In all ages, the true poet has exercised
an influence upon men's minds that is unsurpassed by that of any other
class of writers. And the reason is not far to seek. Poetry deals with
the highest thoughts, in the most expressive language. It gives utterance
to all the sentiments and passions of humanity in rhythmic and harmonious
verse. The poet's lines are remembered long after the finest compositions
of the writers of prose are forgotten. They fasten themselves in the
memory by the very flow and cadence of the verse, and they minister to
that sense of melody that dwells in every human brain. What the world
owes to its great poets can never be fully measured. But some faint idea
of it may be gained from the wondrous stimulus given through them to the
imaginative power, and from the fact that those sentiments of human
sympathy, justice, virtue, and freedom, which inspire the best poetry of
all nations, become sooner or later incarnated in their institutions.
This is the real significance of the oft-quoted saying of Andrew
Fletcher, that stout Scotch republican of two centuries ago, that if one
were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who
should make the laws.

In the best poetry, the felicity of its expressions of thought, joined
with their rhythmical form, makes it easy for the reader to lay up almost
unconsciously a store in the memory of the noblest poetic sentiments, to
comfort or to divert him in many a weary or troubled hour. Hence time is
well spent in reading over and over again the great poems of the world.
Far better and wiser is this, than to waste it upon the newest trash that
captivates the popular fancy, for the last will only tickle the
intellectual palate for an hour, or a day, and be then forgotten, while
the former will make one better and wiser for all time.

Nor need one seek to read the works of very many writers in order to fill
his mind with images of truth and beauty which will dwell with him
forever. The really great poets in the English tongue may be counted upon
the fingers. Shakespeare fitly heads the list--a world's classic,
unsurpassed for reach of imagination, variety of scenes and characters,
profound insight, ideal power, lofty eloquence, moral purpose, the most
moving pathos, alternating with the finest humor, and diction unequalled
for strength and beauty of expression. Milton, too, in his minor poems,
has given us some of the noblest verse in the language. There is poetry
enough in his L'Allegro and Il Penseroso to furnish forth a whole galaxy
of poets.

Spenser and Pope, Gray and Campbell, Goldsmith and Burns, Wordsworth and
the Brownings, Tennyson and Longfellow,--these are among the other
foremost names in the catalogue of poets which none can afford to
neglect. Add to these the best translations of Homer, Virgil, Horace,
Dante, and Goethe, and one need not want for intellectual company and
solace in youth or age.

Among the books which combine entertainment with information, the best
narratives of travellers and voyagers hold an eminent place. In them the
reader enlarges the bounds of his horizon, and travels in companionship
with his author all over the globe. While many, if not the most, of the
books of modern travellers are filled with petty incidents and personal
observations of no importance, there are some wonderfully good books of
this attractive class. Such are Kinglake's "Eothen, or traces of travel
in the East," Helen Hunt Jackson's "Bits of Travel," a volume of keen and
amusing sketches of German and French experiences, the books of De Amicus
on Holland, Constantinople, and Paris, those on England by Emerson,
Hawthorne, William Winter, and Richard Grant White, Curtis's Nile Notes,
Howell's "Venetian Life," and Taine's "Italy, Rome and Naples."

The wide domain of science can be but cursorily touched upon. Many
readers get so thorough a distaste for science in early life--mainly from
the fearfully and wonderfully dry text-books in which our schools and
colleges have abounded--that they never open a scientific book in later
years. This is a profound mistake, since no one can afford to remain
ignorant of the world in which we live, with its myriad wonders, its
inexhaustible beauties, and its unsolved problems. And there are now
works produced in every department of scientific research which give in a
popular and often in a fascinating style, the revelations of nature which
have come through the study and investigation of man. Such books are "The
Stars and the Earth," Kingsley's "Glaucus, or Wonders of the Shore,"
Clodd's "Story of Creation," (a clear account of the evolution theory)
Figuier's "Vegetable World," and Professor Langley's "New Astronomy."
There are wise specialists whose published labors have illuminated for
the uninformed reader every nook and province of the mysteries of
creation, from the wing of a beetle to the orbits of the planetary
worlds. There are few pursuits more fascinating than those that bring us
acquainted with the secrets of nature, whether dragged up from the depths
of the sea, or demonstrated in the substance and garniture of the green
earth, or wrung from the far-off worlds in the shining heavens.

A word only can be spared to the wide and attractive realm of fiction. In
this field, those are the best books which have longest kept their hold
upon the public mind. It is a wise plan to neglect the novels of the
year, and to read (or to re-read in many cases) the master-pieces which
have stood the test of time, and criticism, and changing fashions, by the
sure verdict of a call for continually new editions. Ouida and Trilby may
endure for a day, but Thackeray and Walter Scott are perennial. It is
better to read a fine old book through three times, than to read three
new books through once.

Of books more especially devoted to the history of literature, in times
ancient and modern, and in various nations, the name is legion. I count
up, of histories of English literature alone (leaving out the American)
no less than one hundred and thirty authors on this great field or some
portion of it. To know what ones of these to study, and what to leave
alone, would require critical judgment and time not at my command. I can
only suggest a few known by me to be good. For a succinct yet most
skilfully written summary of English writers, there is no book that can
compare with Stopford A. Brooke's Primer of English Literature. For more
full and detailed treatment, Taine's History of English Literature, or
Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature, two volumes, with specimens
of the writers of every period, are the best. E. C. Stedman's Victorian
Poets is admirable, as is also his Poets of America. For a bird's eye
view of American authors and their works, C. F. Richardson's Primer of
American Literature can be studied to advantage, while for more full
reference to our authors, with specimens of each, Stedman's Library of
American Literature in eleven volumes, should be consulted. M. C. Tyler's
very interesting critical History of the Early American Literature, so
little known, comes down in its fourth volume only to the close of the
revolution in 1783.

For classical literature, the importance of a good general knowledge of
which can hardly be overrated, J. P. Mahaffy's History of Greek
Literature, two volumes, and G. A. Simcox's Latin Literature, two
volumes, may be commended. On the literature of modern languages, to
refer only to works written in English, Saintsbury's Primer of French
Literature is good, and R. Garnett's History of Italian Literature is
admirable (by the former Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum
Library). Lublin's Primer of German Literature is excellent for a
condensed survey of the writers of Germany, while W. Scherer's History of
German Literature, two volumes, covers a far wider field. For Spanish
Literature in its full extent, there is no work at all equal to George
Ticknor's three volumes, but for a briefer history, H. B. Clark's
Hand-book of Spanish Literature, London, 1893, may be used.

I make no allusion here to the many works of reference in the form of
catalogues and bibliographical works, which may be hereafter noted. My
aim has been only to indicate the best and latest treatises covering the
leading literatures of the world, having no space for the Scandinavian,
Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, or any of the Slavonic or oriental tongues.

Those who find no time for studying the more extended works named, will
find much profit in devoting their hours to the articles in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica upon the literatures of the various countries.
These are within reach of everyone.

The select list of books named in this chapter does not by any means aim
to cover those which are well worth reading; but only to indicate a few,
a very few, of the best. It is based on the supposition that intelligent
readers will give far less time to fiction than to the more solid food of
history, biography, essays, travels, literary history, and applied
science. The select list of books in the fields already named is designed
to include only the most improving and well-executed works. Many will not
find their favorites in the list, which is purposely kept within narrow
limits, as a suggestion only of a few of the best books for a home
library or for general reading. You will find it wise to own, as early in
life as possible, a few of the choicest productions of the great writers
of the world. Those who can afford only a selection from a selection, can
begin with never so few of the authors most desired, or which they have
not already, putting in practice the advice of Shakespeare:

    "In brief, sir, study what you most affect."

Says John Ruskin: "I would urge upon every young man to obtain as soon
as he can, by the severest economy, a restricted and steadily increasing
series of books, for use through life; making his little library, of all
his furniture, the most studied and decorative piece." And Henry Ward
Beecher urged it as the most important early ambition for clerks, working
men and women, and all who are struggling up in life, to form gradually a
library of good books. "It is a man's duty," says he, "to have books. A
library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."

And says Bishop Hurst, urging the vital importance of wise selection in
choosing our reading: "If two-thirds of the shelves of the typical
domestic library were emptied of their burden, and choice books put in
their stead, there would be reformation in intelligence and thought
throughout the civilized world."


SELECTION OF BOOKS FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

Let us now consider the subject of books fitted for public libraries. At
the outset, it is most important that each selection should be made on a
well considered plan. No hap-hazard, or fitfully, or hastily made
collection can answer the two ends constantly to be aimed at--namely,
first, to select the best and most useful books, and, secondly, to
economize the funds of the library. No money should be wasted upon whims
and experiments, but every dollar should be devoted to the acquisition of
improving books.

As to the principles that should govern and the limitations to be laid
down, these will depend much upon the scope of the library, and the
amount of its funds. No library of the limited and moderate class
commonly found in our public town libraries can afford to aim at the
universal range of a national library, nor even at the broad selections
proper to a liberally endowed city library.

But its aims, while modest, should be comprehensive enough to provide a
complete selection of what may be termed standard literature, for the
reading public. If the funds are inadequate to do this in the beginning,
it should be kept constantly in view, as the months and years go on.
Every great and notable book should be in the library sooner or later,
and if possible at its foundation. Thus will its utility and
attractiveness both be well secured.

Taking first the case of a small public library about to be started, let
us see in a few leading outlines what it will need.

1. A selection of the best works of reference should be the corner-stone
of every library collection. In choosing these, regard must be had to
secure the latest as well as the best. Never buy the first edition of
Soule's Synonymes because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and
enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated Lempriere's or
Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some venerable library director,
who used it in his boyhood, suggests it, when you can get Professor H. T.
Peck's "Dictionary of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897. Never be
tempted to buy an old edition of an encyclopaedia at half or quarter
price, for it will be sure to lack the populations of the last census,
besides being a quarter of a century or more in arrears in its other
information. When consulting sale catalogues to select reference books,
look closely at the dates of publication, and make sure by your American
or English catalogues that no later edition has appeared. It goes without
saying that you will have these essential bibliographies, as well as
Lowndes' Manual of English Literature first of all, whether you are able
to buy Watt and Brunet or not.

2. Without here stopping to treat of books of reference in detail, which
will appear in another place, let me refer to some other great classes
of literature in which every library should be strong. History stands
fairly at the head, and while a newly established library cannot hope to
possess at once all the noted writers, it should begin by securing a fine
selection, embracing general history, ancient and modern, and the history
of each country, at least of the important nations. For compendious short
histories, the "Story of the Nations" series, by various writers, should
be secured, and the more extensive works of Gibbon, Grote, Mommsen,
Duruy, Fyffe, Green, Macaulay, Froude, McCarthy, Carlyle, Thiers,
Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Fiske, Schouler, McMaster, Buckle, Guizot,
etc., should be acquired. The copious lists of historical works appended
to Larned's "History for Ready Reference" will be useful here.

3. Biography stands close to history in interest and importance. For
general reference, or the biography of all nations, Lippincott's
Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography is essential, as well as
Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, for our own country. For
Great Britain, the "Dictionary of National Biography" is a mine of
information, and should be added if funds are sufficient. Certain sets of
collective biographies which are important are American Statesmen, 26
vols., Englishmen of Letters, -- vols., Autobiography, 33 vols., Famous
Women series, 21 vols., Heroes of the Nation series, 24 vols., American
Pioneers and Patriots, 12 vols., and Plutarch's Lives. Then of
indispensable single biographies there are Boswell's Johnson, Lockhart's
Scott, Froude's Carlyle, Trevelyan's Macaulay, Froude's Caesar, Lewes'
Goethe, etc.

4. Of notable essays, a high class of literature in which there are many
names, may be named Addison, Montaigne, Bacon, Goldsmith, Emerson, Lamb,
De Quincey, Holmes, Lowell, etc.

5. Poetry stands at the head of all the literature of imagination. Some
people of highly utilitarian views decry poetry, and desire to feed all
readers upon facts. But that this is a great mistake will be apparent
when we consider that the highest expressions of moral and intellectual
truth and the most finely wrought examples of literature in every nation
are in poetic form. Take out of the world's literature the works of its
great poets, and you would leave it poor indeed. Poetry is the only great
source for the nurture of imagination, and without imagination man is a
poor creature. I read the other day a dictum of a certain writer,
alleging that Dickens's Christmas Carol is far more effective as a piece
of writing than Milton's noble ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity."
Such comparisons are of small value. In point of fact, no library can
spare either of them. I need not repeat the familiar names of the great
poets; they are found in all styles of production, and some of the best
are among the least expensive.

6. Travels and voyages form a very entertaining as well as highly
instructive part of a library. A good selection of the more notable will
prove a valuable resource to readers of nearly every age.

7. The wide field of science should be carefully gleaned for a good range
of approved text-books in each department. So progressive is the modern
world that the latest books are apt to be the best in each science,
something which is by no means true in literature.

8. In law, medicine, theology, political science, sociology, economics,
art, architecture, music, eloquence, and language, the library should be
provided with the leading modern works.

9. We come now to fiction, which the experience of all libraries shows is
the favorite pabulum of about three readers out of four. The great demand
for this class of reading renders it all the more important to make a
wise and improving selection of that which forms the minds of multitudes,
and especially of the young. This selection presents to every librarian
and library director or trustee some perplexing problems. To buy
indiscriminately the new novels of the day, good, bad, and indifferent
(the last named greatly predominating) would be a very poor discharge of
the duty devolving upon those who are the responsible choosers of the
reading of any community. Conceding, as we must, the vast influence and
untold value of fiction as a vehicle of entertainment and instruction,
the question arises--where can the line be drawn between the good and
improving novels, and novels which are neither good nor improving? This
involves something more than the moral tone and influence of the
fictions: it involves their merits and demerits as literature also. I
hold it to be the bounden duty of those who select the reading of a
community to maintain a standard of good taste, as well as of good
morals. They have no business to fill the library with wretched models of
writing, when there are thousand of good models ready, in numbers far
greater than they have money to purchase. Weak and flabby and silly books
tend to make weak and flabby and silly brains. Why should library guides
put in circulation such stuff as the dime novels, or "Old Sleuth"
stories, or the slip-slop novels of "The Duchess," when the great masters
of romantic fiction have endowed us with so many books replete with
intellectual and moral power? To furnish immature minds with the
miserable trash which does not deserve the name of literature, is as
blameworthy as to put before them books full of feverish excitement, or
stories of successful crime.

We are told, indeed (and some librarians even have said it) that for
unformed readers to read a bad book is better than to read none at all.
I do not believe it. You might as well say that it is better for one to
swallow poison than not to swallow any thing at all. I hold that library
providers are as much bound to furnish wholesome food for the minds of
the young who resort to them for guidance, as their parents are to
provide wholesome food for their bodies.

But the question returns upon us--what is wholesome food? In the first
place, it is that great body of fiction which has borne the test, both of
critical judgment, and of popularity with successive generations of
readers. It is the novels of Scott, Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, George
Eliot, Cooper, Hawthorne, Kingsley, Mulock-Craik, and many more, such as
no parents need blush to put into the hands of their daughters. In the
next place, it is such a selection from the myriads of stories that have
poured from the press of this generation as have been approved by the
best readers, and the critical judgment of a responsible press.

As to books of questionable morality, I am aware that contrary opinions
prevail on the question whether any such books should be allowed in a
public library, or not. The question is a different one for the small
town libraries and for the great reference libraries of the world. The
former are really educational institutions, supported at the people's
expense, like the free schools, and should be held to a responsibility
from which the extensive reference libraries in the city are free. The
latter may and ought to preserve every form of literature, and, if
national libraries, they would be derelict in their duty to posterity if
they did not acquire and preserve the whole literature of the country,
and hand it down complete to future generations. The function of the
public town library is different. It must indispensably make a selection,
since its means are not adequate to buy one-tenth of the annual product
of the press, which amounts in only four nations (England, France,
Germany, and the United States) to more than thirty-five thousand new
volumes a year. Its selection, mainly of American and English books, must
be small, and the smaller it is, the greater is the need of care in
buying. In fact, it is in most cases, compelled to be a selection from a
selection. Therefore, in the many cases of doubt arising as to the fit
character of a book, let the doubt be resolved in favor of the fund, thus
preserving the chance of getting a better book for the money.

With this careful and limited selection of the best, out of the multitude
of novels that swarm from the press, the reading public will have every
reason to be satisfied. No excuse can be alleged for filling up our
libraries with poor books, while there is no dearth whatever of good
ones. It is not the business of a public library to compete with the news
stands or the daily press in furnishing the latest short stories for
popular consumption; a class of literature whose survival is likely to be
quite as short as the stories themselves.

Take an object lesson as to the mischiefs of reading the wretched stuff
which some people pretend is "better than no reading at all" from the boy
Jesse Pomeroy, who perpetrated a murder of peculiar atrocity in Boston.
"Pomeroy confessed that he had always been a great reader of 'blood and
thunder' stories, having read probably sixty dime novels, all treating of
scalping and deeds of violence. The boy said that he had no doubt that
the reading of those books had a great deal to do with his course, and he
would advise all boys to leave them alone."

In some libraries, where the pernicious effect of the lower class of
fiction has been observed, the directors have withdrawn from circulation
a large proportion of the novels, which had been bought by reason of
their popularity. In other newly started libraries only fiction of the
highest grade has been placed in the library from the start, and this is
by far the best course. If readers inquire for inferior or immoral books,
and are told that the library does not have them, although they will
express surprise and disappointment, they will take other and improving
reading, thus fulfilling the true function of the library as an educator.
Librarians and library boards cannot be too careful about what
constitutes the collection which is to form the pabulum of so many of the
rising generation.

This does not imply that they are to be censors, or prudes, but with the
vast field of literature before them from which to choose, they are bound
to choose the best.

The American Library Association has had this subject under discussion
repeatedly, and while much difference of opinion has arisen from the
difficulty of finding any absolute standard of excellence, nearly all
have agreed that as to certain books, readers should look elsewhere than
to the public free library for them. At one time a list of authors was
made out, many of whose works were deemed objectionable, either from
their highly sensational character, or their bad style, or their highly
wrought and morbid pictures of human passions, or their immoral tendency.
This list no doubt will surprise many, as including writers whose books
everybody, almost, has read, or has been accustomed to think well of. It
embraces the following popular authors, many of whose novels have had a
wide circulation, and that principally through popular libraries.

Here follow the names:

Mary J. Holmes, Mrs. Henry Wood, C. L. Hentz, M. P. Finley, Mrs. A. S.
Stephens, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mrs. Forrester, Rhoda Broughton, Helen
Mathers, Jessie Fothergill, M. E. Braddon, Florence Marryat, Ouida,
Horatio Alger, Mayne Reid, Oliver Optic, W. H. S. Kingston, E. Kellogg,
G. W. M. Reynolds, C. Fosdick, Edmund Yates, G. A. Lawrence, Grenville
Murray, W. H. Ainsworth, Wilkie Collins, E. L. Bulwer-Lytton, W. H.
Thomes, and Augusta Evans Wilson.

Bear in mind, that only English and American novels are included, and
those only of the present century: also, that as to many which are
included, no imputation of immorality was made. Such a "black list" is
obviously open to the charge of doing great injustice to the good repute
of writers named, since only a part of the works written by some of them
can properly be objected to, and these are not specially named.
Bulwer-Lytton, for example, whose "Paul Clifford" is a very improper book
to go into the hands of young people, has written at least a dozen other
fictions of noble moral purpose, and high literary merit.

Out of seventy public libraries to which the list was sent, with inquiry
whether the authors named were admitted as books of circulation, thirty
libraries replied. All of them admitted Bulwer-Lytton and Wilkie Collins,
all but two Oliver Optic's books, and all but six Augusta Evans Wilson's.
Reynolds' novels were excluded by twenty libraries, Mrs. Southworth's by
eleven, "Ouida's" by nine, and Mrs. Stephens's and Mrs. Henry Wood's by
eight. Other details cannot find space for notice here.

This instance is one among many of endeavors constantly being made by
associated librarians to stem the ever increasing flood of poor fiction
which threatens to submerge the better class of books in our public
libraries.

That no such wholesome attempt can be wholly successful is evident
enough. The passion for reading fiction is both epidemic and chronic; and
in saying this, do not infer that I reckon it as a disease. A librarian
has no right to banish fiction because the appetite for it is abused. He
is not to set up any ideal and impossible standard of selection. His
most useful and beneficent function is to turn into better channels the
universal hunger for reading which is entertaining. Do readers want an
exciting novel? What can be more exciting than "Les Miserables" of Victor
Hugo, a book of exceptional literary excellence and power? Literature is
full of fascinating stories, admirably told, and there is no excuse for
loading our libraries with trash, going into the slums for models, or
feeding young minds upon the unclean brood of pessimistic novels. If it
is said that people will have trash, let them buy it, and let the
libraries wash their hands of it, and refuse to circulate the stuff which
no boy nor girl can touch without being contaminated.

Those who claim that we might as well let the libraries down to the level
of the poorest books, because unformed and ignorant minds are capable of
nothing better, should be told that people are never raised by giving
them nothing to look up to. To devour infinite trash is not the road to
learn wisdom, or virtue, or even to attain genuine amusement. To those
who are afraid that if the libraries are purified, the masses will get
nothing that they can read, the answer is, have they not got the entire
world of magazines, the weekly, daily, and Sunday newspapers, which
supply a whole library of fiction almost daily? Add to these plenty of
imaginative literature in fiction and in poetry, on every library's
shelves, which all who can read can comprehend, and what excuse remains
for buying what is neither decent nor improving?

Take an example of the boundless capacity for improvement that exists in
the human mind and human taste, from the spread of the fine arts among
the people. Thirty years ago, their houses, if having any decoration at
all, exhibited those fearful and wonderful colored lithographs and
chromos in which bad drawing, bad portraiture, and bad coloring vied with
each other to produce pictures which it would be a mild use of terms to
call detestable. Then came the two great international art expositions at
Philadelphia and Chicago, each greatly advancing by the finest models,
the standard of taste in art, and by new economies of reproduction
placing the most beautiful statues and pictures within the reach of the
most moderate purse. What has been the result? An incalculable
improvement in the public taste, educated by the diffusion of the best
models, until even the poor farmer of the backwoods will no longer
tolerate the cheap and nasty horrors that once disfigured his walls.

The lesson in art is good in literature also. Give the common people good
models, and there is no danger but they will appreciate and understand
them. Never stoop to pander to a depraved taste, no matter what specious
pleas you may hear for tolerating the low in order to lead to the high,
or for making your library contribute to the survival of the unfittest.

Is it asked, how can the librarian find out, among the world of novels
from which he is to select, what is pure and what is not, what is
wholesome and what unhealthy, what is improving and what is trash? The
answer is--there are some lists which will be most useful in this
discrimination, while there is no list which is infallible. Mr. F.
Leypoldt's little catalogue of "Books for all Time" has nothing that any
library need do without. Another compendious list is published by the
American Library Association. And the more extensive catalogue prepared
for the World's Fair in 1893, and embracing about 5,000 volumes, entitled
"Catalogue of A. L. A. Library: 5,000 vols. for a popular library," while
it has many mistakes and omissions, is a tolerably safe guide in making
up a popular library. I may note that the list of novels in this large
catalogue put forth by the American Library Association has the names of
five only out of the twenty-eight writers of fiction heretofore
pronounced objectionable, and names a select few only of the books of
these five.

As for the later issues of the press, and especially the new novels, let
him skim them for himself, unless in cases where trustworthy critical
judgments are found in journals. Running through a book to test its style
and moral drift is no difficult task for the practiced eye.

Let us suppose that you are cursorily perusing a novel which has made a
great sensation, and you come upon the following sentence: "Eighteen
millions of years would level all in one huge, common, shapeless ruin.
Perish the microcosm in the limitless macrocosm! and sink this feeble
earthly segregate in the boundless rushing choral aggregation!" This is
in Augusta J. Evans Wilson's story "Macaria", and many equally
extraordinary examples of "prose run mad" are found in the novels of this
once noted writer. What kind of a model is that to form the style of the
youthful neophyte, to whom one book is as good as another, since it was
found on the shelves of the public library?

I am not insisting that all books admitted should be models of style;
even a purist must admit that one of the greatest charms of literature is
its infinite variety. But when book after book is filled with such
specimens of literary lunacy as this, one is tempted to believe that
Homer and Shakespeare, to say nothing of Thackeray and Hawthorne, have
lived in vain.

Never fear criticism of those who find fault with the absence from your
library of books that you know to be nearly worthless; their absence will
be a silent but eloquent protest against them, sure to be vindicated by
the utter oblivion into which they will fall. Many a flaming reputation
has been extinguished after dazzling callow admirers for six months, or
even less. Do not dread the empty sarcasm, that may grow out of the
exclusion of freshly printed trash, that your library is a "back number."
To some poor souls every thing that is great and good in the world's
literature is a "back number"; and the Bible itself, with its immortal
poetry and sublimity, is the oldest back number of all. It is no part of
your business as a librarian to cater to the tastes of those who act as
if the reading of endless novels of sensation were the chief end of man.
As one fed on highly spiced viands and stimulating drinks surely loses
the appetite for wholesome and nourishing food, so one who reads only
exciting and highly wrought fictions loses the taste for the
master-pieces of prose and poetry.

Let not the fear of making many mistakes be a bug-bear in your path. If
you are told that your library is too exclusive, reply that it has not
means enough to buy all the good books that are wanted, and cannot afford
to spend money on bad or even on doubtful ones. If you have excluded any
highly-sought-for book on insufficient evidence, never fail to revise the
judgment. All that can be expected of any library is approximately just
and wise selection, having regard to merit, interest, and moral tone,
more than to novelty or popularity.

In the matter of choice, individual opinions are of small value. Never
buy a book simply because some reader extols it as very fine, or
"splendid," or "perfectly lovely." Such praises are commonly to be
distrusted in direct proportion to their extravagance.

A good lesson to libraries is furnished in the experience of the
Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library. In 1878, out of 16,000 volumes in that
library, no less than 6,000 were novels. The governing board, on the
plea of giving people what they wanted, bought nearly all new books of
fiction, and went so far, even, as to buy of Pinkerton's Detective
stories, fifteen copies each, fifteen of all Mrs. Southworth's novels,
etc. But a change took place in the board, and the librarian was
permitted to stop the growing flood of worthless fiction, and as fast as
the books were worn out, they were replaced by useful reading. It
resulted that four years later, with 40,000 volumes in the library, only
7,000 were novels, or less than one-fifth, instead of more than one-third
of the whole collection, as formerly. In the same time, the percentage of
fiction drawn out was reduced from 69 per cent. of the aggregate books
read, to 50 per cent.

Libraries are always complaining that they cannot buy many valuable books
from lack of funds. Yet some of them buy a great many that are valueless
in spite of this lack. Can any thing be conceived more valueless than a
set of Sylvanus Cobb's novels, reprinted to the number of thirty-five to
forty, from the New York Ledger? Yet these have been bought for scores of
libraries, which could not afford the latest books in science and art, or
biography, history, or travel. There are libraries in which the latest
books on electricity, or sewerage, or sanitary plumbing, might have saved
many lives, but which must go without them, because the money has been
squandered on vapid and pernicious literature.

In almost every library, while some branches of knowledge are fairly
represented, others are not represented at all. Nearly all present
glaring deficiencies, and these are often caused by want of systematic
plan in building up the collection. Boards of managers are frequently
changed, and the policy of the library with them. All the more important
is it that the librarian should be so well equipped with a definite aim,
and with knowledge and skill competent to urge that aim consistently, as
to preserve some unity of plan.

I need not add that a librarian should be always wide awake to the needs
of his library in every direction. It should be taken for granted that
its general aim is to include the best books in the whole range of human
knowledge. With the vast area of book production before him, he should
strengthen every year some department, taking them in order of
importance.

Some scholarly writers tell us that very few books are essential to a
good education. James Russell Lowell named five, which in his view
embraced all the essentials; namely, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare,
Cervantes, and Goethe's Faust. Prof. Charles E. Norton of Harvard
remarked that this list might even be abridged so as to embrace only
Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. I can only regard such exclusiveness as
misleading, though conceding the many-sidedness of these great writers.
To extend the list is the function of all public libraries, as well as of
most of the private ones. Next after the really essential books, that
library will be doing its public good service which acquires all the
important works that record the history of man. This will include
biography, travels and voyages, science, and much besides, as well as
history.

Special pains should be taken in every library to have every thing
produced in its own town, county, and State. Not only books, but all
pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, and even broadsides or circulars,
should be sought for and stored up as memorials of the present age,
tending in large part rapidly to disappear.

In selecting editions of standard authors, one should always
discriminate, so as to secure for the library, if not the best, at least
good, clear type, sound, thick paper, and durable binding. Cheap and
poor editions wear out quickly, and have to be thrown away for better
ones, which wise economy should have selected in the first place. For
example, a widely circulated edition of Scott's novels, found in most
libraries, has the type so worn and battered by the many large editions
printed from the plates, that many letters and words are wanting, thus
spoiling not only the pleasure but abridging the profit of the reader in
perusing the novels. The same is true of one edition of Cooper. Then
there are many cheap reprints of English novels in the Seaside and other
libraries which abound in typographical errors. A close examination of a
cheap edition of a leading English novelist's works revealed more than
3,000 typographical errors in the one set of books! It would be
unpardonable carelessness to buy such books for general reading because
they are cheap.

Librarians should avoid what are known as subscription books, as a rule,
though some valid exceptions exist. Most of such books are profusely
illustrated and in gaudy bindings, gotten up to dazzle the eye. If works
of merit, it is better to wait for them, than to subscribe for an
unfinished work, which perhaps may never reach completion.

A librarian or book collector should be ever observant of what he may
find to enrich his collection. When in a book-store, or a private or
public library, he should make notes of such works seen as are new to
him, with any characteristics which their custodian may remark upon. Such
personal examination is more informing than any catalogue.

I think each public library should possess, besides a complete set of the
English translations of the Greek and Latin classics, a full set of the
originals, for the benefit of scholarly readers. These classic texts can
be had complete in modern editions for a very moderate price.

How far duplicate volumes should be bought should depend upon demand, and
the views of the purchasing powers. There is a real need of more than one
copy of almost every standard work, else it will be perpetually out,
giving occasion for numerous complaints from those who use the library.
It would be a good rule to keep one copy always in, and at the service of
readers, of every leading history, standard poet, or popular novel. Then
the duplicate copies for circulation may be one or more, as experience
and ability to provide may determine. A library which caters to the
novel-reading habit as extensively as the New York Mercantile (a
subscription library) has to buy fifty to one hundred copies of "Trilby,"
for example, to keep up with the demand. No such obligation exists for
the free public libraries. They, however, often buy half a dozen to a
dozen copies of a very popular story, when new, and sell them out after
the demand has slackened or died away.

The methods of selection and purchase in public libraries are very
various. In the Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, the librarian makes a
list of desiderata, has it manifolded, and sends a copy to each of the
thirteen members of the Board of directors. This list is reported on by
the members at the next monthly meeting of the Board, and generally, in
the main, approved. Novels and stories are not bought until time has
shown of what value they may be. The aim is mainly educational at the
Worcester library, very special pains being taken to aid all the pupils
and teachers in the public schools, by careful selection, and providing
duplicate or more copies of important works.

In the Public Library of Cleveland, Ohio, there is appointed out of the
governing Board a book-committee of three. To one of these are referred
English books wanted, to another French, and to the third German books.
This sub-committee approves or amends the Librarian's recommendations,
at its discretion; but expensive works are referred to the whole board
for determination.

In the New York Mercantile Library, which must keep continually up to
date in its supply of new books, the announcements in all the morning
papers are daily scanned, and books just out secured by immediate order.
Many publishers send in books on approval, which are frequently bought.
An agent in London is required to send on the day of publication all new
books on certain subjects.

The library boards of management meet weekly in New York and
Philadelphia, but monthly in most country libraries. The selection of
books made by committees introduces often an element of chance, not quite
favorable to the unity of plan in developing the resources of the
library. But with a librarian of large information, discretion, and
skill, there need seldom be any difficulty in securing approval of his
selections, or of most of them. In some libraries the librarian is
authorized to buy at discretion additions of books in certain lines, to
be reported at the next meeting of the board; and to fill up all
deficiencies in periodicals that are taken. This is an important
concession to his judgment, made in the interest of completeness in the
library, saving a delay of days and sometimes weeks in waiting for the
board of directors.

All orders sent out for accessions should previously be compared with the
alphabeted order-card list, as well as with the general catalogue of the
library, to avoid duplication. After this the titles are to be
incorporated in the alphabet of all outstanding orders, to be withdrawn
only on receipt of the books.

The library should invite suggestions from all frequenting it, of books
recommended and not found in the collection. A blank record-book for this
purpose, or an equivalent in order-cards, should be always kept on the
counter of the library.




CHAPTER 2.

BOOK BUYING.


The buying of books is to some men a pastime; to others it is a passion;
but to the librarian and the intelligent book collector it is both a
business and a pleasure. The man who is endowed with a zeal for knowledge
is eager to be continually adding to the stores which will enable him to
acquire and to dispense that knowledge. Hence the perusal of catalogues
is to him an ever fresh and fascinating pursuit. However hampered he may
be by the lack of funds, the zest of being continually in quest of some
coveted volumes gives him an interest in every sale catalogue, whether of
bookseller or of auctioneer. He is led on by the perennial hope that he
may find one or more of the long-wished for and waited-for _desiderata_
in the thin pamphlet whose solid columns bristle with book-titles in
every variety of abbreviation and arrangement. It is a good plan, if one
can possibly command the time, to read every catalogue of the book
auctions, and of the second-hand book dealers, which comes to hand. You
will thus find a world of books chronicled and offered which you do not
want, because you have got them already: you will find many, also, which
you want, but which you know you cannot have; and you may find some of
the very volumes which you have sought through many years in vain. In any
case, you will have acquired valuable information--whether you acquire
any books or not; since there is hardly a priced catalogue, of any
considerable extent, from which you cannot reap knowledge of some
kind--knowledge of editions, knowledge of prices, and knowledge of the
comparative scarcity or full supply of many books, with a glimpse of
titles which you may never have met before. The value of the study of
catalogues as an education in bibliography can never be over-estimated.

The large number of active and discriminating book-buyers from America
has for years past awakened the interest and jealousy of collectors
abroad, where it has very largely enhanced the price of all first-class
editions, and rare works.

No longer, as in the early days of Dibdin and Heber, is the competition
for the curiosities of old English literature confined to a half-score of
native amateurs. True, we have no such omnivorous gatherers of literary
rubbish as that magnificent _helluo librorum_, Richard Heber, who amassed
what was claimed to be the largest collection of books ever formed by a
single individual. Endowed with a princely fortune, and an undying
passion for the possession of books, he spent nearly a million dollars in
their acquisition. His library, variously stated at from 105,000 volumes
(by Dr. Dibdin) to 146,000 volumes (by Dr. Allibone) was brought to the
hammer in 1834. The catalogue filled 13 octavo volumes, and the sale
occupied 216 days. The insatiable owner (who was a brother of Reginald
Heber, Bishop of Calcutta) died while still collecting, at the age of
sixty, leaving his enormous library, which no single house of ordinary
size could hold, scattered in half a dozen mansions in London, Oxford,
Paris, Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent.

Yet the owner of this vast mass of mingled nonsense and erudition, this
library of the curiosities of literature, was as generous in imparting as
in acquiring his literary treasures. No English scholar but was freely
welcome to the loan of his volumes; and his own taste and critical
knowledge are said to have been of the first order.

From this, probably the most extensive private library ever gathered, let
us turn to the largest single purchase, in number of volumes, made at one
time for a public library. When Dr. J. G. Cogswell went abroad in 1848,
to lay the foundations of the Astor Library, he took with him credentials
for the expenditure of $100,000; and, what was of even greater
importance, a thoroughly digested catalogue of _desiderata_, embracing
the most important books in every department of literature and science.
No such opportunity of buying the finest books at the lowest prices is
likely ever to occur again, as the fortuitous concourse of events brought
to Dr. Cogswell. It was the year of revolutions--the year when the
thrones were tottering or falling all over Europe, when the wealthy and
privileged classes were trembling for their possessions, and anxious to
turn them into ready money. In every time of panic, political or
financial, the prices of books, as well as of all articles of luxury, are
the first to fall. Many of the choicest collections came to the hammer;
multitudes were eager to sell--but there were few buyers except the book
merchants, who were all ready to sell again. The result was that some
80,000 volumes were gathered for the Astor Library, embracing a very
large share of the best editions and the most expensive works, with many
books strictly denominated rare, and nearly all bound in superior style,
at an average cost of about $1.40 per volume. This extraordinary good
fortune enabled the Astor Library to be opened on a very small endowment,
more splendidly equipped for a library of reference than any new
institution could be today with four or five times the money.

Compared with such opportunities as these, you may consider the
experiences of the little libraries, and the narrow means of recruitment
generally found, as very literally the day of small things. But a wise
apportionment of small funds, combined with a good knowledge of the
commercial value of books, and perpetual vigilance in using
opportunities, will go very far toward enlarging any collection in the
most desirable directions.

Compare for a moment with the results stated of the Astor Library's early
purchases, the average prices paid by British Libraries for books
purchased from 1826 to 1854, as published in a parliamentary return. The
average cost per volume varied from 16_s_ or about $4 a volume, for the
University Library of Edinburgh, to 4_s_ 6_d_, or $1.10 a volume for the
Manchester Free Library. The latter, however, were chiefly popular new
books, published at low prices, while the former included many costly old
works, law books, etc. The British Museum Library's average was 8_s_ 5_d_
or about $2.00 per volume. Those figures represent cloth binding, while
the Astor's purchases were mostly in permanent leather bindings.

Averages are very uncertain standards of comparison, as a single book
rarity often costs more than a hundred volumes of the new books of the
day; but in a library filled with the best editions of classical and
scientific works, and reference books, I presume that two dollars a
volume is not too high an estimate of average cost, in these days
represented by the last twenty years. For a circulating library, on the
other hand, composed chiefly of what the public most seek to read, half
that average would perhaps express the full commercial value of the
collection. Of its intrinsic value I will not here pause to speak.

There are many methods of book buying, of which we may indicate the
principal as follows:

    1. By direct orders from book dealers.
    2. By competition on select lists of wants.
    3. By order from priced catalogues.
    4. By purchase at auction sales.
    5. By personal research among book stocks.
    6. By lists and samples of books sent on approval.

Each of these methods has its advantages--and, I may add, its
disadvantages likewise. The collector who combines them, as opportunity
presents, is most likely to make his funds go the farthest, and to enrich
his collection the most. Direct orders for purchase are necessary for
most new books wanted, except in the case of the one government library,
which in most countries, receives them under copyright provision. An
advantageous arrangement can usually be made with one or more
book-dealers, to supply all new books at a fairly liberal discount from
retail prices. And it is wise management to distribute purchases where
good terms are made, as thereby the trade will feel an interest in the
library, and a mutuality of interest will secure more opportunities and
better bargains.

The submission of lists of books wanted, to houses having large stocks or
good facilities, helps to make funds go as far as possible through
competition. By the typewriter such lists can now be manifolded much more
cheaply than they can be written or printed.

Selection from priced catalogues presents a constantly recurring
opportunity of buying volumes of the greatest consequence, to fill gaps
in any collection, and often at surprisingly low prices. Much as book
values have been enhanced of late years, there are yet catalogues issued
by American, English and continental dealers which quote books both of
the standard and secondary class at very cheap rates. Even now English
books are sold by the Mudie and the W. H. Smith lending libraries in
London, after a very few months, at one-half to one-fourth their original
publishing price. These must usually be rebound, but by instructing your
agent to select copies which are clean within, all the soil of the edges
will disappear with the light trimming of the binder.

Purchase at auction supplies a means of recruiting libraries both public
and private with many rare works, and with the best editions of the
standard authors, often finely bound. The choice private libraries of the
country, as well as the poor ones, tend to pour themselves sooner or
later into public auctions. The collectors of books, whose early avidity
to amass libraries of fine editions was phenomenal, rarely persist in
cultivating the passion through life. Sometimes they are overtaken by
misfortune--sometimes by indifference--the bibliomania not being a
perennial inspiration, but often an acute and fiery attack, which in a
few years burns out. Even if the library gathered with so much money and
pains descends to the heirs of the collector, the passion for books is
very seldom an inherited one. Thus the public libraries are constantly
recruited by the opportunities of selection furnished by the forced sale
of the private ones. Here, public competition frequently runs up the
price of certain books to an exorbitant degree, while those not wanted
often sell for the merest trifle. One should have a pretty clear idea of
the approximate commercial value of books, before competing for them at
public sale. He may, however, if well persuaded in his own mind as to the
importance or the relative unimportance to his own collection of any
work, regulate his bids by that standard, regardless of commercial value,
except as a limit beyond which he will not go. Few librarians can
personally attend auction sales--nor is it needful, when limits can so
easily be set to orders. It is never safe to send an unlimited bid, as
there may be others without limit, in which case the book is commonly
awarded to the most remote bidder.

There are many curiosities of the auction room, one of them being the
frequent re-appearance of book rarities which have been through several
auctions, sometimes at intervals of years, keenly competed for by rival
bibliophiles, and carried off in triumph by some ardent collector, who
little thought at the time how soon his own collection would come to the
hammer.

There are also many curiosities of compilation in auction catalogues. Not
to name errors of commission, like giving the authorship of books to the
wrong name, and errors of omission, like giving no author's name at all,
some catalogues are thickly strewn with the epithets _rare_--and _very
rare_, when the books are sufficiently common in one or the other market.
Do not be misled by these surface indications. Books are often attributed
in catalogues to their editor or translator, and the unwary buyer may
thus find himself saddled with a duplicate already in his own collection.
There has been much improvement in late years in the care with which
auction catalogues are edited, and no important collection at least is
offered, without having first passed through the hands of an expert,
familiar with bibliography. It is the minor book sales where the
catalogues receive no careful editing, and where the dates and editions
are frequently omitted, that it is necessary to guard against. It is well
to refrain from sending any bids out of such lists, because they furnish
no certain identification of the books, and if all would do the same,
thus diminishing the competition and the profit of the auctioneer, he
might learn never to print a catalogue without date, place of
publication, and full name of author of every book offered.

Never be too eager to acquire an auction book, unless you are very
thoroughly assured that it is one of the kind truly designated
_rarissimus_. An eminent and thoroughly informed book collector, with an
experience of forty years devoted to book auctions and book catalogues,
assured me that it was his experience that almost every book would turn
up on the average about every seven years. Of course there are notable
exceptions--and especially among the class of books known as
_incunabula_, (or cradle-books printed in the infancy of printing) and of
early Americana: but it is not these which the majority of libraries are
most in search of. Remember always, if you lose a coveted volume, that
there will be another chance--perhaps many of them. The private
collector, who carries it off against you, has had no former opportunity
to get the rare volume, and may never have another. He is therefore
justified in paying what is to ordinary judgment an extraordinary price.
Individual collectors die, but public libraries are immortal.

If you become thoroughly conversant with priced catalogues, you will make
fewer mistakes than most private buyers. Not only catalogues of notable
collections, with the prices obtained at auction, but the large and very
copious catalogues of such London book-dealers as Quaritch and Sotheran,
are accessible in the great city libraries. These are of the highest use
in suggesting the proximate prices at which important books have been or
may be acquired. Since 1895, annual volumes entitled "American Book
Prices Current" have been issued, giving the figures at which books have
been sold at all the principal auction sales of the year.

There is no word so much abused as the term _rare_, when applied to
books. Librarians know well the unsophisticated citizen who wants to sell
at a high price a "rare" volume of divinity "a hundred and fifty years
old" (worth possibly twenty-five cents to half a dollar,) and the
persistent woman who has the rarest old bible in the country, which she
values anywhere from fifty to five hundred dollars, and which turns out
on inspection to be an imperfect copy of one of Barker's multitudinous
editions of 1612 to '18, which may be picked up at five to eight
shillings in any old London book-shop. The confident assertions so often
paraded, even in catalogues, "only three copies known," and the like, are
to be received with absolute incredulity, and the claims of ignorant
owners of books who fancy that their little pet goose is a fine swan,
because they never saw another, are as ridiculous as the laudation
bestowed by a sapient collector upon two of his most valued nuggets.
"This, sir, is unique, but not so unique as the other."

Buying books by actual inspection at the book-shops is even more
fascinating employment than buying them through catalogues. You thus come
upon the most unexpected volumes unawares. You open the covers, scan the
title-pages, get a glimpse of the plates, and flit from book to book,
like a bee gathering honey for its hive. It is a good way to recruit your
library economically, to run through the stock of a book-dealer
systematically--neglecting no shelf, but selecting throughout the whole
stock, and laying aside what you think you may want. When this is done,
you will have quite a pile of literature upon which to negotiate with the
proprietor. It is cheaper to buy thus at wholesale than by piecemeal,
because the bookseller will make you a larger discount on a round lot of
which you relieve his shelves.

Another method of recruiting your library is the examination of books "on
approval." Most book-dealers will be so obliging as to send in parcels of
books for the inspection of a librarian or collector, who can thus
examine them leisurely and with more thoroughness than in a book store,
without leaving his business.

All books, by whatever course they may be purchased, are indispensably
to be collated before they are accepted and paid for. Neglect of this
will fill any library with imperfections, since second-hand books are
liable to have missing leaves, or plates, or maps, while new books may
lack signatures or plates, or be wrongly bound together. In the case of
new books, or books still in print, the publisher is bound to make good
an imperfection.

In old books, this is usually impossible, and the only remedy is to
return the imperfect books upon the seller's hands, unless there may be a
reason, such as the rarity of the volume, or its comparative little cost,
or the trifling nature of the imperfection, for retaining it. The
equities in these cases are in favor of the buyer, who is presumed to
have purchased a perfect copy. But the right of reclamation must be
exercised promptly, or it may be forfeited by lapse of time. If an
imperfection in any book you order is noted in the catalogue, it is not
subject to return. I have ever found the book auctioneers most courteous
and considerate in their dealings--and the same can be said of the book
trade generally, among whom instances of liberality to libraries are by
no means rare.

One of the choicest pleasures of the book collector, whether private
student or librarian, is to visit the second-hand book-shops of any city,
and examine the stock with care. While he may find but few notable
treasures in one collection, a search through several shops will be
almost sure to reward him. Here are found many of the outpourings of the
private libraries, formed by specialists or amateurs, and either
purchased by the second-hand dealer _en bloc_, or bid off by him at some
auction sale. Even rare books are picked up in this way, no copies of
which can be had by order, because long since "out of print." The stock
in these shops is constantly changing, thus adding a piquant and
sometimes exciting element to the book-hunter, who is wise in proportion
as he seizes quickly upon all opportunities of new "finds" by frequent
visits. To mourn over a lost chance in rare books is often more grievous
to the zealous collector, than to lose a large share out of his fortune;
while to exult over a literary nugget long sought and at length found is
a pleasure to which few others can be compared.

Of the many _bouquinistes_ whose open-air shops line the quays of Paris
along the Seine, numbering once as many as a hundred and fifty dealers in
second-hand books, I have no room to treat; books have been written about
them, and the _littérateurs_ of France, of Europe, and of America have
profited by countless bargains in their learned wares. Nor can I dwell
upon the literary wealth of London book-shops, dark and dingy, but ever
attractive to the hungry scholar, or the devotee of bibliomania.

Of the many second-hand booksellers (or rather sellers of second-hand
books) in American cities, the more notable have passed from the stage of
action in the last quarter of a century. Old William Gowans, a quaint,
intelligent Scotchman, in shabby clothes and a strong face deeply marked
with small pox, was for many years the dean of this fraternity in New
York. His extensive book-shop in Nassau street, with its dark cellar, was
crowded and packed with books on shelves, on stairways and on the floors,
heaped and piled in enormous masses, amid which the visitor could hardly
find room to move. On one of the piles you might find the proprietor
seated--

    Books to the right of him,
    Books to the left of him,
    Books behind him,
    Volleyed and tumbled,

while he answered inquiries for books from clergymen and students, or
gruffly bargained with a boy or an old woman for a dilapidated lot of
old books. He had a curious quizzical way with strangers, who at once set
him down as an oddity, and his impatience with ignoramuses and bores gave
him the repute of crustiness, which was redeemed by suavity enough
whenever he met with people of intelligence.

Gowans issued scores of catalogues of his stock, in which titles were
often illustrated by notes, always curious and often amusing, credited to
"Western Memorabilia," a work which no bookseller or man of letters had
ever heard of, but which was shrewdly suspected to have been a projected
scrap-book of the observations and opinions of William Gowans.

There was another eccentric book-dealer's shop in Nassau street kept by
one John Doyle, who aimed so high in his profession as to post over his
door a sign reading "The Moral Centre of the Intellectual Universe." This
establishment was notably full of old editions of books of English
history and controversial theology.

The most famous second-hand book-shop in Boston was Burnham's, whose
fore-name was Thomas Oliver Hazard Perry, shortened into "Perry Burnham"
by his familiars. He was a little, pale-faced, wiry, nervous man, with
piercing black eyes and very brusque manners. In old and musty books he
lived and moved and had his being, for more than a generation. He
exchanged a stuffy, narrow shop in Cornhill for more spacious quarters in
Washington street, near School street, where he bought and sold books
with an assiduous devotion to business, never trusting to others what he
could do himself. He was proud of his collection and its extent. He
bought books and pamphlets at auction literally by the cart-load, every
thing that nobody else wanted being bid off to Burnham at an
insignificant price, almost nominal. He got a wide reputation for
selling cheaply, but he always knew when to charge a stiff price for a
book, and to stick to it. Once when I was pricing a lot of miscellaneous
books picked out for purchase, mostly under a dollar a volume, we came to
a copy of "The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of
America," 1st edition, Philadelphia, 1781, of which two hundred copies
only were printed, by order of Congress. This copy was in the original
boards, uncut, and with the autograph of Timothy Pickering on the title
page. "If the Congress Library wants that book," said Mr. Burnham, "it
will have to pay eight dollars for it." I took it, well pleased to secure
what years of search had failed to bring. The next year my satisfaction
was enhanced when an inferior copy of the same book was offered at twenty
dollars.

Burnham died a wealthy man, having amassed a million dollars in trade and
by rise in real estate, as he owned the land on which the Parker House
stands in Boston.

Among Philadelphia dealers in second-hand books, one John Penington was
recognized as most intelligent and honorable. He was a book-lover and a
scholar, and one instinctively ranked him not as a bookseller, but as a
gentleman who dealt in books. On his shelves one always found books of
science and volumes in foreign languages.

Another notable dealer was John Campbell, a jolly, hearty Irish-American,
with a taste for good books, and an antipathy to negroes, as keen as the
proverbial hatred of the devil for holy water. Campbell wrote a book
entitled "Negromania," published in 1851, in which his creed was set
forth in strong language. He was a regular bidder at book auctions, where
his burly form and loud voice made him a prominent figure.

Of notable auction sales of books, and of the extravagant prices obtained
for certain editions by ambitious and eager competition, there is little
room to treat. The oft-told story of the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471,
carried off at the Roxburghe sale in 1812, at £2,260 from Earl Spencer by
the Marquis of Blandford, and re-purchased seven years after at another
auction for £918, has been far surpassed in modern bibliomania. "The
sound of that hammer," wrote the melodramatic Dibdin, "echoed through
Europe:" but what would he have said of the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg
and Fust (1450-55) sold in 1897, at the Ashburnham sale, for four
thousand pounds, or of the Latin Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, 2d ed.
1459, which brought £4,950 at the Syston Park sale in 1884? This last sum
(about twenty-four thousand dollars) is the largest price ever yet
recorded as received for a single volume. Among books of less rarity,
though always eagerly sought, is the first folio Shakespeare of 1623, a
very fine and perfect copy of which brought £716.2 at Daniel's sale in
1864. Copies warranted perfect have since been sold in London for £415 to
£470. In New York, a perfect but not "tall" copy brought $4,200 in 1891
at auction. Walton's "Compleat Angler," London, 1st ed. 1653, a little
book of only 250 pages, sold for £310 in 1891. It was published for one
shilling and sixpence. The first edition of Robinson Crusoe brought £75
at the Crampton sale in 1896.

The rage for first editions of very modern books reached what might be
called high-water mark some time since, and has been on the decline.
Shelley's "Queen Mab," 1st ed. 1813, was sold at London for £22.10, and
his "Refutation of Deism," 1814, was sold at £33, at a London sale in
1887. In New York, many first editions of Shelley's poems brought the
following enormous prices in 1897.

    Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, Italy, 1821, $335.
    Alastor, London, 1816, $130.
    The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $65.
    Hellas, London, 1822, $13.

But these were purely adventitious prices, as was clearly shown in the
sale at the same auction rooms, a year or two earlier, of the following:

    Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, 1821, $19.
    Alastor, London, 1816, $32.
    The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $21.
    Hellas, London, 1822, $2.

The sales occasionally made at auction of certain books at extraordinary
prices, prove nothing whatever as to the real market value, for these
reasons: (1) The auctioneer often has an unlimited bid, and the price is
carried up to an inordinate height. (2) Two or more bidders present,
infatuated by the idea of extreme rarity, bid against one another until
all but one succumb, when the price has reached a figure which it is a
mild use of terms to call absurd. (3) Descriptions in sale catalogues,
though often entirely unfounded, characterising a book as "excessively
rare;" "only -- copies known," "very scarce," "never before offered at
our sales," etc., may carry the bidding on a book up to an unheard-of
price.

The appeal always lies to the years against the hours; and many a poor
book-mad enthusiast has had to rue his too easy credulity in giving an
extravagant sum for books which he discovers later that he could have
bought for as many shillings as he has paid dollars. Not that the
_rarissimi_ of early printed books can ever be purchased for a trifle;
but it should ever be remembered that even at the sales where a few--a
very few--bring the enormous prices that are bruited abroad, the mass of
the books offered are knocked down at very moderate figures, or are even
sacrificed at rates very far below their cost. The possessor of one of
the books so advertised as sold at some auction for a hundred dollars or
upwards, if he expects to realise a tithe of the figure quoted, will
speedily find himself in the vocative.

While there are almost priceless rarities not to be found in the market
by any buyer, let the book collector be consoled by the knowledge that
good books, in good editions, were never so easy to come by as now. A
fine library can be gathered by any one with very moderate means,
supplemented by a fair amount of sagacity and common sense. The buyer
with a carefully digested list of books wanted will find that to buy them
wisely takes more time and less money than he had anticipated. The time
is required to acquaint himself with the many competing editions, with
their respective merits and demerits. This involves a comparison of type,
paper, and binding, as well as the comparative prices of various dealers
for the same books. No one who is himself gifted with good perceptions
and good taste, should trust to other hands the selection of his library.
His enjoyment of it will be proportioned to the extent to which it is his
own creation. The passion for nobly written books, handsomely printed,
and clothed in a fitting garb, when it has once dawned, is not to be
defrauded of its satisfaction by hiring a commission merchant to appease
it. What we do for ourselves, in the acquirement of any knowledge, is apt
to be well done: what is done for us by others is of little value.

We have heard of some uninformed _parvenus_, grown suddenly rich, who
have first ordered a magnificent library room fitted with rose-wood,
marble and gilded trappings, and then ordered it to be filled with
splendidly bound volumes at so much per volume. And it is an authentic
fact, that a bookseller to the Czar of Russia one Klostermann, actually
sold books at fifty to one hundred roubles by the yard, according to the
binding. The force of folly could no farther go, to debase the aims and
degrade the intellect of man.

In the chapter upon rare books, the reader will find instances in great
variety of the causes that contribute to the scarcity and enhancement of
prices of certain books, without at all affecting their intrinsic value,
which may be of the smallest.




CHAPTER 3.

THE ART OF BOOK BINDING.


In these suggestions upon the important question of the binding of books,
I shall have nothing to say of the history of the art, and very little of
its aesthetics. The plainest and most practical hints will be aimed at,
and if my experience shall prove of value to any, I shall be well
rewarded for giving it here. For other matters readers will naturally
consult some of the numerous manuals of book-binding in English, French
and German. The sumptuous bindings executed in the sixteenth century,
under the patronage and the eyes of Grolier, the famous tooled
masterpieces of Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup, Trautz and other French
artists, and the beautiful gems of the binder's art from the hands of
Roger Payne, Lewis, Mackenzie, Hayday and Bedford, are they not
celebrated in the pages of Dibdin, Lacroix, Fournier, Wheatley, and
Robert Hoe?

There are some professed lovers of books who affect either indifference
or contempt for the style in which their favorites are dressed. A well
known epigram of Burns is sometimes quoted against the fondness for fine
bindings which widely prevails in the present day, as it did in that of
the Scottish Poet. A certain Scottish nobleman, endowed with more wealth
than brains, was vain of his splendidly bound Shakespeare, which,
however, he never read. Burns, on opening the folio, found the leaves
sadly worm-eaten, and wrote these lines on the fly-leaf:

    "Through and through th' inspired leaves,
        Ye maggots make your windings;
      But O respect his lordship's taste,
        And spare the golden bindings!"

Yet no real book-lover fails to appreciate the neatness and beauty of a
tasteful binding, any more than he is indifferent to the same qualities
in literary style. Slovenly binding is almost as offensive to a
cultivated eye as slovenly composition. No doubt both are "mere
externals," as we are told, and so are the splendors of scenery, the
beauty of flowers, and the comeliness of the human form, or features, or
costume. Talk as men will of the insignificance of dress, it constitutes
a large share of the attractiveness of the world in which we live.

The two prime requisites of good binding for libraries are neatness and
solidity. It is pleasant to note the steady improvement in American
bindings of late years. As the old style of "Half cloth boards," of half
a century ago, with paper titles pasted on the backs, has given way to
the neat, embossed, full muslin gilt, so the clumsy and homely sheep-skin
binding has been supplanted by the half-roan or morocco, with marble or
muslin sides. Few books are issued, however, either here or abroad, in
what may be called permanent bindings. The cheapness demanded by buyers
of popular books forbids this, while it leaves to the taste and fancy of
every one the selection of the "library style" in which he will have his
collection permanently dressed.

What is the best style of binding for a select or a public library? is a
question often discussed, with wide discrepancies of opinion. The so
universally prevalent cloth binding is too flimsy for books subjected to
much use--as most volumes in public collections and many in private
libraries are likely to be. The choice of the more substantial bindings
lies between calf and morocco, and between half or full bindings of
either. For nearly all books, half binding, if well executed, and with
cloth sides, is quite as elegant, and very nearly as solid and lasting as
full leather; for if a book is so worn as to need rebinding, it is
generally in a part where the full binding wears out quite as fast as the
other. That is, it gets worn at the hinges and on the back, whether full
or half-bound. The exceptions are the heavy dictionaries, encyclopaedias,
and other works of reference, which are subjected to much wear and tear
at the sides, as well as at the back and corners. Full leather is much
more expensive than half binding, though not doubly so.

Every librarian or book collector should understand something of
book-binding and its terms, so that he may be able to give clear
directions as to every item involved in binding, repairing, or
re-lettering, and to detect imperfect or slighted work.

The qualities that we always expect to find in a well-bound book are
solidity, flexibility, and elegance. Special examination should be
directed toward each of these points in revising any lot of books
returned from a binder. Look at each book with regard to:--

    1. Flexibility in opening.

    2. Evenness of the cover, which should lie flat and
    smooth--each edge being just parallel with the others
    throughout.

    3. Compactness--see that the volumes are thoroughly
    pressed--solid, and not loose or spongy.

    4. Correct and even lettering of titles, and other tooling.

    5. Good wide margins.

A well-bound book always opens out flat, and stays open. It also shuts up
completely, and when closed stays shut. But how many books do we see
always bulging open at the sides, or stiffly resisting being opened by
too great tightness in the back? If the books you have had bound do not
meet all these requirements, it is time to look for another binder.

The different styles of dressing books may all be summed up in the
following materials: Boards, cloth, vellum, sheep, bock, pig-skin, calf,
Russia, and morocco--to which may be added of recent years, buckram,
duck, linoleum, and the imitations of leather, such as leatherette and
morocco paper, and of parchment. I take no account here of obsolete
styles--as ivory, wood, brass, silver and other metals, nor of velvet,
satin, and other occasional luxuries of the binder's art. These belong to
the domain of the amateur, the antiquary, or the book-fancier--not to
that of the librarian or the ordinary book-collector.

Roan leather is nothing but sheep-skin, stained or colored; basil or
basan is sheepskin tanned in bark, while roan is tanned in sumac, and
most of the so called moroccos are also sheep, ingeniously grained by a
mechanical process. As all the manufactures in the world are full of
"shoddy," or sham materials, the bookbinder's art affords no exception.
But if the librarian or collector patronises shams, he should at least do
it with his eyes open, and with due counting of the cost.

Now as to the relative merits and demerits of materials for binding. No
one will choose boards covered with paper for any book which is to be
subjected to perusal, and cloth is too flimsy and shaky in its attachment
to the book, however cheap, for any library volumes which are to be
constantly in use. It is true that since the bulk of the new books coming
into any library are bound in cloth, they may be safely left in it until
well worn; and by this rule, all the books which nobody ever reads may be
expected to last many years, if not for generations. Cloth is a very
durable material, and will outlast some of the leathers, but any wetting
destroys its beauty, and all colors but the darkest soon become soiled
and repulsive, if in constant use. In most libraries, I hold that every
cloth-bound book which is read, must sooner or later come to have a
stout leather jacket. It may go for years, especially if the book is well
sewed, but to rebinding it must come at last; and the larger the volume,
the sooner it becomes shaky, or broken at some weak spot.

The many beautiful new forms of cloth binding should have a word of
praise, but the many more which we see of gaudy, fantastic, and
meretricious bindings, and frightful combinations of colors must be
viewed with a shudder.

Vellum, formerly much used for book-bindings, is the modern name for
parchment. Parchment was the only known writing material up to the 12th
century, when paper was first invented. There are two kinds--animal and
vegetable. The vegetable is made from cotton fibre or paper, by dipping
it in a solution of sulphuric acid and [sometimes] gelatine, then
removing the acid by a weak solution of ammonia, and smooth finishing by
rolling the sheets over a heated cylinder. Vegetable parchment is used to
bind many booklets which it is desired to dress in an elegant or dainty
style, but is highly unsuitable for library books. Vellum proper is a
much thicker material, made from the skins of calves, sheep, or lambs,
soaked in lime-water, and smoothed and hardened by burnishing with a hard
instrument, or pumice-stone. The common vellum is made from sheep-skin
splits, or skivers, but the best from whole calf-skins. The hard, strong
texture of vellum is in its favor, but its white color and tendency to
warp are fatal objections to it as a binding material.

Vellum is wholly unfit for the shelves of a library; the elegant white
binding soils with dust, or the use of the hands, more quickly than any
other; and the vellum warps in a dry climate, or curls up in a heated
room, so as to be unmanageable upon the shelves, and a nuisance in the
eyes of librarian and reader alike. The thin vegetable parchment lately
in vogue for some books and booklets is too unsubstantial for anything
but a lady's boudoir, where it may have its little day--"a thing of
beauty," but by no means "a joy forever."

Sheepskin--once the full binding for most school-books, and for a large
share of law and miscellaneous works for libraries, is now but little
used, except in its disguised forms. It is too soft a leather for hard
wear and tear, and what with abrasion and breaking at the hinges (termed
by binders the joints), it will give little satisfaction in the long run.
Under the effect of gas and heated atmospheres sheep crumbles and turns
to powder. Its cheapness is about its only merit, and even this is
doubtful economy, since no binding can be called cheap that has to be
rebound or repaired every few years. In the form of half-roan or bock,
colored sheep presents a handsome appearance on the shelf, and in volumes
or sets which are reasonably secure from frequent handling, one is
sometimes justified in adopting it, as it is far less expensive than
morocco. Pig-skin has been recently revived as a binding material, but
though extremely hard and durable, it is found to warp badly on the
shelves.

Calf bindings have always been great favorites with book-lovers, and
there are few things more beautiful--_prima facie_, than a volume
daintily bound in light French calf, as smooth as glass, as fine as silk,
with elegant gold tooling without and within, gilt edges, and fly-leaves
of finest satin. I said beautiful, _prima facie_--and this calls to mind
the definition of that law term by a learned Vermont jurist, who said:
"Gentlemen of the jury, I must explain to you that a _prima facie_ case
is a case that is very good in front, but may be very bad in the rear."
So of our so much lauded and really lovely calf bindings: they develop
qualities in use which give us pause. Calf is the most brittle of the
leathers--hence it is always breaking at the hinges; it is a very smooth
leather--hence it shows every scratch instantly; it is a light and
delicate leather--hence it shows soils and stains more quickly than any
other. Out of every hundred calf-bound volumes in any well-used library,
there will not remain ten which have not had to be re-bound or repaired
at the end of twenty or thirty years. Heavy volumes bound in calf or
half-calf leather will break by their own weight on the shelves, without
any use at all; and smaller volumes are sure to have their brittle joints
snapped asunder by handling sooner or later--it is only a question of
time.

Next comes Russia leather, which is very thick and strong, being made of
the hides of cattle, colored, and perfumed by the oil of birch, and made
chiefly in Russia. The objections to this leather are its great cost, its
stiffness and want of elasticity, and its tendency to desiccate and lose
all its tenacity in the dry or heated atmosphere of our libraries. It
will break at the hinges--though not so readily as calf.

Lastly, we have the morocco leather, so called because it was brought
from Morocco, in Africa, and still we get the best from thence, and from
the Mediterranean ports of the Levant--whence comes another name for the
best of this favorite leather, "Levant morocco," which is the skin of the
mountain goat, and reckoned superior to all other leathers. The
characteristics of the genuine morocco, sometimes called Turkey morocco,
having a pebbled grain, distinguishing it from the smooth morocco, are
its toughness and durability, combined with softness and flexibility. It
has a very tenacious fibre, and I have never found a real morocco binding
broken at the hinges. The old proverb--"there is nothing like
leather"--is pregnant with meaning, and especially applies to the best
morocco. As no material yet discovered in so many ages can take the
place of leather for foot-wear and for harness, such is its tenacity and
elasticity--so for book coverings, to withstand wear and tear, good
leather is indispensable. There are thoroughly-bound books existing which
are five centuries old--representing about the time when leather began to
replace wood and metals for binding. The three great enemies of books are
too great heat, too much moisture, and coal gas, which produces a
sulphurous acid very destructive to bindings, and should never be used in
libraries. From the dangers which destroy calf and Russia leather,
morocco is measurably free.

As to color, I usually choose red for books which come to binding or
rebinding, for these reasons. The bulk of every library is of dark and
sombre color, being composed of the old-fashioned calf bindings, which
grow darker with age, mingled with the cloth bindings of our own day, in
which dark colors predominate. Now the intermixture of red morocco, in
all or most of the newly bound books, relieves the monotony of so much
blackness, lights up the shelves, and gives a more cheerful aspect to the
whole library. Some there are who insist upon varying the colors of
bindings with the subjects of the books--and the British Museum Library
actually once bound all works on botany in green, poetry in yellow,
history in red, and theology in blue; but this is more fanciful than
important. A second reason for preferring red in moroccos is that, being
dyed with cochineal, it holds its color more permanently than any
other--the moroccos not colored red turning to a dingy, disagreeable
brown after forty or fifty years, while the red are found to be fast
colors. This was first discovered in the National Library of France, and
ever since most books in that great collection have been bound in red. A
celebrated binder having recommended this color to a connoisseur who was
having fine morocco binding done, instanced the example of the Paris
Library, whose books, said he, are "mostly red," to which the amateur
replied that he hoped they were.

Add to the merits of morocco leather the fact that it is not easily
scratched nor stained, that it is very tough in wear, and resists better
than any other the moisture and soiling of the hands--and we have a
material worthy of all acceptance.

In half-binding chosen for the great majority of books because it is much
cheaper than full leather, the sides are covered with muslin or with some
kind of colored paper--usually marble. The four corners of every book,
however, should always be protected by leather or, better still, by
vellum, which is a firmer material--otherwise they will rapidly wear off,
and the boards will break easily at their corners. As to the relative
merits of cloth and paper for the sides of books, cloth is far more
durable, though it costs more. Paper becomes quickly frayed at the edges,
or is liable to peel where pasted on, though it may be renewed at small
expense, and may properly be used except upon the much-read portion of
the library. The cloth or paper should always harmonize in color with the
leather to which it is attached. They need not be the same, but they
should be of similar shade.

One more reason for preferring morocco to other leathers is that you can
always dispense with lettering-pieces or patches in gilding the titles on
the back. All light-colored bindings (including law calf) are open to the
objection that gold lettering is hardly legible upon them. Hence the
necessity of stamping the titles upon darker pieces of leather, which are
fastened to the backs. These lettering-pieces become loose in over-heated
libraries, and tend continually to peel off, entailing the expense of
repairing or re-lettering. Every morocco bound book can be lettered
directly upon the leather. Bock is made of the skin of the Persian sheep,
and is called Persian in London. It is a partially unsuccessful imitation
of morocco, becoming easily abraded, like all the sheep-skin leathers,
and although it is to be had in all colors, and looks fairly handsome for
a time, and is tougher than skiver (or split sheep-skin), the books that
are bound in it will sooner or later become an eyesore upon the shelves.
A skin of Persian leather costs about one-third the price of genuine
morocco, or goat. But the actual saving in binding is in a far less
ratio--the difference being only six to eight cents per volume. It is
really much cheaper to use morocco in the first place, than to undergo
all the risks of deterioration and re-binding.

Of the various imitations of leather, or substitutes for it, we have
leatherette, leather-cloth, duck, fibrette, feltine, and buckram. Buckram
and duck are strong cotton or linen fabricks, made of different colors,
and sometimes figured or embossed to give them somewhat the look of
leather. Hitherto, they are made mostly in England, and I have learned of
no American experience in their favor except the use of stout duck for
covering blank books and binding newspapers. The use of buckram has been
mostly abandoned by the libraries. Morocco cloth is American, but has no
advantage over plain muslin or book cloth, that I am aware of.
Leatherette, made principally of paper, colored and embossed to simulate
morocco leather, appears to have dropped out of use almost as fast as it
came in, having no quality of permanence, elegance, or even of great
cheapness to commend it. Leatherette tears easily, and lacks both
tenacity and smoothness.

Both feltine and fibrette are made of paper--tear quickly, and are unfit
for use on any book that is ever likely to be read. All these imitations
of leather are made of paper as their basis, and hence can never be
proper substitutes for leather.

All torn leaves or plates in books should be at once mended by pasting a
very thin onion-skin paper on both sides of the torn leaf, and pressing
gently between leaves of sized paper until dry.

Corners made of vellum or parchment are more durable than any leather.
When dry, the parchment becomes as hard almost as iron and resists falls
or abrasion. To use it on books where the backs are of leather is a
departure from the uniformity or harmony of style insisted upon by many,
but in binding books that are to be greatly worn, use should come before
beauty.

In rebinding, all maps or folded plates should be mounted on thin canvas,
linen, or muslin, strong and fine, to protect them from inevitable
tearing by long use. If a coarse or thick cloth is used, the maps will
not fold or open easily and smoothly.

The cutting or trimming of the edges of books needs to be watched with
jealous care. Few have reflected that the more margin a binder cuts off,
the greater his profit on any job, white paper shavings having a very
appreciable price by the pound. A strictly uncut book is in many American
libraries a rarity. And of the books which go a second time to the
binder, although at first uncut, how many retain their fair proportions
of margin when they come back? You have all seen books in which the text
has been cut into by the ruthless knife-machine of the binder. This is
called "bleeding" a book, and there are no words strong enough to
denounce this murderous and cold-blooded atrocity. The trimming of all
books should be held within the narrowest limits--for the life of a book
depends largely upon its preserving a good margin. Its only chance of
being able to stand a second rebinding may depend upon its being very
little trimmed at its first. If it must be cut at all, charge your binder
to take off the merest shaving from either edge.

Every new book or magazine added to the library, if uncut, should be
carefully cut with a paper-knife before it goes into the hands of any
reader. Spoiled or torn or ragged edges will be the penalty of neglecting
this. You have seen people tear open the leaves of books and magazines
with their fingers--a barbarism which renders him who would be guilty of
it worthy of banishment from the resorts of civilization. In cutting
books, the leaves should always be held firmly down--and the knife
pressed evenly through the uncut leaves to the farthest verge of the
back. Books which are cut in the loose fashion which many use are left
with rough or ragged edges always, and often a slice is gouged out of the
margin by the mis-directed knife. Never trust a book to a novice to be
cut, without showing him how to do it, and how not to do it.

The collation of new books in cloth or _broché_ should be done before
cutting, provided they are issued to readers untrimmed. In collating
books in two or more volumes double watchfulness is needed to guard
against a missing signature, which may have its place filled by the same
pages belonging to another volume--a mixture sometimes made in binderies,
in "gathering" the sheets, and which makes it necessary to see that the
signatures are right as well as the pages. The collator should check off
all plates and maps called for by the table of contents to make sure that
the copy is perfect. Books without pagination are of course to have their
leaves counted, which is done first in detail, one by one, and then
verified by a rapid counting in sections, in the manner used by printers
and binders in counting paper by the quire.

The binding of books may be divided into two styles or methods, namely,
machine-made book-bindings, and hand-made bindings. Binding by machinery
is wholly a modern art, and is applied to all or nearly all new books
coming from the press. As these are, in more than nine cases out of ten,
bound in cloth covers, and these covers, or cases, are cut out and
stamped by machinery, such books are called "case-made." The distinction
between this method of binding and the hand method is that in the former
the case is made separately from the book, which is then put into it.
After the sheets of any book come pressed and dried from the printing
office, the first step is to fold them from the large flat sheets into
book form. This is sometimes done by hand-folders of bone or some other
hard material, but in large establishments for making books, it is done
by a folding machine. This will fold ten thousand or more sheets in a
day. The folded sheets are next placed in piles or rows, in their
numerical sequence, and "gathered" by hand, _i. e._: a bindery hand picks
up the sheets one by one, with great rapidity, until one whole book is
gathered and collated, and the process is repeated so long as any sheets
remain. Next, the books are thoroughly pressed or "smashed" as it is
called, in a powerful smashing-machine, giving solidity to the book,
which before pressing was loose and spongy. Then the books are sawed or
grooved in the back by another machine, operating a swiftly moving saw,
and sewed on cords by still another machine, at about half the cost of
hand-sewing. Next, they are cut or trimmed on the three edges in a
cutting-machine. The backs of the books are made round by a
rounding-machine, leaving the back convex and the front concave in form,
as seen in all finished books. The books are now ready for the covers.
These consist of binders' board or mill-board, cut out of large sheets
into proper size, with lightning-like rapidity, by another machine
called a rotary board-cutter. The cloth which is to form the back and
sides of the book is cut out, of proper size for the boards, from great
rolls of stamped or ribbed or embossed muslin, by another machine. The
use of cloth, now so universal for book-binding, dates back little more
than half a century. About 1825, Mr. Leighton, of London, introduced it
as a substitute for the drab-colored paper then used on the sides, and
for the printed titles on the backs. The boards are firmly glued to the
cloth, the edges of which are turned over the boards, and fastened on the
inside of the covers. The ornamental stamps or figures seen on the
covers, both at the back and sides are stamped in with a heated die of
brass, or other metal, worked by machinery. The lettering of the title is
done in the same way, only that gold-leaf is applied before the die
falls. Lastly, the book is pasted by its fly leaves or end-leaves,
(sometimes with the addition of a cloth guard) to the inside of the cloth
case or cover, and the book is done, after a final pressing. By these
rapid machine methods a single book-manufacturing house can turn out ten
thousand volumes in a day, with a rapidity which almost takes the breath
away from the beholder.

There is a kind of binding which dispenses entirely with sewing the
sheets of a book. The backs are soaked with a solution of india-rubber,
and each sheet must be thoroughly agglutinated to the backs, so as to
adhere firmly to its fellows. This requires that all the sheets shall be
folded as single leaves or folios, otherwise the inner leaves of the
sheets, having no sewing, would drop out. This method is employed on
volumes of plates, music, or any books made up of large separate sheets.

In notable contrast to these rapid methods of binding what are termed
case-made books, comes the hand-made process, where only partial use of
machinery is possible.

The rebinding process is divided into three branches: preparing,
forwarding, and finishing. The most vital distinction between a
machine-made and a hand-made binding, is that the cloth or case-made book
is not fastened into its cover in a firm and permanent way, as in
leather-backed books. It is simply pasted or glued to its boards--not
interlaced by the cords or bands on which it is sewed. Hence one can
easily tear off the whole cover of a cloth-bound book, by a slight
effort, and such volumes tend to come to pieces early, under constant
wear and tear of library service.

Let us now turn to the practical steps pursued in the treatment of books
for library use. In re-binding a book, the first step is to take the book
apart, or, as it is sometimes called, to take it to pieces. This is done
by first stripping off its cover, if it has one. Cloth covers easily come
off, as their boards are not tied to the cords on which the book is
sewed, but are simply fastened by paste or glue to the boards by a muslin
guard, or else the cloth is glued to the back of the book. If the book is
leather-covered, or half-bound, _i. e._: with a leather back and
(usually) leather on its four corners, taking it to pieces is a somewhat
slower process. The binder's knife is used to cut the leather at the
joints or hinges of the volume, so that the boards may be removed. The
cords that tie the boards to the volume are cut at the same time. If the
book has a loose or flexible back, the whole cover comes easily off: if
bound with a tight back, the glued leather back must be soaked with a
sponge full of water, till it is soft enough to peel off, and let the
sheets be easily separated.

The book is now stripped of its former binding, and the next step is to
take it apart, signature by signature. A signature is that number of
leaves which make up one sheet of the book in hand. Thus, an octavo
volume, or a volume printed in eights, as it is called, has eight leaves,
or sixteen pages to a signature; a quarto four leaves; a duodecimo, or 12
mo. twelve leaves. The term signature (from Lat. _signare_, a sign) is
also applied to a letter or figure printed at the foot of the first page
of each sheet or section of the book. If the letters are used, the
signatures begin with A. and follow in regular sequence of the alphabet.
If the book is a very thick one, (or more than twenty-six signatures)
then after signature Z, it is customary to duplicate the letters--A.
A.--etc., for the remaining signatures. If figures are used instead of
letters, the signatures run on to the last, in order of numbers. These
letters, indicating signatures are an aid to the binder, in folding,
"gathering," and collating the consecutive sheets of any book, saving
constant reference to the "pagination," as it is termed, or the paging of
the volume, which would take much more time. In many books, you find the
signature repeated in the "inset," or the inner leaves of the sheet, with
a star or a figure to mark the sequence. Many books, however, are now
printed without any signature marks whatever.

To return: in taking apart the sheets or signatures, where they are stuck
together at the back by adhesive glue or paste, the knife is first used
to cut the thread in the grooves, where the book is sewed on cords or
tape. Then the back is again soaked, the sheets are carefully separated,
and the adhering substance removed by the knife or fingers. Care has to
be taken to lay the signatures in strict order or sequence of pages, or
the book may be bound up wrongly. The threads are next to be removed from
the inside of every sheet. The sheets being all separated, the book is
next pressed, to render all the leaves smooth, and the book solid for
binding. Formerly, books were beaten by a powerful hammer, to accomplish
this, but it is much more quickly and effectively done in most binderies
by the ordinary screw press. Every pressing of books should leave them
under pressure at least eight hours.

After pressing, the next step is to sew the sheets on to cords or twine,
set vertically at proper distances in a frame, called a "sewing bench,"
for this purpose. No book can be thoroughly well bound if the sewing is
slighted in any degree. Insist upon strong, honest linen thread--if it
breaks with a slight pull it is not fit to be used in a book. The book is
prepared for the sewer by sawing several grooves across the back with a
common saw. The two end grooves are light and narrow, the central ones
wider and deeper. Into these inner grooves, the cords fit easily, and the
book being taken, sheet by sheet, is firmly sewed around the cords, by
alternate movements of the needle and thread, always along the middle of
the sheet, the thread making a firm knot at each end (called the
"kettle-stitch") as it is returned for sewing on the next sheet.
Sometimes the backs are not sawed at all, but the sheets of the book are
sewed around the cords, which thus project a little from the back, and
form the "bands," seen in raised form on the backs of some books. Books
should be sewed on three to six cords, according to their size. This
raised-band sewing is reckoned by some a feature of excellent binding.
The sunken-band style is apt to give a stiff back, while the raised bands
are usually treated with a flexible back. When sewed, the book is
detached from its fellows, which may have been sewed on the same bench,
by slipping it along the cords, then cutting them apart, so as to leave
some two inches of each cord projecting, as ends to be fastened later to
the board. In careful binding, the thread is sewed "all along," _i. e._:
each sheet by itself, instead of "two on," as it is called.

The next process is termed "lining up," and consists of putting on the
proper fly-leaves or end-leaves, at the beginning and end of the volume.
These usually consist of four leaves of ordinary white printing paper at
each end, sometimes finished out with two leaves of colored or marbled
paper, to add a touch of beauty to the book when opened. Marbled paper is
more durable in color than the tinted, and does not stain so easily. One
of these end-leaves is pasted down to the inside cover, while the other
is left flying--whence "fly-leaf."

After this comes the cutting of the book at the edges. This is done by
screwing it firmly in a cutting-machine, which works a sharp knife
rapidly, shaving off the edges successively of the head, front and end,
or "tail" as it is called in book-binding parlance. This trimming used to
be done by hand, with a sharp cutting knife called by binders a "plough."
Now, there are many forms of cutting machines, some of which are called
"guillotines" for an obvious reason. In binding some books, which it is
desired to preserve with wide margins, only a mere shaving is taken off
the head, so as to leave it smooth at the top, letting the front and tail
leaves remain uncut. But in case of re-binding much-used books, the edges
are commonly so much soiled that trimming all around may be required, in
order that they may present a decent appearance. Yet in no case should
the binder be allowed to cut any book deeply, so as to destroy a good,
fair margin. Care must also be taken to cut the margins evenly, at right
angles, avoiding any crooked lines.

After cutting the book comes "rounding," or giving the back of the book a
curved instead of its flat shape. This process is done with the hand, by
a hammer, or in a rounding press, with a metallic roller. Before
rounding, the back of the book is glued up, that is, receives a coating
of melted glue with a glueing brush, to hold the sections together, and
render the back firm, and a thorough rubbing of the back with hot glue
between the sections gives strength to the volume.

Next comes the treatment of the edges of the book, hitherto all white, in
order to protect them from showing soil in long use. Sometimes (and this
is the cheaper process) the books are simply sprinkled at the edges with
a brush dipped in a dark fluid made of burnt umber or red ochre, and
shaken with a quick concussion near the edges until they receive a
sprinkle of color from the brush. Other books receive what is called a
solid color on the edges, the books being screwed into a press, and the
color applied with a sponge or brush.

But a marbled edge presents a far more handsome appearance, and should
harmonize in color and figure with the marbled paper of the end leaves.
Marbling, so called from its imitation of richly veined colored marble,
is staining paper or book edges with variegated colors. The process of
marbling is highly curious, both chemically and aesthetically, and may be
briefly described. A large shallow trough or vat is filled with prepared
gum water (gum-tragacanth being used); on the surface of this gum-water
bright colors, mixed with a little ox-gall, to be used in producing the
composite effect aimed at in the marbling are thrown or sprinkled in
liquid form. Then they are deftly stirred or agitated on the surface of
the water, with an implement shaped to produce a certain pattern. The
most commonly used one is a long metallic comb, which is drawn across the
surface of the combined liquids, leaving its pattern impressed upon the
ductile fluid. The edges of the book to be marbled are then touched or
dipped on the top of the water, on which the coloring matter floats, and
at once withdrawn, exhibiting on the edge the precise pattern of "combed
marble" desired, since the various colors--red, yellow, blue, white,
etc., have adhered to the surface of the book-edges. The serrated and
diversified effect of most comb-marbling is due to stroking the comb in
waved lines over the surface. The spotted effect so much admired in other
forms, is produced by throwing the colors on with a brush, at the fancy
of the skilled workman, or artist, as you may call him. Marbled paper is
made in the same way, by dipping one surface of the white sheet, held in
a curved form, with great care on the surface of the coloring vat. This
is termed shell and wave marbling, as distinguished from comb-marbling.
The paper or the book edges are next finished by sizing and burnishing,
which gives them a bright glistening appearance.

A still more ornate effect in a book is attained by gilding the edges.
Frequently the head of a book is gilt, leaving the front and tail of an
uncut book without ornament, and this is esteemed a very elegant style by
book connoisseurs, who are, or should be solicitous of wide margins. The
gilding of the top edge is a partial protection from dust falling inside,
to which the other edges are not so liable. To gild a book edge, it is
placed in a press, the edges scraped or smoothed, and coated with a
red-colored fluid, which serves to heighten the effect of the gold. Then
a sizing is applied by a camel's-hair brush, being a sticky substance,
usually the white of an egg, mixed with water (termed by binders
"glaire") and the gold-leaf is laid smoothly over it. When the sizing is
dry, the gold is burnished with a tool, tipped with an agate or
blood-stone, drawn forcibly over the edge until it assumes a glistening
appearance.

After the edges have been treated by whatever process, there follows what
is termed the "backing" of the book. The volume is pressed between iron
clamps, and the back is hammered or rolled where it joins the sides, so
as to form a groove to hold the boards forming the solid portion of the
cover of every book. A backing-machine is sometimes used for this
process, making by pressure the joint or groove for the boards. Then the
"head-band" is glued on, being a silk braid or colored muslin, fastened
around a cord, which projects a little above the head and the tail, at
the back of the book, giving it a more finished appearance. At the same
time, a book-mark for keeping the place is sometimes inserted and
fastened like the head-band. This is often a narrow ribbon of colored
silk, or satin, and helps to give a finish to the book, as well as to
furnish the reader a trustworthy guide to keep a place--as it will not
fall out like bits of paper inserted for that purpose.

Next, the mill-boards are applied, cut so as to project about an eighth
to a quarter of an inch from the edges of the book on three sides. The
book is held to the boards by the ends of its cords being interlaced, _i.
e._: passed twice through holes pierced in the boards, the loose ends of
the cords being then wet with paste and hammered down flat to the surface
of the boards. The best tar-boards should be used, which are made of old
rope; no board made of straw is fit to be used on any book. Straw boards
are an abomination--a cheap expedient which costs dearly in the end. The
binder should use heavy boards on the larger and thicker volumes, but
thin ones on all duodecimos and smaller sizes.

Next, the books are subjected to a second pressing, after which the
lining of the back is in order. Good thick brown paper is generally used
for this, cut to the length of the book, and is firmly glued to the back,
and rubbed down closely with a bone folder. A cloth "joint," or piece of
linen (termed "muslin super,") is often glued to the back, with two
narrow flaps to be pasted to the boards, on each side, thus giving
greater tenacity to the covering. If the book is to be backed so as to
open freely, that is, to have a spring back or elastic back, two
thicknesses of a firm, strong paper, or thin card-board are used, one
thickness of the paper being glued to the back of the book, while the
other--open in the middle, but fastened at the edges, is to be glued to
the leather of which the back is to be made.

After this, comes putting the book in leather. If full bound a piece of
leather cut full size of the volume, with about half an inch over, is
firmly glued or pasted to the boards and the back, the leather being
turned over the edges of the boards, and nicely glued on their inside
margin. It is of great importance that the edges of the leather should be
smoothly pared down with a sharp knife, so as to present an even edge
where the leather joins the boards, not a protuberance--which makes an
ugly and clumsy piece of work, instead of a neat one.

For half-binding, a piece of leather is taken large enough to cover the
back lengthwise, and turn in at the head and tail, while the width should
be such as to allow from one to one and a half inches of the leather to
be firmly glued to the boards next the back. The four corners of the
boards are next to be leathered, the edges of the leather being carefully
pared down, to give a smooth surface, even with the boards, when turned
in. The leather is usually wet, preparatory to being manipulated thus,
which renders it more flexible and ductile than in its dry state. The
cloth or marbled paper is afterwards pasted or glued to the sides of the
book, and turned neatly over the edge of the boards.

It may be added, that the edges of the boards, in binding nice books, are
sometimes ground off on a swiftly revolving emery-wheel, giving the book
a beveled edge, which is regarded as handsomer and more finished than a
straight rectangular edge.

All the processes hitherto described are called "forwarding" the book: we
now come to what is denominated "finishing." This includes the lettering
of the title, and the embellishing of the back and sides, with or without
gilding, as the case may be. Before this is taken in hand, the leather of
the book must be perfectly dry. For the lettering, copper-faced types are
used to set up the desired sequence of letters and words, and care and
taste should be exercised to have (1) Types neither too large, which
present a clumsy appearance, nor too small, which are difficult to read.
(2) Proper spacing of the words and lines, and "balancing" the component
parts of the lettering on the back, so as to present a neat and
harmonious effect to the eye. A word should never be divided or
hyphenated in lettering, when it can be avoided. In the case of quite
thin volumes, the title may be lettered lengthwise along the back, in
plain, legible type, instead of in very small letters across the back,
which are often illegible. The method of applying gold lettering is as
follows: the back of the book where the title is to go, is first
moistened with a sticky substance, as albumen or glaire, heretofore
mentioned, laid on with a camel's hair brush. The type (or the die as the
case may be) is heated in a binder's charcoal furnace, or gas stove, to
insure the adhesion of the gold leaf. The thin gold leaf (which comes
packed in little square "books," one sheet between every two leaves) is
then cut the proper size by the broad thin knife of the "finisher," and
carefully laid over the sized spot to receive the lettering. Usually, two
thicknesses of gold leaf are laid one above another, which ensures a
brighter and more decided effect in the lettering. The type metal or die
is then pressed firmly and evenly down upon the gold-leaf, and the
surplus shavings of the gold carefully brushed off and husbanded, for
this leaf is worth money. The gold leaf generally in use costs about
$6.50 for 500 little squares or sheets. It is almost inconceivably thin,
the thickness of one gold leaf being estimated at about 1/280000 of an
inch.

Besides the lettering, many books receive gold ornamentation on the back
or side of a more or less elaborate character. Designs of great artistic
beauty, and in countless variety, have been devised for book ornaments,
and French and English book-binders have vied with each other for
generations in the production of decorative borders, fillets,
centre-pieces, rolls, and the most exquisite gold-tooling, of which the
art is capable.

These varied patterns of book ornamentation are cut in brass or steel,
and applied by the embossing press with a rapidity far exceeding that of
the hand-work formerly executed by the gilders of books. But for choice
books and select jobs, only the hands are employed, with such fillets,
stamps, pallets, rolls, and polishing irons as may aid in the nice
execution of the work. If a book is to be bound in what is called
"morocco antique," it is to be "blind-tooled," _i. e._: the hot iron
wheels which impress the fillets or rolls, are to be worked in blank, or
without gold-leaf ornamentation. This is a rich and tasteful binding,
especially with carefully beveled boards, and gilded edges.

On some books, money has been lavished on the binding to an amount
exceeding by many fold the cost of the book itself. Elegant book-binding
has come to be reckoned as a fine art, and why should not "the art
preservative of all other arts"--printing--be preserved in permanent and
sumptuous, if not splendid style, in its environment? Specimens of French
artistic binding from the library of Grolier, that celebrated and
munificent patron of art, who died in 1565, have passed through the hands
of many eager connoisseurs, always at advancing prices. The Grolier
binding was notable for the elegant finish of its interlaced ornaments
in gold-leaf, a delicacy of touch, and an inimitable flowing grace, which
modern binders have struggled after in vain. At the Beckford Library sale
in London, in 1884, there was a great array of fine French bindings of
early date. A book from Grolier's library, the "Toison d'Or," 1563,
brought £405, or over $2,000, and a Heptameron, which had belonged to
Louis XIV, in beautiful brown morocco, with crown, fleur-de-lys, a stag,
a cock, and stars, as ornaments, all exquisitely worked in gold, lined
with vellum, was sold for £400. Following the Grolier patterns, came
another highly decorative style, by the French binders, which was notable
for the very delicate gold tooling, covering the whole sides of the book
with exquisite scroll-work, and branches of laurel.

The most celebrated of English book-binders was Roger Payne, who was
notable for the careful labor bestowed on the forwarding and finishing of
his books, specimens of which are still reckoned among the
_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the art. His favorite style was a roughly-grained red
morocco, always full-bound, and he kept in view what many binders forget,
that the leather is the main thing in a finely executed binding, not to
be overlaid by too much gilding and decoration. He charged twelve guineas
each (over $60) for binding some small volumes in his best style. Payne's
most notable successors have been Lewis, Hayday, Bedford, and Zaehnsdorf,
the latter of whom is the author of a treatise on book-binding. At the
art exhibition of 1862, a book bound by Bedford was exhibited, which took
two months merely to finish, and the binding cost forty guineas; and a
Doré's Dante, exquisitely bound by Zaehnsdorf, in Grolier style, cost one
hundred guineas.

A decorative treatment not yet mentioned is applied to the covers of some
books, which are bound in elegant full calf. To give to this leather the
elegant finish known as "tree-calf binding", it is first washed with
glaire or albumen. The boards of the book are then bent to a convex
shape, and water sprinkled over, until it runs down from the centre in
many little branches or rivulets. While running, a solution of copperas
is sprinkled on, and carried along the branches which radiate from the
central trunk, producing the dark-mottled colored effect which resembles,
more or less nearly, a tree with its spreading branches.

To make the book beautiful should be the united aim of all who are
concerned in its manufacture--the paper-maker, the printer, and the
book-binder. While utility comes first in the art of book-making for
libraries, yet neatness and even elegance should always be united with
it. An ill-forwarded book, or a badly finished one, presents a clumsy,
unattractive look to the eye; while an evenly made piece of work, and a
careful and tasteful ornamentation in the gilding, attract every
discerning reader by their beauty. One writer upon book-binding terms the
forwarder of the book an artizan, and the finisher an artist; but both
should have the true artist's taste, in order to produce the work that
shall commend itself by intrinsic excellence. The form and shape of the
book depend wholly, indeed, on the forwarder.

We are told that the great beauty of the Grolier bindings lay in the
lavish and tasteful adornment of the sides. In fact, much depends upon
the design, in every piece of decorative work. The pretty scroll
patterns, the interlaced figures, the delicate tracery, the circles,
rosettes, and stars, the lovely arabesques, the flowers and leaves
borrowed from the floral kingdom, the geometric lines, the embroidered
borders, like fine lace-work,--all these lend their separate individual
charms to the finish of the varied specimens of the binder's art. There
are some books that look as brilliant as jewels in their rich, lustrous
adornment, the design sometimes powdered with gold points and stars. Some
gems of art are lined with rich colored leather in the inside covers,
which are stamped and figured in gold. This is termed "_doublé_" by the
French. Some have their edges gilded over marbling, a refinement of
beauty which adds richness to the work, the marble design showing through
the brilliant gold, when the edge is turned. Others have pictorial
designs drawn on the edges, which are then gilded over the pictures. This
complex style of gilding, the French term _gaufré_. It was formerly much
in vogue, but is latterly out of fashion. Many gems of binding are
adorned with fly-leaves of moire silk, or rich colored satin. Color,
interspersed with gold in the finish of a book covering, heightens the
effect. The morocco of the side-cover is sometimes cut, and inlaid with
leather of a different color. Inlaying with morocco or kid is the richest
style of decoration which the art has yet reached. Beautiful bindings
have been in greater request during the past twenty years than ever
before. There was a renaissance of the ancient styles of decoration in
France, and the choice Grolier and Maioli patterns were revived with the
general applause of the lovers of fine books.

In vivid contrast to these lovely specimens of the binder's art, are
found innumerable bibliopegic horrors, on the shelves of countless
libraries, public and private. Among these are to be reckoned most law
books, clad in that dead monotony of ugliness, which Charles Dickens has
described as "that _under-done pie-crust_ cover, which is technically
known as law calf." There are other uncouth and unwholesome specimens
everywhere abroad, "whom Satan hath bound", to borrow Mr. Henry Stevens's
witty application of a well-known Scripture text. Such repellant
bindings are only fit to serve as models to be avoided by the librarian.

The binding that is executed by machinery is sometimes called "commercial
binding". It is also known as "edition binding", because the whole
edition of a book is bound in uniform style of cover. While the modern
figured cloth binding originated in England, it has had its fullest
development in the United States. Here, those ingenious and powerful
machines which execute every branch of the folding and forwarding of a
book, and even the finishing of the covers, with almost lightning speed,
were mostly invented and applied. Very vivid is the contrast between the
quiet, humdrum air of the old-fashioned bindery hand-work, and the
ceaseless clang and roar of the machinery which turns out thousands of
volumes in a day.

    "Not as ours the books of old,
    Things that steam can stamp and fold."

I believe that I failed to notice, among the varieties of material for
book-bindings heretofore enumerated, some of the rarer and more singular
styles. Thus, books have been bound in enamel, (richly variegated in
color) in Persian silk, in seal-skin, in the skin of the rabbit,
white-bear, crocodile, cat, dog, mole, tiger, otter, buffalo, wolf, and
even rattle-snake. A favorite modern leather for purses and satchels,
alligator-skin, has been also applied to the clothing of books. Many
eccentric fancies have been exemplified in book-binding, but the acme of
gruesome oddity has been reached by binding books in human skin, of which
many examples are on record. It is perhaps three centuries old, but the
first considerable instance of its use grew out of the horrors of the
French Revolution. In England, the Bristol law library has several
volumes bound in the skin of local criminals, flayed after execution,
and specially tanned for the purpose. It is described as rather darker
than vellum. A Russian poet is said to have bound his sonnets in human
leather--his own skin--taken from a broken thigh--and the book he
presented to the lady of his affections! Such ghoulish incidents as these
afford curious though repulsive glimpses of the endless vagaries of human
nature.

It is said that the invention of half-binding originated among the
economists of Germany; and some wealthy bibliophiles have stigmatized
this style of dressing books as "genteel poverty." But its utility and
economy have been demonstrated too long to admit of any doubt that
half-binding has come to stay; while, as we have seen, it is also capable
of attractive aesthetic features. Mr. William Matthews, perhaps the
foremost of American binders, said that "a book when neatly forwarded,
and cleanly covered, is in a very satisfactory condition without any
finishing or decorating." It was this same binder who exhibited at the
New York World's Fair Exhibition of 1853, a copy of Owen Jones's
Alhambra, bound by him in full Russia, inlaid with blue and red morocco,
with gold tooling all executed by hand, taking six months to complete,
and costing the binder no less than five hundred dollars.

Book lettering, or stamping the proper title on the back of the book, is
a matter of the first importance. As the titles of most books are much
too long to go on the back, a careful selection of the most distinctive
words becomes necessary. Here the taste and judgment of the librarian
come indispensably into play. To select the lettering of a book should
never be left to the binder, because it is not his business, and because,
in most cases, he will make a mistake somewhere in the matter. From want
of care on this point, many libraries are filled with wrongly lettered
books, misleading titles, and blunders as ludicrous as they are
distressing. I have had to have thousands of volumes in the Library of
Congress re-lettered. A copy of Lord Bacon's "Sylva Sylvarum", for
example, was lettered "Verlum's Sylva"--because the sapient binder read
on the title-page "By Baron Verulam", and it was not his business to find
out that this was the title of honor which Bacon bore; so, by a compound
blunder, he converted Verulam into Verlum, and gave the book to an
unknown writer. This is perhaps an extreme case, but you will find many
to match it. Another folio, Rochefort's History of the Caribby Islands,
was lettered "Davies' Carriby Islands," because the title bore the
statement "Rendered into English by John Davies." In another library, the
great work of the naturalist, Buffon, was actually lettered "Buffoon's
Natural History." Neither of these blunders was as bad as that of the
owner of an elegant black-letter edition of a Latin classic, which was
printed without title-page, like most fifteenth century books, and began
at the top of the first leaf, in large letters--"HOC INCIPIT," signifying
"This begins", followed by the title or subject of the book. The wiseacre
who owned it had the book richly bound, and directed it to be lettered on
the back--"Works of Hoc Incipit, Rome, 1490." This is a true story, and
the hero of it might perhaps, on the strength of owning so many learned
works, have passed for a philosopher, if he had not taken the pains to
advertise himself as a blockhead.

Some of the commonest blunders are stamping on the back the translator's
or the editor's name, instead of that of the author of the book; putting
on adjectives instead of substantives for titles; modernizing ancient and
characteristic spelling, found in the title, (the exact orthography of
which should always be followed); mixing up the number and the case of
Latin titles, and those in other foreign languages; leaving off entirely
the name of the writer; and lettering periodicals by putting on the
volume without the year, or the year, without the number of the volume.
"No one but an idiot", said Mr. C. Walford to the London Librarians'
Conference, "would send his books to the binder, without indicating the
lettering he desires on the backs." The only safe-guard is for the
librarian or owner to prescribe on a written slip in each volume, a title
for every book, before it goes to the binder, who will be only too glad
to have his own time saved--since time is money to him. I would not
underrate the book-binders, who are a most worthy and intelligent class,
numbering in their ranks men who are scholars as well as artists; but
they are concerned chiefly with the mechanics and not with the
metaphysics of their art, and moreover, they are not bound by that rigid
rule which should govern the librarian--namely--to have no ignoramus
about the premises.

In writing letterings (for I take it that no one would be guilty of
defacing his title-pages by marking them up with directions to the
binder) you should definitely write out the parts of the title as they
are to run on the back of the book, spaced line upon line, and not "run
together." I think that the name of the author should always stand first
at the head of the lettering, because it affords the quickest guide to
the eye in finding any book, as well as in replacing it upon the shelves.
Especially useful and time-saving is this, where classes of books are
arranged in alphabetical sequence. Is not the name of the author commonly
uppermost in the mind of the searcher? Then, let it be uppermost on the
book sought also. Follow the name of the author by the briefest possible
words selected from the title which will suffice to characterize the
subject of the work. Thus, the title--"On the Origin of Species by means
of Natural Selection", by Charles Darwin, should be abbreviated into

                           Darwin
                          --------
                      Origin of Species.

Here are no superfluous words, to consume the binder's time and
gold-leaf, and to be charged in the bill; or to consume the time of the
book-searcher, in stopping to read a lot of surplusage on the back of the
book, before seizing it for immediate use. Books in several volumes
should have the number of each volume plainly marked in Arabic (not
Roman) numerals on the back. The old-fashioned method of expressing
numerals by letters, instead of figures, is too cumbrous and
time-consuming to be tolerated. You want to letter, we will say, vol. 88
of Blackwood's Magazine. If you follow the title-page of that book, as
printed, you have to write

"Volume LXXXVIII," eight letters, for the number of the volume, instead
of two simple figures--thus--88.

Now can any one give a valid reason for the awkward and tedious method of
notation exhibited in the Roman numerals? If it were only the lost time
of the person who writes it, or the binder's finisher who letters it, it
would be comparatively insignificant. But think of the time wasted by the
whole world of readers, who must go through a more or less troublesome
process of notation before they get a clear notion of what all this
superfluous stuff stands for instead of the quick intuition with which
they take in the Arabic figures; and who must moreover, by the antiquated
method, take valuable time to write out LXXXVIII, eight figures instead
of two, to say nothing of the added liability to error, which increases
in the exact ratio of the number of figures to be written. Which of these
two forms of expression is more quickly written, or stamped, or read? By
which method of notation will the library messenger boys or girls soonest
find the book? This leads me to say what cannot be too strongly insisted
upon; all library methods should be time-saving methods, and so devised
for the benefit alike of the librarian, the assistants, and the readers.
Until one has learned the supreme value of moments, he will not be fit
for a librarian. The same method by Arabic numerals only, should be used
in all references to books; and it would be well if the legal fashion of
citing authorities by volume and page, now adopted in most law books,
were extended to all literature--thus:

"3 Macaulay's England, 481. N. Y. 1854," instead of "Macaulay's England,
N. Y. ed. 1854. vol. 3, page 481." It is a matter of congratulation to
all librarians, as well as to the reading public, that Poole's Indexes to
Periodical Literature have wisely adopted Arabic figures only, both for
volume and page. The valuable time thus saved to all is quite
incalculable.

Every book which is leather-bound has its back divided off into panels or
sections, by the band across the back or by the gold or plain fillet or
roll forming part of the finish of the book. These panels are usually
five or six in number, the former being the more common. Now it is the
librarian's function to prescribe in which of these panels the lettering
of the book--especially where there is double lettering--shall go. Thus

          |   COUSIN   |       |       |      |      |
          |    ----    |       |       |      | NEW  |
     2nd  |  HISTORY   |  4th  | WIGHT | End  |YORK, |
    panel |    OF      | panel |       |      |1852. |
          |  MODERN    |       |       |      |      |
          | PHILOSOPHY.|       |       |      |      |

Many books, especially dramatic works, and the collected works of authors
require the contents of the various volumes to be briefed on the back.
Here is a Shakespeare, for example, in 10 volumes, or a Swift in 19, or
Carlyle in 33, and you want to find _King Lear_, or _Gulliver's Travels_,
or _Heroes and Hero Worship_. The other volumes concern you not--but you
want the shortest road to these. If the name of each play is briefed by
the first word upon the different volumes of your Shakespeare, or the
contents of each volume upon the Swift and the Carlyle,--as they should
be--you find instantly what you want, with one glance of the eye along
the backs. If put to the trouble of opening every volume to find the
contents, or of hunting it in the index, or the library catalogue, you
lose precious time, while readers wait, thus making the needless delay
cumulative, and as it must be often repeated, indefinite.

Each volume should have its date and place of publication plainly
lettered at the lower end, or what binders term the tail of the book.
This often saves time, as you may not want an edition of old date, or
_vice versa_, while the place and date enable readers' tickets to be
filled out quickly without the book. The name of the library might well
be lettered also on the back, being more obvious as a permanent means of
identification than the book-plate or inside stamp.

Books should never be used when fresh from the binder's hands. The covers
are then always damp, and warp on exposure to air and heat. Unless
pressed firmly in shelves, or in piles, for at least two weeks, they may
become incurably warped out of shape. Many an otherwise handsomely bound
book is ruined by neglect of this caution, for once thoroughly dried in
its warped condition, there is no remedy save the costly one of
rebinding.

Books are frequently lettered so carelessly that the titles instead of
aligning, or being in straight horizontal lines, run obliquely upward or
downward, thus defacing the volume. Errors in spelling words are also
liable to occur. All crooked lettering and all mistakes in spelling
should at once be rejected, and the faulty books returned to the binder,
to be corrected at his own expense. This severe revision of all books
when newly bound, before they are placed upon the shelves, should be done
by the librarian's or owner's own eye--not entrusted to subordinates,
unless to one thoroughly skilled.

One should never receive back books from a binder without collating them,
to see if all are perfect as to pages, and if all plates or maps are in
place. If deficiencies are found, the binder, and not the library is
responsible, provided the book was known to be perfect when sent for
binding.

In the Congressional Library I had the periodicals which are analyzed in
Poole's Index of Periodical Literature thoroughly compared and
re-lettered, wherever necessary, to make the series of volumes correspond
with the references in that invaluable and labor-saving index. For
instance, the Eclectic Review, as published in London, had eight distinct
and successive series (thus confusing reference by making eight different
volumes called 1, 2, 3, etc.) each with a different numbering, "First
series, 2d series," etc., which Poole's Index very properly consolidated
into one, for convenient reference. By adding the figures as scheduled in
that work--prefixed by the words _Poole's Index No._ ---- or simply
_Poole_, in small letters, followed by the figure of the volume as given
in that index, you will find a saving of time in hunting and supplying
references that is almost incalculable. If you cannot afford to have this
re-numbering done by a binder in gilt letters, it will many times repay
the cost and time of doing it on thin manila paper titles, written or
printed by a numbering machine and pasted on the backs of the volumes.

In all periodicals,--magazines and serials of every kind,--the covers and
their advertisements should be bound in their proper place, with each
month or number of the periodical, though it may interrupt the continuity
of the paging. Thus will be preserved valuable contemporary records
respecting prices, bibliographical information, etc., which should never
be destroyed, as it is illustrative of the life and history of the
period. The covers of the magazines, too, frequently contain the table of
contents of the number, which of course must be prefixed to it, in order
to be of any use. If advertising pages are very numerous and bulky, (as
in many popular periodicals of late years) they may well be bound at the
end of the volume, or, if so many as to make the volume excessively
thick, they might be bound in a supplementary volume. In all books,
half-titles or bastard titles, as they are called, should be bound in, as
they are a part of the book.

With each lot of books to be bound, there should always be sent a sample
volume of good work as a pattern, that the binder may have no excuse for
hasty or inferior workmanship.

The Grolier Club was founded in New York in 1884, having for its objects
to promote the literary study and progress of the arts pertaining to the
production of books. It has published more than twenty books in sumptuous
style, and mostly in quarto form, the editions being limited to 150
copies at first, since increased to 300, under the rapidly enlarging
membership of the Club. Most of these books relate to fine binding, fine
printing, or fine illustration of books, or are intended to exemplify
them, and by their means, by lectures, and exhibitions of fine book-work,
this society has contributed much toward the diffusion of correct taste.
More care has been bestowed upon fine binding in New York than in London
itself. In fact, elegant book-binding is coming to be recognized as one
of the foremost of the decorative arts.

The art of designing book-covers and patterns for gilding books has
engaged the talents of many artists, among whom may be named Edwin A.
Abbey, Howard Pyle, Stanford White, and Elihu Vedder. Nor have skilful
designs been wanting among women, as witness Mrs. Whitman's elegant
tea-leaf border for the cover of Dr. O. W. Holmes's "Over the Tea-cups,"
and Miss Alice Morse's arabesques and medallions for Lafcadio Hearn's
"Two Years in the French West Indies." Miss May Morris designed many
tasteful letters for the fine bindings executed by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson
of London, and Kate Greenaway's many exquisite little books for little
people have become widely known for their quaint and curious cover
designs. A new field thus opens for skilled cultivators of the beautiful
who have an eye for the art of drawing.

Mr. William Matthews, the accomplished New York binder, in an address
before the Grolier Club in 1895, said: "I have been astonished that so
few women--in America, I know none--are encouragers of the art; they
certainly could not bestow their taste on anything that would do them
more credit, or as a study, give them more satisfaction." It is but fair
to add that since this judgment was put forth, its implied reproach is no
longer applicable: a number of American women have interested themselves
in the study of binding as a fine art; and some few in practical work as
binders of books.

There is no question that readers take a greater interest in books that
are neatly and attractively bound, than in volumes dressed in a mean
garb. No book owner or librarian with any knowledge of the incurable
defects of calf, sheep, or roan leather, if he has any regard for the
usefulness or the economies of his library, will use them in binding
books that are to possess permanent value in personal or public use. True
economy lies in employing the best description of binding in the first
instance.

When it is considered that the purposed object of book-binding is to
preserve in a shape at once attractive and permanent, the best and
noblest thoughts of man, it rises to a high rank among the arts. Side by
side with printing, it strives after that perfection which shall ensure
the perpetuity of human thought. Thus a book, clothed in morocco, is not
a mere piece of mechanism, but a vehicle in which the intellectual life
of writers no longer on earth is transmitted from age to age. And it is
the art of book-binding which renders libraries possible. What the
author, the printer, and the binder create, the library takes charge of
and preserves. It is thus that the material and the practical link
themselves indissolubly with the ideal. And the ideal of every true
librarian should be so to care for the embodiments of intelligence
entrusted to his guardianship, that they may become in the highest degree
useful to mankind. In this sense, the care bestowed upon thorough and
enduring binding can hardly be overrated, since the life of the book
depends upon it.




CHAPTER 4.

PREPARATION FOR THE SHELVES: BOOK PLATES, ETC.


When any lot of books is acquired, whether by purchase from book-dealers
or from auction, or by presentation, the first step to be taken, after
seeing that they agree with the bill, and have been collated, in
accordance with methods elsewhere given, should be to stamp and label
each volume, as the property of the library. These two processes are
quite distinct, and may be performed by one or two persons, according to
convenience, or to the library force employed. The stamp may be the
ordinary rubber one, inked by striking on a pad, and ink of any color may
be used, although black or blue ink has the neatest appearance. The stamp
should bear the name of the library, in clear, legible, plain type, with
year of acquisition of the book in the centre, followed by the month and
day if desired. A more permanent kind of stamp is the embossing stamp,
which is a steel die, the letters cut in relief, but it is very expensive
and slow, requiring the leaf to be inserted between the two parts of the
stamp, though the impression, once made, is practically indelible.

The size of the stamp (which is preferably oval in shape) should not
exceed 1¼ to 1½ inches in diameter, as a large, coarse stamp never
presents a neat appearance on a book. Indeed, many books are too small to
admit any but a stamp of very moderate dimensions. The books should be
stamped on the verso (reverse) of the title page, or if preferred, on the
widest unprinted portion of the title-page, preferably on the right hand
of the centre, or just below the centre on the right. This, because its
impression is far more legible on the plain white surface than on any
part of the printed title. In a circulating library, the stamps should be
impressed on one or more pages in the body of the book, as well as on the
last page, as a means of identification if the book is stolen or
otherwise lost; as it is very easy to erase the impression of a rubber
stamp from the title-page, and thereby commit a fraud by appropriating or
selling the book. In such a case, the duplicate or triplicate impression
of the stamp on some subsequent page (say page 5 or 16, many books having
but few pages) as fixed upon by the librarian, is quite likely to escape
notice of the thief, while it remains a safe-guard, enabling the
librarian to reclaim the book, wherever found. The law will enforce this
right of free reclamation in favor of a public library, in the case of
stolen books, no matter in what hands found, and even though the last
holder may be an innocent purchaser. All libraries are victimized at some
time by unscrupulous or dishonest readers, who will appropriate books,
thinking themselves safe from detection, and sometimes easing their
consciences, (if they have any) by the plea that the book is in a measure
public property.

In these cases, there is no absolute safe-guard, as it is easy to carry
off a book under one's coat, and the librarian and his few aids are far
too busy to act as detectives in watching readers. Still, a vigilant
librarian will almost always find out, by some suspicious
circumstance--such as the hiding of books away, or a certain furtive
action observed in a reader--who are the persons that should be watched,
and when it is advisable to call in the policeman.

The British Museum Library, which has no circulation or book lending,
enforces a rule that no one making his exit can have a book with him,
unless checked as his own property, all overcoats and other wraps being
of course checked at the door.

It is a melancholy fact, duly recorded in a Massachusetts paper, that no
less than two hundred and fifty volumes, duly labeled and stamped as
public library books, were stolen from a single library in a single year,
and sold to second-hand booksellers.

The impression of the stamp in the middle of a certain page, known to the
librarian, renders it less liable to detection by others, while if
stamped on the lower unprinted margin, it might be cut out by a designing
person.

Next to the stamping, comes the labeling of the books to be added to the
library. This is a mechanical process, and yet one of much importance.
Upon its being done neatly and properly, depends the good or bad
appearance of the library books, as labels with rough or ragged edges, or
put on askew, or trimmed irregularly at their margins, present an ugly
and unfinished aspect, offensive to the eye of good taste, and reflecting
discredit on the management. A librarian should take pride in seeing all
details of his work carefully and neatly carried out. If he cannot have
perfection, from want of time, he should always aim at it, at least, and
then only will he come near to achieving it.

The label, or book-plate (for they are one and the same thing) should be
of convenient size to go into books both small and large; and a good size
is approximately 2¼ inches wide by 1½ inches high when trimmed. As
comparatively few libraries care to go to the expense, which is about ten
times that of printing, of an engraved label (although such work adds to
the attractiveness of the books containing it) it should be printed in
clear, not ornamental type, with the name of the library, that of the
city or town in which it is located (unless forming a part of the title)
and the abbreviation No. for number, with such other spaces for section
marks or divisions, shelf-marks, etc., as the classification adopted may
require. The whole should be enclosed in an ornamental border--not too
ornate for good taste.

The labels, nicely trimmed to uniform size by a cutting machine, (if that
is not in the library equipment, any binder will do it for you) are next
to be pasted or gummed, as preferred. This process is a nice one,
requiring patience, care, and practice. Most libraries are full of books
imperfectly labelled, pasted on in crooked fashion, or perhaps damaging
the end-leaves by an over-use of paste, causing the leaves to adhere to
the page labelled--which should always be the inside left hand cover of
the book. This slovenly work is unworthy of a skilled librarian, who
should not suffer torn waste leaves, nor daubs of over-running paste in
any of his books. To prevent both these blunders in library economy, it
is only needful to instruct any intelligent assistant thoroughly, by
practical example how to do it--accompanied by a counter-example how not
to do it. The way to do it is to have your paste as thin as that used by
binders in pasting their fly-leaves, or their leather, or about the
consistency of porridge or pea soup. Then lay the label or book-plate
face downward on a board or table covered with blotting paper, dip your
paste brush (a half inch bristle brush is the best) in the paste, stroke
it (to remove too much adhering matter) on the inner side of your paste
cup, then apply it across the whole surface of the label, with light,
even strokes of the brush, until you see that it is all moistened with
paste. Next, take up the label and lay it evenly in the middle of the
left inner cover page of the book to be labelled, and with a small piece
of paper (not with the naked fingers) laid over it, stroke it down firmly
in its place, by rubbing over a few times the incumbent paper. This being
properly done (and it is done by an expert, once learned, very rapidly)
your book-plate will be firmly and smoothly pasted in, with no exuding
of paste at the edges, to spoil the fly-leaves, and no curling up of
edges because insufficiently pasted down.

So much for the book-plate--for the inside of the volumes; now let us
turn attention to the outside label. This is necessarily very much
smaller than the book-plate: in fact, it should not be larger than
three-quarters or seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, and even smaller
for the thinner volumes, while in the case of the very smallest, or
thinnest of books, it becomes necessary to paste the labels on the side,
instead of on the back. This label is to contain the section and
shelf-mark of the book, marked by plain figures, according to the plan of
classification adopted. When well done, it is an inexpressible comfort to
any librarian, because it shows at one glance of the eye, and without
opening the book at all, just where in the wide range of the
miscellaneous library it is to go. Thus the book service of every day is
incalculably aided, and the books are both found when sought on the
shelves, and replaced there, with no trouble of opening them.

This outer-label system once established, in strict correspondence with
the catalogue, the only part of the librarian's work remaining to be
prescribed in this field, concerns the kind of label to be selected, and
the method of affixing them to the books. The adhesive gummed labels
furnished by the Library Bureau, or those manufactured by the Dennison
Company of New York have the requisite qualities for practical use. They
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.

5th. All periodicals having the volume on the back, without the year, to
have the year lettered; and periodicals having the year, but not the
volume, are to have the number of the volume added.

If these things, all essential to good management and prompt library
service, are not done before the books go to their shelves, the chances
are that they will not be done at all.

The second requisite to be attended to is to examine whether any of the
volumes catalogued require to be bound or re-bound. In any lot of books
of considerable extent, there will always be some (especially if from
auction sales) dilapidated and shaken, so as to unfit them for use. There
will be others so soiled in the bindings or the edges as to be positively
shabby, and they should be re-bound to render them presentable.

The third point demanding attention is to see what volumes need repair.
It very often happens that books otherwise pretty well bound have torn
corners, or rubbed or shop-worn backs, or shabby marbled paper frayed at
the sides, or some other defect, which may be cured by mending or
furbishing up, without re-binding. This a skilful binder is always
competent to take in charge; and as in the other cases, it should have
attention immediately upon the acquisition of the books.

All books coming into a library which contain autographs, book-plates of
former owners, coats of arms, presentation inscriptions from the author,
monograms, or other distinguishing features, should preserve them as of
interest to the present or the future.

And all printed paper covers should be carefully preserved by binding
them inside the new cover which the book receives, thus preserving
authentic evidence of the form in which the book was first issued to the
public, and often its original price. In like manner, when a cloth-bound
book comes to re-binding, its side and back covers may be bound in at the
end of the book, as showing the style in which it was originally issued,
frequently displaying much artistic beauty.

Whoever receives back any books which have been out in circulation,
whether it be the librarian or assistant, must examine each volume, to
see if it is in apparent good order. If it is found (as frequently
happens) that it is shaky and loose, or if leaves are ready to drop out,
or if the cover is nearly off, it should never be allowed to go back to
the shelves, but laid aside for re-binding or repair with the next lot
sent to the binder. Only prompt vigilance on this point, combined with
the requirement of speedy return by the binder, will save the loss or
injury beyond repair of many books. It will also save the patrons of the
library from the frequent inconvenience of having to do without books,
which should be on the shelves for their use. How frequent this sending
of books to repair should be, cannot be settled by any arbitrary rule;
but it would be wise, in the interest of all, to do it as often as two or
three dozen damaged books are accumulated.

If you find other injury to a book returned, than the natural wear and
tear that the library must assume, if a book, for example, is blotched
with ink, or soiled with grease, or has been so far wet as to be badly
stained in the leaves, or if it is found torn in any part on a hasty
inspection, or if a plate or a map is missing, or the binding is
violently broken (as sometimes happens) then the damage should be borne
by the reader, and not by the library. This will sometimes require the
purchase of a fresh copy of the book, which no fair-minded reader can
object to pay, who is favored with the privileges of free enjoyment of
the treasures of a public library. Indeed, it will be found in the
majority of cases that honest readers themselves call attention to such
injuries as books have accidentally received while in their possession,
with voluntary offer to make good the damage.

All unbound or paper covered volumes should be reserved from the shelves,
and not supplied to readers until bound. This rule may be relaxed (as
there is almost no rule without some valid exception) in the case of a
popular new book, issued only in paper covers, if it is desired to give
an opportunity of early perusal to readers frequenting the library. But
such books should not be permitted to circulate, as they would soon be
worn to pieces by handling. Only books dressed in a substantial covering
are fit to be loaned out of any library. In preparing for the bindery any
new books, or old ones to be re-bound or repaired, lists should be made
of any convenient number set apart for the purpose, prompt return should
be required, and all should be checked off on the list when returned.

No shelf in a well-regulated library should be unprovided with
book-supports, in order to prevent the volumes from sagging and straining
by falling against one another, in a long row of books. Numerous
different devices are in the market for this purpose, from the solid
brick to the light sheet-iron support; but it is important to protect the
end of every row from strain on the bindings, and the cost of book
supports is indefinitely less than that of the re-binding entailed by
neglecting to use them.

Some libraries of circulation make it a rule to cover all their books
with paper or thin muslin covers, before they are placed on the shelves
for use. This method has its advantages and its drawbacks. It doubtless
protects the bindings from soiling, and where books circulate widely and
long, no one who has seen how foul with dirt they become, can doubt the
expediency of at least trying the experiment of clean covers. They should
be of the firmest thin but tough Manila paper, and it is claimed that
twenty renewals of clean paper covers actually cost less than one
re-binding. On the other hand, it is not to be denied that books thus
covered look shabby, monotonous, and uninteresting. In the library used
for reference and reading only, without circulation, covers are quite out
of place.

Book-plates having been briefly referred to above, a few words as to
their styles and uses may here be pertinent. The name "book-plate" is a
clumsy and misleading title, suggesting to the uninitiated the
illustrations or plates which embellish the text of a book. The name _Ex
libris_, two latin words used for book-plate in all European languages,
is clearer, but still not exact, as a definition of the thing, signifying
simply "out of books." A book-plate is the owner's or the library's
distinctive mark of ownership, pasted upon the inside cover, whether it
be a simple name-label, or an elaborately engraved heraldic or pictorial
device. The earliest known book-plates date back to the fifteenth
century, and are of German origin, though English plates are known as
early as 1700. In France, specimens appear for the first time between
1600 and 1650.

Foreign book-plates are, as a rule, heraldic in design, as are also the
early American plates, representing the coat of arms or family crest of
the owner of the books, with a motto of some kind. The fashion of
collecting these owners' marks, as such, irrespective of the books
containing them, is a recent and very possibly a passing mania. Still,
there is something of interest in early American plates, and in those
used by distinguished men, aside from the collector's fad. Some of the
first American engravers showed their skill in these designs, and a
signed and dated plate engraved by Nathaniel Hurd, for example, of
Boston, is of some historic value as an example of early American art. He
engraved many plates about the middle of the last century, and died in
1777. Paul Revere, who was an engraver, designed and executed some few
plates, which are rare, and highly prized, more for his name than for his
skill, for, as generally known, he was a noted patriot of the
Revolutionary period, belonging by his acts to the heroic age of American
history.

A book of George Washington's containing his book-plate has an added
interest, though the plate itself is an armorial design, not at all well
executed. Its motto is "_exitus acta probat_"--the event justifies the
deed. From its rarity and the high price it commands, it has probably
been the only American book-plate ever counterfeited. At an auction sale
of books in Washington in 1863, this counterfeit plate had been placed in
many books to give a fictitious value, but the fraud was discovered and
announced by the present writer, just before the books were sold. Yet the
sale was attended by many attracted to bid upon books said to have been
owned by Washington, and among them the late Dr. W. F. Poole, then
librarian of the Boston Athenaeum, which possesses most of the library
authentically known to have been at Mount Vernon.

John Adams and John Quincy Adams used book-plates, and James Monroe and
John Tyler each had a plain name-label. These are all of our presidents
known to have used them, except General Garfield, who had a printed
book-plate of simple design, with the motto "_inter folia fructus_."
Eleven of the signers of the Declaration of Independence are known to
have had these signs of gentle birth--for in the early years of the
American Colonies, it was only the families of aristocratic connection
and scholarly tastes who indulged in what may be termed a superfluous
luxury.

The plates used among the Southern settlers were generally ordered from
England, and not at all American. The Northern plates were more
frequently of native design and execution, and therefore of much greater
value and interest, though far inferior in style of workmanship and
elaboration of ornament to the best European ones.

The ordinary library label is also a book-plate, and some of the early
libraries and small collections have elaborate designs. The early Harvard
College library plate was a large and fine piece of engraving by Hurd.
The Harvard Library had some few of this fine engraved label printed in
red ink, and placed in the rarer books of the library--as a reminder that
the works containing the rubricated book-plates were not to be drawn out
by students.

The learned bibliophile and librarian of Florence, Magliabecchi, who died
in 1714, devised for his library of thirty thousand volumes, which he
bequeathed to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, a book-plate representing his
own profile on a medal surrounded with books and oak boughs, with the
inscription--"Antonius Magliabecchius Florentinus."

Some book-plates embody designs of great beauty. The late George
Bancroft's, engraved on copper, represented a winged cherub (from
Raphael) gazing sun-ward, holding a tablet with the inscription "_Eis
phaos_," toward the light.

Some French book-plates aim at humor or caricature. One familiar example
represents an old book-worm mounted on a tall ladder in a library,
profoundly absorbed in reading, and utterly unconscious that the room
beneath him is on fire.

To those who ask of what possible utility it can be to cultivate so
unfruitful a pursuit as the devising or the collecting of book-plates, it
may be pertinent to state the claim made in behalf of the amateurs of
this art, by a connoisseur, namely, "Book-plates foster the study of art,
history, genealogy, and human character." On this theory, we may add, the
coat of arms or family crest teaches heraldry; the mottoes or
inscriptions chosen cultivate the taste for language and sententious
literature; the engraving appeals to the sense of the artistic; the names
of early or ancient families who are often thus commemorated teach
biography, history, or genealogy; while the great variety of sentiments
selected for the plates illustrate the character and taste of those
selecting them.

On the other hand, it must be said that the coat of arms fails to
indicate individual taste or genius, and might better be supplanted by
original and characteristic designs, especially such as relate to books,
libraries, and learning.




CHAPTER 5.

THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS.


We have seen in former chapters how the books of a library are acquired,
how they are prepared for the shelves, or for use, and how they are or
should be bound. Let us now consider the important questions which
involve the care, the protection, and the preservation of the books.

Every librarian or book owner should be something more than a custodian
of the books in his collection. He should also exercise perpetual
vigilance with regard to their safety and condition. The books of every
library are beset by dangers and by enemies. Some of these are open and
palpable; others are secret, illusive, little suspected, and liable to
come unlooked for and without warning. Some of these enemies are
impersonal and immaterial, but none the less deadly; others are
personally human in form, but most inhuman in their careless and brutal
treatment of books. How far and how fatally the books of many libraries
have been injured by these ever active and persistent enemies can never
be adequately told. But we may point out what the several dangers are
which beset them, and how far the watchful care of the librarian and his
assistants may fore-stall or prevent them.

One of the foremost of the inanimate enemies of books is dust. In some
libraries the atmosphere is dust-laden, to a degree which seems
incredible until you witness its results in the deposits upon books,
which soil your fingers, and contaminate the air you breathe, as you
brush or blow it away. Peculiarly liable to dust are library rooms
located in populous towns, or in business streets, and built close to
the avenues of traffic. Here, the dust is driven in at the windows and
doors by every breeze that blows. It is an omnipresent evil, that cannot
be escaped or very largely remedied. As preventive measures, care should
be taken not to build libraries too near the street, but to have ample
front and side yards to isolate the books as far as may be consistent
with convenient access. Where the library is already located immediately
on the street, a subscription for sprinkling the thoroughfare with water,
the year round, would be true economy.

In some cities, the evils of street dust are supplemented by the
mischiefs of coal smoke, to an aggravated degree. Wherever soft coal is
burned as the principal fuel, a black, fuliginous substance goes floating
through the air, and soils every thing it touches. It penetrates into
houses and public buildings, often intensified by their own interior use
of the same generator of dirt, and covers the books of the library with
its foul deposits. You may see, in the public libraries of some western
cities, how this perpetual curse of coal smoke has penetrated the leaves
of all the books, resisting all efforts to keep it out, and slowly but
surely deteriorating both paper and bindings. Here, preventive measures
are impossible, unless some device for consuming the coal smoke of
chimneys and factories were made compulsory, or the evil somewhat
mitigated by using a less dangerous fuel within the library.

But, aside from these afflictions of dust, in its most aggravated form,
every library and every room in any building is subject to its persistent
visitations. Wherever carpets or rugs cover the floors, there dust has an
assured abiding-place, and it is diffused throughout the apartment in
impalpable clouds, at every sweeping of the floors. Hence it would be
wise to adopt in public libraries a floor-covering like linoleum, or some
substance other than woolen, which would be measurably free from dust,
while soft enough to deaden the sound of feet upon the floors. Even with
this preventive precaution, there will always be dust enough, and too
much for comfort, or for the health of the books. Only a thorough
dusting, carried on if possible daily, can prevent an accumulation of
dust, at once deleterious to the durability of the books, and to the
comfort both of librarians and readers. Dust is an insidious foe,
stealing on its march silently and unobserved, yet, however impalpable in
the atmosphere of a library, it will settle upon the tops of every shelf
of books, it will penetrate their inner leaves, it will lodge upon the
bindings, soiling books and readers, and constituting a perpetual
annoyance.

It is not enough to dust the tops of the books periodically; a more full
and radical remedy is required, to render library books presentable. At
no long intervals, there should be a thorough library cleaning, as
drastic and complete as the house-cleaning which neat housewives
institute twice a year, with such wholesome results. The books are to be
taken down from the shelves, and subjected to a shaking-up process, which
will remove more of the dust they have absorbed than any brush can reach.
To do this effectually, take them, if of moderate thickness, by the
half-dozen at a time from the shelf, hold them loosely on a table, their
fronts downward, backs uppermost, then with a hand at either side of the
little pile, strike them smartly together a few times, until the dust,
which will fly from them in a very palpable cloud, ceases to fall. Then
lay them on their ends, with the tops uppermost on the table, and repeat
the concussion in that posture, when you will eliminate a fresh crop of
dust, though not so thick as the first. After this, let each volume of
the lot be brushed over at the sides and back with a soft (never stiff)
brush, or else with a piece of cotton or woolen cloth, and so restored
clean to the shelves. While this thorough method of cleansing will take
time and pains, it will pay in the long run. It will not eliminate all
the dust (which in a large collection is a physical impossibility) but it
will reduce it to a minimum. Faithfully carried out, as a periodical
supplement to a daily dusting of the books as they stand on the shelves,
it will immensely relieve the librarian or book-owner, who can then, (and
then only) feel that he has done his whole duty by his books.

Another dangerous enemy of the library book is damp, already briefly
referred to. Books kept in any basement room, or near any wall, absorb
moisture with avidity; both paper and bindings becoming mildewed, and
often covered with blue mould. If long left in this perilous condition,
sure destruction follows; the glue or paste which fastens the cover
softens, the leather loses its tenacity, and the leaves slowly rot, until
the worthless volumes smell to heaven. Books thus injured may be
partially recovered, before the advanced stage of decomposition, by
removal to a dry atmosphere, and by taking the volumes apart, drying the
sheets, and rebinding--a very expensive, but necessary remedy, provided
the books are deemed worth preserving.

But a true remedy is the preventive one. No library should ever be kept,
even in part, in a basement story, nor should any books ever be located
near the wall of a building. All walls absorb, retain, and give out
moisture, and are dangerous and oft-times fatal neighbors to books. Let
the shelves be located at right angles to every wall--with the end
nearest to it at least twelve to eighteen inches removed, and the danger
will be obviated.

A third enemy of the book is heat. Most libraries are unfortunately
over-heated,--sometimes from defective means of controlling the
temperature, and sometimes from carelessness or want of thought in the
attendant. A high temperature is very destructive to books. It warps
their covers, so that volumes unprotected by their fellows, or by a book
support, tend to curl up, and stay warped until they become a nuisance.
It also injures the paper of the volumes by over-heating, and weakening
the tenacity of the leaves held together by the glue on the back, besides
drying to an extreme the leather, till it cracks or crumbles under the
heat. The upper shelves or galleries of any library are most seriously
affected by over-heating, because the natural law causes the heat to rise
toward the ceiling. If you put your hand on some books occupying the
highest places in some library rooms, in mid-winter, when the fires are
kept at their maximum, the heat of the volume will almost burn your
fingers. If these books were sentient beings, and could speak, would they
not say--"our sufferings are intolerable?"

The remedy is of course a preventive one; never to suffer the library to
become over-heated, and to have proper ventilation on every floor,
communicating with the air outside. Seventy degrees Fahrenheit is a safe
and proper maximum temperature for books and librarian.

The mischief arising from gas exhalations is another serious source of
danger to books. In many well-lighted libraries, the heat itself from the
numerous gas-burners is sufficient to injure them, and there is besides a
sulphuric acid escaping from the coal-gas fluid, in combustion, which is
most deleterious to bindings. The only remedy appears to be, where
libraries are open evenings, to furnish them with electric lights. This
improved mode of illumination is now so perfected, and so widely
diffused, that it may be reckoned a positive boon to public libraries, in
saving their books from one of their worst and most destructive enemies.

Another of the potent enemies of books is fire. I refer, not to
over-heating the rooms they occupy, but to the risk they continually run,
in most libraries, of total destruction. The chronicle of burned
libraries would make a long and melancholy record, on which there is no
space here to enter. Irreparable losses of manuscripts and early printed
books, and precious volumes printed in small editions, have arisen from
men's neglect of building our book-repositories fire-proof. In all
libraries not provided with iron or steel shelves, there is perpetual
danger. Books do not burn easily, unless surrounded with combustibles,
but these are furnished in nearly all libraries, by surrounding the books
on three sides with wooden shelves, which need only to be ignited at any
point to put the whole collection in a blaze. Then follows the usual
abortive endeavor to save the library by the aid of fire engines, which
flood the building, until the water spoils nearly all which the fire does
not consume. The incalculable losses which the cause of learning has
sustained from the burning of public, university and ecclesiastical
libraries are far greater than the cost which the provision of fire-proof
repositories would have entailed.

Of late years, there has been a partial reform in library construction.
Some have been built fire-proof throughout, with only stone, brick,
concrete and iron material, even to the floors and window casings. Many
more have had iron shelves and iron stacks to hold the shelves
constructed, and there are now several competing manufacturers of these
invaluable safeguards to books. The first library interior constructed
wholly of iron was that of the Library of Congress at Washington, which
had been twice consumed, first when the Capitol was burned by the British
army in 1814, and again in 1851, through a defective flue, when only
20,000 volumes were saved from the flames, out of a total of 55,000. The
example of iron construction has been slowly followed, until now the
large cities have most of their newly-constructed libraries approximately
fire-proof, although many are exposed to fire in parts, owing to a
niggardly and false economy. The lesson that what is worth doing at all
is worth doing well, and that every neglect of security brings sooner or
later irreparable loss, is very slowly learned. Whole hecatombs of books
have been sacrificed to the spirit of commercial greed, blind or
short-sighted enough not to see that secure protection to public
property, though costlier at first, is far cheaper in the end. You may
speak of insurance against library losses by fire, but what insurance
could restore the rare and costly Shakespearean treasures of the
Birmingham Free Library, or the unique and priceless manuscripts that
went up in flames in the city library of Strasburg, in 1870, or the many
precious and irreplaceable manuscript archives of so many of our States,
burned in the conflagration of their capitols?

One would think that the civilized world had had lessons enough, ever
since that seventh century burning of the Alexandrian library by the
Caliph Omar, with that famous but apocryphal rhetorical dilemma, put in
his mouth perhaps by some nimble-witted reporter:--"If these books agree
with the Koran, they are useless, and should be burned: if not, they are
pernicious, and must not be spared." But the heedless world goes
carelessly on, deaf to the voice of reason, and the lessons of history,
amid the holocausts of literature and the wreck of blazing libraries,
uttering loud newspaper wails at each new instance of destruction,
forgotten in a week, then cheerfully renewing the business of building
libraries that invite the flames.

Nothing here said should be interpreted as advice not to insure any
library, in all cases where it is not provided with iron cases for the
books, or a fire-proof building. On the contrary, the menaced destruction
of books or manuscripts that cannot be replaced should lead to securing
means in advance for replacing all the rest in case of loss by fire. And
the experience of the past points the wisdom of locating every library in
an isolated building, where risks of fire from other buildings are
reduced to a minimum, instead of in a block whose buildings (as in most
commercial structures) are lined with wood.

You will perhaps attach but small importance at first thought, to the
next insidious foe to library books that I shall name--that is, wetting
by rain. Yet most buildings leak at the roof, sometime, and some old
buildings are subject to leaks all the time. Even under the roof of the
Capitol at Washington, at every melting of a heavy snow-fall, and on
occasion of violent and protracted rains, there have been leaks pouring
down water into the libraries located in the old part of the building.
Each of these saturated and injured its quota of books, some of which
could only be restored to available use by re-binding, and even then the
leaves were left water-stained in part. See to it that your library roof
is water-tight, or the contents of your library will be constantly
exposed to damage against which there is no insurance.

Another besetting danger to the books of our libraries arises from
insects and vermin. These animated foes appear chiefly in the form of
book-worms, cockroaches, and mice. The first-named is rare in American
libraries, though its ravages have extended far and wide among the old
European ones. This minute little insect, whose scientific name is the
_anobium paniceum_, bores through the leaves of old volumes, making
sometimes holes which deface and mutilate the text. All our public
libraries, doubtless, have on their shelves old folios in vellum or
leather bindings, which present upon opening the disagreeable vision of
leaves eaten through (usually before they crossed the sea) by these
pernicious little borers. It is comforting to add, that I have never
known of any book-worm in the Congressional Library--except the human
variety, which is frequently in evidence. Georgetown College library once
sent me a specimen of the insect, which was found alive in one of its
volumes, but the united testimony of librarians is that this pest is rare
in the United States. As to remedies, the preventive one of sprinkling
the shelves twice a year with a mixture of powdered camphor and snuff, or
the vapor of benzine or carbolic acid, or other repellant chemicals, is
resorted to abroad, but I have not heard of any similar practice in this
country. I may remark in passing, that the term "book-worm" is a
misnomer, since it is not a worm at all, but an insect. A more serious
insect menace is the cockroach, a hungry, unclean little beast, which
frequents a good many libraries, and devours bindings (especially fresh
ones) to get at the paste or savory parts of the binding. The remedy for
this evil, when once found to exist, is to scatter the most effective
roach poison that can be found, which may arrest further ravages.

Another insect pest is the Croton bug, (_Blatta Germanica_) which eats
into cloth bindings to get at the sizing or albumen. The late eminent
entomologist, Dr. C. V. Riley, pronounced them the worst pest known in
libraries, but observed that they do not attack books bound in leather,
and confine their ravages to the outside of cloth-bound books, never
troubling the leaves. The remedy prescribed is a powder in which
pyrethrum is the chief ingredient, sprinkled about the shelves.

Among the rodents, mice are apt to be busy and mischievous infesters of
libraries. They are extremely fond of paste, and being in a chronic
state of hunger, they watch opportunities of getting at any library
receptacle of it. They will gnaw any fresh binding, whether of cloth,
board, or leather, to get at the coveted food. They will also gnaw some
books, and even pamphlets, without any apparent temptation of a succulent
nature. A good library cat or a series of mouse traps, skilfully baited,
may rid you of this evil.

The injury that comes to library books from insufficient care in
protecting them on the shelves is great and incalculable. There are to be
seen in every library, volumes all twisted out of shape by the sagging or
leaning, to which the end-book is subjected, and which is often shared by
all its neighbors on the shelf. The inevitable result is that the book is
not only spoiled in its good looks, but (which is vastly more important)
it is injured in its binding, which is strained and weakened just in
proportion to the length of time in which it is subjected to such risks.
The plain remedy is to take care that every volume is supported upright
upon the shelf, in some way. When the shelf is full, the books will
support one another. But when volumes are withdrawn, or when a shelf is
only partly filled with books, the unsupported volumes tumble by force of
gravitation, and those next them sag and lean, or fall like a row of
bricks, pushing one another over. No shelf of books can safely be left 

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