Bookkeeping

“ And as we pass from this to the conduct of a business we recognize that the man who engages in commerce without keeping proper accounts is a fool and courts failure, and that the larger the business and the more widespread the interests, the more complicated and extensive must be the bookkeeping. A large commercial concern may thus employ a special department with a large staff of men simply to keep record of its financial transactions. This is probably the most ancient kind of statistical record and the one whose usefulness is most generally recognized. ”

“ They should be so full and so well arranged as to afford a ready information in every point for which they may be consulted.“ Single entry hardly measures up to these requirements, but there are places and circumstances where it gives results satisfactory enough. Bookkeeping has had a development contemporaneous with industrial life. Only simple records are needed so long as industries are simple, but with the increasing complexity of industrial enterprise, previous methods become inadequate. ”

“ They are very simple and sane. The methods of bookkeeping are really elementary, principally mere addition and subtraction. Of course the science of banking and political economy involves deep and profound study, but these are not treated here, and the writer has attempted merely to give an idea of the daily routine of a bank. ”

“ Many machines of different sorts have greatly changed bookkeeping methods, making the bookkeeper an initiative force in administration of business houses, and certainly similar economy systems will be developed for the cataloger. ”

“ Of course when the farm business becomes very large and intricate, an elaborate system of bookkeeping is necessary. But for the myriads of little things that belong to the home side of the farmstead, this ingenious system is especially adapted. Here we may advantageously keep our records of such memoranda as specially concerns the family, the household accounts and receipts; inventions we may hear about and new devices in which we may be interested and that we may sometime want to find out about or make our own ”

“ Much of the bookkeeping in actual use in business consists in making entries of one kind only and in checking and verifying. Understanding of debit and credit, posting, and trial balance, is the maximum practical need of the younger workers. ”

“ whilst I could not think of any man whose spirit was, or needed to be, more enlarged than the spirit of a genuine merchant. What a thing is it to see the order which prevails throughout his business! By means of this he can at any time survey the general whole, without needing to perplex himself in the details. What advantages does he derive from the system of bookkeeping by double entry! It is among the finest inventions of the human mind: every prudent master of a house should introduce it into his economy." ”

“ A simple double record of borrowers’ reading and books read, which will give as little trouble to the public as possible, is much required, and will repay the attention bestowed on it by the young librarian. Where application slips are used, which give book- and borrower-numbers, it is a simple matter compiling a daily record of the reading done by each borrower. At several libraries where Cotgreave’s indicator is used, it is done by the process of pencilling the number of the book taken out on to a card bearing the reader’s number. ”

“ For that reason it is perhaps needless to do more than name the cash book, ledger, petty cash book, cash receipt book, and postage book as the principal records maintained for financial purposes. Many librarians unite their issue and receipts from fines books, while others keep separate records; but it is best for beginners to keep their cash affairs strictly apart, and in the ordinary fashion of good business houses. The donation book is the record of all books, prints, maps, or other gifts to the library, ruled to show the following particulars: Author and Title | Vols. ”

“ In other cases a form is supplied to readers desirous of making suggestions of any sort. Contract or estimate books are not always used, but the young librarian will find it of the greatest convenience to keep a chronological record of every estimate received for work to be done in the library. A guard book in which can be pasted the various tenders received, or an ordinary plain ruled one in which they can be entered, will be found a perfect treasury of assistance in many cases. An index at the beginning or end can easily be made. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do not spend on a single costly work, of interest to few and seldom used by that few, a sum that would buy 20 or perhaps 100 volumes that would be in constant and profitable use by many. Buy no book unless by personal acquaintance, or upon competent and trustworthy testimony, it is worth adding to your library. Do not feel that you must buy complete sets of an author, or all of any "series"; all the works of very few authors are worth having. ”

“ Large numbers of scrap-books that have been accumulating for over twenty years, in number and in value—made up with an eye to what either is, or may become, useful, which would render the collection of priceless value to the library of any first-class newspaper establishment—are so perfectly arranged and indexed, that their owner with his all-retentive memory, can turn in a moment to the facts that may be needed for almost any conceivable emergency in debate. ”

“ The most which one man can hope to effect, in this department, is to examine and describe books, in some special branch of knowledge, or books of some particular class, as palæotypes, books privately printed, a selection of books most esteemed by collectors, &c. It is too much to expect, that every librarian can find time, or possess learning, for such a description of all books under his care. Besides, this would be a waste of labor and of money. ”

“ It would require an enumeration which is the province of the future bibliographer, to show how many separate books, in every department of knowledge, have been issued during the last twenty years, with a distinct reference to the means of the greatest number of readers. But the process here, as in other cases, has necessarily been gradual. The general cheapening of books must be gradual to be safe. The soundings of the perilous sea of publishing must be constantly taken. ”

“ In many cases which have come under observation the clerk dwelling in Suburbia, or anywhere else, does not take the trouble to furnish himself with a manual of book-keeping or business method which would undoubtedly increase his range of knowledge and fit him for a better position, nor does it even occur to him to expend a few shillings on a book which might enable him to cultivate with better success his miserable scrap of a back-garden. ”

“ Every book has a page or more, according to popularity, and there can hardly be a doubt of its superiority to the personal ledger, because the question of a book’s whereabouts is more often raised than what book a given reader has. Dates of issue and return are stamped, and all books are available for issue on return. The borrowers’ cards, if kept in dated trays as above, show at once “overdues” and who have books out. ”

“ There is one small appendage of the private library which must be mentioned before we close the chapter. A list of the prices which he has paid for his books forms a record that is indispensable to the book-collector. It is impossible to carry all one's 'bargains' in one's head, and if pencilled inside the book itself it is exposed to that publicity which one naturally shuns. Such a record is of something more than curious interest, for a knowledge of the rise or fall in the price of those books in which he is interested is essential to the collector. ”

“ Nothing is so slatternly as the aspect of a book merely stitched, in the French fashion, when the threads begin to stretch, and the paper covers to curl and be torn. Worse consequences follow, whole sheets are lost, the volume becomes worthless, and the owner must often be at the expense of purchasing another copy, p. 64if he can, for the edition may now be out of print. Thus binding of some sort not only adds a grace to the library, presenting to the eye the cheerful gilded rows of our volumes, but is a positive economy. ”

“ But facsimiles and other aids have been greatly multiplied of late years; many a book can be run down and the identification verified in a few minutes, and the possibility of hunting successfully in one’s own library presupposes the purchase of many books giving full information as to their origin. These, while offering the means of identifying other books, will themselves raise no questions, so that the collector’s life need not be unceasingly strenuous. ”

“ To decide properly what books should be rebound and how they should be rebound is not a simple matter nor one which should be left to an inexperienced or uneducated assistant. In addition to a good working knowledge of materials and processes the assistant in charge of this work should have a general knowledge of books—paper, editions, prices, literary value, timeliness, etc.—and good judgment in deciding whether a book should be bound or whether it should be mended, recased, wrapped in paper, recovered, or thrown away. ”

“ A system of exchange and of loans might, with certain stringent conditions, be established, or, when the loan of a book would be impracticable, extracts could be copied, quotations verified, and researches made, through the intervention of this Institution, as effectually to the purpose of the student, in most cases, as a personal examination of the book. All the literary treasures of the country might thus be made measurably available to every scholar. ”

“ The most distinctive thing about a book is the possibility that someone may read it. Is this a truism? Evidently not; for the publishers, who print books, and the libraries, which store and distribute them, have never thought it worth their while to collect and record information bearing on this possibility. In the publisher’s or the bookseller’s advertising announcements, as well as on the catalogue cards stored in the library’s trays, the reader may ascertain when and where the book was published, the number of pages, and whether it contains plates or maps ”

“ BOOK SELECTION AND BUYING. Book Selection.—Book selection makes the greatest demand on the knowledge and administrative judgment of librarians and is the question that produces the most friction between librarians and library committees. If the trustees define the general policy of the library, determine the amount to be expended on books, and approve purchases out of the ordinary run, the librarian should be considered as the one person best posted on the needs of the library, and as purchasing agent for the institution should be allowed to buy where he can do so to the best advantage. ”

“ Nor ought the Librarian himself to lend books unless he receive a pledge of equal value; and then he ought to enter on his roll the name of the borrower, the title of the book lent, and the pledge taken. The larger and more valuable books he ought not to lend to anyone, known or unknown, without permission of the Prelate....
Books which are to be kept at hand for daily use, whether for singing or reading, ought to be in some common place, to which all the brethren can have easy access for inspection, and selection of anything which seems to them suitable. ”

“ But the present narrative, while it embraces a wider range, is, at the same time, independent throughout of all that have preceded it, being largely compiled from sources available only to those who are familiar with the stores of the Library and habituated to their use, as well as from private accounts and papers, for access to which, as for other kind assistance, the writer is indebted to the Librarian. Yet it is only as an attempt that the volume asks to be received and judged; for a work of this kind cannot at once attain completeness. ”

“ A preponderating part of the lending stock will be of fiction—perhaps twenty per cent. of it—and here the librarian has the accumulated experience of other librarians to assist his selection, and, with regard to contemporary writings, they are not so numerous that the characteristics of any given author cannot easily be tested. Books of classic rank should be available in such numbers that there are always enough copies to meet the current demand and at the same time to leave a copy on the shelves. ”

“ He will therefore not admit indiscriminately every book into his collection, but will select such only as are of genuine merit and of well-approved utility; and his acquisitions, guided by the principles of an enlightened economy, will be rendered still more valuable by the substantial merits of an able classification. It is impossible, in fact, to attach too much importance to the advantages resulting from an intelligent and methodical order in the arrangement of a library. ”

“ On picking up a lost pocket-book by chance in the streets, one can be at no loss to divine the quality of its former proprietor. A large rusty black leather pocket-book, looking more like a portmanteau than a memorandum book, stuffed with papers half printed, half written, blank stamp receipts, churchwarden’s orders and directions, long lists of parishioners, with a small ink-horn in one corner—denotes the property of a tax-gatherer. ”