Chart room

“ There was talk of a large map of France to go into a pocket at the end of the book. Some sort of a map was necessary to illustrate the chapter dealing with the early days in France from Mons to Ypres. “I am still in favour of the one page map wherever possible—and I hate the pocket business. Map-makers care nothing about books. A book with a pocket is not a book.... The chart-makers who are admirable want a book to help the maps. I want maps to help the book. If stuff is good to read you don’t break it off repeatedly to look up places on a map.” ”

“ Show counters and shelves, with an excellent selection of Standard, Illustrated, and Illuminated works, varying in price to suit all buyers, are available to those visiting our establishment, where purchases may be made with facility, and the time of the visitor greatly economized. Here may be seen not only books of the simplest kind for children, but also exquisite works of art, of the most sumptuous character, suitable alike to adorn the drawing-room table and the study of the connoisseur. ”

“ On return the indicator number is simply turned round, and the borrower receives back his card. “Overdues” can be shown by means of coloured clips, or by having the borrowers’ cards shaped or coloured, and issues are recorded on day-sheets, or by means of application forms. There are, however, endless ways of working both the Elliot and Cotgreave indicators, though there is only space to describe the most elementary forms. Like every other department of library work, the working of an indicator-charging system will bear careful thought, and leave room for original developments. ”

“ As in the card catalogue system, there is room for indefinite expansion without devices or provisions. Space is the only requisite and if the shelf room is exhausted, the floor space is equally good, except for the inconvenience of stooping.
Some prominent opponents of classed catalogues have admitted that the Subject Index, in deciding where to class a book at first, and where to look for it ever afterwards, has removed their strongest objections. ”

“ The light is not favourable for seeing all the pictures that deserve inspection on the staircase—you had better ascend; and now, having reached the head of the semi-staircase, our course is along this lobby to the opposite door-way, which is that of the drawing-room.
Let us enter at once, and in our tour of the Pryor’s Bank regard the ante-drawing-room as a kind of middle or passage-room, belonging either to the gallery or the drawing-room. ”

“ My personal feeling is strongly against the bequest of such a collection to a public institution. These prints are inherently suited to private exhibition and not to public display. They must be kept in portfolios, not hung up in galleries, or they fade. They must be examined closely and at leisure; the spectator should be able, seated at ease, to study them as he holds them in his hand. To walk through a gallery of prints is only a slight pleasure; to sit in the library of the collector and inspect and discuss the same prints one by one is a great delight. ”

“ A catalogue which contains such exact reproductions of rare and authentic portraits, is itself a work of art, and serviceable to the student. When the shop of a bookseller, with a promising catalogue which arrives over night, is not too far distant, bibliophiles have been known to rush to the spot in the grey morning, before the doors open. There are amateurs, however, who prefer to stay comfortably at home, and pity these poor fanatics, shivering in the rain outside a door in Oxford Street or Booksellers' Row. ”

“ The editorial rooms are above, and near them are the reporters' rooms. The top floor constitutes the finest composing room in the world, from which speaking-tubes and vertical railways communicate with all the other parts of the building. ”

“ The most interesting thing of all is, however, to sit in the gallery, and looking downwards, to observe the continually increasing crowd passing and repassing each other in the immense hall and through the galleries and chambers, and to listen to the hubbub and noise of the thousands of eager voices talking at once. At half-past one o’clock the hall is at its fullest, and the noise becomes absolutely deafening; for now they are marking up the rates of exchange, by which the merchants regulate their monetary transactions. ”

“ The number of ledgers and account books behind these bars [Pg 530] are enough to frighten one. When the day's business is done all these huge books are stowed away by the porters in the fire-proof room under ground, and brought up again in the morning, for they are fully as valuable as the large sums inscribed on their leaves. ”

“ The customer advises a certain number of such persons that he is in the market for a booklet and would like to receive suggestions. Each competitor prepares a “dummy” on the stock and in the binding intended for the completed booklet. The cover design is roughly sketched or otherwise indicated and the inside pages prepared to represent the finished job.
Let us imagine ourselves in a printshop of medium size, which cannot afford the regular services of an artist. From the composing-room force take the most artistic and practical job compositor and install him at a desk. ”

“ Next time I entered the Press Gallery it was as the accredited representative of the Pall Mall Gazette. I came over from Paris to spend Christmas at home, and never went back to complete that continental tour in search of knowledge, which I fancy had been suggested by Goldsmith's trip with his flute. It happened that in the early days of 1870, the proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette began the first of the series of chequered changes in the history of the journal, by starting it as a morning paper. ”

“ CURTAIN ACT II SCENE I A billiard room in a provincial hotel, where things are bought and sold. The scene is set well forward, and is not very broad; it represents the auctioneer's end of the room, having, rather to stage Left, a narrow table with two chairs facing the audience, where the auctioneer will sit and stand. The table, which is set forward to the footlights, is littered with green-covered particulars of sale. The audience are in effect public and bidders. ”

“ Of the numerous chart vendors out there around the world, do you all interact, talk to each other, to try and come up with some of the common problems amongst the charting vendors and eliminate some of those problems or some of the interpretation confusion that may exist? ”

“ The house where Martin Behaim, four centuries ago, invented the sphere, and drew the first geographical chart, is still the house of a map-seller. In the house where cards were first manufactured, cards are now sold. In the very shops where clocks and watches were first seen, you may still buy clocks and watches. ”

“ I said, “I need not ask if this is a market, for I see clearly that it is; but what market is it that it is so splendid? And what is the glorious hall there, and what is the building on the south side?”
“O,” said he, “it is just our Hammersmith market; and I am glad you like it so much, for we are really proud of it. Of course the hall inside is our winter Mote-House; for in summer we mostly meet in the fields down by the river opposite Barn Elms. The building on our right hand is our theatre: I hope you like it.” ”

“ The shelf register, as the name indicates, is the volume in which a list of the books is kept, in the order of their arrangement on the shelves. Such registers are only required for the fixed plan of location. The most elementary form simply gives the | Press Mark | Author and Title | No. of Vols. | Stock, Progressive, or Consecutive Number | ; the last referring to the entry in the accessions or stock book. Others are much more elaborate, being really varieties of classified stock books, and giving particulars of edition, price, &c. ”

“ The main hall of the Exchange is two hundred feet long, one hundred wide, and seventy high. In the gallery surrounding it strangers can at any time witness the proceedings on the floor, and watch how fortunes are made and unmade. ”

“ As I examined the curious heterogeneous collection of things for sale, I heard the clink of coins being poured out on the lid of a desk or an uncovered table, and the murmur of voices floated out to me. I was now near the entrance of the shop, and by a sleight-of-hand trick, keeping the corner of my eye on the glass pane of the private office, I removed the key of the front door without a sound, and took an impression of it in wax, returning the key to its place unobserved. At this moment another young man came in, and walked straight past me into the private office. ”

“ Wall Street was in a tumult of excitement, and the joyful throng about the City Hall could hardly find voice sufficient to proclaim with shouts its volume of gladness so as to be heard above the ringing of bells and booming of cannon. A triumphal procession, and banners and bonfires added the crowning touches to a spontaneous celebration inspired by a sentiment in which we, even of this day and generation, can generously sympathize. ”

“ This is rather the oldest and narrowest part of the bazaar, and the light of heaven meets with the additional interruption of two rows of pillars with arched friezes standing in the middle of the street. On entering the literary twilight of the passage in the rear of these columns, the classic nostril detects instantly the genuine odour of manuscript, black-letter, and ancient binding; and the trained eye, accustomed to the dim niches of libraries, wanders over the well-piled shelves with their quaint rows of volumes in vellum, and appreciates at once their varied riches. ”

“ Although this plan has the advantage that you can keep your index in alphabetical order as you go along, which is sometimes convenient for reference, it is, on the whole, a cumbersome one for an index, although it is almost essential for a catalogue.
In the present day when paper is so cheap, it is well to use fresh sheets all of the same size—either quarto post or foolscap. Some persons are so absurdly economical as to use the blank sides of used paper, such as envelopes, etc., so that their manuscript is of all sizes and will never range. ”

“ The Street-sellers of Stationery, Literature, and the Fine Arts—among whom are comprised the flying stationers, or standing and running patterers; the long-song-sellers; the wall-song-sellers (or “pinners-up,” as they are technically termed) ; the ballad sellers; the vendors of play-bills, second editions of newspapers, back numbers of periodicals and old books, almanacks, pocket books, memorandum books, note paper, sealing-wax, pens, pencils, stenographic cards, valentines, engravings, manuscript music, images, and gelatine poetry cards. ”

“ The print-collector carries a museum in a portfolio, or packs away a picture gallery, neatly, within the compass of one solander-box.
Again, the print-collector, if he will but occupy himself with intelligent industry, may, even to-day, have a collection of fine things without paying overmuch, or even very much, for them. All will depend upon the School or master that he particularly affects. ”

“ The change of colour is effected by simply reversing the ledger in the indicator frame. The public side of the indicator is protected by glass.
“The modus operandi is as follows: A borrower having chosen a book from the catalogue, consults the indicator, and finding the required number to be on blue, denoting in, asks for the book corresponding, at the same time tendering his library ticket. The assistant withdraws the indicator ledger, makes the necessary entries, inserts borrower’s ticket, and reverses the ledger, which then shows the red colour, signifying out. ”

“ A column of the type used in printing the catalogue weighs ten pounds, so that supposing the work, when through the press, to consist of 600 volumes averaging 250 columns each, a million and a half pounds' weight of type will have been employed.
From the preparation of the catalogue for strictly Museum purposes, we pass to the arrangements for its issue to the public. Here we are confronted by two very remarkable facts one as gratifying as the other is the reverse. For the original subscribers the Museum Catalogue is one of the cheapest books in the world. ”

“ Here, in the top story of the building, is the room of the type-setters. Every few minutes, from down-stairs in the Counting Room, comes a package of advertisements to be put into type; and from the Editorial Rooms a package of news and general articles for the same purpose. They do not trouble to send them up by a messenger. A tube, with wind blown through it very fast, brings up every little while a little leathern bag, in which are the advertisements or the articles—the “copy” as the type-setters call it. ”

“ When a good groundwork has been made, the index could be printed; and doubtless, if this printed index was widely circulated, a large number of helpers would speedily be found. Many persons know of places where full information on some subject may be found, and would be glad to place their collections where they would be helpful to others.
There can surely be no doubt that a general inquiry office with such an ever-growing index and a library of printed indexes would be a boon not only to the student, but to the general public. ”

“ The Stock.—The building-up of a reference stock demands the highest skill and prevision in the librarian. The purpose which it is intended to serve must be clearly before his eyes, and this may, and does, differ with differing places. A library in a distinctly commercial and industrial area faces needs obviously different from one in a purely residential area. ”