Lists

“ Lists are therefore being made of everything eatable there is, and all private supplies are to be commandeered in a few days. People are, of course, making false lists and hiding away a few things. If there is another month of it there will be some very unpleasant scenes—yes, some very unpleasant scenes. ”

“ The Festschriften list by fields of knowledge classifies the collections in 17 fields of knowledge, including general; book, documentation, and communication; linguistics and literary studies; art and culture; and folklore and ethnology. The subject index is a keyword index, in German with English and French cross-references, to titles of contributions. The keyword index lists, by field of knowledge, the headings used in the subject index. The author index is an index of contributors listed in the Festschriften entries. ”

“ Raw, yet so stale!' But since her mind was bent
On hearing, after trumpet blown, her name
And title, 'Queen of Beauty,' in the lists
Cried--and beholding him so strong, she thought
That peradventure he will fight for me,
And win the circlet: therefore flattered him,
Being so gracious, that he wellnigh deemed
His wish by hers was echoed; and her knights
And all her damsels too were gracious to him,
For she was a great lady.
And when they reached
Caerleon, ere they past to lodging, she,
Taking his hand, 'O the strong hand,' she said,
'See! look at mine! ”

“ Bare lists of words are found suggestive to an imaginative and excited mind; ”

“ The literary collections division records bibliographies, indexes, calendars, catalogs, checklists, and other guides to the papers of authors (United States and foreign) . The brief annotations typically describe content and organization and indicate whether the work is indexed. Indexed by persons and subjects. ”

“ I know well that I shall be told that I am out of date, that such an opinion is as the voice of one crying in the wilderness—that the dictionary catalogue has won its battle—but even so, perhaps the more so, do I feel it the part of a serious and immovable conviction to declare my belief that—for student and librarian alike—this twofold catalogue, author and subject each in its own division, is the best catalogue a library can have, and that the dictionary catalogue is the very worst. ”

“ Let me urge here the advantage of a complete collection, or one as nearly complete as the industry of the collectors would allow, of all the notices in our literature, which mark, and would serve as dates for, the first incoming of new words into the language. These notices are of the most various kinds. Sometimes they are protests and remonstrances, as that just quoted, against a new word’s introduction; sometimes they are gratulations at the same; while many hold themselves neuter as to approval or disapproval, and merely state, or allow us to gather, the fact of a word’s recent appearance. ”

“ I have formed, so far as I know, but one dogmatic conviction, and it is this: that the best catalogue which the art of man can invent is a catalogue in two inter-dependent yet independent parts; the first and greater part an [pg 131] alphabetical catalogue of authors, the second and lesser part a subject-index. ”

“ Before putting a book, about which there is any opportunity for choice, in the class you have selected for it, examine your shelf-list and see that the books already there are of like nature with it.
Classify as well as you can, and don't worry if you find you have made errors. There are always errors. ”

“ But there are two sorts of 'listing.' There is the listing which is the yielding to the mob of ignoble passions and clamant desires of the animal nature within us, and there is the 'listing' which is obeying the impulses of a higher will, that has been blended with ours. ”

“ No catalogue, of course, can contain all the facts even of five minutes; every catalogue, however long and learned, must be not only a bold, but, one may say, an audacious selection. Bat if a great many facts are given, the reader gains a blurred belief that all the facts are being given. In a professedly personal judgment it is therefore clearer and more honest to give only a few illustrative facts, leaving the other obtainable facts to balance them. ”

“ If every term of a collection can be hooked on to a number, and all the finite numbers are used once, and only once, in the process, then our collection must have just as many terms as there are finite numbers. ”

“ I myself have been a famous reader of catalogues, and I can testify that the habit has possessed me of remarkable delusions, the most conspicuous of which is that which produces within me the conviction that a book is as good as mine as soon as I have met with its title in a catalogue, and set an X over against it in pencil. ”

“ I read all the catalogues, became skilled in bibliography, lived in the bookshops; spent all my time collating and going over my precious volumes. In the evenings, instead of talking to my wife about the Ives' coming ball, or a problem in bridge, or the newest shades of silk, I pored over the catalogues which came to me from all parts of the world. ”

“ Instead of the weekly letter of one single sheet, there comes now a frequent packet, enclosing letters from all parts of the world—tidings on a host of subjects of interest, political, scientific, or literary—a wealth of ideas to occupy the weary mind, and of pleasures wherewith to refresh the sleepless affections. ”

“ We want as little classification as possible in an alphabetical index. Mr. W. F. Poole wisely said in reference to the proposal of one of his helpers on the Index of Periodical Literature to place Wealth, Finance, and Population under the heading of Political Economy: "The fatal defect of every classified arrangement is that nobody understands it except the person who made it and he is often in doubt."
3. The entries to be arranged according to the order of the English alphabet. ”

“ Every printed production worthy of being called a book should have an index. Is the index the same as the table of contents? The table of contents is printed at the beginning of the volume. It is a synopsis, by chapter headings or more detailed topics, of the plan of the book. It gives a general outline of [131] the contents of the book. You are interested in public speaking. You wonder whether a book contains a chapter on debating. Does this one? You notice that a speaker used a series of jerky gesticulations. ”

“ There are certain headings which belong both to the Subject and the Form family. “Encyclopædias,” inasmuch as the books treat of all knowledge, is the most inclusive of all the subject-classes; inasmuch as (with few exceptions) they are in alphabetic form, it is a form-class.
Heading, the word by which the alphabetical place of an entry in the catalogue is determined, usually the name of the author, of the subject, or of the literary or practical form, or a word of the title. ”

“ They are comparable to a catalogue, or to the card-index of a library which are an easy indicator to the millions of books, leaving us totally ignorant as to their contents and value. Hence, the higher we ascend, the farther we penetrate into the region of the fictitious and the vacant. ”

“ The space devoted to the superfluous list of magazines, anthologies, and collections indexed could be better utilized for fuller citations in the author and title indexes. Anyone consulting the title index must move to the author index and then to the list of contents to gather sufficient information to locate a story. ”

“ The table before you, good reader, is only a part of the object of your cognition. You yourself are the other part. The true and total object of your mind is the table, or whatever else it may be,—and yourself. ”

“ The labour and patience, the judgment and penetration which are required to make a good index is only known to those who have gone through this most painful, but least praised part of a publication. But laborious as it is, I think it is indispensably necessary to manifest the treasures of any multifarious collection, facilitate the knowledge to those who seek it, and invite them to make application thereof. ”

“ With this explanation, therefore, of the famous categories, I shall close my slight sketch of the system. Has the reader ever considered the meaning of the term Category—a term so ancient and so venerable from its connexion with the most domineering philosophy that has yet appeared amongst men? The doctrine of the Categories (or, in its Roman appellation, of the Predicaments) is one of the few wrecks from the Peripatetic philosophy which still survives as a doctrine taught by public authority in the most ancient academic institutions of Europe. ”

“ An Index should be distinguished from what is usually called, Table of Contents, which affords an analytical view of the different topics, progressively, while the index is intended to facilitate occasional reference. ”

“ Under that principle, "where general words follow specific words in a statutory enumeration, the general words are construed to embrace only objects similar in nature to those objects enumerated by the preceding specific words." ”

“ A typical entry provides a bibliographical citation, notes (on content, scope, number of entries, and previous editions) , and location of at least one copy. Three indexes: authors; titles; subjects (with separate ones for English and French headings) . Concludes with a “short entry listing”—a list, by author or title of anonymous work, of all 7,375 entries—that merely wastes a substantial amount of paper and contributes to the unwieldy size of the volume. ”

“ Everyone who reads these lines knows well of a score, or of a dozen of his fellow-creatures to whom he might be of use if he would but give himself the trouble. We cannot furnish each of our friends with a list of her or his outpatients, but each of us has such a list printed in very efficient type upon his heart of hearts. ”

“ To make an index requires a quick grasp of the idea contained in each sentence or paragraph, an immediate discernment of the main thought, an instinctive classification, absolute accuracy in translating this thought into its briefest expression, ability to condense, and a sensing of the reader's needs in adequate cross-references. ”

“ The chart is otherwise arranged in three grand divisions, viz., literature, thought, discovery, invention, etc.; second, fine arts; and, third, music; while prominent movements and events marking the progress in each division are duly and plainly noticed. Attached to the chart is an index, by the aid of which each name recorded may be easily found. ”

“ It will be seen that such an index as is here sketched would be an inestimable help to the student. It would form a useful supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography, for it must be remembered that such an index would contain a majority of references to men and women whose claims to distinction or notoriety do not attain to the standard set up by the promoters of that grand work. ”

“ If a librarian places his books in the alphabetical succession of the author's names, he places them in such way that any particular book may easily be found, but not in such way that books of a given nature stand together. ”

“ As the number of titles under each heading increases in number so does the opportunity and need of division. The first and most usual groups to be made are Bibliography and its companion History, and the “practical-form” groups Dictionaries and Periodicals Under countries the first grouping will be Description and Travels, History and Politics, Language and Literature, followed by Natural history, etc. For examples of further subdivisions see the longer catalogues. It is not worth while in a printed catalogue to make very minute divisions. ”

“ In fact, reading catalogues is like reading books—even with attentive reading one is liable to skip a title, or, at least, overlook its real significance, just as one may not always grasp the true meanings of an author upon first perusal. ”

“ These records [of things seen and felt by men] are often set forth in terms which may be used only by those of rarely special gift and training,—the terms of architecture and sculpture, of painting and music; but oftener and more freely they are phrased in the terms which all men learn somehow to use,—the terms of language.
We may perhaps turn aside from our discussion of the dash to consider a point in the above sentence which illustrates our general principle of grouping, especially as exhibited in Sentences 10 to 10-3. ”

“ Getting together a list of sufficient length to start with could probably be done fairly easily if we had individuals working on and maybe nominating pieces of bigger works, like individual poems and articles, short stories, long encyclopedia articles, etc. ”

“ There are thousands of possible matters of investigation, some of which are from time to time discussed, but before the catalogue can profitably follow its “specific” rule in regard to them they must attain a certain individuality as objects of inquiry, and be given some sort of name, otherwise we must assign them class-entry.
And it is not always easy to decide what is a distinct subject. Many catalogues have a heading Preaching. Is Extempore preaching a sufficiently distinct matter to have a heading of its own? ”

“ If the topic for which you are looking does not appear in the index, try looking for the same thing under another name; or under some related topic. Having found the material in one book, use more than one if your time permits. When you feel that you have secured the material which will make a complete answer to the question, write the answer on one of your cards for keeping notes. ”

“ A proper number of such details adds interest and clearness to the images; too many but serve to render the whole obscure. If properly selected and effectively presented, minor details add much to the beauty or usefulness of a description, but if strung together in short sentences, the effect may be both tiresome and confusing. A mere catalogue of facts is not a good description. They must be arranged so that those which are the more important shall have the greater prominence, while those of less importance shall be properly subordinated. ”

“ It has been necessary, in selecting letters, to omit many fully as interesting as those which have been included; barely to touch on subjects of research, or of political and religious discussion, which are worthy of being pursued further, and to omit some subjects entirely. Very probably another more experienced hand would have made a better selection, but my aim has been to give, through characteristic letters and contemporary opinions, an accurate portrait of the man, and a succinct history of his life and labors. ”