Excerpt from Index to the Periodicals of 1902

The new volume of the Annual Index to Periodicals, which has now been completed, does for the periodicals of 1903 what the previous twelve volumes Of the Annual Index have done for. The years 1890 - I90I inclusive.

There is a story told. Of the writer Of a recent famous biography to the effect that he found the already existing literature Of his subject so voluminous that he began his task Of perusing it by rejecting all the books and biographies which contained no index. Now an index has been aptly described as the bag and baggage Of a book, Of more use than honour; even such who seemingly slight it, secretly using it, if not for need, for speed of what they desire to find. If this be true Of the index to a book, how much more true must it be of an index which arranges and classifies for permanent reference all the articles Of any importance which have been published throughout the year in the pages of nearly two hundred files Of reviews and magazines?

The compilation of a Catalogue is invariably looked upon as an extraordinary piece of labour. To say the least, the compilation of a catalogue does not usually represent more work than an index of similar dimensions; and very Often a catalogue is nothing more than a mechanical alphabetical arrangement. Of the books by author and title, without any reference to the subject matter at all, except, perhaps, where the subject happens to be indicated in the title. When, however, any Classification is attempted, it is only a very general one as a rule, and the titles of books are rarely repeated more than once or twice in the catalogue. To compile a catalogue on a more extensive scale would no doubt represent an enormous labour for each library, but it might be worth while to do something Of the kind once for all for use in all libraries, and have it kept up to date by supplements issued at regular intervals. Under the present system each library publishes its own catalogue to much the same Class Of books, and the labour is done over and over again.

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