es 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 lia