bility to error, which increases
in the exact ratio of the number of figures to be written. Which of these
two forms of expression is more quickly written, or stamped, or read? By
which method of notation will the library messenger boys or girls soonest
find the book? This leads me to say what cannot be too strongly insisted
upon; all library methods should be time-saving methods, and so devised
for the benefit alike of the librarian, the assistants, and the readers.
Until one has learned the supreme value of moments, he will not be fit
for a librarian. The same method by Arabic numerals only, should be used
in all references to books; and it would be well if the legal fashion of
citing authorities by volume and page, now adopted in most law books,
were extended to all literature--thus:

"3 Macaulay's England, 481. N. Y. 1854," instead of "Macaulay's England,
N. Y. ed. 1854. vol. 3, page 481." It is a matter of congratulation to
all librarians, as well as to the reading public, that Poole's Indexes to
Periodical Literature have wisely adopted Arabic figures only, both for
volume and page. The valuable time thus saved to all is quite
incalculable.

Every book which is leather-bound has its back divided off into panels or
sections, by the band across the back or by the gold or plain fillet or
roll forming part of the finish of the book. These panels are usually
five or six in number, the former being the more common. Now it is the
librarian's function to prescribe in which of these panels the lettering
of the book--especially where there is double lettering--shall go. Thus

| COUSIN | | | | |
| ---- | | | | NEW |
2nd | HISTORY | 4th | WIGHT | End |YORK, |
panel | OF | panel | | |1852. |
| MODERN | | | | |
| PHILOSOPHY.| | | | |

Many books, especially dramatic works, and the collected works of authors
require the contents of the various volumes to be briefed on the back.
Here is a Shakespeare, for example, in 10 volumes, or a Swift in 19, or
Carlyle in 33, and you want to find _King Lear_, or _Gulliver's Travels_,
or _Heroes and Hero Worship_. The other volumes concern you not--but you
want the shortest road to these. If the name of each play is briefed by
the first word upon the different volumes of your Shakespeare, or the
contents of each volume