BIBLICAL LIBRARIES
seum...." It was a palace library therefore, but under the direction of a priest. There are no archaeological remains but the description shows just the type familiar from Pergamon, Hadrian's library, and the general Greek-Roman type. It contained 400,000 or according to some 490,000 or even 700,000 volumes.
The zealous collecting of the librarian Demetrius Phalerius (c. 285) was followed by the equally zealous organizing work of Callimachus (260-240 B.C.) who compiled a classified catalogue of the collection in 120 books (or classes). Besides using the principles of systematic classification and subdivisions, he seems to have used the principles of chronological arrangement and of alphabetical arrangement of titles. The alphabetic or dictionary arrangement is sometimes spoken of as modern, but it had been already used in the Record offices of Egypt—as well as in acrostic Psalms.
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