Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/111

It is hardly necessary to observe that the Museum catalogues have not been uniformly drawn up on the principles above laid down. In fact only the printed volumes issued within the last few months will be found in entire conformity with them, and possibly, when the printing of the MS. general catalogue of books is completed a year or two hence, some further small improvements may have been effected. One of the most striking changes effected since the printing of the catalogue began is the new arrangement of the cross-references. These were formerly regarded as of inferior standing, unfit to mix with the main entries, and were placed by themselves in the alphabetical order of the headings to which they pointed. The consequence was that when an edition of a work appeared in a series, and consequently was entered as a cross-reference to the main heading under which the series was entered, it became separated from all its other editions. The confusion that ensued among the entries of much-reprinted books can be easily imagined. This state of things was altered in printing the early part of letter D. Again, the treatment of books appearing under initials has been much improved by the additional reference under the heading which would have had to be selected if the initials had not been there. This was done because initials are so easy to forget, and references to books so frequently disregard them. Another unsatisfactory feature in the treatment of initials was the single general cross-reference from an author's name to the initials under which he had published books