must read as many of them as his time allows. He should also encourage booksellers to send in parcels of books from out-of-the-way sources, though this arrangement should not be made with too many firms at once for fear of duplicates.[1] Another useful aid is the "Suggestion-book," in which frequenters of the library may be invited to state their wants. Many of the suggestions thus made will be useless, relating to books announced but not published, to worthless productions of readers' friends and relations, to books already entered in the library catalogues but missed in a hasty search. In other cases it will be found that the descriptions given are inaccurate, a mistake in the orthography of the author's name having made the entries undiscoverable in an alphabetical catalogue. The tendency of the inexperienced consulter of libraries is always to reproach the authorities for ignorance or want of energy, rather than himself.
These " suggestion-books " have been often tried in public libraries, but found of little use, except in those with a specialist clientele. The register of " Libri Desiderati " at the British Museum has for many years past been of great assistance in filling up the lacunce in the library, and similar registers at the university libraries, both in Great
- ↑ In Germany, it appears {CentralbL iv. p. 102), booksellers and publishers are rather too enterprising, and send librarians their new books on approval, sometimes forgetting to pay the postage, and always expecting the recipients to tie them up neatly and return them if not wanted.
