Page:The small library. A guide to the collection and care of books (IA smalllibraryguid00browiala).pdf/16

affording recreation. As a rule, such collections are formed without much regard to order or care in selection, and, save in the case of private collectors who specialize, the majority of small libraries are frequently a miscellaneous assemblage of odds and ends organized on very primitive methods. The same remarks apply with even greater force to many of the smaller Public Libraries of the country, because in them should be expected order and sound methods, instead of which disproportion, injudicious selection and feeble organization are the most prominent features. If any one is sufficiently curious and patient to study the catalogues of the average small British public or subscription library, he will be surprised at the numerous evidences of bad judgment in book-selection, the lack of proportion between class and class, author and author, subject and subject, and an entire absence of proper classification and intelligence in cataloguing. No attempt is made to keep in touch with modern scientific, artistic, historical, social or literary progress, no doubt because the limited funds available are expended in blindly providing current third-rate fiction or books of the hour. The ambition to place as many books on the shelves in the shortest space of time, is often responsible for the poor quality and unrepresentative character of the literature stocked by the average small library. Instead of purchasing with care and accepting donations with discrimination, such libraries practically swallow everything which comes along, whether