later, a worshipper of books: Bibliophobe, a hater of books: Bibliotaph, a burier of books-one who hides or conceals them: Bibliomaniac, or bibliomane, one who has a mania or passion for collecting books. (Bibliomania, some one has said, is a disease: Bibliophily is a science: The first is a parody of the second.) Bibliophage, or bibliophagist, a book-eater, or devourer of books. Bibliognost, one versed in the science of books. Biblioklept, a book thief. (This, you perceive, is from the same Greek root as kleptomaniac.) Bibliogist, one learned about books, (the same nearly as bibliographer); and finally, Bibliothecary, a librarian.

This brings me to say, in supplementing this elementary list (needless for some readers) that Bibliotheca is Latin for a library; Bibliothèque is French for the same; Bibliothécaire is French for Librarian, while the French word Libraire means book seller or publisher, though often mistaken by otherwise intelligent persons, for librarian, or library.

The word "bibliotechny" is not found in any English dictionary known to me, although long in use in its equivalent forms in France and Germany. It means all that belongs to the knowledge of the book, to its handling, cataloguing, and its arrangement upon the shelves of a library. It is also applied to the science of the formation of libraries, and their complete organization. It is employed in the widest and most extended sense of what may be termed material or physical bibliography. Bibliotechny applies, that is to say, to the technics of the librarian's work-to the outside of the books rather than the inside to the mechanics, not the metaphysics of the profession. The French word "Bibliothéconomie," much in use of late years, signifies much the same thing as Bibliotechnie, and we translate it, not into one word, but

two, calling it "library economy." This word "economy" is not used in the most current sense-as significant of saving—but in the broad, modern sense of systematic order, or arrangement.

There are two other words which have found their way into Murray's Oxford Dictionary, the most copious repository of English words, with illustrations of their origin and history, ever published, namely, Biblioclast— a destroyer of books (from the same final root as iconoclast) and Bibliogony, the production of books. I will add that out of the fifteen or more words cited as analogous to Bibliography, only three are found used earlier than the last quarter century, the first use of most having been this side of 1880. This is a striking instance of the phenomenal growth of new words in our already rich and flexible English tongue. Carlyle even has the word "Bibliopoesy," the making of books, from Biblion, and poiein-to make.

Public libraries are useful to readers in proportion to the extent and ready supply of the helps they furnish to facilitate researches of every kind. Among these helps a wisely selected collection of books of reference stands foremost. Considering the vast extent and opulence of the world of letters, and the want of experience of the majority of readers in exploring this almost boundless field, the importance of every key which can unlock its. hidden stores becomes apparent. The printed catalogue of no single library is at all adequate to supply full references, even to its own stores of knowledge; while these catalogues are, of course, comparatively useless as to other stores of information, elsewhere existing. Even the completest and most extensive catalogue in the world, that of the British Museum Library, although now extended to more than 370 folio volumes in print, representing

3,000 volumes in manuscript, is not completed so as to embrace the entire contents of that rich repository of knowledge.

From lack of information of the aid furnished by adequate books of reference in a special field, many a reader goes groping in pursuit of references or information which might be found in some one of the many volumes which may be designated as works of bibliography. The diffidence and reserve of many students in libraries, and the mistaken fear of giving trouble to librarians, frequently deprives them of even those aids which a few words of inquiry might bring forth from the ready knowledge of the custodians in charge.

That is the best library, and he is the most useful librarian, by whose aid every reader is enabled to put his finger on the fact he wants, just when it is wanted. In attaining this end it is essential that the more recent, important, and valuable aids to research in general science, as well as in special departments of each, should form a part of the library. In order to make a fit selection of books (and all libraries are practically reduced to a selection, from want of means to possess the whole) it is indispensable to know the relative value of the books concerned. Many works of reference of great fame, and once of great value, have become almost obsolete, through the issue of more extensive and carefully edited works in the same field. While a great and comprehensive library should possess every work of reference, old or new, which has aided or may aid the researches of scholars, (not forgetting even the earlier editions of works often reprinted), the smaller libraries, on the other hand, are compelled to exercise a close economy of selection. The most valuable works of reference, among which the more copious and extensive bibliographies stand first, are fre

quently expensive treasures, and it is important to the librarian furnishing a limited and select library to know what books he can best afford to do without. If he cannot buy both the Manuel du libraire by Brunet, in five volumes, and the Trésor des livres rares et précieux of Graesse, seven volumes, both of which are dictionaries of the choicer portions of literature, it is important to know that Brunet is the more indispensable of the two. From the 20,000 reference books lying open to the consultation of all readers in the great rotunda of the British Museum reading room, to the small and select case of dictionaries, catalogues, cyclopaedias, and other works of reference in a town or subscription library, the interval is wide indeed. But where we cannot have all, it becomes the more important to have the best; and the reader who has at hand for ready reference the latest and most copious dictionary of each of the leading languages of the world, two or three of the best general bibliographies, the most copious catalogue raisonné of the literature in each great department of science, the best biographical dictionaries, and the latest and most copious encyclopaedias issued from the press, is tolerably well equipped for the prosecution of his researches.

Next in importance to the possession in any library of a good selection of the most useful books of reference, is the convenient accessibility of these works to the reading public. Just in proportion to the indispensability and frequency of use of any work should be the facility to the reader of availing himself of its aid. The leading encyclopaedias, bibliographies, dictionaries, annuals, and other books of reference should never be locked up in cases, nor placed on high or remote shelves. There should be in every library what may be termed a central bureau of reference. Here should be assembled, whether on cir

cular cases made to revolve on a pivot, or on a rectangular case, with volumes covering both sides, or in a central alcove forming a portion of the shelves of the main library, all those books of reference, and volumes incessantly needed by students in pursuit of their various inquiries. It is important that the custodians of all libraries should remember that this ready and convenient supply of the reference books most constantly wanted, serves the double object of economizing the time of the librarian and assistants for other labor, and of accommodating in the highest degree the readers, whose time is also economized. The misplacement of volumes which will thus occur is easily rectified, while the possibility of loss through abstraction is so extremely small that it should not be permitted to weigh for a moment in comparison with the great advantages resulting from the rule of liberality in aiding the wants of readers.

Bibliography, in its most intimate sense, is the proper science of the librarian. To many it is a study—to some, it is a passion. While the best works in bibliography have not always been written by librarians, but by scholars enamored of the science of books, and devotees of learning, it is safe to say that the great catalogues which afford such inestimable aid to research, have nearly all been prepared in libraries, and not one of the books worthy of the name of bibliography, could have been written without their aid.

In viewing the extensive field of bibliographies, regard for systematic treatment requires that they be divided into classes. Beginning first with general bibliographies, or those claiming to be universal, we should afterwards consider the numerous bibliographies of countries, or those devoted to national literature; following that by the still more numerous special bibliographies, or those