From the PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
On seeing the great success of the Library of Congress cataloging, I doubted whether it was worthwhile to prepare and issue this fourth edition of my Rules; but I reflected that it would be a considerable time before all libraries would use the cards of that library, and a long time before the Library of Congress could furnish cards for all books, long enough for the libraries to absorb another edition and use it up in that part of their cataloging which they must do themselves. Still I cannot help thinking that the golden age of cataloging is over, and that the difficulties and discussions which have furnished an innocent pleasure to so many will interest them no more. Another lost art. But it will be all the better for the pockets of the public, or rather it will be better for other parts of the service—the children's room and the information desk, perhaps.
In the last two years a great change has come upon the status of cataloging in the United States. The Library of Congress has begun furnishing its printed catalog cards on such liberal terms that any new library would be very foolish not to make its catalog mainly of them, and the older libraries find them a valuable assistance in the cataloging of their accessions, not so much because they are cheaper as because in the case of most libraries they are better than the library is likely to make for itself.
The differences between these rules and those adopted by the Library of Congress are of two classes. The first class of differences is in trifles of punctuation, capitalization, the place of certain items on the cards, and the like. If one already has a catalog with a large number of cards, and merely inserts in it as many of the Library of Congress cards as possible, I see no reason for altering one's own style, either on the past accumulations or on the new cards that one is to write. The two kinds of cards can stand together in the drawers and the public will never notice the difference. But if one is commencing a new catalog, to be composed mainly of Library of Congress cards, I advise following the Library of Congress rules closely. It will save much trouble....
