When it is determined what books are to be acquired, the method of acquiring them comes next into consideration. The best and most rapid method' of increasing a large library has often been said to be the purchase of collections in a mass. There can be no doubt that, if it be determined to form a library of one or two hundred thousand volumes, and a good collection of forty or fifty thousand occurs for sale, it will be expedient to secure it to begin with. There are certain books that may be expected to be found in every consider able collection, and to acquire them by thousands is a saving in point of time to acquiring them one by one. But this very circumstance renders it impossible to proceed in the same way. If a second col lection, still more if a third or a fourth, be bought in a mass, there is a certainty of acquiring duplicates, triplicates, and quadruplicates. It is-true that in the history of several of the great libraries we Lind this proceeding recorded as having taken place. The library of Vienna, we are told, was enriched on the decease of its librarian Blots by the books which had belonged to Blotz, on the decease of his successor Tengnagel by those of Tengnagel, and on the decease of his successor Lambecius by those of Lambecius. It is evident, however, by the mere statement of the facts that they involve a dilemma. Either these acquisitions brought duplicates to the library by wholesale, or else during the lifetime of Blotz, Tengnagel, and Lambecius, the collection of which they were the guardians must have been deficient in the very books which they esteemed worthy of a place in their own libraries, and thus the addition of a valuable set to the imperial collection must have depended, not on the life, but on the death of the librarian. It is, in fact, a strong censure on the composition of any great library, that it should be possible to add a large well-chosen collection to it without adding a mass of duplicates. There may be occasions on which, not to let an opportunity escape, it may be advisable for the possessors of a large library to buy another in a mass, but in that ease it will be necessary to sell again immediately most of what has been purchased.
The additions to a large well-chosen library will thus have to be made in detail. This will more particularly be the case with the current literature of the day—a kind of literature which has been perhaps more frequently overlooked in large libraries than any other from the time of the invention of printing downwards. There has been a singularly obstinate delusion, that it might be safely neglected because procurable at any time—a delusion which, much to the advan tage of posterity, appears to be giving way. The method of arriving at a knowledge of this literature is easy and obvious. To Germany and its booksellers we are indebted for that simple but invaluable invention, the catalogue of all the new books published at certain intervals, which was first exemplified in the catalogues of the fairs of Frankfort and Leipzig--one of the earliest forms of periodical publi cation, the first of these lists being 101 years antecedent to the Journal des Savans,' which was the first review. Separate editions of them were apparently issued for different countries ; for we have seen in the British Museum a Leipzig catalogue for part of 1623, in which a long list of English books is given, which does not occur in the ordinary German copies. No other periodical catalogue of English books so early as this is known ; Maunsell's, which preceded it, being not of a periodical character. It is the earliest member of the family which was represented by Clavell's Lists' in the time of Charles II., and now by Bent's Advertiser' and the 'Publishers' Circular.' Pub lications of the same nature are now issued in nearly every European country ; and by inspecting the whole, and giving orders from each, it is practicable for any library provided with the indispensable requisite, liberal funds, to collect under one roof in an unbroken flow the whole masa of current European and American publications of value, with out any other agency than that of the ordinary book.tmde.
Books published for sale may be divided into those which are on sale by the publisher, and those which are "out of print," according to the technical phrase; that is, into those which are procurable at once if an order is given to a bookseller, and those which can only be acquired when an opportunity occurs, at sales by auction or otherwise. The purchase of a book when it is on sale by the publisher is the simplest method of acquiring it, but it is supposed not to be the most economical, because by waiting it may generally be obtained at a lower price. In many cases, however, it is the most economical also ; for if there be a demand for a book, and it becomes out of print, the price of it imme diately ascends, and sometimes to an extravagant height. Iu England, and still more in America, a book passes so soon out of the hands of its publisher,—such violent measures are sometimes adopted to get rid of it In the way of a " remainder,"—that those who 'do not buy it on its first appearance may often afterwards inquire for it in vain. In Germany a different and less hurried system prevails : the stock of a bookseller often leans from generation to generation, from century to century, and sue books may be ordered from the publisher in sheets a hundred and fifty years after their first appearance.
The great majority of books are of course those not procurable at first hand. those which are only accessible through the medium of the second-haul bookseller—in Germany be bears the more respectful UMW of "antiquarian" bookseller—or the sale by auction. It is a question of some importance whether the beet method of acquiring these is through- the bookseller or the auctioneer. The first method is obviously the most simple. and to the purchaser by far the most con venient. The price of the book—a most necessary element in the decision on its purchase—ia known beforehand ; the book is also gene rally sold with a guarantee of its completeness. On hand, at a sale it is necessary for the intending purchaser to decide what price he will go to, a decision which cannot in many cases be arrived at with out considerable trouble, and which is after all almost certain to be repented if the book happen to be sold a little over. It is not uncommon, also, to sell books at auctions with all faults or errors of description ; and, in any case, to return a book purchased at an auction is a more circuitous and troublesome process than to return one pur chased of a bookseller. It is also exceedingly inconvenient to attend or procure attendance at the time and place of sale. Under all these draw backs, it is somewhat surprising that purchasing books at sales should be so popular, that it is becoming a common remark among booksellers that books which they have long offered in vain in their published catalogues go off at once at higher prices when a copy occurs at an auction. It might have been accounted for more easily during the period of bibliomania at the beginning of the present century, when it was customary for amateurs and collectors to attend in person at Pelee, and the Valdarfer Bocasocio, for instance, was contended for by the Marquis of Bland ford, Earl Spencer, and others, in the auction-room. The scene was so dramatic, and the excitement so contagious, that the contest for an old folio might arouse the passions as well as the chase after a fox. The case is altered at present, when the biddings are made by booksellers or their commissioners, and the prices which pur chasers are to give are finally decided upon beforehand, in the cool of the study Instead of the heat of the auction-room. Still the highest prices which are now obtained for books are generally given at auctions, and the lowest prices at which books are sold are also taken at auctions. But for this latter circumstance—as the innovation has now been attempted of publishing a book by auction—there would be some danger that the trade of a bookseller behind the counter would cease. Both bookseller and auctioneer still continue, and if either is destined to become extinct, it is to be hoped, for the eake of purchasers, it may be the auctioneer.