The method of arranging book' in a library has also been the subject of much consideration. Great importance has been attached to the opinions of Della Santa, a Florentine, who gained a reputation by the original ideas which he promulgated in 1816 in an ingenious pamphlet on the subject of libraries. Della Santa was the first to attack with force of argument the old and favourite notion that it was necessary to accommodate a library, like a picture gallery, with a suite of elegant apartments fit to be shown to strangers ; and he pro posed instead that a collection of books should ho packed as closely as partible in the most convenient proximity attainable to a reading room, to which alone any attention need be given for mere appearance. He ale° maintained the propoaition that the attempt to arrange books in any kind of scientific order was a "mockery, a delusion, and a snare, and certain to lead to nothing but confusion. His doctrine was that it did not matter in the slightest degree where a book was placed provided it could be found on the instant by means of its press-mark, and that all scientific arrangement should be reserved for the catalogues. The same views have been advanced in a pamphlet in both French and Russian, by M. Sobolsheldkor, one of the librarians of St. Petersburg, published in 1859; and it appears that the library of St. Petersburg is arranged, if it may be so called, on this principle of nen-arrangement. The books are placed on the shelves without any attempt to class them, and the press-mark is all in all. It has been already explained in another article of this Cyclopaedia Pitman Moseom] that there the attempt to class the library has been made, and is to have succeeded. Certaiu it is that while the books are, by means of the press-marks, found by the attendants without any difficulty, the different classes of books are kept together in scientific order, and that as Lust as fresh books on any subject come in, in any quantity, they are placed side by aide with their predecessors of the same class. The method which is adopted is to have presses or book cases of equal so that the books in one can be shifted when required into another, and to have the number-marks of the presses loose and removeable, so that when the books are shifted, the number mark may be removed with them. Thus the books on chess will constantly stand in press 7915, though press 7915 may at period ,tau d in the north-east wing, and at another period in the south-west. The numbers of the presses are inconsecutive, so that though the presses always stand in the order of sequence, tho opportunity is left of inserting between any two of them such additional presses with appro priate numbers as the increase of the library may render requisite. At Berlin. the same freedom of movement and fixedness of marks are aimed at by a different method ; instead of the presses it is the books which are numbered with inconsecutive numbers, a plan which is followed at the Museum, in marking the periodical publications, but is found to present many inconveniences which are avoided by the other system. When applied to single books it certainly imposes much more trouble on the librarians, and does not lessen the labour of the attendants who have to find the books by the press-mark. A favourite system in Munich, and many of the continental libraries, is to divide all the books into about forty different sections, such as Ancient History, Jurisprudence, &c., denoted by the letters of the alphabet, single and double, to take books of each class according to their sizes,—folio, quarto, and octavo, or under, and to arrange them in alphabetical order according to the authors' names or other headings. Thus, if a Lingarirs England' be wanted in quarto, the librarian goes to the range of quartos in the division History, and finds it in its alphabetical order under the letter L. In such an arrangement volumes with authors' names may be found even with out the aid of a pressanark and a catalogue ; but in the Loudon Institution in Finsbury Circus, which is mainly arranged on this prin ciple, it was thought some years ago that press-marks might be usefully added.
One of the great differences in the management of libraries consists In the regulations of admission. In foreign public libraries in general admission is given at stated times to all who present themselves, subject to certain rules as to age, dress, and demeanour ; in the Chetham library, at Manchester, and in the " Free Libraries" which have been recently established in England, the rule is the same; but in other English Institutions, and even at the British 31useutn, admission is more restricted. At the Museum It is necessary, in order to procure a reading-ticket, to apply for it In writing to the principal librarian, and to send in conjunction with the application a letter of recommendation from a householder. Practically a ticket of admission has for many
years past been in the reach of almost every one who chose to take the trouble of applying for it, but some complaint. have been made of the illiberality of requiring any ticket at all. Several years ago, in 1836, a suggestion was made by a writer who is now an ()Meer of His Museum, that two distinct reading rooms should be provided, one open to the public in general, like the galleries of Antiquities and Natural History, the other as before for readers who had received a ticket from the principal librarian. The public, rtsulingroom was to be provided with a separate catalore, to contain every work of use and intermit tion, but not work, o exceptional value. All those who entered it would them have access, for instance, to several good editions of the works of Shakapers, but not to the early quartos of his separate plays, which are often worth more than their weight in gold. The readers with ticket. in the special reading-room would have the same catalogues as at present, and would, as now, be able to have anything they pleased. This plan of two distinct reading-rooms for one library has never been entertained in England, but it was proposed in 1858 in France, by M. Prosper Meritneo, in a report on the imperial library in I'aria, and adopted forthwith by the Emperor, who gave orders that it should be carried into effect in the new buildings for that library now in course of erection. The complaint at I'aris had been precisely the reverse of that at London. It was, that by indiscriminate admission of the population of Paris it was found that those who wished really to study were placed at a disadvantage—Shat the tables of the reading-room were often occupied in winter by those who came merely for the sake of warmth, and some of whom might be seen holding a book iu their hands bottom upwards. The universally open read1ng.T0o1n would be the novelty at London, the select reading-room will be the novelty at Paris—at least as a 'part of the regulations, for we can report from personal observation in 1840, that at that time little knots of select readers were admitted to a librarian's table in an inner room. It may bo observed that, with all restrictions, some classes of readers are more numerously represented at London than at. Paris. There are more ladies, in proportion, in the Museum reading-room, where there are two tables provided for their exclusive accommodation, and where they are also at liberty to take their seats at any other table. At the new public library at Boston, in Massachusetts, attention to the fair sex has been carried still further, as a separate room is provided for them with a hundred seats, while the reading-room for the gentlemen has uo more than twice as many.
There has been occasional discussion for many years past in London respecting the advantages of an evening reading-room at the Museum, the evening being undoubtedly the tune at which the other literary institutions of London are most frequented. The main objection to it appears to be the risk of conflagration, and it was suggested that the evening reading-room should be in a building entirely separated from the main body of the library, except by a narrow well-guarded fireproof passage, easily to be cut off from communication in case of fire. In the magnificent reading-room in the centre of the Museum, which has since been erected at Mr. Panizzi's suggestion, the light of day is admitted by a range of twenty lofty windows, through which if necessary the light of gas might be admitted at night, the gas being in standards outside, and at some distance from the building. Abroad, the question has been solved without those precautions. The library of St. Geuevieve, at Paris, which was rebuilt in 1851, was constructed with an express view to the employment of gas, and the magnificent room which contains it, one of the finest library rooms in the world, is now open in the evening throughout the year. At the library of St. Petersburg the hours have also been extended from ten in the morning to nine in the evening all the year round. In high northern latitudes, to exclude the use of light and fire, as is done in many of the libraries of Italy, would be to limit most materially the utility of ouch institutions ; some alteration in that respect is demanded by the climate ; but it seems surprising that, with the great calamity of the conflagration of the Winter Palace before them, the authorities at St. Petersburg should be bold enough to risk the destruction of their immense repository of literature by unnecessary daring. A separate reading-room for the time of artificial light would afford an additional security which it would surely be no idle precaution to take.