of new publications, under the management of the Association. About sixty of the largest libraries (a few holding aloof) have agreed to get their cards printed in common, and to a large extent publishers have been found willing to send advanced copies of books to the Association for nothing, in view of the advertisement thus obtained. The sale of these gratuitous copies, we learn from the 1897 Report of the Association, together with the subscriptions, pays the expense of manufacturing and distributing the cards, and a certain proportion of secretarial expenses. The report continues: "The most encouraging direction for an enlarged use of printed cards is for articles in serial publications, especially such as are not included in any of the general indexes to literature of this kind. Five of the large libraries of the country have been considering the interchange of cards among themselves for such titles; and the Publishing Section hopes it may be able to make an arrangement with these libraries, under which it can undertake to print these titles, furnish them to the libraries at a lower cost than they could do the work for themselves, and at the same time distribute such as might be wanted to other libraries at a moderate price, and so allow them to share in the advantages of the work done co-operatively by the five larger ones."
In connection with these systems we may mention a scheme whereby the publishers of a book are to furnish printed catalogue-slips of it. This has been spasmodically attempted in America, in England (by Archibald Constable & Co. and
