Series X: Catalogs, 1801 - 1912

No catalog was published under the first librarian, but four were published during the 1796-1818 tenure of his successor.

On 29 December 1796 he was directed to prepare a catalog of books "classed according to their size and arranged in the order of the alphabet, with the number and cost or value of each,” although a March 1797 entry suggests that it was still not complete four months later. No copy of this catalog has survived, but there would have been between 200 and 400 titles at that time.

The growth of the collection was driven in part by the acceptance of books in place of subscription fees and the purchase of private libraries. In May 1800 a committee was formed to examine its acquisitions for books that were “useless, superfluous or of immoral tendency,” which decided in September to postpone acting on them until it was time to print a new catalog. That time came on 2 November 1801 when a committee was appointed to assist the librarian in creating a new catalog.

On 1 February 1808 the board decided to print a new catalog at 50 cents a copy because “many members were without any." On 2 May this catalog was reported to be largely complete. Another meeting was planned shortly thereafter so that it could be printed “without delay.” That meeting is undocumented, if indeed it took place. No copy of this catalog or any direct record of its publication is currently known. But it must have existed since it was referenced in a later circulation book and the librarian received a bonus for his work on it in March 1809.

On 2 May 1814, it was decided to create another new catalog. It would eventually have 1,027 numbers, which circulation records show the library had reached by July 1814. On 14 November 1814, the librarian reported the catalog “ready for the press.” He was instructed to obtain 150 copies "with all convenient dispatch," a number raised to 200 the following month. In February 1815, he reported the catalog “about half-finished” and presented a copy to the board, which set a price of 50 cents. In March he received compensation for "his additional trouble in preparing the new catalogue for the press,” suggesting that the printing had been completed.

The 1815 catalog was later extended by a published supplement that added additional numbers. Unlike other printed works, there is no mention of when the supplement was produced in the minutes. It is, however, clear from circulation records that all its books had circulated by 14 August 1830. According to the minutes, a meeting had been called for 10 May 1830 only to be quickly adjourned "there appearing no business requiring the attention of the board," and quarterly meetings on 2 August and 2 November were adjourned, lacking a quorum. The librarian at the time had replaced his predecessor in October 1829 and been confirmed in the position the following March. It seems plausible that he pushed to update the catalog after becoming librarian but that the question was either not deemed important or could not be addressed due to the lack of quorum but that it was printed in 1830 anyway.

At the same time, a working catalog was created for use in the library itself. It is the earliest preserved catalog of this type but was probably not the first. It contains a relisting of the contents of the 1815 catalog and supplement sorted by the first letter of the alphabet with pamphlets listed separately as well as books added between April 1833 and the suspension of library operations after 1848 listed by subject. Although its initial form was compiled some time earlier, it does not appear to have come into use until sometime after 1834 where there is a gap in the circulation records. The first 1,725 entries may have been added at the time of the 1815 supplement with the shift to a new method of arrangement occurring later.

On 8 March 1856 a committee of the revived library company was assigned to rearrange and renumber the books for publication. On 29 November 1856, the board voted for 300 copies of the finished catalog to be produced.

On 18 June 1858 board president Andrew Jamison resigned. On 4 September Richard L. Carne, the chairmen of the committee on the catalog and president pro-tem submitted “his amendment to the catalog” and appointed Sylvester Scott as librarian to constitute a “committee of revisal.” A new working catalog is preserved from this period continuing into the Civil War, although it does not appear to have been published.

From the reestablishment of the library in the late 1860s to its failure at the close of the 1870s the lack of a published catalog to advertise the available books was identified as a major issue. The last version of the catalog prior to the Civil War had contained over 5,000 books, of which it was estimated in 1871 that 1,000-1,500 had been lost.

Circulations records from the early 1870s feature book numbers around 1,000 that do not correspond to any known listing, and numbers were abandoned entirely from May 1871 to January 1872. It was decided on 2 October 1872 to create a new catalog, and the task was assigned to the new librarian, Emma Young. The fact that the numbers of the circulating books changed to include some with numbers over 5,000 after 4 December 1872 indicates that this work was completed, but it was never published and there is no surviving catalog from that period.

The limited use of the catalog is evident from the prevalence of high numbered works among those in circulation. The highest numbers indicated recent acquisitions, which often received announcements in the Alexandria Gazette.

At the 20 February 1874 meeting, it was noted that "the last catalogue was published some years previous to the war and had become, by reasons of subsequent losses and additions, very incomplete" and the board decided to appoint Dr. Theo West “to catalogue and arrange the books." They planned to print the catalog in time for the 1875 annual meeting, but printing was postponed indefinitely.

The new catalog went into effect on 10 July 1874 as seen in the shift in circulation records from a system with numbers up to around 5,800 to a new catalog going to 4,314, but again they were unable to publish it. Seven months later at the 19 February 1875 meeting, it was decided to arrange a printing “as soon as possible," but this did not occur either.

On 10 March 1876 the board decided upon a different plan. The catalog was to be divided among the directors so that copies might be made “for the librarian’s desk.” The published account of the 21 February 1877 annual meeting noted that "many persons have given as a reason for not becoming subscribers the inaccessibility of the old library which was not catalogued. This plea no longer holds." Doctor West's catalog “copied by members of the Board without expense, bound in good style, can now always be found on the Librarian's desk." Operations ceased and the books went into storage a few years later.

At the 8 January 1898 meeting of the newly formed Alexandria Library Association, it was moved that the "the catalogue be printed at once" with the addition of blank pages between the leaves for advertisements from city merchants.

This catalog was the first to use a version of the Dewey Decimal System, which had become popular since its first publication in 1888, reaching its 5th edition in 1894. This was the first modern classification system in the history of the Alexandria Library.

Subsequent to the publication of the 1898 catalog in January of that year, there are several mentions of publishing “supplements” such as on 11 April 1899 and 11 July 1899 which may refer to the practice of publishing notices with the titles of new additions in the Alexandria Gazette, such as those of 6 July and 13 July 1899.

On 1 January 1902 there was a push for a "supplementary catalogue (being a catalogue of books up to date) be printed" and the president appointed a committee for that purpose. It was postponed pending the catalog’s completion. On 9 October 1906 the board voted to accept an offer from a Mr. White to print 1000 copies in return for advertising space. According to the 8 January 1907 minutes, the library was given half the copies of the 1906 catalog for free, of which it sold 200 and gave 300 away.

The 12 April 1910 minutes mention a decision to "again postpone the publication a supplementary catalogue." On 23 January 1912 it was again put off until the 9 April meeting, where it was decided for a new catalog to be printed and priced at five cents a copy and “to have the names of the old magazines put into the new catalogue but not into the card catalogue.” On 12 June 1912 it was reported that "the catalogue was in the hands of the printer and that Mrs. Monroe was reading the proof” and the “new catalog” was deemed “ready for distribution” on 8 October 1912.

The annual report at that same meeting noted that “the year has also seen the completion of the labelling, classifying, and cataloguing of all the old and valuable magazines which the Board has for so long a time desired to put into shape for distribution," which a review of the supplement suggests meant works in good condition available for circulation.

On 11 April 1933 Mrs. Newell “volunteered to catalogue old magazines in order that their value may be ascertained.” On 9 May 1933 she presented a “typewritten list” of “old magazines” for appraisal as part of their depression era fundraising efforts. On 10 October she reported them to be of “no value” and suggested having them sent to the Salvation Army for use as old paper. On 8 January 1934 the board approved this proposal for those magazines of “no value,” which do not appear to have included many titles listed in this catalog.

No explicit reason for the abandonment of published catalogs after 1912 was given, but the allusion to card catalogs suggests that it was a final step in the transition from numerical catalogs, which favored bound volumes by allowing new titles to be added to the end of the sequence, to the Dewey Decimal System, which required new titles to be inserted in the correct place in the existing list and was more easily managed with cards which did not require leaving space for new titles as the 1876 catalog had.