Bibliothetic

So miserably fallen is the faculty of the nation, that the greater portion of the books which are annually published are made or compiled, and not conceived; and if an original work appears, to flash upon the region of dulness, the bibliothetic dolts meanly and malignantly confederate to limit its influence, and destroy its character—an evil which they are enabled to perpetrate so effectually, by their power and their number, that the mightiest Genius, who disdains to pay homage to such unworthy grubs, or become a servile pensioner upon their illiberal and base establishments, must eternally retire from the mart of Letters, with desperation and a broken heart!

For a considerable number of classifications of the sciences, and a pretty good account of them, see Edwards’s Memoirs of Libraries, Vol. II., page 761. But there are others, some for metaphysical, some for physical, some for bibliographical, some for bibliopolic, some for bibliothetic purposes.

By our previous definitions we are rid at the start of all that vast crude classification which mixes the sciences with the arts, studies and literatures, or digests them only from some motive of convenience. The geographical, historical, bibliothetic arrangement of them in manuals, annuals and compends; the alphabetical arrangement of them in dictionaries of the arts and sciences; and even the topical arrangement of them in the great encyclopædias, though useful in collecting and diffusing their results, do not exhibit them in their pure forms and true correlations.

The class O, Biography, it should be observed, is capable of being treated both as a separate class and as a “form” modification of the topic to which it relates, without any alteration of the symbol—a clear bibliothetic gain.

It did, however, develop a bibliothetic culture. By the end of the fifth century public libraries as well as public archives existed in Greece,[…]

‘[…]Sneddon says we librarians are bibliothetic priests and the price for admission into this clergy is our celibacy from the books … not that I’ve ever, you know … with a girl …’ he says, face reddening, ‘but I guess he knows what he’s talking about.’

Charles Miller of the 76th Ohio found time to pay a visit to the Mississippi State Library, where he “secured a few small volumes such as I could carry conveniently” before slipping out of town. He wasn’t the only one with such a bibliothetic idea.