ABSTRACT
The aim of all library technique is to reduce drudgery to the minimum so as to release staff for the higher task of personal service to the readers, so that a method of applying notation which is more efficient than fixed location is essential. Dewey’s solution to this is the decimal system and relative location. The trouble about such a notation is that no matter how intelligent our anticipation might have been, sooner or later it fails us, and we find ourselves faced with a new subject which demands to be inserted between two others bearing consecutive numbers. An alphabetical notation can, therefore, be just as hospitable in chain and array as one composed of numbers, whilst, owing to its wider base, it is more economical in its use of digits. Fortunately the representation of the subjects arising from the use of successive characteristics does not involve us in the necessity for further notational tricks.
