[LIBRARY HISTORY]. Nouveau système d'inscription du mouvement des livres.

M. L[éon] Parant, and Elie Ebrard. Bibliothèque Populaire de Bourg. Nouveau système d'inscription du mouvement des livres.
Bourg: L. Grandin, Libraire-Éditeur, 1874
(23 x 14 cm). 12 pp. (final page blank) and a large folding lithographic plate (27.5 x 38 cm). Original publisher’s printed wrappers, unopened. Cover aged and spotting with some edge wear and a couple of small splits, internally a fine copy, especially the plate. RARE: OCLC lists only Columbia outside of Europe.

This pamphlet describes a new system of circulating library books, devised by Léon Parant, curator of the Bibliothèque Populaire of Bourg, France, which permits a greater number of books to circulate to a greater number of readers, and provides the librarian with an easier more accurate system of recording which books are in circulation to which readers. A large, illustrated plate complements the text, which describes the innovative system in precise detail. The report also includes a cost calculation for the materials required to successfully support the system, based on the Bourg Library, which circulated 5,000 titles to 400 subscribers. Analog technology at work in the 19th century.

The report was prepared by Léon Parant (1833-?) and summarized here by François-Elie-Gaspard-Bernard Ebrard (1816-1874), a philanthropic and native resident of Bourg, and the board president of the Bibliothèque Populaire de Bourg.