358 Field Columbian Museum — Reports, Vol. i. 



needs of the Museum. During the year 368 volumes have been sent 

 to the binder, 108 of which are still in his hands. The great amount 

 of dust gathering from the courts and elsewhere makes constant atten- 

 tion to the cleaning of the books indispensable. It is found necessary 

 to remove and clean* every volume in the General Library at least 

 once a year. Of the duplicate catalogue of the John Crerar Library, 

 some 5,000 cards have been received during the year and arranged 

 in alphabetical order. The publication of the Union li|t of periodi- 

 cals, undertaken by the Chicago Library Club, has been somewhat 

 delayed, but it may be expected to appear some time next winter. 



Records. — No changes have been made in the methods of record- 

 ing material received or distributed, the original system adopted 

 proving eminently satisfactory. The total number of specimens ac- 

 cessioned during the year has been 17,348. The classification of the 

 accessions follows: 



No. of No. of 



Accessions. Specimens. 



Gifts, 180 4,900 



Loans, i 74 



Exchanges, 31 5,831 



Collected 44 5,032 



Purchase, 46 3469 



Transfer, 3 42 



Departmental Cataloguing, Inventorying and Labeling. — The de- 

 partments of the Museum may be said to have reached new material 

 in inventorying and cataloguing, and the new labels have so supplanted 

 the old ones that the latter are noticeable when seen in a case. The 

 system inaugurated in 1897 has proven entirely satisfactory, and the 

 facility with which the history of a specimen may now be obtained 

 greatly lessens the work of cataloguing and writing descriptive labels. 

 There were something more than 12,000 new entries made in the 

 departmental inventories during this year, exceeding any year since 

 the first. In the Department of Geology specially advanced work 

 has been done in providing labels for the mineral collection. These 

 labels show the name of the species exhibited by the specimen, its 

 locality, the catalogue number of the species and the number of the 

 species in Dana's system. The latter serves for reference to the case 

 labels, described in a previous report, which show the chemical com- 

 position and system of crystallization of the species and its relation 

 to other species. In connection with this work the specimens labeled 

 have been thoroughly re-identified and any errors found in previous 

 labeling have been corrected. The collections of coals and hydrocar. 

 bons, occupying Hall 70, and of non-metallic minerals of use in the 

 arts, occupying Hall 78, have been provided throughout with printed 

 descriptive labels. A complete descriptive label has been provided 



