1 eld Columbian Museum Reports, Vol. i. 



prepared and sent out requesting exchanges of particular publica- 

 tions. Responses have always been courteous and in nearly all 

 instances favorable, so that the reading room of the Library is DOW 

 assured of a permanent and valuable series of current periodicals, 

 such as transactions, memoirs, journals, proceedings, etc., of the 

 principal publishing scientific bodies of the world. 



Library.- During the fiscal year there have been added to the 

 Library 687 bound volumes and 1,148 pamphlets and unbound 

 volumes, making a total of 1,835 titles. This compares very fav- 

 orably with the growth of the Library for the preceding years, 

 although the total number added in 1894-95 was 2,411, and in 1893-94, 

 the opening year of the Library, 7,139, but both these years saw the 

 acquisition of several large collections. The number of donations 

 has materially increased; attributable, of course, to the rapidly grow- 

 ing exchange list of the Museum. A list of the accessions to 

 the Library accompanies this report. The number of accessions 

 would indicate the present size of the Library were it not for 

 the fact that two collections of engineering and railroad literature 

 which were loaned to the Museum, have been returned to their 

 owners. Subtracting these collections from the total, gives 10,635 

 titles at present in the Library, not including some 3,000 pamphlets 

 bound in cheap bindings. The Museum is also in constructive pos- 

 session of the ornithological library of Mr. Edward E. Ayer, 

 consisting of about 400 valuable works, which he has recently 

 presented to the Museum and which will be added to the catalogue 

 this winter. In order that the staff of the Museum might avail itself 

 in the most convenient manner of the scientific literature on the 

 shelves of other Chicago libraries, co-operative arrangements have 

 been made as far as possible with those libraries by which their 

 books can be used at the Museum. The Chicago Public Library 

 allows its reference or other works to be drawn out upon the requisi- 

 tion of the Museum Librarian and delivers them at a neighboring 

 Delivery and Reading Station. The John Crerar Library promises 

 a duplicate printed copy of its card catalogue and has indicated 

 its willingness to buy scientific literature specially desired by the 

 Museum. The University of Chicago Library has been extensively 

 used by the staff of the Museum, and many courtesies have been ex- 

 tended and future facilities promised. The three largest scientific 

 libraries of the citv are thus in effective co-operation with the 

 Museum. The Library, young as it is, cannot, of course, pretend to 

 have a full quota even of the necessary books, and the fact needs to 

 be emphasized that special literature, descriptive of scientific species 



