individual publications and serial publications. But the problem 

 of cataloguing and classifying the great number of incoming books 

 and periodicals without delay remains crucial because the Museum 

 Library is hampered by the shortage of experienced cataloguers that 

 is now common to most libraries. 



Where Library of Congress printed cards are available for par- 

 ticular volumes, cataloguing is greatly facilitated. Currently about 

 one quarter of the Library's new acquisitions are not covered by 

 printed cards and consequently time-consuming but important 

 classificatory and bibliographical research must be done by the 

 Museum cataloguer. In continuing the special phase of the re- 

 classification program that the cataloguing division began last year, 

 1,218 additional volumes of serial publications, representing ap- 

 proximately 100 journals that are in constant use, were reclassified 

 under the Library of Congress system, and 1,597 additional author- 

 cards and a proportionate number of subject-cards were prepared 

 indexing important articles in these journals. With the able assist- 

 ance of William Peyton Fawcett, Antioch College student who is 

 preparing for a career in library science, temporary title-cards were 

 prepared for 114 titles transferred from the John Crerar Library 

 in order that these items might appear in the Library's catalogue 

 and thus receive the widest possible use. Fawcett made a beginning 

 in a project to catalogue the maps in the Library's possession and 

 also produced complete sets of cards for the catalogue covering the 

 25 phonograph-record items held by the Library. Altogether 1,456 

 volumes were reclassified. The total number of volumes classified, 

 including the volumes classified in the East Asian Collection, com- 

 prised 4,354 volumes, represented by 9,890 cards filed into the 

 card catalogue. 



It is gratifying to report that in addition to continuing his work 

 of cataloguing the Berthold Laufer Collection of Chinese and 

 Japanese materials, which forms an important part of the East 

 Asian Collection, Dr. Hoshien Tchen, Technical Adviser for the 

 Oriental Collection, also catalogued a number of newly acquired 

 Asiatic-language materials. A total of approximately 460 titles, 

 consisting of more than 2,300 volumes, was catalogued this year, 

 a large portion of which related to Chinese Buddhism, and, in 

 consequence, much research was necessary to translate abstruse 

 Buddhist technical terms into English. In addition to cataloguing, 

 which required preliminary work such as assembling, numbering, 

 cleaning, and repairing, Dr. Tchen wrote the descriptive information 

 in Chinese and Japanese characters on the final catalogue cards, 

 which were prepared by Mrs. M. Eileen Rocourt, Associate Li- 



68 



