Oct. 1895. Annual Report of the Director. 13 



Arts, 2; Transportation, 2; Zoolog}', 23. A printed acknowledgment 

 form is sent with each pubHcation so that the Museum may be more 

 certain to be apprised of the receipt of the pubHcations. A request 

 is added in each case that the publications of the recipient be sent in 

 exchange. About 100 personal letters have been written requesting that 

 back volumes be sent to complete sets of books, journals, etc., already 

 on the shelves of the Library, or asking to be placed on the per- 

 manent mailing list for contemporaneous publications. 



Library — The Library w-as organized in March, 1894. At that 

 time the collections of books on hand were 1,390 titles from the De- 

 partment of Ethnology, and 350 titles from the Department of Mines 

 and Mining of the Exposition. The Kunz collection of books 

 on Geology, Gems, Metallurgy, etc., and the Baltimore and Ohio 

 collection on Transportation were added shortly afterward. There 

 were 6,300 titles and 460 titles respectively in these two libraries. 

 The Cory collection on Ornithology, consisting of 587 volumes was 

 purchased and added to the Library on October 5, 1894. Through 

 the generosity of Beloit College the splendid ornithological library of 

 Edward E. Ayer has been conditionally presented to the Museum. 



The total number of books accessioned and inventoried to 

 October i, 1894, was: Gifts, 2,864; loans, 869, purchases, 3,406. 

 The accessions during the year October, 1894, to October, 1895, have 

 been: Gifts, 421 bound volumes, and 465 pamphlets; loans, 123 

 bound volumes and 79 pamphlets; purchases, 1,170 bound volumes, 

 51 unbound volumes, and 16 pamphlets. All books published in 

 foreign countries have been purchased through agents in London, 

 Berlin and Leipzig. Most American books have been purchased 

 through Chicago houses. $3,500.00 was appropriated for the purchase 

 of books for the Library, of which approximately $1,000.00 was spent 

 for general reference works, sets of scientific perodicals, etc., and 

 about $500.00 for books in each of the Departments of Anthropology, 

 Botany, Geology, Zoology and Industrial Arts. The whole number 

 of periodicals subscribed for is 94. A large number of the volumes 

 received from the Department of Ethnology of the Exposition were 

 unbound, and as a matter of preservation were sent to the bindery, 

 together with the accumulating numbers of current scientific periodi- 

 cals and old sets of unbound but valuable publications. The total 

 number of volumes bound is 495. The large collection of pamphlets 

 acquired in the "Kunz Collection" have been classified according to 

 subjects, and fastened in cheap bindings, making them thus avail- 

 able for immediate and constant use. 



A new system of shelf classification has been prepared on the 



