546 ANNUAL, REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Committee on Federal and State Relations of the American Library 

 Association, the librarian of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics 

 has been a member of the methods committee of the Special Libraries 

 Association and also secretary of the agricultural libraries section of 

 the American Library Association, and the librarian of the Bureau 

 of Entomology as a member of the public documents committee of 

 the American Library Association, has assisted in the preparation of 

 a report on the depository libraries of the United States. 



LIBRARY CLASS. 



A class in library science in the graduate school of the department 

 was conducted during the year by the reference librarian, and con- 

 sisted of two courses of 30 periods each from October to June. The 

 first course covered cataloguing and classification; the second, refer- 

 ence work and bibliography. Eighteen persons, almost all of them 

 employees of the main library or of bureau libraries who had had little 

 training in library work, availed themselves of the opportunity offered 

 each term. The spirit shown by these students and their industry 

 in prosecuting their studies after a hard day's work were greatly to 

 their credit and testified to their determination to make their serv- 

 ices more valuable to the department. 



ECONOMIES. 



The library, which has always had in mind the necessity for econ- 

 omy in its administration, has paid even stricter attention to this 

 matter during the past year. Sheets of paper, cards, and slips which 

 have been used on one side are made use of tor notes and rougn drafts. 

 Wrapping paper is saved and used again. Envelopes used for corre- 

 spondence between the main library and the bureau libraries are 

 saved and used over and over. 



The largest saving, however, was in the matter of shelving for the 

 space recently acquired. If it could have been afforded it would 

 have been very desirable to have metal shelving to match what is 

 already in the library. Instead of this, wooden shelving made in 

 the shops of the department was used. It is by no means so satis- 

 factory, as the shelves are not movable except in a few sections, and 

 the cases are not so convenient or durable as the metal ones. The 

 substitution effected a saving of nearly three-fourths or approxi- 

 mately $1,500 on the cost of me shelving. 



