730 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



publications of probable value to other libraries. For a few years 

 previous to the spriii*; of lUOD tiie Library hatl the privileoje, as did 

 other government libraries, of sending its duplicates to the Library 

 of Congress, but lack of space and assistance for the work forced 

 the Library of Congress to discontinue this arrangement. Since 

 that time our duplicates have accumulated. Lack of suflicient work 

 room for sorting material and the entire lack of space for storage 

 has rendered the problem acute. As we could not, however, bring 

 ourselves to the point of destroying this material without at least 

 offering it to other libraries, the best makeshift arrangement which 

 it seemed possible to make under the circumstances was to list the 

 material, which was then packed away in sacks and stored tempo- 

 raril}'- in a storeroom lent for the purpose through the courtesy of 

 one of the offices of the Department. The hst is now in preparation 

 and is to be printed. Copies will then be sent to the state agricul- 

 tural colleges and experiment stations for them to make selections. 

 The future policy of the Library in connection with the disposal of 

 its duphcates will depend largely on the demands for the items in 

 this hst. With proper cooperation and encouragement from the 

 state agricultural colleges and experiment stations it would seem 

 a legitimate function of this Library to act as a clearing house for 

 the exchange of agricultural duplicates, but the expense connected 

 with the work would not seem justified unless there is an urgent 

 demand for the service. 



CATALOGUES. 



The total number of books, pamphlets, maps, and continuations 

 catalogued during the year was 8,156. There were added to the 

 main catalogue 25,023 cards and 3,697 were ■v\dthdra\\Ti, making the 

 net addition 21,326 cards, an increase of 3,715 in comparison %\dth the 

 number added to the catalogue during the previous year. It is 

 estimated that the main dictionary catalogue now contains approxi- 

 mately 240,000 cards. It contains the following: (1) Author and 

 subject cards for books contained in this Library; (2) index cards 

 for the publications of the Department of Agriculture; (3) index 

 cards for three foreign agricultural journals; (4) cards pubUshed by 

 the American Library Association indexing scientific serials; (5) 

 cards published by the New York Botanical Garden for current 

 botanical literature; (6) Library of Congress cards for books of in- 

 terest to the Department contained in the Library of Congress and 

 the libraries of the Geological Survey and the Bureau of Education; 

 (7) index cards for various miscellaneous pubHcations. From the 

 above it will be seen that the catalogue is to some extent an index 

 catalogue, for it contains in one alphabet not only catalogue cards 

 for books but also index entries for articles contained .in books and 

 periodicals. Consiilerable difficulty has been found in combining 

 the catalogue and index entries, but the advantages of having only 

 one catalogue in wliich to look for information in regard to the 

 resources of the Library have made us hesitate to change the present 

 arrangement. There is, however, great need of a revision of the 

 catalogue, especially in regard to the subject headings. It would 

 also be desirable to have our subject headings conform as far as 

 possible to the subject headings used by the Library of Congress,-, 



