THE LIBRARY. 675 



service to the ofBces especially interested. Ttie current numbers of all of tlie 

 periodicals are displayed in tlie reading room, as well as the new books received. 



USE OF THE LIBRARY. 



There have been borrowed from the Library during the year 4,447 books, an 

 average of a little over 370 a month. Besides this, 2. 928 persons have consulted 

 the Library in person, or 244 a month. These figures do not show fully the use 

 to which the library books are put, however, since several of the otiices are 

 charged i)eruianently with books, of the use of which the Library has no record. 

 The Office of Dendrology has the largest permanent allotment of books from the 

 library, most of them being books which would be little used in the other offices 

 of the service. The reading room has been found to be very useful this year, 

 affording, as it does, a quiet place where the books may be consulted. 



MONTHLY LIST OF CURRENT LITERATURE. 



The monthly list of current forestry literature, including periodical articles, 

 which was first issued in February, 1904, is still being prepared. Since May, 

 1910, it has been appearing in American Forestry, with the approval of the 

 Secretary of Agriculture. Reprints of it are furnished to the Library by the 

 publishers and are distributed to SO persons, including members of the service 

 and others who are interested in the subject. 



MANUSCRIPT REPORTS. 



During the year all of the district offices ' have furnished the Library with 

 lists of the manuscript reports in their files. These have been indexed on cards, 

 by authors and subjects, and the cards filed in the card catalogue. The district 

 foresters have also been requested to send in each mouth supplementary lists 

 of the reports filed during the month, so that the index may be kept up to date. 

 All of the manuscripts filed in the various Washington ofiices of the service 

 are also indexed in the Library, the new ones being added once a month. The 

 index cards show just where each report is filed, so that a person looking up a 

 certain subject in the catalogue is able to locate not only the books and peri- 

 odical articles about it but the unpublished literature as well. 



BIBLIOGRAPHIES. 



This Library is often called upon to furnish short bibliographies on specified 

 subjects. As a rule these can be compiled from the references given in the 

 rjird catalogue, though in some cases this is not sufficient, and the librarian 

 lias to compile them from other sources. As soon as the Appalachian bill was 

 passed a bibliography on the resources of the White Mountain and Southern 

 Appalachian regions was begun. As this has proved to be a much bigger un- 

 dertaking than was at first expected, it is not yet completed, but will probably 

 be finished this summer. Besides references to the literature dealing with the 

 movement for national forest in the Appalachians, it aims to include as far as 

 possible all books and articles dealing with the geology, mineral resources, 

 physiography, water resources, forests, botany, climatology, and soils of the 

 region. At present there are about 1,800 titles in the bibliography. A list of 

 books on forestry in the Department of Agriculture, to be issued as a depart- 

 ment Library bulletin, has been brought up to date, and is ready for the print- 

 ers. It is hoped that funds for publishing it will be available in the near 

 future. 



PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION. 



There are now 25.098 classified and catalogued photographs in the collection, 

 1,846 of which were added during the year. An additional clerk was procured 

 in May to work on the photographs, and it is expected that a much larger num- 

 ber will be worked up during the coming year. The new system of classifica- 

 tion, which was begun in 1908, is being continued, and is found to work much 

 better than the old watershed system. Under the present system, the pictures 

 are first classified by States, and then subdivided by subjects. As soon as a 



» Offices of the Forest Service outside of Washington. 



