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AKJTtJAL REPORTS OP DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



All informal record was kept during the year of the number of 

 letters from outside the city received each day requesting inter- 

 library loans. It was found that with the exception of 47 days at 

 least one request was received every day, and that the average was 

 two a day, the total being 745 for the year. That the privilege of 

 borrowing books from this Library is especially appreciated by 

 some of the State agricultural experiment stations is shown by the 

 following extract from one of the recent station reports : 



The station is greatly crippled on account of the exceedingly small library 

 from which the staff has to draw. This is partly overcome by borrowing from 

 the United States Department of Agriculture Library. * * * Without the 

 use of the books and periodicals which are thus boi'rowed the men would be 

 forced many times to delay the work for weeks. 



As in previous years, the department has in turn been the re- 

 cipient of many favors in the matter of interlibrary loans from uni- 

 versity and reference libraries outside of the city, in addition to 

 those from the Library of Congress and other Government libraries. 

 A comparative statement of this use during the past five years is 

 shown in the f olloAving table : 



Summarized statement of books borrowed from, other libraries during the fiscal 



years 1913 to 1917. 



Of the 6,092 books borrowed from libraries in the city during the 

 year 4,629 were borrowed from the Library of Congress, 962 from the 

 Surgeon General's library, 141 from the National Museum and 

 Smithsonian Institution, 57 from the Geological Survey, 49 from 

 the Patent Office, 41 from the Bureau of Education, and the remain- 

 ing 213 from 15 other Government libraries. Of the 82 borrowed 

 from libraries outside of the city 19 were borrowed from the Lloyd 

 Library and the remaining 63 from 17 other university and refer- 

 ence libraries in Cambridge, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Bal- 

 timore, Chicago, St. Louis, and Berkeley. Grateful acknowledgment 

 is made to all libraries which have so generously aided the depart- 

 ment in its work by lending books from their collections. 



ACCESSIONS. 



The number of books, pamphlets, and maps added to the Library 

 during the past fiscal year, compared with the accessions of the four 

 previous years, is as follows : 



