22 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



ture of 1901, the catalogue has been completed through 1914, and 

 there is now on hand much material from that date up to the present 

 time. 



Until the beginning of the late war the catalogue was practically 

 self-supporting, but owing to the international chaos caused by the 

 war the finances of the enterprise are now in a very precarious 

 condition. For this reason the Royal Society of London, the finan- 

 cial sponsor of the catalogue, called a conference which was held 

 in London during September, 1920. At this conference delegates 

 were sent from 13 of the principal countries of the world, exclusive 

 of the enemy countries, who were not included in the Royal Society's 

 invitation. The United States was represented by delegates from 

 the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, 

 the Smithsonian Institution, and by a representative from the 

 Rockefeller Foundation, who had just returned from the Continent, 

 where he had been making an investigation of the Concilium Biblio- 

 graphicum of Zurich. 



The consensus of opinion resulting from this meeting appeared to 

 be that it was essential for all organizations, such as the International 

 Catalogue and existing and proposed abstract journals, whose com- 

 mon aim is to supply information required by scientific workers and 

 libraries, to cooperate for their mutual benefit, and that when some 

 definite plan of consolidation was agreed on financial aid would be 

 forthcoming. Plans looking to this most desirable condition are now 

 under way, but it appears that for the present, at least, the necessary 

 funds will have to be supplied from the United States, for although 

 we have felt the burden of war expenses in this country our finances 

 are not in the deplorable condition now common to all of the Euro- 

 pean countries, which, in addition to the havoc caused by the war, 

 are at a very great additional disadvantage owing to the unprece- 

 dented condition of monetary exchange. There is no question as to 

 the need of abstract journals for the immediate use of scientific work- 

 ers and also of a catalogue and index as a permanent record of scien- 

 tific literature for the use of libraries, as well as for scientific work- 

 ers, and as the present organization of the International Catalogue 

 has still the official support of all of the principal countries of the 

 world, and as this organization was founded after years of endeavor 

 by representatives of practically all of the scientific societies of the 

 world, it would now be a calamity to allow it to lapse merely on ac- 

 count of temporary financial difficulties. I can not therefore too 

 strongly urge that this assistance be furnished by some of the several 

 wealthy organizations in this country whose aims are to further the 

 interests of science. A more detailed account of the findings of the 



