132 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 15)28 



One of the larger accumulations of reprints was sorted according 

 to subject and distributed to the curators. This was an important 

 step in disposing of material valuable to the Institution but not 

 needed for cataloguing. As soon as help becomes available another 

 accumulation, much larger than the first, will be treated in like 

 manner. 



A list was made, in preparation for cataloguing, of some of the 

 special collections, including the Casey, Dall, Gill, Henderson, Lacoe, 

 Roebling, Schaus, Springer, Teller, and Vaux, and of the volumes 

 in the John Donnell Smith botanical collection and the Watts do 

 Peyster library that had not already been catalogued. To expedite 

 this work the Library of Congress was generous enough to contribute 

 for a few weeks the services of two typists, in return for which the 

 Smithsonian library will later provide manuscript cards for the 

 items in these collections, as well as in its other collections, that are 

 not in the library of Congress. These cards will be prepared pri- 

 marily for the national catalogue that is in progress there under the 

 direction of Dr. Ernest C. Richardson, consultant in bibliography 

 and research. 



The generous contribution of material (see "Gifts," p. 124) that 

 was received during the year from the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science was carefully checked up and many of the 

 items were selected to fill gaps in the sets of serial and society pub- 

 lications. The rest of the contribution will be used in various ways 

 later. 



Most of the uncatalogued Russian publications were looked over 

 and those with Roman titles were entered in the catalogue; the rest 

 w^ere put aside, to be sent, with other publications in Russian, 

 Turkish, and Japanese, and probably some in Hungarian, Polish, and 

 Bohemian, to the Smithsonian deposit, that they may be made 

 available to scholars, and cards prepared for them in due course and 

 returned to the Institution. 



The organization of the west stacks in the Smithsonian Building 

 was considerably advanced. Many thousands of college and univer- 

 sity publications, not needed by the library, were sent to the Bureau 

 of Education, where they would be at hand for completing sets and 

 for exchange. The files of popular and semipopular periodicals, 

 which had for many years been kept in these stacks, were trans- 

 ferred, through the courtesy of the curator of textiles, to a room in 

 the basement, to await final disposal. The geological material was 

 brought together and arranged. The publications that lay in heaps 

 on the floors were grouped roughly on the shelves. This work was 

 all preliminary to the final step in organizing this heterogeneous 

 mass, which contains almost countless items of value, many of which, 



