34 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



the effort being made in all cases to secure duplicate copies of the trans- 

 actions, monographs, &c.; one to be transferred to the Library of Con- 

 gress, the other to be placed in the library in question. 



The report of Mr. True, in charge of the National Museum Library, 

 shows a stock of nearly 10,000 volumes and pamphlets; nearly all du- 

 plicates, as already explained, with the exception of certain works pre- 

 sented by myself. In the increasing amount of routine work with which 

 I am charged in the several capacities of Secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, Director of the National Museum, and Commissioner of 

 Fish and Fisheries, it has become entirely out of the question to con- 

 tinue those special researches in zoology, to which I devoted so much 

 time in the early years of my connection with the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, and for which I had accumulated, at my own expense, a large 

 number of important works. These I have now formally presented to 

 the Library of the National Museum, feeling assured that they will do 

 the most good in that connection. 



The most important source of supply to the Library of the National 

 Museum consists in the direct exchanges of publications for those of 

 foreign museums, and of scientific societies, and of specialists in natu- 

 ral history. Little, if anything, however, comes in not obtained under 

 similar circumstances by the exchanges of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Under the regulations of the Museum, the curators in charge of special 

 divisions are permitted to withdraw from the central library all works 

 relating exclusively to the departments of which they have charge. 

 Mixed works, however, or those covering the scope of at least two or 

 more divisions, are retained in the central library; a record of the 

 transfer being kept in the central oflliee, so that an applicant for a par- 

 ticular book can be directed to the office where it is to be found. 



It is very desirable that some arrangement be made by which a rec- 

 ord of all books in the various public libraries in Washington can be 

 kept in some central office; so that a person wishing to refer to a par- 

 ticular title may have the means of knowing whether it is in the city, 

 and which of several depositories may be the most convenient to him. 

 This can best be done through the natural center of reference — the 

 Library of Congress. 



If a law were passed making it obligatory upon the librarians of the 

 various Departments, Bureaus, &c., to i^repare card catalogues accord- 

 ing to the rules of the Congressional Library, and to deposit therein a 

 duplicate set, they could be then collectively arranged in proper alpha- 

 betical or systematic sequence, and be available for the objects in ques- 

 tion. Of course this would involve a considerable amount of clerical 

 labor, but a moderate appropriation might be made to meet it at the 

 outset; after which the annual accretions of the libraries could easily be 

 recorded without extra expense. 



The following is a statement of books, pamphlets, maps, and charts 



