110 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



Maintaining this informational service is a task that has proved 

 its worth as evidenced by the needs and responses of those assisted. 

 This Museum is becoming increasingly recognized as a unique source 

 for authentic information, as embodied in the aircraft and other 

 specimens, the documentary files, the photograph collection, and in the 

 expert knowledge of the staff. Requests for this service are increasing 

 as it becomes more widely appreciated. An upsurge resulted from the 

 publication of an article describing this function. 1 



This service has come to require more staff time than any other 

 duty, and yet those other duties must somehow be performed, especially 

 when they involve administrative requirements. Time must in some 

 way be found also to maintain the collection, both exhibited and stored, 

 and the associated records, to search for new material, to write texts 

 and other descriptions of aircraft and aeronautical objects in the 

 Museum, and to study. This constant searching for facts involves 

 not only the acquired specimens, but also texts, both historic and cur- 

 rent, in order that the staff's personal knowledge and familiarity with 

 the collection — an intangible that is as valuable as any specimen — may 

 be constantly increased. Thus, the need for adequate facilities for 

 the National Air Museum — a building, equipment, and staff — becomes 

 increasingly emphasized. 



PUBLICATIONS 



By the end of the fiscal year all work on the ninth edition of the 

 Handbook of the National Aeronautical Collections was virtually 

 completed, and the book came off the press in mid-August. This 

 Handbook is a general history of aeronautics, as illustrated by the 

 principal specimens in the collections. It contains 166 pages of text 

 and 220 illustrations. 



Progress this year on the Catalog of Aircraft has been principally 

 through the procurement of photographs of each of the airplanes, sea- 

 planes, gliders, rotorcraft, and experimental aircraft in the collec- 

 tions, and the assembling of data on each, preparatory to condensing 

 each item to a concise description. 



Several of the information leaflets that describe individual air- 

 craft in the Museum and are used principally as inserts for cor- 

 respondence were revised and multigraphed. Despite progress with 

 supersonic aircraft, correspondence throughout the year reveals that 

 there is still widespread interest in the most basic of aircraft, the 

 kite, for both practical uses and sport. The Museum exhibits a num- 

 ber of oriental and domestic kites, including some that were made by 



1 "The Expanding Role of the Smithsonian Institution in Aviation and Educa- 

 tion," by Leonard Carniichael and Paul E. Garber, in Education for September 

 1955. 



