APPENDIX 10 

 KEPORT ON THE LIBEARY 



Sir : I have the honor to submit the following report on the activities 

 of the Smithsonian Library for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1939 : 



The various units that comprise the library have developed one by 

 one in connection with the 90 years and more of the Smithsonian and 

 are important factors in the work of the Institution. Although, in 

 the main, independent reference collections, each serving primarily 

 the group of specialists among whom it has grown up, they form 

 together a system of libraries cooperating to one common end — ^that 

 of the increase and diffusion of knowledge. 



The chief unit of the system is the Smithsonian deposit in the 

 Library of Congress. This is the great central reservoir of material 

 from which the other libraries of the Institution draw almost daily. 

 Next in size and usefulness are the libraries of the United States 

 National Museum and the Bureau of American Ethnology. The 

 others are the Smithsonian office library, the Langley aeronautical 

 library, the libraries of the Astrophysical Observatory, Freer Gallery 

 of Art, National Collection of Fine Arts, National Zoological Park, 

 Radiation and Organisms, and, last but not least, the 35 sectional 

 libraries of the National Museum. 



PERSONNEL 



Unfortunately, the staff lost during the year, through transfer to 

 positions elsewhere, two of its experienced and capable members — 

 Virginia Whitney, under library assistant, and Clyde E. Bauman, 

 assistant messenger. The first vacancy was filled by the promotion 

 of Ruth Blanchard, minor library assistant in the Astrophysical 

 Observatory. She was succeeded by Dorothy E. English. Roland 

 O. J. Caraccio was selected for assistant messenger. There was one 

 temporary assistant — Mrs. Marie Boborykine, who earlier in the year 

 had been for a short time among the 15 W. P. A. employees assigned 

 to the library. 



EXCHANGE OF PUBLICATIONS 



In its exchange work the library had a very successful year. It 

 received by mail 22,406 packages and by the International Exchange 

 Service 2,194, many of which contained more than one publication. 



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