REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 131 



NATIONAL MUSEUM LIBRARY 



The library of the United States National Museum, which con- 

 sists of two major collections — namely, on natural history anil tech- 

 nology — shelved respectively in the Natural History Building and 

 the Arts and Industries Building, and of 3G minor collections scat- 

 tered among the various sections of the Museum, is, next to the 

 Smithsonian deposit, the largest and most important unit in the 

 Smithsonian library system. It numbers 76,879 volumes and 108,297 

 pamphlets. During the last fiscal year it was increased by 2,317 

 vt)lumes and GG8 pampldets. Most of these came in exchange, but 

 many were purchased and souie were received as gifts. 



The staff had a very busy year. They entered 8,805 periodicals, 

 catalogued 1,I-1G volumes and 85G pamphlets, and added 4,49;) cards 

 to the catalogue of the natural history library and 295 to that of the 

 technology library. Tiiey assigned to the sectional libraries 5,G22 

 publications, and lent to the Museum staff and other Smithsonian 

 employees 7,745, of which 2,820 were charged at the recently estab- 

 lished loan desk in the Arts and Industries Building. Of the loans, 

 1,889 were borrowed from the Library of Congress and 24G else- 

 where. The number of jmblications returned to the Library of 

 Congress was 2,250, and to other libraries 241. The loans to Gov- 

 ernment libraries and to libraries outside of Washington were 181. 

 Among the latter were those of the American Museum of Natural 

 History, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Department of 

 Agriculture, Ottawa, Canada, and of the following colleges and uni- 

 vereities: Buffalo, California, Goucher, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, 

 MacMaster (Toronto), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 Minnesota, North Carolina State, Princeton, and Tennessee. The 

 number of volumes prepared for binding was 2,071, of which 1,271 

 were bound. The others will be sent to the bindery when additional 

 funds become available early in the next fiscal year. This work en- 

 tailed considerable checking of sets, collating, and correspondence. 

 In this connection it is of interest to note that the library was able 

 to obtain, without expense, GGS volumes and parts lacking in its sets 

 by writing special letters to the journals and learned societies 

 concerned. 



The reference use of the library, not only by those connected with 

 the Smithsonian Institution and the ditl'erent branches of the Gov- 

 ernment, but also by students and the public in general, increased 

 somewhat over that of the year before and necessitated a conx'.spond- 

 ing increase of work on the part of the staff. Hundreds of incpiiries 

 for information of various kinds were received and answered. To 

 the technology library ah^ne, with its 700 visitoi-s for the year, out- 



