22 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



The reading room of the library receives the leading periodicals of 

 this country and Great Britain, together with a number from France, 

 Germany, &c.; and, therefore, offers desirable facilities for the reading 

 community of Washington, and for those who visit the seat of govern- 

 ment, to keep up with the general progress of knowledge ; while by 

 means of the more profound transactions of learned societies the student 

 is afforded the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the advances 

 made in special branches of literature and science. 



Very erroneous ideas have been entertained as to the amount which 

 has been expended on the library. It is true the whole sum directly 

 paid for books has not exceeded $14,139 16; but this does not include 

 the binding, the transportation, the superintendence, and all the other 

 expenses connected with an establishment of this kind. Neither does 

 it exhibit the value of the books procured by exchanging the publica- 

 tions of the Institution for the current volumes of learned societies, or 

 the cost in clerk hire and postage of the books received from the copy- 

 right system. The whole expenditure on the library and operations 

 connected with libraries, including a proportional part of the general 

 expenses since the beginning of the Institution, is $71,429 45. To this 

 should be added at least $130,000 for the cost of the part of the build- 

 ing devoted to the library, and we shall then have an expenditure of the 

 income of the Smithsonian bequest on the library and objects imme- 

 diately connected with it of about $200,000. 



In the original programme of oi-ganization, a proposition was intro- 

 duced by Professor Bache to render the Institution a centre of biblio- 

 graphical knowledge, to which students in every part of the country 

 could apply, by letter or otherwise, for information as to what books 

 existed on a particular subject, and in what libraries they could be 

 found. For this purpose a large number of works on bibliography have 

 been obtained, and elibrts have been made to procure copies of all the 

 catalogues of libraries in this countr3^ To facilitate the answers to 

 enquiries relative to the places where particular books could be found, 

 it was proposed to secure three copies of each catalogue, one to be 

 preserved in its original form, and the other two to be cut up, in order 

 that the titles on each side of a leaf could be pasted on cards, and the 

 whole arranged in drawers so as to Ibrm a general catalogue. Con- 

 siderable progress was at one time made in this work, and several 

 thousand cards were prepared by a bookbinder. 



It was, however, stopped in order to prosecute the system proposed 

 by Professor Jewett, namely, that of forming a general catalogue of 

 libraries by means of stereotyping separate titles. It appears to me, 

 however, that the first plan ought to be carried out as far as possible, 

 particularly in regard to collecting catalogues; and these should not be 

 confined to those of the libraries of the United States, but embrace, as 

 far as practicable, those of the libraries of Europe. It may happen 

 that an extract may be required by a student from a book not to be found 

 in this country, and that this can be effected through the correspondence 

 of the Institution, provided the location of the work in Europe is known. 



About three years ago a series of experiments were undertaken at 

 the expense and under the direction of the Institution for improving and 

 applying a new method of stereotyping. The right to use the process 



