APPENDIX 10 

 REPOET ON THE LIBRARY 



Sm: I have the honor to submit the following report on the ac- 

 tivities of the Smithsonian Library for the fiscal year ended June 

 30, 1940 : 



THE LIBRARY 



The library — or, more correctly, the library system — has come into 

 being, unit by unit, as the interests and needs of the Smithsonian 

 have developed. The main unit, dating from 1846, the year of the 

 establishment of the Institution, was transferred in 1866 to the 

 Library of Congress, Avhere, as the Smithsonian Deposit, it has since 

 grown steadily by frequent sendings from the library of the Institu- 

 tion. It is notable for the completeness of its collections of scientific 

 and technological publications, especially those of learned institutions 

 and societies. Other important units of the system are the libraries 

 of the United States National Museum and the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology; still others are those of the Astrophysical Observatory, 

 Freer Gallery of Art, National Collection of Fine Arts, National 

 Zoological Park, Division of Radiation and Organisms, the Langley 

 Aeronautical Library, and the Smithsonian Office Library. The sys- 

 tem also includes the 35 sectional libraries of the National Museum, 

 which are the iimnediate working tools of the curators and their 

 assistants. 



PERSONNEL 



The staff remained, for the most part, unchanged. Miss Marie 

 Ruth Wenger, library assistant, was promoted to the grade of junior 

 librarian. The assistant messenger, Roland O. J. Caraccio, resigned 

 in June. Many of the W. P. A. employees of the year before, with 

 a few others more recently added, were assigned to the library 

 until the close of the Smithsonian project in April. Their service 

 was highly appreciated. 



EXCHANGE OF PUBLICATIONS 



The exchange work of the library was, of course, seriously inter- 

 fered with by the abnonnal economic and political conditions in 

 several parts of the world. As the year advanced, it became increas- 

 ingly difficult to carry on the customary exchange of publications 

 with societies and institutions abroad. In not a few cases, foreign 



95 



