Report on the Library 



Sir : I liave the honor to submit the following report on the activi- 

 ties of the Smithsonian Library for the fiscal year ended June 30, 

 1954: 



The receipt of a grand total of 69,484 publications was recorded in 

 the receiving room of the libraiy during the past year. The largest 

 number of them came, as usual, from the scientific, technical, educa- 

 tional and other cultural institutions all over the world with which 

 the Smithsonian Institution has exchange relations. 



In all, 515 new exchanges were arranged for the library, and 6,527 

 publications, chiefly numbers of periodicals needed to fill gaps in the 

 collections, were obtained either in exchange or as gifts, by making 

 special requests for them. Purchases included 578 books and sub- 

 scriptions for 436 indispensable periodicals not obtainable by 

 exchange. 



The recorded number of gifts of books, periodicals, and pamphlets 

 received from many different generous friends of the Institution was 

 21,604. To this number will be added the recent gift from Gerrit S. 

 Miller, Jr., of several hundred publications on zoology, not yet counted 

 by items. Mr. Miller had kept this personal collection in the Museum 

 while he was curator of mammals, and when he retired, some years ago, 

 he very kindly left it in the division of manmials for the use of the 

 staff. His generosity in giving formal assurance to the Institution 

 of the continued use of these books and papers is most gratifying. An 

 especially important part of the gift is a set of 13 bound volumes of 

 Mr. Miller's own collected writings. 



The library added 5,836 publications to the Smithsonian Deposit in 

 the Library of Congress, most of them parts of foreign serial publica- 

 tions. Other publications sent to the Library of Congress included 

 6,409 foreign and state documents, 1,803 doctoral dissertations chiefly 

 from European universities, and 14,231 miscellaneous publications of 

 other sorts. 



Incoming publications known to be in the immediate fields of the 

 special interests of other agencies of the Government, such as medical 

 dissertations and publications on agricultural economics, were sent to 

 the libraries of the agencies, and 4,924 were so transferred, principally 

 to the Armed Forces Medical Library and to the Department of Agri- 

 culture Library. 



There was little opportunity to work on the duplicate collection, but 

 it was profitably reduced by the selection of 71,063 pieces, which were 



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