160 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



chief of the acquisitions section, to keep it in order and to make the best 

 possible use of it for exchange purposes. 



In the catalog section, the merging of the separate catalogs of 

 the Museum books and serials with the central catalog and serial 

 records of the Institution was begun immediately and has gone for- 

 ward as fast as circumstances would permit. There is an enormous 

 amount of work to be done in such an enterprise where more than a 

 million cards must be handled with scrupulous accuracy in unifying 

 entries and eliminating unnecessary duplication. Under the most 

 favorable conditions it will take a long time to complete it, but when 

 it is finished the Institution will have the most complete record it 

 has ever had of the library's collections and, it is hoped, the most 

 effective aid to their use. 



In addition to the work of reorganization in the catalog section, 

 5,779 publications were cataloged, 20,175 parts of serial publications 

 were entered, and 30,488 cards were added to catalogs and shelf lists. 



The work of the reference and circulation section is most difficult 

 to measure and evaluate statistically because figures are very imper- 

 fect indices of the many indeterminate variables involved in reference 

 services to the staff and bringing together the books and their users. 

 However, statistics show that 11,730 publications were borrowed for 

 use outside the library, exclusive of 7,314 books and periodicals as- 

 signed to sectional libraries for filing which are circulated within the 

 divisions to which they are assigned. Interlibrary loans of 1,231 

 publications were made to 99 different Government, university, and 

 other institutional libraries throughout the country. For use within 

 the Institution, the library borrowed 1,357 publications from the 

 Library of Congress, many of which were Smithsonian Deposit copies, 

 and 405 publications were borrowed from other libraries. 



More than 16,000 reference questions were answered in response 

 to letters and telephone calls and to inquirers who came to the library 

 in person. 



Funds allotted for binding permitted only 623 volumes, mostly 

 currently completed volumes of periodicals, to be prepared and sent 

 to the Government Printing Office, but 1,563 old books were repaired 

 in the library. The library is in no sense a museum of fine books, 

 but it nevertheless has many valuable volumes, and not a few irre- 

 placeable ones in its working reference collections that are actually 

 collector's items. How to give them the proper housing and the 

 continuous care that they ought to have to maintain them in good 

 condition is one of the library's most serious problems. 



The principal need of the library continues to be more and better- 

 arranged space, with adequate provision for growth. It also needs 

 a staff of competent librarians commensurate in size with the require- 

 ments of the Institution for library service. It needs more funds for 



