148 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 31 



NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART LIBRARY 



The library of the National Gallery of Art contains many valuable 

 works on art, both American and foreign, including sets of the lead- 

 ing magazines. The collection numbers 1,243 volumes and 1,332 

 pamphlets. During the last year its accessions were 145 volumes, 

 166 pamphlets, and 533 periodicals. Most of these came by purchase 

 and exchange. Numerous gifts were received, however, especially 

 from Dr. William H. Holmes, director of the gallery, and James 

 Townsend Russell, jr., honorary collaborator in Old World archeology 

 in the National Museum. The number of volumes bound was 51. 



FREER GALLERY OF ART LIBRARY 



The library of the Freer Gallery of Art is a prominent member of 

 the Smithsonian library system. As the collection has to do largely 

 with the arts and cultures of the Far East, India, Persia, and the 

 nearer east, it is not only a unique and valuable aid to those imme- 

 diately connected with the gallery, as well as to visitors who come 

 there for research, but in many of its items — notably those in Chinese 

 and Japanese, not a few of which are extremely rare — it supple- 

 ments to an unusual degree the collection in the oriental division of 

 the Library of Congress. In the library, too, are works on the lives 

 and art of various American painters, especially James McNeill 

 Whistler, a large number of whose pictures are owned by the gallery. 

 It also has numerous publications on the Washington manuscripts, 

 the well-known fourth and fifth century manuscripts of the Bible, 

 which are among the treasures of the gallery. 



The main library, which is kept permanently in the gallery, con- 

 sists of 4,423 volumes and 3,148 pamphlets. Its accessions during the 

 year just closed were 61 volumes and 150 pamphlets. The number 

 of volumes bound was 20. In addition to its main library, the gallery 

 has a special collection, numbering 814 volumes and 500 pa-mphlets, 

 chiefly of archeological interest, which is for the use of its staff in 

 the field. Among the significant publications deposited in the library 

 during the year by the Smithsonian Institution were a copy of Nip- 

 pon, by Phillip Franz von Siebold, and of Lo-Lang, by Yoshito 

 Harada and Kingo Tazawa — two of the gifts described in more 

 detail earlier in this report. The work of reclassifying and recata- 

 loguing the collections, which was begun the year before, was carried 

 almost to completion, 6,083 cards being added to the dictionary cata- 

 logue of the library and a like number being prepared for filing in 

 the union catalogue in the Smithsonian Building. This notable prog- 

 ress was made possible bj" the further generous cooperation of the 

 gallery with the Smithsonian library. Of the 435 visitors, 216 came 



