35 [120] 



•whole number of volumes and other articles received, from the 10th of 

 August, 1846, to the 1st of January, 1849, is 1,071. Of these, 521 (viz: 

 389 books, 94 pieces of music, and 38 other ariicles) v.' ere received from. 

 January 1 to December 31, 1849. I have no means of ascertaining the 

 «xact number of copyrights secured in the United States during this 

 period. The system of record and deposit in the clerks' offices and State 

 Department is such as to render it difnoult, if not impossible, to ascertain 

 with accuracy the statistics of this subject. The librarian of the copy- 

 right rooms of the State Depanment informs me tliat the number of books 

 annually deposited there is about 400. This cannot be more, I thi.uk, 

 than one half of tlie whole number for which copyrights are nominally 

 secured each year in the United States. 



For the first two years and a half from the date of our charter, but few 

 publishers complied with the requirement of the act of Congress, so far 

 as our institution was concerned. During the last year, however, the 

 number has greatly increased; and now, we regularly receive the publi- 

 cations of most of the large publishing houses in the country. The mere 

 cost of the books sent is not regarded by pubUshers; but the transmis- 

 sion of them is sometimes troublesome and expensive. If they could be 

 forwarded without expense to the publis!iers, and if we could render the 

 deposite more immediately advantageous, no doubt many more books 

 would be sent to us. 



To the public, the importance, immediate and prospective, of having a 

 central depot, where all the products of the American press maj'- be gath- 

 €red, year by year, and preserved for reference, is very great. The inter- 

 est with which those who in 1950 may consult this library would view 

 a complete collection of all the works printed in America in 1850, can. 

 only be fully and rightly estimated by the historian and bibliographer, 

 who has sought in vain for the productions of the past. Tiiese publica- 

 tions should be kept apart from the rest of the library, in chronological 

 order. They should be so marked that they may be readily and surely 

 identified. They should be restricted to the library room, except when 

 required incase of dispute respecting titles; but they should be freely 

 accessible to all who wish to consult them in the library. Thus, in coming 

 years, the collection would form a documentary liistory of American let- 

 ters, science and art. It is greatly to be desired, however, that the col- 

 lection should be complete, wiihoui a single oniissio?i. We wish for every 

 book, every pamphlet, every printed or engraved production, however 

 apparently insignificant. Who can tell what may not be important in 

 future centuries? 



"It is in the fragments, now so rare an-1 precious, of some alphabets, of 

 some smallgrammars published for the use of schools about the middle of 

 the 15th century, or in the letters distributed in Germany by the rehgious 

 bodies commissioned to collect alms, that bibliographers now seek lo dis- 

 cover the first processes employed by the inventors of xylography and 

 typography. It is in a forgotten collection of indifferent plates, published 

 at Venice by Fausto Verantio, towards the end of the sixteenth century, 

 that an engineer, who interests himself in the history of the mechanical 

 arts, might find the first diagram of iron suspension bridges."— [Libri.] 



But neither the collection of copyrights at the State Department, nor 

 .that in the library of Congress, nor our own, is complete, or approaching 



