KEI'OKT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 75 



iiiji' a yeueriil rearraugeiueiit of and a cousiderabk' inciease in the 

 exliibition series. The material .sent by the department of geology 

 to the World's Columbian lv\positit»n was prei)are<l with a view to 

 making it till a definite place in the collection when returned. A large 

 jiroportion of the time of the curator has been devoted to the exhibition 

 series, and important improvements have been made in the manner of 

 displaying specimens in the table cases. 



1.A15ELS. 



During the fiscal year ending June 3U, ISIKJ, there were printed, 

 10,814 descriptive labels (aggregating nearly 1*50,000 copies), or more 

 than double the number usually printed in the course of a year. The 

 large increase was caused chiefly by the necessary preparation of labels 

 for the exhibit of the Museum at the World's Columbian Exposition at 

 Chicago. All the departments of the Museum were represented in the 

 series. 



LIBRARY. 



The Museum maintains a working library, covering the fields of 

 zoology, botany, paleontology, geology, geography, anthropology, 

 archteology, and the arts. This library is kei)t in the Museum build- 

 ings, and is quite distinct from the general library of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, which is deposited in the Library of Congress, which it to 

 a certain extent duplicates. A large proportion of the books in the 

 Museum library are lent by the Institution. During the past year the 

 number of publications added to the library was 501 volumes of more 

 than 100 pages, 1,457 pamphlets, besides parts of serials, of which 272 

 volumes, 821 pamphlets, and (>,981 parts of serials were those temim- 

 rarily retained for the use of the jMuseum from the accessions of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. The remainder were obtained by gift, 

 exchange, or purchase. 



In connection with the central library of reference, nearly every 

 department has its own " sectional " or working library. The largest of 

 these arethe sectional library of geology with 1.4(M)titles,of entomology 

 with 1,200, of ornithology with 880, of oriental anti(|uities with 8(52, and 

 of mineralogy with G50. 



CONTRIHl rioNS OF THE YEAR lO SCIENTIFIC LCrERATlTRE. 



A large number of papers upon scientific subjects have been ])nb- 

 lislied by officials of the ^Museum and other specialists. These are, 

 for the most part, based on collections in the ^Museum, and are referred 

 to by title in the bibliography, Appendix vii. The authors of these 

 l)ai)ers are ninety-two in number, thirty-seven of whom are connected 

 with the Smithsonian Institution or the National .Museum. The pai)ers 



