78 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITIISONIAN INSTITUTION^ 1910. 



3,251 letters, resulting in the addition of about 277 periodicals and in the 

 receipt of about 2,948 missing parts. 



The library has again cooperated with the International Exchanges in sending 

 to foreign countries lists of government documents and serial publications of 

 that class needed to complete the sets in the Library of Congress. In addition 

 to the countries already enumerated in previous reports, lists have been sent to 

 Natal, New Zealand, Spain, and Venezuela. 



The publications in the reading room being in the main of a class not to be 

 found elsewhere, a yearly increase is to be noted in the number of persons 

 consulting them. The readers include scientific workers not only from Wash- 

 ington, but from other American and foreign cities. The staff has withdrawn 

 for office use 52 bound volumes of periodicals and 3,336 parts of scientific 

 periodicals and popular magazines. In addition, the various bureaus of the 

 Government continue to avail themselves of the opportunity to use these pub- 

 lications as well as those in the sectional libraries of the institution. 



The mail receipts numbered 43,222 packages, and 7,117 packages were received 

 through the International Exchange Service. The publications contained therein 

 were stamped and distributed for entry from the mail desk. About 5,111 ac- 

 knowledgments were made on the regular forms in addition to the letters which 

 were written in acknowledgment of publications received in response to the 

 requests of the institution for exchange. 



The employees' library. — The books added to this library by purchase num- 

 bered 80, and by binding 300 volumes of periodicals were made available for 

 circulation. The total number of books borrowed was 2,092. The sending of a 

 selected number of books from this library to the National Zoological Park has 

 been continued, but the sending of books to the Bureau of American Ethnology 

 was discontinued when the Bureau moved into the Smithsonian building in 

 January, 1910. 



Bihliography of aeronautics. — The manuscript for the Bibliography of Aero- 

 nautical Literature to July 1, 1909, was completed during the summer of that 

 year, and the work, forming volume 55 of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Col- 

 lections, was published during the month of April, 1910. Numerous accessions 

 have been made to the collection of aeronautical literature in the office librai'y. 

 The volumes have been bound and are now available for reference. 



At the request of 'the American committee on cooperation with the Inter- 

 national Congress of Archivists and Librarians, the assistant librarian prepared 

 an answer to the question " Dans quel sens y a-t-il lieu de reorganiser et 

 d.'6tendre le service des echanges internationaux?" The reply was sent in the 

 latter part of January for presentation to the congress convening in Brussels 

 August 27 to 31. 



American Historical Association. — The arranging of new exchanges of the 

 annual reports of the American Historical Association from the allotment agreed 

 upon for that purpose has resulted in a number of publications of historical 

 societies throughout the world being added to the Smithsonian deposit at the 

 Library of Congress. 



UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The library of the Museum has suffered from congestion and is handicapped 

 in its work by lack of space. While it has continued to grow during the last ten 

 years, no additional room has been available owing to the overcrowded condition 

 of the Museum building. As the new building is now ready for the collections 

 it will be possible in the near future for the library to have all the room neces- 

 sary for expansion and proper classification. Many gifts of importance have 

 been received, those deserving special mention being the publications presented 



