SECRETARY’S REPORT 211 
actual use of books throughout the Institution. In all, 959 books 
were lent to 100 other libraries. Two outstanding loans were for the 
Theodore Roosevelt Centennial Exhibit at the Library of Congress. 
In addition the library’s services were increased by 4,012 loans from 
other libraries, chiefly the Library of Congress, Department of Agri- 
culture, Geological Survey, and the National Library of Medicine. 
The 11,394 reference queries answered shows only a portion of the 
identifying, checking, searching, and locating required to supply the 
right answers to the many complex questions that are asked daily by 
the library’s users. Of the 8,583 persons who came to the library, 
3,500 used the resources of the division of insects library. The lack 
of adequate reading areas in the main library is not conducive to quiet 
study and discourages users from availing themselves of the library’s 
research facilities. 
The catalog section classified and cataloged 4,463 books and pam- 
phlets, entered 25,253 periodicals, and filed 26,768 cards. The staff 
of the catalog section participated in the west-stacks moving project 
in spite of the current work load which had to be met. Cards for all 
cataloged material that was discarded had to be taken out. Also 
there were 1,000 or more volumes pulled from the west stacks to be 
cataloged and added to the permanent collection. A painstaking 
search of the card catalog and the library shelves had to be made 
before any of the duplicate material could be discarded. Steady prog- 
ress is being made on the cataloging of material in the department 
of science and technology. 
The catalog section prepared 9,000 volumes for binding or rebind- 
ing. Through a waiver from the Government Printing Office, the 
work was done by a commercial binder under contract. The fresh 
new buckram bindings not only preserve valuable research material 
but also add to the appearance of the shelves. In addition, 536 vol- 
umes requiring special handling by a skilled binder were repaired or 
rebound in the library. 
David Ray, a foreign-language specialist in the catalog section, 
translated 190 letters from other languages, including Russian, and 
provided reference assistance to staff members of the Institution on 
translations of obscure words and phrases. In April a class in scien- 
tific Russian, taught by Mr. Ray, was started for 25 members of the 
curatorial staff of the Natural History Museum to aid them in acquir- 
ing a reading knowledge of Russian scientific publications. 
The special project, started a year ago, of weeding out and removing 
the library’s collections in the Smithsonian and Arts and Industries 
Buildings was almost completed at the end of the year. The dupli- 
cate and special collections which had been stored in the west stacks 
in the Smithsonian Building for the past 50 years have now all been 
