12 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 
Of these ACCESSIONS, 7,720 (namely 424 volumes, 6,413 parts of volumes, 
and 883 pamphlets) were retained for use at the National Museum Li- 
brary, and 754 medical dissertations were deposited in the Library of the 
Surgeon-General, U.S. Army; the remainder were promptly sent to the 
Library of Congress on the Monday following their receipt. 
The reading room continues to be well used by those who have ocea- 
sion to consult the current scientific literature. As the number of boxes 
available for holding periodicals is strictly limited by the size of the 
room the only way to make room for the installation of new and desirable 
journals is to remove those which are found to be least consulted or which 
have ceased publication during the year. This was done by the librarian. 
during the spring of 1891. 
Four hundred and fifty-six boxes are now occupied, leaving sixteen 
to be filled by new accessions during the next fiscal year. Of the 
journals removed from the reading room, such as would be of perma- 
nent use in the scientific work of the Institution were transferred to the 
Library of the National Museum; the remainder were forwarded to the 
Library of Congress. 
It will be remembered that when I first became connected with the 
Institution as assistant secretary I formulated a plan, the details of 
which will be found in my report for 188788, for enlarging the acces- 
sions to the library so as to cover more completely the field of scientific 
knowledge, and also for completing the series of scientific journals 
already in the possession of the Institution which for any reason are 
imperfect. 
As stated in my report for 1889, the work of executing the plan was 
commenced on June 1 of that year and has been assiduously carried 
on ever since. It is nowrapidly approaching completion, and it is esti- 
mated that if will require but a few months of the next fiscal year to 
bring the work as originally planned to a termination. So rapid, how- 
ever, has been the advance of scientific thought in the interval since the 
preparation of the list that, although the utmost vigilance has been ex- 
ercised in watching for the appearance of new scientific journals, it is 
probable that very many such have newly appeared which have escaped 
notice. A certain amount of supplementary work will, therefore, be re- 
quired to make the exchange lists conform with the present status of 
the periodical literature of science and in a very minor degree of art. 
A list of the new exchanges will be found in the Appendix (Report 
of the Librarian), which also includes a list of important accessions 
outside of the regular serials. 
It may be remembered that in my report for 1887~88, I spoke of a 
certain limited number of books, not forming part of the Smithsonian 
deposit in the Library of Congress, obtained by purchase from the 
Smithsonian fund and retained at the Institution under the name of 
the ‘“‘Secretary’s Library.” 
These books are mostly, but not exclusively, books of scientific refer- 
