108 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



ages received by mail and the 2,226 by the International Exchange 

 Service — a total of 24,940, or an increase of 7G4 over 193G. Each 

 package contained one or more items. Among the largest sendings 

 were those from the Australian National Research Council, Sydney; 

 Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft, Berlin; Royal Society of Tas- 

 mania, Hobart; Royal Society of Victoria, Melbourne; Societe 

 Geologique de Belgique, Lioge; Society for the Preservation of the 

 Fauna of the Empire, London; Verein der Freunde der Naturge- 

 schichte in Mecklenburg, Rostock ; and Zoological Society of London. 



The number of dissertations received was 5,367, or 1,654 fewer than 

 the year before. Of these, 2,292 were sent to the Smithsonian 

 deposit ; the other 3,075, being medical in character, were forwarded 

 to the Surgeon General's library. They came from tlie Academy of 

 Freiberg, the universities of Basel, Berlin, Bern, Bonn, Braun- 

 schweig, Breslau, Cornell, Delft, Erlangen, Freiburg, Giessen, 

 Heidelberg, Helsingfors, Jena, Johns Hopkins, Kiel, Konigsberg, 

 Leipzig, Liege, Lund, Lwow, Marburg, Neuchatel, Pennsylvania, 

 Rostock, Strasbourg, Tiibingcn, Utrecht, Wittenberg, Wurzburg, 

 and Zurich, and the technical schools of Berlin, Braunschweig, Dres- 

 den, Karlsruhe, and Zurich. 



The staff wrote 2,307 letters, most of which had to do with the 

 exchange of publications. They obtained by special correspondence 

 and by search among the Smithsonian duplicates 4,580 volumes and 

 parts needed in various sets, particularly in the Smithsonian deposit 

 and the libraries of the National Museum, Astrophysical Observatory, 

 and National Zoological Park. Tliey also arranged for 262 new 

 exchanges. 



It should be noted that, while the number of small sendings received 

 has increased somewhat during recent years, the number of large ones 

 has diminished. This falling off in the large sendings would indicate 

 that the special effort of the employees in the libraries of the Smith- 

 sonian, begun sometime ago, to rechcck the main sets for missing 

 numbers and obtain by exchange as many of these as possible while 

 they were still available, has been highly successful, at least so far 

 as the gaps, especially the longer ones, can be filled in this manner. 

 It is reasonable to expect, therefore, that most of the substantial send- 

 ings in the future will not be to fill out old sets, but rather to supply 

 the library with earlier numbers of comparatively new serials needed 

 in the work of the Institution. For the staff in taking up new ex- 

 changes have two aims constantly before them — to serve Smithsonian 

 scientists and to conserve Smithsonian publications. They also, of 

 course, do what they can, in cooperation with the offices of publica- 

 tions, to encourage the return of duplicates not wanted by institutions 

 to which they have been distributed, that these may be used again 



