APPENDIX 9 
REPORT ON THE LIBRARY 
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the activi- 
ties of the Smithsonian library for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1946: 
As the fiscal year 1945-1946 drew to a close, the library, as an 
organic part of the Smithsonian Institution, approached the hun- 
dredth anniversary of its founding on August 10, 1846, for service in 
“the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” 
To anyone to whom books are a perpetual source of exciting revela- 
tion of human experience and accomplishment, and of the working of 
men’s minds, a backward glance at the hundred years of the library’s 
history furnishes the outline for a richly colored picture of books in 
use in advancing the boundaries of knowledge. Section 8 of the Act 
of Organization provided for “the gradual formation of a library com- 
posed of valuable works pertaining to all departments of human 
knowledge,” and although this universality of aim was later modified, 
of necessity, the continuity of purpose in procuring “a complete collec- 
tion of the memoirs and transactions of learned societies throughout 
the world” has never been broken. The collection of this and similar 
important material, begun with the founding of the Institution and 
now forming part of the Smithsonian Deposit in the Library of Con- 
gress, has not been surpassed for size and completeness in the library 
world, while the working libraries built up at the Institution to serve 
immediately the Government bureaus it administers include many ex- 
ceptionally rich collections of material on special subjects. 
But even a hundred years ago, the acquisition of books alone was not 
the whole concern of the Institution in forming its hbrary. Secretary 
Henry was keenly interested in making it “a center of bibliographical 
knowledge” as well, and the first librarian, Charles C. Jewett, a man 
in advance of his time, was a pioneer in proposing and devising the 
schemes for cooperative cataloging which, as later developed, have 
done so much to facilitate both the scholarly and the popular use of 
libraries. He early recognized what the late Lord Rayleigh put so 
well when, many years later, in an address before the British Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, he said, “By a fiction as 
remarkable as any to be found in law, what has once been published 
* * * is usually spoken of as ‘known’ and it is often forgotten that 
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